Liberalism in the UK has created a Muslim population FAR more Islamist than their Middle Eastern counterparts even The Guardian published an article trying to deny that more people joined ISIS than the British army but they only crunched down the numbers One of their counter arguments was even "well, a good chunk of them are dead by now"

I really liked your points and I totally agree with you, but I think another big issue that separates left on this subject is how woke battles have been capitalized by corporations (greenwashing, pinkwashing, rainbowashing, and so on… "good" old capitalism)

I think that 'wokism' suffers from a lack of compassion and too much hypocrisy. Funnily enough similar to the hypocrisy of Christian US nationals Too much telling people "you are wrong" instead of listening. You can censor people but they will still hold their views. You can drive them off platforms in light of a 'moral' obligation to do so but there is going to be a platform that doesn't censor them. Then you have created a cess pool of hate Be accepting and have civil conversations instead of arrogantly saying you are right, they are wrong, and they need to listen to you

Libertarianism is a perfect example of widespread internal mockery. There is no left or right like there is in parliamentary governments. What we see in American of UK parliamentary debates, for examples, actually appeals to us greatly, although we have no similarity of laws reality whatsoever. Americans have no absolutism, we are essentially anti-imperial. But libertarian sentiment for what appears to be European romanticism, conservatism, essentially, demands these sentiments out of sheer jealousy, it must seem absurd to Europeans.

This day and age, all of these people have all the information at their fingertips. They could try to understand people better. But many don't and won't. They could also educate themselves better, but they don't. Hate is a helluva drug.

I dunno I see Communists associate people with the Left automatically by their distance from the Left A Christian in the Middle East apparently becomes more aligned to the RW unlike his Muslim counterpart

loved this!! there are so many people on the radical left (at least in the circles i am organised in in germany) who dont get this and hate on „wokeism“ and are annoyed when people want to center feminism, queer rights and anti racism in their activism alongside class issues… in my personal experience it leads people who are discriminated in these ways to not organise in these spaces and feel unwelcomed

So I would name them as Woke-Left and Woke-Right instead of Woke, because the actual woke philosophy has been hijacked/gaslighted by these two extreme groups at both ends of the spectrum. "Be Woke but don't be Woke-left or Woke-right

Virtue God the best one hahahaah

23:16 Is standpoint epistemology supposed to secure the status of the good? Or of the true? There may be some cases where it is legitimate, but first there must be epistemology simpliciter. Standpoint epistemology is pretty much the ad hominem that C. S. Lewis called Bulverism. Unless I've misunderstood what she means by it.

You seem like nice and thoughtful person so i will offer you advice. Do not defend any ideology, never. Defend people, people are palpable, ideology is personal. You will never be able to reach every single person through common ideology since that first of all changes with time (like people) and second means different things to different people. You will struggle just define "woke" in one room full of people. If you should accept all aspects, it will be wide as *insert your mum joke. You feel me? Have a good one.

Go woke go broke

As a 55yo, from Republican neo-liberal state (now neo-conservative), regarding "far right," conservatism, ultimately, their chief tactic was to appeal to youthful intuition. No reliable theory. Only easy seductive catchphrases, "right to life," or "right to work."

14:57 I know another discourse that worked very similar. In Copenhagen, I was among homeless. One night people had thrown stones into the night shelter where I had slept on the floor. The ones doing that were very clearly Muslims, who thought: * our lives will continue to suck * but we will at least be above those lazy and alcoholic and drug addicted homeless.

You're not on bluesky, yet? (: I'd like to share this there, please, thank you.

Well, it was Wokism that demolished Bernie Sanders' insurgency! So thank you to all the Wokes for not letting Sanders win the election.

I always think that the definition of wokism is in the name. Woke, awake, understanding the real world and science, educated and open minded, respectful and supportive of difference, regardless of religion, sexuality, nationality and inclusive. Even if different “woke” want to include all in the debate while the far right seems to want to shutdown any debate or difference. Look at the natural world, the greater the bioDIVERSITY the healthier the environment. I’ve read reports that cities that embrace DIVERSITY tend to be more successful. My favourite word, DIVERSITY!

