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Why is every institution in the country woke?
Richard Hanania recently joined Revolver’s Dr. Darren Beattie for a conversation on Hanania’s new book, The Origins of Woke. Though the term “woke” has become a ubiquitous feature of our political discourse, there has been precious little serious attention given to what “wokeness” actually is and, relatedly, what its true origins are. What little attention has been given to this question has often focused on exotic, though not entirely unfounded, explanations grounding wokeness as an outgrowth of degenerate strains of European philosophy. Hanania’s thesis, by contrast, argues that the phenomenon we recognize today as “wokeness” is an inevitable by-product of various features of American civil rights law. It follows, according to Hanania, that the most effective and direct way to combat wokeness is to address and disassemble its legal architecture.
What follows is a completely uncensored, engaged, and critical exploration of this thesis. Beattie and Hanania go deep on the origins of wokeness, what wokeness is, the tragedies of American civil rights law (it’s worse than you think), and delve into the more delicate questions concerning race and gender that inevitably orbit a serious conversation about such matters.
The conversation can also be viewed on the platform X:
Delighted to share this conversation on the "Origins of Woke" between me and Richard Hanania on X
Despite the fact that references to "wokeness" seemingly everywhere in our political discourse, precious little attention given to what it actually is, and still less to its… pic.twitter.com/KyCpNECecz
— Darren J. Beattie 🌐 (@DarrenJBeattie) November 2, 2023
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