Great punchline, Katherine. You know who's actually on the right because every time there's an Elon Musk or Ana Kasparian turn from the left, their reaction was always "Very cool, kudos. Don't think that puts her on our side though."
Probably the biggest difference between the Woke Left and the Woke Right is that the Woke Left has an Omnicause requiring absolute fealty, and the Woke Right, as far as I can tell, does not.
But except for the "there's only one way to prog!"* Omnicause thinking, the pathologies of both are very similar, to Kisin's point.
But without the Omnicause, there's not really any "woke-ness". Even if the Omnicause were more flexible or if the pathologies that Kisin mentions didn't exist.
*Singing this to the tune of Sammy Hagar really makes it shine.
"But that doesn’t make you a “dissident” in the sense these other groups use the term. My sense—and I could be wrong here—is that the classical liberal commentariat are closer to a more extreme segment of the left than a moderate-wing of the (online) right."
You're not wrong here, as I explained in another comment. In addition to cognitive dissonance. Additionally I think liberals like Lindsay are trying to gatekeep, despite the fact that the right is always on the forefront. The pattern goes: right notices, gets called bigots, people afraid to associate with the right, problem metastasizes to an undeniable flashpoint, liberals speak up and act like the defenders of freedom. See also: lockdown, vax mandates. It's possible if not likely that it's not just his ideological loyalty but that he senses a rightward shift (not an incorrect instinct) and is trying to mitigate it, due to ideological loyalty.
Kisin's history is too sketchy to bother make any assertions of motivation. His family is connected. Speaking of which, criticizing woke is lucrative. Anti-SJW Youtube exploded almost ten years ago just like this. Just because people dunked on SJWs it didn't mean they were right wing. It followed the dynamic I laid out previously: Gamergate (a makeshift right) was at the forefront, got slandered, liberals and classical liberals enter the fray when SJWs are well on their heels. The later the entry point the more likely it is to be grift. Why else would Lindsay call everything communist? It's a surefire way to hook your only remaining audience, the right. Not for nothing did he use the Communist Manifesto in his doctored hoax.
I'm a complete nobody but I tweeted out the term "woke right" Nov 1 of 2023, in the wake of 10/7. Dave Smith also had a good take last week. His take explains my use of it a year ago.
not that i understand what "wokeness" really is, but i think the right is becoming woke insofar as a lot of people seem bent on politicizing personal insults. i read a post recently in which a woman revealed that she had become a right-wing populist because some woman said something condescending to her dad once, and i kept having the intrusive thought, "sounds like a microaggression...."
Like many things from the left, there's nothing wrong with the concept of a microaggression and it's actually an extremely useful conceptual tool - the actual problem is that they use it to invert reality. Progressive favored groups aren't on the *receiving* end of microaggressions, they on the giving end and it's absolutely intentional. Be a progressive pet, make a statement that is wrong but can only be refuted by uttering a heresy, examine the victim's face for any sign that he has a shred of defiance in him.
Classically this is referred to as a "double bind"
"But instead of calling them woke, say what you mean, attack arguments you feel are getting too popular on their own merits or lack thereof." I'm to far from these circles to habe an opinion on what they meant, but I do think it would be useful to have terms for the tactics people use, not just their positions. I don't think Woke is the right term, it is already overloaded. Tim Urban's High vs Low rung is closer
I thought it was a pretty good article but I would have liked too see maybe some direct tie-in with your interviews as you’ve done so many, I think that’s perhaps where you can offer special insight that others can’t?
Having lived for 7 years married to MAGA and living in its environs (rural Indiana) I applaud this piece for opening the discussion. You point out the hypocrisy of woke Right emotion (I can't truly say it's thinking, because high doses of propaganda have dulled thinking. Here how I translate your words:
"They respond to disagreement with name-calling, ostracism and bullying" The cause is feeling defensive when taking off-script. Translation: woke Right snowflakes. IOW, they lack the mental grit for civil debate.
