And what undergirds these ideas is, broadly speaking, a rejection of the traditional conception of progress. Instead of viewing history as a story of expanding rights, as illustrated by, say, the civil rights movement which expanded America’s national story to include African Americans, the “woke” story is one of original sin – where identity conflict is an immutable part of American life, and where we’re not one shared humanity beneath our superficial differences – that instead, identity characteristics such as race plays a defining role in our lives.