Cancel culture may seem to be waning but an ideology that has already punished more academics than McCarthyism is only likely to increase its power as millennials and Gen Z rise through Britain’s elite institutions, writes Eric Kaufmann.
We are all familiar now with the set of attitudes and behaviours that have come to be defined as “woke” — the dogmatic adherence to such ideas as decolonisation and trans rights, the subjecting of doubters to various tests of ideological purity and the deplatforming and cancelling of those who will not conform.
This belief system is strongest in educational institutions such as universities, schools and museums, as well as in the human resources departments of public bodies and corporations but it has the potential to become yet more powerful here.
Some observers regard woke as a passing fad. They point to American tech firms pruning their diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) budgets, to the Cass Review’s indictment of transgender-affirming surgery and to declining media mentions of woke phrases such as “white privilege”. As a result, many conservatives and free-speech liberals think the tide is turning. They optimistically believe that we have passed “peak woke” and that the days of this new McCarthyism are numbered.
Continue reading the entire piece here at The Times
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Eric Kaufmann is professor of politics at Birkbeck College, University of London and an adjunct fellow of the Manhattan Institute. Based on his new book, available now.
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