As for finding a better term, I see those folks and anti-dreamers. The scale of their blame and fury at the system has led to rejection of the American Dream. Steve Bannon makes clear that MAGA wants respect. Yet conveniently overlooks the white rural welfare problem, staggering un-employment of able bodied men in MAGA's ranks, drug use, lack of local involvement in society. It's not a meritocracy. It's woke-Right affirmative action.
“Steve Bannon makes clear that MAGA wants respect. Yet conveniently overlooks the white rural welfare problem, staggering un-employment of able bodied men in MAGA's ranks, drug use, lack of local involvement in society”
That’s kind of the point…not to mention how many of the MAGA men are homosexuals. Just look at Trump’s cabinet.
MAGA will not fix the problem and neither does the left have a solution. 🇺🇸 💀 🌀 cannot be stopped.
Very well said. People have always been prone to purity spirals and witch hunts. It's a feature of human nature, not the left or the right. I have been treated horribly by both conservative Christians and leftist radicals. Humanity is the common denominator.
I will reply without watching the video because it is 45 minutes long and I'm in the middle of my work day. Can you tell me the basic premise and why it contributes to this discussion?
OK sure, I’ll give a summary but I hope you find time to watch. It’s very interesting 😃
TL;DR: “witch trials have unfairly gotten a bad rap. After the long reign of Elizabeth I, witch trials were used to humanely solve the problems of involuntary spinsterhood and redistribute property. Contrary to popular belief, cruel and unusual punishment was meted out to suspected ‘witches’ very rarely.”
One of the most thought-provoking videos I’ve watched on YouTube, ever. From a Yale University history lecture.
This is a breath of fresh air because as you say this all became muddled. However, I have a slightly different take in that I’m pretty sure this started months ago. Specifically, it happened RIGHT AFTER the now-infamous Tucker Carlson interview with Darryl Cooper, aka Martyr Made (a fellow historical podcaster and, as it happens, something of a friend, making his WWII revisionism rather complicated for me…but that’s another story I’ve already told). Anyway, I noticed that as soon as that dropped and the Free Press began its understandably negative coverage of the interview and the, well, pretty objectively bad/incorrect history Darryl was trafficking in, Konstantin (and I’m pretty sure James) came in guns blazing about this so-called “woke right” (Konstantin’s article is from September 5th: https://www.konstantinkisin.com/p/thou-shalt-not-criticise-the-woke).
Now I cannot say for certain whether or not this was the case (and I admit it sounds conspiratorial), but the timing plus the figures struck me as strangely convenient and transparently brand-conscious. Like “woke right”? The only people that would appeal to are the anti-woke people in the audience that already lean right. And why then? Could it be because Tucker Carlson—the sort of patron saint of anti-woke discourse—was now being tarred with “platforming Holocaust denial”? (I don’t think he was—just bad history—but regardless). Again, it could just be my personal bias toward him, but it just felt to me to that Darryl Cooper had served as a nice scapegoat for this section of the anti-woke internet; they had spent years at this point cultivating basically a right wing audience while claiming to be centrists or even liberals but now they had an out in which they could confirm such claims.
Again: no way of proving this and am willing to admit I’m seeing something that isn’t there. But the timing and the people involved make me suspect otherwise.
This exactly. I'm also pretty sure it was Kisin that actually came up with it. He also went on Benjamin Boyce's podcast in September and explained almost verbatim that »woke« to him means »against the liberal and democratic Western consensus« that a »true« right would seek to defend against the left.
He really implied that a "true" right would defend the liberal consensus? He's never heard of literally most right wing thought, especially post-Enlightenment? Jeez. I generally like Kisin (especially since he's helped amplify some good voices out there, like my friend David Josef Volodsko), but that strikes me as extremely politically/historically illiterate for him to say that. That liberalism largely triumphed in the world was a consequence of circumstance; I tend to believe it's the best we've got, but I'm not so hubristic as to assume I'd feel the same way if I was born in a different place or especially time.
