Freedom of Expression and ‘Wokism’

‘Woke’ is used as a pejorative by those whose interests are challenged by those who are claiming the right to inclusion and equal consideration in society. The claimants – women, people of colour, people of alternative sexualties, people seeking to live their self-understanding, people denied optimal access to social goods and opportunities because of disabilities – until recently did not even have the right to demand their rights. Now they are doing so, and their claim challenges the interests – the interests, note; not, except in one significant respect, the rights – of those opposed to them. Add to the claimants those supremely anxious (as all should be) about the environment and global climate, and the battle array of the ‘woke wars’ is evident.

What is at stake for the woke side, and to declare an interest I am on that side, is perfectly illustrated by what the authoritarianism of Trump is targeting. He has put all Diversity, Equity and Inclusion staff ‘on leave’ in US public institutions, and threatened ‘adverse consequences’ to staff if they ‘fail to report on colleagues who defy orders to purge diversity, equity and inclusion efforts from their agencies’ (New York Times 23.1.25). He has declared by executive order that biological sex is an immutable binary, in the face of medical science’s understanding of foetal development and the associated complexities of genetic and hormonal processes. He has initiated an assault on migrants and those given or seeking asylum in the US. He has ordered the Justice Department to investigate officials who do not enforce these immigration policies, which include indiscriminate rounding-up and deportation of undocumented migrants. He has ordered 10,000 troops to the Mexican border. His dice-loaded Supreme Court has repealed Roe v Wade and put women’s control of their lives, and even indeed in too many cases their lives, at risk in the relevant respects. He has ‘pardoned’ hundreds of malefactors and insurrectionists, many of whom confessed to their crimes and some of whom already had long criminal records. Pardoning them is predicable enough from one who is himself a convicted felon.

The litany of authoritarian and far-right initiatives impugning human rights, civil liberties and the rule of law defines what ‘wokism’ is aimed at achieving; it defines ‘woke’ aims by targeting them. Authoritarian reaction to social justice initiatives is the clearest portrayal of what those initiatives are.

To repeat, the clash is between rights, as demanded by claimants, and interests – the interests of those placed in circumstances of economic and social privilege who do not face discrimination on grounds of their colour, gender or minority status. But there is a significant exception: the right to freedom of expression, which cancelling and no-platforming activism threatens. Here one needs to cut through some tangles.

First, note that freedom of expression was for a long time a privilege of the privileged, because they owned the means of expression and excluded others from using them. Now there are means – notably social media – for the historically disadvantaged to make their case, in the process demanding that those who had formerly monopolised expression should shut up so that the voices of the formerly-suppressed can be heard. The former monopolists – conservatives, anti-wokists – now claim the moral high ground as defenders of freedom of expression in response.

But those on the woke side themselves need freedom of expression in order to make their case, so when cancelling and no-platforming enacts on their opponents what they themselves formerly suffered in the way of having their voices stifled, they meet a wrong with a wrong. How is one to think through this? Must anti-discrimination campaigners tolerate Nazis, homophobes, sexists, hate-speakers? No: because with their own freedom of expression they can call them out, criticise them, expose the content and consequences of what they say, hold them to account – not by silencing them but by letting them condemn themselves out of their own mouths.

As it happens, society itself cancels and no-platforms through legislation against hate speech, and it cancels criminals by imprisoning them; and there are egregious cases – Harvey Weinstein type cases – where cancelling is appropriate and justified. But such cancelling has to be effected through due process, which mob pile-ons via social media are not; there the angry are prosecutor, judge and jury rolled into one, and in severe cases the result is a life-sentence, because branding by public shaming in too many cases appears to admit of neither appeal nor reform. When freedom of expression is denied to anyone, it threatens to do so for all – as the Trump-type reaction painfully illustrates.

