Michael Shermer: Why I'm No Longer Woke

Source:Skeptic publisher & blogger Michael Shermer.

"Before the transmogrification of the word woke into the pejorative slur against far-left politics it represents today, I would have called myself woke—and even a social justice warrior—inasmuch as I believe in civil liberties, civil rights, women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, animal rights, and the continued expansion of the moral sphere to include all sentient beings. As the author of a book-length defense of the principles behind these social justice movements for which previous generations were woke to—The Moral Arc1—I think I have earned the moniker, and yet because of how the word and concept has devolved, along with the ever-leftward shift into lunacy of woke social justice activists—I must distance myself from the label, ultimately because of its flawed theory of human nature as a blank slate... 

This metamorphosis of “woke” from awareness of societal inequalities of opportunities to insistence on equality of outcomes was elevated to national prominence during the 2024 Presidential election campaign when Kamala Harris released an animated video story of two alpinists ascending a mountain in which one of them had a head-start over the other:

Not everybody’s starting out from the same place. So if we’re all getting the same amount, but you started out back there and I started out over here, we could get the same amount, but you’re still going to be that far back behind me. … So there’s a big difference between equality and equity. Equitable treatment means we all end up in the same place.

Underlying the political policy of equal outcomes is the blank slate model of human nature, which holds that since people are inherently equal any inequalities in education, health, wealth, income, housing, home ownership, employment, crime, imprisonment, and the like, can only be the result of societal, political, and economic discrimination, rather than inequalities in intelligence, creativity, drive and ambition, personal responsibility, history, and of course luck, good and bad. Once such discriminatory policies are eliminated, blank slaters believe, such outcome inequalities should disappear." 

From Michael Shermer

I guess my response to Michael Shermer article would be: "I guess it depends on what you mean by WOKE". 

Similar to there's positive freedom and then there's negative freedom: 

Freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, right to privacy, freedom of choice, meaning that people have personal autonomy over their own personal and economic affairs, those would be positive freedoms. 

But if murder, rape, defamation, fraud, perjury, all somehow became legal, (perhaps America was on a national sugar, caffeine, and marijuana high, perhaps all at the same time) those would be negative freedoms. Because it's no longer about having the freedom to create a good life for yourself based on your own decisions. But now we would also have the freedom to hurt innocent people with our own choices. 

And similar with individual freedom where there's both negative and positive freedoms, there's positive WOKE and there's negative WOKE. 

I would argue that the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s was a WOKE movement. Even the African-American Black Nationalist and Black Power movements of the 1960s was a WOKE movement. But those were about recognizing the injustices that happened to African people since the start when they're kidnapped from Africa and sent to North America to serve the Anglo-Saxons as their slaves. 

And what these movements were about were addressing the injustices that had happened to the Africans since they were brought to North America, simple because of their race and trying to right them. These movements weren't about (with some exceptions) tearing down the American system and form of government with something else, that's (lets say) WOKE militants would see as more just in America. So I would argue, at least, that the civil rights movement, even the Black Power movements of the 1960s, were positive WOKE movements. 

And then I would argue that the affirmative action laws of the 1970s, were negative WOKE. Because those laws simply punished and denied access for millions of Americans, simply for already being successful, like European, including Spanish-Latinos, and Asian-Americans. And trying to transfer those opportunities over to African-Americans, even if they were already off to a good start in life and didn't need those AA opportunities. Especially at someone else's expense. 

The Kamala Harris quote or paraphrase talking about two people climbing a mountain, is important here: 

"This metamorphosis of “woke” from awareness of societal inequalities of opportunities to insistence on equality of outcomes was elevated to national prominence during the 2024 Presidential election campaign when Kamala Harris released an animated video story of two alpinists ascending a mountain in which one of them had a head-start over the other:

Not everybody’s starting out from the same place. So if we’re all getting the same amount, but you started out back there and I started out over here, we could get the same amount, but you’re still going to be that far back behind me. … So there’s a big difference between equality and equity. Equitable treatment means we all end up in the same place."

I think what the basic message here is that we're basically all born equal as human beings. Meaning none of us are better than anyone else, simply because of our race, ethnicity, or gender. But we don't all start off life equally. 

If life is a steep mountain, then very few of us are close to the top of the mountain when they are just starting off life as adults. Most of us are born in the middle of that mountain. And too many of us are born close the bottom of that mountain. 

And of course life is not about how you start off, but how you finish. But the point is how can we help people who start off their lives as adults who are struggling. Maybe they just start adulthood buried in college debt. Which is bad enough, but at least they have a college degree. But then you have other people who simply couldn't get into college either financially, or didn't have the grades. And now are stuck working minimum wage jobs for the rest of their lives, unless they're given a real opportunity to improve themselves. 

Again positive WOKE versus negative woke: 

The positive work solution (which I think is what Vice President Harris was talking about here) is about empowering people who are struggling in life to free themselves so they can get a good job, make a good living for themselves and their families. 

The negative WOKE solution here would be something like to blame the American system and argue that: "It's our racist and materialistic system that are holding people of color and others down. And you won't fix this problem, until you tear down the American system and replace it with something that's just."

I'm with Michael Shermer on this in the sense I don't define myself as WOKE. I much rather find ways to solve problems, than to look at the political calculations of them and try to blame the other side for the problem itself. Which is basically what WOKE has become. The WOKE militants seem to be more interested in exploiting the problems of America and finding ways to blame people they disagree with, including Democrats, then to actually solve the problems that they claim to care about.  

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