one’s ideology resonates with the subject’s unconscious investments, shaped by one’s socio-aesthetic milieu.
— Number2018

People in very similar social-aesthetic milieu’s can go very different directions. Are we starting to talk more about any activism, and not something particular to wokeness? “Unconscious” is not conscious intention. Likewise, one’s “milieu” is outside of and separate from the subject (woven together, but distinguishable). All of these outside forces shaping activist behavior, seems to build a lot of psychological room for a lack of responsibility and accountability. Is that what you are saying is a feature of wokeness? I don’t think I’m following you anymore. Are you saying that the drive toward woke activism (wherever it comes from) is a drive to shirk responsibility? — Fire Ologist

You're right to point out that people in similar environments don’t all make the same choices. But one doesn’t become a woke activist simply by making a clear, conscious decision. Often, something pulls a person in. It can be a sense of injustice, guilt, compassion, or even the feeling of being on the “right side.”
These feelings aren’t just the result of rational deliberation. They come from how one is shaped by their environment, as well as by unconscious needs for recognition, and belonging. So, it's not accurate to say that people become woke to “avoid responsibility.” Rather, wokeness often stems from unconscious motivations that are more complex than we usually admit.
Let’s take Žižek’s critique, for example.

Zizek discusses the obsession with public confessions, guilt, and self-humiliation. This is one of key features of woke discourse. He calls this a “victimhood culture.” Individuals often describe themselves not as victims but as complicit or privileged (even as “predators”). Žižek argues that this act of self-denunciation becomes a way to gain moral legitimacy. By confessing guilt, they position themselves within a “victimhood culture,” where acknowledging one's wrongdoing paradoxically grants a kind of moral authority. But Žižek points that this self-denial doesn’t cancel privilege. Instead, it transforms and maintains it. By claiming the position of the morally wounded or perpetually self-critical subject, the woke individual asserts a universal moral authority, one that is difficult to challenge. For Žižek, the 'woke' individual is not simply manipulated or programmed; rather, their position is often shielded from rational critique because it satisfies unconscious desires for moral legitimacy and identity. In this thread, you and other posters noted that it's often difficult to maintain a dialogue or structured discourse with 'woke' individuals. They appear to be convinced from the outset of the righteousness of their moral or ideological stance. How would you explain this phenomenon in a way that differs from Žižek’s interpretation?

Instead, values are affirmed through their capacity to open new possibilities for subjectivity.

Yes, but it seems debatable if this is itself good, no? Or, in virtue of what are new possibilities good? It does not seem to be true prima facie at least. Not all possibilities seem worthy of actualization. Indeed, to elevate potency over actuality is arguably to confuse self-determining, reflexive freedom with arbitrariness. I am aware that Deleuze has responses here; I am not sure if they are adequate though. — Count Timothy von Icarus

The emergence of new forms or possibilities of life should not be celebrated simply because they appear novel or transgressive. Instead, we should measure their true potential by how well they can resist absorption into dominant systems. This includes resisting commodification and turning into marketable lifestyles. Also, they should avoid recoding by systems of recognition that make them legible, or manageable. And they should oppose reincorporation into cycles of reproduction of normative social structures. To affirm difference means to cultivate ways of being that exceed the prescribed constraints without being captured and neutralized.

I would imagine this is probably the main question vis-á-vis Nietzsche's positive claims: it they succeed in escaping nihilism or the charge of arbitrariness (or comporting with intuitions about the good). In virtue of what, ultimately, are new values choiceworthy? Nietzsche is a very keen diagnostician of Enlightenment ethics, but the vibrancy of the critique doesn't necessarily support any particular positive formulation to replace what has been undermined. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Indeed, this may constitute the central problem of Nietzsche’s project of revaluation. On one hand, nihilism marks the collapse of transcendent foundations. On the other, if anything is permitted, new values risk becoming mere matters of preference or lapsing into aestheticism. For Deleuze, the solution lies in rethinking what it means to value. There is no need to justify values by appealing to external normative foundations. Instead, values are affirmed through their capacity to open new possibilities for subjectivity. In this framework, values are not arbitrarily chosen but created through collective processes. What renders new values choiceworthy is not their adherence to an external norm, but their transformative power. “The good is the elevation of the active forces, the triumph of affirmation” (DR, p. 55). Considering this, one might ask: how would a Nietzschean evaluate wokeness? Does it primarily express ressentiment, or does it cultivate solidarity and new cultural modes of life?

I think you're right and bring up some good points. My point would be that other maladaptive thymotic outlets are not so straightforwardly corrosive for politics and civic virtue.

For instance, two things I've noted before:

This phenomena [the maladaptive search for thymos] isn't unique to the far-right. I think it explains many trends across our culture, e.g., the widespread popularity of post-apocalyptic media. The basic idea there is: "if everything falls apart I can actually become a hero, actually have a meaningful life, rather than living a meaningless life where I have been reduced to a bovine consumer," or even "war or crisis will help make me into something more heroic." [Note: whether he is read correctly or not, I think this phenomena explains something of the enduring appeal of Nietzsche in our era]. And this also helps explain other changes in patterns of consumption (e.g. "tactical" everything flying off the shelves, people driving off-road vehicles for their suburban commutes, etc.).

The effects of this sort of thinking are particularly strong in the sphere of gender politics because sex is one of the last elements of human life not to be wholly commodified. Hence, sex remains a strong source of validation, a source of self-worth. And yet, as de Beauvoir points out, Hegel's lord-bondsman dialectic ends up playing out between men and woman here, because the misogynist, having denigrated woman, can no longer receive meaningful recognition from her. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Your point raises a fundamental question about the status and value of thymotic desire under the conditions of late capitalism. It seems we share the view that what is called “wokeness” has become embedded in adaptive, performative mechanisms of neutralized subjectivity. Recognition and the search for meaning become managed within existing capitalist structures.
Still, are there genuinely non-conformist or maladaptive thymotic outlets that stand outside or oppose to capitalist capture? As Deleuze and Guattari argue, desire is never pre-social. It does not originate from a pure, inner core of the individual, but is always produced within and through social assemblages. In capitalism, desire is no longer primarily repressed; instead, it is mobilized and redirected. It functions as an engine of productivity, consumption, and identity formation. Thus, the desire to be heroic, to be recognized, to live through crisis is intensely exploited by media, and consumer practices.
As Franco Berardi observes in ‘Heroes’, the epic form of heroism dissolved with the acceleration and abstraction of modern life. In its place, we find “gigantic machines of simulation”. Corporate structures and affective apparatuses produce mass illusions and manage subjectivities:
“The epic form of heroism disappeared towards the end of modernity, when the complexity and speed of human events overwhelmed the force of the will. Epic heroism was replaced by gigantic machines of simulation... Here lies the origin of the late-modern form of tragedy: at the threshold where illusion is mistaken for reality, and identities are perceived as authentic forms of belonging.” (Berardi, 'Heroes', p. 5)
You are right to point out that sex and gender, remaining the most intimate and affectively charged aspects of life, have not been fully commodified. But they also cannot be treated as primordial sources of authenticity or recognition. What we witness today is the amplification of gender struggles as zones of intervention, modulation, and mutation of desire.
All in all, these are not straightforward thymotic outlets. Instead, they are complex sites of negotiation. As Berardi notes:
“Identity is not naturally ascribed; it is the effect of the hypostatization, fixation, and naturalization of cultural difference… Identity is the opposite of style, which is singularity—a map of orientation, flexible and adaptable, retroactively changing.”
(Berardi, 'Heroes', p. 123)
Capitalism thus plays a double game with desire. From one side, capitalism fixes and commodifies it, but also keeps it permanently flowing and mutating. In this condition, resistance cannot rely on reclaiming “pure” desire or returning to a pre-capitalist authenticity. Rather, we may learn to track, map, and aesthetically engage with the ongoing dynamics of desire.

subjectivity emerges as the culmination of processes of aesthetic enunciation. An aesthetic reconfiguration of experience incorporates elements of the unconscious subjectivity, which operates beyond conscious intention.
— Number2018

Does this operation “beyond conscious intention” serve to select the matter one is active about (environment or trans or women’s rights), or does this operation beyond conscious intention make one an activist at all, as part of one’s aesthetic reconfiguration? Are activists activists because they can’t help it; or are they activists against capitalism and not against racism because they can’t help it? — Fire Ologist

Let me re-formulate your questions: Is activism an effect of an involuntary process of subjectivation (i.e. “one can’t help it”)? Does this process also determine the cause one takes up (e.g., anti-capitalism vs. anti-racism)?
Likely, one does not “decide” to be an activist in a fully autonomous, intentional sense. Instead, a need to stabilize identity or a desire for recognition, beyond individual control, draws one into it. So, in a sense, one “can’t help it,” but not because one is a passive victim of manipulation. From another perspective, the content of activism (environment, trans rights, anti-capitalism, etc.) may not be simply chosen, nor is it arbitrary. The activist might feel aligned with anti-capitalism or anti-racism because one’s ideology resonates with the subject’s unconscious investments, shaped by one’s socio-aesthetic milieu.

