Woke

Critical Social Justice or wokeism is a relatively new phenomena that has dominated the recent culture wars since the antiracism movement intensified in the wake of George Floyd’s death. In this volume, internationally acclaimed cultural critics, social political theorists, psychologists, philosophers, behavioral scientists, and scholars of humanities examine contemporary issues in social critique that address a myriad of topics including critical race theory (CRT), identity politics, decolonialism, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) movements, whiteness theory, gender critical feminism, transgenderism, cancel culture, antizionism/antisemitism, postmodern epistemology, the free speech debate, and political authoritarianism. This is the first book of its kind to offer a scholarly critique of the social justice ideology that has saturated our modern times, stoked by polarization and societal division, fomenting discord, radical politics, censorship, and new forms of fascism.

Jon Mills' Woke: A Critique of Social Justice Ideology brings together a high-powered cast of liberal scholars who break new ground in the emerging discipline of "Critical Woke Studies," the study of cultural progressive extremism. The contributors apply a sophisticated centrist lens-drawing on intellectual history, analytic philosophy, and the sociology of institutional capture-to interrogate the excesses of left-wing race and gender activism. They follow the trail of progressive fundamentalism from its deep roots in postmodernism and critical theory toward its institutional manifestation in the form of DEI activism in universities, professional bodies and other elite spaces. Anyone concerned about the cultural vandalism of Critical Social Justice should read this book.

-Eric Kaufmann, Professor of Politics, University of Buckingham and author of Taboo: How Making Race Sacred Produced a Cultural Revolution

At last, Left and Right agree that woke ideology is intellectually bankrupt. Readers across the political spectrum will find here something to affirm, something to enrage, and in the process, a deeper understanding of the issues.

-Janice Fiamengo, Professor of English (retired), University of Ottawa

When the social, intellectual, and institutional history of our extraordinary and often insane times comes to be written, this book will serve as an invaluable guide.

-Theodore Dalrymple, author of Farewell Fear and The Terror of Existence

This perfectly timed and smartly edited book has something for anyone who has observed, or been subject to, victim ideology run wild. Being a psychiatrist, I was particularly drawn to the eye-opening chapter on the ways in which the woke regime threatens mental health care. Professor Mills has been on the front lines of psychotherapy and his urgent dispatches reveal how social justice imperatives have infected therapists' ideas about the causes of patient suffering and corrupted their treatment practices.

-Sally Satel, MD, Yale University School of Medicine, author of PC, M.D. How Political Correctness is Corrupting Medicine