Week 10
“Wokeness”
Soci—229
“Wokeness” and its Discontents–
November 3rd
Reminders
Response Memo Deadline
This week’s response memo—which has to be between 250-400 words and posted on our Moodle Discussion Board—is due by 8:00 PM tonight.
Reminders
Final Paper Proposal
Final Paper Proposal Deadline
Your final paper proposals are due by 8:00 PM on Friday, November 21st.
Reminders
Final Paper Proposal
Reminders
Final Paper Proposal
Group Discussion I
Defining Our Terms
What’s wokeness?
What’s anti-wokeness?
Discuss in groups of 3-4.
Defining Our Terms
Unigrams From a Pilot Survey of Americans, N of 454
Defining Our Terms
Romano (2020) offers a detailed overview of how these terms evolved.
Anti-“Woke” Fervour
The Backlash Against “Wokeness”
The Backlash Against “Wokeness”
The Backlash Against “Wokeness”
The Backlash Against “Wokeness”
The Backlash Against “Wokeness”
Etc.
The Backlash Against “Wokeness”
What explains this backlash against “wokeness?”
Well, according to al-Gharbi (2024), this question obscures a different possibility—i.e., that we have never been woke.
We Have Never Been Woke
(al-Gharbi 2024)
Wokeness and “Symbolic Capitalists”
Back to Bourdieu
In his initial formulation, Bourdieu highlighted three forms of symbolic capital: cultural, academic, and political. Each of these, he argued, could be converted into the others under the right circumstances—and symbolic capital can also be converted into financial capital (indeed, this is precisely how intellectual or cultural elites “make a living”). Collectively, these different forms of symbolic capital serve as the basis for defining others as insiders or intruders, experts or amateurs, leaders or brutes, authentic or posers, geniuses or hacks, sincere or cynical, worthy or unworthy, and so forth.
(al-Gharbi 2024, 25, EMPHASIS ADDED)
Wokeness and “Symbolic Capitalists”
Back to Bourdieu
[C]ultural capital is about demonstrating oneself as interesting, cool, sophisticated, charismatic, charming, and so on. People reveal their cultural capital through how they talk, how they carry themselves, their dress, their manners, their tastes and expressed opinions—all of which provide strong cues as to one’s level of education, socioeconomic background, ideological and political alignments, place of origin, and so forth. Of these three main forms of symbolic capital, it is cultural capital that is the least accessible to nonelites … A core argument of this book is that wokeness has become a key source of cultural capital among contemporary elites—especially among symbolic capitalists.
(al-Gharbi 2024, 26, EMPHASIS ADDED)
Wokeness and “Symbolic Capitalists”
Who are the symbolic capitalists?
Symbolic capitalists are professionals who traffic in symbols and rhetoric, images and narratives, data and analysis, ideas and abstraction (as opposed to workers engaged in manual forms of labor tied to physical goods and services). For instance, people who work in fields like education, science, tech, finance, media, law, consulting, administration, and public policy are overwhelmingly symbolic capitalists.
(al-Gharbi 2024, 26, EMPHASIS ADDED)
Wokeness and “Symbolic Capitalists”
The idiosyncratic understandings of social justice and attendant dispositions and modes of engagement colloquially referred to as “being woke” are popular almost exclusively among (symbolic capitalists). Those who are genuinely vulnerable, marginalized, disadvantaged, or impoverished don’t think or talk in these ways. And that’s part of the point. Among symbolic capitalists, wokeness has come to serve as a sign that someone is of an elite background or is well educated … (and) are aware of, and are willing and able to competently execute, the appropriate scripts for cultural and intellectual elites in response to various cues. That is, wokeness is increasingly a means of identifying who is part of “the club”—and it provides a basis for deeming those who are not part of the club unworthy of symbolic capital (i.e., people who fail to embrace elite conceptions of “social justice” are held to be undeserving of honor, fame, prestige, deference, etc.).
(al-Gharbi 2024, 26, EMPHASIS ADDED)
Wokeness and “Symbolic Capitalists”
A Question
How can we link al-Gharbi’s (2024) ideas to
boundary-making?
Wokeness and “Symbolic Capitalists”
An Additional Reading
Táíwò (2022) makes a similar point in Elite Capture.
A Key Tension
Wokeness and Inequality
Wokeness and Inequality
Wokeness and Inequality
To al-Gharbi (2024), a narrow focus on the 1% obscures how “we” are complicit in the reproduction of inequality.
Wokeness and Inequality
Symbolic capitalists and the institutions they dominate tend to be the first and primary proponents of ideologies through which elites legitimize their rule. “Wokeness” is no exception … The Americans most likely to profess beliefs associated with wokeness also tend to be the Americans most likely to become symbolic capitalists: highly educated, relatively affluent white liberals.
