successor ideology

English

Etymology

Coined by essayist Wesley Yang.

Noun

successor ideology

1. (politics) A proposed emergent ideology within liberal or left-wing political movements in the West, centered around intersectionality, social justice and identity politics, and potentially supplanting the conventional liberal values of pluralism, freedom of speech, and color blindness.
   • 2022, David L. Bernstein, Woke Antisemitism: How a Progressive Ideology Harms Jews:

     Many political liberals have traded in classical liberal values for what writer Wesley Yang calls the "successor ideology," commonly known as woke ideology. It's an ideology that claims to have the absolute truth about why there's disparity in the world and, hence, overrides the need for societal debate about such matters.

   • 2022, Yascha Mounk, The Great Experiment: How to Make Diverse Democracies Work:

     Variously identified as "woke," as an applied form of "critical race theory," or as a likely "successor ideology" to liberalism, this movement vows to remake society in a radical manner. To do so, many of its most vocal advocates are willing to rethink fundamental principles, like the focus on individuals over groups, on which liberal democracies have traditionally been built.

   • 2023, Rafael Behr, Politics: A Survivor's Guide:

     An alternative term to 'woke' that has utility as a historical place marker is 'the successor ideology'. The phrase was coined by the US writer Wesley Yang to characterize a chapter in the evolution of left-wing thought that emerged from the traditional political liberalism of the post-Cold War era and is in large part a reaction against it, but that doesn't posit much by way of an alternative programme.

See also

• woke