Editor’s Note: The following is an article originally published by the Observatory of University Ethics on January 2, 2023. It was translated into English from French by the Observatory before being edited to align with Minding the Campus’s style guidelines. It is crossposted here with permission.
The phenomenon known as “woke” or “wokism” is international: initially developed on North American campuses in the late 2010s and having quickly reached the worlds of culture, politics, and even business, it has quickly crossed the Atlantic to invest in many European countries. Its success is largely due to the fact that it defends causes rightly associated with progress and justice, but—and this is where it poses a problem—by making them systematic or even unique grids for perceiving the world, by introducing them into arenas where they have no place, and by using means that end up distorting them. Hence the need to take this phenomenon seriously.
But it particularly concerns France for reasons that we will briefly discuss before looking at the two assets it has to deal with.
The permeability of French social sciences to wokeism
Wokeism, being a form of activism, constitutes in the academic world only a new version of a phenomenon widely attested in previous generations, namely the contamination of knowledge by ideology. Practicing the confusion of arenas, it claims the submission of the scientific aim of production and dissemination of knowledge to a political aim of defense of the “exploited” (Marxist version), the “oppressed” or the “colonized” (Third World version), the “dominated” (critical sociology version) or the “discriminated” (woke version)—which is perfectly estimable in the political arena, but contrary to the rules of production of scientific objectivity in the academic arena.
In this regard, in 2021, Jacques Julliard spoke of the “three glaciations” of French thought, through Stalinism, leftism and then what he then called “Islamo-leftism,” but which is only a subcategory of “wokism.”[1]. I myself attempted a diagnosis of the modalities and effects of the phenomenon in two short publications where I highlighted the different periods of militant influence at the University and, specifically, in the social sciences—sociology, political science, anthropology, history: not only the Marxist influence of the 1950s-1960s and the leftist influence of the 1970s, but also, twenty years later, the influence of Bourdieu’s “critical sociology” associated with the new militant movements of the radical left and finally, more recently, the “woke” influence imported from the Anglo-American world.[2].
Across the Atlantic, woke ideology draws largely and explicitly on French thinkers of “deconstruction,” who have largely fueled the so-called “post-modern” movement since the 1990s: Derrida for the deconstruction of discourses, Foucault for the deconstruction of powers, Lyotard for the deconstruction of the notion of truth, etc. Imported mainly into the literature departments of North American universities, they have returned to us as an export product under the valorizing term of “french theory,” giving its academic titles of nobility to the idea that there would be no difference in nature between knowledge and opinion, science and ideology, and that it would therefore be perfectly legitimate to constitute “studies” as university disciplines (” studies ») dedicated to the description and denunciation of all forms of discrimination, whether based on race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, etc. [3]
Thus have developed across the Atlantic and are beginning to take hold in French universities, “gender studies,” academic support for feminist activism; “decolonial studies,” academic support for anti-racist activism and the fight against “Islamophobia;” “intersectional studies,” at the crossroads of feminism and anti-racism; “LGBT studies,” academic supports for the fight against homophobia, among which the fight against “transphobia” is becoming the most visible in the public space via violent actions carried out against academics.
Such actions are part of a phenomenon closely linked to wokeness, namely “cancel culture ” (cancel or censorship culture) also from across the Atlantic, and which legitimizes the banning or cancellation of any public speech that is supposedly “offensive” to a minority. [4] Although unsuited to French law, which regulates freedom of expression in such a way that only the courts are qualified to ban—unlike in the United States and Canada, where the constitutional absolutization of this freedom leads to the assumption of its limitations by activist groups—this movement has in recent years given rise to various acts of threat and even violence against conferences, training courses, and shows, leading to their cancellation.[5]
« french theory », “Activism”, “wokism”, “ cancel culture »: the very vocabulary attests to the Anglo-American origin of the phenomenon (strongly marked moreover by religious influences via Protestantism[6]), to the point that we could speak of a “North American conceptual coup d’état in the French language”[7]The French heritage of deconstruction theories, combined with a certain Americanophile snobbery, largely contributes to explaining the permeability of the French academic world to this North American influence – a permeability that was explored by a conference that brought together researchers concerned about the phenomenon at the Sorbonne in January 2022.[8].
[Related: To End the Nonsense About Academic Freedom]
Extensions of the Wokism Domain
Driven by the power of social media diffusion, this French success of the woke phenomenon is not only evident in the academic world, where research units, doctoral schools, conferences, study days and colloquia, calls for papers for academic journals and even calls for research projects supported by institutions now abound.[9] It also affects the cultural world, and in particular the theatrical world, as documented by theatre specialist Isabelle Barbéris.[10] The associative world is also sensitive to it, in particular with the submission of the defense of human rights to a communitarian model (Human Rights League). Some unions have also allowed themselves to be penetrated by woke ideology, especially on the far left—SUD, which organized “single-sex meetings”—and in student unionism—UNEF, represented in public by a veiled young girl, and which described the reactions to the fire at Notre-Dame as “little white people’s delusions.”
