Wake-up call

 

Do you perhaps remember Kukliński, a character from one of Szaniawski's dramas? Kukliński was known for his favorite saying, which went: 'In my youth, I inscribed on my banner: (here, depending on the current need of the moment, noble values like progress were mentioned) and I persist'... One can calmly say that the social trend or phenomenon known as 'wokeism' has inscribed the slogans of tolerance and social justice on its banner today. The name 'woke' refers to events that took place in the USA in the 1930s, when several Black men were hastily and unjustly sentenced to death for rape. This event became the proverbial drop that overflowed the cup of bitterness – the African American community henceforth shed its illusions; it woke up and saw: social injustice based on race and its own harm... This was the beginning of the movement that today appears, among others, under the name 'Black Lives Matter,' but more broadly, as wokeism, it aims to fight for the rights of many other groups. To somehow explain the nature of this phenomenon, we usually accept that minorities and their rights play the role of a surrogate proletariat for woke activists, meaning that woke is a new iteration of Marxism. However, this is an attempt to understand by analogy, as woke needs to be distinguished from Marxism – it seems to draw from older traditions... How did you feel when you first heard the words in the public sphere that later came to represent the first five of the eight stars? Were you speechless that someone dared to break the convention? Were you outraged that no one did anything about it? After this precedent, the apparent debate in the mainstream lasted only a moment as to whether it was appropriate for such unparliamentary slogans to enter usage... Among others, Professor Środa legitimized it, and it was quickly established that – there was no choice – given the temperature of ideological conflicts, language appropriate to them must be used and... – the die was cast – it was sanctioned... Szaniawski does not equip Kukliński with even a homeopathic dose of humor... This lack, combined with the proud conviction of this character about actually representing all the virtues inscribed on the banner, does not foster reader sympathy. The same deadly seriousness and the custom of parading with slogans written on banners characterize the mentioned awakened contingents... Marches, waving props, armed with emphatic slogans – the military nomenclature is aptly used here. The very word slogan – and the appeal 'stay woke' is a call for vigilance, comes from the Scottish Gaelic language and sounded: sluagh-ghairm, and it meant a war cry used by Scottish clans to intimidate the enemy and serve mobilization on the battlefield. The meaning of the term 'slogan' has evolved and now signifies a catchy phrase aimed at attracting attention and... indeed, the woke movement has managed to attract attention – detractors argue that primarily by the extent of distortion of the originally noble idea – because the concept of being aware of manifestations of social injustice, among other things, on racial grounds has degenerated and now largely encompasses similarly brutal, zealous leftist ideology. This novelty, which we helplessly gaze at, is based on a foundation constituting an amalgam of critical race theory and social justice studies. Specifically, this justice is understood by woke in a unique way... – it critically, and even more – hostilely and arrogantly, refers to virtually all structures of hierarchy. It claims that injustice, even if not visible, is present in the very structures of power and is a common component of Western civilization. And that's why these structures, along with the entire known world of the white man, are censured by woke activists. An agitated journalist recently asked a participant in a competing LGBT rights march, which coincided with the March for Life and Family, why they organized their march on that day. He received an answer, not entirely understandable, repeated over and over, like in the old children's game 'tomato': a phrase. The journalist was in a losing position, why? He represented the old order, in which the concept of exchange of thoughts in dialogue is one of the means of reaching an agreement... However, for the woke movement, the very phenomenon of debate is to be rejected because it represents the culture in which it developed. In short: discussions with adherents of, for example, gender are out of the question because one of the slogans of wokeness is: 'My existence is not up for debate' – that is why attempts at persuasion are met with such surprisingly strong emotional reactions... Even expressing doubt is a questioning of the existence and rights of the weak... One must also add the fact that feelings have a decidedly higher rank in the hierarchy of woke values, and it is precisely the feelings of the groups under its protective umbrella that woke protects. All of the above makes wokeness an incomprehensible peculiarity for us, because as those raised in a culture with Christian roots, we are accustomed to considering reason and will as the supreme human faculties, and consequently, valuing our European restraint as a manifestation of self-control... According to Thomists, reason and will are the higher faculties of the soul (the only ones not tied to the body), and I have not encountered any sources asserting that woke believes in the existence of the soul... But it certainly, with redoubled force, believes in the body and elevates many bodily aspects to the role of an idol. It is frightening how unrestrained woke is – it is more reminiscent of an angry, revolutionary crowd, which is why it is often referred to in English-speaking sources not as the woke movement but as the 'woke mob' – a mob. One shudders to imagine the actual realization of the goals inscribed on the banners of wokeness, goals that the movement wants to impose on everyone tainted by Western, male-centric white culture... These are:

1. Making everyone discover the truth about themselves as someone deeply prejudiced against others,
2. Dismantling structural manifestations of white supremacy and eliminating all discrimination (the so-called dismantling of white supremacy),
3. Forcing the reworking of toxic patterns of masculinity (the so-called detoxification of male supremacy),
4. Revising the understanding of knowledge by considering diverse cultural perspectives (the so-called decolonization of the concept of knowledge).

The scale we observe in the implementation of these new orders no longer resembles the sluggish march through institutions, it smells of revolution and the dictatorship of a new totalitarianism capable of sweeping away old structures, even those on the left. Even leftist politicians feel threatened; one of them, for example, stated that 'in the long run, the radical left is a greater threat to liberalism than national populism because while the latter is well-known and defined, wokeism radicalizes and takes over liberal ideals, thereby weakening the liberal political tradition, for which one of the chief virtues is tolerance, assuming rather peaceful coexistence than forced re-education and exclusion of the resistant' – this is the essence of Bartłomiej Sienkiewicz's statement... In 2018, conclusions from 12-month research on the political system in Poland and Hungary were published. It was argued that Poland and Hungary are drifting towards authoritarianism, eliminating checks and balances, populism is spreading, etc. Ultimately, it was decided to name the set of attitudes characterized, among other things, by Manichaeism (an outlook in which politics is a struggle between good and evil), populism, anti-pluralism, and subservience to a strong leader, as tribalism. And it is precisely with this pre-state period in human history that woke is associated – it is an aggressive, warlike tribe with deities, beliefs, totems, and sanctions. Although woke is only in its infancy here, it has already made itself known in some places in the world. It is worth taking advantage of the experience of those who, after the initial shock, have managed to pull themselves together and warn, passing on their conclusions. The idea for this text is owed to John Cleese, who has had woke in his sights for some time and observes... It is not by chance that it is John Cleese who drew attention to woke – woke does much to make the world deadly serious, and John will never allow that.