Joshua Adams

The first novel in recorded history was published in Japan. It was called The Tale of Genji. It was completed in the early 11th-century by a woman who was later given the name of Murasaki Shikibu. A few years ago, I found out that printing existed in Asia hundreds of years before Johannes Gutenberg assembled his printing press in Europe.

These are facts I never learned in college, let alone K-12. All tended to focus on the Gutenberg story when the history of reading and printing came up. If I suggested that we should teach this in school, many today would call me “woke.” And it wouldn’t only be folks on the right.

Many on the left who embrace it’s-class-not-race politics, and who say they value historicism and material reality, would assert that merely broaching these facts (whether true or not) can only be, in essence, about representation, “political correctness” and “identity politics.”

It’s interesting how these folks say woke, often with a scoff.

Though without the right’s disgust, the overlap on the left is “this argument is unserious and you don’t have to engage with it.”

In an article for The Nation, I explained the Black communal origin of woke in a time before it became a catchall anti-progressive buzzword:

“Woke” was used in the Black community to convey the need to be socially aware of anti-Black oppressive systems, ideas, etc. in order to at least safely navigate through them — and at most dismantle them. A simple analogy would be the code in The Matrix — just knowing it’s there can help a character survive. Woke could range from James Baldwin in “If Black English Isn’t a Language, Then Tell Me, What Is?” or Laurence Fishburne’s character yelling Wake up! in Spike Lee’s School Daze, or Georgia Anne Muldrow saying “Woke is definitely a Black experience.”

Black people have also used woke in (often, but not exclusively) Afro-centric spiritual, cosmological or metaphysical discourse. The topics could be anything from “opening your third eye,” staying attuned to the energy of the people around you, or more charged discussions like not praying to white Jesus or what is the “correct” religion for pan-African people to have.

Now woke can mean anything.

Calling a person by their chosen pronouns? Woke.

A history teacher teaching the truth about slavery? Woke.

Critical of Dave Chappelle’s comedy or Joe Rogan’s podcast? Woke.

An interracial couple in a Pepsi commercial? Woke.

A Black character in Jurassic Park? Woke.

Asking why you can’t make a Black character in Elden Ring? Woke.

According to US Senator Ron Johnson, wokeness is responsible for the Uvalde massacre. This absurdity comes from the right, but some on the left have been just as reactionary toward “wokeness.”

Many on the right and left argue that progressives have been poisoned by the ideology of group essentialism. They say progressive are rejecting individualism and forcing identity politics on the masses.

A more sophisticated leftist critique argues that “wokeness” is another formulation of consumer capitalism preventing class solidarity.

You’d think the anti-woke left would spot the right’s game. You’d think they’d have the tools to disentangle what is good faith and bad faith.

The right often reduces everything on the left to “Marxism.” I hope most folks know that’s silly. However, when the right says everything progressive is “woke,” many on the left, who argue against reductionism and essentialism, end up becoming reductionist and essentialist.

There’s a part of the left that offhandedly dismisses the historical processes and material reality that spur people to galvanize democratic political power through groups that are not solely based on class.

When it comes to politics, there are good reasons why groups (for example African Americans) have had to wield power collectively. When it comes to education, this part of the left often reduces progressive historicism to feeble diversity and inclusion initiatives.

In doing this, they dismiss the possibility that to a teacher (progressive or otherwise), the operating principle underlying the best teaching is teaching the best obtainable version of the truth — something well in keeping with the left’s propensity to historicize and contextualize.

Progressivism has excesses. It can become akin to a cultural bureaucracy. The phrase “cancel culture” makes me want to sigh for an hour. But to the extent that it exists, progressives have their share of responsibility.

But in an effort to distance themselves from “liberals” and “progressives,” too many of the left uncritically accept the right’s castigation of “wokeness” and are often blind to the reactionary logic they would disavow in a different context.

Like most people on social media, I enjoy a good meme. A favorite internet culture moment was when people were talking about storming Area 51. Some memes had me in tears I was laughing so hard.

But even though most memes are comedic quips, these media objects have a darker side when used as propaganda. Memes make us laugh, but they also can be one of the best, perhaps the best, ways to spread misinformation – especially when they deal with issues of identity.

We’re hooked on social media because it allows us to curate and express our identities. Most of the time this is relatively innocuous. Clicking the like-button after a friend posts a quote from “Seinfeld,” isn’t just affirmation – it isn’t only to demonstrate your amusement. It’s to show the larger digital community that you like “Seinfeld.”

We aren’t always conscious of this, but no one is immune to the dynamic – whether it’s reading a “21 Things You’d Only Understand If Your Parents are (Insert Ethnic Background)” listicle on Buzzfeed or quote-tweeting something you disagree with. The reasons memes are so effective as propaganda tools, however, is because they appeal to our identities as well as the emotional linkage arising from them.

