Links ist nicht woke

The combative critique of identity politics by a committed leftist. "Susan Neiman's clear thinking and her precise language are a rescue and a delight." (Eva Menasse)

Since she can remember, Susan Neiman has been an outspoken leftist. But since when has the left become woke? In her passionate and witty polemic, she examines how contemporary voices that identify as left have abandoned the very beliefs that are crucial to the leftist perspective: a commitment to universalism, a belief in the possibility of progress, and a clear distinction between power and justice. As a philosopher, she scrutinizes the identity-political critique of the Enlightenment as racist, colonialist, and Eurocentric, concluding that today's left is depriving itself of the concepts urgently needed to resist the global rightward shift.