WATCH: Ben Shapiro To Class Of 2021: How To Take On Woke Inc.

In the latest 5-minute video for PragerU, Daily Wire editor emeritus Ben Shapiro tells the graduating class of 2021 that, as they depart from college to join the real world, they can stick to their values and push back against the ‘Woke’ in the workplace. 

For years, conservatives believed that once they graduated from college, they would leave all of the Wokeness of higher education behind them. But the business behemoths of the world, says Shapiro, have since joined the American universities in becoming “bastions of woke thought.”

“Corporations cater to their squeakiest customers – and the authoritarian Left is nothing if not squeaky,” says Shapiro, noting that the Left threatens boycotts and bombards businesses with “company-destroying publicity” for not caving to demands. And these companies routinely bend the knee to “every woke diktat that blows through their HR departments,” he says. 

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Drawing from author Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s book “Skin in the Game,” Shapiro discusses the process of re-normalization, using the example of a family with one vegan member. “Mom now has a choice: she can cook two meals, one for the non-vegan family members and one for her daughter; or she can cook one meal with only vegan ingredients. She decides to cook only one meal,” he says. This process is called re-normalization. 

That very same process can hold true for corporations as well, says Shapiro. If enough staff members join an “inflexible movement” – such as calling for the latest left-wing demand – those staffers can successfully create change at the company, even if most people there don’t necessarily agree with them.

But re-normalization, as it turns out, can also work in reverse to push back against Wokism. How so? Shapiro explains. 

“Find a group of likeminded employees,” says Shapiro. “Make demands that a majority of employees agree with. Be inflexible and be loud. Band together to resist the intrusions of the radical Left.”

“You can lead the pushback. In fact, you should,” he says, arguing that 23-year-old non-woke staffers can make the same types of changes that 23-year-old woke staffers can, except in the other direction. “That means being smart. It means not making dumb mistakes on social media. It means building alliances with those who aren’t motivated primarily by politics,” says Shapiro. 

“But just as you were in college, you are now in opposing territory. And that requires fighting back in strategic ways. Be an advocate for truth and a warrior for liberty,” Shapiro concludes. “Welcome to the real world – and the real fight.”

Watch Ben Shapiro’s full 2021 commencement speech below: 

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