If your father is a firefighter, firefighter memes are going to have a particular resonance. If you support one political party versus another, memes from the opposing side seem so clearly stupid you can’t fathom anyone thinking they were funny. To paraphrase Professor Limor Shifman, author of Memes in Digital Culture, memes seem trivial and mundane, but they actually reflect deep social and cultural structures.

This is why memes are often the most effective propaganda tool. They merge identity and ideology in ways other media cannot. In an effort to make this less conceptual, let’s think about the meme below.

It shows a police officer and military man named Christopher Jordan Dorner. He presumably passed away in February 2013. Aside from pictures of him in various uniforms, there’s other symbols like the American and Blues Lives Matters flags. Below the thin blue line reads the words “All Gave Some - Some Gave All.” Based on the text of the meme and the political discourse in society about police, it would seem safe to surmise this man died in the line of duty.

You share it, because you want to show support for police and those who served and made the ultimate sacrifice. You share it, because you want to show everyone your patriotism and political allegiances.

Maybe you have a spouse, a sibling, a parent in the military. Patriotism is therefore inextricably linked to family. It’s in your heart, not just a concept others talk about. Maybe you think police get a bad wrap nowadays, and Dorner’s death shows how out of touch critics are.

Maybe you support it because you dislike Black Lives Matter and proudly declare Blues Lives Matter, but want to solve your cognitive dissonance (ie, “Am I racist?”) by showing support for a Black officer.

There could be myriad reasons why you share, but no matter what it is, it’s likely going to be deeply personal and linked to your identity.

Your attachment to the meme’s ideas, beliefs and virtues could moreover prevent you from asking a relatively obvious:

Who is Christopher Dorner?

Well, Christopher Dorner is a former cop who “murdered four people and prompted a massive, days-long manhunt that ended when he shot himself to death in a cabin in the San Bernardino mountains after engaging in a fierce firefight with law enforcement officers. Dorner had been fired after an LAPD review board found he had falsely accused his training officer of excessive force. Dorner held that his termination was retaliation from an endemically racist police department and his rampage was an attempt to clear his name.”

This example shows how easy it is to be so consumed with our own identities that we become useful idiots for others.

The meme’s creator is likely a troll who knew people would like and share it reflexively without understanding what they were doing.

But what made the meme to spread propaganda? What if its creator wasn’t a troll, but a snake oil salesman or false prophet? What else could go viral – a meme bearing fake Black crime statistics, or falsely accusing a prominent politician of having child pornography, or a picture purported to be Muslims rushing over the border, which is a misappropriated picture of soccer fans rushing the field after their team won the championship? Extreme, yet mundane examples.

Are people going to fact-check every piece of media that comes across their timeline? Of course not. As media consumers, we often share things in passive and reactionary ways. We see something we like, We share it. If it contains political messages that conform to our worldview, we click the share-button. All of this is very effective, heuristic and happens in no more than a few seconds.

This is the danger of memes.

Through their textual (in the visual and literal sense) elements and their shareability and virality within our digital attention economy, memes are great ways to augment the emotional responses (fear, anger, resentment, vehement agreement, etc.) tied to our identities.

They are the most efficient form of propaganda and misinformation.

Directed by Kathryn Bigelow, the cult classic Point Break follows Johnny Utah (Keanu Reeves), an FBI agent who infiltrates a band of bank-robbing surfers led by Bodhi (Patrick Swayze). Though Johnny is undercover, he gets romantically entangled with Tyler Endicott (Lori Petty) and comes to see the spiritual side of the group's lifestyle—beyond surfing, partying and chasing an endless summer. But when Johnny's cover is blown, the situation spirals out of control leading to the demise of the Ex-Presidents, the death of Johnny's partner (Gary Busey) and Johnny throwing away his badge.

As a child in the 90s, Point Break was an exciting procedural drama. The surfing, bank-robbery, sky-diving, explosions, romance and betrayal made it one of my favorite films of all time. What I found the most endearing was the relationship between Johnny and Bodhi. They are opposites but both contain bits of the other—Johnny a hotshot who craves more freedom and Bodhi a free-spirit guru who provides the structure for his group. Tyler tells Johnny that he and Bodhi share the same "kamikaze" look.

My adult-eyes see the political commentary of the film—specifically the tensions of toeing the line between anti-state and anti-capitalist critiques, and its reasserting of these things.

Though "young, dumb and full of cum" Johnny is more clean-cut, he and Bodhi share an Icarus complex. Bodhi chases the high through surfing, Johnny chases it through playing the hero and catching bad guys. I enjoyed how Point Break highlighted the yin and yang, push and pull, between Johnny and Bodhi, even down to ostensibly small details (for example, in the final scene at the beach, we see that Johnny has grow his hair surfer-long while Bodhi cut his short to a more "professional" length).

