This is one of the words of the start of the campaign: “wokism” or “woke ideology”. We hear it more and more often, even though it doesn’t mean much. Back on “wokism”, this ideology to which Jean-Michel Blanquer, Minister of National Education is dedicating a dedicated Think tank from Wednesday, October 20! Entitled “Laboratory of the Republic”, this think tank aims in particular to help “France and its youth escape” this “woke ideology”.
>> The words of the 2022 presidential campaign: “Woke”
And he is not the only one in government to share this opinion. “Wokism is fundamentally about adding up your frustrations, your perceived discrimination to reality, says on CNews Jean-Baptiste Djebbari, the Minister of Transport, a form of leverage to support a policy. “ “Today we see to what extent the ‘woke culture’ is shaking up our country”, estimates for her part on franceinfo Sarah El Haïry, the Secretary of State in charge of Youth and Engagement. Édouard Philippe, the former Prime Minister, also uses the term during a meeting: “You have the cancel culture, the wokism and all the noise that can fall on you saying you don’t have the right to say that. ” An addition of frustrations, a hustle and bustle of the country, a cancel culture that can fall on us: we would apparently be faced with an implacable threat.
What can be established with precision is the origin of the term. In English it means “to be awake “. It appears in the United States in the course of the 20th century, first to designate individuals aware of the violence and discrimination suffered by black Americans. But the word does not really impose itself in the public debate until 2014, and the murder of Michael Brown, an 18-year-old black boy shot dead by the police. “Stay Woke “ will become a watchword of the Black Lives Matter movement. Then, gradually, its use will expand, to embrace the fight against all forms of discrimination, as well as the fight for the protection of the climate and the environment.
This is why the term was gradually abandoned by its defenders … and taken up by its opponents, that is to say the American conservative right, Donald Trump at the head, who used it to attack a denounced speech as a moralizer and sententious. It is exactly through this prism that the word arrived in France: not as a structured political concept, but as a purely rhetorical tool, a weapon of massive disqualification used against leftist discourse, to put it quickly. Because, after all, who are the so-called “wokists”? Simply men and women who believe that some individuals experience violence and inequality because of their skin color, religion, gender or sexual orientation.
It is quite possible to debate the extent, and whether or not it is systemic, of inequalities and discrimination. We can perfectly discuss the relevance and the legitimacy of the actions used by some of the activists, whether it is a question of calling for the boycott of a work, or the banishment of a personality. But the speakers who criticize the alleged “wokism “ hardly ever go that far. They are content to throw the word in the face, without trying to circumscribe it. In rhetoric, it has a name: it is what is called the scarecrow technique, which consists of including one’s opponents a repulsive word, which one does not even try to define.
What happened with Islamo-leftism? By stating that he “gangrenous” the university, the Minister of Higher Education, Frédérique Vidal crossed the red line. Remember. The CNRS and the conference of university presidents replied that it was a term without any scientific reality, falling purely in the field of opinion: it is the very definition of a scarecrow. The difference is that it was starting to show up there! The air of nothing, the word has been gradually abandoned. And, as it was less used, we saw the “wokism” spread in the political debate. The word has changed, but the use is the same: to disqualify anti-racist and feminist struggles.
And surprisingly it works. There is, in rhetoric, a fundamental rule, which was identified by the psychologist Thierry Melchior: it is what one calls the principle of proference. The simple act of uttering a word is enough to make it exist. Even if listeners don’t know exactly what it means, they will assume that it has meaning. So, by repeating that there is a serious threat to the Republic, and that it is called “wokism” or Islamo-leftism, some of the listeners end up being convinced! So that, yes, in fact the disqualification works: despite its blurred outlines, the word manages to cast shame. And that’s a problem. Because, whatever one thinks about the fight against inequalities and discrimination, the fact is that we are reduced to seeing speakers juggling meaningless concepts. When we need to see them clash with ideas.