I am pleased to report that my first book, We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite, now has an official release date: October 8, 2024. Even better, it is now officially available for preorder via Bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble, Amazon and most other major retailers.
Princeton University Press was very aggressive in keeping the price point down – it’s much cheaper than a typical academic press (which often cost $50- $100 or more), and comparable in price to a new release from an imprint like Basic Books or Penguin.
I strongly encourage everyone to preorder the book as soon as possible. As Yashar Ali explains here, the best way to support an author is not just to buy the book after it comes out — but to pre-order. It makes a huge difference in terms of the impact of the book to have strong “day-one” sales.
And this book is going to be an absolute banger.
There have been many books published to try to understand the period of rapid change in norms and discourse after 2010. This book is not like those books. It’s not an “antiwoke” polemic – it’s a deep dive into how inequalities come about and persist, how they are legitimized, and who benefits from them and how. It’s draws on and synthesizes tons of empirical research from a wide range of fields (I’m a professor of communication and journalism who previously served as an instructor in political science; I have degrees in philosophy and sociology; I was mentored by, and have co-authored scholarly work with, prominent psychologists. All of these influences shine through clearly in the work). It has a hundred year historical arc. I can guarantee: you haven’t read this book before.
To get your hands on it on October 8th, definitely, pre-order it now.
If you are interested in buying several copies of the book (for a group or event, for instance), hit me up and I can put you in touch with the Princeton University Press team about potential discounts.
If you’re a
- Journalist interested in writing about me or the book or doing an interview,
- An editor interested in writing and excerpt or soliciting an original essay,
- An academic interested in reviewing the book for a major disciplinary journal, or
- Someone interested in having me out to give a talk about the book or its themes
Reach out ASAP because my dance card is filling up quickly (contact information available in the footer of my website).
To whet your appetite further, a quick preview of the book and its chapters follows below.
The Pitch
Starting in the interwar period (between World Wars I and II) and rapidly accelerating in the 1970s, there were shifts to the global economy that radically increased the influence of the “symbolic industries” – science and technology, education, media, law, consulting, administration, finance, non-profits, NGOs and advocacy organizations, and so forth. People who work in these fields traffic primarily in data, ideas, rhetoric, images instead of physical goods or services. Drawing from Bourdieu, we can refer to these professionals as “symbolic capitalists.”
I’m a symbolic capitalist. If you’re reading this, there’s a strong chance you’re a symbolic capitalist too.
One defining trait of symbolic capitalists is our commitment to social justice. We are the Americans most likely to self-identify as feminists, antiracists or allies to LGBTQ people. Politically, we’re overwhelmingly aligned with America’s primary ‘left’ party. Many of our professions are explicitly oriented around altruism, speaking truth to power, or serving as impartial adjudicators, knowledge producers, facilitators and advisors in order to advance the common good.
Given the ways symbolic capitalists like to understand and describe ourselves and our professions, one might expect that as people like “us” have gained more power over society, longstanding social problems would be on the path to resolution and socioeconomic and cultural inequalities would be greatly diminished. In reality, the opposite has happened.
In tandem with the transitions favoring the symbolic industries, we’ve seen increased polarization and social conflict. Public trust in institutions has been consistently plummeting. Many systems and institutions are growing increasingly dysfunctional and ineffective. Inequalities in the U.S. have grown increasingly pronounced as symbolic capitalists have risen in affluence and influence. Symbolic capitalists are, themselves, among the primary beneficiaries of these inequalities – and social justice discourse is increasingly mobilized to justify them.
The ‘losers’ in the symbolic economy are portrayed as deserving their lot because they think, feel or say the ‘wrong’ things about race, gender and sexuality. Elites’ bids for more power and status, meanwhile, are increasingly bound up with their egalitarian bona fides.
Understanding this state of affairs requires a deep and unflinching look into the history and political economy of symbolic capitalists. Although our professions have, from the outset, defined themselves as altruistic in nature — oriented towards higher principles or the greater good – the truth is, we have never been woke.
Chapter Overview
Introduction
Books are products of particular times and places. They are often designed as interventions into ongoing conversations, often oriented towards some set of goals. They’re typically motivated by observations or experiences that convince authors they should or must be written. The introduction to We Have Never Been Woke details how the book came about and spells out some of its foundational axioms and goals.
Sections:
Inspiration | Orwell’s Demon | Overview | Minority Report | (Analytic) Inequality | Coda: We Have Never Been Woke
Chapter 1: On Wokeness
What is “wokeness”? Who is “woke”? What are the struggles around “wokeness” actually about? Chapter 1 argues “wokeness” is best understood as the dominant ideology of a new constellation of elites: symbolic capitalists. Although sincerely committed to egalitarianism in principle, symbolic capitalists also tend to be ambitious social climbers and expect and desire to be treated as social elites. These goals are in tension. This tension has defined the symbolic professions from the outset.