Accurate. I've been saying for quite a while that all centrists are embarrassed liberals. This is not glib, but an observation of broader human nature. How many times have you seen/heard someone wonder aloud "am I right wing?" This alone proves the struggle for validation you speak of, never mind the stigmatism of one's temporary allies. I imagine there's a bit of cognitive dissonance as well. I don't know if they're aware of it but setting values preferences aside it seems clear that woke is the logical endpoint of liberalism. They fundamentally agree with the sentiments, but don't like the optics. Statements like "we need to have a conversation about race" or "I'm all for trans people living life how they want but stay away from kids/out of locker rooms" are a way of establishing liberal cred while making a value judgment (anathema in liberalism).
I’m not sure that is true. When TRIGGERnometry ran their “Liberalism vs Conservatism” debate, they got a Randian Objectivist to debate a National Conservative. That is not the act of centrists. Most of their commentary is difficult to distinguish from the mainstream UK right-wing press. Kisin will probably end up with a Daily Mail column next year.
Or to put it another way, Kisin is not Nick Fuentes. Which I would agree with. A couple of other thoughts:
- Conservatives now live in a Post-Fusionist world (and have for quite some time). The fusionist were strange bedfellows held together by a fear of the Soviet Union. Now that Republicans are in the ascendant again, shit is going to only get weirder.
- While the internet muddies things up and political entrepreneurs will seek out markets that are both as receptive as possible and as large as possible, there are genuine differences in the political cultures of even similar countries. Something that many Americans struggle to understand.
Right that was also the point you made I thought was really good, that they were never at home on the dissident right despite constantly signaling to those people’s audiences. Especially Lindsay; he went right up to the edge of blaming (liberal) Jews for enabling wokeness, or something to that effect if memory serves, and got ROASTED for that, which I seem to remember causing him to wilt a bit from his usual grandiosity.
“Thinking the west is bad and cheering for its enemies”
Let’s analyze this.
If the west has been captured by globalist, nefarious interests… I should cheer for them? And side against my own interests? Because otherwise I’m “woke”?
If on the other hand, it hasn’t been captured and all the west does is based and cool, why even be on the dissident right? I should just cheer for “our democracy” and get a job at State, no?
I'm tired of his "I'm a classical liberal [who always advocates for the right]" shtick. It's an old game at this point. Decoding the Gurus did a pretty good breakdown of his Oxford Union speech.
I understand the frustration. It puts these guys in an interesting place bc they tend towards the right on most culture war issues, then end up punching right on broader ideological issues.
I don't follow him closely. I find Peterson's show to be good occasionally too. I love it when these guys stick to their expertise, like when Peterson talks about topics like play. I'm not being sarcastic. They really shine and it's great.
oh for sure. love him or hate him, you can’t say peterson isn’t knowledgeable and insightful about some things. and when kisin talks about russia-ukraine, I’m strongly inclined to listen - he has family on both sides
Great punchline, Katherine. You know who's actually on the right because every time there's an Elon Musk or Ana Kasparian turn from the left, their reaction was always "Very cool, kudos. Don't think that puts her on our side though."
Probably the biggest difference between the Woke Left and the Woke Right is that the Woke Left has an Omnicause requiring absolute fealty, and the Woke Right, as far as I can tell, does not.
But except for the "there's only one way to prog!"* Omnicause thinking, the pathologies of both are very similar, to Kisin's point.
But without the Omnicause, there's not really any "woke-ness". Even if the Omnicause were more flexible or if the pathologies that Kisin mentions didn't exist.
*Singing this to the tune of Sammy Hagar really makes it shine.
All of Kisin's bullet points are rather weasily worded in that post.
"But that doesn’t make you a “dissident” in the sense these other groups use the term. My sense—and I could be wrong here—is that the classical liberal commentariat are closer to a more extreme segment of the left than a moderate-wing of the (online) right."
