Woke Fundamentalism

June 26, 2022 Sociocultural Issues No Comments

Fundamentalism is never OK. Least of all in ‘woke’ since this has the object of making people awake concerning the negative sides of… fundamentalism.

Fundamental

In this text, ‘wokism’ denotes ‘woke fundamentalism.’ As in any fundamentalism, anxiety and aggression are core elements. As any fundamentalism, it has at the core the reverse of what the direction of the less ‘fundamental’ is about. One can see this in several kinds of religion-ism.

Fundamentalism is casting the organically warm into stone, which is then seen as the fundament upon which anything should be built. But nothing organic grows on stone. Here can only be built something that doesn’t live.

You may be different in many ways, but you must be wokist?

That is an oxymoron, the reverse of tolerance disguised as tolerance.

At the mere surface level, anything loses its capacity of inner growth. Thus, wokism stops what woke is supposed to bring: tolerance for total human beings.

Here lies a deeper challenge. Unconnected with depth, people cannot grow in nice ways. Because of this, depth finds deviant ways. Then wokeness may react against these deviant ways so that depth is dismissed even more. This vicious circle continues, making it more and more difficult for wokeness to blossom. The situation hardens, and those who might bring wokeness in a friendly way get overshadowed by those who cry woke. Wokism is born.

For instance, gender-related

Genders should be treated as equivalid. This is an element of positive wokeness.

‘Equivalid’ doesn’t mean that genders are the same or should be treated as the same. Everybody knows they are not, outside nor inside. They are equivalid, not equal. The differences are not simply the result of social construction. In wokism, however, the fear of hurting someone’s feelings overshoots into a genders-being-equal fundamentalist wall against which wrongdoers are smashed. The result is much frustration.

Wokism turns against woke.

In an effort to dominate the woke landscape, wokists may not tolerate the wokies. Thus, they may try to turn them into wokists, or spit them out ― bullyism. The bully acts not only to ostracize the ‘them,’ but even more to intimidate the own circle. The biggest bully – in this case, wokist – generally becomes the leader of the pack.

I see ‘cancel culture’ as typical bullyism: Who doesn’t conform must be cancelled by the conformist mob… Is that freedom of speech? Should there be freedom of bullyism? A complicating factor lies in the group happening, which is generally more powerful than expected because of an underlying stream that is 1) powerful by itself, and 2) goes unhindered. This is no different in wokism than in any other fundamentalism.

The reverse of wokism: woke tolerance

Or simply call this ‘woke.’ Then, one responsibility of wokeness is to counter wokism. The best is to prevent the latter. Advisable in this is to go deeply into ‘woke.’ What is it about? Why is it important?

What is the natural energy that pushes this flower bud to open?

This may awaken you to woke gentleness.