Stewart Lee knew what smug meant when I was a kid. He devoted a double page spread in the Fist of Fun book to the Cornish Curmudgeon. Faces so smug and self-satisfied, you want to punch them.
Britain knew what it was to be smug. With the exception of Ben Elton – who was rarely allowed out of the writers' room, it was one of our strengths. If you’ve ever watched the Life of Brian debate with Cleese and Palin and the Bishop of Southwark and Malcolm Muggeridge, you can easily see the generation who first embraced the Goons, accepting that the future might be imperfect but it wouldn’t be so fart-sniffingly smug.
I recently watched Snowflake by Stewart Lee. Stewart Lee was always quite a divisive comedian, more by style than content. Now I would say the reverse is true.
Political Correctness has become woke, he argues and that represents progress, being at least better than what came before. When he said this of political correctness, I would say he was right. When he said this of woke, I say he is wrong. These are very different things.
Day to day, relatives and colleagues might mutter that what they had said might not be politically correct. Often their worry would be unfounded, or it would be a matter of taking their words on good faith but suggesting a different term. An exclamation of ‘political correctness gone mad’, might be raised about a news story, but closer examination would reveal the story to be nonsense or, if the story were true, you could talk about it. It wasn’t brow beating so much as a matter of reframing and perspective. It wasn’t about winning. There was often a sense that political correctness was censorious, a bit of a pain when people just want to be able to say what’s on their mind or rant. But it could also be a gentle chide, ‘careful now, that’s not very politically correct’, and it wouldn’t be the end of the world. I’m not talking about incitement to violence, I’m talking about elderly relatives, folk you might chat to at the pub, real people in other words. We used the term, but no one would proudly declare themselves to be politically correct, but you could still abide by the sensibility of it. It was a small but respectful way of adapting to an ever-changing world.
Woke is different. Now I can picture the furrowed brows of all who consider themselves to be woke just as they consider themselves to be progressive, alert to racism and injustice. Framed in that way it would be innocuous enough. However, when you declare yourself to be woke, you should understand that much of the population view the term negatively. This isn’t because they aren’t progressive and not because they are evil. Woke is too often tribal and knows no doubt and therefore no debate. Certainty stops listening, and smug certainty enrages like nothing else. Smug, because you know the answer before you’ve even begun and those who disagree may think the only recourse they’ve got left, is to slap you. In maintaining certainty, woke doesn’t take words on good faith, it either accepts or rejects them. It commands right and punishes wrong.
The woke network is easy to keep in with when you’re nurtured into its parameters, when you don’t have to fight to be seen and to secure opportunity. The same network, when it encounters dissent, destroys careers with ease.
Ricky Gervais, Dave Chappelle and JK Rowling are irrelevant in the no-platforming argument because they have the very rare power that comes with massive success. I thought that the left prided itself on focusing on the vulnerable in society and equality of opportunity, but it says nothing when careers are destroyed in arts and education over a matter of opinion or a passionate belief. Attacking and destroying someone’s livelihood is not something to be taken lightly, neither is it to smear and defame as a means of doing so. But if you wield that smug certainty, you can do so with impunity. Feelings of guilt can’t be stirred in the hearts of those who won’t listen.
Listening is not to condone. It is to understand.
The words you most need to hear, may not be pleasant.
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