In a recent episode of the Triggernometry podcast, Andrew Doyle engaged in a wide-ranging and at times impassioned conversation about what he and others have framed as the “End of Woke.” The discussion was marked by Doyle’s characteristic blend of humour and principled critique, particularly in how he maps the perceived excesses of contemporary progressive ideology onto the broader crisis of liberalism. At the heart of the episode lies a structure of thought that is deeply Newtonian: problems are identified, their causes are isolated, and solutions are proposed through a chain of logical consequences. But is this mechanistic model—borrowed from classical physics—the most illuminating way to approach what is, in essence, a psychological and symbolic phenomenon?
What if, instead, we consider a shift in epistemological perspective—from Newton to Einstein, from linear force to relational field? And what if, following Jung, we understand the cultural expressions we now label as “woke” not merely as ideological artefacts, but as manifestations of unresolved tensions within the collective unconscious—what Jung would call a psychoid process?
Newtonian Causality and the Cultural Machine
In the podcast, Doyle offers a clear narrative of cause and effect. He identifies the liberal foundations of Western society—freedom of speech, equality before the law, individual rights—and traces how, in his view, these have been gradually undermined by an emergent ideology of group identity, compelled speech, and moral absolutism. From Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) mandates to “non-crime hate incidents,” Doyle constructs a causal chain: liberalism gave birth to progressive ideology, which mutated into ideological authoritarianism. In this model, solutions are about recalibration—returning to the ‘proper’ trajectory of liberal values.
This Newtonian approach has appeal. It satisfies the rational mind. There are clear causes and definite effects. But it risks missing the field-based, systemic complexity of the cultural and psychological energies now in motion.
The Einsteinian Turn: Relativity and Field Dynamics
Einstein’s theory of relativity disrupted the Newtonian worldview by asserting that space and time are not fixed backdrops but interconnected fields, shaped by the observer’s frame of reference. Cause and effect are no longer instantaneous and universal but relational, contextual, and sometimes delayed. From this perspective, social phenomena like “wokeness” cannot be understood purely in terms of linear causality. They emerge within complex psycho-social fields in which meaning, emotion, and identity ripple through culture in ways that defy mechanistic explanation.
To apply this to the Triggernometry conversation: consider Doyle’s example of mass immigration and integration failures in Sweden. In a Newtonian sense, one might argue that lenient immigration policies “caused” increased social fragmentation. But an Einsteinian-relational view would instead ask: what psychological fields were active in Sweden’s cultural psyche? What archetypes were constellated? Were the liberal values of tolerance and inclusion rooted in a stable shared identity, or were they compensatory gestures masking a deeper fragmentation?
Woke as a Psychoid Field Phenomenon
Here we move from Einstein to Jung. In Jungian depth psychology, psychoid phenomena are those that exist at the boundary of psyche and matter—realities that are not reducible to either subjective belief or objective structure, but that emerge from the dynamic field of the collective unconscious. The eruption of “woke” ideology into the cultural sphere might thus be seen not as a breakdown of liberal values per se, but as the symbolic expression of unresolved archetypal tensions—Shadow and Persona, Self and Other, Order and Chaos.
Take the phenomenon of compelled speech. Doyle rightly critiques the authoritarian impulse to legislate language, but what psychic function is this demand fulfilling? Perhaps it expresses a deep collective fear of misrecognition—of being unseen or unheard—projected outward as a moral imperative. What appears as ideological rigidity may in fact be a symbolic attempt to restore coherence in a fragmented psychic field.
Similarly, the rise of the “woke right,” which Doyle identifies as a mirror-image backlash, can be seen as the return of the repressed—a tribal response to the disintegration of stable identities. Both left and right, in this framing, are not merely political formations but archetypal polarities seeking expression and balance within the collective psyche.
Toward a Shift in Perspective
What is needed is not just a political correction but a perspectival transformation—one that honours the symbolic and psychological depths beneath the ideological surface. Rather than asking “What caused wokeness, and how do we end it?”, we might ask, “What unconscious material is being activated, and how can it be integrated?”
This is not to excuse harmful actions or policies but to deepen our interpretive range. A Newtonian response treats ideology like a malfunctioning machine; a Jungian-Einsteinian response sees it as a meaningful disturbance in the cultural field. The former seeks to fix; the latter to understand and transform.
Andrew Doyle’s insights on Triggernometry raise vital questions about the future of liberal societies. But to truly comprehend what is happening beneath the surface, we must expand our model of causality. The path from liberalism to woke authoritarianism is not a straight line. It is a symbolic spiral, coiled within the archetypal tensions of our age. If we are to respond wisely, we must learn to read the field—not just the facts—and listen to the unconscious as it speaks through culture, politics, and paradox.
The “End of Woke” may not be a final chapter but a liminal threshold—a cultural initiation calling us to reimagine not just what we think, but how we think.
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