Watching Point Break during the Covid-19 pandemic adds renewed intensity to the film's messages. Millions of Covid-19-related deaths around the world have forced us to wrestle with our mortality. Being stuck at home, we've slowed down enough to collectively ponder what we want to do with our lives. Even in the midst of economic hardship, people are leaving their jobs or refusing to take positions they don't truly enjoy. It's hard to watch Point Break without thinking that we should be more like Bodhi—living free and searching for what truly inspires us sans the bank-robbery.

But 30 years later, my adult-eyes also see the political and philosophical commentary of the film—specifically the tensions Point Break has in toeing the line between anti-establishment, anti-state and anti-capitalist critiques, and its reasserting of these things. In some ways, these surfers reject one cage for another—the mundane, often unfulfilling and sedentary, life of the worker for the adrenaline-filled endless run.

Bodhi and his friends rob banks dressed as the ex-presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Lyndon B. Johnson and Jimmy Carter. The business suits and rubber masks are satirical—the contrast between their carefree surfer lifestyle and the oppression of politicians and their corporate partners. In one scene, Bodhi, wearing the Reagan mask, jumps on the counter to introduce the Ex-Presidents, yelling "We've been screwing you for years, so a few more seconds shouldn't matter, now should it?"

It's interesting to see Bodhi take the lead as Ronald Reagan, who in many ways is the antithesis of everything he and his crew stand for. Though it was released in 1991, the film's development started in 1986 while President Reagan, a key figure in adopting neoliberalism as the dominant social and economic reality of the United States, was in office. Free market reforms, hyper-individualism and the defunding of public institutions placed all the ills of society and the burden to correct them on the individual. The Ex-Presidents see this theft of life and liberty as a non-partisan pursuit, as the four presidents are split evenly between Democrats and Republicans.

Bodhi (Patrick Swayze) says that its "us against the system, the system that kills the human spirit" while becoming a part of the system. Bank-robbery could be seen as subversive on its face, but it further justifies the force of the state.

Bodhi's crew are resentful of politicians whose greed, corruption and fealty to capital flatten the worth of humans down to their economic worth. By robbing banks, they are punching back against the parasitic overlords of Washington and Wall Street controlling the lives of the commoners, who are confined to work their life away doing a job they don't like while someone else enjoys the fruit of their labor. Bank-robbery and their surfer lifestyle reinforce each other as a rejection of the status quo.

But ironically, the Ex-Presidents accept the free-market, dog-eat-dog logic of the system they purportedly oppose. Phrases like, "Why be a servant to the law when you can be its master?" from Bodhi give up the game. Instead of fighting against forms of hierarchy, Bodhi merely means to reconstruct it for himself. The audience is told the Ex-Presidents are a group with no leaders, yet Bodhi is clearly the figurehead in their mini-corporate structure. What he says goes, no more or no less than a governor or CEO. Bodhi asserts that its "us against the system, the system that kills the human spirit" while, in a sense, becoming a part of the system. Bank-robbery could be seen as subversive on its face, but it further justifies the force of the state. The Ex-Presidents are merely replacing greed that oppresses with greed that liberates, which ultimately accepts the logic of the system. Ultimately, they reject the means, but not the ends.

This reminds me of Mark Fisher's Capitalist Realism in which capitalism has become so ingrained in culture we can't imagine alternatives. Bodhi and the Ex-Presidents fail to recognize the paradox, where, to borrow Fisher's words, "even success meant failure, since to succeed would only mean that you were the new meat on which the system could feed." In this sense, the importance of money is not dismissed, but rather, recouped from the onset. The crew reject the expectations of society (working a nine-to-five, settling into suburban life, starting a nuclear family), and yet accept (more fully than the average worker) the power money has in providing them the life they want.

To reference Slavoj Žižek, the Ex-Presidents maintain a cynical distance between their beliefs and actions—the world has made them justifiably cynical yet their misdeeds aim to reflect it back at the world, not dismantle the system producing cynicism. They aren't Robin Hoods. They're in it for themselves. Their aim is not redistribution, but accumulation. To repurpose Fisher's paraphrase of Žižek, the group, like so many of us in a capitalist society, disavows the idea that money is worth more than humans, yet they treat money as if it "has a holy value. Moreover, this behavior precisely depends upon the prior disavowal—we are able to fetishize money in our actions only because we have already taken an ironic distance towards money in our heads."

Point Break's ending is tragic for literal and metaphorical reasons: Bodhi (short for Bodhisattva, or someone walking the path toward enlightenment) dies riding a massive, un-rideable wave. But for him, purpose and money become synonymous. It's comedic that the guru never stopped to ponder this disconnect. Johnny realizes he no longer wants to be an agent of the state (which he only became because his NFL dreams were shattered) after seeing or taking part in the deaths of several people.

Point Break sets up a binary, two sides of a never-ending game.

But Bodhi was right about one thing: in this game, we all lose.