A Religion Without Forgiveness: How “Cancel Culture” Has Suffocated The Human Spirit
In Just A Few Years, Public Life In Europe And The United States Of America Has Undergone A Radical And Profound Transformation Unprecedented In Modern History. This Transformation Was Not Merely A Slight Change In Customs And Traditions, But Rather A Cultural And Social Earthquake That Led To The Imposition Of An Entirely New Linguistic Policy. In His Deeply Analytical And Thought-Provoking Book, “The End Of Wokeism” (Das Ende Des Wokeismus), Published In 2024 By The Publishing House “Königshausen & Neumann”, Professor Of Philosophy At The University Of Basel And The University Of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland, Andreas Brenner, Takes Us On An Analytical Journey Through This Phenomenon That Has Swept Through Western Societies. Through A Sharp Philosophical Pen And A Critical Perspective, Brenner Seeks To Deconstruct The Complex Threads That Make Up The “Wokeism” Movement Or Woke Culture, Attempting To Understand Its Roots, Mechanisms, And Consequences, Placing It Under The Microscope Of Careful Examination Far From Superficial Emotions.
Brenner Begins His Analysis By Shedding Light On The Newly Introduced Linguistic Policy That Issued Strict New Rules For Speaking, And Even Imposed Unprecedented Prohibitions On Expression And Culture. The Author Explains How It Has Become Inappropriate, Even Reprehensible, To Use Words That Were Considered Natural And Self-Evident Until Recently. For Example, Brenner Points Out That Using The Word “Mother” Has Become Fraught With Risk, And It Has Become Safer And More In Tune With The Times To Use The Term “Birthing Person” To Avoid Falling Into The Trap Of Linguistic Violation. This Linguistic Prohibition Extends To Include Established Biological Concepts; It Has Become Forbidden To Talk About The Existence Of Only Two Genders, While It Has Become Obligatory And Required To Talk About Multiple Genders Or A Fluid Gender That Changes And Is Freely Formed.
These Prohibitions Do Not Stop At The Boundaries Of Language, But Go Beyond To Include The Consumption Of Culture And Art. The Book Mentions That It Has Become Forbidden To Enjoy Certain Literary And Musical Works, Such As The Works Of Writer Karl May Or Some Musical Compositions By Composer Handel, Based On Retroactive Moral Judgments. And These Demands Extend To Changing Street Names, Where Someone Living On A Street Named “Mohrenstraße” (Moor Street) Is Expected To Enthusiastically Participate In Campaigns To Change The Street Name Or At Least Cover The Signs, As Atonement For Historical Sins They Did Not Commit.
One Of The Most Prominent Phenomena That The Book Analyzes Accurately Is What Is Known As “Cancel Culture”. Brenner Compares This Culture To Airport Announcement Boards, Where Cancellation Terms Were Once Limited To Flights, But Today They Govern And Regulate The Lives Of People Who Have Remained On The Ground. Just As A Flight Suddenly Disappears From The Display Screen, Lecture Titles Suddenly Disappear From Cultural And Academic Event Programs. And When Someone Dares To Ask About The Reason For This Disappearance, They Are Confronted With The Powerful And Decisive Word: “Canceled” (Gecancelt).
The Matter Is Not Limited To Canceling Titles And Events, But Goes Beyond To Canceling People Themselves. Brenner Explains That Deleting People From Event Programs Is Often Followed By Erasing Them From Many Other Areas In Public And Professional Life. As A Result, Many People In Recent Years Have Lost Their Sources Of Livelihood And The Foundations Of Their Professional Lives; Researchers And Scientists Who Expressed Positions That Do Not Align With The Orientations Of The Transgender Movement Have Lost Their Jobs In Universities. Similarly, Musicians Have Lost Their Opportunities To Perform And Present Their Art Simply Because Their Hairstyle Was Considered “Impossible” Or Inappropriate According To The New Standards, Which Embodies What Is Called “Cultural Appropriation”. The Most Worrying Point That Brenner Emphasizes Is That These Exclusions Do Not Occur In Repressive Dictatorial Systems Or In Declared Religious States, But Rather Their Events Take Place In The Heart Of Ancient Western Democracies.
What Was Considered Until Recently As Repressive “Censorship” That Restricts Freedoms, Has Today Become Considered In The Light Of This Culture As A Sign Of Proper Behavior And Evidence Of Moral Integrity. The Author Sees That Anyone Who Wants To Avoid Social Ostracism And Destruction Of Their Reputation Must Listen With Great Focus To Know What Is Appropriate To Say, And Above All Must Avoid With Utmost Precision Everything That This New Culture Prohibits And Condemns. In Other Words And Simply: One Must In The Light Of This New Culture Be “Awake” Or “Woke”.
But Brenner Sees That Achieving This Commitment Is Easier Said Than Done. The Problem Of The Concept Of Wokeism And Its Greatest Challenge Lie In The Fact That It Operates Within A Society Characterized By High And Volatile Dynamics, Where One Often Does Not Realize What Is Allowed Or “Woke” Until After It Is Too Late. Even A Person Who Tries With All His Obedience And Readiness To Comply With The Rules And Not To Give The New Linguistic System Any Reason For Anger, Can Suddenly Find Himself Facing The Wrath Of Wokeism And The Guillotine Of Cancellation.
The Book Points To Some Basic Rules That Must Be Observed To Remain Temporarily On The Safe Side. For Example, The New Standard Dictates That Words Such As “Europe” Or “White” (In Reference To Skin Color) Should Not Be Mentioned Except Accompanied By Moral Reservation And A Hint Of Guilt. And In A Historical Paradox, Brenner Notes That While It Was Considered A Moral Wrong And A Flaw To Focus On The Skin Color Of The Speaker Or Writer, This Matter Has In Woke Culture Become Considered A Duty And An Essential Requirement. In Addition, The Concept Of “Enlightenment” (Aufklärung) Has Become One Of The Terms That Are Used Today With Contempt And Scorn. Enlightenment And Its Pioneers Are Now Considered A Cause And Driver Of Exploitation And Oppression, As Well As Founders Of A Criminal And Condemned Individualistic Tendency.