Wokism also finds support from the political world, mainly through the funding of various associations or organizations. Thus, the association Alliance Citoyenne is funded by the State to the tune of 15 percent of its budget and recognized as a training organization, which provides it with 25 percent of its resources, while its militant actions—notably in favor of the hijab in sports competitions—are clearly inspired by the Muslim Brotherhood, to the point that this association appears to some as “the flagrant manifestation of the infiltration of French progressive circles on the basis of new social and economic organizations developed in the United States, a combination of the unionist environment and the financial power of foundations.”[11] Furthermore, various ministries blindly subsidize training organizations that claim to fight discrimination, drawing inspiration from American-style “diversity training.” In reality, these programs are often led by activist groups promoting either LGBTQI+ advocacy or neo-feminist causes, turning the effort into a lucrative “virtue market.”[12] [13] This is particularly the case of the Egaé firm of Caroline de Haas, founder of “Osez le féminisme” in 2009), created in 2012, and whose clients include the International Organization of the Francophonie, the Council of Europe, the French Development Agency, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the French Institute, the National School of Administration and the Chanel Foundation. The firm’s turnover increased by 47.5 percent between 2017 and 2019, and in 2022 the Council of State entrusted it with training on gender equality for an amount of 110 euros.[14] Let us also mention the French Movement for Family Planning, subsidized by the State to the tune of 272 euros and approved to intervene in classes while its new orientations, strongly directed in favor of transsexualism, go far beyond its initial missions, and its use of inclusive writing contradicts the law which prohibits it in the school world.[15] Finally, let us mention the Interministerial Delegation for the Fight against Racism, Anti-Semitism and Anti-LGBT Hatred (DILCRAH), placed under the authority of the Prime Minister and which, nevertheless, in July 2022, called into question the practitioners of the Little Mermaid Observatory who advocate caution in matters of sex change among minors, the delegation publicly aligning itself with the positions of the most radical and intolerant trans activists.
And finally, it is in the media, as well as in the economic world, that wokeism has taken hold, first in the United States, particularly in GAFAM, then in France where it has become a reference theme via, in particular, the law on corporate social responsibility (CSR). [16]
This indicates a major difference between wokeism and the activism of yesteryear: far from being marginal or groupuscule, it benefits from the support of institutions and, in particular, of European institutions with regard to research credits, allocated primarily to anti-discrimination themes, to the detriment of many other areas of research. Thus, it is not good today to be a specialist in Islamism—which our societies nevertheless need because of the dangers it represents: one will be immediately directed towards credits allocated to the fight against “Islamophobia”—a notion coined to prohibit any criticism of Islamism.
Resisting Wokeism (1): The Universalist Tradition
We recall that in November 2017, the SUD-éducation 93 union organized a union training course in Seine-Saint-Denis comprising two “single-sex workshops,” i.e., “reserved for racialized people”: this is a typical example of the influence of a communitarian conception of citizenship, where individuals are considered not as members of the “community of citizens” but as belonging to restricted “communities”, constituted on the basis of essentialized properties such as sex, sexual orientation, religion or skin color. Under these conditions, social peace would come through the affirmation of these “communities”—this is the multicultural model used in the Anglo-American world—and not through the suspension of affiliations in the civic framework, as is the case with the model of republican universalism specific to the French conception of citizenship.
This universalism, guaranteed by the Constitution, acts as a safeguard—albeit relative—against woke communitarianism. Thus, on November 21, 2017, Jean-Michel Blanquer, Minister of National Education, condemned the organization of these “single-sex workshops” as well as the use of the terms “non-racialized” and “racialized,” which “in the so-called name of anti-racism (…) obviously convey racism.” It was the same minister who, after the beheading of Samuel Paty by an Islamist in October 2020, publicly denounced the “Islamo-leftist” tendencies rife at the University – in which he was supported by a tribune of a hundred academics published in Le Monde.
This universalist tradition is particularly rooted in the attachment to secularism, which is consubstantial with it: an attachment that the same Jean-Michel Blanquer affirmed by creating upon his arrival at the ministry a “Council of wise men of secularism.” This is why the woke phenomenon arouses reservations and even frontal opposition beyond the academic world in which it found its origin, whether it is sympathizers of the “Republican Spring” movement, created in 2016, or associations defending secularism such as the “Committee of secularism republic” or the association “Unity secular.” Thus, the “Observatory of decolonialism and identity ideologies,” created in January 2021 and which has become the main collective fighting against wokeism, invited Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer to introduce the conference “After deconstruction” organized at the Sorbonne a year later, and the president of the Committee of secularism republic to conclude it.