The integration of migrants in Europa has failed and the left refuse to acknowledge this for some reason thats why people are moving to the right i think leftist might be to arrogant to understand this.

another thing the left ignores politically is religion. The right always has a captive audience of all ages and genders, a bully pulpit and built-in organizational structure in churches, mosques and synagogues. If the left wants a right-wing demographic they can get, they should go after religious leftists.

In American Leftist media, aside from Black media, the obvious racist motivations and anti-blackness of the American electorate are virtually ignored in favor of elaborate class reductionist arguments, for fear of offending a demographic that can't be won over anyway. Black people know that 'woke' is code for black, and the 2024 election results show exactly whose interests America voted against. Thank you for having the courage to address this directly.

Thank you so much for this empathetic and well laid-out view! It's so important these days. To go in a similar direction, I would add that, if we have the time and energy, we should learn to listen (critically, yes, but listen) to people on the other side of the political spectrum (or "different" in any other way) in an honest manner, open the dialogue. It's so crucial, and I learned so much doing so. It also helps to "humanize" us - and them! Because we're all humans, and honestly most of us humans want the best for other humans, when we realize that our actions have negative consequences on people (granted, usually people we identify with) we will certainly learn to adapt. Nobody wants to be the bad guy, in my experience. It's just that in some places family and close friends are the top priority, and in others every human is thought to have the same priority. It's something that can be changed by going in each other's direction, "humanizing" each other. It might require us to be courageous, humble and allow our own beliefs to be questioned. But it's necessary and highly rewarding as well. Let's have great dialogues with all of "the other" people we can think of and listen. Thanks for what you do Alice!

I think a problem is the attitude of "I just want the ;eft to be united" rather than "I want what's best for the people". Though it's nice you try to understand those who are different in their politics instead of simple labels. Though you undermine it by claiming it's the media who frightens working classes into believing Migrants take their jobs. This plays into the metropolitan trope that working classes are idiots easily manipulated by the media and their opinions couldn't possibly come from their actual experiences. Plenty of studies show 'mass migration' deflates unskilled and manual skilled wages. It's not hard for working classes to observe their lives when immigrant was massively lower than it is today. No wonder the working classes don't feel like the left represents them any more, given this framing is always from the left. In a similar way you also frame anti-immigration sentiment as racist. This is is another tired miss-characterisation from the left that freezes fair debate to dismiss something the left doesn't have any good or popular answers for. I think also you misunderstand what Wokeness is. Criticism of Woke isn't simply criticising tolerance or anti-racism or awareness. When people criticise wokeness it's not about attacking rights. It wasn't formed by right wing media, it was well in use before the media understood it, or misunderstood and left liberalism. It's about criticism of modern woke culture ,which manifests as an ideology or set of beliefs that views society through the lens of structures of a hierarchy of oppression. Who also the tendency to use the Paradox of Tolerance to justify efforts at the demonization and de-platforming of any and all who run afoul of Progressive groupthink. (See Cancel Culture). It's a very toxic and divisive thing that many have experienced. It's not down grading minorities or the unfortunate members of society. That is what woke is. In short while woke accusations are frequently poorly aimed at anything left wing or liberal, that's not what it is. You touch upon this at the end but fail to accept that's what it has become.

And sorry, Alice, you don't really know a lot about social sciences. Your reading is very much biased. You are brainwashed. But this is not the right place for such a discussion ...

The problem wasn't being woke, the problem was not being woke enough on the economic conditions that affect most everyone. I'm pretty sure people would still vote for the promise of a cheap breakfast without a side of bigotry, hatred or ethnic cleansing.