(al-Gharbi 2024, 33, EMPHASIS ADDED)
Wokeness and Inequality
Cultural and intellectual producers, Bourdieu argued, are economically dominated but symbolically dominant; they are the dominated faction of the dominant class. They are elites, but their elite position is typically contingent on continued patronage from wealthy people or the state—and on association with prestigious institutions such as universities or media outlets (which,themselves, are reliant on patronage from other elites or the government). As a consequence, although they may fancy themselves rebels or speakers of uncomfortable truths—and although they can and often do leverage their clout to push elites or institutions in particular directions—intellectual and cultural elites also tend to know their limits, and generally take care not to cross any lines that would result in their expulsion from corridors of influence.
(al-Gharbi 2024, 48, EMPHASIS ADDED)
Wokeness and Inequality
[I]n virtually all cases … symbolic capitalists achieve and maintain their position by producing information, ideas, art, entertainment, and other things that their benefactors find to be useful, interesting, aesthetically pleasing, or otherwise satisfying—that is, not genuinely threatening, challenging, or unpleasant. Mostly, they tell benefactors what they want to hear, show them what they want to see, or otherwise prove themselves useful to people with money or power. Our own livelihoods and social positions depend on our willingness and capacity to “play ball” in this way.
(al-Gharbi 2024, 48–49, EMPHASIS ADDED)
Wokeness and Inequality
In this way, al-Gharbi (2024) posits, systems of inequality tend towards a kind of dynamic equilibrium—despite the proliferation of
“woke” ideas and frameworks.
Group Discussion II
Wokeness and Social Reproduction
In groups of 3-4, discuss the following set of questions:
Do you buy al-Gharbi’s (2024) general argument?
How does al-Gharbi (2024) distinguish the “woke beliefs” in circulation today to how wokeness was initially deployed by activists—i.e., as an orientation towards the political world?
Are wokeness and political correctness similar? Why or why not?
Does al-Gharbi (2024) believe that symbolic capitalists are sincere about their commitments to wokeness?
What About Anti-“Wokeness?”
Symbolic Capitalists Against Wokeness
[C]ontemporary symbolic capitalists are overwhelmingly and increasingly aligned with the Democratic Party and the “cultural left.” However, there is a right wing among them. They amount to a relatively small share of symbolic capitalists overall yet exert a disproportionate impact in virtue of being highly organized, well funded, and quite skilled at eliciting strong (outraged) reactions both from mainstream symbolic capitalists and against mainstream symbolic capitalists—often in alliance with “anti-woke” peers.
(al-Gharbi 2024, 40, EMPHASIS ADDED)
Symbolic Capitalists Against Wokeness
[A]nti-wokes purport to agree with mainstream symbolic capitalists at the broad level. They typically claim to be lifelong Democrats … They insist that they strongly support feminism, LGBTQ rights, environmentalism, racial equality, and so on in principle. The problem, in their telling, is that the “woke” crowd is pursuing these goals in the “wrong” way—in ways that are not just ineffective but counterproductive. This, they argue, is what fundamentally motivates their anti-woke crusade: a desire to better achieve shared social justice goals.
(al-Gharbi 2024, 41–42, EMPHASIS ADDED)
Symbolic Capitalists Against Wokeness
Tellingly, however, the anti-woke do not themselves organize, lead, or participate in … campaigns to address poverty, discrimination, exploitation, and so on. Indeed, they don’t seem very preoccupied with tangibly addressing social problems at all … In much the same way as the behaviors of “woke” elites suggest an implicit belief that symbolic gestures are necessary and sufficient to fulfill their social justice obligations, the anti-woke behave as if condemning, mocking, or deriding wokeness somehow obviates the need for further action on their part in pursuit of the social justice goals they ostensibly endorse.
(al-Gharbi 2024, 42, EMPHASIS ADDED)
Symbolic Capitalists Against Wokeness
Why?
This is perhaps because, at bottom, the anti-woke actually subscribe to the same fundamental worldview as those who are woke. They are obsessed with wokeness and view it as dangerous precisely because they share the mainstream symbolic capitalist conviction that symbols, rhetoric, and beliefs are very important. Without this shared premise, there wouldn’t be much at stake in their struggle. The woke are often criticized as being overly focused on themselves—on their own beliefs, feelings, intentions, and self-presentation. However, the anti-woke are likewise obsessed with the woke. They are just as focused on the woke as the woke are on themselves!
(al-Gharbi 2024, 42, EMPHASIS ADDED)
Group Discussion III
Wokeness and the Far Right
How would you bring far right politics into this story?
Discuss in groups of 3-4.
“Great Awokenings” and “Woke” Beliefs–
November 5th
Reminders
Final Paper Proposal
Final Paper Proposal Deadline
Your final paper proposals are due by 8:00 PM on Friday, November 21st.
Reminders
Final Paper Proposal
Reminders
Final Paper Proposal
A Class Discussion
The Virtues of Wokeness?
In the spirit of weighing alternative explanations, is there a way to cast wokeness in a positive light? Or is it necessarily a conduit
for social inequality?
Moreover, as noted, al-Gharbi (2024, 26) posits that those “who are genuinely vulnerable, marginalized, disadvantaged, or impoverished don’t think or talk” in ways aligned with wokeness.
