“The people who deny that it happens like to focus on the ‘cancel’ part of it, but they don’t like to talk about the ‘culture’ part of it,” said Bernstein. “The culture is extremely censorious.”
The group that adheres to this social justice culture maintains that there are some ideas that are beyond debate and only one way to understand social or economic disparities, said Bernstein. In addition, this group is loud, making it seem large.
In reality, it is only a small minority of progressives who adhere to this ideology, but they have “disproportionate power in the discourse” and are active on social media, he said.
Contrary to “woke” ideology, Bernstein said he believes all ideas should be debated.
“We need ideas to be brought out in public, to be subjected to the spotlight, to be scrutinized so that we know when we’re wrong,” said Bernstein. At the same time, “we need people who are more capable of sifting through complex ideas and figuring out what’s legit and what’s not.”
Rigid View of Oppression
Woke ideology holds that ideas like racism and oppression are not just a personal attitude but are built into the fabric of society, and that the oppressed have a moral authority and are the only ones qualified to define oppression for the society, said Bernstein.“It’s often weaponized to say, ‘You’re speaking from a place of privilege if you offer an alternative point of view,’” he said. “It can be true that somebody who has suffered from oppression might have an insight that the rest of us should listen to,” he said, but it is not the whole picture.
As a Jew, Bernstein said he can offer one important viewpoint about antisemitism, but that there are also data points and other Jews’ experience that needs to be considered in evaluating oppression against Jews, for example.
‘White’ Equals ‘Oppressor’
When progressives say that Jews are white or Asians are “white-adjacent,” what they mean is that they’ve taken advantage of the white power structure for their success, he said.“We should be able to look at these complex social problems. We know that there are multiple factors of why some groups do better than other groups at any given time, and that it’s fluid,” he said.
Bernstein said it’s “profoundly ridiculous to say that just because you have what’s considered white skin, that you’re automatically privileged in every context, and that if you’re black, you’re automatically oppressed in every context.”
This ideology can breed resentment from a white person, which “also breeds a kind of white identity politics that can go in the wrong direction as well,” he said.
Classic Liberalism
Bernstein’s organization advocates for a return to classical liberalism, he said, in which people believe in the free expression of ideas and protecting civil liberties, coupled with politically liberal ideas like separation of church and state.Over time, woke ideology took the place of classical liberalism, and “many liberals became what you might call progressives today, people who believe in this, in sort of, the woke proposition of power and privilege and the like.” Many classical liberals don’t believe in free expression and robust open debate anymore.
“Unfortunately, I don’t think we’re in a very healthy body politic today. ... The liberal ideas have been sort of purged from the ranks of the progressives,” he said.
Bernstein said that engaging in debate, and arguing opposing ideas, was the bedrock of his family’s classically liberal Jewish culture, which is one of the reasons he could not accept “woke” ideology.
“When woke ideology started encroaching in Jewish life, it was a shock, because that to me was deeply un-Jewish, that you were now imposing a set of views on how right-thinking people should think.”
A fundamental tenant of this ideology claims that racism equals prejudice plus power, which did not make sense to Bernstein, and he wondered, “does that mean that a group that’s considered part of the power structure, like Jews, are not capable of being victims? Does that mean that marginalized groups can’t be victimizers?”
He has been warning the Jewish community about the pitfalls of this woke ideology and its propensity toward antisemitism for many years.
Ideology Has Gone Unchallenged
Bernstein said that he thinks a lot of mild-mannered, thoughtful people on both ends of the political spectrum probably didn’t take these “woke” ideological claims very seriously the first time they heard them, and because this ideology was allowed to go unchallenged for so long, it took over institutions like universities, government, medicine, and media.“That’s because none of us wanted to quote-unquote ‘wrestle with a pig,’ we just let it go and gain more and more cultural power to the point now where we can’t even have proper discussions with each other,” said Bernstein. “I think many just haven’t realized how far they’ve moved in this direction, and how destructive that is for the American ideal in their own best interests.”
Proponents have replaced class with race and ethnicity, but other than that, the ideology sounds “exactly the same,” said Bernstein.
Jews Seen as Oppressors
This ideology conflates success with the oppressor’s role.“Then Jews, who do on average better than the mean, are going to be viewed as oppressors. That can easily be applied to countries as well, and you see it applied with Israel,“ he said. ”It provides the perfect template for antisemitism to thrive.”
It is not antisemitic to criticize the Israeli government, but it is antisemitic to demonize the people or the country and say it does not have a right to exist, said Bernstein.
“It’s denying the Jewish people what you would give to almost any other people with the right to self-determination, and I think that is primarily an antisemitic movement,” he said.
This ideology makes Jews worry about their place in American politics, said Bernstein.
“I think many Jews worry that they’re going to be disenfranchised over time from American politics if this ideology continues to have its way,” Bernstein said about antisemitism from the left.
The Boston branch of the “Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions” movement—which aims to boycott association with Israel— initiated a “mapping project” and published the names and addresses of Jewish organizations and their leaders in the greater Boston area.
“If people are going to see the world in these stark ‘oppressed/oppressor’ terms, then it gives permission for radicals like the mapping project to go and start naming people where they live, because they’re part of the oppressive class,” said Bernstein.
Antisemitism Being Institutionalized
This ideology is spread through universities, Bernstein said, and a study by The Heritage Foundation found that the people working in diversity, equity, and inclusion departments at 65 colleges and universities posted more negative tweets about Israel than about China, said Bernstein.They are not necessarily blatant antisemites, he said, but it reveals a certain ideological inclination.
“That’s going to play out in the way that they understand Jews ... and I’m worried that that’s now being institutionalized in many places in the United States.”
Because Jews generally have always stood on the side of civil liberties and wanting to protect human rights, they have adopted this radical social justice model, but Bernstein is asking Jews to reevaluate this ideology.
“I would urge them to hit the pause button and to deliberate on these concepts,“ said Bernstein. “We can provide support to each other, we can stand up for our classically liberal values, our American values, and we can stand down this extremism that’s coming from the far left and also from the far right.”
