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I know that maybe is a bit OT here, but I cannot wrap my head, after seeing communists argue on /r/wikipedia (that, as the wiki itself, is full of radical leftists arguing inside) about communism.
When I think how Marxism was gladly embraced by èlites in the West, and, after the fall of the URSS, the more anglocentric progressive one that took his side, it makes me think about the type of people that embrace it.
As Zagrebbi argue here https://salafisommelier.substack.com/p/a-robin-hanson-perspective-on-the Marxism is really the Platonic Realm of wordcellery!
All arguments, apart from being factually false, are reduced not on "policy" or "government", but on words, and how to define words, how to use words in a different manner, how words can be used in different ways, how different ideologies are different because "words" says so. A typical argument goes like this: "Communism is good because, unlike Fascism or whatever else, has a good objective. The objective is good because Communism say so. Different types of Communism are born from different interpretation of Communism, who are not all good (choose here if we are talking about Stalin, Social Democracy, Left Liberalism, Anarchism, Maoism etc) because they did not adhere to the ideal definition of Communism, and everyone who does not produce a good result has secretly bad objectives or it was a Fascist all along"
Obviously I am paraphrasing an hypotetical argument of an hypotetical communist, so I am really fighting against a non-entity here. But I saw enough debates that I could crystallise it in few phrases, and understand that the marxist galaxy today has been reduced to discussions about hypoteticals and fandoms, as if it was Fanfiction.net or Archive of Our Own. Gone are the immense volumes of marxist economy or revolutionary action, in autistic dissertation on good end evil. Or maybe not, and I do not have enough knowledge of historical marxist politics, maybe they were like this all along, but I refuse to believe that communists won for decades using this kind of reasoning.
It is not surprising why Wokism had an evolutionary advantage on post-URSS marxism. All of this autism is pretty ick, it works on Reddit but not on real life, because every normal person can smell with a bullshit detector that this lines are actively trying to scam you as a North African reseller on an Italian beach. Wokism is better as an ideology because it refuses, partially, to play words. Patriarchy and Europeans are not evil because machiavellian people have tried to derail the progressive project, and our objective is to clean it arguing that, no, whoever did something bad was actively trying to sabotage the Real Meaning of Patriarchy. No, they are evil because of biology/social constructs and they deserve suffering. Autistic screeching and wordcelism do not play well with modern political coalition and the Schmittian Friend/Enemy distinction, and they also makes the women have the ick and the supporters smells like Redditors!
Do you have a concise definition for "wokism" that you can share?
To be clear why I'm asking, I know I can read through Marx to understand Marxism, and even more, through criticisms of his works and even political actions based on his ideas. But there is no equivalent for "woke". Without a solid set of works to reference, the invocation of "woke" becomes a catch-all strawman for de jour leftwing politics, similar to "chud", "bootlicking", etc. for de jour rightwing politics. Useful for flaming; completely useless for having dialogues grounded in reason.
I'd say that the definition of woke is much better grounded than what leftist define as fascism or neoliberalism or even capitalism. It was beaten again and again including parallels with Marxism. Woke uses the same oppressor/oppressed dichotomy, marxist dialectic and interplay of Theory(Critical Theory) and Praxis (Activism) as old Marxist. They also use similar concept of consciousness as Marxists do with their class consciousness. The easiest way to make the parallel is that wokeness expanded on the concept of property/capital, which now includes other types of property that oppressing class possess. In the same way bourgeoisie possess the property of capital, white people possess the property of white privilege, men possess the property of male privilege and cishetero people possess the property of [cishetero]normativity.
But again, all these are high-level academic definitions and one can argue them. But this is far from the extent to which we are talking about. Wokeness is an ideology, even secular religion in similar way to let's say scientology. Woke people have their own ontology of what is man and a woman, what is justice, with their own prescriptions of how society should work with their own sins such as racism, sexism, transphobia, xenophobia or homophobia. On ground level woke people do not need to know the nitty-gritty details of how the ideology is developed. But it is the same with other religions - not all christians know bible passages by heart or know the main church doctrines. This does not prevent people to call them Christians as a useful descriptor.
To be fair, people who are violently anti-woke also have their own ontology of all of those things. Man is John Wayne, woman is kitchen appliance / baby incubator (/s).
I agree though, generally, that the parallels are there (re: the content of your 1st paragraph) - but they'll be there for literally any ideology that posits that classes in society are arbitrary and not meritocratic. What makes this distinct from Marxism, to me, is that none of these things are centrally defined. It's a consensus-driven ideology, not a top-down prescriptive ideology. And there's quite a bit of infighting as well, which elsewhere I point out, kind of prevents it from leaving the fringes of the leftwing. Does Nancy Pelosi give a shit about transgenderism beyond the token "statement from the office of"? She certainly doesn't fight against it, true, but I don't think she's ever been claimed as an "ally".