And To Free Oneself From This Culture That Has Been Classified As False Teachings, The Wokeism Movement Recommends Directing Loyalty And Belonging Towards Collective Entities Instead Of Individuals. The Person Who Considers Himself Belonging To Groups Recognized By Wokeism As Flawless “Victims” Finds Himself On The Safe And Good Side In The World Of Woke Identity Politics. And This Represents A Complete Break And A Radical Rupture With Previous Western Traditions: The First Criterion For Evaluating A Person Is No Longer His Individual Actions Or Personal Achievements, But His Origin And Affiliation. For This Reason, Some Identities Or “Tribes” Are Considered Condemned And Guilty From The Beginning; Everyone Who Is “European” And “White” And “Male” Is Automatically Classified Within The Group Of “Perpetrators”. And If This Person Does Not Choose Complete Silence, He Must Not Speak Except In The Form Of Self-Criticism And Self-Flagellation And Declaration Of Repentance For A Sin He Did Not Personally Commit.
And Since These Individuals Still Exist In Society Even If They Have Been Silenced, Wokeism Constantly Builds What Is Called “Safe Spaces”. The Goal Of These Spaces Is To Protect People Who Are Classified Within Victim Groups From Exposure To Descendants Of Perpetrator Groups. And This Procedure Seems Justified In Their Eyes Because People Who Were Born In Perpetrator Groups (Such As White Men) Not Only Carry Inherited Guilt, But They Actively Accumulate Additional Sins By Themselves.
Brenner Describes How Wokeism Policies Depict Alleged Perpetrator Groups As Continuing To Harm Individuals Of Victim Groups Through Their Evil Thoughts And Attitudes. In Contrast, Wokeism Guardians Assume That Victims Are Unable To Defend Themselves Against These Alleged Attacks, And Hence The Urgent Need For Those Safe Spaces Arises. And Since One Of The Two Groups Is Considered Evil And Aggressive By Nature Of Its Origin, And The Other Unable To Defend Itself By Nature Of Its Origin As Well, Wokeism Does Not Consider Excluding People Of A Certain Skin Color From Visiting Museums Or Certain Events As A Racist Act, But Considers It An Act Of Compassionate Care And Protection.
This Comprehensive Reorientation Of Society Does Not Happen Quietly Or Silently. When People Lose Their Jobs Or Are Prevented From Public Appearance, It Happens With Great Noise And Wide Media Uproar. This Noise Does Not Stem From The Victims Defending Themselves – This Rarely Happens – But Because These Forms Of Destroying Social Existence Are Designed To Serve As Warning Examples Deterrent To Others. Brenner Compares These Noisy Displays Of Human “Destruction” To Public Executions That Were Held As Spectacle Shows In Europe Until Two Hundred Years Ago. Just As A Person’s Head Was Cut Off In “Place De Grève” In Paris In Front Of A Crowd Of Spectators To Be A Lesson And To Confirm Prevailing Norms, Very Similar Displays Happen Today In The Era Of Wokeism Through Social Destruction And Moral Assassination.
This Continuous Noise Is Not Surprising, For Wokeism Culture Sees Society In A State Of Permanent Emergency. And Since This Emergency State Is Of Existential Importance For The Continuity Of The New Culture, It Must Be Maintained At Any Cost, Which Is Achieved By Creating And Stirring New Waves Of Anger And Resentment Continuously. A “Permanently Agitated” Society Is By Its Nature A Noisy Society, Where Waves Of Anger Follow One Another To Be Replaced By Bigger And Louder Waves Of Anger. And Anyone Who Wishes For A Quieter Society – Perhaps On The Pretext That Deep Thinking Requires Calm And Does Not Flourish Amid Noise – Puts Himself In Danger Of Cancellation And Ostracism.
As For Those Who Are Canceled In This New Culture, They Rarely Receive A Justification For Their Silencing, And No Authority Is Available For Appeal Or Defense Of Themselves. And If It Happens That A Person Receives A Reason For His Cancellation – Such As Objecting To The Continuous Noise Of Anger – The Justification Will Often Be Accusing Him Of Denying Historical Injustice And Crimes And Trying To Evade Discussion About Them. And Brenner Sees That This Justification Represents A Double Paradox, Where Wokeism By Its Nature Avoids The Culture Of Debate And Dialogue Developed By The Age Of Enlightenment, As Well As Avoids Accurate And Objective Historical Analysis. Instead, The Noisy Wokeism Prefers Direct Discourse And Categorical And Clear Condemnations That Do Not Accept Debate.
The Development Of Wokeism With Such Strength And Speed Has No Parallel In Modern History. And If We Search For Historical Approaches, We May Remember The Famous Sentence With Which A Single Author Terrorized European Elites 175 Years Ago: “A Specter Is Haunting Europe”. But Brenner Sees That Comparing Wokeism To This “Specter” (A Reference To The Communist Manifesto) Is A Comparison Fraught With Doubts For Two Reasons: First, There Is No Single Specific Author For Wokeism, But Its Intellectual Ownership Is Distributed Among Multiple And Scattered Movements And Approaches. And Second, Wokeism Does Not Resemble The Scary Specter Coming From Another World As Much As It Resembles A “Fabric” Or “Web” (Gespinst). It Is Delicate Threads That Wrap Around The Present And Intertwine With It Gradually, And Despite Their Thinness And Susceptibility To Tearing, They Are Formed From A Strong And Tight Fabric: It Is The Fabric Of Alleged “Morality”.
