Is Wokeness Dead? How did it die? Should We Stop Kicking It While It’s Down?

An overview of the debates over the decline of Critical Social Justice.

Photo by Michael Pointner on Unsplash

(Audio version here)

A quick note: this piece was originally written as an overview of the current discourse around "wokeness" for another publication. As a result, it's more formal and literature-review-like than what I usually publish here, but I thought readers here might find it useful nonetheless.

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There is a growing consensus that the peak of what became known as “wokeness” has passed. At its height in 2020, following the Black Lives Matter protests, support for Critical Social Justice beliefs surged across mainstream media, social media, corporations, universities, charities and public institutions. Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives proliferated, ‘anti-racist’ reading lists became ubiquitous, and organisations rushed to signal their commitment. Six years later, media attention has diminished, major corporations have rolled back DEI commitments, resistance to the movement has generated its own institutions, networks and intellectual spaces and the public mood is both fatigued and resentful. Donald Trump has returned to the White House, right-wing populist movements have gained ground internationally, and many commentators now speak confidently of the death of wokeness.

For those of us who have criticised the movement from principles concerned with truth, free inquiry and individual liberty, however, the situation requires closer analysis and is contested. Three questions produce particular disagreement. First, is ‘woke’ actually dead? Second, if it is in decline, what caused that decline? Third, given the rise of increasingly illiberal tendencies on the political right, should liberals continue to criticise it at all?

Much of this disagreement arises because people are not talking about the same thing when they talk about “wokeness.” Some mean a political movement, others a set of institutional practices, a cultural moment, or a broader tendency towards ideological thinking. People can therefore observe the same phenomenon yet reach very different conclusions about its condition, causes and significance.

The term “woke” is most commonly used to describe the Critical Social Justice (CSJ) movement. Its beliefs are rooted in critical theories such as postcolonial theory, queer theory and critical race theory, which themselves draw upon postmodern concepts of knowledge, power and language. According to this framework, knowledge is socially constructed in the service of identity-based power rather than objectively discovered. Dominant groups, particularly white, Western, heterosexual, ‘cisgender’ and able-bodied men, determine which forms of knowledge are regarded as legitimate. These dominant discourses shape how society understands the world and thereby create and perpetuate systems of oppression such as racism, patriarchy and transphobia.

Because people are socialised into these discourses, they are held to be largely unaware of their own participation in oppressive systems. Those who have adopted CSJ theories, especially members of marginalised groups, are regarded as uniquely able to perceive and expose these invisible structures (hence, ‘woke.’) Disagreement, criticism or questions about any of this are understood as evidence of ignorance or resistance to recognising one’s own complicity and desire to preserve one’s own privilege. Allowing dissenting views to be believed or spoken is to enable the discourses to continue to construct the oppressive systems and is akin to violence against marginalised groups. Dissenting beliefs must be corrected with education in CSJ theories and unconscious bias training, all must admit their complicity in oppressive systems, dissenting speech must be silenced or punished, and dissenters must be removed from positions of authority and visibility.

It is this specific manifestation of wokeness that appears to be in decline. What is less clear is whether the epistemological and ethical assumptions that underpinned it have declined as well. The prioritisation of ideological narratives over evidence, the tendency to divide society into competing identity groups, the attraction of conspiracy-like explanations of social problems, and the desire to enforce ideological conformity have by no means disappeared. In fact, they appear to have migrated into new political contexts. Those committed to truth as correspondence with reality, together with freedom of belief, freedom of speech and viewpoint diversity, therefore have work still to do. Liberals on the left must continue to oppose illiberalism on the left, while liberal conservatives must do the same on the right.

The bigger issue is not whether one particular ideological movement has won or lost, but whether liberal societies remain capable of defending the values of truth-seeking, free inquiry and individual liberty against recurring forms of authoritarianism and resistance to reality, however they may manifest.

Is Woke Dead?