Are you saying that capitalism has produced activists operating beyond conscious intention? If this is what you are saying, why is this peculiar to capitalism? — Fire Ologist

For Zizek, activism often operates as a displacement of desire. The radical energy that cannot confront capitalism gets sublimated into more manageable, identity-based struggles. In a sense, wokeness may simultaneously express political powerlessness and a mode of enjoyment. So, activism may be both an expression of unconscious desire and an adaptive performative mechanism within the late capitalist subjectivity.

The lack of any sort of thymotic outlet leads to activism for activism's sake. That is not the same thing as a self-conscious rejection of liberalism per se, nor even a recognition of its spiritual and moral emptiness. All it requires is that activism becomes a sort of performative outlet for the desire for recognition that is otherwise frustrated in a society of atomized "worker/consumers." — Count Timothy von Icarus

In principle, I agree with your general evaluation of contemporary activism, which may also help qualify the nature of “wokeness.” However, the notion of “activism for activism’s sake” requires a more nuanced and elaborated analysis. What you describe as “the lack of any sort of thymotic outlet” appears to stand in tension with the potent vigour and intensity of emotional expression and the clear sense of authenticity that are often embedded within activist practices.
The idea of a “performative outlet for the desire for recognition” points to a broader performative enactment of contemporary subjectivity. Likely, it implicates not only those engaged in activist practices but also affects all of us. Félix Guattari’s framework shows that subjectivity emerges as the culmination of processes of aesthetic enunciation. An aesthetic reconfiguration of experience incorporates elements of the unconscious subjectivity, which operates beyond conscious intention.
For Guattari, aesthetics is not limited to artistic production or the traditional domain of art. Rather, it represents a broader mode of subjectivation that occupies a central place in the dynamics of contemporary capitalism. In this sense, the aesthetic dimension of activism may reflect a deeper transformation of subjectivity under capitalist conditions, where novel forms of expression and recognition are constantly negotiated. So, the sense of identity is no longer a fixed essence but becomes something performatively achieved and continually redefined.

The dissolution of custom and culture brings with it its own tensions, since there is no longer a "binding together" of ends and identity. To some extent, this is papered over by making pluralism and the destruction of custom its own goal. But this cannot go on forever. Eventually there isn't much left to transgress or destroy except for liberalism and pluralism itself. I think that's pretty much the stage we have gotten to. Once that sort of "call to activism in service to liberalism" is no longer an option (because neoliberalism has won) only the pleasures of epithumia—i.e., sensible pleasures, wealth, and safety—are left to support liberalism. Hence, those seeking thymos (honor, recognition) or any higher logos (as against the emptiness or "decadence" of an epithumia culture) will end up turning against liberalism. I think you can see this in "Woke" and the "Alt-Right." — Count Timothy von Icarus

It is an interesting observation, but it has two controversial theses. First, that neoliberalism is a completed project with no real internal challengers. Second, that both the ‘Woke’ and the ‘Alt-Right’ are united in their rejection of liberalism, driven by its perceived spiritual or moral emptiness. However, if we accept that neoliberalism has indeed won but continues to evolve and accelerate, then both ‘Woke’ and ‘Alt-Right’ movements can be understood as distinct expressions of contemporary subjectivity. Each, in its own way, seeks to overcome the collapse of older structures of meaning and reflects a search for identity and moral certainty. Yet, as Žižek argues, contemporary identity-based activism poses no real threat to the neoliberal order, which is capable of absorbing even its most vocal critics.

In the mirror, we are naked, the other’s gaze is returned to us in judgement. We have been ejected from paradise and condemned to know ourselves through the filter of the other. We must dress ourselves in social clothes to be acceptable. We must look as such and act as such. The very form of our body in the mirror presents not so much as a physical limitation (functionally, humans are very similar) but a social limitation. This is how I appear to the other now and I cannot but appear so, for, look, this is what I am! And it is limited! I cannot satisfy the other’s desire. I cannot fully become its desire and as the other is installed in my very self-awareness as a fundamental context for my intentional acts—the internal mirror of non-positional awareness where both of us must necessarily lurk—I can never be, insofar as I am socially integrated consciousness (i.e. a sane member of society), what I want to be. So, something has certainly gone wrong in that I am forced to accept a limitation, an unfillable lacuna in the self which is a necessary condition of the only self I know how to be. — Baden

What is the way out?

The way out must begin with a refusal to search, but it cannot be a purely negative act. — Baden

Sartre, Lacan, and Althusser present various views on the structural embeddedness of social inscription. But they all suggest that the subject’s desire for self-awareness and wholeness remains ultimately unattainable, as the internal mirror of self-reflection becomes a site of external imposition and the internalization of social norms. The gaze of the Other produces a fully formed yet alienated and internally divided subjectivity. There are different attempts to move beyond totalizing conceptions of subject constitution. Thus, Butler emphasizes the importance of attending to the transient moment of the subject’s emergence. “The form that at first appears as external, pressing power is relentlessly marked by a figure of turning, a turning back upon oneself or even a turning on oneself. This figure operates as part of the explanation of how a subject is produced, and so there is no subject, strictly speaking, who makes this turn.” (Butler, ‘The Psychic Life of Power, p. 7) In this gesture, Butler aims to access a space outside the mirror-like structure of self-recognition or the ideological scene of interpellation.

@Fire Ologist @LeontiskosMore simply, a philosophy forum is about deliberation, and we deliberate about that which we are conscious of, not what we are unconscious of. The only way that unconscious entities can be brought to bear within a deliberative philosophy forum is by first bringing them into consciousness.
— Leontiskos

I only intended my reference to Deleuze and his notions of the unconscious and the pre-consciousness for Number2018, because Deleuze is important to his thinking, and he brought him into the discussion.

I don’t want my position to be misread as a claim that when we deliberate we may be blind to the true motives and meanings of what we are trying to reason about. For any ideas which are important to us, it is a mistake to say they are unconscious or that we are unaware of them. The challenge we often deal with is in articulating why and how they are important to us. — Joshs

Namely by jumping back into the topic of the OP and seeing how long we last until we start talking past one another. I like to think I succeeded in not talking past Number2018 in my back and forth with him over his OP. My aim there was threefold.

1) to clarify the concepts of affect and rationality that he was employing by tracing them back to the references he provided( Massumi, Luhemann, Deleuze, Foucault).
2) to establish that there are other ways of interpreting Deleuze and Foucault in line with contemporary philosophical and psychological perspectives on the relation between affect and reason which integrates them more closely than his approach does .
3) To show the implications of this alternative approach for his account of wokism. — Joshs

We are still here in this thread because what is commonly referred to as “wokeness” concerns all of us. We consider this issue to be urgently important, and each of us is attempting to bring our philosophical background to clarify it. All of us apply here a solid theoretical foundation. We try to better understand wokeness and the nature of our own engagement with it. Perhaps most importantly, it allows us to reflect more critically on ourselves.Yet the challenge with wokeness lies in its resistance to precise definition or straightforward philosophical inquiry. Its meaning shifts depending on political perspective, social context, and rhetorical intent. Likely, what makes wokeness so urgent is its implicit relation to power. Its influence is subtle, diffuse, and often operates below the level of conscious awareness.The term unconscious is often overused and should not be understood here in a purely psychological sense. Rather, it refers to a regime that operates across heterogeneous domains and develops a cumulative strategic resonance. This regime produces specific expressions of identity and morality as true and authentic. These expressions do not appear as such due to objective empirical evidence, but because of how they resonate within affective and social contexts.

@Leontiskos@Joshs@Count Timothy von Icarus

My position is that true progress in thought requires an acknowledgment of how we, and our thinking are impacted by the same affective forces and assemblages that shaped figures like Eichmann or contemporary "woke" individuals. This is not a moral equivalence but an ontological and epistemological commitment. Affective investments shape all subjectivity, including our own.
— Number2018

Bringing it back home again to the thesis.

So we no longer need care about what is different between “woke” and “Nazi” in order to discuss this subject?

I think error theory is essential here - wokism is error obfuscation. And wokism puts emotion first. — Fire Ologist

Even in writing here, we likely operate under the same general conditions that enable and reinforce what we now call wokeness. As Foucault reminds us:"The strategic adversary is fascism... not only historical fascism, the fascism of Hitler and Mussolini—which was able to mobilize and use the desire of the masses so effectively—but also the fascism in us all, in our heads and in our everyday behavior, the fascism that causes us to love power, to desire the very thing that dominates and exploits us." (Preface to Anti-Oedipus, p. 13)
Following Foucault’s warning, one can find that our discourses often exhibit a kind of affective resonance, marked by overlapping expressions of identity and moral values. This phenomenon cannot be reduced to individual psychology or collective emotion.
A systems theorist Niklas Luhmann argues that under certain systemic conditions, memory ceases to function as a personal retrieval of the past. Instead, it becomes a functional, situationally enacted element within broader communicative systems. Today, digital media structures largely determine the selection of what counts as meaningful references to the past. In parallel, memory politics emerges as a struggle over the circulation of selectively chosen content and facts. Based on such systemically produced memory, affectively charged networks generate discursive effects of credibility and authenticity. In this context, genuineness is no longer grounded primarily in personal sincerity or factual correspondence. In online discourse and media- mediated domains of public life the distinction between 'truth' and 'lie' often does not comply with the binary of factual accuracy versus intentional deception. Therefore, wokeness represents a relatively localized phenomenon of affective-driven regime of truth within broader contemporary tendencies. For Foucault, a regime of truth refers not simply to "what is true," but to the systems of discourses and power relations that maintain what is accepted as truth.Truth is produced historically and tied to power. So, Foucault’s insight about 'the fascism in us all' can serve as a provocation to examine the contemporary epistemic and affective shifts that impact our subjectivity.

