Woke activists see themselves as fighters for a vision of justice to which every human being allegedly has a legal claim. In their political ideas, they refer to Rousseau’s conceptions of society.
In Rousseau, human rights arise from the community, as the needs of the community take precedence over the preferences of the individual: society is to pursue the common good through the general will (volonté générale). For Rousseau, the state is a kind of moral body “in which all parts should cooperate so that they serve the common good.” 379 The goal of a social contract in Rousseau is not the preservation of property but the creation of a new equality on the basis of an unequal reality. The social contract “replaces a moral and legitimate equality for every physical inequality that nature could have imposed on people.” 380
From a woke perspective, rights are likewise community rights and not individual civil rights. The state has far-reaching legal authority over all individuals for the overarching goal of “social justice”. From their conceptions of justice, woke activists derive a fundamental right to equality.
Similarly, they also legitimise their fight against oppression: since oppression is the consequence of systemic power structures, the state (or society) is obliged to combat this oppression through its far-reaching authority.
The CRT activist Kendhi demands a departure from the principle of non-discrimination: past discrimination is to justify present discrimination in order to achieve equality of outcome.381 Such ideas are directed against universalist legal equality with equal conditions before the law. All interpretations of law that guarantee equal rights independent of identity are considered problematic.
From a woke perspective, all people possess non-negotiable claim rights that the state must fulfil. These state obligations are not limited to citizens. Anyone who wants to treat citizens preferentially is regarded as a nationalist (see Global Citizenship). Political decision-making power is to be increasingly outsourced to international organisations (especially the UN and EU). The state is primarily to help needy individuals, which is why marginalised groups are to be prioritised. State obligations include, among other things, protection from climate change, from inequality, from hate speech, from poverty, etc.
Woke activists want to use the state to enforce their political ideas as fundamental rights. With well-sounding promises, far-reaching patronisation through state-affiliated structures is justified (see ESG and Utopia).