When discussing the demise of ‘woke,’ the fundamental question is, “Is wokeness actually dying?” Sociologists and other empirical researchers have provided evidence of wokeness having been in decline since 2021. Large corporations have backed out of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, DEI roles have been cut, support for the Black Lives Matter movement has fallen, and language associated with the movement has become markedly less common across corporate communications, mainstream media and social media. These broad trends, however, sit alongside continued reports from within institutions, particularly those concerned with knowledge production, of DEI policies and ideological enforcement remaining firmly in place. In the past month alone, I have advised people working in universities, schools, libraries, charities, social work and clinical psychology. Meanwhile, surveys of students and academics suggest that ideologically biased and censorious attitudes within institutions of knowledge production have, if anything, continued to increase.

Cultural critics have been widely diverse in their analyses of the demise of woke. Some, like Piers Morgan, have argued that wokeness is over, defeated by a resurgence of common sense resistance and demonstrated by the election of Donald Trump. For Nellie Bowles, wokeness has not died and the reason its activism is less prominent now is because it has won and been institutionalised. To Musa al-Gharbi, we have never been woke and, far from being a progressive movement, the phenomenon was yet another iteration of neoliberal elitism benefitting the knowledge production classes. James Marriot’s argument is that it was only ever a fad which few people were ever genuinely committed to and we should now worry about what the next fad will be. Daniël Eloff and Tyler Cowen are concerned that wokeness merely laid the groundwork for radical left-wing economic (rather than identitarian) activism. Eloff is also concerned about mirroring illiberal views arising on the right, as is Michelle Goldburg. The phenomenon of a rising ‘woke right’ informed and emboldened by the woke left and using much of the same postmodern/post-truth framework has been argued to negate any complacency about the death of woke by critics including Neil Shenvi, James Lindsay, Andrew Doyle, Konstantin Kisin, and Jonathan Rauch.

To understand how such disparate and conflicting views could all be held by people looking at the same phenomenon, we need to consider the variety of lenses through which ‘wokeness’ can be perceived. Morgan’s confidence that it has been defeated relies upon looking at it as a cultural/electoral phenomenon and the role this arguably played in the shift to the political right. Bowles is looking at it as an institutional phenomenon when she argues that woke ideas have been normalised. Al-Gharbi is thinking in terms of an ongoing class phenomenon in which the economically privileged continue to exploit the working class. Marriot, Eloff, Cowen and Goldburg are considering it as a cultural phenomenon rooted in ideas, discourses, tribes and factions and the potential for escalation and backlash. Those who consider ‘wokeness’ as a phenomenon manifesting on both left and right are considering it primarily as an epistemic and ethical phenomenon and, in this reading, there is little light to be seen between the postmodern left and the post-truth right.

Some of the confusion in broader public discourse also stems from treating “woke” as synonymous with “left-wing” or “progressive.” If that is what we mean, then asking whether wokeness is dying becomes almost meaningless. A healthy democracy depends upon the productive push and pull between principled left-wing and right-wing economic and social policy and between the drive to conserve (conservatism) and the drive to progress (progressivism). The important issue, I would argue, is whether these ‘sides’ are, in fact, principled and healthy.

I would argue that “woke” is best understood not as a synonym for progressivism but as an epistemological and ethical framework. It favours ideological narratives over objective truth, interprets society primarily through systems of identity-based oppression, divides people into moral categories of oppressors and oppressed, seeks to tie everybody into its own concept of a common good via censorship, shaming and cancellation and is ultimately fundamentally opposed to the Enlightenment evidence and reason and individual liberty ethos of the West.

Wokeness, in the form of the Critical Social Justice movement is, indeed, past its peak. It continues to influence many institutions, but it has lost much of its prestige and now faces sustained opposition. The epistemological and ethical assumptions that underpinned it, however, have shown no comparable decline. We have not seen a renewed confidence in objective knowledge reached through evidence and reason, a reduction in identity-based grievance or conspiratorial thinking, or a stronger commitment to pluralism, viewpoint diversity and individual liberty. Many factions across the political spectrum continue to see themselves as uniquely able to perceive hidden systems of power and to regard it as their duty to awaken everyone else to them.