Sections:
Symbolic Capital(ists) | ‘Woke’ | Hegemony and False Consensus | The Symbolic Mainstream | Symbolic Conservatives | The Anti-Woke | Wokeness, Faith, Insecurity | The Banality of ‘Wokeness’ | Ideals and Interests | Coda: Birth of the Symbolic Professions
Chapter 2: The Great Awokening(s)
Since 2010, there has been a rapid shift in the rhetoric, beliefs, institutional norms, and political behaviors of symbolic capitalists. These shifts are actually a ‘case’ of something. In fact, looking at some of the same indicators we can use to substantiate and track the contemporary “Awokening” we can see that there were three similar periods of rapid cultural and moral change over the course of the 20th century. By comparing and contrasting the current ‘Great Awokening’ with previous episodes we can gain important insights into questions like, “Under what circumstances do these Awokenings come about? When and why do they end? What, if anything, do they tend to change? If and how does one Awokening inform the next?” This is the project of Chapter 2.
Sections:
A Major Shift | Point of Origin | E Pluribus Unum | Alternative Facts | Not the First, Not the Last | The First Awokening | The Second Awokening | The Third Awokening | The Fourth Awokening | The Next Awokening | Elite Overproduction | Diverted Movements | The More Things Change | Social Justice Sinecures | Theories of Failure | Culture Wars | Coda: White Liberals
Chapter 3: Symbolic Domination
Symbolic capitalists are elites. However, we often decline to see ourselves this way. We typically focus on millionaires and billionaires when discussing social problems. However, symbolic capitalists exert immense influence over society too. And we profit greatly from, and actively exploit and perpetuate, many social problems we conspicuously condemn. Moreover, the millionaires and billionaires in society are increasingly drawn from “us” and underwrite and subsidize our institutions and outputs. It’s largely through “us” that they make stuff happen in the world. Multinational corporations are likewise largely administrated by “us,” and their policies are designed and implemented by “us.” Political campaigns and government administrations are likewise designed and run largely by “us.” In short, the line we try to draw between “us” and “elites” is less substantial than we’d like to acknowledge. Chapter 3 illustrates this point at length.
Sections:
Winners Take All | Empire of Signs | Inequalities in Context | Disposable Labor(ers) | Symbolic Hubs | Sex and Symbolic Capital | Coda: Rich, White and Blue
Chapter 4: Post-Materialist Politics
Symbolic capitalists’ unique socioeconomic position and cognitive profiles predispose us towards idiosyncratic political preferences and behaviors. As symbolic capitalists have grown increasingly influential, and increasingly consolidated into the Democratic Party, we profoundly reshaped that party and U.S. political landscape more broadly – often in ways we might not be proud of. Chapter 4 helps us understand the nature and origins of symbolic capitalists’ idiosyncratic approach to politics, including and especially our intense focus on hearts and minds, symbols and rhetoric, at the expense of the “bread and butter” struggles that other Americans are most concerned about.
Sections:
Blue Cities Are the Problem | Sophisticated Accumulation | A Tempest in a Teapot | The Curse of Knowledge | Consequences of Consolidation | Disciplined Minds | Coda: ‘Woke’ Capitalism
Chapter 5: Totemic Capital(ism)
Symbolic capitalists have always presented ourselves as advocates for the vulnerable and downtrodden. Today, we often present ourselves as literal embodiments or representatives of historically marginalized and disadvantaged groups – and as, ourselves, being marginalized and disadvantaged (despite the reality that we are, in fact, elites). Chapter 5 explores how and why contemporary elites leverage association with ostensibly stigmatized identities in struggles over resources, status and power.
Sections:
A New Moral Culture | Victimhood as Status | Stigmata | Different Boats | Totemic Capital | (Mis)Appropriating Totems | The Totemic Mystique | The Wrong Bodies | Backwards in Heels | Differently (En)Abled | The Rich Get Richer | He Who Lives by the Sword… | Coda: Accounting for Taste
Chapter 6: Mystification of Social Processes
‘Wokeness’ often obscures unpalatable truths from symbolic capitalists and other stakeholders. Chapter 6 will do a dive into the cognitive and behavioral science literatures to illustrate how sincere commitments to social justice causes allow symbolic capitalists to exploit, perpetuate and exacerbate inequalities while convincing themselves that ‘others’ are the problem and sincerely believing themselves to be egalitarians and “allies” for the marginalized and disadvantaged in society.
Sections:
Tall Tales | Noblesse Oblige | Class/ Cancelled | Invalidating Inconvenient Perspectives | Critique or Alibi? | Doing Bad, Feeling Good | Coda: Babies and Bathwater
Conclusion
There is more to say on social justice discourse, inequality and the rise of symbolic capitalists than can be conveyed in a single book. Moreover, even as certain questions were answered in the text, new questions were raised. The conclusion sketches out what was learned and what remains to be explored.
Sections:
Taking Stock | Sans Frontieres | Tentative Answers, New Questions | Beyond Belief
For More
If you’ve already pre-ordered the book and you’re interested in keeping the conversation rolling through October 8 and beyond, you can subscribe to my recently-launched Substack, Symbolic Capital(ism), where I’ll be publishing essays drawing on content that was cut from the main text, or develop implications and applications of the book, extend its arguments to domains not covered in the text itself, respond to questions, comments and objections (from readers and reviewers), and lay the track for the follow-up text already in advanced development.
Interested readers can also sign up for additional updates (about interviews and editorials) through Princeton University Press.