@Leontiskos

If one continues to draw one thinking from such pre-conscious interests, one will remain within a status quo even as one attempts to makes changes within itself. The unconscious however is transformative
change in thinking, opening up lines of flight which alter what is at issue, what matters and how it matters — Joshs

It is an idealized interpretation of Deleuze’s concept of the line of flight. A line of flight is not necessarily liberatinary or revolutionary in a moral or political sense.“Lines of flight are not always lines of emancipation; they can also be lines of death.” ('A thousand plateaus', pg 298)

For Deleuze, whether Eichmann was an enthusiastic supporter of Nazi ideology or andisinterested bureaucrat the diagnosis is the same. Eichmann was ensconced within a social collectivity in such a way as to validate the most extensive rational deliberation he might attempt to justify his actions. — Joshs

This statement assumes a relatively stable, unified subject capable of rational deliberation. From a Deleuzian perspective, subjectivity is not fixed or whole but emergent, and produced. Deleuze would be less concerned with whether Eichmann was a committed ideologue or a passive bureaucrat. Instead, he would likely focus on how Eichmann’s subjectivity was transformed. Also, he could try to answer a question of an authenticity of his denials of committing crimes. And this issue is a reason for my interest in the Eichmann's case, it could help to further elaborate our approach to wokeness. A Deleuzian reading would not treat Eichmann’s memory or denials as simply true or false statements made by a self-transparent subject. Rather, it would see them as effects of an emergent subjectivity. For Luhmann, memory is re-produced by evolving systemic conditions. In a sense, Eichmann followed a line of flight as a means to avoid a feeling of guilt.

Your reading of affect seems to differ from these accounts by treating affect, as Massumi does, as not just primary but autonomous. It seems to want to sever the dependence of knowledge on affect and value, as though affect can distort or inhibit rhe process of reasoned deliberation, and as though there could be a progress in logical , rational deliberation that was not at every point made intelligible in its very sense and meaning in an affective manner. Your Eichmann and your wokists are victims of this strife between affect and reason. — Joshs

It looks like you view affect primarily as a disruptive or distorting force.It interferes with reasoned deliberation. However, for Deleuze and Massumi, as well as according to Foucault's concept of power-knowledge, affect is the necessary condition of reason and deliberation. My position is that true progress in thought requires an acknowledgment of how we, and our thinking are impacted by the same affective forces and assemblages that shaped figures like Eichmann or contemporary "woke" individuals. This is not a moral equivalence but an ontological and epistemological commitment. Affective investments shape all subjectivity, including our own.

I would actually follow Aquinas to a conclusion slightly different from Arendt's. For Aquinas the evil of error is primarily a matter of neglect. For example, when you are excited to visit your beloved you might speed and "forget" the speed limit. You haven't really forgotten it since it's still there in the back of your mind, but you're neglecting it. More generally, there is a sense in which you are capable of following the speed limit and yet choose not to.

One could cash that out in terms of "thoughtlessness," but I think what is happening is more subtle. A kind of short-circuit occurs in the judgment such that one goal is prioritized to such an extent that other goals are ignored (which in this case is a restriction-goal: not-speeding). I agree that this is all deeply bound up with affectivity and the passions, but the moral point I would emphasize is that neglect is volitional, albeit indirectly volitional. The short-circuit is favored. The lover neglects to obey or even consider the rationale for not-speeding, or else he neglects to obey or even consider the cause(s) that would either allow him to consider that rationale, or which obstruct him from being able to consider that rationale. — Leontiskos

Great—likely, we’re now much closer to a more nuanced and developed approach to the phenomenon of wokeness. What you describe as “neglect is volitional, albeit indirectly volitional. The short-circuit is favored” corresponds to our response to the pressures of immediate situations. We are constantly required to make decisions about complex matters within very short time spans.
As a result, many of our decisions become automatized, almost unconscious. This condition affects not only those identified as “woke” but all of us. Woke individuals primarely remain anchored in a relatively localized domain, where they can continuously demonstrate their vigorous sense of moral rightness and commitment to justice. In doing so, they vividly illustrate how rationality can become subsumed by the impact of ‘the short-circuit’.
Hannah Arendt offered a remarkable account of Eichmann. However, it is not quite accurate to describe him as irrational—he was, in fact, following the bureaucratic logic of the Nazi regime. Most likely, his most consequential decision was joining the Nazi party. From that point on, he became a thoughtless functionary. But that pivotal decision was made at a more subtle level, shaped by unconscious affective forces rather than deliberate reasoning.

The problem is that I think we are <derailing the thread>. Note too that as someone who thinks wokeness is being approached inappropriately in this thread, you wish for the inappropriate approach to cease or to be replaced by a better approach. By constantly attempting to change the subject and introduce new topics or examples, you have effectively ceased the discussion of wokeness that the thread is about — Leontiskos

You're right—and that's likely why I introduced a new example myself: the case of Eichmann. But in truth, we don't need more examples; we're already overwhelmed by an abundance of facts and cases.

What’s been said about wokeness.

1. It’s goals are chosen and driven more by affect/emotion than by rational analysis. — Fire Ologist

Diversity is an end in itself. — Fire Ologist

The woke are honestly compassionate for victims. — Fire Ologist

This all goes to the fairly recent notion of “virtue signaling”. — Fire Ologist

Self-contradiction. It seems to be a feature of wokeness. — Fire Ologist

I agree with all your points, they are excellent. However, they remain at a primarily descriptive level and lack a sufficient explanatory power. This is why some posters in this thread can still introduce frameworks that support alternative interpretations of wokeness. In addition to presenting accurate facts and observations, I have attempted to apply a theory of affect to approach wokeness as an affective phenomenon. Its rituals of calling out and moral absolutism reflect a particular mode of being, a form of emergent subjectivity.

@Leontiskos@Joshs

I am not questioning that you do not know how to proceed, as if, in this Discussion; what I am suggesting would be a situation in the world where the people involved do not know how to decide how to proceed. — Antony Nickles

There isn’t just one such situation in life; on the contrary, we often live in a way that requires making decisions instantly, without deliberate reflection. Let me bring here your reflection on one of my posts:

As I take this quote of Number2018 to reiterate: “ “Events of decision that we experience as rational choices, seemingly without the motive force of affect to move them, envelop the complex of the pre-cognitive and micropolitical processes of the event-based situation. The ‘rational’ aspects of the event— judgment, hypothesis, comparative evaluation of alternatives, decision— were mutually included in the event along with all the other co- operating factors.” (Massumi, ‘The Power at the end of the Economy’, pg. 47) (my emphasis). The “‘rational’ aspects of the event”, the particular criteria in a situation, he says “envelop” and “include”—I would say reflect (as OLP claims)—“all the co-operating factors”, which are the interests in those (“mutual”, or shared societal) criteria for judgment, in that particular event.

This might be overly coarse, but I take the other option to be claiming/attributing/assuming a certain goal first and then perhaps treating “interests” as justifications for the goal, or motivations for the goal. Whatever that may be, I take it as the classic philosophical discussion to first determine what is right or what ought to be done, which can lead to setting the requirement (criteria, basis) ahead of looking at the criteria of a particular case, and abstractly arguing for what is to be considered “rational”, and thus “irrational”, (which can leads to/come from, a desire for things like universality, completeness, certainty, etc., as discussed above, because all criteria include our desires/interests, even “rationality”). Again, I take this difference as a matter of analytical philosophy, and not as some kind of proxy for woke/not woke (although there is, as we have discussed, the theme in philosophy of: not reflected upon yet, fully thought through, etc. which I can see now as possibly analogous, though I wouldn’t take as equating the discussions). — Antony Nickles

Massumi’s theory of the event posits that our behavior co-emerges with affect and the environment. In this view, rationality is not separate or universal but is embedded within specific configurations of embodied and affective dynamics. This offers a more effective framework for understanding the phenomenon of wokeness. It is not as a set of moral claims to be considered for logical consistency or truth-value. Instead, it emerges in an eventual field in which rationality is mobilized and becomes a component of the event itself. In this context, Eichmann's case can become a paradigmatic example. My knowledge of the case is based primarily on Hannah Arendt’s account. “He merely, to put the matter colloquially, never realized what he was doing… It was sheer thoughtlessness—something by no means identical with stupidity—that predisposed [Eichmann] to become one of the greatest criminals of that period. … That such remoteness from reality and such thoughtlessness can wreak more havoc than all the evil instincts taken together.” (Arendt, ‘Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil’, pg 36) Arendt does not claim that Eichmann lacked intelligence or suffered from mental illness. In fact, psychologists who examined him before the trial found no signs of pathology or disorder. Nor does she attribute his actions to extremist ideology or any inherent evil. Rather, when she writes that Eichmann “never realized what he was doing,” she asserts that he stopped thinking in a sense that his capacity for judgment was impaired. But this view abstracts Eichmann's rational faculty from the eventual field in which he operated.

