Is Wokism a Religion?
No.
Let’s disabuse people of the false belief that “wokism” is a new religion.
What is Wokism?
The term “wokism” derives from the claim that some people are “woke” by recognizing certain progressive-tinted truths about race, gender, etc. I am not sure the term maps neatly onto the world. We certainly have no clear definition yet. But I take it to consist of at least six theses:
Strong Egalitarianism - wokism affirms the equality of persons, including equality of the races, sexes, and genders. It is suspicious of social hierarchy, including voluntarily agreed upon hierarchy, and hierarchy in private spaces. In general, all hierarchies threaten equality and oppression and so require deconstruction.
Radical Social Construction - wokism holds that nearly all identities, if not all, are the product of human beliefs and practices. That includes, in many cases, the distinction between biological males and females, but not always. Wokism does not necessarily affirm the social construction of all metaphysical claims, just specific claims about human nature (or lack thereof).
Structural Realities - wokists tend to think that the categories of unequal treatment and oppression imply that social institutions can create unjust inequalities even if everyone within those institutions has the correct beliefs about race, gender, etc. Structures as such can be sexist, misogynistic, etc.
Pessimism about Social Change - while less essential to wokism, one often finds pessimism, for instance, that white people can ever truly set their anti-black racism aside. Conditions of oppression can improve, but they will never be eliminated. Progress is slow and quickly reverses itself.
Sectarianism - one commonly recognized feature of wokism is not so much what they believe but how they treat dissenters and critics. A part of wokism seems to be that disagreement with the woke is unreasonable. Disagreement originates in ignorance, bigotry, and probably some combination. No person fully aware of the relevant features of social reality could reject wokist theses 1-3. So, wokists have trouble working with the non-woke. That makes their social group look more like a sect than a movement.
No Mercy for Oppressors - for the woke, bigotry, and indeed culpable bigotry, is a pervasive feature of human life. Nonetheless, violators do not merit forgiveness or the ability to have their reputations wiped clean of past offenses. Indeed, offenses merit severe penalties, like losing one’s job.
We can call features 1-4 the theory of wokism and 5-6 the practice of wokism. Wokism is a series of beliefs about how to change the world.
Notice here how little wokism has to say about other arenas of life. It focuses primarily on an ethical and political claim that humans are equal, a metaphysical claim about the necessity and sources of hierarchy, and a methodological claim about how to relate individuals and institutions in understanding the dynamics of oppression.
Wokism says nothing about whether any religion is true or false; it does not list a complete set of human goods or give one a criterion for developing an account of the good life. It has very little to say about economic issues and little to say about how to structure institutions or resolve conflicts.
What is Religion?
Following philosopher Robert Audi, I treat “religion” as a cluster concept. Religions often but do not always include:
Appropriately internalized belief in one or more supernatural beings (gods);
Observance of a distinction between sacred and profane objects;
Ritual acts focused on those objects;
A moral code believed to be sanctioned by the god(s);
Religious feelings (awe, mystery, etc.) that tend to be aroused by (2) and (3);
Prayer and other communicative forms concerning the god(s);
A worldview according the individual a significant place in the universe;
A more or less comprehensive organization of life based on the worldview;
A social organization bound together by (1)–(8).
Audi’s definition of religion is good (even if there are others). It seems to include everything we’d ordinarily call a religion, and little of what we’d deny is a religion.
If Audi’s definition is good, wokism is not a religion. For instance, wokism has nothing to say about whether God or gods exist. There is no transcendent moral code, although the doctrine of equality is treated as objective and fundamental to morality and a person’s moral worth. There are no prayers or communicative forms about divinity. We’re not told whether the individual has significance in the universe. And there’s no comprehensive organization of life, only part of one.
Conditions 2 and 3 are more interesting. I think wokism distinguishes between sacred and profane objects, including forms of speech and discourse and different groups of people. Intersectionality helps us to identify the most holy objects, namely those oppressed along multiple dimensions (a Black transgender person, for example). It also allows us to identify profane things, like the cis white male. And it does have a certain kind of ritual focused on those objects, in terms of days celebrating the oppressed (holy days). But I fear much of what I just said is an exaggeration.
Condition 9 is also interesting. There’s no church of wokism, but it has a natural home in humanities departments on elite college campuses and often in human resource departments. So I would say that wokists have a kind of organization - a league of universities and specific departments within those universities. And then they have various camps in, say, the arts.
What, Then, is Wokism? A Slender Ideology
Wokism is not a religion. It may share features 2, 3, and some of 9 with the major religions. But that’s pretty dissimilar. And so, we should not call wokism a religion. That’s a distortion of what wokists believe and what a religion is. When people call wokism a religion, they want to show that it is irrational or hypocritical. Opponents of wokism should simply justify those claims. Don’t use religion as an extra step in your arguments.
I would say that wokism is a slender ideology. It is undoubtedly a political ideology that is thin in that it only addresses some social and political issues. That doesn’t mean wokism is true. But let’s get our categories right. It aids clear thinking.
