Publish at September 21 2021 Updated October 30 2021
Woke and Wokism are neologisms derived from the English verb "to wake". This phrase «woke »was used a lot after the death of George Floyd, killed by an insensitive police officer, from which the Black Lives Matter movement gained momentum.
Philosophically, wokeism is a movement that draws roots from the post modernism debatable in particular to the deconstructive thinking of Foucault and Derrida. It would constitute a new stage in the "culture of victimhood" (cf The rise of victimhood culture) pejorative expression denouncing minority activism.
His critics list him in a long line that includes inclusive writing, gender studies, white privilege, rape culture, systemic racism, racialized personhood, decolonial thinking, toxic masculinity, single-sex struggle, intersectionality of struggles and cultural erasure.
For opponents of this current, wokism would have something to do with conspiracism and widespread distrust of institutions. It would participate in reducing the forms of legitimate authorities and in the ever-increasing fragmentation of the social contract by satisfying itself with approximations in the construction of a thought, a definition or analyses of situations.
The preferred mode of action of wokism consists in seizing upon a morally reprehensible act on the part of an employee or a leader of an institution, denouncing it and deploying online on social networks evidence against the person named by name and summoning the highest authority of the institution to sanction the condemned behavior, then, to amend all the organizational practices that led the individual to deviate, and finally to make the texts of laws evolve.
In a way, with the support of social networks, wokism is concerned with establishing a balance of power to create a moral order according to the worldview of the victims and thus to shake up a social body that was ultimately satisfied with the situation because it was weakly concerned by the discrimination denounced.
Wokism is all the stronger when it comes to attacking the reputation of an institution, or even creating distrust towards its products or services which has economic consequences.
As is often the case with English neologisms, an impression of a new trend emerges suggesting the appearance of an entirely new phenomenon. However, the struggle of minority groups or declassified or stigmatized communities is an old social phenomenon.
This social interest is probably at the roots of many educational practices that draw on the ideas of discernment, emancipation or conscientization, dear to pedagogues, which ambition more than the transmission of a gesture and a culture but also the establishment of social links and professional and personal identity on the grounds that a praxis and an ethos are formed simultaneously, in other words, a profession and the ethics that accompany it. It is therefore interesting to appreciate how wokism differs from the aspirations of discernment, emancipation and conscientization that ground the invisible references of many pedagogical actions.
Activism for a cause is a tremendous lever to engage in deep and lasting learning. It fosters self-directed, even sociodidactic practices when entire collectives are involved. Everything happens as if the learner is not learning to support his or her cause but learning from his or her cause. It is action and unreserved commitment that are the drivers of this learning.
However, vigilance is necessary because as much as it is laudable to defend minorities, the oppressed, denunciation and public lynching on social networks is a mode of regulating conflicts and tensions that escapes all dialogue and social control and whose practical consequences, in the long run, are, on the one hand, to undermine authority, in particular that of the courts, on the other hand, to produce forms of self-censorship by leaders afraid of facing public opprobrium in the event that their initiatives are misunderstood, or even diverted, and finally, to create a deafening resentment on the part of a silent majority taken hostage to a new form of social violence.
Wokism pushes for the reinvention and one-upmanship of political correctness.
More than ever, it seems important to remember that the heart of an educator's action is to seek to link, to include, to produce collective intelligence and to use all possible means, including digital, to produce an awakening.
Sources
Hours Bernard, "De la sommation de la cancel culture à la dénonciation de l'islamo-gauchisme", L'Homme & la Société, 2020/1 (n° 212), pp. 11-14. DOI: 10.3917/lhs.212.0011. URL: https://www.cairn.info/revue-l-homme-et-la-societe-2020-1-page-11.htm
https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783319703282
Wikipedia - Woke https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woke#:~:text=Between%20others%2C%20the%20word%20%C2%AB%20woke,the%20movement%20in%20sa%20globalit%C3%A9.
Fondapol - L’idéologie woke – Face au wokisme https://www.fondapol.org/etude/lideologie-woke-2-face-au-wokisme/
Le monde des idées. Woke le nouveau politiquement correct
Le Point. Le wokisme ne peut que s’auto détruire https://www.lepoint.fr/video/pierre-valentin-le-wokisme-ne-peut-que-s-auto-detruire-02-08-2021-2437573_738.php
RTBF – La culture woke, ce mouvement militant qui inonde les réseaux sociaux https://www.rtbf.be/info/societe/detail_la-culture-woke-ce-mouvement-militant-qui-inonde-les-reseaux-sociaux?id=10727235
La pédagogie ignatienne du discernement (1) - Jardinier de Dieu https://jardinierdedieu.fr/article-la-pedagogie-ignatienne-du-discernement-114834619.html
Coudray, S. (2016). Le théâtre de l’opprimé. Quelles perspectives émancipatrices pour un théâtre d’éducation populaire?. Recherches & éducations, (16), 65-77. https://doi.org/10.4000/rechercheseducations.2516
Le courrier - Qu’est-ce que la conscientisation? - Le Courrier https://lecourrier.ch/2018/11/23/quest-ce-que-la-conscientisation/
Thot cursus - Innovation disruptive et apprentissage https://cursus.edu/11651/innovation-disruptive-et-apprentissage
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