Today’s cultural and social landscape blurs ideological lines, frequently confusing the relationship between liberalism and wokeism.

Both social philosophies address concerns about social justice but differ sharply in terms of the means and methods for achieving these ends. Significantly, they disagree on what constitutes social justice. They also originate from differing,  sometimes conflicting, intellectual sources and roots. 

This contrast is often overlooked in public debate. Many simply conflate wokeism with liberalism or see it as liberalism’s latest expression. Many consider themselves woke, but they don’t fully grasp the philosophy behind the label. 

Unfortunately, this lack of distinctions distorts liberalism’s history and meaning while failing to probe wokeism’s specific tenets and practices.

This section seeks to clarify these differences and highlights wokeism’s illiberal foundations and tendencies.

Let’s begin by defining our terms and concepts. 

Liberalism is a Western political and social philosophy that emerged during the Enlightenment. It promotes freedom by asserting individual rights, liberties, and legal equality.

Liberalism argues that a free society can be achieved by advocating for a limited government, a strong and consistent application of the rule of law, free economic markets, and the removal of social and economic participation restrictions.

Fundamental to liberalism is an anthropological vision of the free, rational human person, whose dignity and equality are grounded in nature, beyond the accidental human qualities of race, gender, ethnicity, class, and so on. 

Liberalism emerged from European ideas that began in the 1600s. Its roots go back to thinkers like John Locke, who, in Two Treatises of Government (1689), said people have natural rights—life, liberty, and property—that governments can’t take away. 

Other roots include the ideas of Thomas Hobbes and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, which posited that the social contract is the foundation of society. 

Liberalism continued to develop over time, arguing for free markets, free speech, and democracy. Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations (1776) was a seminal work. 

Another British thinker in the 1800s, John Stuart Mill, further shaped liberalism. In his book On Liberty (1859), he argued that people should be free to think, speak, and act as long as they don’t harm others.

Mill built on Locke’s focus on rights, blending freedom with practical good. He also supported women’s rights and democracy, pushing liberalism toward inclusion.

Going deeper, liberalism’s roots could only take hold in Christian soil. Christianity shaped liberalism, which holds that all are equal before God and possess inherent dignity. 

Such ideas naturally led to arguments for individual freedom and human rights. Locke, a Christian, leaned on this, arguing that rights come from a divine order, not just human ideals. Indeed, liberalism secularized later, but the underlying Christian influences remained.

From a liberal perspective, a just and free society requires that government and social institutions treat everyone equally, regardless of their individual characteristics, and ensure due process and equality under the law. Similarly, equality of opportunity should be afforded to all in terms of social and economic participation. 

This spills over into protecting certain fundamental liberties—freedom of speech, assembly, association, religion, conscience, movement, and initiative—all of which are supported by private property rights, the rule of law, and universal suffrage.

Therefore, liberalism advocates for a color-blind, gender-blind (and other) society organized around free choice, self-initiative, personal achievement, and merit. 

Finally, it argues that social cohesion is best secured through pluralism, democracy, and tolerance in open and free marketplaces of goods, services, ideas, and expressions. 

The term “woke” comes from the African American phrase “stay woke,” a euphemism for remaining vigilant about social issues.

Unlike liberalism, wokeism is a newer social and cultural ideology. As an emergent social movement(s), it resists precise definition. However, much is clear enough to permit analysis. 

Its leading intellectual and cultural proponents include Ibram X. Kendi, Robin DiAngelo, Nikole Hannah-Jones, and Alicia Garza, a co-founder of BLM.

Its immediate intellectual origins are in critical race and gender theory, as well as various intersectional studies. 

Critical Race Theory is a way of looking at a society that says racism is not simply the result of personal prejudice—it’s systemically intrinsic in our laws, institutions, and social systems. 

The core scholarship began in the 1970s with legal scholars such as Derrick Bell and Kimberlé Crenshaw in the U.S. 

