The Right Isn’t the Only Reactionary About “Wokeness”

I recently read that the first novel in recorded history was published in Japan. It was called “The Tale of Genji,” completed in the early 11th-century by a woman later given the name Murasaki Shikibu. A few years ago, I found out that printing existed in Asia hundreds of years before the printing press. These are facts I never learned in college, led alone K through 12 — all of which tends to focus on the Gutenberg when the history of printing comes up.

If I said “we should teach this in school,” many within today’s political discourse would call me “woke.” And it wouldn’t only be folks on the Right

Many on the Left (particularly those with “it’s class, not race” politics), who ostensibly value historicism and material reality, would assert that even bringing up that fact (whether it is true or not) can essentially only be about representation, political correctness and identity politics.

It’s been interesting to see the ways folks on the Left use “woke.” It’s often used in a scoffing way similar to the Right. Though it’s usually without the Right’s disgust, the overlap is an empty signifier used to convey the idea that “this (progressive) argument is unserious and you don’t have to engage in with it.”