The New Columbian Exchange
A more serious way to discuss the illiberal left
I’ve previously argued that "Wokeism" needs a rebrand. In short, wokeism is the ideological descendent of a centuries-old worldview rooted in pessimism and contempt for liberal democratic societies. In many ways, wokeism represents the polar opposite worldview to the optimism and idealism that has characterized the American approach to the world since the American founding. The widespread embrace of woke ideology is therefore an existential threat to liberal democracies everywhere.
If that sounds hyperbolic or even ridiculous to you, don’t worry, that’s the point of this article. The problem with “wokeism” is that it’s an unserious and highly polarizing word. Complaining about wokeism elicits eye rolls from anyone left of center and tends to attract and energize supporters from the right who suffer from their own brand of illiberalism. For the center left and center right to take the threat seriously, wokeism will need a rebrand.
The best summary of the philosophical underpinnings of wokeism that I have found comes from this great graphic from Tim Urban:
I agree with probably 90% of his chart, but the key additions I highlighted in my prior post can be seen in the top left of the revised chart below. Urban’s chart begins at the top with Marxism, but I think it’s impossible to discuss wokeism without highlighting the impact that Nietzsche and his ideological ancestors had on the postmodernists and the Frankfurt School. The woke obsession with power dynamics and the disdain for Enlightenment institutions are both incredibly Nietzschean ideas.
Regardless, the point of these summary charts is to show that wokeism is fundamentally opposed to liberalism and that it is not a passing fad but instead a serious threat with deep roots. So, the question is, how can we refer to it in a more serious way?
The New Columbian Exchange
The original Columbian Exchange was the transfer of plants, animals, people, technology, and disease between the New World and the Old World following the discovery of the Americas by Christopher Columbus in 1492. This monumental exchange would dramatically change the world forever.
One of the most extreme facets of the exchange was the new diseases that were introduced to the New World. Indigenous Americans had little to no immunity to Old World diseases, including smallpox, measles, and malaria. This lack of immunity had deadly consequences, with an estimated 80-95 percent of the native population of the Americas killed in epidemics during the first 100-150 years following 1492.
The rapid spread and fatal consequences of a foreign contagion amongst an unprepared domestic population is a perfect analogy for another foreign invasion that has wrecked havoc in American public life over the past 50 years – wokeism.
The “woke mind virus” has been likened to contagion plenty of times, but the degree to which wokeism represents a truly foreign ideological movement is poorly understood. Characterizing the virus as a foreign contagion is key to highlighting its anti-American and illiberal Continental roots.
Likening this virus to the original Columbian Exchange also offers a useful mental model for why these ideas have spread so rapidly. 20th Century Americans, like the Native Americans, had essentially no immunity.
Whiggish American consensus history was the dominant historical narrative for most of American history. The 17th century ideal of the "City upon a Hill" evolved into manifest destiny which then further evolved into American exceptionalism. This whiggish optimism reached a high point during the postwar period, but the Achilles’ heel of this optimistic worldview lay in its low level of immunity against illiberal pessimism.
Pessimistic narratives were so rare in American historical narratives that the American public had essentially no immunity to these narratives once they showed up. Once traditional narratives centered around faith, national cohesion, and American exceptionalism broke down in the early 21st century, these new pessimistic philosophies were able to spread like wildfire.
America’s lack of immunity to pessimism also helps explain why, in many ways, Europe is actually less woke than the U.S. Because these ideas originated in Europe, Europeans have been contending with and pushing back on these ideas in real time for centuries. The constant exposure to these pessimistic narratives built European immunity to these ideas over time, much like European resistance to measles was built over time. Highlighting the low level of immunity that Americans had against these ideologies is another way to show just how little these ideologies have in common with any of the ideals or philosophical assumptions that the United States is built on.
The New Columbian Exchange also helps explain why so many have struggled to adequately define what wokeism is. Americans have only relatively recently been exposed to these narratives. The language and assumptions that these narratives rest on are unfamiliar to most Americans. The right’s fumbling around when describing wokeism is not proof of the harmlessness of the ideas, but is instead proof of just how foreign, un-American, and unfamiliar the language and assumptions of these ideas are.
Finally, the New Columbian Exchange has the added benefit of forever implicating ground zero for American wokeism – the place where the Frankfurt School made first contact with American shores in 1935 – Columbia University.
The New Columbian Exchange gets at the revolutionary and potentially fatal consequences of left-wing European illiberalism. The first step to fixing a problem is to fully understand it, and by referring to the introduction of these ideas to the U.S. as the New Columbian Exchange, sensible liberals from both sides of the aisle can begin to better understand and address these philosophical critiques of liberalism.
Conclusion / TL;DR
Wokeism represents the mass popularization of a set of illiberal and pessimistic philosophies that date back to the 18th century. The seriousness of the threat that these ideas pose to liberal democracy does not match the seriousness of the word “woke”. It’s a silly word. A rebranding of the concept of wokeism is needed so that both the center-left and the center-right, two groups with a vested interest in defending liberal democracy, can discuss the threat of wokeism seriously.
I recommend the “New Columbian Exchange”, an analogy that frames the ideological underpinnings of wokeism as a foreign, invasive contagion, explains the speed with which the virus has spread by highlighting the lack of immunity Americans had against this virus, and references and implicates Columbia University as ground zero for wokeism.
American historical narratives since the founding have been characterized by a fundamentally optimistic and progress-oriented Enlightenment ethos. This optimistic American worldview that believes in the pursuit of ideals stands directly opposed to the cultural pessimism of Nietzsche and his ideological descendants.
The New Columbian Exchange represents the culmination of these illiberal ideas and their introduction and rapid spread through American society. By grouping these ideas into a single analogy – the New Columbian Exchange – we can begin to push back against the pessimism that these ideas represent and regain a progress-oriented sense of purpose and direction.