I agree with a lot of this. I think a major complicating factor is the way the political center tends to co-opt "woke" language & aesthetics into itself. I'm an American who was born a few months before the first Clinton term, and for my whole life, the single opposition to Right-wing politics has been some version of More Inclusive Reaganism. Meanwhile, as I was going further and further left-liberal in the 2010s, I noticed how individualistic our approach to minority rights were- from lean-in feminism to disability inspiration porn to tokenized minorities in power to queer assimilationism; social justice felt like it moved away from being about structural issues and into winning more liberties for distinct team-sports-ified marginalized groups. It's hard to be terribly surprised when we have the TERF movement, or Latino men like Enrique Tarrio assuming leadership positions in ostensibly white supremacist organizations like the Proud Boys, because our language around social issues is all this surface level Group Against Group analysis that doesn't reach the underlying factors that oppression operates on. I believe in LGBT+ rights, racial equality, bodily autonomy, all unequivocally; but I think the left needs to offer a vision of "Woke" closer to its original meaning, and farther from the hollow gestures corporations have hid behind- and many are abandoning now that it's more politically expedient to bow to King Trump. In the States at least, we need to secure rights for marginalized peoples in union contracts (I envy the French labor movement so deeply, were that unions only had as much power here!) we need to illustrate how all of our struggles are connected better, how bigotry is always turned into a cudgel used to further consolidate power on top of being a moral evil in its own right. IDK, there's so much good stuff on the surface of the old neoliberal consensus that gets dragged down by the sheer exploitation & cruelty at the heart of it. I want people to see international cooperation and not see things like NAFTA undermining workers or what the EU did to Greece over the 2010s. I want people to see racial justice and not think of a company cynically doing the HR equivalent of a COEXIST bumper sticker as we celebrate girlboss drone pilots and diverse Raytheon executives. It needs to be paramount that Leftist economic policy and "wokeism" (I'm sorry) cannot exist without one another. There is no choice between The Kitchen Table Issues and human rights; the faux-populist bigotry of the Right and the shallow cynical sloganeering of the Center.

Abandoning anti-racism, anti-homophobia and other "woke" ideals also loses you the support of the people of those groups. In time they will realise you paid them nothing but lip service. We already saw it after the latest US elections, where liberal "thinkers" were scolding minority groups for not voting Dem.

Interesting video!! I am right-wing and anti-immigration. I don’t view anti-immigration views as inherently racist. I am aware that leftists find these views racist and I do not care.

Alice, You are too pretty to have the right to be a leftist wokeist loser. And too intelligent. The eunuchs (ie. the tr ans), wokeists and leftists have more in common with Dolphy and Benito M. than Mme Le Pen has. Both Dolphy and Benito were socialists. Disgusting leftists ...

In argentina the fascistbeast we have as president was voted by the "enlightened" and the "uneducated" so ...🤷🏼now we are all in danger

More like there are "wokes" equiped with torches ready to witch hunt anyone who doesnt think like they do

WTF IS WOKE though????

It seems like there is a big difference between French politics and American politics. The larger number of racial minorities in America means that they can swing elections very easily. The reason Trump won is because he got more racial minorities than any other republican presidential candidate in the past 3 decades.

"If mushrooms can grow through shit, so can you." I've been reading about mushrooms and mycelia a lot lately, they are stubborn bastards. They can grow on cooling lava, icy tundras, radioactive waste sites, in outer space, and the ocean floor. Their secret is in their adaptability, communication and collaboration.

Wokeness does have a lot of failures for the left, the authors Vivek Chibber and Musa Al Gharbi are very relevant here.

People who use woke as an insult are either clowns or snakes.

I think my primary criticism of modern "wokism," at least in the US where I'm from, is the way it has been swallowed up and corrupted by corporate HR departments to shield bosses from criticism. Here's what I mean (from direct personal experience): - A workplace where we had a long list of innocuous words we weren't allowed to say because they were supposedly ableist, but no one was allowed to call out sick and no one was allowed to sit during their shifts except the managers, who weaponized the DEI program to block marginalized people, especially disabled people, from promotions. - A workplace hosted events and flew the Progress flag during Pride month and ran ads with the flags prominently featured, but would order LGBTQ+ people to take the flags down if they offended religious groups, because that was "respecting everyone's point of view," and systematically fired every LGBTQ+ person who brought complaints to HR. - A workplace that implemented a mandatory DEI "journey" for all workers, in which workers were pressured to share deeply personal traumas in group settings, and then the stories they shared were used to fire them later if they disagreed with managers over being forced to take on work outside their job descriptions, because their anxieties were used to argue they were unfit for their jobs. - A workplace that implemented a similar DEI "journey," but which only ever focused on race, to the point that BIPOC workers grew uncomfortable with constantly being singled out and wanted to discuss things like their disabilities, as well, which claimed that being Indigenous meant being from Africa, and which allowed management to misgender trans workers, fired those trans workers when the misgendering began to negatively impact their mental health, then used the DEI program to crush efforts to organize a union, and took away remote work from Black workers who joined the unionization effort, because they were "traitors." My problem with "wokism" today is that it's become fake. It's been transformed into the unique province of the modern Democratic Party cloaked in faux-progressive language, and it's exhausting, because we're supposed to be grateful for it while it crushes us, undermines true progress, and fuels the reactionary agenda.