Do you tend to agree or disagree?
The Heterogeneity of Anti-Wokeness
Opposition to wokeness might reflect a concern with the rise of “identitarian” politics divorced from the concerns of ordinary people. What else might underlie anti-wokeness?
(see Perry and McDaniel 2023)
“Awokenings”
The Rise and Fall of Wokeness?
To some scholars, debates implicating wokeness helped reshape social and political life in the 2010s—but is this era over?
The Rise and Fall of Wokeness?
To al-Gharbi (2024, 29, EMPHASIS ADDED), “a growing number of empirical indicators suggest that the period of ‘Awokening’ that began after 2010 seems to be winding down.”
The Rise and Fall of Wokeness?
To Bright (2025), the answer is
kinda yes, kinda no.
The Rise and Fall of Wokeness?
Kinda Yes
[T]he pandemic and the immediate responses to it really did push the characteristic woke concerns out of the headline a bit. While polarisation meant broadly the same political coalitions found themselves squaring off on opposing sides of the debates about lockdown as had found themselves squaring off about campus free speech, it really isn’t the sort of debate animated by the same sort of fixations as the wokeness wars that had preceded it. Likewise when debates about inflation and the extent to which there was a “vibecession” emerged in the wake of lockdown, these were simply not done exactly on the terms of discourse from a few years back. In short, the pandemic was a kind of circuit-break on the wokeness era, where a new set of issues simply forced itself to the top of the cultural and political agenda.
(Bright 2025, EMPHASIS ADDED)
The Rise and Fall of Wokeness?
Kinda No
[T]here’s one really boring sense in which we haven’t got over wokeness, and that’s that the right wing press and politicians haven’t found a new term with which to sneer at leftists. In my lifetime, across the UK and America, I’ve seen “loony left”, “PC police” (or saying of things that they are “PC gone mad!” or “health and safety culture”), “champagne socialist”, and “latte/limousine liberal” all come and go. From this I conclude that there’s a natural churn to these things and I am sure saying that everything and everyone you don’t like is “woke” will get boring eventually too. That hasn’t happened yet, so we’re going to be hearing about “woke” this that or the other for a while yet. But this too will pass.
(Bright 2025, EMPHASIS ADDED)
The Rise and Fall of Wokeness?
To put it simply, both authors suggest that the discourse is changing. But why? And what spurred the wokeness wars to begin with?
Have similar wars been waged in the past?
Group Discussion IV
Great “Awokenings”
In groups of 3-4, discuss the following questions:
Which social movement does al-Gharbi (2024) link to the Great Awokening that crystallized in the 2010s?
Have there been other Great Awokenings in the past?
To the extent that there have, what kinds of historical conjunctures or structural conditions impel cultural elites to—perhaps puritanically—fixate on social justice in the midst of an Awokening?
Lay Theories of the
‘Woke’ Phenomenon
Demand for Wokeness and Anti-Wokeness
In many ways, (anti-)wokeness is a story about cultural elites.
But how do ordinary people orient themselves to the term?
Demand for Wokeness and Anti-Wokeness
Here are some preliminary answers from our pilot survey of \approx 500 Americans (Broćić and Karim 2025).
Don’t quote us just yet.
Demand for Wokeness and Anti-Wokeness
Familiarity with the Term(s)
Demand for Wokeness and Anti-Wokeness
Partisan Foundations
Click to Expand Image
Demand for Wokeness and Anti-Wokeness
Demand for Wokeness and Anti-Wokeness
Demand for Wokeness and Anti-Wokeness
Demand for Wokeness and Anti-Wokeness
Demand for Wokeness and Anti-Wokeness
Demand for Wokeness and Anti-Wokeness
Another Class Discussion
Lay Theories of Wokeness
How would you make sense of our (cf. Broćić and Karim 2025) preliminary results?
Group Exercise
Wokeness and Trumpism
In groups of 3-4, return to Pew’s report on Trump’s 2024 victory. Do the patterns below align with al-Gharbi’s (2024) theses in We Have Never Been Woke?
Enjoy the Weekend
References
al-Gharbi, Musa. 2024. We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Bright, Liam Kofi. 2025. “Wokeness: A Retrospective.” The Sooty Empiric. https://sootyempiric.blogspot.com/2025/08/wokeness-retrospective.html.
Broćić, Miloš, and Sakeef M. Karim. 2025. “Lay Theories of the ‘Woke’ Phenomenon.” Working Paper.
Perry, Samuel L., and Eric L. McDaniel. 2023. “Why ‘Woke’ Is A Convenient Republican Dog Whistle.” TIME. https://time.com/6250153/woke-convenient-republican-dog-whistle/.
Romano, Aja. 2020. “A History of ‘Wokeness’.” Vox. https://www.vox.com/culture/21437879/stay-woke-wokeness-history-origin-evolution-controversy.
Táíwò, Olúfẹ́mi O. 2022. Elite Capture. Chicago: Pluto Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv2g591sq.
