The Woke revolution

 Just as cultural energy in the West has moved fluidly from #MeToo to Black Lives Matter, climate strikes, trans activism and now pro-Palestinian fervour, we can trace a similar rhythm in the revolutionary waves of the 20th century. These, too, promised justice, redemption and the cleansing of a corrupt world – only to collapse beneath the weight of their own moral absolutism.

The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 promised liberation for workers but quickly descended into mass arrests, purges and famine as ideological loyalty replaced the rule of law. Two generations later, Mao Zedong launched the Cultural Revolution, a decade-long convulsion in which teenage Red Guards destroyed temples, denounced teachers and tore apart their own families. In 1975, the Khmer Rouge seized power in Cambodia and declared the start of “Year Zero”, its vision of agrarian socialism leading to the deaths of nearly two million people.

Each of these revolutions shared a common grammar: a sense of absolute moral clarity, a desire to root out internal enemies and a belief that justice required purification. Their language was different, their geography varied, but their structure and psychology were the same. Like today’s activists, their adherents believed they stood on the right side of history, that neutrality was complicity and redemption could be achieved only through total commitment.

In each case, the fervour eventually burned itself out. But revolutionary energy never goes extinct. It waits for the next generation disillusioned enough to take it up again. Cultural movements of the past decade, though far less violent, run on the same emotional circuitry as the most destructive revolutions of the 20th century. They offer belonging, clarity and a sense of moral purpose along with the seductive thrill of joining a righteous vanguard.

It may be that this energy, in the second decade of the 21st century, has not yet peaked. On the contrary, it may be only beginning. More and more young people feel they have no economic future. If the next generation becomes disenchanted enough, they may not demand reform but revolution. And when this energy is finally harnessed by left-wing economic populists – when it shifts its focus from race, gender and sexuality to class, to elites, landlords, property owners and professionals – that is when liberal societies will once again find themselves in real danger.

Claire Lehmann is the founding editor of Quillette.