Critical Social Justice is one manifestation of a much older and broader human tendency to privilege ideological narratives over evidence, and while that manifestation has weakened, the tendency itself remains vigorous. If wokeness is understood as a broader tendency to privilege conspiratorial, identity-based ideological narratives over evidence and liberal principles, its obituary has been written far too soon.

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If we accept that left-wing wokeness (CSJ) is in demise, who is responsible for that and how did it happen?

If Critical Social Justice is only one manifestation of a broader tendency, the next question becomes why and how this particular manifestation lost its dominance.

Arguments about who killed wokeness are typically highly dependent on the position of the accuser/celebrator and whether or not they believe its demise to be a good thing. For those who believe it to be a positive development, the argument is typically that the woke killed wokeness. They were so unreasonable and authoritarian that the normal, reasonable and principled people (generally their own tribe) said “enough” and reacted against it. The backlash was straightforwardly a reaction to excess.

For those who regard the decline of wokeness as regrettable or believe it has enabled the rise of an illiberal right, the woke themselves are often held to bear little responsibility for their own unpopularity. Instead, culpability is placed elsewhere. The culprits might be fascistic discourses on the right demonizing a fundamentally well-intentioned movement for social justice. It could be the conservative anti-woke (MAGA or otherwise), appealing to the uninformed masses by making evidenced-based arguments about illiberal things they were doing when they should have been more worried about Trump. They might be non-woke economic leftists and socialists objecting to the woke focus on identity politics dividing the working class rather than maintaining solidarity against the right. They might be apathetic white boomers who never fully embraced racial equality, sexual equality or acceptance of homosexuality, and for whom only a relatively small increase in activist demands was enough to provoke renewed resistance. A particularly common refrain is that it was the fault of defenders of free speech who thereby enabled ‘anti-woke’ critique to thrive and emboldened an illiberal right.

The downfall of wokeness was indeed brought about, in significant part, by the excesses of the Critical Social Justice movement itself. At the same time, opposition to wokeness emerged from across the political spectrum. These two facts are not contradictory. Rather, they are connected. The irrationalism, authoritarianism, and purity politics of the movement alienated almost everyone who did not already subscribe to it.

“Almost everyone” necessarily included a remarkably diverse coalition: the extreme right, traditional conservatives, the MAGA right, socialists and economic leftists, weary centrists, and liberals committed to individual liberty, viewpoint diversity, and freedom of speech. This fact is significant because it reminds us that the category “anti-woke” is not a coherent political movement. It is simply a term for people opposed to one thing. As with any coalition defined primarily by what it opposes, its members differ profoundly in what they endorse and want to put in its place.

The extreme right—those who openly embrace racism, sexism, homophobia, Christian nationalism and other forms of authoritarian identitarianism—naturally oppose left-wing wokeness while rejecting the foundations of secular liberal democracy as well. Their authoritarianism, conspiratorial thinking and obsession with oppressive systems of power closely mirror those of the woke left, which is why they are often described as the “woke right.” They cannot be said in any meaningful way to be an antidote to wokeness. Even among less extreme anti-woke factions on the right, alternatives can seem to offer more of the same. Some figures on the MAGA right, such as Chris Rufo, have openly advocated using critical theory to gain institutional power and narrative control. Others have simply embraced forms of post-truth populism that elevate politically useful narratives above objective truth and consistent principle. Meanwhile, the revolutionary socialist left often rejects wokeness as a neoliberal distraction from class politics, yet its preferred alternative is frequently no less hostile to liberal values. These movements differ from one another in significant ways and are often bitter enemies. What they have in common is not a shared vision of society but a common hostility to liberalism. They are competing authoritarianisms.