You're not wrong here, as I explained in another comment. In addition to cognitive dissonance. Additionally I think liberals like Lindsay are trying to gatekeep, despite the fact that the right is always on the forefront. The pattern goes: right notices, gets called bigots, people afraid to associate with the right, problem metastasizes to an undeniable flashpoint, liberals speak up and act like the defenders of freedom. See also: lockdown, vax mandates. It's possible if not likely that it's not just his ideological loyalty but that he senses a rightward shift (not an incorrect instinct) and is trying to mitigate it, due to ideological loyalty.
Kisin's history is too sketchy to bother make any assertions of motivation. His family is connected. Speaking of which, criticizing woke is lucrative. Anti-SJW Youtube exploded almost ten years ago just like this. Just because people dunked on SJWs it didn't mean they were right wing. It followed the dynamic I laid out previously: Gamergate (a makeshift right) was at the forefront, got slandered, liberals and classical liberals enter the fray when SJWs are well on their heels. The later the entry point the more likely it is to be grift. Why else would Lindsay call everything communist? It's a surefire way to hook your only remaining audience, the right. Not for nothing did he use the Communist Manifesto in his doctored hoax.
I'm a complete nobody but I tweeted out the term "woke right" Nov 1 of 2023, in the wake of 10/7. Dave Smith also had a good take last week. His take explains my use of it a year ago.
not that i understand what "wokeness" really is, but i think the right is becoming woke insofar as a lot of people seem bent on politicizing personal insults. i read a post recently in which a woman revealed that she had become a right-wing populist because some woman said something condescending to her dad once, and i kept having the intrusive thought, "sounds like a microaggression...."
Like many things from the left, there's nothing wrong with the concept of a microaggression and it's actually an extremely useful conceptual tool - the actual problem is that they use it to invert reality. Progressive favored groups aren't on the *receiving* end of microaggressions, they on the giving end and it's absolutely intentional. Be a progressive pet, make a statement that is wrong but can only be refuted by uttering a heresy, examine the victim's face for any sign that he has a shred of defiance in him.
Classically this is referred to as a "double bind"
oh man yeah that i totally agree with.
"But instead of calling them woke, say what you mean, attack arguments you feel are getting too popular on their own merits or lack thereof." I'm to far from these circles to habe an opinion on what they meant, but I do think it would be useful to have terms for the tactics people use, not just their positions. I don't think Woke is the right term, it is already overloaded. Tim Urban's High vs Low rung is closer
I thought it was a pretty good article but I would have liked too see maybe some direct tie-in with your interviews as you’ve done so many, I think that’s perhaps where you can offer special insight that others can’t?
Thanks. They're not always relevant.
Having lived for 7 years married to MAGA and living in its environs (rural Indiana) I applaud this piece for opening the discussion. You point out the hypocrisy of woke Right emotion (I can't truly say it's thinking, because high doses of propaganda have dulled thinking. Here how I translate your words:
"They respond to disagreement with name-calling, ostracism and bullying" The cause is feeling defensive when taking off-script. Translation: woke Right snowflakes. IOW, they lack the mental grit for civil debate.
As for finding a better term, I see those folks and anti-dreamers. The scale of their blame and fury at the system has led to rejection of the American Dream. Steve Bannon makes clear that MAGA wants respect. Yet conveniently overlooks the white rural welfare problem, staggering un-employment of able bodied men in MAGA's ranks, drug use, lack of local involvement in society. It's not a meritocracy. It's woke-Right affirmative action.
Thanks for another thought provoking piece.
Patricia
“Steve Bannon makes clear that MAGA wants respect. Yet conveniently overlooks the white rural welfare problem, staggering un-employment of able bodied men in MAGA's ranks, drug use, lack of local involvement in society”
That’s kind of the point…not to mention how many of the MAGA men are homosexuals. Just look at Trump’s cabinet.
MAGA will not fix the problem and neither does the left have a solution. 🇺🇸 💀 🌀 cannot be stopped.
