Bethany Mandel, who with Karol Markowicz, wrote a book “Stolen Youth,” and so she went on tour to promote it, including an interview with Briahna Joy Gray and Robby Soave. It didn’t go well.
LOL: Briahna Joy Gray BREAKS the brain of Rising guest Bethany Mandel by asking her to define "wokeness" pic.twitter.com/uwRSSH0LaM
— The Vanguard (@vanguard_pod) March 14, 2023
On the one hand, she was sandbagged in that she wasn’t prepared to succinctly define a word that was born of the left to boldly pronounce their progressive ideology, subsequently seized upon by the right as a catch-all word for members of the progressive left. On the other hand, she should have been prepared for this question, even though it was a somewhat disingenuous question.
Did she freeze? Did she simply not have a ready answer that wouldn’t be simultaneously reductivist and exposed for attack because it was undefined when the left stole it from the black lexicon and captures so broad and malleable an ideology that no matter what answer is given, it will be inadequate and open to dispute?
Of course, that did’t have to be Mandel’s problem. She could have, and should have, had a ready response at hand when the crux of her book is condemn “woke” ideology with regard to children. By the fumfering response, the left saw it as proof that the conservative attack on the woke was devoid of meaning, whether they were attacking a strawman or that there was no such thing as the “woke” and hence the right couldn’t attack progressive ideology because they couldn’t define it.
Indeed, even MSNBC’s Rachel Lite put the clip on her show, characterizing Mandel’s answer by saying “something about oppression,” suggesting that Alex Wagner was unfamiliar with the word “hierarchy.”
Later, Mandel provided a definition on twitter, but there’s only one chance to make a first impression.
A radical belief system suggesting that our institutions are built around discrimination, and claiming that all disparity is a result of that discrimination. It seeks a radical redefinition of society in which equality of group result is the endpoint, enforced by an angry mob.
— Bethany S. Mandel (@bethanyshondark) March 15, 2023
While this definition is obviously better than what she had on hand for the interview, it still seems substantially inadequate. It doesn’t take into account the authoritarian zeal for censorship of “hate speech,” the denial of due process for those it hates, the presentism view of historical fact, the “ends justifies the means” rejection of principle for outcome or the narcissistic denial of science when it gets in the way of stereotypical group pseud0-individualism. And if I spent more time thinking about it, there are likely another dozen pieces to the woke puzzle that I’ve missed.
Many have tried to define “woke” from the right or center, but few on the left. There is a reason for this: it’s harder to hit a moving target, and definitions fix meaning and thus make it available as a target for criticism. You can’t criticize what you can’t define, as Orwell explained. Did anyone ask for a definition when people on the left proudly proclaimed themselves “woke”? Even if they had, and I don’t recall it happening, it would likely have been answered by reference to a particular issue or cause. And that would have been more than sufficient for the purpose of asserting a belief as to whatever was the issue du jour.
The issue now, a problem for the right and a shield for the left, is that now that “woke” has been turned from proud replacement for SJW into a pejorative by conservatives, its definition has become a battlefield rather than the overarching bundle of beliefs held by a group with no acceptable name.
Whether Bethany Mandel got caught may have been fodder for the left to ridicule, but does that mean there is no such thing as the “woke,” or if that word still triggers you, progressives? As Freddie deBoer wrote back in 2021:
Please Just Fucking Tell Me What Term I Am Allowed to Use for the Sweeping Social and Political Changes You Demand
If you ask these people, are you part of a social revolution?, they’ll loudly tell you yes! Yes they are! They’re going to shake society at its very foundations. Well, OK then -what do I call your movement? You reject every name that organically develops! I’ll use the name you pick, but you have to actually pick one. You can’t just bitch on Twitter every time someone tries to describe your political cohort, which again you yourself say intends to change the world. Name yourself or you will be named.
That Bethany Mandel used the word “woke” as a name with which to call a “movement” of people that obviously exists and is undeniably acting in furtherance of its ideology wasn’t because of a limiting definition, but because, well, they haven’t taken a name and stuck with it long enough to nail them down. No one is going to be convinced that no such thing exists because Mandel froze when asked for a definition. No one is going to be convinced that the issues raised don’t exist because of a word which defies easy definition because it captures such a wide-ranging array of beliefs. an ever-shifting bundle of outcomes obsessed with identities and hierarchies (there’s that word again, Alex) and victimhood and misery.
If it shouldn’t be called “woke,” then come up with a name that pleases you more. But if you do, that means Bethany Mandel will be able to use it too. And you refuse to let that happen.
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