End of Woke
* Book: The End of Woke: How the Culture War Went Too Far and What to Expect from the Counter-Revolution.By Andrew Doyle. Constable, 2025. 560 pages
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Review
Ashley Frawley:
"ndrew Doyle begins his new book The End of Woke by expressing his hope that the book will one day become a compendium of historical curiosities that merely makes “a decent doorstop.” He’s partially right: Reading his catalogue of absurdities—the compulsory pronouns, the protest theater, the police knocking at the door to “check your thinking”—does give the distinct feel of being hung over and forced to recall the unseemly events of the night before. But while the enthusiasm of that moment has faded and certain of its excesses are being pared back, much of its legal backing remains in place.
Doyle’s book, which is written with wit and intelligence, makes another fact absolutely clear: Woke may be losing, but freedom hasn’t won. Society has not yet found its way back. If anything, we may find ourselves more lost than before. Doyle reminds us that liberalism did not triumph in the woke era, and it won’t again unless we realize that it needs defending.
Doyle’s central argument is simple but too often missed: “Wokeness is not an extension of liberalism; it is its opposite.” Woke movements cloaked themselves in the language of liberal tolerance, inclusion, and anti-racism. But this was only ever a ruse. Doyle mines a seemingly bottomless pit of examples to show that all the talk of decency and opposing bigotry was a smokescreen: Wokeness is distinguished specifically by its “authoritarian aspect.” It demanded not moral agreement, but ideological submission. I would go further: Wokeness is defined precisely by its antithesis to liberalism.
Hence, many of the cursed opinions it sought to blot out were in fact liberal ones: that being gender non-conforming did not literally mean you were the opposite sex, that people should be judged on the content of their character rather than the color of their skin, that free speech includes the right to offend. But Doyle skilfully illustrates how “evangelists of the woke movement” were able to gain power precisely because they preyed on the liberal propensities of the public. Transgenderism was first passed off as just another “‘live-and-let-live’ type of gay.” The return of race essentialism was hidden under layers of equality rhetoric. It took a keen eye to discern the sexism and racism behind these claims. For instance, Doyle describes how one school excluded Asian students from the “students of color” category on the grounds that their success made them “white-adjacent”—a move that, he writes, treats achievement itself as a white trait.
That wokeness gained power by such deception might be a hopeful sign for the cause that Doyle wishes to defend: real liberalism—not the skinsuit wokeness wore, but the liberalism that came to life in the Enlightenment. Ironically, the early success of wokeness demonstrates that this spark still burns in the heart of the masses, even as it enjoys scant political representation. Many passively assented to woke demands because activists and governments colluded to bundle them in with genuinely progressive ones. As Doyle highlights, the Dentons/Reuters/IGLYO report “Only Adults?” recommended slipping gender transition policies into popular legislation like gay marriage.
Unfortunately, opponents of wokeness have taken this liberal mask at face value. In their opposition, they flocked to what seemed to be its opposite pole, only deepening the cultural turn toward illiberalism and authoritarianism. Doyle laments that for many in the anti-woke camp, “liberty is overrated.” So we have seen the rise of the “woke right,” equally eager to defund this or that, and see people fired for ill-considered social media posts. Doyle notes that the label “woke right” is contested, but if wokeness is defined by its antithetical relationship to liberalism as I suggest, then the term is not just apt, it’s unavoidable."
(https://www.compactmag.com/article/woke-lost-but-freedom-didnt-win/?)