The Origins of Wokeness

I've often been asked to define both wokeness and political correctness by people who think they're meaningless labels, so I will. They both have the same definition:

An aggressively performative focus on social justice.

Wokeness is sometimes described as a mind-virus. What makes it viral is that it defines new types of impropriety. Most people are afraid of impropriety; they're never exactly sure what the social rules are or which ones they might be breaking. Especially if the rules change rapidly. And since most people already worry that they might be breaking ru... See more

Political correctness seemed to burn out in the second half of the 1990s. One reason, perhaps the main reason, was that it literally became a joke. It offered rich material for comedians, who performed their usual disinfectant action upon it. Humor is one of the most powerful weapons against priggishness of any sort, because prigs, being humorless,... See more

When your market was determined by geography, you had to be neutral. But publishing online enabled — in fact probably forced — newspapers to switch to serving markets defined by ideology instead of geography.