By Ed Meek

Musa Al-Gharbi’s provocative book undercuts the left elite by pointing out the hypocrisy of its well intentioned rhetoric. The “woke” live comfortable lives because of the very inequities they condemn.

We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite by Musa Al-Gharbi. Princeton University Press, 311 pages, $35.

In his excellent new book We Have Never Been Woke, Musa al-Gharbi, Paul F. Lazarsfeld Fellow in the Department of Sociology at Columbia University, attacks the new elite in America, who are characterized as a cadre of symbolic capitalists, professors, journalists, pundits, doctors, and political advisors. These higher-ups use their expertise and positions of power to influence society (he includes himself). The power of this group was recently nakedly on display: Biden was coerced by them into leaving office, even though he was the nominee, to be replaced by Kamala Harris. These people are all part of what Ross Douthat of the New York Times calls the “great awokening” that has taken place among the left in the United States over the last 10 years or so.

Of course, people like Elon Musk, Tucker Carlson, and Donald Trump are also members of the symbolic elite, but they are opposed to what Musk calls the “woke mind virus.” Despite his own celebration of his wealth, Trump is the anti-woke, anti-elite candidate. In the book Autocracy, Inc, Anne Applebaum warns us that when a majority of Americans do not think the current regime works for them, they are likely to turn to an authoritarian who promises them, as Trump has repeatedly done, that he “alone can fix it.”

Al-Gharbi explains that being woke has its origins in the Black community. It was first adopted after the Civil War as a warning phrase: “stay woke” meant to be wary of whites. Musicians and artists adopted it a hundred years later. Slowly, “woke” caught on with left-wing whites, becoming an integral part of the lexicon with the election of Trump, culminating with the death of George Floyd and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement. Wokeness became a coin of the realm with the mainstreaming of critical race theory ans calls for revised views of American history. Works by writers such as Ta-Nehisi Coates and Hannah Nicole Jones became required “woke” reading on college campuses. Even corporate America joined universities by greenlighting concentrated training in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

Al-Gharbi explores how many of the stances taken by the “woke” left have had unintended consequences. The left celebrated Black Lives Matter, some of whose protest actions led to looting, fires, and the destruction of businesses. Portland, Oregon, legalizes drugs and, predictably, addiction goes up. Biden does his best to forgive college loans, but that means transferring the cost to the taxpayers, most of whom do not have college degrees and do not feel they should pay for those who do. Petty crimes aren’t punished: shoplifting, fare evasions, and theft increase. Biden signals a more humane approach to refugees — the border is flooded with immigrants claiming asylum.

For Al-Gharbi, one of the best examples of meaningless virtue-signaling by the left was the Occupy Movement, a publicized protest by the bottom 99 percent against the top one percent. He argues that it was no coincidence that the movement made no specific demands, generated negligible political change. It was cosmetic: we could all identify with the frustration but there were no consequences for the rich. Even the top 10 percent could be a comfortable part of the complaint. The status quo, unthreatened, remained  intact.

More recently, colleges and arts institutions and businesses have been announcing “land acknowledgments,” commemorating the natives who once lived there. Al-Gharbi raises a critical question: does it really make a difference if someone who stole something from you acknowledges and apologizes for it? Without returning anything but good wishes?

Symbolic capitalists on the left use the term Latinx, even though 96 percent of Latinos and Latinas do not accept the word. We support the homeless — as we continue to displace them, with ruthless efficiency, from low-income housing. We are pro-union and pro-immigrant: just as long as immigrants are there to clean our houses, do our landscaping, and replace our roofs, all for less money than would be paid to union workers.

In his conclusion, Al-Gharbi states “Whatever social justice looks like, it does not seem to be well-reflected in symbolic capitalist institutions…. Whatever moral virtue is, we don’t seem to embody it.” The privileged left gravitates “toward a marriage of cultural liberalism and economic conservatism.” We support minority arts and “land acknowledgements,” but live in comfortable upscale communities that are far removed from where native Americans and the poor live. On top of that, our liberal status is often regulated on “our adherence to political correctness.” Meaning, in status-crazed America, whoever is more politically correct sits higher on the golden ladder of rectitude.

We Have Never Been Woke is a provocative book because Al-Gharbi, a member of the symbolic capitalist tribe at Columbia University, undercuts the left by pointing out the hypocrisy of its well-intentioned rhetoric. The “woke” live comfortable lives because of the very inequities they condemn. The book does not offer any solutions, but it does answer an elemental question: how it is possible Trump won the Presidency in 2016, received 74 million votes in the last election, and remains very competitive today. The elite’s good intentions are undermined by their actions.

Ed Meek is the author of High Tide (poems) and Luck (short stories).