Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 2026-03-26_03-26-26_thursday_7am2

Episode Date: March 30, 2026

Dr. Jon Mills, Canadian philosopher, psychoanalyst, and retired clinical psychologist, has written a new book called WOKE: A Critique of Social Justice Ideology. This is a shot across the bow kind of book...good guy. and interesting perspective.

You have heard the term woke a lot over the last few years. I didn't even know what it was for quite some time. I wanted to talk with Dr. John Mills. He's a Canadian philosopher, psychoanalyst, retired clinical psychologist. He's written a book about this. It's called Woke, a critique of social justice ideology. Doctor, it is a pleasure having you on. Good morning.

Good morning. Thank you for having my on the show. House life in Nova Scotia this day. Oh, well, it's not too bad. A little snow and now we have rain. Okay. All right. Well, around here it's just going to be relatively warm the next few days for sure. A lot of dryness out. If you could sense some of that snow and rain, we would actually be quite thankful for it. Hey, I wanted to start off with, first off, the term woke, where did that come from in the first place? And what does it mean? I was only half joking when it seems like nobody can define woke.

it's sort of like that there was a famous justice that once said, I can't define pornography, but I know it when I see it, right? You know, I'm just wondering if you can sort of explain this to us. Well, it's derived from African-American slang that goes back really to the 60s. And at that time, you know, would refer to a societal awakening or having woken up to social injustice. particularly racism, sexism, and discrimination. But it's now, you know, what used to be just decent, universal,

humanitarian values has taken a turn, and now it has a broad kind of general meaning in popular culture that's basically based on the negation of anything that's deemed white, white or western, you know, European, you know, English, and particularly the heterosexual or what they call heteronormative male, who is lumped into the category of the colonial oppressor who is there to keep all, you know, the other group standards. And so that's the basic concept is that there are power imbalances that are based in white culture, whatever that means, and patriarchy, and, you know, powerful people of privilege and who have advantage in money. Okay. So the impression of it, it's all Whitey's fault and it's all Whitey's problem and Whitey did this. That's essentially what it has turned into, but it wasn't originally designed that way? Is that correct or not? No, yeah, that's correct. It used to be kind of viewed as, you know, again, an ethical stance of, you know, social, you know, equalities.

and being mindful of people's disadvantages and trying to, you know, help them. And so now it has become a philosophy of negation of, again, basically Western values. All right. The Western society that everybody seems to like and everyone is trying to immigrate illegally to because it's so horrible. But yet we need to destroy it. All right. Dr. Mills, this book, though, is actually a collection of essays from people that are actually studying this. So there is actually, I guess, now a new curriculum, I guess, being developed called Critical Woke Studies.

Could you explain a bit of that, please? Well, yes, it's a new movement that was initiated last year in the UK at the Hederox Center for Social Sciences. at University of Buckingham. And basically, it wants to start to critically analyze, if not interrogate, the ideologies that have permeated at the academy and also just broadly in popular culture. And that's made its way into private industry, as well as governmental agencies and institutions.

Am I to understand then that this is the pendulum with the extremeness of the woke ideology? Is this the first, I guess, description of the pendulum ready to swing back? Would that be a fair assessment of what is going on right now? Yeah, it's really only gotten to this point that we can be openly critical of certain ideas that have been bandied around the last, let's say, five years at least, without fear of being canceled or have some punitive consequences. So that means we can critically examine many topics that used to be, or in many ways, are still considered taboo, such as the question of race,

gender, you know, sexual orientation, you know, minoritized groups, you name it. It's covered in this book. Is the woke ideology, though, going to take this lying down? It would appear to be incredibly powerful. I mean, you look here in the state of Oregon. It seems to be the one sanctified state religion here, Doctor. Yes, I've been following that closely. So, So it's an interesting phenomenon to watch. Like, why would we assume that white people, you know, writ large are really white supremacists who want to dominate and subjugate all other types of racialized groups? Where's the evidence for that?

