Liberals, Communists, and Woke totalitarians are often lumped together. But there are differences between Wokeness and Classical Liberalism, particularly when it comes to “systems of oppression” and the “false consiousness” that purportedly protects it which can only be overthrown through “critical consiousness” and the praxis involved therewith. As “Wokal Distance” explains, which is quoted in full full below due to the limitations of Twitter/X embeds:
Acknowledging then Criticising power structures or dominant cultural beliefs does not make someone woke.
Classical liberalism does not deny that power structures can exist and can be used to oppress various groups nor does it deny that some beliefs become dominant in the culture.
What separates liberalism and wokeness is this:
Wokeness thinks knowledge is constructed/created by powerful institutions and people with their own views, interests, agendas, and ideologies…and the knowledge these powerful people create operates in the service of their own interests & is perpetuated via discourses and culture. These systems of power socially conditions people to accept the status quo while determining what people are capable of thinking and knowing. Further, these systems of power are invisible unless someone has been trained to see them through “critical consciousness, and unless one has his consciousness transformed they will have “false consciousness” and the oppressive system of power will remain invisible. The way to deal with this situation is to use power to take control of the apparatus of cultural creation and education in order to determine what people think and make sure the “correct” ideas always have dominance in the culture.
Liberalism does not think this. Liberals do not think culture has the power to brainwash people or determine what people think. Culture can certainly apply social pressure to people, and it might make some ideas more popular (and therefore more accessible to the masses) than other ideas, but it cannot brainwash or socially condition people the way wokeness thinks it can. Liberals do not think the state can determine public opinion by the use of power. Secondly, Liberalism believes systems of power are really quite visible, and proving their existence is a matter of setting fourth evidence that these systems exist and providing arguments for their existence. According to liberalism one does not need to “transform their consciousness” or “take the redpill” in order to see an oppressive system, it is merely a matter of fact that it adjudicates using reason, evidence, logic, and rationality. Finally, the solution to oppressive systems to remove the ability of authoritarians to impose their will on others, to mandate their beliefs, or to censor the beliefs of other people.
Those who engage in such woke beliefs, even those on the purported Right, are to the Left of liberals.
