BBC woke war erupted over origins of political correctness: Its driving voters right – Express

Former Sex Pistols frontman Johnny Rotten took aim at woke politics this week, claiming that activists view themselves as special, but are actually selfish" and "divisive". He asked where this moral majority nonsense came from when theyre the ones doing all the wrong for being so bloody judgemental and vicious against anybody that doesnt go with the current popular opinion? And last year journalist Helen Lewis tried to answer that exact question, during a BBC Radio 4 special on The Roots of Woke Culture.

She spoke to American mathematician, author, and cultural critic James Lindsay who said: I am no fan of the right, in fact, Im very unhappy about the right.

But the reason I direct so much criticism at the left is because until the left gets its house in order the right will keep winning.

The attitudes which are downright snobbish in many cases, the browbeating that used to just be political correctness is now the woke movement that is driving people to the right.

It is driving particularly modest voters to vote for the right and stop it from spreading.

During the debate, Ms Lewis turned to Professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford Selina Todd to dissect the origins of wokeness.

She stated: I think it comes out of post-modern ideas about the power of language.

I should say that the way post-modern ideas have been communicated and disseminated, including in universities, has been sometimes quite inaccurate.

Ms Lewis built on the comments.

She added: Selina believes some students, and some academics, are using these ideas to support modern forms of activism - such as no platform demanding that allegedly harmful speakers dont appear at events.

READ MORE:Barack Obamas blunt declaration of war on woke: Youre not going to get far!

It exists because various forces in society, and intellectuals, have made it exist.

There is very little interest in what is really going on at universities.

The discussion came after Dr Lindsay, Peter Boghossian and Helen Pluckrose submitted numerous bogus papers to academic journals on subjects of social injustice between 2017 and 2018.

It formed the grievance studies affair a project to highlight what was seen as poor scholarship and eroding criteria in several academic fields.

They did so to determine if they would pass their papers through peer review and be accepted for publication.

Several of these papers were subsequently published, which the authors cited in support of their contention, but they also received widespread criticism for allegedly exploiting the system.

Follow this link:

BBC woke war erupted over origins of political correctness: Its driving voters right - Express