LEFT IS NOT WOKE
Robert Misik in conversation with Susan Neiman
LEFT IS NOT WOKE
It is one of the most discussed and also most controversial books of the autumn. „Left is not woke“, by Susan Neiman. The fight against discrimination of all kinds is central to left-wing thinking and commitment. And also that those who were previously rather unheard are given a strong voice. However, Susan Neiman has objections when each sub-group pursues its own agenda, when there is a lack of compromise and the possibility of broad alliances is wilfully destroyed. But is this more than a criticism of style issues, exaggerations and isolated follies that have always existed within the left anyway?
Susan Neiman has been an avowed leftist for as long as she can remember. In her passionate and witty pamphlet, she examines how contemporary voices that call themselves left-wing have abandoned the very convictions that are crucial to the left-wing position: a commitment to universalism, a belief in the possibility of progress and a clear distinction between power and justice. As a philosopher, she examines the identity-political criticism of the Enlightenment as racist, colonialist and Eurocentric and concludes that today's left is depriving itself of the concepts that are urgently needed to resist the global shift to the right.
Susan Neiman, Einstein Forum Potsdam
Robert Misik, Author and journalist
Susan Neiman, born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1955, was Professor of Philosophy at Yale and Tel Aviv Universities before taking over as Director of the Einstein Forum in Potsdam in 2000. Her most recent books published by Hanser Berlin are Warum erwachsen werden? (2015) and Learning from the Germans (2020). She lives in Berlin.