The performance, and its associated, convoluted, made-up language, reflect an engrained condescension grounded on the premise that (other) people are either oppressors or oppressed, victims or perpetrators. It is easy to cast this obsession with language as simply performative or harking back to an earlier era of political correctness. Attempts at changing language that start with children risk setting the generations at odds with each other as parents, and especially grandparents, may be unfamiliar with the latest gender neutral terminology. The more woke language and principles are adopted by a social and cultural elite, the more they are assumed to be mainstream and the more those who use outdated terminology stand out. It argues that elite condescension towards the working class translates into an illiberal and censorious culture.

The white elite sought to challenge nascent populism because: ‘The leaders of this movement began awakening the poor white masses and the former Negro slaves to the fact that they were being fleeced by the emerging Bourbon interests. Craig’s 007 is ‘tender, cries and gets into the shower in his tuxedo to comfort a woman’, gushes Higson. Woke may not be this elite’s self-descriptor of choice, but woke ideas underpin establishment decision-making and corporate mission statements. They have moved from the fringes of political life to the mainstream and now influence the actions of public institutions, national governments and private businesses. It is not enough for people to be aware of racial injustice: ‘silence is violence’ comes the retort.

For example, in her role as State prosecutor, Kamala Harris oversaw the incarceration of African Americans at a rate that remains more than five times their share of California’s population.

The book begins with a review of the etymology of the word ‘woke’ tracing its origins back to the era of Jim Crow Laws and black oppression in the American Deep South.What’s more, it means expressing these sentiments using a specific vocabulary familiar only to true antiracists: ‘people of colour’, ‘Latinx’, ‘bipoc’. Similarly, feminist activists are quick to declare that feminism simply means a belief that women and men are equal. By the mid-20th century in America, ‘woke’ was still used almost exclusively by members of the African American population, but two meanings ran in parallel: be vigilant for potential threats from powerful whites and also be ‘aware’ or ‘well informed’ about political injustices in general. Yet to be woke is also to believe that demonstrating masculine behaviour makes someone a man (whatever their sex), while to be a woman is to look and t But while the cultural elite has rejected the label of woke, the values associated with being woke are more influential than ever.

Woke thinking provides those who run national institutions with a moral mission and a sense of purpose.It’s on my Top 10 List of books that helped me make sense of wokeness, the culture wars, and the migration of working class voters out of the left side of the political spectrum. Back in the early decades of the 20th century, this figurative meaning began to be applied to politics.