Last week, in a compelling piece posted at Chronicles, Editor-in-Chief Paul Gottfried argues that in order to understand the new rise of radicalism in America it is important to understand the differences between wokeness and communism:
The legions that back the woke ideologues include public administrators, entertainment celebrities, and corporate executives who impose DEI indoctrination even after it has been declared illegal. Neither should we forget the vast majority of Democratic voters, NGOs, and almost all “educators.” These ideologues have tens of millions of followers, unlike American Communists, who could only scare up about 80,000 votes in their best showing in a presidential race in 1936.
To call these woke nutjobs Marxists is to insult an older and, frankly, saner enemy. Nowhere did Communist parties favor open borders, encourage sexual perversity, try to fill cities with encampments of druggies and derelicts, or make war on gender identities.
Gottfried, a former professor of humanities at Elizabethtown College, has authored many outstanding books—particularly on the question of Marxism—so I defer to his judgment on what qualifies and doesn’t qualify for the precise definition of Marxism and Communism. Rather than disagree with him, I’d like to offer a slightly different perspective. The woke, in fact, are clinical narcissists in the sense that term was defined by Christopher Lasch.
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