Woke Quotient

I have long wrestled with the correct terminology for a raft or interrelated, but not identical, belief systems such as Marxism, neo-marxism, socialism, far left, repressive left, group identity, deconstructionists, multiculturalists, postmodernists, anti-postcolonialists, critical theorists, Frankfurt School adherents, progressives, antifa, BLM, moral relativists, third-wave feminists, radical feminists, Gramscians, and those obsessed with oppression, inequality, victimhood, social justice, cultural appropriation, etc.

Their specific foundational belief systems overlap but their derived policy recommendations can differ fairly broadly.

However, all of them tend to reject Classical Liberal precepts such as freedom, equality under the law, rule of law, consent of the governed, human rights, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, individualism, freedom of assembly, free markets, market-based economies, etc.

They all are also characterized by messianism, millenarianism, atheism, utopianism, bigotry, racism, out-group scapegoating with violence and hatred, intolerance, centralization of power, cult of the elite, disparagement of the masses, ideological jargon, and concern about ideological purity.

It is often inaccurate to refer to an individual as being from, for example, the Frankfurt School as they have never even heard of the Frankfurt School even though they are following the Frankfurt School playbook. I have hosts of mainstream Protestant Church friends who are hot and heavy for social justice. Given that their husbands are rich businessmen, it is misleading to call them neo-Marxists and yet those are the precepts to which they are adhering.

Lacking an overarching description and yet not wanting to belabor fine distinctions in pursuit of detailed accuracy, I will, for the time being, and with a head-nod to IQ, use WQ - the Woke Quotient. Just as there is a general factor g in IQ, there is also a general factor in WQ. As Wikipedia explains, g

is a variable that summarizes positive correlations among different cognitive tasks, reflecting the fact that an individual's performance on one type of cognitive task tends to be comparable to that person's performance on other kinds of cognitive tasks. The g factor typically accounts for 40 to 50 percent of the between-individual performance differences on a given cognitive test, and composite scores ("IQ scores") based on many tests are frequently regarded as estimates of individuals' standing on the g factor. The terms IQ, general intelligence, general cognitive ability, general mental ability, or simply intelligence are often used interchangeably to refer to this common core shared by cognitive tests. The g factor targets a particular measure of general intelligence.

In much the same way, there is a general factor among all the above pathologies. There are differences in the particulars but the overarching effect is the same. If you are comfortable coercively taking money from one group to subsidize another favored group, then you also are likely to be pretty comfortable suppressing freedom of speech, also inclined to proscribe religious freedoms, and to be very comfortable with the idea that experts should be entitled to decide what is best for others.

Until I find something concise, WQ will be the term of use for the time being.