This is why the most important fault line is not between woke and anti-woke. It is between liberalism and authoritarianism.

The strongest and potentially most durable component of the anti-woke coalition is therefore the liberal one. It includes people on the left, right, and centre, as well as many who feel politically homeless. They may disagree profoundly about economics, culture, religion, or the role of government, but they share a commitment to freedom of expression, viewpoint diversity, due process, equal treatment under the law, individual rights, and the pursuit of truth through open inquiry. Authoritarian movements cannot form stable alliances because each seeks to impose its own vision of truth and power. Liberalism, by contrast, provides a framework within which people with fundamentally different visions of the good life can coexist, compete, and cooperate without coercion.

The decline of wokeness remains incomplete and its demise is by no means assured. The movement lost legitimacy primarily because of its own excesses, yet excesses on the illiberal right could generate a counter-backlash that restores some of its appeal. More importantly, the surge of conspiratorial thinking, tribalism and post-truth politics on the right demonstrates that the decline of one manifestation of these tendencies does not resolve the larger problem.

The appropriate response is therefore neither a reflexive defence of wokeness nor an uncritical embrace of the anti-woke. It is a consistent commitment to the empirical, rational and liberal underpinnings of Western modernity wherever truth is devalued and individual liberty is denied.

Should we stop kicking wokeness while it is down?

The final question is, if the Critical Social Justice movement is dead, dying or has at least been neutralised, shouldn’t we now focus exclusively on the illiberalism emerging on the right? This is a question I am frequently asked by liberals on the left who believe my critiques of the woke left were both valid and necessary but worry that continuing to focus on it now that it is in decline diverts attention from the populist and woke right. Some also fear that continued criticism of wokeness risks legitimising or providing ammunition for right-wing illiberalism.

This concern deserves to be taken seriously and relates to the concept of “both-sidesism.” I understand the criticism. “Both-sidesism” describes the tendency to maintain an appearance of balance by criticising both sides of a conflict even when one side presents a substantially greater threat. At best, this represents a failure to triage effectively. At worst, it creates a false equivalence that normalises genuinely dangerous illiberalism by treating it as morally comparable to less serious or less immediate concerns.

Liberals are particularly vulnerable to being accused of both-sidesism because our primary concern is consistent opposition to authoritarianism. We are liable to being condemned by illiberal factions on the right for not supporting authoritarian approaches to eradicating wokeness, while illiberal factions on the left accuse us of enabling the rise of the right by not giving the left’s authoritarianism a free pass.

I would like to defend a version of what is often dismissed as “both-sidesism” by reframing it. I agree that adopting a simple “you’re just as bad as each other” position is rarely helpful. In a political environment defined by two broad camps, however, there is a need for people within each camp to criticise both sides. It is not enough merely to criticise the illiberalism that makes the other side bad. We must also confront the illiberalism that prevents our own side from being good. I have always approached political criticism in this spirit. As someone on the left, I am therefore naturally more inclined to focus on those illiberal tendencies within the left that prevent it from fulfilling its traditional purpose and from inspiring the confidence it needs to earn public support.

The importance of internal critique in making one’s own side as principled, persuasive and worthy of support as possible is frequently underappreciated by political partisans. This has certainly been the case with recent left-wing critiques of liberal anti-woke voices. Jan-Werner Muller made the argument that the left should not trust the liberal anti-woke because their drive to find fault with both sides creates a false equivalence which enabled the rise of Trump. Similarly, Jason Stanley blamed the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) for fostering a moral panic about wokeness on university campuses and enabling Trump’s crackdown on academic freedom. Meanwhile, David Klion insisted that the signatories of the Harper’s Letter in defence of free speech should all “examine their role in helping to build a broad elite consensus that has functioned mainly to legitimize Trump’s actions.” [xxix]