ofc you would be out of touch enough to defend PMC garbage like woke-ism

There's also an issue with working-class people not voting because it isn't an option. There's been a very concerted effort for the past 45 years in the US to make it increasingly difficult for more and more Americans to actually vote. This past election alone saw record-low voter turn-out, about 30% or more of the elgible population, which made it possible for a Republican presidential candidate to actually win the popular vote for the first time in over 30 years. The far right isn't arising from an ignorant or racist working class. It's arising from d*ckheads who can actually afford to take off from work to go register to vote and spend hours waiting in line just to cast their ballot.

both wokism and its immediate predecessor, identity politics, have their merits as a way for creating consciousness of different forms of oppression not addressed in a society run for the benefit of the oppressors (the labor movement was a in this sense a kind of proto-wokism, much as abolitionism had been in the 19th century). wokism today has been reduced, however, to little more than a coordinated attempt by the ruling elite and its propagandists to dismantle a broad class-based anti-capitalist politics and replace it with empty symbolism mistakenly called 'representation', precisely at the same time that techno-oligarchy has replaced liberal representative social-democracy and that de-industrialization and neoliberalism have succeeded in destroying labor unions and the traditional social bases of the historical left. wokism is a symbolic repository meant to channel the sentiments of both the culturally progressive but economically reactionary bourgeoisie and the in-theory upwardly mobile children of the post-war working class -who shared space with the bourgeoisie on university campuses- toward a politics that seems to embody the ideals of enlightenment as well as the so-called 'spirit of the sixties' (feminism, ant-racism, sexual liberation, drugs, hippy-ism), but that fundamentally does away with any serious criticism of political or economic hierarchy, exploitation, and violence, beyond the idea of 'more minorities and women rising to positions of power in the oligarchy.' it is the hollowness of this official state-wokism which is, i believe, rejected by many ordinary people on principle, and it is also why the false populism and false class-politics of the new far right have altogether supplanted the old 'spirit of the 60's' wokism is just one face of the janus of post-2008 crisis hypercapitalist / technofeudal propaganda: the other being the conservative culture war allegedly waged against wokism, but which actually coexists perfectly with it in a kind of perfect anti-proletarian totalitarian-capitalist symbiosis. the culture war between 'woke' and 'antiwoke' serves to invisibilize the economic and political violence underpinning all forms of oppression (including racism and sexism), redirecting the anger of proletarians away from the elite and toward proletarians of different genders or racialized ethnicities the order of events is kind of like this: a) ostensibly liberal but also NATO-propaganda media corporation makes 'woke' cultural product where traditional rugged male character is now played by woman/sexual/ethnic minority (we'll call it "gay wonder woman" or 'she-drone' or 'the boy who became a mermaid who also blows up terrorists'') b) algorithm directs both progressive and reactionary neoproletarians to one of two socially acceptable echo chambers on anti-social media: one in which the cultural product in question is universally lauded s a landmark for the "representation" of whatever fetishized oppressed group is fashionable during a given month, and one in which 'woke corporations' are blamed for poisoning the minds of children and wanting to turn them into gay mermaids c) no one talks to each other about anything that actually matters d) corporations win the upside is that i think the veneer of the official, corporate, imperial 'wokeness' is begining to come off: hollywood abominations like emilia perez are hated by everyone, woke and non-woke alike, and experiments in woke imperialism like kamala harris are also popularly rejected point being: i am pessimistic for the state of mass politics, but i do think some good can come out of people's rejections of what they've tried to sell us as 'woke'

I bought your book in the audiobook format and listened to it recently.

So great that you put a little clip of TontonDukteef's banger on Fabien Roussel :). Otherwise, great content as always!