Operating from below conscious subjectivity, Protevi proposes evolutionarily adaptive neurological modules that program subjects for prosocial behavior as well as for narrowly construed self-preservation. Impinging on persons from above are socially originating forms of conditioning . Notice the Deleuzian language that Protevi incorporates.

"Zahavi (2005) and Gallagher (2005), among others, distinguish agency and ownership of bodily actions. Ownership is the sense that my body is doing the action, while agency is the sense that I am in control of the action, that the action is willed. Both are aspects of subjectivity, though they may well be a matter of pre-reflective self-awareness rather than full-fledged objectifying self-consciousness. But alongside subjectivity we need also to notice emergent assemblages that skip subjectivity and directly conjoin larger groups and the somatic. To follow this line of thought, let us accept that, in addition to non-subjective body control by reflexes, we can treat basic emotions as modular “affect programs” (Griffiths 1997) that run the body's hardware in the absence of conscious control. As with reflexes, ownership and agency are only retrospectively felt, at least in severe cases of rage in which the person “wakes up” to see the results of the destruction committed while he or she was in the grips of the rage. In this way we see two elements we need to take into account besides the notion of subjective agency: (1) that there is another sense of “agent” as non-subjective controller of bodily action, either reflex or basic emotion, and (2) that in some cases the military unit and non-subjective reflexes and basic emotions are intertwined in such a way as to bypass the soldiers' subjectivity qua controlled intentional action. In these cases the practical agent of the act of killing is not the individual person or subject, but the emergent assemblage of military unit and non-subjective reflex or equally non-subjective “affect program.”

“A little more detail on the notion of a “rage agent” might be helpful at this point. Extreme cases of rage produce a modular agent or “affect program” that replaces the subject. Affect programs are emotional responses that are “complex, coordinated, and automated … unfold[ing] in this coordinated fashion without the need for conscious direction” (Griffiths 1997: 77). They are more than reflexes, but they are triggered well before any cortical processing can take place (though later cortical appraisals can dampen or accelerate the affect program). Griffiths makes the case that affect programs should be seen in light of Fodor's notion of modularity, which calls for a module to be “mandatory … opaque [we are aware of outputs but not the processes producing them] … and informationally encapsulated [the information in a module cannot access that in other modules]”.

Perhaps second only to the question of adaptationism for the amount of controversy it has evoked, the use of the concept of modularity in evolutionary psychology is bitterly contested. I feel relatively safe proposing a very-widely distributed rage module or rage agent, since its adaptive value is widely attested to by its presence in other mammals, and since Panksepp 1998 is able to cite studies of direct electrical stimulation of the brain (ESB) and neurochemical manipulation as identifying homologous rage circuits in humans and other mammalian species (190)."

"In the berserker rage, the subject is overwhelmed by a chemical flood that triggers an evolutionarily primitive module which functions as an agent which runs the body's hardware in its place.”"The vast majority of soldiers cannot kill in cold blood and need to kill in a desubjectified state, e.g., in reflexes, rages and panics." — Joshs

These quotes show a philosophical divergence between Protevi’s approach and Deleuze and Guattari’s philosophy of subjectivity. For Protevi, agency and ownership are treated as distinct faculties, existing independently before or after the event. His focus lies in the emergent control systems, where subjectivity is bypassed or managed rather than produced. In contrast, for D&G, the subject is not an object of affective regulation or bodily control. Instead, it is the effect or residue of more fundamental productive machines and intensive processes. D&G would resist the reduction of desire to action’s behavioural management.

Critics argue that emotional discomfort has become a trigger for restricting speech, displacing debate with moral claims based solely on feeling hurt or offended
— Number2018



What do you suppose elevates the role of feeling to the status of sovereign arbiter of justice for wokists? Is the affect doing all this ethical work by itself, or is it the interpretation of the discursive context within which the affect arises which grounds the supposed moral authority of feeling? I’m suggesting it is a certain moral absolutism associated with the attribution of causes for the sources and triggers of pain which is the culprit here, not affect in itself. If I address you with the wrong pronoun and you respond with pained moral outrage, it is because your feelings are expressing your assessment that I am culpable for my slight, even if I insist that it was inadvertent. There are no accidents or innocent mistakes when concepts like while privileged and implicit bias judge us guilty in advance. It is this assumed culpability by association, birth and ingrained use of language that is at the bottom of the hyper-moralism attributed to wokism, not a blind reliance on the authority of affect. — Joshs

This post outlines your overall perspective on wokeness. It begins by a confusion between affect and feeling, and then opposes this conflated notion to “the interpretation of the discursive context within which the affect arises and which grounds the supposed moral authority of feeling.” In this view, affect-feeling is produced through a combination of discursive and hermeneutic practices. This framing makes the interpretation of the discursive context responsible for generating the emotional discomfort like feeling hurt or offended as the ground of moral claims. It is assumed that the force of this discursive-hermeneutic process derives from a certain moral absolutism. In fact, you are pointing to a central aspect of wokeness's moral discourse. Likely, this ‘moral absolutism’ causes woke individuals to avoid debate or resist a rational scrutiny of their views. Yet, the nature of this connection remains unclarified. A potential solution might be based on a reading of D&G’s Anti-Oedipus.

The subject receives those intensities and translate them into ultimate truth. Feeling of ultimate moral certainty resembles the ‘return of all names and intensities of history.’ It is the result of hyper-intensified machinic affect.
— Number2018

But wouldn’t AO argue that it is only on the dimension of the molar (rather than within molecular intensities, the body without organs) where a ‘feeling of moral certainty’ can be manifest? Isnt it the molar regime of social formations which crushes , binds, plugs, arrests, cuts off the circulation of flows, constricts, regularizes and breaks singular points, and imposes on desire another type of "plan”? This crushing and plugging activity of stratification and molarization would seem to be the opposite of ‘hyper-intensified machinic affect’. Moral certainty, a clearly codified, representational affect, is a molar formation, not an effect of free-flowing molecular intensities or the body without organs (BwO). — Joshs

AO offers a more nuanced perspective. Thus, the subject is the product of synthesis, not its origin. The “So that was me…” moment in a conjunctive synthesis is the culmination of intensive processes. "The third synthesis of conjunction, produces the residual subject ... not the subject of desire but a residuum produced by desire and by the series of its productions." (AO, 18–19) Yes, molar formations code desire, but the feeling ‘That is me,’ or ‘I am the moral center’ is not the result of molar repression. Instead, it is an outcome of machinic process of the transformation of affect into an intensive identity. Yet, molar encoding does not erase the moment of the intensive production of subjectivity. The immediate experience of one's moral position cannot be imposed from the outside. It comes as the result of co-existence and co-adaptation of molar and molecular domains. This view aligns with Massumi’s argument that the rational aspects of judgement are unseparated from impersonal, affective forces. “Events of decision that we experience as rational choices, seemingly without the motive force of affect to move them, envelop the complex of the pre-cognitive and micropolitical processes of the event-based situation. The ‘rational’ aspects of the event— judgment, hypothesis, comparative evaluation of alternatives, decision— were mutually included in the event along with all the other co- operating factors.” (Massumi, ‘The Power at the end of the Economy’, pg. 47). Overall, the production of subjectivity and affect underpin wokeness’s 'moral absolutism'.

Deleuze writes:

When we say that the eternal return is not the return of the Same, or of the Similar or the Equal, we mean that it does not presuppose any identity. On the contrary, it is said of a world without identity, without resemblance or equality. It is said of a world the very ground of which is difference, in which everything rests upon disparities, upon differences of differences which reverberate to infinity (the world of intensity). The eternal return is itself the Identical, the similar and the equal, but it presupposes nothing of itself in that of which it is said. It is said of that which has no identity, no resemblance and no equality. It is the identical which is said of the different, the resemblance which is said of the pure disparate, the equal which is said only of the unequal and the proximity which is said of all distances. Things must be dispersed within difference, and their identity must be dissolved before they become subject to eternal return and to identity in the eternal return…

If repetition exists, it expresses at once a singularity opposed to the general, a universality opposed to the particular, a distinctive opposed to the ordinary, an instantaneous opposed to variation, and an eternity opposed to permanence… in univocity, univocal being is said immediately of individual differences or the universal is said of the most singular independent of any mediation…In this manner, the ground has been superseded by a groundlessness, a universal ungrounding which turns upon itself and cause only the yet-to-come to return.” (Difference and Repetition) — Joshs

"There is no Nietzsche-the-self, professor of philology, who suddenly loses his mind and supposedly identifies with all sorts of strange people; rather, there is the Nietzschean subject who passes through a series of states, and who identifies these states with the names of history: "every name in history is I. . . The subject spreads itself out along the entire circumference of the circle, the center of which has been abandoned by the ego. At the center is the desiring-machine, the celibate machine of the Eternal Return. A residual subject of the machine, Nietzsche-as-subject garners a euphoric reward (Voluptas) from everything that this machine turns out, a product that the reader had thought to be no more than the fragmented oeuvre by Nietzsche . No one has ever been as deeply involved in history as the schizo, or dealt with it in this way. He consumes all of universal history in one fell swoop." (AO, pg 21)


This D&G’s perspective on Nietzsche and eternal return could also help resolve the problem of wokeness’s moral absolutism. Likely, the subject of wokeness also is a residual product of affective, hyper-intensive processes. The subject receives those intensities and translate them into ultimate truth. Feeling of ultimate moral certainty resembles the ‘return of all names and intensities of history.’ It is the result of hyper-intensified machinic affect.

part of the woke methodology of reasoning seems to be avoiding anything on its face that appears anti-woke, and instead analyzing for sub-text, the dog-whistle, looking for virtue signaling or lack thereof. Maga types and conservatives and tradition-lovers, are objects of incredulity, whose behavior and speech can only be examined from the outside, not engaged with directly, (as we are engaged here so you are the exception).

