What makes something woke left?
Saoirse Éireann Ní Bhaoighealláin
This article is intended as a response to J.D Troy’s recent article “The Populist’s Pandora’s Box” which I largely agree with but I would like to respond to a question he raises regarding the “woke left” and what it means when people like myself and Molnárfi use it.
“I also disagree with Molnárfi’s (and others’) use of terms like ‘woke Left,’ etc. The unhelpful use of terms like ‘woke Left,’ do not serve to improve the conversation. They instead lead us further down the path of right-wing buzzwords, culture war terms that carry loaded anti-Left connotations. What is woke? What makes something woke left?”
I recognise it is important that if we do borrow terms from the right that we don’t use them like the right. It is important when we critique a trend that is deviating from the Marxist cause we do so in a principled and scientific manner. I also recognise there may be better terms than “woke left” but it is the term that is being used and I believe it is important to recognise that when the right use the term they point to a real problem recognised within the left which has led to the decline of parties like Socialist Party and People Before Profit. It is my hope that this article will clarify what it means to be “anti woke” on the left.
There are three components that socialists are usually referring to when they critique “the woke left”.
- Identity politics
- Cancel culture
- The lack of class-focused analysis
I recognise that in and of themselves two of these terms could also be referred to buzzphrases but I hope my explanation of them will be useful to demonstrate what our problem is and how we seek to address these problems.
Identity Politics
Any socialist organisation must defend the rights of all workers particularly those of marginalised backgrounds, the negation of the rights of one worker is the negation of the rights of all workers. Any socialist with any integrity will agree with such and any socialist organising will inevitably need to take a focus on the most pressing needs of the most marginalised worker as that is where the contradictions of capitalism lay the most bare.
The identity politics of the “woke left” is not the organising of marginalised communities by marginalised communities but it instead exists of a group of petite bourgeois leftists who morally grandstand over the deprived worker who has fallen to right wing lies about who is keeping the worker oppressed. This lecturing of working class communities only plays into the hands of the far right who even at their most bourgeois background do a better job of convincing workers that they themselves are workers than many of the leftists who actually are working class themselves.
The woke left also weaponises “marginalised voices” as a way of pushing party lines. For instance, Socialist Party only wishes to “centre trans voices” when they agree with their platform and are very quick to weaponise trans misogyny against those who do not. The socialist party depicts all trans people as sharing an ideology, an agreement on the nature of gender, trans healthcare and other politics. There is no room for disagreement especially if you are not trans yourself.
Cancel culture
There is a fear of contrasting views on the left which conflates all disagreement to its most extreme forms that anything less than total support is opposition. The highly sectarian nature of the left is nothing new, IRSP hates the Worker’s Party, the Worker’s Party hates the Communist Party, everyone hates Sinn Féin but the most recent sectarian lines within the left has been an expansion on cancelling as a response to all disagreements. Let me acknowledge that cancel culture was started in response to the lack of action on sexual violence against women.
That was a noble cause and when it was expanded to target bigotry it was something that was needed when people did not care about actual hatred of minorities and oppressed groups there needed to be an extreme response. This is not what I am talking about, what I am talking about is how the woke left systemically blocks out criticism of itself via dirty tactics like accusations of fascism or the weaponising of trans misogyny. Criticism scares people especially on topics like immigration, gender or the far right but these are debates that need to be had when we recognise that the left is losing ground on these topics. Especially when a lot of regular people are scared of facing harassment for believing the wrong thing and there is basis for that as people have been insulted for saying the wrong thing even when they have good intentions and I get how this sounds people have used this argument for bigotry, but that is not what we are doing here.
The woke left’s platform which does not allow for critique responding by trying to oust socialists for comradely criticism needs to be addressed. I am not the first to point out that cancel culture most negatively affects the marginalized groups they claim to protect; weaponisation of trans misogyny and racial bias have been used to carry out grave injustices on minorities within the socialist or left movement.
The Lack of Class-Focused Analysis
As Marxists, we must be class first in our analysis of all things and we must be able to recognise that People Before Profit which once had its bases in the working classes having incredible work with the water charges protests have slowly lost that base and has presently failed to develop a proper class based answer to the far right. People Before Profit has repeatedly failed conflating the working communities with the bigots amongst them who are successfully sparking the anti immigrant riots
People Before Profit are unable to reach the people with their campaign as they are unable to spark a radical housing movement instead mostly attempting and largely failing to co-opt CATU. Their latest “Keep Left” campaign is nothing but a weak electoral alliance that fundamentally fails in its analysis of the presidential election which I believe was an overall loss for the left. The left needs to regain its working class character or it will fail.
Conclusion
These three elements that I believe characterise the “woke left” are the things I believe we are all critiquing when we talk about parties like Socialist Party and People Before Profit. They are not our only criticisms but they do provide a picture of what we are trying to build against. As socialists we have a large body of work that needs doing and I believe that creating a class focused left where criticism and differing views can lead not to more splits and drama but can actively build the socialist movement and defeat fascism to bring about a 32-county democratic socialist republic.