Where's the evidence for everything is about systemic racism? that seeped its way into every crevice of society and is, you know, governing the way the whole country operates. These are, you know, fantasized. Is it, what you say it is fantasized? Now, you, of course, are a psychoanalyst then. When you talk about these, the fantasized systemic racism, the fantasized every one, white is a white supremacist and such. Is it indicative of mental or psychological problems?

Or is there something else driving this, you believe? Well, I mean, you know, all human beings have their own internal conflicts. And so it becomes a matter of how do you, you know, how do you work it out? And in this context, when, you know, social forces allow for people to have a convenient scapegoat for all of their own individual, you know, so individual and collective suffering, it becomes easy to then just project everything onto some whipping boy. But isn't projection in itself a form of psychological coping of some sort? Yeah, it is. It's a form of coping. It's not always, of course, going to be a healthy way.

but, you know, in its benign forms, it allows people to discharge frustrations. And it's, you know, in more malevolent forms, it is to demonize and humanize other people. And then this is what creates more social divisions and hate. Dr. John Mills, Canadian philosopher, and he's the author of Woke, a critique of social justice ideology, A whole bunch of liberal scholars. I don't know when you say liberal scholars, if it's liberal liberal liberal arts scholars or progressive scholars. Could you maybe define that when you talk about liberal scholars? Sometimes the liberal term can be confusing for us.

Well, the people who, you know, the academics and the specialists who have contributed to the book, I'm sure fall on a, you know, a spectrum of different political beliefs. Okay. Yeah. But they, you could probably say they're more, I wouldn't call them progressive, but I would certainly call them, you know, at least liberal or centric. More of a centrist approach then, and so they're willing to actually, I guess they're willing to poke the bear, so to speak, right?

Yeah, absolutely. Okay. That would make it an interesting read one way or the other. What I'm kind of wondering here, you had talked about how woke ideology and blaming Whitey and everything is about maybe coping in a way to explain your own problems and the own, and kind of cover up conflicts or ameliorate conflicts, that sort of thing. I'm just kind of curious. I don't know if this is something that's ever been considered. you know, within your circle. But people have told me, and even when you watch television shows, movies, it appears

like we're in a time in which nothing is funny any longer. Nothing is allowed to be made fun of. Nothing is funny. And yet one of the greatest social lubricants besides alcohol from time to time has been the ability for humor to be able to break down the... problem is between people where we can laugh at differences and and yeah, yeah, you'll do stereotypical jokes in such ways of reacting to it. And that's been rather short-circuited in American and Western culture, I would say,

for quite some time. And I'm wondering if that even leads to more of the, of the woke ideology. You can't laugh at anything. And so it's almost like a positive feedback loop. Any thoughts on that? Yeah, but this would be much worse than political correctness that is trying to dampen, you know, social discourse. This is that you're not allowed to laugh. Right.

Well, I don't believe that I don't subscribe to that, that way of thinking, but that does appear to me what's going on, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, that people have become like they're walking on eggshells. They're so sensitive to everything now of being accused of being a racist, of being a sexist, of being a transphobe. You name it. And Islamophobic, you know, it's just, you know, people are just, I think, afraid. A classic example, though, of when people talk about what couldn't be made today, like even just a cultural touchstone for a lot of people who are a little older. like Blazing Saddles, the old Mel Brooks movie, right? And incredibly offensive.

Offensive to everybody. Everyone is gored in that particular type of movie. But yet I almost looked at those kind of cultural touchstones as stress relief valves in society. Is that a fair way of looking at that? And we short-circuit this, and so the conflict comes out in other ways. Yes. Yes, certainly if we're not permitted to laugh naturally, it's certainly going to stifle any feeling of freedom and comfort interpersonally with people. Yeah, and then you see a situation.

This was in the news. I don't know if you heard about this news in Nova Scotia here, Doctor, but in the California gubernatorial election, they have a lot of people running for governor. It's a governor. It's what they call a jungle primary. A whole ton of people stuffed into it. And there was going to be a debate at USC University of Southern California. And they canceled it because it was too white, too white, too white, and they canceled the debate for everybody. Oh, well, that tells the whole story, doesn't it?

