Polly Dogood

A Proposal for the Thorough Un-Waking of America

Wherein the Author, having learned that Woke is now a Term of Abuse, undertakes to purge the Founders of it, and finds the Task larger than expected.

To the Readers of this Publick Blog,

I have been informed, by a great many Gentlemen on the Television, that Woke is a very bad Thing, perhaps the worst Thing, and that it must be rooted out of our Schools, our Businesses, our Cartoons and our Breakfast Cereals. Being a dutiful Citizen, I resolved to help. I began, as one should, at the Beginning.

This was a Mistake.

For it turns out the Age that gave birth to our Republick called itself, in so many Words, the Enlightenment... which is to say, the Waking Up. Mr. Kant, the German Philosopher, was asked to define it, and said it was Man's Emergence from a Childhood of his own making. He even gave it a Motto: Sapere aude. Dare to know. Dare to know! The Impertinence.

And our Founders were the worst of the lot. Consider the Evidence.

• Mr. Jefferson wrote that all Men are created equal, and called it self-evident, which is the most Woke Thing a Man can say, since it means he did not feel the need to cite a Source.
• They declared that Governments derive their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, and not from Heaven's particular Fondness for the House of Hanover. The King's Friends thought this an outrageous Novelty, and they were right.
• They forbade Congress to establish a Religion, overturning an Arrangement that nearly every Christian Nation of the Day took for granted.
• Mr. Franklin, to whom I owe, in a Manner of speaking, my entire Family, put Iron Rods on Rooftops to draw Lightning into the Ground, when everyone knew Lightning was the Business of Providence. A Boston Minister went so far as to suggest the Rods had brought on an Earthquake. Woke.

So in the Interest of Consistency, I propose a thorough Un-Waking, as follows.

First, that the Enlightenment be renamed the Unfortunate Incident. Second, that the Declaration of Independence be returned to Parliament with a Note of Apology and a Fruit Basket. Third, that we restore an established Church, and argue only about which one. Fourth, that all Lightning Rods be removed and replaced with Prayer, which is cheaper and was good enough for our Grandfathers' Barns. Fifth, that we resume spelling Colour and Honour with a U, as Loyal Subjects should.

My Readers will object that we speak English anyway, King or no King. Quite right. But it would be the King's English, and we would be saying Sorry in it.

❦   ❦   ❦

Now the plainer Version.

The Conservatives of 1776 had a Name. They were called Loyalists, or Tories, and their Position was perfectly respectable on its Face: the old Order had kept the Peace, the Crown was lawful, the Rebels were Radicals with dangerous Ideas about Equality, and Change of that Size could only end in Ruin. Had they won the Argument, there would be no Republick to argue about.

Being Woke, in the Sense the Founders would have understood it, means being awake. It means noticing that the way Things have always been done is not the same as the way they ought to be done, and having the Nerve to say so out loud. That is the whole American Inheritance. It is the only reason we have one.

And here is the Part that makes some People uncomfortable, which I, as a Descendant of Polly Baker, am obliged to mention. The Founders woke up only partway. Mr. Jefferson wrote that all Men are created equal while other Men were held as Property on his own Land. The Women of the Age, my Grandmothers among them, were left out of the Sentence entirely. My Grandmother Polly stood before a Court of Men, to be punished under Laws that Men had written, and asked them why the Rules fell only on her.

The Founders did not finish the Job. They left the rest of the Waking to us. Every Generation that has widened that Sentence since- the Abolitionists, the Suffragists, the Marchers- was called Radical by the Loyalists of its own Day. Every one of them was being Woke. Every one of them was, I would argue, being American.

I am told by the more learned Objectors that the Enlightenment was about the Rights of the Individual, that Wokeness is about Groups, and so the two are Opposites. I have considered this with some Care, and I think it has things backwards.

What the Woke want, as near as I can make out, is the oldest Enlightenment Wish there is: that a Person may be what she naturally is without being punished for it. The Group is not the Goal. The Group is where you go when the Punishment starts... a Cohort of People who understand you, standing close enough together that the Stones are harder to throw. Safety in Numbers is not a Philosophy. It is a Precaution.

And I notice the Gentlemen most alarmed by People banding together for Safety have no Objection at all when People band together for Profit. Pool your Money with a few hundred Strangers, call it a Corporation, and you may hire Lobbyists, spend freely on Elections, keep Politicians the way some keep Hounds, and be treated by the Courts as a Person in your own right, with a Voice many times louder than any Member could manage alone. That Group is called Free Enterprise. The other is called Identity Politics. The only Difference I can find is that one of them is trying to stay safe, and the other is trying to get paid.

The Objectors will answer that a Corporation is voluntary, and a Person may leave it, while nobody chooses the Group they are born into. Quite so. Nobody chooses to be persecuted, either. And Mr. Jefferson was very particular on this Point: all Men are created equal. Not chartered. Not incorporated. Created. The Equality the Founders promised belongs to what a Person is born as, not to what she signs up for... which means the People banding together over how they were made have the better claim on the Declaration, and the People banding together over a Stock Certificate have, at best, a Filing with the Secretary of State.

So when somebody spits out the Word Woke as though it were an Insult, ask them, kindly, which Side of 1776 they imagine they would have stood on. And if they say the Patriots', you might gently point out that the Patriots were the ones who were awake.

P.S. I am told the Word Woke has been worn thin, misused, and stretched over a great many Things it was never meant to cover. This is likely true. So was Liberty, in its Day. We kept that one too.