»Wokeness« was a stupid meme from the beginning, and the stupider the meme, the quicker the pile of freeloaders on top of it.
I don’t know who this KK guy is.
Did you know the heir to the LEGO fortune is named Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen?
“Woke” has always been about ethnic/gender essentialism.
David Duke called it “my awakening.”
It really is the same spiel.
Very well said. People have always been prone to purity spirals and witch hunts. It's a feature of human nature, not the left or the right. I have been treated horribly by both conservative Christians and leftist radicals. Humanity is the common denominator.
Give witch hunts a chance.
Please don’t reply without watching the video:
https://youtu.be/1rHSu2oDZXE?si=T0MXotiZZHGrhRqP
I will reply without watching the video because it is 45 minutes long and I'm in the middle of my work day. Can you tell me the basic premise and why it contributes to this discussion?
OK sure, I’ll give a summary but I hope you find time to watch. It’s very interesting 😃
TL;DR: “witch trials have unfairly gotten a bad rap. After the long reign of Elizabeth I, witch trials were used to humanely solve the problems of involuntary spinsterhood and redistribute property. Contrary to popular belief, cruel and unusual punishment was meted out to suspected ‘witches’ very rarely.”
One of the most thought-provoking videos I’ve watched on YouTube, ever. From a Yale University history lecture.
This is a breath of fresh air because as you say this all became muddled. However, I have a slightly different take in that I’m pretty sure this started months ago. Specifically, it happened RIGHT AFTER the now-infamous Tucker Carlson interview with Darryl Cooper, aka Martyr Made (a fellow historical podcaster and, as it happens, something of a friend, making his WWII revisionism rather complicated for me…but that’s another story I’ve already told). Anyway, I noticed that as soon as that dropped and the Free Press began its understandably negative coverage of the interview and the, well, pretty objectively bad/incorrect history Darryl was trafficking in, Konstantin (and I’m pretty sure James) came in guns blazing about this so-called “woke right” (Konstantin’s article is from September 5th: https://www.konstantinkisin.com/p/thou-shalt-not-criticise-the-woke).
Now I cannot say for certain whether or not this was the case (and I admit it sounds conspiratorial), but the timing plus the figures struck me as strangely convenient and transparently brand-conscious. Like “woke right”? The only people that would appeal to are the anti-woke people in the audience that already lean right. And why then? Could it be because Tucker Carlson—the sort of patron saint of anti-woke discourse—was now being tarred with “platforming Holocaust denial”? (I don’t think he was—just bad history—but regardless). Again, it could just be my personal bias toward him, but it just felt to me to that Darryl Cooper had served as a nice scapegoat for this section of the anti-woke internet; they had spent years at this point cultivating basically a right wing audience while claiming to be centrists or even liberals but now they had an out in which they could confirm such claims.
Again: no way of proving this and am willing to admit I’m seeing something that isn’t there. But the timing and the people involved make me suspect otherwise.
This exactly. I'm also pretty sure it was Kisin that actually came up with it. He also went on Benjamin Boyce's podcast in September and explained almost verbatim that »woke« to him means »against the liberal and democratic Western consensus« that a »true« right would seek to defend against the left.
He really implied that a "true" right would defend the liberal consensus? He's never heard of literally most right wing thought, especially post-Enlightenment? Jeez. I generally like Kisin (especially since he's helped amplify some good voices out there, like my friend David Josef Volodsko), but that strikes me as extremely politically/historically illiterate for him to say that. That liberalism largely triumphed in the world was a consequence of circumstance; I tend to believe it's the best we've got, but I'm not so hubristic as to assume I'd feel the same way if I was born in a different place or especially time.
I'm sure that episode is still online, give it a try.
You mean that it helps them validate that they're liberals?