See my conversation with Praxis - that is how it typically goes.

Woke doesn’t clarify what their virtues are. Not to anyone perceived as anti-woke.
Woke doesn’t address what a border is and why it exists.
It doesn’t believe that the race and nationality of an illegal immigrant has zero to do with the issue. Such notions are lies and cover.

The woke person knows immigration policy is about white nationalism, racism and oppression - it’s about winning political campaigns. No need to say “border” at all.

This is one example to demonstrate what I (and others here) see as a pattern, a way of woke argumentation and thinking.

Maybe, over time, and with much more discussion, it will help Mexico and Mexican people if we secure the border. That is an insane and insensitive statement to a woke person, a lie to hide hatred and fear, a careless indifference to the suffering of human beings. End of discussion. Before any discussion starts.

I am willing to debate and be educated, but such debate almost never, in good faith, happens. My opinion is discounted by the woke from the start. That has been the case all of my adult life (since the 80s). Trump and Trumpism hasn’t fixed any of this - he’s just shown the world how there has been no conversation at all before so many changes, wanted by a few, have been forced upon everyone. And to show that, he’s forced changes on everyone - using a bludgeon, like Kid rock used gun, to restart the conversations.

Let’s pretend we are all reasonable human beings who want what is good for all human beings. Even Trump. Even Maga. (Imagine that!!). Wokism, generally, wouldn’t allow any discussion on such grounds. By definition, if I don’t already agree with what is woke, I am asleep and unable to have a reasonable conversation.

That is the problem with wokeism to me - its inability and unwillingness to debate and address reasonable challenge. (That’s what praxis said about me, as he shut down the discussion.) — Fire Ologist

:up:

Have you read John Protevi’s work on political affect?

Protevi, J.: and Christian Helge Peters. (2017). Affective Ideology and Trump's Popularity. http://www.protevi.com/john/TrumpAffect — Joshs

Thank you for sharing this article. It looks interesting and relevant, and I’ll definitely read it. As far as I know, none of the known contemporary scholars in political philosophy (such as Butler, Brown, or Massumi) have directly engaged with the phenomenon of wokeness. Is that correct?

You mentioned Ray Brassier as one interpreter you read Deleuze through. His treatment of Deleuze has been described as realist, rationalist, and deflationary, and he appears to embrace an eliminative scientific realism beyond human experience (He was considered one of the founders of speculative realism, although he disavows this movement now). Do you think this is a fair assessment of Brassier, and would you say that you are in general agreement concerning his reading of Deleuze, and his philosophical outlook in general? I ask this because it would help clarify for me where you’re coming from with respect not only to Deleuze but to Foucault, especially concerning the possibility and sense of a critique of affect. As you know, there are anti-realist, or if you prefer, ‘radically relativist’ postmodern readings of Deleuze and Foucault which strongly disagree with Brassier’s take on Deleuze — Joshs

I’ve read only one work by Brassier on Deleuze, in ‘A Thousand Plateaus and Philosophy’, so I’m not familiar with his overall perspective on Deleuze. However, I read a few works by Brian Massumi, who is an affect theorist. I think your questions about the relationship between affect and wokeness are interesting and important. I’ll try to respond by applying Massumi’s theory of affect as well as Deleuze and Guattari's 'Anti-Oedipus' framework. It may take a few days.

Curious that you only look at one side of the spectacle. The testimony of both Ford and Kavanaugh was emotional and lacked the explicit language or rhetorical style that typically marks woke or anti-woke discourse. Ford was adopted by the woke and Kavanaugh by the anti-woke, and the anti-woke won. — praxis

In principle, you are correct. However, the 2018 Kavanaugh hearing is a paradigmatic example of a triumphant woke spectacle. And it perfectly illustrates an epistemic shift in the grounds of justification so that the intersubjective norms of rational discourse yield to the immediacy of subjective experience. Only recently has anti-woke discourse begun to gain momentum and take the lead. Yet this turn also reveals how underlying structures of power can rebrand themselves and adapt their affective grip with remarkable resilience.

What would you say to the objection which says that wokeness is a transitory phenomenon? That given its affective character it will never be more than a bridge between more stable and rational cultural epochs?

On the one hand I do not think it will go away quickly. On the other hand I do not think it has the wherewithal that is traditionally needed for durable staying power. I suppose the question is then whether the new social media technologies have altered the landscape to such an extent that affective movements will become more permanent. — Leontiskos

I agree with you that wokeness is not a transitory phenomenon, and it is not about traditionally understood durable power. What matters more are the underlying structures of power, which show a remarkable ability to rebrand and adapt their affective grip. As we become increasingly conditioned by digital infrastructures, our dependence on affective patterns within society only deepens.

Is the extent of your OP that there are legitimate objections to these methods? That rational discourse has become lost? This is of course a serious issue (deeper and more wide-spread than even these concerns I would think). But do your objections to these methods include (and wish to refute) the underlying interests? — Antony Nickles

In an attempt to provide an example of that kind of inquiry/discussion: If we look past the demonstrations we take as (somehow completely) reflecting “woke” “culture”, can we brainstorm what might be the circumstances involved, the necessity of the claim, even the need to make it in a fashion we might misinterpret or not know how to make intelligible? Don’t these claims have a history? Here I am not enough of a social critic to know the answers, but, if we are to be “woke”, what is it we were asleep to? — Antony Nickles

@Leontiskos

I realized that you actually have done some work in coming up with some theories about what is important in judging these claims (whatever they actually are). — Antony Nickles

why you are unable to generalize the grounds, evidence, situations, etc. This makes me thinks we are perhaps skipping forward to assume ends, goals, enemies, etc., when the claim stops before all that. — Antony Nickles

Thank you for your posts and for sharing your reflections on my OP and other posts in this thread. I’d like to clarify a few of my personal moral beliefs and intentions to address the concerns you raised. I do not believe that our contemporary circumstances negate our moral responsibilities or undermine our capacity for moral judgment. Nor do I reject the rights of minorities or subjugated groups. Also, I do not see what I’ve written here as a comprehensive theory or a set of universal claims. It seems your critique may have misrepresented the scope and intent of my argument. I just want to raise a few concerns, and I remain open to modifying my views. In this thread, I’ve noticed that many contributors either misunderstand what wokeness entails or dismiss it as a marginal and negligible phenomenon. To illustrate why I believe this is a mistake, I want to bring a widely recognized and deeply resonant public event of the 2018 Supreme Court confirmation hearings of Brett Kavanaugh. The confirmation process was significantly impacted by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony. I cannot and do not claim to know whether her allegations were factually accurate. However, it is likely that her testimony derived its power from the emotional credibility and perceived sincerity with which it was delivered. Despite the absence of physical evidence or eyewitness corroboration, her visible fear, trembling voice, and hesitant speech were interpreted by many as signs of epistemic and moral authority. To be clear, I do not question the sincerity of Dr. Ford’s account or the possible significance of her experience. Rather, I wish to draw attention to the discursive conditions under which her narrative was received. It was not primarily treated as a legal or evidentiary claim, but as a form of emotional sincerity, gaining credibility through affective resonance and social identity. Her testimony was framed and understood within broader narratives of gendered violence, which in turn shaped the public’s moral response. Consequently, efforts to critically assess or scrutinize Ford’s claims were often interpreted as acts of misogyny or trauma denial. Again, my intent is not to diminish Dr. Ford’s pain, marginalization, or trauma, but to highlight the discursive and affective patterns that underpinned the public reception of the case.
Likely, the Kavanaugh hearings exemplify the extent to which public life is structured by affective discursive formations of contemporary woke culture.