There definitely woke things which are centrally defined and driven, especially if it is implemented withing government. These are things like hate speech laws, various DEI labor requirements etc. Additionally even oldschool Marxist were constantly infighting, especially in power vacuum before some faction solidified their power: think about bolshevisks vs mensheviks or Stalinists vs Trockyists etc.
As far as I'm aware, most of these are (1) self-imposed by HR departments and not actual regulation and (2) falling out of favor. The regulation that I'm most aware of actually pisses everyone off, which is "Woman-owned businesses", where everyone just registers their wife as the proprietor of their business and simply acts as a hurdle for building more housing.
I've not heard this specifically referred to as "woke" yet, because "hate speech laws" go back at least a century in the West, and "woke" only goes back to ~2012 at the earliest. Speech laws in general are abused by both leftwing and rightwing movements (in my personal opinion, I guess).
DEI measures have indeed made their way into government policy, they're not just being self-imposed by HR departments.
For example, in my country (Australia):
"Noting that the gender pay gap remained significant, the government announced a $1.9 billion package to improve women’s economic security. The sum takes in $1.7 billion over five years for increased childcare subsidies, as well as $25.7 million to help more women pursue careers in science, engineering and maths."
"The package also includes $38.3 million to fund projects that assist women into leadership roles."
https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/childcare-subsidies-make-up-half-of-new-spending-for-women-20210510-p57qjk
Some quotes from the relevant budget statement:
"The Government’s Boosting Female Founders Initiative provides co-funded grants to majority women-owned and led start-ups, and facilitates access to expert mentoring and advice. The Initiative, announced in the 2018 and further expanded in the 2020 Women’s Economic Security Statements, provides $52.2 million in competitive grant funding plus $1.8 million in mentoring support. The program commenced in 2020, with round one of the Initiative providing approximately $11.9 million in grant funding to 51 successful applicants. Round two closed on 22 April 2021."
And:
"To further grow the pool of women in STEM, the Government is investing $42.4 million over seven years to support more than 230 women to pursue Higher Level STEM Qualifications. These scholarships will be provided in partnership with industry, to build job-ready experience, networks and the cross-cutting capabilities to succeed in modern STEM careers. This program will complement the Women in STEM Cadetship and Advanced Apprenticeships Program announced in the 2020-21 Budget, which targets women to enter industry-relevant, pre-bachelor study."
And:
"The Australian Government is committed to supporting more women into leadership positions and to further closing the gender pay gap. The Government is providing $38.3 million over five years to expand the successful Women’s Leadership and Development Program. This builds on the $47.9 million expansion to the Program announced as part of the 2020 Women’s Economic Security Statement. This program funds projects such as Women Building Australia run by Master Builders Australia to support more women into building and construction. These initiatives form part of the Government’s response to increasing gender equality, extending leadership and economic participation opportunities for Australian women, and building a safer, more respectful culture."
https://archive.budget.gov.au/2021-22/womens-statement/download/womens_budget_statement_2021-22.pdf
That's from the 2021-22 budget statement, and the 2022-23 budget was no different:
"Further measures in the Budget are focused on helping women into higher-paying and traditionally male-dominated industries. To boost the number of women in trades, the Government is investing $38.6 million over 4 years from 2022‑23. Women who commence in higher paying trade occupations on the Australian Apprenticeship Priority List will be provided additional supports, such as mentoring and wraparound services."
And:
"The Morrison Government is making a further investment, building on the success of existing initiatives to improve leadership outcomes for women, by providing an additional $18.2 million for the Women’s Leadership and Development Program."
"This includes $9 million from 2023-24 to 2025-26 to expand the successful Future Female Entrepreneurs program to develop and grow women’s core entrepreneurial skills. Funding will continue the successful Academy for Enterprising Girls (10-18 year olds) and the Accelerator for Enterprising Women, expanding it to include all women aged 18+, as well as adding a new Senior Enterprising Women program."
"To support women facing unique barriers to leadership and employment, the Government is also investing $9.4 million to expand the Future Women’s Jobs Academy and to support gender balanced boards."
https://ministers.treasury.gov.au/ministers/jane-hume-2020/media-releases/2022-23-budget-boost-support-australian-women-and-girls
You can undoubtedly find more of this in the recent budget statements. Governments love boasting about how much public money they have funnelled into gender and racial equity initiatives, and many of them cannot so easily be circumvented by those disfavoured by the policy since things like "the desire to become a tradesperson" is not transferable to your wife. In addition, I don't think this is a good argument:
The notion that blocking single men from accessing that benefit would have no distorting effect is a bit peculiar, especially in a society with a significantly delayed age of marriage and where many people spend significant portions of their lives outside of a romantic dyad. In this context, if men have to meet the criteria of having procured a wife to secure a benefit for themselves, it's certainly not irrelevant.
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