Author: Douglas Murray is a conservative British writer, journalist, and political commentator. He is Editor of the British political and cultural magazine The Spectator and founder of the Centre for Social Cohesion.
Book: The book analyses the derangement of the “woke” culture and the rise of identity politics. Murray investigates some of the most complex and sensitive topics of our days, like gender, race, sexual orientation, and feminism. He interludes these movements with the Marxist foundations of “wokeness”, the impact of technology, and forgiveness. He ends the book with a call for free speech, shared common values and sanity in an age of mass hysteria. He defends the individual rights of everyone and argues that gender, race, and identity are complex issues that are being mistreated by a society that has shifted towards victimhood and political correctness in a dangerous way.
Opinion: The book is controversial; however, I think that most of the ideas and facts Murray presents are widely shared among the society. The thing is that most individuals are afraid to make such claims due to the career and personal risk that they may generate. I especially liked Murray´s his critic of the Foucauldian perspective of reducing society to power relations. Besides, I think that the author could have used his subsequent short critique of Gramsci´s idea of cultural hegemony (p.52) to explain the minority rule that is making political correctness and victimhood rule the world. In my view, the author may cherry-pick anecdotes in some cases to justify some ideas, however, I agree with him on the fundamental points – I strongly believe that every human should have the same rights and should be treated independently of their race, gender, or sexual orientation. However, the “third wave” of feminism, BLM and other post-Marxist organizations seek to impose their ideology and political agenda instead of working for a free and equal society. They do not act for gender, race and identity “Blindness” as Martin Luther King and others did in the past. They promulgate censorship, hate and violence. Hopefully, in the future, the politicization of identity will not be a source of meaning anymore and we will achieve a peaceful society where nobody is discriminated against due to characteristics attached to them by chance.
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