They argued that even after civil rights laws, racism remains in part because it’s both institutionalized and inherent in human nature. In other words, it's part of how things work, not just how people feel.

For these reasons, it rejects liberalism’s goal of a colorblind, neutral society. It believes this aspiration is impossible to achieve and that treating everyone equally doesn’t undo past damage. Instead, it pushes for equity, meaning balanced outcomes, even if that requires unequal treatment or limiting the freedom of some.

Similarly, intersectional studies examine how different parts of a person’s identity—such as race, gender, class, or sexuality—overlap and shape their lives. 

The idea came from Kimberlé Crenshaw in the late 1980s. She said social analysis can’t just focus on isolated factors, like being Black or a woman. Instead, those traits combine to create unique experiences of disadvantage or power.

The core point is that oppression isn’t a single issue. Intersectionality argues that identity politics determines all politics and culture. Commonality is not impossible. Furthermore, identity politics reinforces the notion that power is the primary social dynamic and that conflict among identity groups is inevitable. 

The roots of these thought systems can be traced to the critical neo-Marxism of the Frankfurt School and variations of postmodern deconstructivist philosophy. 

The Frankfurt School was a group of thinkers in Germany who, starting in the 1920s, reworked Karl Marx’s ideas for the modern world. Its leaders included philosophers Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, and Herbert Marcuse. 

Classic Marxism believed that economic class—workers versus owners—drove history and fostered oppression. However, the Frankfurt School argued that the problem was broader than that: culture, the media, and the educational system are also power-driven institutions that inherently oppress some people and groups.

Their central idea, critical theory, aimed to uncover, question, and dismantle these underlying power influences and systems. 

In wokeism, these influences remain, with social analysis focused on power in all aspects of social life, revolving around identities of race, gender, and culture, and not just economics.

Even if unintentional, wokeism echoes neo-Marxism by explaining social inequalities resulting from inherent class and identity power conflicts rooted in unescapable human tribalism and entrenched in social systems and institutions. 

In this manner, wokeism rejects liberalism’s notion that society should be organized and conducted on a color-gender-sexuality-blind basis because it believes such a goal to be unattainable. 

Power and inescapable identity politics become the raison d'être of the social order. In essence, wokeism doesn’t believe that social harmony is possible. Therefore, the oppressed must forcefully take power from the oppressors.    

Social remedies include affirmative action, comprehensive reparations, and the cancellation and de-platforming—silencing those perceived as having social power or privilege.

Wokeism is often portrayed as a fight for fairness and rights, but its real goals aren’t equality or freedom. Instead, it’s about power and equity. While these ideals may sound similar, they work differently, and the difference reveals what wokeism is about.

Unlike liberalism, which seeks the free exchange of ideas and opinions in intellectually open forums, wokeism deliberately seeks to stifle free speech and prevent criticism of its ideas and policies. 

It does this in three ways: by arguing that specific forms of speech are acts of violence, by deplatforming those with differing or critical opinions, and by seeking to control the culture’s educational, informational, and creative institutions. 

Wokeism equates some forms of speech with violence, claiming that potentially offensive words or concepts can cause trauma and harm akin to that of physical violence. 

Accordingly, wokeism argues for triggering warnings in books, articles, entertainment, the classroom, and public events and advocates deplatforming and silencing speakers that might unduly harm others.

As a consequence, wokeism seeks to render universities, corporations, workspaces, public gatherings, and community events safe spaces where violent speech and offensive ideas are restricted. 

On the surface, who could object to the notion of a safe space where people are free from violence? Let’s pause for a moment, however. Speech is not violence. And who gets to decide what constitutes violent or unacceptable speech or ideas?

The practical reality is that wokeism tends to interpret disagreement, diverse opinions, and even the presence of white, male, or cisgender people as acts of violence and as inimical to safe spaces. 

Further, a significant detriment of wokeism’s call for safe spaces is that it fosters infantilism. It shields adults by shunning opposing views and disagreement and challenging engagement, prioritizing comfort over consideration. 

