A person should be perceived as an individual, not as a representative of some oppressed group.
“Why do our universities study the music of white European composers like Mozart and Beethoven? Was there no music in Africa in the 18th–19th centuries?” What will you answer to such an accusation? If you say that European music of that era was more valuable than African music, you are quite likely to be branded a “racist.”
This approach is referred to in modern political science literature as wokeism—from the English word woke (the past tense of wake). In other words, a group that was “asleep” has now “awakened” and will not allow its rights to be violated; the time has come to restore justice. There are many such formerly oppressed and now “awakened” groups—women, ethnic and racial minorities, the LGBT community, people with disabilities, and so on.
What is important here is that we are not talking about individuals. No one can dispute that a given African American may be a hundred times more gifted musically than a given European. But in the case of wokeism, individuals do not exist; what matters is belonging to a particular group. This is a Bolshevik-style approach, when in the Supreme Soviet there had to obligatorily be a milkmaid, a tractor driver, or a locksmith.
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Over the past centuries, Western humanism has undergone just such a transformation—from being centered on the individual to being centered on groups. As an individual, with your merits and flaws, talents and failures, you no longer matter. You are interesting only as a representative of some group. And if you belong, in one way or another, to a “previously oppressed” group, that gives you certain privileges.
This “formerly oppressed” status is also used in the so-called “anti-colonial” discourse. Even Ilham Aliyev—hardly someone suspected of humanism—has decided to pay tribute to “interstate wokeism.” It turns out that Russia has “occupied” his country. That is, there supposedly existed for centuries an “Azerbaijan” state, until in the early 19th century the Russian Empire suddenly came and seized it. Whereas in fact everything was exactly the opposite: in the 20th century, Soviet Russia, together with Turkey, created that state.
I would approach the topic of “colonial grievance” with caution in Armenia’s case as well—even though the crimes of the Russian Empire are well known. But to awaken anti-Russian resentment now, and replace anti-Turkish sentiment with it, seems questionable to me. (The subject is open to further discussion.)
On the individual level, the fashion for “group-centered approaches” in the West is fading. For example, until Trump’s return to power, U.S. state and private institutions (even the army) were bound by the so-called Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) policies. These required diversity and “equity” (equity, not equality). In plain language, when applying for a job or service, preference was given to candidates who belonged to marginalized groups. From that perspective, a disabled, African American, female, lesbian candidate had the highest chances.
Trump, to his credit, put an end to this absurdity. In some parts of Europe, such approaches still exist, but the number of right-wing governments is steadily growing. In countries like Armenia, for now it is still possible to make money on “wokeism”—to receive grants. But with time, that source will dry up.
…If we follow “wokeism,” then a debate between Gevorg Petrosyan and Hovik Aghazaryan is equivalent to a debate between Immanuel Kant and Moses Mendelssohn, and both must equally be studied in a course on the history of philosophy.
Aram Abrahamyan