The analyses of Focault and Deleuze are not critiques of affect per se, but of how affect is disciplined and made legible—subsumed into power/knowledge formations. Critique is aimed at sedimentation, normalization, and instrumentalization—not at affect’s foundational role. Deleuze’s entire philosophical project (especially with Guattari) can be read as a critique of how desire/affect is captured by molar systems—Oedipal structures, the State, Capitalism, Signifiance, etc. Not a critique of affect as such—but of affect when it gets captured by stratifying assemblages that block lines of flight — Joshs

Thank you for your responses. Btw, I’ll respond to your second point about the role of affect in the context of wokism later. However, I disagree with your claim that Foucault and Deleuze do not offer a full-scale critique of affect. Your statement that “the analyses of Foucault and Deleuze are not critiques of affect per se, but of how affect is disciplined and made legible—subsumed into power/knowledge formations” is only partially accurate. While insightful, it risks downplaying the ontological commitments both thinkers make toward affect and desire.Foucault, for instance, interrogates the bodily, emotional, and relational dimensions of power. Power, in his view, does not merely repress; it incites, induces, and seduces. His concept of the microphysics of power within disciplinary regimes becomes a theory of affective modulation. His method reveals how affect is produced, channeled, and governed. In this sense, his theory of power becomes a philosophy of affect, in the sense that is thoroughly conditioned by and entangled with power relations.Regarding your point about Deleuze and Guattari, you’re right that desire- affect is always embedded within social, historical, and material strata. Yet, desire is fundamentally affective. Despite their insistence that desire only exists in relation to molar structures and historical plateaus, it remains affective at its core. It is non-psychological, impersonal, composed of flows, intensities, and blockages. Desire, in their framework, does not stem from lack; it produces and generates reality through bodily and collective flows and assemblages. Their conception of desire-affect is ontological—it constitutes the very fabric of social, psychic, and material life. Ultimately, their work is grounded on affect in the Spinozan sense: the capacity to affect and be affected.

instead, I attempt to diagnose a shift in discursive practices, particularly in the domains of identity politics and online activism, where affective expressions of marginalization have begun to function as sufficient sources of epistemic and moral authority.
— Number2018

Fancy wording but I think this is certainly a widely held belief - perhaps that some people weaponise their lived experience. Can you provide a specific example you are thinking of here - one with broad repercussions? — Tom Storm

Critics argue that emotional discomfort has become a trigger for restricting speech, displacing debate with moral claims based solely on feeling hurt or offended. https://ncac.org/resource/ncac-report-whats-all-this-about-trigger-warnings?utm_source=chatgpt.com
https://www.britannica.com/story/trigger-warnings-on-campus?utm_source=chatgpt.com

Also, #MeToo was important in addressing longstanding injustice. However, it was noted that the movement advanced trauma-based disclosures, establishing a cultural norm where a testimony of harm received moral and epistemic authority. Even in ambiguous cases, this framework often elevated belief in the speaker to the status of the primary epistemic standard.

Timothy Snyder and Jason Stanley appear in the video. They are completely genuine in expressing not just their concerns about fascism, but also about wokism. — Joshs

But what is your assessment of the academic content of this video—especially considering that Snyder is a leading scholar on fascism and Nazi Germany?

I would in no way describe the analyses of Heidegger, Deleuze or Derrida as ‘epistemic’ as opposed to affective. As I said before, this implies a split between knowledge and feeling that none of these authors accept. Furthermore, epistemology derives from the platonic metaphysical traditions they critique. Can you locate any direct quotes from these authors supporting the distinction you’re trying to make? — Joshs

For Deleuze, Foucault’s philosophical project started within epistemology:
“He actually started with an epistemology, or with an attempt to construct a doctrine of knowledge, and it was this doctrine of knowledge that literally pushed him towards the discovery of a new domain, which would become that of power.”
— Deleuze, Foucault seminar, Lecture 8 (17 December 1985)it.wikipedia.org+7deleuze.cla.purdue.edu+7theanarchistlibrary.org+7
“We understand clearly that in experience, we always find ourselves confronted with mixtures of power knowledge. But that does not in the least deny philosophical analysis the right to disentangle two heterogeneous axes, a knowledge axis and a power axis… What we have seen … is how Foucault began by studying the forms of knowledge on their corresponding axis … Not that power was ignored, only that it is posed implicitly, presupposed… It is Discipline and Punish that marks the first break in Foucault’s oeuvre, passing from the knowledge axis to the power axis.”
https://deleuze.cla.purdue.edu/lecture/lecture-13/?utm_source=chatgpt.com

You mentioned Ray Brassier. Are you getting this from him? — Joshs

"Concrete Rules and Abstract Machines: Form and Function in
A Thousand Plateaus"
Ray Brassier
In "A Thousand Plateaus and Philosophy", pg.262

There is the transformation of the foundations of normative, intersubjective argumentation, particularly in the realms of identity politics and online discourse. In this emerging framework, factual accuracy and logical coherence are increasingly overshadowed by emotional expressions of identity and marginalization, which come to serve as autonomous validations of truth and moral authority.
— Number2018

Are you placing ‘factual accuracy’ on one side of a divide and ‘emotional expression’ on the other side in order to deconstruct and overturn this metaphysical dualism, as Nietzsche, Focault, Deleuze, Heidegger and Derrida have? Or do you seriously want to justify such a reason-privileging split? Or is ‘emotional expression’ as Deleuzian desire, Heideggerian attunement and Foucaultian power the very pre-condition of factuality? — Joshs

It appears that your critique misrepresents the intent and scope of my argument. I do not attempt to re-inscribe a metaphysical binary between reason and emotion, nor am I blind to the epistemological critiques offered by Nietzsche, Foucault, Derrida, Heidegger, and Deleuze.
Instead, I attempt to diagnose a shift in discursive practices, particularly in the domains of identity politics and online activism, where affective expressions of marginalization have begun to function as sufficient sources of epistemic and moral authority. My argument is not a metaphysical claim about truth; it is rather a phenomenological observation about a shift in rhetorical argumentation in public discourse. You rightly point out that for thinkers like Foucault, Deleuze, and Heidegger, knowledge is always situated in structures of power, affect, or ontological attunement. However, those thinkers are engaged in an epistemic inquiry, rather than describing contemporary discursive practices. What we are witnessing today is not the philosophical deconstruction of rationalism, but a normative inversion in the public sphere. Thus, emotional experience and perceived marginality are not retained within rigorous ontological framing. Instead, they assert themselves as affective self-reference of truth and moral authority, becoming resistant to questioning, nuance, or deliberate reflection. Therefore, one needs to differentiate the rigorous epistemic critiques of the mentioned thinkers from the description of today’s affective politics of visibility and recognition..

Btw, you never responded to my question to you: — Joshs

I will answer. Btw, I would appreciate your response to my previous post:

Your OP covers a slew of issues and connects them in a particular way. It begins with Doyle’s critique of wokism, and then lays out a Foucaultian analysis of wokism, from which vantage Doyle’s own thinking is itself a symptom of wokist power relations. This seems to drive more from Deleuze than Focault, since Deleuze insisted that only revolutionary change could break one free from the hegemony of discursive regimes, such as Capitalism. Foucault, on the other hand, was more open to compromise with the dominant cultural , since unlike Deleuze he didn’t see regimes like capitalism as monolithic entities but as already slowly transforming themselves from within their own power dynamics. This allowed him to accept a critique of Doyle from a wokist vantage that was itself open to its own transformation through its own dynamics of power.
— Joshs


Indeed, I have attempted to analyze wokeness through the lens of Deleuze and Foucault’s theories of power. Contrary to your point, however, I do not believe that I have departed from their intellectual projects. On the contrary, I see my approach as the beginning of a modified Deleuzian–Foucauldian framework for thinking about wokeness.
But I still do not know whether this undertaking is even possible in principle. Deleuze and Foucault’s approaches are not entirely compatible, and our current digital reality tends to resist forms of theoretical inquiry altogether. Both thinkers emphasize the omnipresent, diffuse, and immanent nature of contemporary power—power that resists representation and totalizing frameworks. This implies that assuming a neutral, detached position that claims to be outside the field of power in order to conduct objective or universal researchis likely a mistake. As Foucault shows, and Deleuze echoes, the very act of representing pre-given realities risks reproducing the territorialities one seeks to critique.Where Deleuze diverges from Foucault is in his conception of resistance. For Deleuze, resistance lies in following a line of flight—creating a new reality that, in the moment of its emergence, escapes the capture of existing power structures. As Ray Brassier puts it:
“So long as practice is subordinated to representation, it can only more or less adequately trace a pre-existing reality, according to extant criteria of success or failure. But machinic pragmatics is not geared towards representation; it is an experimental practice oriented towards bringing something new into existence—something that does not pre-exist its process of production. It decouples performance from competence. It does not engage in a utilitarian tracing of the real; it generates a constructive mapping (and as we shall see, a diagramming) of the real: ‘What distinguishes the map from the tracing is that it is entirely oriented toward an experimentation in contact with the real. The map does not reproduce an unconscious closed in upon itself; it constructs the unconscious.’”
This outline of machinic pragmatics is especially relevant to the project of interrogating wokeness. Wokeness can be understood as a desiring-machine. Without mediation, conditioned by power, it prompts and modulates our human emotions: shame, guilt, pride, vulnerability, and anger. So, the Deleuzian project of creating lines of flight becomes a philosophical undertaking to produce autonomous, intensive machines that map reality rather than trace it. These machines are not about representing the already-given, but about experimentation that escape the dominant power formations.To enact a line of flight, a philosophical machine must activate and intensify its own internal dynamics, rather than remain entangled in the representational circuits of identity. This means breaking with the fixed, lived identity produced by the wokeness desiring-machine, which operates through affective capture and the reinforcement of socially legible forms of subjectivity.
Whereas the wokeness machine induces emotions like shame, guilt, and vulnerability to generate moral authority and political legitimacy, the philosophical machine must resist this affective economy by refusing to be coded within it. Instead, it amplifies its own intensity and its capacity to think and feel. In this sense, the line of flight is an experimental process that exceeds the coordinates of recognition and representation. It constructs an autonomous plane of consistency where thought is no longer mediated by identity, morality, or social function, but engages directly with the real. — Number2018