This prevalence of a secular, therefore universalist, and therefore fundamentally opposed to the communitarianism inherent in wokeism, has made France a privileged target of the war that Islamists are waging against Western societies, as demonstrated by the bloody attacks of 2015 (Paris) and 2016 (Nice). In these conditions, the Islamist offensive, based on the denunciation of the discrimination of which Muslims are victims in France, finds obvious sympathies and even complicity among woke propagandists, quick to refuse any condemnation of Islamism in the name of the fight against a so-called “Islamophobia”— this is the principle of the trend called “Islamo-leftism.” This collusion between wokeism and Islamism, clearly highlighted by specialists fortunately contributes to slowing down the woke movement in a France particularly sensitive to Islamist terrorism.[17]
[Related: Academic Freedom and Self-Censorship]
Resisting Wokeism (2): Civil Servant Status
It should be noted that the Sorbonne conference in January 2022, which marked an act of resistance to wokeness in the academic world and was widely criticized for this, also hosted a speech by Thierry Coulhon, president of the High Council for the Evaluation of Research and Higher Education (HCERES), an institutional body if ever there was one. This would have been unthinkable in the United States, where wokeness is firmly established and supported by academic institutions. However, this relative freedom that we are given in France to protest against this combined influence of academic activism and communitarianism—and as evidenced by the abundance of public positions on this subject—is conferred on us by the civil servant status enjoyed by researchers in public bodies and teachers at the University.
Allow me a personal anecdote on this subject. Invited in September 2022 to Antwerp to give a plenary lecture at a conference of cultural policy specialists, I had chosen to talk about the risks induced by academic activism. My remarks were greeted with contrasting reactions, ranging from the loudest rejection to the warmest approval. However, several colleagues from all over the world then came to congratulate me and thank me in terms that sent shivers down my spine: “It’s incredible that you dared to say that! This is the first time we’ve heard someone defend this position in a university!” I conclude that a public position that, in France, requires no more than a little determination would elsewhere require risking one’s position and, therefore, one’s salary. Hence, probably, the fact that France is, it seems, one of the countries where resistance to wokeness is most developed.
And indeed, what do we have to fear in our country by trying to counter the woke wave? Our young colleagues do indeed risk marginalization, exclusion from funding programs, or even a slowdown in their careers—many of them write to me to regret not being able to publicly support my positions even though they share them, and we understand their caution. But those who have, for the most part, their careers behind them do not risk much: the animosity of colleagues for whom they have no respect anyway and, at worst, being sidelined when their teaching is eliminated—this is what recently happened to Gilles Kepel at the École normale supérieure—and being ostracized by a left-wing press that thus tramples on its historical values. It is unpleasant, certainly, but there is nothing tragic about it, and the approval of colleagues whose opinion matters to us, combined with our inner feeling of working for a just cause, largely compensates for these inconveniences.
Why, under these conditions, should we refrain from opposing wokeness with the resistance that we owe both to scientific principles and to universalist values?
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[1] Jacques Julliard, “Soviet-Marxism, Maoism, then Islamo-leftism: the third glaciation of modern times”, Marianne, February 26, 2021.
[2] Cf. N. Heinich, What activism does to research, Gallimard-Tracts, 2021; Defending the autonomy of knowledge, note for Fondapol, 2021.
[3] For a description of this intellectual import-export operation, see N. Heinich, “ French Theory: Small Transatlantic Misunderstandings » Telos, February 9, 2021.
[4] For a characterization of the phenomenon, see in particular N. Heinich, “ Cancel culture (the importation of a policy) » Publictionnaire. Encyclopedic and critical dictionary of publics, May 2021.
[5] For a list and analysis of these examples, see N. Heinich, Dare universalism. Against communitarianism, The water’s edge, 2021.
[6] This religious dimension of wokism has been well analyzed by Jean-François Braunstein in Woke Religion, Grasset, 2022.
[7] Christian Harbulot (dir.), “Vigilance report – Wokeism is not dead. State of play in France”, Economic Warfare School, June 2022, p. 44.
[8] Cf. Emmanuelle Hénin (dir.), with Xavier-Laurent Salvador and Pierre-Henri Tavoillot, After deconstruction. The university challenged by new ideologies, Odile Jacob, 2023.
[9] See the report posted online in 2021 on the website of the Observatory of Decolonialism and Identity Ideologies: “ Report on ideological manifestations at the University and in Research ».
[10] Cf. I. Barbéris, The Art of Political Correctness, PUF, 2019. Note that museums are also beginning to be affected by the phenomenon.
[11] Ch. Harbulot (dir.), “Vigilance report”, on. cit. p. 40. On this association see the in-depth investigation by Aline Girard, “ The Samuel Grzybowski case », published in 2022 on the website of the Unité laïque association.
[12] Ch. Harbulot (dir.), “Vigilance report”, on. cit. p. 39.
[13] Ibid. p. 26.
[14] Ibid. p. 29-30.
[15] Ibid. p. 62.
[16] Ibid. p. 21.
[17] See in particular Lorenzo Vidino, “ The Rise of Woke Islamism in the Western World », note for Fondapol, June 2022.
Image: The Sorbonne by Melinda Young Stuart on Flickr
This article was originally published at www.mindingthecampus.org
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