Down but far from dead

A few months ago, Elon Musk claimed that the woke mind virus has been deleted. And with the Trump administration terminating DEI initiatives in the federal government and banning men in women’s sports, and with corporations and organizations like the NCAA falling in line, it might appear that he is right. Wokeness, it seems, is dead.

But is it? And how would we know?

Musk has previously defined the woke mind virus as “when you stop caring about people's skills and integrity, and you start focusing instead on gender, race, and other things that are different from that.” To that, we might add the various ideologies that carve the populace into identity groups and assign them to the oppressor or oppressed side of a hierarchy based on race, gender, sexuality, and so forth. Add a dose of virtue signaling, tone policing, and scolding, and you’ve found the woke.

For years, I’ve argued that running beneath all things woke is toxic and untethered empathy, a concern for the hurting and vulnerable that is unmoored from truth, goodness, and reality, and which inevitably leads to the victimhood Olympics that has afflicted us for the last decade. That’s why, while rational refutations of the ideological dimensions of wokeness (cultural Marxism and critical theory) are necessary, they are also insufficient. The woke mind virus is driven by passions and relies on emotional blackmail and sabotage in order to succeed. Until our leaders (and a substantial portion of the populace) demonstrate the fortitude and resilience to endure the manipulations and reactions of the left, I remain skeptical that the virus has been deleted. Muted, arrested, and constrained, yes. But not eradicated.

So what would we need to see in order to share Musk’s sentiment?

Begin with the trans-insanity. We can all be grateful that the current administration refuses to play the ridiculous preferred pronouns game. More importantly, we rejoice that the federal government is no longer aiding, abetting, and funding the trans-ing of kids.

But this should only be the beginning. When there are actually civil and criminal penalties for the people responsible for the mutilation of children, when there is a widespread rejection of “trans adults” as well, and when Hollywood no longer dreams of making a tranny Aslan, then we can begin to speak of the retreat of wokeness.

The same is true of the termination of DEI departments in the government and in corporations. It’s not enough to dismantle them; we must ensure that they don’t return in another form. Leftists are masters at rebranding. “Yes, we’ve closed our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion office. Now I’d like to introduce you to the head of our new Inclusion, Equity, and Diversity office (IED).” While initially there was a palpable sense of disarray among the left, recent weeks have demonstrated that the left is capable of regrouping, retrenching, and rebranding its ideology.

A third sign that wokeness is truly retreating would be the repeal of Obergefell and the ending of sodomite “marriage” (at least in red states). In fact, we could start by simply recovering the use of the term “sodomy” to refer to the unnatural sex act in view; the sanitation of our language is part of how we got here.

At present, the current administration is content to target the far excesses of gender ideology (transgenderism), while leaving (and even defending) so-called “gay marriage.” The apparent strategy is to cut off the T and keep the LGB. But this is quite frankly untenable. Either we live in a society that recognizes the importance of the sexual binary and the centrality of natural marriage for the good of children (and therefore civilization itself), or we don’t. And if we don’t, then the woke mind virus has not been deleted.

And this brings me to the final reason for my skepticism of Musk’s claims. If wokeness runs on untethered empathy, then you can’t delete wokeness without rejecting the lies of feminism. As long as feminism—the belief that men and women are effectively interchangeable in society—remains the dominant ideology in both parties, then I’m afraid that the woke we will always have with us.

Feminism creates the social context that fuels the politics of empathy and victimhood. Female care and concern for the hurting, which is a great blessing in its place, is often hijacked when it’s time to draw clear lines, and then the male tendency to acquiesce in the face of agitated and unhappy women spreads the contagion. As Louise Perry has put it, “Mentally ill misfits inspire compassion in women, particularly childless women looking for an outlet for their maternal instincts. When women view trans people as hyper-vulnerable—and trans activists have worked very hard on promoting that view—there’s no way that women will call a ’trans woman’ a man, even if it means letting Bruno into the girls’ locker room.” And as with the trans phenomenon, so with the other elements of wokeness.

So when women are no longer permitted in combat in the military, and when society is again unembarrassed by exclusively male spaces, and when the Republicans stop bragging about how many female elected officials they have, then we can speak of the deletion of the woke mind virus.

Until then, we can rejoice in the reprieve. But more than that, we should stay alert, and press ahead.