Accurate. I've been saying for quite a while that all centrists are embarrassed liberals. This is not glib, but an observation of broader human nature. How many times have you seen/heard someone wonder aloud "am I right wing?" This alone proves the struggle for validation you speak of, never mind the stigmatism of one's temporary allies. I imagine there's a bit of cognitive dissonance as well. I don't know if they're aware of it but setting values preferences aside it seems clear that woke is the logical endpoint of liberalism. They fundamentally agree with the sentiments, but don't like the optics. Statements like "we need to have a conversation about race" or "I'm all for trans people living life how they want but stay away from kids/out of locker rooms" are a way of establishing liberal cred while making a value judgment (anathema in liberalism).
That’s it exactly. Or centrists. Or, perhaps even more mercenarily, that they’re not “THAT” kind of right winger.
The thing is, I think that's true. And they'd be happy on the left were it not for things like trans women in sports.
I’m not sure that is true. When TRIGGERnometry ran their “Liberalism vs Conservatism” debate, they got a Randian Objectivist to debate a National Conservative. That is not the act of centrists. Most of their commentary is difficult to distinguish from the mainstream UK right-wing press. Kisin will probably end up with a Daily Mail column next year.
Fair enough. I still think it's a mistake for these people to try to appeal to dissident audiences.
Or to put it another way, Kisin is not Nick Fuentes. Which I would agree with. A couple of other thoughts:
- Conservatives now live in a Post-Fusionist world (and have for quite some time). The fusionist were strange bedfellows held together by a fear of the Soviet Union. Now that Republicans are in the ascendant again, shit is going to only get weirder.
- While the internet muddies things up and political entrepreneurs will seek out markets that are both as receptive as possible and as large as possible, there are genuine differences in the political cultures of even similar countries. Something that many Americans struggle to understand.
Right that was also the point you made I thought was really good, that they were never at home on the dissident right despite constantly signaling to those people’s audiences. Especially Lindsay; he went right up to the edge of blaming (liberal) Jews for enabling wokeness, or something to that effect if memory serves, and got ROASTED for that, which I seem to remember causing him to wilt a bit from his usual grandiosity.
“Thinking the west is bad and cheering for its enemies”
Let’s analyze this.
If the west has been captured by globalist, nefarious interests… I should cheer for them? And side against my own interests? Because otherwise I’m “woke”?
If on the other hand, it hasn’t been captured and all the west does is based and cool, why even be on the dissident right? I should just cheer for “our democracy” and get a job at State, no?
Getting a job at State used to be a rigorous process of passing written and oral exams and is now just an exercise in “cultural fit.”
fame has been almost as bad for kisin as it was for peterson..
Really? I like Triggernometry, honestly. They curate interesting guests.
Agree. I enjoyed his latest with Eric Weinstein. Good stuff. I relate to Eric though. His mind makes sense to me.
I'm tired of his "I'm a classical liberal [who always advocates for the right]" shtick. It's an old game at this point. Decoding the Gurus did a pretty good breakdown of his Oxford Union speech.
https://podscripts.co/podcasts/decoding-the-gurus/mini-decoding-of-konstantin-kisins-oxford-union-speech
I understand the frustration. It puts these guys in an interesting place bc they tend towards the right on most culture war issues, then end up punching right on broader ideological issues.
oh the show’s still pretty good; it’s his online personality and presence I find increasingly annoying
I don't follow him closely. I find Peterson's show to be good occasionally too. I love it when these guys stick to their expertise, like when Peterson talks about topics like play. I'm not being sarcastic. They really shine and it's great.
oh for sure. love him or hate him, you can’t say peterson isn’t knowledgeable and insightful about some things. and when kisin talks about russia-ukraine, I’m strongly inclined to listen - he has family on both sides
Kisin is a moron.
He’s basically saying “shut up and don’t make a fuss.”
Because god forbid the right ever gets its act together.
Nah, not going to call him a fed. Fed plants try to be less obvious, lol!
I don't think he's a moron, I think that strange bedfellows breed bad arguments.
Correction: I don’t know him or his work well enough to call him a moron. But this take is definitely dumb: “Don’t make a fuss”.