Woke: The word that splits the world

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06/20/22 • 67 min

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Who turned Woke from a badge of African-American pride into a hammer to beat liberals with? How does it relate to PC? And what are Erykah Badu, Piers Morgan, the weaponisation of African-American slang against black people, Julie Burchill and Google’s salad emoji doing in the eye of the Culture War storm?

Ian and Dorian investigate another world-changing concept you thought you knew.

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Woke: A Reading List

From Dorian:

The War of the Words by Sarah Dunant. Fascinating 90s collection of essays about political correctness from writers across the political spectrum. We are still having many of the same arguments.

Debating PC by Paul Berman. As above but American.

Political Correctness: A History of Semantics and Culture by Geoffrey Hughes. A serious attempt at a history of PC.

The Culture of Complaint by Robert Hughes. Extremely opinionated and entertaining 1994 polemic against censors and heresy-hunters on both left and right.

The Myth of Political Correctness by John Wilson. This forensic examination of the original anti-PC backlash reveals how many of the key case studies were exaggerated or invented, and the role that right wing think tanks played in drumming them up. Sounds familiar.

The Closing of the American Mind by Allan Bloom. Of historical interest only. The cranky jeremiad that became a colossal bestseller and kickstarted America’s obsession with political correctness.

And from Ian:

Wake Up by Piers Morgan. Don’t read this.

Welcome To The Woke Trials: How Identity Killed Progressive Politics by Julie Burchill. Don’t read this.

The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure by Jonathan Heidt and Greg Lukianoff. Don’t read this, but if you’re really going to insist on reading one of these, I guess make it this one.

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“Even racists seem to want to appropriate MLK. Maybe if you’re woke and dead you’re OK?” – Dorian Lynskey

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Written and presented by Dorian Lynskey and Ian Dunt. Audio production by Jade Bailey and Alex Rees. Music by Jade Bailey. Logo art by Mischa Welsh. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ian and Dorian investigate another world-changing concept you thought you knew.

––––––––

Woke: A Reading List

From Dorian:

The War of the Words by Sarah Dunant. Fascinating 90s collection of essays about political correctness from writers across the political spectrum. We are still having many of the same arguments.

Debating PC by Paul Berman. As above but American.

Political Correctness: A History of Semantics and Culture by Geoffrey Hughes. A serious attempt at a history of PC.

The Culture of Complaint by Robert Hughes. Extremely opinionated and entertaining 1994 polemic against censors and heresy-hunters on both left and right.

The Closing of the American Mind by Allan Bloom. Of historical interest only. The cranky jeremiad that became a colossal bestseller and kickstarted America’s obsession with political correctness.

And from Ian:

Wake Up by Piers Morgan. Don’t read this.

Welcome To The Woke Trials: How Identity Killed Progressive Politics by Julie Burchill. Don’t read this.

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“Even racists seem to want to appropriate MLK. Maybe if you’re woke and dead you’re OK?” – Dorian Lynskey

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Previous Episode

Superheroes: Truth, justice and the outsider way

It had to happen! Superheroes have shaped our shared culture – both popular and political – but where did the idea of the “good superman” come from? How did idealism, power fantasy and radicalism merge so that an outsider generation of young (often Jewish) Americans could transform America?

Join Dorian and Ian on a senses-shattering odyssey that takes in socialist Superman, juvenile delinquents, the polyamorist roots of Wonder Woman, the Nazis (again), the great lost horror comics of the 50s, Stan Lee, how Churchill and FDR inspired Spider-Man... and which one of the X-Men was based on Menachem Begin.

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Superheroes: A Reading List

From Ian:

American Comics by Jeremy Dauber. Really comprehensive and full of love for the genre. But maybe a bit too comprehensive. Dauber covers absolute everything, so it can feel a bit too thinly spread.

The Ten Cent Plague: The great comic book scare and how it changed America, by David Hajdu. Absolutely masterful retelling of the 50s moral outrage against comics. Impeccably researched, brilliantly written, and full of striking insights.

Watchmen by Alan Moore, Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller and All-Star Superman by Grant Morrison. If you were to read these three together, even as a non-comics fan, you would get a really good crash course in the different approaches taken to the genre since the 80s.

From Dorian:

Supergods by Grant Morrison. One of the all-time great comic-book writers has also the written the most entertaining and provocative history of the superhero.

Marvel Comics: The Untold Story by Sean Howe. Essential reading for anyone interested in the people who built the Marvel universe. Howe has all the stories. I’ve given this book as a gift more than once.

All Of The Marvels by Douglas Wolk. The Marvel Universe as explained by somebody who has read all 27,000 comic books. While Howe covers the creators, Wolk digs into the evolution of the characters and ideas.

True Believer: The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee by Abraham Riesman. Juicy and unflinching biography of Mr Marvel.

The Comic Book Heroes by Will Jacobs and Gerard Jones. Dated but interesting 1985 encyclopaedia of superheroes.

The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore. New Yorker writer’s eye-opening history of the love triangle that gave us Wonder Woman.

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“Even by thinking about superheroes, you’re thinking about politics. What is politics about but power and how you use it?” — Dorian

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Written and presented by Dorian Lynskey and Ian Dunt. Audio production by Jade Bailey. Music by Jade Bailey. Logo art by Mischa Welsh. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production

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Next Episode

Neoliberalism: Everything’s for sale

Neoliberalism has become an all-purpose insult, but what does it actually mean? In the final episode of Series 1, Dorian and Ian tell the extraordinary story of how a friendless group of outsider economists started a decades-long campaign to turn their fringe ideas into mainstream orthodoxy – and succeeded.

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Neoliberalism: A Reading List

From Ian:

Wealth of Nations and Theory of Moral Sentiment by Adam Smith. Both of these can be read in their own right, they're not as tough-going as you think

History of Economic Thought by Lionel Robbins. One of the greatest economics books ever written. Or spoken rather, given that they're basically transcripts of Robbins’ lectures at the LSE. Masterful.

The Road to Serfdom by F.A. Hayek. Quite completely insane. Rather fun.

Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crisis Changed the World by Adam Tooze. Arguably the best single account of the financial crash. Can be tough going, but it’s worth it.

From Dorian:

Masters of the Universe: Hayek, Friedman, and the Birth of Neoliberal Politics by Daniel Stedman Jones. It gets a little dry towards the end but it’s still a valuable attempt to ground an intellectual history of a movement in the combative personalities of the people who created it.

A Brief History of Neoliberalism by David Harvey. Does what it says on the tin from a left-wing perspective. He’s not a fan.

The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein. Her thesis might be overstated but Klein shows how the economists of the Chicago School teamed up with authoritarian leaders such as Pinochet to turn entire countries into experimental laboratories for neoliberalism.

A reading list and whistle-stop history from the academic and author of The Limits of Neoliberalism, William Davies.

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“What you see here is the fetishisation of economics above all other concerns. An anatomised view of humanity as economic agents and very little else.” – Ian
“One of the big problems with the term neoliberalism is that it gets applied equally to Barack Obama and General Pinochet.” – Dorian
“Friedman didn’t even believe in certificates for doctors. He thought the market would protect everyone. So this guy chopped up your auntie? That’s OK, the market realises he should no longer practice...” – Ian
“These guys embarked on a 20 year process of legitimising these ideas. They trained people so that when things start to go wrong in the late 60s, they were ready.” – Dorian
“Sometimes Hayek sounds like he’s having a religious experience. The market is unknowable. It’s almost like it really is the hand of God.” – Ian

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Written and presented by Dorian Lynskey and Ian Dunt. Audio production and music by Jade Bailey. Logo art by Mischa Welsh. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices