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Wokeness is not just any brand of Marxism — it is Maosim with American characteristics.

In two recent articles, I profiled a powerful speech by academic and woke critic James Lindsay. The first emphasised Lindsay’s point that wokeness is simply Marxism adapted to a Western context. The second outlined his explanation of how wokeness was able to successfully capture the West’s institutions.

Lindsay delivered his speech at the European Parliament last month. Organised by Identité et Démocratie Fondation (The Identity and Democracy Foundation) the event was entitled, ‘Woke, a Cultural War Against Europe’.

James Lindsay’s speech deserves to be watched in full:

During that same speech, Lindsay made the observation that wokeness is not just any brand of Marxism — it is Maosim with American characteristics. He argues that the West is in the throes of a Maoist revolution.

Just as in China, Marxism has evolved to attack the West at its weakest points, according to Lindsay: through our tolerance, acceptance, openness and generosity. He clarifies that these also happen to be some of the best characteristics of Western society. However to the Marxist, they are also points of vulnerability that can be — and have been — exploited.

Mao Zedong and Identity Politics

One of the key features of Maoism was Mao Zedong’s use of identity categories to foment the Chinese Communist Revolution. Mao created ten identities, five of which he labelled red for communist, and five that he labelled black for fascist. 

The Five Red Categories — who were seen as the vanguard of the Chinese Communist Revolution — included poor and lower-middle peasants, workers, revolutionary soldiers, revolutionary cadres and revolutionary martyrs.

The Five Black Categories — who were demonised, opposed, imprisoned and killed — included landlords, rich farmers, counter-revolutionaries, bad influencers and right-wingers.

Mao Zedong was a master in his use of these identity categories. If you had a bad category, your children would have a bad category by default. The Maoists created social pressure for the children of “fascists” to identify as revolutionaries. If they did, they were rewarded and given a red or Communist identity. Lindsay highlights that the youth led the revolution in China because Mao knew how to exploit identity politics through the children in China’s school system.

Why the Woke Want to Radicalise Children

Mimicking Mao, wokeness uses Americanised identity categories. In the United States, children are told that being white is bad and oppressive — that to be white is to hurt people of other races simply by existing.

This is where the woke offer a way out. They convince the young and naive that there is a way they can change their identity: if you become queer, we will celebrate you.

Woke revolutionaries are now using schools to create a radical army of youth who identify as gender and sexual minorities. The Chinese spyware app TikTok is also being used to this end. Many of the children coming under woke influence are being put on puberty blockers and are having their bodies surgically mutilated, sometimes behind their parents’ backs.

It is the same program that Mao Zedong used to radicalise Chinese school children, warns Lindsay. The only difference is the identity categories that are being used.

The woke revolution is not isolated to the United States. It is being exported across the Western world. For example, when George Floyd died in Minneapolis in 2020 — an event that has nothing to do with Europe — statues of historic figures were toppled across Europe.

As Lindsay points out, it is total nonsense that the death of a man in Minnesota should cause the desecration of historical figures on the other side of the world. But the point isn’t to make sense, says Lindsay — “the point is to destroy Western civilisation from within using Maoist techniques”.

Mao Zedong and the Cult of ‘Inclusion’

Mao Zedong said in 1942 that his strategy to transform China was called unity, criticism, unity. First, the Communists created the desire for unity, Then they criticised anyone who did not live up to it. Then the Communists used that criticism to coerce and “re-educate” outliers to come under their new unifying standard.

Once again, wokeness in the West is following this Maoist technique, even if the vocabulary is slightly different.

The woke have created a desire for inclusion and belonging. Anyone who resists they demonise as bigots, racists and fascists. It is a strategy that works on many people who are instinctively afraid of such labels and quickly fall in line. Re-education programs have been installed in most of the West’s institutions under the guise of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).

Through this strategy, the majority are brought under the new standard. Mao called it socialist discipline, while Western Marxists simply call it “inclusion”.

Naming Our Enemy

James Lindsay warns that if the West fails to fight back and conquer wokeness, it will overrun our civilisation and “we will have a very, very long sustainable and inclusive future with absolutely no freedom”.

He says that the goal is to make us into what they call “global citizens”. This is a nonsense term since there is no global sovereign and therefore no global citizenship. United Nations literature is rife with talk of global citizenship. But as Lindsay notes, the UN isn’t really interested in what the rights of global citizens are, what’s important is their responsibilities — in other words, slavery.

He explains:

This is a pivotal moment in the history of the Western world. The model that they are moving us toward… is the model we see in China. If you want to know what your future looks like if we don’t stop the woke, look at China. Look at the social credit system, look at the oppression, look people disappearing for having the wrong opinions. One of their greatest billionaires, Jack Ma, said the wrong thing about the government and disappeared. A billionaire. If you want to know what the future of Europe and America [looks like]… it’s China. That’s the model.

In summarising his speech, Lindsay says:

So we have to fight back against woke. But to fight back against woke we have to understand it. And I will close by restating my thesis: woke is Marxism evolved to take on the West. And it’s been very successful so far because we haven’t known our enemy, we cannot name our enemy. And I have come here to name our enemy.

Image via Unsplash.