The 2020ers

The Transition #4

Part One: The Transition
Part Two: The Sacred Fetish of Academic Freedom
Part Three: The Times They Have Changed

Wokeness appears paradoxically conservative because, as the fourth wave of progressivism, its proponents are now in power and its policy goals have all been achieved in theory. Progressives therefore spend much of their energy policing other people’s morals in order both to shore up their positions and move society closer to the unachieved, just-out-of-reach utopia. This explains why its manner and style is so different from earlier progressive movements.

The first wave of progressivism, in the 1910s and 1920s, involved small numbers of urban bohemians, espousing what Eric Kaufmann called ‘left-modernism’, which he defined as ‘a hybrid ideology of liberal cosmopolitanism and cultural egalitarianism.’ It was ahead of its time, very much confined to literary circles and largely unpopular.

In the 1960s a second wave saw progressive ideas entering the mainstream, with the decline of church attendance across the West, the liberalisation of social norms in regards sex and marriage, and more progressive views of race and other issues. This was followed by a third wave in the 1980s and 1990s with the arrival of ‘political correctness’ and the culture wars of that period. While their predecessors were fighting against ‘the man’, the PC cohort were in a still-contested cultural arena where conservative attitudes were widespread, although in decline.

By the time of the 2010s, conservatives had exited from many areas of public life, the most extreme example being academia, so that the zealots of the Great Awokening were protesting for what were then already established norms. It was not an uprising, nor a rebellion, but a victory dance. But it was also an outpouring of frustration about the unachieved goals of the revolution; racial equality of outcome had not been achieved, because it is unachievable; romantic disappointment and sexual betrayal had not been overcome, because that is the human condition. Women’s happiness had actually declined since the sexual revolution, and anxiety levels among liberal-minded adolescents had rocketed.

While both the 1968 and 2020 protests were led by students and graduates from the higher echelons of society, the differences between the two were also significant. The demands of the soixante-huitards were controversial, and although the door was opening, they were in many ways taking on the establishment; 2020, in contrast, it was the establishment doing the protesting.