In the name of diversity, wokeism creates echo chambers, shuts down open debate, and pushes victimhood over reasoned engagement. It stifles constructive dialogue, critical thinking, exposure to new ideas, and intellectual rigor. 

Unlike liberalism’s push for independent thinkers, it assumes weakness, relying on gatekeepers to protect fragile minds.

This infantilizes people, undermines resilience, and ill-prepares its followers for a diverse world. Such practices harm both individuals and the broader culture. 

A second illiberal trait of wokeism is that it is critical of a merit-based society. 

A merit-based society says people should rise or fall based on what they do and their talents. If you’re good at something, you get ahead. In a merit-based society, excellence is valued, and positive results are rewarded. All societies are imperfect, but merit remains one of the goals of liberalism. 

Wokeism sees merit as a mask for privilege, a system rigged by the powerful intended to oppress others. Some woke advocates even go as far as arguing that logic, punctuality, correct spelling, and intellectual rigor are tools of oppression used by whites to suppress people of color and diversity. 

The practical ramifications of such thinking include downplaying or even eliminating educational grading, accomplishment as a basis for hiring decisions, and excellence as a criterion for cultural awards, athletic recognition, and overall social value. 

Instead of judging people by their merit and results, wokeism doubles down and focuses on their group—race, gender, or whatever group identity is in vogue. 

A career position, award, grade, or recognition might go to someone not because they earned it but because their identity fits the equity goal. Identity trumps ability. Equity’s standards ignore equality, merit, and often justice. 

Merit is deemed an unfair standard that aids oppression because it doesn’t guarantee balanced, equitable outcomes. What standard is substituted in its place? Identity, equity, and power become the new standards that the woke influencers and power brokers interpret and apply. 

Any society not based on merit, excellence, and justice will inevitably suffer a decline and lasting damage, which, if not corrected, will lead to chaos and collapse. 

Lastly, and somewhat counterintuitively, wokeism is opposed to diversity. 

Wokeism claims to champion diversity, but its actions show a different goal—not equal or fair representation, but domination followed by exclusion. 

It doesn’t want a diverse group of voices thriving together; it wants control and a purge of those who were once the majority.

Diversity, at its core, means variety—different races, views, or backgrounds sharing space. 

Wokeism starts with this promise, pushing for more seats at the table for specific groups. But the catch comes quickly. Representation isn’t enough; it’s about flipping the script. 

Hire quotas or DEI policies seem balanced on paper. However, in practice, they often prioritize specific identities over merit, sidelining others not on the “approved” list. This is not about fairness; it’s about establishing new power structures.

Once power shifts, exclusion kicks in. Cancel culture proves it: step out of line—say the wrong word, hold the incorrect view—and you’re not just corrected, you’re erased. 

Wokeism doesn’t diversify thought; it demands conformity. Schools and companies now scrub “non-inclusive” ideas—books banned, speakers axed—under the guise of justice. 

Wokeism’s goal isn’t a broader tent; it’s a narrower one. Dissenters and members of former power groups are de-platformed, silenced, and removed from decision-making positions.

Hopefully, our brief analysis has shown that liberalism and wokeism are commonly conflated and assumed to have the same or similar goals, but they differ significantly. 

Liberalism has delivered, while imperfectly, more or less open and fair societies. Further, Western liberal societies have flourished culturally, economically, and in terms of living standards and quality of life. 

Wokeism threatens the liberal order and a just society. The two social philosophies are not only distinct but also contradictory. 

In conclusion, I know this section is brief and cannot address each system's nuances, exceptions, and variations. However, I stand by the above general observations and analysis.

I am also aware that many proponents of wokeism are unaware of the ideologies' underlying tenets and often have the best intentions. However, ideas have consequences that even the best intentions cannot prevent. 

I welcome criticism and challenges, and I invite nuanced engagement. However, if you seek to engage, please define your terms, especially your understanding of wokeism. Constructive dialog can only occur when the participants communicate clearly and succinctly.