We Leave The Station Of General Definition Of The Phenomenon And Enter Directly Into The Philosophical Operating Room, Where The Author Dissects The Intellectual Roots And Ideological Engineering Upon Which Woke Culture Was Built. No Totalitarian Or Radical Movement Can Be Understood Without Dismantling Its Intellectual DNA, And Brenner Fully Realizes That Wokeism Is Not Just A Passing Fad On Social Media Platforms, But Is The Culmination Of Decades Of Profound Philosophical Transformations That Sprouted In The Corridors Of Western Universities. The Author Starts From A Basic Hypothesis That This Movement Represents In Its Essence A Counterattack That Is Systematic Against The Entire Legacy Of The European Enlightenment, Drawing Its Living Ammunition From A Strange And Complex Marriage Between Classical Marxism After Stripping It Of Its Economic Content, And French Postmodern Thought That Has Dominated The Humanities Since The Second Half Of The Twentieth Century.
Brenner Traces This Historical Thread, Pointing Out That Wokeism Took From Marxism Its Comprehensive Conflict Structure That Sharply Divides The World Into Oppressor And Oppressed, But It Replaced The Economic And Material Class Struggle With A Struggle Of Cultural, Ethnic, And Gender Identities. In This Framework, The Literature Of “Critical Theory” Founded By The Frankfurt School, Which Was Originally Aimed At Criticizing The Institutions Of Capitalist Society, Was Summoned To Be Later Distorted And Directed Towards Dismantling Everything That Constitutes Western Civilization And Depicting It As A Purely Repressive System Founded On Hidden Oppression. However, The Most Dangerous Turn, According To Brenner’s Analysis, Occurred When This Critical Theory Met The Ideas Of Postmodern Philosophers, At The Forefront Of Them Michel Foucault And Jacques Derrida. Wokeism Has Taken From These Philosophers Its Most Dangerous Weapon Of All: The Destruction Of The Idea Of “Objective Truth”. In The World Of Wokeism, Directly Inspired By Foucault’s Theorizations, There Is No Pure Truth Or Abstract Knowledge Or Facts Independent Of Power, But There Are Only “Power Relations”. Every Claim Of Science, Every Existing Institution, Every Linguistic Rule, Even The Empirical Scientific Method Itself, Is Not Seen As A Tool To Reach Truth And Explain The World, But As A Tool Designed By Dominant Categories To Impose Their Ideological Control And Oppress Minorities And Silence Their Voices.
This Systematic Destruction Of The Concept Of Objective Truth And Its Replacement With The Concept Of “Multiple Truths” Or Sanctification Of Subjective “Lived Experiences” Has Led To Cognitive Disasters That Brenner Highlights Strongly And Deconstructs Its Destructive Effects. When The Common Objective Standard To Which Humans Can Resort When Disagreeing Is Abolished, Rational Democratic Discussion Becomes Impossible. In The Current Woke Culture Literature, An Idea Is Not Evaluated Based On The Strength Of Its Logic Or The Coherence Of Its Evidence And The Validity Of Its Proofs, But It Is Evaluated And Blocked Or Accepted Exclusively Based On The “Identity” Of Its Speaker And His Position In The Pyramid Of Victimhood And Oppression. If The Speaker Belongs To A Category Historically Classified As Oppressed, His Words Are Considered An Absolute Truth That Is Not Subject To Debate And Must Be Believed And Submitted To Without Requesting Evidence, Because Merely Requesting Evidence Is Considered In The Custom Of This Culture A Type Of Violence Practiced By Privilege Holders. And If The Speaker Belongs To The Category Classified As Dominant, Then Everything He Says, No Matter How Rational Or Supported By Scientific Facts And Statistics, Is Rejected In Advance And Condemned As A Malicious Attempt To Maintain Hegemony And The Patriarchal And Racial Power Structure. This Philosophical Slippage, As Brenner Argues Painfully, Returns Humanity With Accelerating Steps To The Pre-Enlightenment Dark Ages, Where Superstition And Tribal Affiliation And Inquisition Courts Prevailed Over Reason And Proof And Individual Freedom.
And From Here, The Author Moves To Analyze One Of The Most Lethal Weapons That Wokeism Depends On To Impose Its Absolute Control Over The Public Space: “The Militarization And Nationalization Of Language”. Based On Derrida’s Deconstructive Theses That Assume Reality Is Built And Formed Exclusively Through Language, Wokeism Adopted A Strict Doctrine That Changing The World Inevitably Begins With Imposing Control Over Words And Punishing Violators. But Brenner Notes That This Process Has Never Stopped At The Boundaries Of Polishing Language From Clearly Racist Or Offensive Terms, Which Is Praiseworthy And Required In Any Civilized Society, But Has Turned Into A Morbid Obsession With “Language Engineering” And Purifying It From Every Flaw That Could Be Interpreted, Even From Afar And With Bad Intent, As Exclusion Or Marginalization. Language In The Era Of Wokeism Has Become A Real And Frightening Minefield; Where New And Mysterious Terms Are Invented Daily, And Other Terms That Were Considered Until Recently Completely Natural And Neutral Are Executed And Erased. Personal Pronouns In Western Languages Have Been Transformed From Mere Simple Linguistic Tools To Facilitate Daily Communication Into Ideological Identity Cards And Mandatory Political Loyalty Declarations. And More Dangerous Than All Of That, Is The Redefinition Of The Concept Of “Violence” Itself To Include Ordinary Words And Intellectual Discussions. Equating Tangible Material And Physical Harm With Unintentional “Verbal Harm”, And Considering Some Scientifically Or Politically Opposing Opinions As “Real Violence Threatening The Physical Existence Of Minorities”, Is A Deliberate And Precisely Calculated Strategy To Prevent Any Democratic Dialogue And To Justify The Suppression Of The Other Opinion And Silencing It With Moral And Administrative Force.
