Why this book?
- Offers a critique of wokeness and identity politics from within the leftist tradition.
- Reinterprets the three concepts of universalism, justice, and progress as the foundations of leftist thought.
- Examines the relationship between the ideas of Foucault and Schmitt and certain theoretical presuppositions of wokeness.
- Provides a philosophical framework for understanding today's disputes over social justice, identity, power, and cancel culture.
- Defends the legacy of the Enlightenment and the possibility of progress against historical pessimism.
About the book
Left Is Not Woke is a work by Susan Neiman, a contemporary philosopher and defender of the Enlightenment legacy, who critiques wokeness and a segment of contemporary identity politics from a leftist standpoint. Neiman's central question is whether every viewpoint that presents itself as a defender of marginalized groups and an opponent of discrimination is necessarily a logical continuation of the leftist tradition. Her answer is no.
Neiman organizes her argument around three principles: universalism, the distinction between justice and power, and a belief in the possibility of progress. In her view, the historical left, at its best, addresses human beings beyond their ethnic, racial, and group affiliations, does not reduce justice merely to power relations, and takes seriously the possibility of improving the world. Neiman believes that certain forms of wokeness, with their excessive emphasis on group identities, suspicion of universal claims, and a dark view of history, have distanced themselves from these principles.