Comment by pron
6 days ago
It's questionable in what way wokeness exists at all without a clear definition. Graham's definition is more personal judgment than definition, but according to him, whatever he thinks it is seems to be about 30 years old. Bolshevik-Mensheviks and Trotskyists-Stalinists sects appeared faster than that (the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks split a mere 5 years after the creation of the party).
Also, I think Sam Kriss's point about sects and splits was meant to be taken in humour. Funnily enough, both Kriss and Graham seem obsessed with convincing the reader they're not boring. But whereas Graham's writing is predictable though he repeatedly insists on telling the reader that his old-school conventionalism is the true rebelliousness, Kriss writes provocatively in a way that's supposed to make you unsure of whether he's serious or not. In any event, Kriss's writing is at least always entertaining even when it isn't interesting.
Right, and maybe one of the reasons that we don't see a split is because there is no clear definition, no clear boundaries. But perhaps we can find splits if we look more carefully. One notion that could be indicative of a split is "white women's tears".
There may be splits in feminism over intersectionality, but is that considered part of wokeness? Again, without a clear definition (and it's obvious that different people mean different things when using that word) it's hard to talk about what it is at all.