And Brenner Deepens Further Into The Moral And Social Structure Of This Movement, Showing How It Depends On A Highly Simplistic And Extremist “Manichean” Vision, That Divides All Humanity Into Two Closed Camps With No Third: The Camp Of Pure Good Represented In Victims And The Oppressed And Their Woke Allies, And The Camp Of Absolute Evil Represented In Oppressors And Privilege Holders And Beneficiaries Of The Patriarchal And Racist System. This Sharp And Strict Division Completely Eliminates Individual Differences And Human Complexities And Personal Effort, Which The Author Considers A Fatal Stab In The Heart Of The Liberal Democratic Principle That Sanctifies Individuality And Freedom Of Choice. In The Contemporary Wokeism World, Your Personality, Or Your Individual Morals, Or Your Good Intentions, Or Even Your Personal Achievements And Contributions To Society Do Not Matter; All That Matters And All That You Are Evaluated By Is Your “Immutable Biological Or Social Characteristics” That You Were Born With, Such As Your Skin Color, Or Your Gender, Or Your Orientation. This Trend Destroys The Great And Noble Historical Dream Of Real Civil Rights Movements, Specifically The Dream Of Thinker And Activist Martin Luther King Jr. Who Struggled And Paid His Life As A Price For A Day When People Would Be Judged Based On “The Content Of Their Character And Their Competence” And Not “The Color Of Their Skin”. Wokeism, As Brenner Sees With Great Concern, Reverses This Verse Completely, And Re-Establishes Ethnic And Gender Affiliation As The Only And Inevitable Lens Through Which The Value Of A Human Being Is Read And Through Which His Rights And Duties Are Determined.
And Linked To This Manichean Vision Is Another Extremely Dangerous Doctrine Which Is What Resembles A Reproduction Of The Concept Of “Original Sin” Religious But In A Modern Secular And Academic Mold. In This Ideology, People Belonging To Categories Classified As Dominant Are Born Carrying A Historical Burden That Can Never Be Gotten Rid Of Or Atoned For, Which Is Known In Their Literature As “Privilege” Or “White Privilege”. This Privilege Is No Longer Treated As Merely A Societal Advantage Subject To Discussion And Deconstruction Or As An Economic Phenomenon Subject To Treatment By Public Policies, But Has Turned Into A Moral Stigma And An Existential Crime That Obliges Its Owner To Live In A State Of Permanent Apology, And Continuous Humiliation, And Deep Feeling Of Guilt. Based On That, Training Workshops Are Organized Today As Mandatory In Universities And Governmental Institutions And Large Companies To Force Individuals To “Confess Their Unconscious Privileges”, In Harsh Collective Rituals That Closely Resemble Medieval Church Confession Sessions, Or Forced And Public Self-Criticism Sessions Practiced By Totalitarian Systems In The Middle Of The Twentieth Century To Break The Will Of Opponents. But The Biggest And Tragic Problem, As The Book Clarifies, Is That This Woke Confession Never Leads To Salvation Or Forgiveness Or Reconciliation. Structural Guilt Does Not Fall By Statute Of Limitations, And The Ideological Purgatory Does Not End, Creating A State Of Permanent Psychological Submission And Establishing A New And Terrifying Societal Hierarchy Based On The Extent Of Submission To The Authority Of Activists And Guardians Of Doctrine.
Ideas, As Human Long History Teaches Us, Never Remain Confined To Ivory Academic Corridors Or The Bellies Of Complex Philosophical Books, But Soon Descend To The Streets, And Turn Into Daily Practices, And Power Structures, And Repressive Institutions Seeking With All Their Might To Re-Shape Society And Engineer It According To Its Distorted And Complex Image. Brenner Devotes This Pivotal And Essential Chapter Of His Book To Dissecting The Precise Manner In Which Woke Culture Succeeded In Penetrating The Arteries Of Western Democratic Societies, Transforming It From Mere Marginal And Theoretical Debates In Departments Of Cultural And Literary Studies Into A Compelling And Frightening Institutional Force Imposing Its Absolute Control Over Vital Sectors, And Using Its Unprecedented Influence To Transform These Sectors And Entities Into Strict Executive Arms For Its New Doctrine, Resulting In The End In Systematic Destruction Of Many Civilizational And Scientific Gains That Took Centuries Of Desperate Struggle And The Enlightenment Era To Build.
Brenner Begins This Field Monitoring By Pausing For A Long And Detailed Time At The Tragedy Of What Can Be Called The “Siege Of Academia” And The Complete Takeover Of Western Universities And Research Institutions. Historically, The Idea Of The Modern University In The West Was Born To Be The Impenetrable Fortress Of Freedom Of Thought, And The Safe Haven For Radical Scientific Research, And The Free And Open Space Where Contradictory Ideas And Different Visions Collide Without Any Fear Of Censor Or Religious Authority Or Political Guidance. But The Author Observes With Great Sorrow How These Ancient Scientific Edifices Under The Onslaught Of Wokeism Have Turned Into What Resembles Completely Closed And Tightly Sealed Ideological “Echo Chambers”, Where Only One Voice And One Version Of Truth That Does Not Accept Doubt Is Allowed To Be Repeated. The Great Classical Standards Represented In Methodological Accuracy, Scientific Objectivity, And Empirical Academic Integrity Have Been Replaced By A New And Strict And Suffocating Standard Which Is “Ideological Conformity” And Absolute Loyalty To Woke Narratives About Race, Gender, And Intersectionality Of Oppression And Hegemony. Brenner Explains How Researchers And Academics, Especially In The Fields Of Social Sciences And Humanities, And Also Increasingly In The Fields Of Exact Sciences Such As Biology And Medicine, Live Under Real Intellectual Terror; Any Researcher Who Dares To Present Experimental Results, Or Accurate Scientific Statistics, Or Historical Analyses That Contradict The Doctrinal And Preconceived Decrees Of Wokeism, Immediately Faces A Series Of Harsh Punishments. These Punishments Begin With Refusal To Publish His Research In Refereed Journals Whose Arbitration Committees Have Been Penetrated, Pass Through Distortion Of His Academic Reputation And Public Accusation Of Reactionary Or Racism Or Fascism, And End In Many Cases With Ending His Professional Future And Expelling Him From His Academic Job Under Pressure Of Organized Defamation Campaigns Led By Radical Student Activists Supported By Cowardly University Administrations Completely Surrendered To Their Blackmail. This Suffocating Climate Has Not Only Eliminated Intellectual Pluralism, But Has Led To A Terrible Decline In Creativity And Innovation, Where Researchers Prefer Voluntarily To Ruminate On Safe And Repeated Topics Conforming To Ideological Specifications Instead Of Venturing Into Bold Research That May Cost Them Their Entire Professional Life And Social Status, Which Represents Without Doubt A Dangerous Civilizational Retreat That Threatens The Ability Of Human Societies To Understand Its Reality And Develop Itself Freely And With Impartiality.