Love this video (and Lead Belly). You can tell when someone has actually done the work organizing vs just talking hypothetically and not getting into the weeds. The only way we get past this is volunteering/taking action consistently every month. One or two elections will not fix this especially because in the US this is the end of a 50 year plan from the far right to destroy our country and it's harder to build than it is to tear down. The perfect message isn't the answer, it's doing the work of organizing over and over again, reaching out and continually building community. I also live in an area that's traditionally to the right though slowly growing more purple and if you have discussions with the right about politics there is a lot of dumb on purpose. They've been watching Fox News, and billionaires have taken over the media and social media...they haven't been near a fact in decades. Everything in the alt-right playbook applies to them in terms of political conversation. Their arguments change depending on what trump says. On a personal level I can get along with them because we come from a similar cultural background but they are definitely racist and sexist. When I knocked doors for local candidates the reasons white guys couldn't vote for Kamala (which they brought up) was because of vibes (eg they were racist/sexist and had nothing distinct to explain why they couldn't vote for her but wanted me to somehow understand and be okay with it).

THERE ARE ONLY 2 GENDERS

btw i prefer the second name you gave it xd

The problem with wokism in U.S. politics isn’t its existence-it’s that it has overshadowed class politics and economic policy altogether. Even as the Democratic Party loses ground across all branches of government, it remains preoccupied with performative gestures, like struggling to "properly be nonbinary," rather than addressing the material needs of its base. This reflects a broader fallacy: the reduction of politics to a single dimension. When wokism becomes the litmus test for entry into Left politics, the Left finds itself lost, diminished, disorganized, and abandoned, led by uninspiring and incompetent figures who prioritize symbolism over substance. Samuel Johnson once quipped, "Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel," pointing to how individuals exploit national pride for personal gain. Today, I’d argue that wokism has become the first refuge of the modern scoundrel. While genuine patriotism and authentic wokism once existed, they seem to have died with the heroes who embodied them. What remains is a hollow shell, co-opted by those who use the language of justice to mask their own opportunism. Just my humble opinion.

PMC video that will keep the left from forming a movement. Understand the sentiment but this has routinely failed since the 60s it’s not aligned with modernity either.

The left needs to stop using the word “racist” and adopt something like “culturalist”. The right doesn’t care about where you’re from, they care if they can’t relate to you culturally.

Would it be easier if the left concentrated on making sure that people from third wolrd countries do not have to escape their countries because of economic inestability and poverty, insted of trying to convience everyone that immigration is good. Woke is a weakness because it thinks that the problem is that first world countries do not have enough immigrants, while the real problem is that there are people who feel compeled to leave their countries. Everyone knows the economic consequences of migrations, lowering of wages. In my opinion the real left should not care about chaining everyones minds, especially in first world countries. You should start with your own country and ensure that it is at least not doing anything to destabilaze third world countries. Politization is not enough, a poor person can not eat out of your wokesim. A poor person will not leave their countries beacuse everyone in the first world country is woke. Europeans think that every person from the third world is happy and extecidted to leave their countries, this is totally incorrect. Most migrants would rather stay in their countries. Historicaly the left alwasy protected working peoples rights, how is it accepting more migrants protecting working people rights if they lose salaries, goverment help, etc. People form the left of frist world countries should stop being so condeceding to immigrants and help them stay in their countries. Nobody is happy leaving his family, his country, tradiitions and culture and come to a country where they are foreginres, no matter how accepting they are towards foreginers. Another problem withn wokesim is that they concentrate on issues which do not affect a large part of the population, they rather die on the hill of pronouns that actually helping poor people. They right has won over poor people because at least in their speech they are supporitve of working class people, while the left tells them they are racists because they are not happy with lower wages, and tells them that they are the worst kind of people because they are not happy with a lot of immigration.

Immigration specially non-white and Muslim immigration I believe is the most important reason why people vote far right. Both due to concerns over crime, jobs, welfare dependency among migrants and specially the treath to the domestic culture and demographics. Most people are racists and want to live with their own people. This is why ”White flight” excists, most white people regardless of politics wants to live in white areas.

Very informing video! Keep up the work :)