Social identities and social justice : reconceiving ethics and politics in the wake of wokeism / William Franke.
| Author/creator | Franke, William author. |
| Format | Book |
| Publication | Washington : Academica Press, [2025] |
| Description | 303 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm |
| Subjects |
| Contents | 1. Prologue and Acknowledgments -- Part I. From Revolution to Religion. 2. The Woke Revolution — Its Founding of Social Power on Victimhood -- 3. Nietzschean Insight into the Will to Power in Christianity — and its Woke Extension -- 4. General Stakes and Styles of Wokeism -- 5. From Invidious Cultural Politics to Spiritually Inspired Community -- 6. Mutually Imitative Rivals for Power -- 7. Toward Critical Non Identity — Wokeism and the University -- 8. Transcending Divisive Identities and Delusions of Total Control: The Role of Religion -- 9. Language: Between Total Control and Indeterminacy -- 10. Ethics Degraded to Entitlements and the Discourse of Victimhood -- 11. Progressive History Catalyzed by Elites, or Organic Community? -- 12. The New Religion of Wokeism -- 13. Woke Bipolarity: Reified Groups and Absolutized Individuals -- Part II. Mimetic Rivalry versus Ordered Diversity. 14. Mimetic Desire and Rivalrous Identities — The Scapegoat Mechanism -- 15. Mimetic Desire Turns Divine Comedy into Human Tragedy -- 16. The Woke Revolution and the Risk of Its Betrayal -- 17. Constructed are Our Identities, not Our Natural Endowments -- 18. Hierarchy is not all Invidious: it is Functional and Forestalls Mimetic Crisis -- Part III. Identity versus Universality. 19. Politics of Diversity versus Universal Emancipation -- 20. "Systemic" Racism as Symptom: The Violence of Gendering Violence -- 21. The Enlightenment Heritage and its Dialectic: The Limits of Knowing -- 22. Rectification of History Along Lines of Identity -- 23. Being One's Incommensurable Self and Assuming Blame -- 24. Personal Testimony of Shame — And Moving Beyond -- 25. Historical Revisionism: Containing Hate and Hypocrisy -- 26. Rectification of History and Cancel Culture -- 27. Restitution of Stolen Art and Indigenous Lands -- 28. Compensations for Climate Change -- 29. Monarchy and the Incalculable Power of Symbols -- 30. Self Righteous Certitude versus Risky Openness to Others -- 31. Don Quixote and Justice -- 32. Colonialism, Modernization, and Multiculturalism -- 33. Is Social Justice a Fallacy? -- Part IV. Achieved Worth versus Socially Attributed Value. 34. Objective Reality and Limits of Moralization -- 35. Culture of Resentment versus Performance and Self Surpassing -- 36. Entitlements and Stigmas versus Objective Exigencies -- 37. How not to Repeat but rather Redeem History -- 38. A Culture of Blaming the Others One Covets -- 39. What is Wealth and How is it Shared? -- 40. Distributive Justice and its Counterfeits -- 41. Claiming to Defend Victims Justifies All Vladimir Putin’s Example -- 42. Continuing the Race for Dominance — or Uniting in Organic Community? -- Part V. The Social Justice Revolution and its Inversion of Christian Revelation. 43. A Decolonial, Post-secular, Postmodern Perspective -- 44. Kenosis as the Apophatic Solution to Societal Conflict -- 45. Wokeism as an Intolerant Religion -- 46. Apophatic Marxism — Proposal for a Reformed Radically Leftist Politics -- 47. Politicized Transcendence: Dialectics of Enlightenment and Despisers of Religion -- 48. Justice for All? Culture Wars and Self-Critique -- 49. Apophatic Universalism and Religious Revelation -- Part VI. Transcending Power Politics Negatively. 50. The Wokeist Challenge to the Freedom to Speak the Truth -- 51. Dealing with Evil Non Dualistically and Letting Power Implode -- 52. Perpetuating Human Violence versus Projecting Perpetual Peace -- 53. Personal Responsibility and Aftermath of the Incalculable -- 54. Blessing and Curse: The Woke Revolution and its Totalitarian Turn -- 55. Conclusion: Revolution of the Victims as Revelation of the Divine |
| Abstract | The revolutionary upheaval currently sweeping across Western democracies on parade under the banner term "woke" calls for rethinking the foundations of ethics and politics. The social justice movement challenges us to fundamentally reconceive our being with one another in society and to re-embrace our profoundest traditions. Focus on identities, however, has become divisive and vexatious. In Social Identities and Social Justice, William Franke indicates a way to exit from the current impasse empoisoning politics in Western democracies by thinking the concept of identity through to its grounds in the non-identity (or undelimited human potential) that all share and that unites rather than divides us. The traditions of negative theology (admission of ignorance of God) and apophasis (self-critical unsaying of one's own certainties) are leveraged for outlining a truly relational approach to public discourse. We must open our concepts of mutually exclusive identities towards their infinite truth rooted in our unlimited interconnectedness. Doing so, we open our ideas beyond their finite content and open ourselves to building a world together. |
| Bibliography note | Includes bibliographical references. |
| ISBN | 9781680533538 |
| ISBN | 1680533533 |
| ISBN | electronic book |
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