And This Harsh Ideological Creep Did Not Stop At The Walls Of The University Campus, But Extended Like A Viral Infection To Penetrate The Nerve Of The Capitalist Economy And The World Of Large Corporations And Free Markets. Brenner Allocates A Wide And Very Important Space To Analyze A Strange And Apparently Contradictory Phenomenon, Namely The Phenomenon Of “Institutional Wokeism” Or Corporate Wokeness; Where Multinational Companies, And Huge Financial Entities, Adopted The Language And Policies Of Woke Culture With Blatant Pragmatic Opportunism That Arouses Astonishment And Surprise. The Philosophical Author Wonders Here: How Can Greedy Capitalist Entities Seeking In The First Place To Maximize Their Profits And Satisfy Their Shareholders Adopt A Discourse Based In Its Philosophical Roots On Antagonism To Capitalism And Its Dismantling? The Deep Answer Lies In The Duality Of Fear And Interest. Brenner Sees That This Sudden And Wide Transformation Is Not At All Stemming From A Noble Moral Awakening That Has Occurred To The Boards Of Directors Of These Capitalist Companies, But Is A Smart And Cunning Defensive Strategy To Ward Off Fierce Attacks By Activists On Social Media Platforms, And Protect Large Brands From The Guillotine Of “Cancellation” And Mass Boycott That May Cost Them Huge Financial Losses And Destroy Their Shares In The Stock Market. And Through The Rapid And Successive Establishment Of Huge Administrative Departments Funded Generously Under Flashy Names Such As Departments Of “Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion”, Human Resources Departments Have Been Transformed Into Real Inquisition Councils And A New And Terrifying “Morality Police” That Monitors The Breaths Of Employees, Searches In Their Intentions, And Directs Their Behaviors. These Companies Buy What Resembles Modern Indulgences From The New Doctrine Guardians Through Launching Advertising And Commercial Campaigns Armed With Progressive Slogans, And Imposing Mandatory And Often Humiliating Training Courses For Human Dignity, In Which White Or Male Employees Are Forced To Confess Their Unconscious Racial Or Gender Privileges, And Apologize For Them, And Dismantle Them Publicly In Front Of Their Colleagues. The Inevitable Result Of This Escalating Institutional Absurdity, As Documented By Brenner With Evidence And Analysis, Is The Destruction Of The Sound Professional Work Environment, And The Creation Of A Poisoned And Congested Atmosphere Dominated By Suspicion, Caution, And Mutual Apprehension Among Colleagues In Offices, And In Which Standards Of Professional Competence, High Productivity, And Individual Merit Decline Significantly In Favor Of A Strict Identity Quota System That Evaluates The Employee Based On His Demographic Category And His Position On The Victim Ladder, And Not Based On His Skills Or Sincerity And Achievement In His Assigned Work.
And From The Academic And Institutional And Economic Arena, The Philosopher Andreas Brenner Moves To Expose The Most Dangerous Societal And Political Repercussions Of This Overwhelming Phenomenon, Which Is The State Of Suffocating And Comprehensive “Self-Censorship” That Has Paralyzed The Movement Of Societies And Muzzled The Mouths Of The Vast Majority Of Citizens. The Loud Noise, And The Cruel Virtue Signaling Shows, And The Moral And Social Execution Parties That Wokeism Activists Practice Daily And Relentlessly Against Any Opposing Or Skeptical Voice, Have Achieved Their Main Psychological Goal With Unparalleled Excellence: Planting Deep And Sustainable Fear In The Hearts Of Ordinary Citizens. Brenner Points To A Tragic And Ironic Paradox That The Vast Majority Of Citizens In Ancient Western Democracies, Who Enjoy A Sound Human Instinct And Tend By Nature To Moderation And Rational Centrism, Do Not Agree At All With These Ideological Extremisms And Linguistic And Gender Hallucinations Imposed On Them From Above, But They Prefer Complete Silence And Passive Seclusion To Avoid Devastating Harm And Ruin That May Affect Their Lives. The Terrifying And Real Fear Of Losing The Source Of Livelihood And Job, Or Exposure To Social And Family Ostracism, Or Permanent Defamation That Cannot Be Erased Through Fierce Electronic Bullying Campaigns That Do Not Have Mercy And Do Not Forget A Single Slip, Has Made People Literally Walk On Eggshells In Every Detail And Interaction Of Their Daily Lives. The Beautiful Spontaneity In Human Interactions Has Been Lost; And Transient Discussions In Workplaces, Or In Family Gatherings On Holidays, Or Even Among Old Friends, Have Become Fraught With Risks And Mines Capable Of Exploding At Any Moment. Every Individual Fears That An Innocent Word That Is No Longer Authorized In The New And Innovated Dictionary Will Slip From His Tongue, Or That An Innocent Joke Or Observation Will Be Misinterpreted To Suddenly Turn, And By The Action Of An Actor, Into An Official Accusation And An Intellectual Felony Of Racism, Or Hatred, Or Prejudice. This Suffocating And Terrifying Police Climate, Which Closely Resembles What Brilliant Novelists Described In Dystopia Literature And Repressive Totalitarian Systems, Slowly And Steadily Destroys The Natural And Organic Social Fabric, And Irrevocably Eliminates The Foundations Of Mutual Trust Between Citizens, And Transforms A Cohesive Society Into An Archipelago Of Isolated Islands Inhabited By Frightened, Terrified, And Hypocritical Individuals Who Show The Opposite Of What They Conceal. And Brenner Considers This Abnormal Situation A Frank And Direct Threat To The Foundations Of The Liberal Democratic System, Which Cannot Live Or Breathe Or Correct Its Mistakes Except In The Air Of Absolute Freedom Of Discussion And Constructive Debate And Peaceful Conflict Of Ideas.
