Being woke means possessing critical consciousness and advocating for social justice, inclusion, and sustainability.
From a woke perspective, society is problematised as a system of unjust power structures. Through woke analysis, one recognises the systemic character of oppression as well as the societally conditioned significance of privileges and marginalisation.504
Woke activists problematise alleged systemically conditioned inequalities and hidden oppressive structures with critical theories. As a woke activist, one acknowledges that one can never be sufficiently anti-racist or solidaristic and pays attention to the dangers of false consciousness.505
From the author’s perspective, woke ideology is characterised by these seven features:
Equality of Outcome
Equal treatment is a form of structural discrimination, as equal treatment leads to inequality. Performance thinking and self-responsibility are problematic because they legitimise inequalities and oppression. Equality of outcome is the true meaning of justice.
Collectivist Justice
Equality of outcome between group identities means justice, regardless of how many people have to be disadvantaged or favoured (see 1). All groups are in principle equal, therefore participation for all groups must be enforced through unofficial quotas. If one group is on average more successful than another, it is only because this group is favoured by the system.
Relative Truth
Knowledge is relative and builds on lived experiences. There is no objective truth, as everything is a question of standpoint. The woke ideology itself is exempted from this.
Intolerance
Open freedom of speech can be a form of violence. All statements that allegedly spread problematic thoughts must be censored. Censorship is only unjust towards woke activists. Woke intolerance is the one form of tolerance, because tolerating something that is seen as intolerance is intolerant.
Manipulative Language
The fight against power structures requires deception through changing meaning: antiracism becomes racism, science becomes activism, pedagogy becomes indoctrination, tolerance becomes intolerance, justice becomes equality, cohesion becomes exclusion. The author George Orwell described this language manipulation as Newspeak in his dystopian novel 1984. Through Newspeak, terms have an ideological meaning that linguistically eliminates non-conforming value conceptions, as their original meaning has been taken away.
Moral Superiority
In English, there is the term “moral grandstanding”, which can be translated as moral showing off. This describes the human habit of presenting oneself as part of a morally superior elite.506 To achieve this elite status, one looks for opportunities to criticise others for their immoral behaviour.507 Anyone who does not present themselves as sufficiently woke is excluded.
Reproduction
Woke activists want to impose their ideology on people (see Socialisation). All societal organisations are to be transformed by woke ideology. Every organisation captured by activists is affected by patronisation, intolerance, and enormous inefficiency. In addition, the goals of the organisation are realigned to also support woke activism from now on.