The possibility we may not ultimately agree or understand the other’s interests is not a reason to assume irrationality or disingenuousness. Sometimes attributing a serious person to some things that are said and done takes more imagination and generosity than you may receive. We may have to set aside our feelings, our desire to react, our inability to understand instantly, in order to not jump to the first conclusion, — Antony Nickles

In the case of wokeness, the issue is not one of disagreement or misunderstanding. Rather, it lies in the complete blurring of boundaries between the authenticity of identity performance and the sincerity of moral expression.

The "metaphysics of power" normally tends to dissolve the subject possessing logos, and to make logos merely an illusion of power, or nothing but power itself. However, I don't think the foundations of this movement are actually philosophically sound, and even if they were, their logical conclusion will be fascism (what we are indeed seeing), not some sort of radically left egalitarianism. — Count Timothy von Icarus

What is your take on this video about contemporary fascism?
It highlights the stance of critical intellectuals against authoritarian regimes that are increasingly targeting academic freedom. They are completely genuine while expressing their concerns. The video constructs a stark us vs. them narrative. In fact, its moral binary and emotional framing reflect characteristics often associated with “woke culture”: strong normative certainty, oversimplification, moral urgency, and an appeal to identity and belonging. This resemblance suggests that the crisis revealed by wokeness is not merely cultural or political. Also, it reveals a deeper epistemic, ethical, and moral rupture.

But in a moral moment there is no authority to claim what is right, thus the importance of understanding the issue from the inside, on another's terms. To make the "strongest" case for them, which is not to say the one we ourselves would make (based on our standards), but respecting that they might have legitimate interests that we don't yet know. Thus a moral discussion is putting ourselves in the place of the other; digging deep to understand (not assume) what they value and want, and not dismissing them out of hand (as we too often do in philosophy, looking first to refute). — Antony Nickles

I understand and respect your position. Yet, contemporary moral discourse has undergone a dramatic transformation. The imperative to understand others ‘from the inside’ and to take their experience seriously on their own terms often becomes an impossible undertaking. How can one distinguish between authentic expressions of suffering and their strategic imitation? We are often caught between the necessity of listening and the danger of being manipulated. In the context of this thread, wokeness often transforms vulnerability into a source of ultimate moral authority.

My post-Marxist political stance is Old Left, or prioritizing the economic justice movement (e.g. democratizing workplaces, management & ownership) over social justice-identity politics aka "woke" policies such that the latter are historically situated, or grounded, by the former. Outside or in lieu of the movement – especially during the last half-century of Thatcher-Reagan neoliberal globalization – "wokeness" (like p0m0 discourse) has become reactionary to the degree it has failed to propose coherent alternatives to and practical resistance against populist support for rightwing, illiberal regimes. — 180 Proof

Your position likely aligns closely with Slavoj Žižek’s perspective on wokeness. Žižek argues that wokeness operates as a form of ideological displacement: it presents itself as a libertarian or emancipatory movement, but in reality, serves as a mechanism through which neoliberal capitalism maintains the appearance of moral progressivism—while evading any real confrontation with deeper structural or economic injustices. As he puts it, “Wokeness is a form of moralization that leaves intact the system of exploitation.”
In Žižek’s view, the focus on language, identity, and symbolic inclusion enables neoliberal systems to evolve and entrench themselves further. While he does not deny the existence of racial, gender, or cultural oppression, he contends that the contemporary left’s preoccupation with personal identity fragments solidarity and undermines the universalist ambitions of the leftist project.
Žižek’s post-Marxist critique of wokeness is compelling in many respects. However, he falls short of fully disclosing the nature of wokeness or accounting for its emotional appeal and social power. His framework remains confined to traditional ideological critique and thus may overlook a crucial dimension: wokeness is not purely ideological—it is affective. It is about the desire to feel seen, safe, included, or conversely, excluded. Through wokeness, underlying structures of power can engage with and regulate deeply human emotions of shame, guilt, pride, vulnerability, and anger. It operates without the mediation of ideology, class struggle, or systems of political representation.

Your OP covers a slew of issues and connects them in a particular way. It begins with Doyle’s critique of wokism, and then lays out a Foucaultian analysis of wokism, from which vantage Doyle’s own thinking is itself a symptom of wokist power relations. This seems to drive more from Deleuze than Focault, since Deleuze insisted that only revolutionary change could break one free from the hegemony of discursive regimes, such as Capitalism. Foucault, on the other hand, was more open to compromise with the dominant cultural , since unlike Deleuze he didn’t see regimes like capitalism as monolithic entities but as already slowly transforming themselves from within their own power dynamics. This allowed him to accept a critique of Doyle from a wokist vantage that was itself open to its own transformation through its own dynamics of power. — Joshs

Indeed, I have attempted to analyze wokeness through the lens of Deleuze and Foucault’s theories of power. Contrary to your point, however, I do not believe that I have departed from their intellectual projects. On the contrary, I see my approach as the beginning of a modified Deleuzian–Foucauldian framework for thinking about wokeness.
But I still do not know whether this undertaking is even possible in principle. Deleuze and Foucault’s approaches are not entirely compatible, and our current digital reality tends to resist forms of theoretical inquiry altogether. Both thinkers emphasize the omnipresent, diffuse, and immanent nature of contemporary power—power that resists representation and totalizing frameworks. This implies that assuming a neutral, detached position that claims to be outside the field of power in order to conduct objective or universal researchis likely a mistake. As Foucault shows, and Deleuze echoes, the very act of representing pre-given realities risks reproducing the territorialities one seeks to critique.Where Deleuze diverges from Foucault is in his conception of resistance. For Deleuze, resistance lies in following a line of flight—creating a new reality that, in the moment of its emergence, escapes the capture of existing power structures. As Ray Brassier puts it:
“So long as practice is subordinated to representation, it can only more or less adequately trace a pre-existing reality, according to extant criteria of success or failure. But machinic pragmatics is not geared towards representation; it is an experimental practice oriented towards bringing something new into existence—something that does not pre-exist its process of production. It decouples performance from competence. It does not engage in a utilitarian tracing of the real; it generates a constructive mapping (and as we shall see, a diagramming) of the real: ‘What distinguishes the map from the tracing is that it is entirely oriented toward an experimentation in contact with the real. The map does not reproduce an unconscious closed in upon itself; it constructs the unconscious.’”
This outline of machinic pragmatics is especially relevant to the project of interrogating wokeness. Wokeness can be understood as a desiring-machine. Without mediation, conditioned by power, it prompts and modulates our human emotions: shame, guilt, pride, vulnerability, and anger. So, the Deleuzian project of creating lines of flight becomes a philosophical undertaking to produce autonomous, intensive machines that map reality rather than trace it. These machines are not about representing the already-given, but about experimentation that escape the dominant power formations.To enact a line of flight, a philosophical machine must activate and intensify its own internal dynamics, rather than remain entangled in the representational circuits of identity. This means breaking with the fixed, lived identity produced by the wokeness desiring-machine, which operates through affective capture and the reinforcement of socially legible forms of subjectivity.
Whereas the wokeness machine induces emotions like shame, guilt, and vulnerability to generate moral authority and political legitimacy, the philosophical machine must resist this affective economy by refusing to be coded within it. Instead, it amplifies its own intensity and its capacity to think and feel. In this sense, the line of flight is an experimental process that exceeds the coordinates of recognition and representation. It constructs an autonomous plane of consistency where thought is no longer mediated by identity, morality, or social function, but engages directly with the real.

I think that classical liberalism is largely defined by its anthropology, so that any system with an appropriate role for thymos and logos probably becomes something quite different. However, this doesn't mean it jettisons the things Fukuyama thinks are most valuable about liberalism, namely:

1. Accountable government (normally through some form of elections)
2. A strong, independent, professional civil society
3. A centralized state monopoly on force
4. Rule of law and property rights

So, whether you'd want to call a reform based on a "thick" anthropology "liberalism" or not seems besides the main point to me. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Fukuyama’s desire to restore classical liberalism underestimates how thoroughly power has migrated away from the institutions and norms that liberalism depends on. Wokeness is not merely a cultural trend. It reveals that legitimacy, moral authority, and social control now flow through different channels. Reinvigorating liberal institutions without addressing this shift risks treating the symptoms without grasping the underlying transformation in how power and politics operate today. A return to classical liberal neutrality or abstraction deeply implausible in today’s affective, fragmented political landscape.