We Now Move To Dissecting The Destructive “Internal Contradictions”, And How Wokeism Culture Has Turned Into A Blind Machine That Grinds Even Its Most Sincere Supporters, In Confirmation Of The Famous Historical Saying: “The Revolution Eats Its Children”. Brenner Sees That Any Movement That Depends On Extremist Ideological Purity And Lacks Mechanisms Of Internal Tolerance, Is Doomed To Collapse Under The Weight Of Its Own Contradictions, And This Is Exactly What Wokeism Is Witnessing In Its Current Stage.
Brenner Begins This Axis By Highlighting The Phenomenon Of The “Purity Spiral” That Controls The Dynamics Of Wokeism. In Any Society That Depends On Moral Grandstanding, The Only Measure Of Success And Social Advancement Becomes Continuous Outbidding Of Others In Showing Commitment To Doctrine. It Is Not Enough To Be Tolerant Or Supportive Of Equality, But You Must Be Engaged In A Continuous “Purification” Process For Yourself And Your Surroundings From Any Flaws Or Intellectual Deviations No Matter How Slight. This Spiral Creates An Environment Of Paranoia And Mutual Suspicion Even Among Comrades In The Same Ideological Trench. The Book Explains How Many Academic And Artistic Personalities Who Were Once Considered Icons Of Progressivism And Defense Of Minority Rights, Suddenly Found Themselves On The Guillotine Of Cancellation, Not Because They Changed Their Positions Towards The Right Or Conservatism, But Because They Could Not Keep Up With The Insane Speed Of Changing Standards, Or Because They Dared To Question The Logic Of A New Linguistic Or Behavioral Rule Invented Only Yesterday. The Demand For Absolute Loyalty And Complete Blindness To Logic Makes It Impossible For Anyone To Remain In The “Safe Zone” Forever.
And Among The Most Prominent Mechanisms That Produce These Contradictions, And For Which Brenner Allocates A Scathing Critical Analysis, Is The Concept Of “Intersection Of Forms Of Discrimination” Or “Intersectionality”. This Concept Began As A Legitimate Legal And Social Framework For Understanding How Different Types Of Discrimination (Such As Race And Gender And Class) Can Overlap To Create Unique Experiences Of Marginalization. But Wokeism, As Brenner Argues, Hijacked This Concept And Turned It Into What Resembles A Strict “Caste System”. In This New System, The Moral Value Of The Individual And The Extent Of His Right To Speak Or Lead Is Calculated Based On A Set Of Cumulative Points He Gains From His Marginalized Identities. This Is What Some Critics Called The “Oppression Olympics”, Where Groups And Individuals Compete To Prove Who Is Most Exposed To Historical Or Structural Oppression, Because The Victim In This System Is The One Who Possesses Absolute Moral Authority, And Who Must Not Be Questioned Or Criticized.
This Distorted Application Of Intersectionality Leads To Violent Internal Clashes That Cannot Be Solved. Brenner Presents Hypothetical And Real Examples Of How Identities Collide Within This Complex Pyramid. When A Dispute Arises Between A White Lesbian Woman, And A Black Heterosexual Man, And A Transgender Person From A Latino Background, Who Has The Right To Impose His Vision? Whose Life Experience Is Considered A “Truth” That Is Not Subject To Debate? The Absence Of Any Objective Standard To Resort To (After The Idea Of Objective Truth And Logic Was Destroyed As Being Considered “Oppressive” Tools Inherited From The Western Enlightenment Era), Makes The Movement Live In A State Of Continuous Chaos And Internal Trials That Depend Exclusively On Who Can Shout Louder Or Who Possesses A Stronger Identity Shield. This Permanent Conflict Fragments Traditional Progressive Alliances And Turns Them Into Small Warring Tribes, Each Lurking For The Other To Hunt Its Linguistic Or Intellectual Slips.
One Of The Most Destructive Fault Lines Within The Movement, Which Brenner Considers A Real Harbinger Of The End Of Wokeism, Is The “Feminist Civil War” And The Violent Conflict Over The Definition Of “Woman”. For Centuries, The Feminist Movement Struggled To Liberate Woman As A Biological And Social Entity From Patriarchal Constraints, Relying On A Tangible Material Reality Represented In Biological Differences And What Results From Them Of Imposed Societal Roles. But Wokeism, Through Its Extremist Adoption Of Queer And Gender Theory, Completely Rejects Any Biological Foundations, Considering That Sex (Male And Female) Is Merely An Arbitrary “Social Construction” Assigned At Birth. This Led To Demands To Dismantle The Term “Woman” Itself, And Replace It With Fragmented Medical Terms Such As “People Who Menstruate” Or “Uterus Owners” Or “Birthing People”, In An Attempt Not To Exclude Transgender People. This Systematic Erasure Of The Language Specific To Women And Of The Material Reality Of Femininity, Aroused Widespread Anger Among Broad Sectors Of Feminists (Who Are Offensively Called The Acronym TERF), Who Found Themselves Suddenly Classified As “Extreme Right-Wingers” And “Inciters Of Hatred” Merely For Holding Onto The Existence Of Biological Differences Between Sexes And Their Desire To Maintain Safe Spaces Dedicated To Biological Women (Such As Shelters Or Prisons Or Women’s Sports). The Targeting Of Writer J. K. Rowling And Attempting To Culturally Erase Her Is The Most Prominent Example That Brenner Cites As Evidence Of The Extent Of Wokeism Extremism And Its Readiness To Destroy Its Strongest Allies If They Question Any Part Of The New Doctrine.