All of these arguments depend upon the assumption that, had liberals on the left refrained from criticising illiberalism on the left, support for illiberal anti-woke movements would not have emerged. This is both implausible and psychologically naive. It effectively removes agency from the woke themselves and assumes that the public would simply not have noticed the excesses that generated the backlash. Does denial of a problem within a group ever work to convince anyone outside it? Are those on the left currently convinced by those on the right shutting down criticism of MAGA with accusations that perceiving any is Trump Derangement Syndrome and everything is just fine or does this make the problem seem more intractable? Has anybody concerned by Islamic extremism ever been convinced by being told they are mistaken and Islam is actually a religion of peace or does this just convince them that those who could address the problem are not going to and solutions will need to be external and radical? In each case, refusing to acknowledge genuine problems within one’s own political or ideological community does not reassure sceptics. It persuades them that reform from within is impossible.

Would it really have been better if criticism of left-wing illiberalism had been left entirely to the illiberal right? Would that criticism have been more accurate, more principled, or less likely to produce a reactionary backlash? Is it not more plausible that, had more liberals on the left been willing to challenge authoritarian tendencies within their own institutions and movements, they might have helped marginalise them before they became politically explosive? Far from causing the anti-woke backlash, liberal criticism may have represented the best chance of preventing it.

This, I would argue, remains the best course of action for those on the left. British liberals on the left should continue criticising illiberalism on the left and trying to marginalise it in left-wing political discourse. This is much more likely to increase public confidence in the left than simply pointing out the illiberalism within parties like Reform and Restore while denying that shutting down criticism of immigration policies and silencing gender critical feminists on the grounds of racism, Islamophobia and transphobia contributed to their rise.

Likewise, American liberals on the left would do well not to spend the period before the next election exclusively highlighting illiberalism on the right but also engage in the internal critique that can decentre it from their own political discourse and rebuild a genuinely liberal left. That is what has the potential to create a party that Americans committed to truth and liberty can support not merely as the lesser of two evils, but as a positive good.

The failure of enough liberals on the left to confront authoritarian tendencies within the woke movement—instead minimising or excusing them in the name of solidarity against the right—backfired spectacularly. That experience should serve as a warning to liberals on the right not to make the same mistake. Too many already respond to evidence of right-wing illiberalism—threats to constitutional freedoms and democratic processes, censorship, public shaming, demands for dismissals and an enthusiasm for cancellation—by deflecting to the authoritarianism of the left and its continued influence within institutions as a reason not to address problems on their own side. They would do better to confront those tendencies now than allow them to grow unchecked, further undermine truth and freedom, and ultimately provoke another powerful backlash that could restore some future variation of wokeness.

The priority for liberals on both the left and the right should not be simply to react to the illiberalism of the other side. That is certainly important, but we cannot build a more truth-centred, liberal society merely by pointing out what makes our opponents bad. We must also confront what prevents our own side from being as principled, persuasive and worthy of support as it could be. A healthy society is one in which both sides strive not only to expose the failings of their opponents but to make themselves more liberal, more trustworthy and more deserving of public confidence.

The answers to all three questions are more complicated than much of the current discourse allows.

Critical Social Justice is clearly in decline, but the epistemological and ethical habits that sustained it are not. Nor was its decline simply a story of anti-woke victory. The coalition that opposed it contains liberals and authoritarians alike, making the most important political divide not between woke and anti-woke, but between liberalism and authoritarianism.

The lesson is therefore larger than the rise and fall of any single movement. Liberal societies cannot rely on one authoritarianism to defeat another. They depend instead upon people across the political spectrum being willing to defend truth, free inquiry and individual liberty consistently, including by confronting illiberalism within their own political tribes.

The long-term goal cannot be simply to defeat one authoritarian ideology or movement after another, but to preserve the epistemic commitments and liberal conditions that allow peaceful disagreement, self-correction and truth-seeking, and in which authoritarianism repeatedly fails because liberal principles repeatedly prevail.

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