It does. It certainly does. I appreciate this. what are you hoping this book will accomplish, though, because the fact that there are scholarly critiques, and that's what this is, these are scholarly critiques of what has been infecting the state of Oregon and the greater United States for quite some time. What are you hoping to accomplish here? Well, first of all, it's written in an accessible way for the educated public. So I'm hoping that the greater population would be interested. But for the specialists, this is a turning point because very, you know, learned and serious and credentialed people are giving very thoughtful analysis to the social phenomenon. And politicians, policymakers, educators, teachers, I mean, you name it. They should be, you know, associated with, or at least familiar with.

the arguments in this book uh... it could it could lead to uh... you know a new generation uh... being able to to talk about these ideas uh... more directly and honestly and productively so you end up getting knowledge of the arguments on what uh... and what the woke side says so you're able to counter it and then maybe when you're at your uh... your latest library district meeting which happens you know here every now and then and

and somebody's getting up and talking about talking about the stolen land and all the rest of it, there are arguments back where you're able to, you know, converse knowledgeably on the theories and the underpinnings. Is that a fair assessment of what this book's going to do? Yeah, a very fair assessment. We want to give voice to the arguments and the premises that are being laid out and then we analyze them and we critique them. When you see how society at large is right now, doctor, is what we're dealing with, and you being a psychoanalyst, I think you're certainly qualified to state this. Is this a phase?

Or are we still kind of, are we getting deeper into it right now in spite of your book at this point? Well, you know, like any kind of fad, it comes and goes. It's just a matter of how long something will last. My guess is this is going to take at least 10 years before we get to an honest standpoint of being able to debate these ideas without them being so emotionally contagious or leads to ad hominems or hyperblees that are just not, you know, acceptable in, you know, in professional circles. I'm going to take that from you, doctor. If we can actually, you know, for years I've had progressives saying, you know, Bill, I just want to have an honest conversation with you. I said, no, you don't. You want to lecture me.

So let's have an honest conversation. Okay. Dr. John Mills, Canadian philosopher, psychoanalyst, retired clinical psychologist. His new book is Woke, a critique of social justice ideology. Is it available at all the usual suspects? Or you have a website for this, too, doctor, before we go? Yeah, I mean, usual suspects, you know, Amazon, your bookstores online. Yeah, if you want to visit my website, you can Google my name or go to

Philosophy Psychoanalysis.com. All right, very good. I appreciate the take. Can you be well and stay psychologically healthy, okay? We hope so for you. Thank you much. Yeah, you too. All right.

Take care, Dr. John Mills. By the way, it's John Mills, J-O-N, if you were going to Google him like he mentioned. This is the Bill Meyer show, and you're on KMED. This is News Talk 1063, K-A. And you're waking up with the Bill Myers show. Great to have you here. It's 8 o'clock at KMED and KMED HD HD1, Eagle Point, Metford, KBXG grants, pass. Fox News coming up here in a bit.

Either way, being conspiracy theory Thursday, we will definitely get to more of your calls. It's probably going to be 830 to 9. The final half hour is going to be, hey, bring on the crazy, all right? And I'm good with that. I always enjoy the more interesting topics that maybe you don't hear about on the on the usual standard national talk shows. I'm willing to, I'm willing to take the arrows.

People saying, Bill, have you ever wanted to say, I think someone was asking me the other day, Bill, have you ever wanted to say, have you looked that up, right, when someone asks a question? But that's all right. We're always friendly here in Southern Oregon. It's small town radio with a bigger town, maybe approach sometimes.

But anyway, we'll catch up on the news here just a little bit. And then catching up with Kevin Plunkett, he's a retired U.S. Army Staff Sergeant, and he's the founder of the Willowdale Ranch, Highland Lake Center, here in southern Oregon. And it's about helping veterans recover. Veterans get to a better state of mind. It's almost like a cultural, I don't know, stereotype is, oh, there's the veterans having problems. And not all are that way. one saying that. I mean, it just got a little crazy there for a while, no pun intended.

But there are some veterans, rather, that are having difficulty reintegrating into society. And Kevin is all about helping them out through horses, horseback riding, getting out of nature. He's going to tell us all about that coming up. A great story.