Wokeness is the most insufferable form of politics

In the age of modern outrage we’ve become far less interested in the facts, and far more obsessive about trying to throw the first stone, writes James Morrow.

Kylie Minogue remembered Karl Lagerfeld on Instagram this week. Picture: Instagram

So here’s a fun little story that may come in handy the next time they have a medieval history round at your local pub trivia night.

Back in 897AD, for a combination of reasons political and ecclesiastical, Pope Stephen VI had the corpse of his recent predecessor in the office, a fellow known as Pope Formosus, dug up, brought to the papal court in Rome, and put on trial.

He was found guilty of a variety of offences (not making a very good defence witness himself), had three fingers cut off as punishment, and was finally tossed unceremoniously back into the River Tiber.

It’s a great, grisly piece of history, and it shows just how far we’ve come in the thousand-plus years since what is now known as the “cadaver synod” (though its Latin name, Synod Horrenda, is even more evocative).

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And now thanks to technology, we don’t need to go all Goodfellas to denounce those whose actions in life displeased the religious authorities of the day.

Instead, we just turn to Twitter.

Because that’s where the high priests of the doctrine commonly called wokeness — an unforgiving and insufferable form of progressive politics whose adherents compete to see who condemn the most esoteric injustices — hold their own courts.

Within hours of dying, Karl Lagerfeld was being attacked on Twitter. Picture: Francois Guillot/AFP

In their faith (the worldview goes far beyond the mere politics of education and defence and picking up the trash) minorities, women, and anyone else who can claim victim status are pitted against those marked with the original sin of privilege, with the pale and the male the worst offenders of all.

This week saw the death of fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld, whose tart judgmentalisms (“sweatpants are a sign of defeat. You lost control of your life so you bought some sweatpants”) and political incorrectness made him the Prince Philip of the catwalk.

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And of course, Twitter’s woke warriors were out in force, condemning the man before he was even buried.

The Good Place actor Jameela Jamil was one of the first of the mark, slamming Lagerfeld as “a ruthless, fat-phobic misogynist” to her 655,000 followers.

Meanwhile, less than half an hour after his death was announced, PETA’s UK Twitter account celebrated his passing, writing, “Karl Lagerfeld has gone, and his passing marks the end of an era when fur and exotic skins were seen as covetable.”

Actor Jameela Jamil labelled the late Karl Lagerfeld “a ruthless, fat-phobic misogynist”. Picture: John Sciulli/Getty

You get the idea. Though if you want to go the full Formosus, have a look at the treatment American actor John Wayne has been copping the last few days.

Wayne, who died in 1979, has always been something of a left-wing hate figure for his unapologetic Westerns, idealised manliness, and his spectacularly anti-communist Vietnam War movie, The Green Berets.

As another actor (Jeff Bridges in The Big Lebowski) once put it, “This aggression will not stand, man”.

And stand it has not: A few days ago someone dug out an old interview Wayne gave to Playboy in 1971, and shock, horror, some of the man’s attitudes about race and sex and gender don’t exactly comport with modern woke orthodoxy. Predictable outrage has ensued.

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Of course, the woke left doesn’t always wait until somebody dies before putting them through an ordeal — if they did, Twitter would be a lot less fun.

But nor do they always get it right.

For while progressive wokeness holds fast to its own non-falsifiable doctrines which call its followers not to worship a heavenly patriarch but rather struggle against an earthly patriarchy, when it collides with the real world the consequences can be both dire and hilarious.

US actor Jussie Smollett has been with lying to authorities about being the victim of a racist and homophobic attack on the streets of Chicago. Picture: Justin Tallis/AFP

Hence the modern-day witch trial of Nicholas Sandmann, the Catholic high school student who was dragged by every mainstream (read: left-wing) media outfit in the US and around the world for the crime of wearing a Make America Great Again hat while being verballed by a Native American protester on the Washington Mall.

Sandmann has retained America’s best defamation lawyer and is suing the Washington Post (and likely others) for $350 million.

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Or the rush to believe Jussie Smollett, the black, gay actor who claimed he was the victim of alt-right Trump supporters who carried out a mock lynching of him at 2am on a freezing cold Chicago street.

Smollett has been indicted for making a false police report over the hoax, which was bought by almost every Democratic presidential candidate (gotta get that woke vote) as well as much of the mainstream media. The two thugs turned out to be a pair of Nigerian brothers he paid to rough him up — by cheque, according to local cops.

The most amusing thing about all this is that adherents of wokeness are generally the first to dismiss religion (well, Western religion) as a bunch of idiotic nonsense designed to control the masses. Ironically, they’ve recreated much of what they profess to detest, but with none of the grace or, importantly, forgiveness.

James Morrow is Opinion Editor of The Daily Telegraph and co-host of Outsiders on Sky News Australia.