Here is what I say about freedom of expression in my forthcoming (April 2025) book Discriminations:

‘Freedom of expression is fundamental to all rights. Without freedom of expression there cannot be law under which accusation and defence is possible. Without freedom of expression there cannot be education worth the name, if information cannot be communicated, and if ideas and points of view cannot be expressed, examined and criticised. Without freedom of expression there cannot be a democratic political process in which policies can be proposed and likewise examined and criticised. Without freedom of expression there cannot be a free press. Without freedom of expression there cannot be art and literature worth their names. Without freedom of expression there cannot be individual choices of lifestyle (which respect others’ right in the same regard; that is their right to freedom of expression). Without freedom of expression one cannot campaign for social justice. Without freedom of expression, in short, one cannot lay claim to, and exercise, any of one’s rights, or to try to change society for the better. It is therefore fundamental.

But “fundamental” does not mean “absolute”. There are justified cases in which it can be qualified; already mentioned is e.g. the need in wartime to censor the press lest an enemy garner important information. There is the familiar case in which irresponsible use of the freedom can cause harm – shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theatre when there is no fire is the standard example. This prompts the question, When is free expression “irresponsible”? The answer has to be given case by case, and has to have a justification that will withstand severe scrutiny.

As pertinent as the “when” question is the “how” question: How should one apply one’s right to freedom of expression? Inflammatory rhetoric, abuse, misinformation, ad hominem attacks and vilification, spite, and even most forms of cruelty and hatred, are licensed by freedom of expression, but pervert it. They hurt individuals and damage society. A civilised person will eschew such behaviour. But that does not rule out robust, plain-spoken, well-informed, well-organised and well-directed assertion of view or criticism of opposing views. This is in any case far more effective than inflamed rhetoric and abuse, and far more constructive. To see someone whose views you strongly oppose wither to defeat under the evidence and arguments you produce is not merely infinitely more satisfying than hurling invectives at him, which serves only to entrench him in his position and invites abuse back, but has a greater chance of winning others to your cause and to advancing the good you wish to see flourish.

Freedom of expression is a right; right ways of exercising it matter for protection of the right itself. To defeat an opponent requires knowing thoroughly what his position is – so it serves you that he exercises his freedom of expression – and being able to distinguish whether there is anything in it that is justified or at least explicable, not just what is wrong with it. That correlatively requires understanding the strengths and weaknesses of one’s own position, and the degree to which one’s emotional commitments colour, perhaps obscure, the weaknesses in it.

The problem faced by minorities who suffer under social and economic discrimination is how to get their point across – and acted upon – given how much the dice are loaded against them. The frustration they feel explains, whether or not it justifies, why they shout and shoulder-charge the doors locked against them. On the other side, their opponents’ refusal to listen exacerbates matters; conservatives who become hysterical about the “threat to civilisation” from the frustrations they themselves cause have their portion of blame.’ [end of excerpt]

The bottom line is this: One must never forget that those who combat discrimination once did not even have the right to demand their rights. Since the mid-twentieth century the Western world has been engaged in a transition, a major readjustment, away from millennia-long oppressions and towards justice, led by the oppressed themselves. Social and mainstream media emphasise extreme statements and actions in support of rights and (by their opponents) in defence of interests: this should not be allowed to distract from the important fact that underlying the noise is a world-historical struggle for equality of rights for every individual. It is self-defeating to oppose wrongs with the same wrongs: to make things better, one has to do better.

The emergence of authoritarianism in the so-called ‘advanced’ democracies of the West, with its push-back against campaigns for social justice, inclusion and rights, has not popped up out of nowhere. Its seeds and roots have always been here, but under the post-1945 consensus was long hidden or muffled. Now in the US, Austria, Germany, Italy, France, the Netherlands, Hungary the movement is towards (in Hungary and Austria, now in the US, already there) the situation obtaining in China, North Korea, Turkey. ‘Woke’ causes have gained much since the 1960s, a welcome achievement; the reaction is now setting in, and the decibel level and extremism on the furthest wings of both Right and Left have increased. What is at stake - individual human rights, social justice, inclusion - is far too important for the debate to be left to exacerbated polarisation and the dramatised simplisticisms of the media. What it is simple to say but hard to do - to cleave to principle with courage - has to be the option for those who support the causes at issue.