Woke, Equity, and Anti-Concepts
Recently, HBO talk show host Bill Maher was interviewed by CNN. Maher expressed that wokeness, regardless of how it’s defined, is a collection of ideas that depart from liberalism, and those that embrace woke ideology shut down debate.
Maher also said ten years ago we were “striving to be a color-blind society where we don’t see race. Woke is something very different — it’s identity politics — woke sees [race] all the time. [Race] is the most important thing. I don’t think that’s liberalism.”
The View’s Whoopi Goldberg rejected the notion that “woke” ideology shuts down debate, and Sunny Hostin complained that Maher compared “woke” with identity politics.
However, Goldberg and Hostin avoided Maher’s premise that there was a fundamental difference between liberalism and woke ideology. Why? Probably to conceal the fact that woke ideology is full of anti-concepts. An anti-concept is a term designed to replace and obliterate a legitimate concept or to obscure understanding.
Let’s take equity as an example.
In 2016, Senator Bernie Sanders sought the Democratic nomination for president. His campaign website stated, “This campaign is dedicated to advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion in hiring, in programming, and in all other aspects of the work we do.” That meant “building policies…