David Rieff foretells the fate of woke

Donald Trump ’s relentless attempt to erase the slightest trace of diversity, equity and inclusion ( DEI ) has pushed DEI to the margins of a political conflict that is growing more intense by the day in the US .

Liberals will not be able to confront Trump successfully now unless they renounce DEI themselves.

Rieff 's masterpiece, Swimming in a Sea of Death (2008), told the story of the dying and death of his mother, Susan Sontag .

He has always been what you might call a transcendental materialist, writes Julian Zelizer .

Zelizer: Woke ideology appals him precisely because of the way it spins fantasies about the reality before its nose.

Philip Rieff argued that Western civilisation had passed from religious, economic and political phases to one that was purely psychological.

The last represented the “triumph of the therapeutic”, which defines our present moment.

In this phase, humans have no commitments to communal values, neither in religious injunctions nor in the form of social bonds embodied in economic or political ties.