It is indisputable that ‘woke’ ideology has taken hold in the minds of many Canadians. The repercussions have been profound. It has driven us well past the point where disagreements about political and social issues can be respected as simple difference of opinion.
The ideological worldview makes no room for an understanding of perspective. There are no ‘points of view’. You are not entitled to your opinion because there are no opinions. There is only apprehension of the perfect truth encapsulated by sanctioned dogma vs total, irredeemable corruption.
The conviction in their own infallible righteousness makes woke ideologues intrinsically authoritarian. There is no option other than getting your way when your way and morally perfect, absolute truth are the same thing. Anything other than your way is an impediment to bringing that perfect vision for humanity into being. Anyone opposing the absolute goodness of your agenda must be representatives of absolute evil by definition. For goodness to prevail those impediments must be annihilated.
We see these traits on display everywhere we look these days.
Take, for example, the response from woke ideologues to some Canadian provinces announcing changes to pronoun policy in primary schools.
Until now, teachers have been permitted to acquiesce to a child’s request to be referred to by a different gender pronoun and a different name without informing the parents.
The Premiers of New Brunswick, Saskatchewan and Ontario have clearly received the message this is extremely unpopular with the majority of parents and voters. As a result, New Brunswick and Saskatchewan are making it mandatory for schools to inform parents about such a request going forward. The government in Ontario has indicated it isn't ruling out following suit.
Let’s be perfectly clear: We are talking about not permitting government employees to be the sole decision makers when it comes to how they handle issues concerning the psychological and social development of other people's children.
That is the issue for parents and voters who support these changes.
But you would never know it if your understanding was dependent on the reaction from the ‘woke’ mob.
Let’s take a look at a representative sample of that reaction:
Dale Smith, Ottawa Press Gallery:
Set aside the question of how indoctrinated and subservient to state authority one must be to find anything controversial or malevolent about the sentiment "parents rights come before government rights".
Let’s instead focus on the fact that Dale makes no attempt whatsoever to address the perspective that Poilievre has actually articulated. To be precise, Dale doesn’t disagree with Poilievre’s perspective. He treats Poilievre’s perspective like it doesn’t exist.
This isn’t: “I understand what you mean but here is why I think it’s wrong”.
This is: “I’m telling you what you mean and it makes me a better person than you!”
In other words, Dale projects an entirely subjective, self-confirming interpretation (grounded in generic ‘woke’ axioms) which he simply treats as a perfect representation of Poilievre’s intent. Instead of taking in meaning generated ‘out there’ on the other side of his face, Dale generates meaning in his head, projects it out there and treats his confabulation like objective truth.
Former Global News employee Rachel Gilmore does the exact same thing when sharing Dale’s tweet:
Like Dale, Rachel can't address what Poilievre has actually said. It doesn’t even occur to her to try.
All she can do is vent fury at him for saying it.
She indulges in this self-righteous emotionalism while insinuating vague but sinister associations between his words, the “Parental Rights Movement” (whatever that is), foreign organizations and politicians she personally dislikes.
Again, Rachel spews an incoherent confabulation which she treats as an authoritative description of the real world out there.
Here is David Moscrop, who describes himself as a “writer” for the Globe and Mail and the Washington Post. He is also the author of what I can only assume to be an autobiography called, ‘Too Dumb for Democracy’:
Notice the language David selects to construct a perception of people who support these changes. His first move is to make it politically partisan. He says these are “conservative” provinces despite the majority of voters in both Ontario and New Brunswick voting Liberal and NDP in the last federal election.
He makes the vicious accusation that the intent is to “take aim at children”. It’s “bad”. It’s “dangerous”. He asserts they are “going all-in on demonizing” people with no substantiation. In the body of his screed he arbitrarily labels supporters of these changes “the far right”. The only motivations he can bring himself to grant them are “hatred” “fear”, “resentment”, “unfamiliarity” and “irrational prejudice”.
Clearly the supporters of these changes are inhuman monsters driven by a level of malevolence bordering on the supernatural.
Does David manage at any point to address the actual arguments for supporting these policy changes?
Nope.
Does he give any indication he’s even aware the motivations he has invented in his head for the people he is “going all-in on demonizing” might be different to the motivations in their heads?
Nope.
In fact, David is adamant that suggesting his own infallible position is even “up for debate” is a deliberate lie to help facilitate their evil plans:
“The issues “up for debate” are rarely even about what their initiators pretend they’re about. For instance, drawing on engineered moral panics, anti-trans crusaders torque issues such as bathroom use or pronoun choice to get at their broader goal: eliminating ways of being and the people associated with them.”
Of course, all of this is nothing but adolescent-level circular reasoning. David’s entire argument can be summarized as ‘They’re wrong and evil because I say so!’
This ideological solipsism isn’t limited to hack journalists.
Former hack politicians are restricted in their thinking in precisely the same way.
Kathleen Wynne, Former Liberal Premier of Ontario:
Tom Mulcair, former Leader of the federal NDP:
It’s the same thing again and again:
- The uncontestable correctness of woke transgender ideology is simply assumed.
- The interpretation of the issue generated by that ideology is presented as the single perspective requiring consideration.
- Self-confirming, malevolent motivations are presented as the only plausible explanation for not agreeing with them.
As I said at the beginning, it’s not that they disagree with other people’s perspective. It’s that they treat the other perspective like it doesn’t exist. Like it’s not there. They do this even when the other perspective has been specifically articulated and it’s right in front of them.
It’s as if Rachel, Dale, David, Kathleen, Tom and the woke multitude who demonstrate these same traits are literally unable to cognize a perspective that doesn’t conform with their own. They can only recognize whether their own perspective is being reflected back at them. If they see their own reflection they deem it perfect and good. Anything other than their own reflection is simply registered as a rejection of the perfect and good and deemed an abomination.
The allusion to the myth of Narcissus isn’t merely a rhetorical flourish. Grandiosity, coupled with an inability to relate to any perspective other than one’s own is a fundamental characteristic of pathological narcissism.
Sam Vaknin, professor of psychology and author of Malignant Self Love: Narcissism Revisited:
“The narcissist’s selective perception is very selective. It's a process by which he perceives what he wants to and he ignores all opposing viewpoints, data, information, arguments. He sees things based on his particular frame of reference.
So the narcissist is a one man echo chamber. He's a walking talking reified confirmation bias. He's totally biased all the time because he interprets all information in a way that is congruent with his beliefs about himself and others. Beliefs which are essentially cognitively distorted.”
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