She is also unable to understand simple concepts like "crime" (she is a strict abolitionist about prisons). Confused, buzz-word-laden work like this is a perfect exemplar of why 'woke' is so incapable of upholding either it's own tenets or those which are considered, generally, to be the 'morally correct' ways of being: non-discrimination, non-hypocrisy, honestly and accountability.

I think probably people who see themselves as part of 'woke' will be unable to accept the facts about its manifestations and so will clamour about how Woke represents something they are comfortable copping to. By way of example, the idea that half the country is racist usually isn't accepted despite indirect claims of the same. — AmadeusD

You raise some of the most difficult and thought-provoking questions about wokeness. Why do so many intelligent and educated individuals deeply believe in something that may lack solid epistemic grounding? In my OP, I proposed the hypothesis that we are undergoing a profound epistemic shift. There is the transformation of the foundations of normative, intersubjective argumentation, particularly in the realms of identity politics and online discourse. In this emerging framework, factual accuracy and logical coherence are increasingly overshadowed by emotional expressions of identity and marginalization, which come to serve as autonomous validations of truth and moral authority. As a result, so called ‘woke’people may become fully absorbed in the self-perceived authenticity of their feelings. Still, this phenomenon likely calls for a deeper philosophical framework to better understand the contemporary affective landscape.

we are often not reflecting on our deeper philosophical or political commitments. Therefore, it may be useful to distinguish between our discursive practices and their deliberate interpretations
— Number2018

I dont think we can distinguish between them. We don’t need to ‘reflect on’ or theoretically articulate our philosophical commitments in order to enact them, because the commitments only exist in their continued discursive enactment in the partially shared circumstances of a normative community. — Joshs

That is partially correct. However, the defining feature of our contemporary condition is that we can no longer rely automatically on the continuity of ‘discursive enactment’ grounded in a shared normative community. We must continually renew and reinvent both our discursive practices and our conception of community. This aligns with what Nietzsche called the 'untimely'—a becoming that diverges from historical continuity. Foucault expressed a similar idea: 'The description of the archive unfolds its possibilities; its threshold of existence begins with the break that separates us from what we can no longer say and what falls outside our discursive practices; it begins with the outside of our own language; its place is the distance from our own discursive practices”.

From a Foucauldian perspective, wokeness can be understood not only as an emancipatory gesture but also as a mode through which power is reproduced via identity. Identity politics thus operates within the current digital power/knowledge regime, simultaneously enabling recognition and reinforcing normative expectations of being 'woke.' As Foucault put it, 'It is a form of power that makes individuals subjects—that subjugates and makes subject to…'"
— Number2018

The above analysis applies to any normative community in any historical era. The OP’s critique of Doyle’s attack on wokism misses the fact that he sees the myriad varieties of wokism through a perspective that gets its intelligibility from discursive practices that belong to an older era. Through his Kantian perspective, anything woke is simply marginalized. What is emancipatory within wokism is therefore invisible to Doyle. — Joshs

In the OP, the main points aim to highlight the singularity of our current structural conditions. There are two major factors: first, a profound epistemic shift that has transformed the foundations of normative argumentation, particularly in relation to identity politics and online discourse; and second, the unique dynamics of contemporary digital environments. Both factors are distinctly modern and together make 'wokeness' not only possible, but in some ways inevitable.
To examine the emancipatory dimensions of wokeness, it is useful to revisit Foucault’s critique of sexuality. For Foucault, moments of sexual liberation are often quickly penetrated and absorbed by power. From this perspective, the institutional recognition of non-binary identities can be seen as both a progressive step and a reconfiguration of power through identity. For instance, many countries and institutions have recently adopted policies allowing individuals to identify as non-binary or select a third gender category ('X') on official documents. While often celebrated as a form of recognition or liberation, such measures also serve to classify, regulate, and normalize difference. Non-binary identity, in this sense, becomes a 'manageable form of deviance': now it can be tracked, and integrated. As a result, individuals may find themselves bound to fixed identity categories (e.g., 'X' or 'non-binary') that constrain fluid self-conceptions and impose new norms. Thus, contemporary configurations of power can quickly neutralize and absorb emancipatory movements, turning them into administrable forms of identity within broader regimes of control. Doyle’s critique of wokeness ultimately misses its deeper, more concealed alignment with newest forms of power. The history of contemporary liberation movements shows how swiftly they are neutralized, incorporated, or institutionalized.

Wokism is a loose constellation of political positions drawing from a range of philosophical worldviews heavily indebted to Hegel and Marx, but also extending into postmodernist territory expressed by anti-Marxist thinkers like Foucault. — Joshs

When we engage in contemporary online or identity politics discourse, the very act of speaking subjects us to the same conditions that shape what is commonly called ‘wokeness.’ In that moment, we are often not reflecting on our deeper philosophical or political commitments. Therefore, it may be useful to distinguish between our discursive practices and their deliberate interpretations. Michel Foucault remains highly relevant here—both for analyzing our immediate behaviours and for constructing a broader philosophical perspective on wokeness. From a Foucauldian perspective, wokeness can be understood not only as an emancipatory gesture but also as a mode through which power is reproduced via identity. Identity politics thus operates within the current digital power/knowledge regime, simultaneously enabling recognition and reinforcing normative expectations of being 'woke.' As Foucault put it, 'It is a form of power that makes individuals subjects—that subjugates and makes subject to…'"

accusations of fascism toward Trump are “unjustifiable and untethered from reality”. You won’t find many thoughtful writers in America these days who still deny that Trump’s playbook comes straight out of the school of autocracy perfected by pols like Putin, Orban, Erdogan and Bolsonaro. — Joshs

Don’t the regimes of these rulers represent distinct modes of exercising power? For instance, Orbán and Erdoğan were democratically elected, while Putin maintains only a façade of electoral legitimacy. So, what exactly constitutes this so-called 'school of autocracy'? As for claims of 'Trump’s fascism,' such assertions depend entirely on how fascism is defined. Without a well-developed and nuanced theoretical framework, labeling Trump as a fascist may become an example of a political slogan or ideologically driven discourse.

How does this happen? What is this “presentation”? What occurs, when an alleged memory comes to mind, that allows me to identify it as an alleged memory? — J

There are diverse philosophical, literary, and psychological approaches that reject the notion of memory as a passive faculty of involuntary recollection or a smooth, automatic flow embedded within routine conscious experience. Instead, they consider memory as a powerful and active force. Marcel Proust’s ‘In Search of Lost Time’ becomes a paradigmatic example of such an endeavour. He explains his method as “The truths that intelligence grasps directly in the open light of day have something less profound, less necessary about them than those that life has communicated to us despite ourselves in an impression because it has reached us through our senses, but whose spirit we can extract... I would have to interpret the sensations as the signs of so many laws and ideas, by attempting to think, that is, to bring out of the darkness what I had felt and to convert memory, still too material, into its spiritual equivalent.” (Proust, ‘In search of lost time,’ V.1, pg. 49) Here, memory is a creative force that involves interpreting and translating sensory experiences, ‘impressions,’ into their ‘spiritual equivalent.’ For Proust, the past does not exist in a fixed or pre-emptive form waiting to be retrieved. Instead, it must be produced and created anew. Thus, recollection involves a process of deciphering, interpreting, and transforming raw sensations into coherent and meaningful narratives. Therefore, memory functions as a complex interplay between sensation, interpretation, and consciousness, where the past is continually reimagined and reconstituted through the present act of remembering. Within this framework, memory can be clearly distinguished from related mental faculties such as imagination and recognition. Memory functions to maintain the continuity of the present self-awareness. It synthesizes recurring sensory impressions and emotional experiences, retaining repetitive and affectively charged patterns. Simultaneously, memory grounds coherent and intelligible narratives that contribute to the ongoing formation and reinforcement of one’s sense of self.

How does this happen? What is this “presentation”? What occurs, when an alleged memory comes to mind, that allows me to identify it as an alleged memory? It seems as rock-bottom as identifying something as a physical perception. But can this be so? — J

But what we can't do is go looking for criteria that we consciously use to identify memories or distinguish them from other thoughts. There had better not be such criteria, because we couldn't know it and never apply them without already allowing memory to have its way. — Srap Tasmaner

From the perspective of the embodied and embedded mind, memory and recollection are not seen solely as private, internal processes occurring within the brain. Shaun Gallagher, for example, argues that memory is an active process arising from the dynamic interaction between individuals and their bodily and social environments.
Memory is not a single internal event but rather the culmination of the process of the lived experience, including bodily sensations, perceptual cues, and the practical context. For instance, seeing a particular place, handling an object, and participating in social activity can together form a complex, multi-relational enactment of memory. Although the act of remembering involves an implicit self-awareness that “this is something from my past,” any element within this process can take the lead and trigger recollection. What might appear to be a single mental snapshot actually represents a broader, interconnected complex.