I DETEST the word ‘woke’. It’s become the modern-day equivalent of ‘politically correct’ – and I recall how that expression was deployed with mocking sneers in the 1980s and 90s against anyone trying to do even the slightest bit of good in society.

For a while, ‘woke’ was a convenient way of describing a certain level of fanaticism and extremism, particularly online – when it came to fighting modern-day monsters like racism and sexism – among a wearyingly authoritarian band on the left. Let’s call it the ‘unacceptable left’.

Now though, ‘woke’ has firmly migrated to be part of the language of the right – and by that I don’t mean your average decent Tory, but the nasty right, the hard right. Let’s call it ‘the unacceptable right’. ‘Woke’ is now a phrase favoured by those who see themselves a little too polite to call someone a ‘libtard’.

I regret using the term ‘woke’ myself. I found it, for a time, a useful phrase when it came to explaining my anger at folk I felt were undermining attempts to make our society more fair and equal. When, for instance, Jamie Oliver was accused of cultural appropriation for cooking jerk chicken – or Adele was similarly attacked for wearing a Bantu Knot – I was furious that such idiocy would undermine efforts to address racism in Britain. There’s been a host of such petty incidents – and each one eats away at whichever good cause it attempts to defend. Fulminating rants about some clumsy man complimenting a woman’s hair won’t, in my view at least, further the cause of eliminating sexism.

In fact, these micro-rages are entirely counter-productive. Such wilful posturing has helped fuel the rise of the new right in recent years. Every time some absurdity was uttered by ‘the unacceptable left’, a new member of ‘the unacceptable right’ was created.

So for a while I fell into the trap of seeing ‘woke’ as a shorthand way of getting across my frustration at people I felt were undermining positions folk like me had fought for over decades. Now, though, I see the word ‘woke’ taking on a much darker shape. When the term ‘woke’ becomes an insult accompanied by boos against football players trying to show their support for the black community, I know which side I’m on.

Here in Scotland ‘woke’ has been deployed repeatedly amid the SNP’s internal wars. There’s multiple fracture points among nationalists, and one of the biggest is between what you would broadly describe as the party’s progressive left and its reactionary right. The recent elections to the SNP’s National Executive Committee were seen as a defeat for the party’s ‘woke’. In truth, what’s happened is that young, idealistic SNP members, with an open, generous view of the world, have been put in their place by a reactionary old guard. Not a promising sign of what a future Scotland might hold with the SNP in charge.

A lot of the stresses and strains among the SNP centres on the issue of trans rights, and the Scottish Government’s decision to hold a public consultation on a Gender Recognition Bill – which would make it easier for trans people to get a Gender Recognition Certificate. So far, that’s all that’s happened – a consultation about a certificate.

However, the rage and hate on both sides has been grotesque. Women have been subjected to appalling misogyny, and the trans community has been subjected to appalling hatred. There are fraught issues, for sure, which need debated and worked out – but is it beyond the wit of the people of Scotland to have this discussion with kindness and good grace for all, as has happened in many other countries?

This trans rights ‘war’ gets to the very heart of the problem, though. Women still suffer from gross inequality, trans people are treated with disgraceful contempt. Yet rather than striving for fairness for all, people who should be on the same side are forced into confrontation as intemperate language replaces debate.

I worry that some of us who wish to fight good fights are doing the work of our opponents. We’re turning on each other – to their delight – when we should be working together.

That’s why I find myself in agreement with Barack Obama. He’s warned repeatedly that the misuse of language can greatly undermine the left. Just a few days ago, he took issue with the term ‘Defund the Police’. In essence what the slogan means is: take some money from police budgets and use that to pay for homeless services or more social workers. It doesn’t mean shut the police down by ceasing all funding but that’s what it sounds like to many. It’s an immediate mass switch-off.

If you wish to win a political argument, you need to win supporters. Extremist language doesn’t do that – it repels. And that means opponents win. So for me when ‘my side’ – broadly the liberal-left – deploys alienating slogans all I see is a win for the unacceptable right, for the racists and sexists.

I’m aware I’m one of the luckier ones in this debate. I’m white, I’m a man, and I’m straight. I would never and could never aspire to tell black people or women or gay or trans people how to fight their battles. But I have been an ally all my life and we won battles in the past. My generation stood up to sexism and racism and homophobia and beat real evils down or at least beat them back. I remember the sneering voices who described our campaigns over apartheid, Section 28 and women’s rights as ‘political correctness gone mad’.

It wasn’t anything of the sort. These campaigns were about people who were discriminated against demanding their rights, and their friends and supporters backing them up. When the term ‘woke’ is thrown around now, all I hear are those hateful voices from the 80s and 90s, just dressed in different clothes today.

Yes, some on the left have undermined good causes and good fights with their foolish and extremist language, and the absurdity of trying to cancel debate and even the cruelty of trying to cancel people they disagree with. But that doesn’t nullify those good causes and good fights. It just means we have to argue better if we’re to win.

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