Unmasking Identity Politics
Like an aggravating itch, wokeness keeps poking at us: It’s always in the background, tormenting. Where did it come from, and, perhaps more urgently, how can we get a break from it?
It would be nice to have a panacea, but because of the government’s compelling interests, those are hard to come by. What we have offered here is, if not a remedy, a roadmap to relief.
Before that, however, it helps to know more about the tormentor itself. Have we generally misunderstood wokeness — whether we use that term or call it politically correct behavior, or cultural Marxism, or cancel culture — as a purely cultural phenomenon? Yes, argues The Origins of Woke: Civil Rights Law, Corporate America, and the Triumph of Identity Politics by Richard Hanania. While assuredly not ignoring its cultural aspects, it makes the case that this force, so prevalent in public discourse over the last decade, has its roots in U.S. law dating back more than a half-century. What has given this ideology the upper hand of late is culture catching up to law.
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