9/24/2023 0 Comments Discipline equals freedom reddit![]() Woke thinkers have similarly been hijacked by Adorno and Horkheimer’s Dialectic of Enlightenment, which advances a negative and surprisingly undialectical description of the Enlightenment for Neiman, instrumental reason is neither negative nor dialectical but good. Neiman asserts that today’s woke activists, though often well-meaning, have been unwittingly colonized by the misanthropic conservativism of philosophers including Carl Schmitt and Michel Foucault, who respectively teach, for Neiman, that we should embrace the friend-enemy divide and abandon all hope of changing our institutions since reform only produces more insidious techniques of oppression. One such effort is Susan Neiman’s Left Is Not Woke, which asserts that woke ideology represents a repudiation of the left liberatory project that began with the Enlightenment, and that adherents of woke ideology have abandoned traditional left ideals of universalism, justice, and progress. It is in light of these and related concerns that several left authors have recently published books seeking to clarify the meaning of wokeness and to distinguish it from liberalism and leftism. Namely, what does institutionalization imply for ostensibly liberatory politics? What would it say, for instance, if an African American employee were punished by white employers for racism? And insofar as administrators have weaponized wokeness to moralistically discipline labor, does this imply an appropriation of a previously radical ideology or indicate that the ideology has always been retrogressive? This “power to name” characterizes the story in another way. Those advancing the “not a true liberalism” argument also, necessarily, assumed the authority to unilaterally deny the presence of a particular form of politics even as Hamline’s administration overtly identified with it. This argument, however, ignores key differences between woke ideology and liberalism, including their views on free inquiry and expression. Instead, it appeared that the administration was merely invoking politically correct ideology and pandering to students in order to do what employers do whenever they get the opportunity: control labor.Ĭonservatives generally responded to Lopez Prater’s firing with outrage (notwithstanding conservative “then-she-should-get-another-job” anti-workerism), insisting that the case was emblematic of woke, or politically correct, ideology “run amok.” Liberals and leftists also largely condemned the firing, although some argued that the university’s mistreatment of Lopez Prater occurred not due to woke ideology but in spite of it, with Hamline in fact betraying “true” liberal ideals of free speech and academic freedom. While the administration, which described Lopez Prater’s act as “undeniably Islamophobic,” expressed its commitment to keeping students “safe” and “supported,” some observed that – considering the school’s exorbitant tuition and the fact that most of its students would likely graduate with overwhelming debt – its concerns about student welfare were facile and self-serving. ![]() Lopez Prater, it has been frequently noted, was also an adjunct instructor, the most exploited and vulnerable professor in the university hierarchy. By all accounts Lopez Prater was a conscientious instructor who had provided her class with multiple warnings and opt-out opportunities before showing the image. Last winter, Hamline University made national news when it fired Erica Lopez Prater, an art history professor who had offended one of her students by showing a painting depicting the Prophet Muhammad.
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