It Does Not Stop At The Boundaries Of Gender Conflict, But Extends To What Can Be Called The “Epistemological Crisis”. Brenner Sees That Wokeism Represents A Sweeping Attack On The Epistemological Foundations Upon Which Modern Civilization Was Built. The Basic Principles Of The Enlightenment Era, Such As Objectivity, Logic, Empirical Scientific Method, And Rationality, Are Systematically Undermined And Accused Of Being “White Constructs” Or “Tools Of Colonial Hegemony”. In Some Of The Most Radical Western Universities, Voices Have Begun To Appear Demanding The “Decolonizing” Even In Fields Of Exact Sciences Such As Mathematics And Physics, On The Pretext That They Ignore “Indigenous Ways Of Knowing” Or Give Priority To A Specific Cognitive Model Considered Oppressive. Putting The “Lived Experiences” And “Subjective Feelings” Of The Individual On Equal Footing With Empirically Proven Scientific Facts, Or Even Preferring Them Over Them, Represents, In Brenner’s View, Civilizational Suicide. When It Becomes Medically Taboo To Talk About Obesity Rates As A Health Risk Because That Represents “Fatphobia”, Or When Doctors Are Asked To Ignore Biological Differences In Providing Treatments, Then Wokeism Transforms From A Movement Demanding Social Justice Into A Direct Danger Threatening The Safety Of Society And Its Scientific Progress.
And In Parallel With This Cognitive Ruin, Wokeism Continues To Practice What Brenner Describes As Comprehensive “Cultural Sterilization”. Arts And Literature, Which Were Always A Space For Exploring The Dark And Complex And Contradictory Aspects Of Human Nature, Have Turned Into Mere Tools For “Moral Education” And Ideological Indoctrination. The Phenomenon Of “Sensitivity Readers” Has Emerged As Strict Proactive Censorship; Where These Readers Are Employed By Publishing Houses To Comb Through Manuscripts And Books Before Publishing, Searching For Any Words Or Characters Or Situations That Could Be Interpreted, Even From Afar, As Offensive Or Disturbing To Any Marginalized Group. The Matter Did Not Stop At New Works, But Extended Retroactively To Literary Classics. Brenner Denounces Campaigns To Rewrite And Modify Novels By Writers Such As Agatha Christie, And Roald Dahl, And Ian Fleming, To Purify Them From Any Descriptions Considered Inappropriate By Today’s Standards. This Historical And Cultural Purification Not Only Erases The Historical Context Of Artistic Works, But Treats Contemporary Readers As Psychologically Fragile Beings Unable To Deal With Texts Reflecting Different Time Periods And Different Customs. Art In The Shadow Of Wokeism, As Brenner Says, Loses Its Rebellious Spirit And Its Ability To Provoke And Question, To Become Pale, Predictable, And Burdened With Superficial Moral Preaching. No Writer Today Can Venture To Write An Evil Character Belonging To A Certain Minority For Fear Of Being Accused Of Consolidating Stereotypes, And No Actor Can Play The Role Of A Character Different From Him In Sexual Orientation Or Ethnic Affiliation Without Being Exposed To Fierce Campaigns Accusing Him Of “Appropriation”. This Strangulation Of Creativity Turns Culture Into A Barren Land That Only Grows Compliance And Fear.
These Deep Contradictions, And The Raging Internal Wars, And The Blatant Assault On Science And Art, Are What Push Brenner To Say That Wokeism Has Reached Its Peak And Begun The Journey Of Rapid Descent And Erosion. A Movement That Demands Inclusivity And Practices Exclusion In Its Ugliest Forms, And Calls For Diversity But Imposes One Color Of Thinking, And Raises The Banner Of Tolerance While Erecting Virtual Gallows For Everyone Who Disagrees With It, Cannot Continue For Long As A Cultural Hegemony Force. Society Cannot Live Long In A State Of Permanent Nervous Mobilization And Continuous Intellectual Terror. There Are Limits To Human Endurance Energy, And There Is An Inevitable Moment When The Collective Mind Begins To Reject This Absurdity.
Brenner Sees That We Stand Today Before A Pivotal Moment; A Moment In Which Societal Fear And Suffocating Self-Censorship Has Turned Into A State Of Comprehensive Exhaustion, Then Into Muted Anger, Reaching The Beginning Of An Open And Organized Rebellion Against The Control Of “Cancellation” Culture And Extremist Identity Politics. Silence Is No Longer A Safe Option For The Majority That Has Long Remained Neutral For Fear Of Targeting, But This Majority Has Become Aware That Continuous Concession Of Spaces Of Freedom And Rationality Does Not Satisfy The Voracity Of This Movement, But Increases Its Tyranny And Greed To Swallow More Of The Achievements Of The Enlightenment Era.
Brenner Starts In This Axis From A Very Important Class And Social Analysis, Where He Dismantles The Myth Promoted By The Wokeism Movement That It Represents The Voice Of The Marginalized And The Oppressed And The Working Classes. On The Contrary To This Claim, The Book Proves That Wokeism In Its Essence Is A “Elitist Project” Par Excellence, And A Set Of “Entertainment Beliefs” Or “Luxury Beliefs” Adopted By The Affluent Urban Bourgeois Classes, And Academics Isolated In Their Ivory Towers, And Employees Of Large Companies Who Do Not Suffer From Any Real Existential Threat In Their Daily Lives. The Simple Worker Who Toils Throughout The Day To Secure His Livelihood And Pay His Accumulated Bills In Light Of Crushing Inflation Crises, Does Not Care At All About Surreal Debates About Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Or Decolonizing In Mathematics Curricula, Or The Precise Search For Small Verbal Microaggressions In Old Cartoon Series. These Preoccupations Are A Luxury That Only Those Who Are Freed From Basic Survival Burdens Possess. And Instead Of This Woke Elite Providing Real Solutions To The Suffering Of The Working Classes, It Looks Down On Them, And Brands Them With Ignorance And Reactionary And Racism Merely For Holding Onto Their Traditional Values And Their Spontaneous Innate Language. This Blatant Moral Condescension Has Created A Deep Abyss Between The Woke Elite And The General Public, And This Abyss Has Begun To Swallow The Legitimacy Of This Movement Entirely.
And In A Related Context, The Book Dives Into The Catastrophic Political Repercussions Of This Class And Cultural Separation. For Several Decades, Leftist And Social Democratic Parties In The West Were The Legitimate Representative And The First Defender Of The Rights Of The Working Class And The Poor And Economically Marginalized. But With The Hijacking Of These Parties By The Wokeism Current, Their Compass Has Radically Shifted From Struggle For “Economic Justice” And Equal Opportunities And Redistribution Of Wealth, To Drowning In The Swamp Of “Cultural Politics” And Sub-Factional Identity Wars. The Modern Left Has Abandoned The Worker And The Farmer And The Simple Employee, In Favor Of Fierce Defense Of Very Narrow Factional Issues And Imposing Strict Ideological Exams On Everyone Who Wants To Belong To The Progressive Camp. Brenner Sees That This Transformation Represents A Great Historical Betrayal Of The Working Class, Which Suddenly Found Itself Without Political Cover Defending Its Real Material Interests. And The Inevitable Result Of This Vacuum Was Providing A Free And Historical Gift To The Currents Of The Extreme Right And Populism In Europe And The United States. These Populist Currents Have Exploited The State Of Anger And Resentment Felt By The Silent Majority Towards Woke Moral Guardianship, To Present Themselves As Protectors Of Common Sense, And Natural Language, And Comprehensive National Identity. Wokeism, In Its Attempt To Eliminate Any Discrimination, Has Directly Contributed To The Rise Of The Strongest Movements Of Political Polarization In The Modern Era, And Has Fed In A Reverse Way The Same Forces It Claims To Fight.
From The Political Arena, Brenner Moves To Dissect The Rebellion In The Economic Arena And The World Of Companies, Which Is The Field That Until Recently Seemed As If It Had Completely Surrendered To The Dominance Of Wokeism. In Past Years, Large Companies Rushed To Adopt The Discourses Of Woke Culture, And Establish Huge Departments For Diversity And Inclusion, And Change Their Brands And Advertising Orientations To Avoid The Anger Of Virtual Activists On Social Media Platforms. But This Rapid Submission Began To Collide With The Logic Of The Market That Does Not Have Mercy. The Book Explains How The Phenomenon Of Consumer Boycott Began To Play A Pivotal Role In Bringing Companies Back To Their Senses; Where The Silent Majority Of Consumers Realized Its Economic Power, And Began To Punish Fiercely Brands That Exaggerate In Moral Preaching Or Try To Impose Identity Agendas On Purely Entertainment Or Consumer Products. Famous Boycott Incidents Of Beverage Companies And Clothing Brands And Film Production Companies Have Proven That The Slogan “Go Woke, Go Broke” Is Not Just A Mocking Phrase, But Is A Harsh Economic Truth Translated Into Losses Of Billions Of Dollars. And Based On That, We Monitor Today, As Brenner Indicates, A Silent But Firm Retreat By Many Large Companies That Began To Dismantle Their Diversity And Inclusion Departments, And Return To Focusing On Merit And Competence And Product Quality Instead Of Focusing On Engineering Racial And Gender Balance Among Its Employees To Appease A Handful Of Extremist Activists.
And The Societal Rejection Does Not Stop At The Borders Of Politics And Economy, But Extends Strongly Towards Building Alternative Institutions And Strict Legal Resistance. After Wokeism Tightened Its Grip On Traditional Media And Universities And Publishing Houses, Independent Thinkers And Scientists Refusing Ideological Taming Realized That It Is Necessary To Create New And Independent Spaces For Freedom Of Expression. Brenner Monitors The Huge Rise Of Independent Journalism, And Free Platforms Such As “Substack”, And Uncensored Podcasts, And New Universities That Were Founded Specifically To Be Fortresses For Free Scientific Research Far From The Terror Of Cancel Culture. Millions Of People Migrate Daily From Mainstream Media That Has Turned Into Indoctrination Pulpits, And Head Towards These Alternative Platforms In Search Of Real, Complex, And Unfiltered Discussions By The New Doctrine Guardians. And At The Same Time, Court Corridors Began To Witness A Flood Of Lawsuits Filed By Academics And Employees Who Were Arbitrarily Dismissed Because Of Their Opinions, Or Students Who Were Subjected To Reverse Discrimination In The Name Of “Affirmative Action”. Restoring The Legal Arena And Activating Traditional Freedom Of Expression And Human Rights Laws Have Become Effective Tools In Dismantling The Institutional Structure Of Wokeism, And Forcing Universities And Companies To Retreat From Their Repressive Policies And Pay Huge Compensations To Those Who Were Affected By The Guillotine Of Cancellation.
All These Combined Indicators – Popular Rejection, Economic Losses, Institutional Resistance, And Political Rebellion – Confirm Beyond Any Doubt That We Are Witnessing The Beginning Of The End Of The Era Of Absolute Woke Hegemony. Human Society Possesses Self-Defensive Mechanisms (Immune System) Capable Of Expelling Any Ideology That Tries To Strangle Human Nature And Confiscate Reason. And Just As Any Severe Fever Reaches Its Peak Before The Body Begins To Recover And Return To Its Natural Balance, The Wokeism Fever That Burned Everything In Its Path During The Past Years, Is Now Approaching The Point Of Breakage. This Movement Has Exhausted Its Energy In Fabricating Crises, Dividing Societies, And Destroying Individuals, And No Longer Has Anything To Offer Except More Polarization And Nihilism.
