In a highly anticipated event, James Lindsay joins Joe Rogan on The Joe Rogan Experience to discuss the recent explosion of the Woke ideology into almost every corner of our society and culture. The goals: help people realize that, no, they’re not going crazy and do that by helping them understand the Critical Social Justice ideology that’s behind all this mayhem. As you’ll see when James explains it in detail, Joe actually gets put to the James Lindsay experience.
Their discussion centers upon the research and writing that James has been doing over the last several years. This work is currently culminating in the resources available here on the New Discourses platform and in his forthcoming book with Helen Pluckrose, called Cynical Theories, both of which are dedicated to explaining this topic in tremendous depth. James’s message is simple: this crazy-sounding stuff is comprehensible, and once you understand it, worth rejecting in favor of better alternatives. We seem to have all forgotten that these exist, but they do and are rooted in better and more consistent values and ethics: the liberal values and ethics that made America and other modern Western democracies great.
Join them for a landmark discussion!
Watch all of Lindsay’s appearances on The Joe Rogan Experience:
14 comments
In the middle ages, there was a book written that became highly popular. It was called the Malleus Maleficarum (Hammer of Witches). It discussed in detail how to recognize witches everywhere. Naturally, much like CRT, it caused a frenzy and the false accusations against and persecution of many people (who were tortured or other things to get them to confess they were witches). If you have a theory which tells you to look for something everywhere and not to feel safe, it will cause hysteria and the desire to be free of the threat.
Also, since you mentioned conspiracy theories, notice how class has been left out of the oppressor hierarchy. Do you think this is an accident? Then these elites become the leaders of these movements and control it through virtue signaling while regular white people are being made responsible for systemic problems??? The media has become so deranged (I consider myself a leftist and cant even watch it anymore, its all propaganda). Is it coincidence that all the anti-eliters have become neutralized? the 1% doesn’t even mean anything anymore because everyday poor white people are the same as the 1% elite whites . One reason I like Russel Brand’s podcasts is he talks about race or privilege issues in a way that directs attention back to the elites. He is the only person I notice who is doing this though.
@1:50 Dr Linda XY Brown’s fake flapping to be recognized as autistic – I call total BS on her autism BECAUSE she is faking a stim. Austistics have plenty of legit stims they can’t stop, they aren’t looking for fake ones. Also, when in public and interacting with people, the struggle is full on trying not to be misunderstood and not do something in error. I can’t even come up with a framework of mind that could sustain fake autistic behavior. I’d put that woman in the Borderline category instead, she’s deliberately creating trouble and desiring attention for a political end. Real autistics don’t have to work it up, it just comes, wanted or not.
So what’s the race of the shopkeeper?
wonderful question! on another note, where do we see a list of or find the 5 kinds of BLM he mentions in the podcast?
Norman, I can totally buy into your point that they are replacing “class based Marxism” with “race based, Wokism.” It is a classic cover of using language to reintroduce the terms without the worry of glaring past failures. Lenin, promised: Peace, Bread and Land. The people got starvation, massive blood shed and cooperative failure. Social Justice promises to erase the past and build a new future that will break the oppression of white capitalism (western post-modern culture). A “bottom up” revolution that is a war of words by redefining the social norms. Unfortunately, there will be conflict. History shows that it is inevitable. Lenin knew it and used it. Woke will provoke.
Thanks for the reply.
I agree, this is heading to a desaster. Not only, because it does not fix any real “race problem”, but because it blames every problem on racism and pits people with a different skin color or heritage against each other. This has already destroyed incredible much social capital.
I disagree in an important point. My theory: “Wokism” has strong left elements, which are noisy, but it is not driven by the traditional left, it is by far not classical Marxism-Leninism. It is embraced by the liberal, deeply capitalist elites, it is financed by a huge amount of foundation and corporate money.
Wokism does not break capitalism – just the opposite. It is a cult, solidifying into the new protestant religion of the west. It will not touch capitalist structures, in the moment it is melting with existing, mostly white liberal power structures and strenghten them. Wokism is driven by the white children of the global, upper and middle class, by frustrated egomaniacs and by this nature a full scale attack on reason, logic and any competence. Young white females screaming against black police officers and not against Wall Street, Globalism or manufacturing in China.
Wokism in itself is pure capitalism: it creates and makes a whole industry of incompetent faith-based people rich, powerful and give them a job in the growing Diversity/Inclusion/Equity structures.
Religious anti-racism is a huge, growing profit machine, which has overcome Christian community donations this year. 80% of the BLM/NGOs budgets (we are talking about billions!) is spent as consulting fees to “activists”, which make a living from going after “sinners” in science, media, politcs and corporations. They don ´ t want to cancel capitalism or society, they want to own and control it.
Just look at the Diversity materials from Seattle or the race-awakening Mein-Kampf-Fragility book: Nothing about class differences, Wall Street or real Socialism (distributing the means of production to the working class). Marxism and postmodernist deconstruction tools are simply used, to drill into the human tribalism center, to enforce guilt, shame, sin and (most importantly) get the confession! That´s why they change the words and meanings of everything, first, to get you as a sinner and turn you into a believer. Make the (white) people, who drive this country racially conscious and make them feel guilty ALL THE TIME, to corrupt and control them. Finally extract money and establish a new priest cast.
Wokism is embraced or implemented by all big corporations. The new DIE polit commissars will not speak for the liquidation of Nike, Apple or the expropriation of shareholders. HR rules read like religious catechisms now. Wokism is not a leninist engine of class change or the end of “capitalist oppression”, the DIE sharia will be THE soft power tool, to control the people, by branding any opposition as right-wing racists and hate speakers. Of course corporations will implement these moral authoritarian tools, if they can. Kapernik just got a huge Disney deal. This makes this moral Fakism so dangerous. We are fighting the new capitalist moral operating system and a profit/marketing machine with the biggest growth ratio.
This is a joke of history. The motherland of capitalism is implementing main ideas of the socialist brain software, to make it immune against social changes, to keep it going and the wealthy elites in power – which are publically converting all over the place to the new religion.
I see one chance to fight it: it is helpful to label elements as communism and anti freedom (which is the whole point about it) to get people on board, but it misses the real character.
Wokism as a whole or dedicated elements of it need to be marked as forced religious indoctrination to a racist cult, which is forbidden to enforce on workplaces and in government institutions. Lawyers will gladly help to get rid of it (just kidding …).
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Thank you for what you do. This JRE introduced me and I think your philosophies are much needed, especially right now.
Thank you! This was the most important podcast this year!
I think it was missing some points, why this is happening and how, but very deep and informative.
I disagree in an important point. Working in strategic marketing, I see patterns and I think this is not an accident or the piling work of lunatics. This is a large-scale, multi-national attempt to evolutionize power structures – its clearly an elite project. Its backed by really big money (look who sponsored BLM already in 2016 with over 100 Mill.). The built-up of BLM and espacially the fight against “Whiteness” is a decade long game and has nothing to do with class-based marxism, which is basically wiped out internationally by race-based Wokism (US, Britain, Germany, France …).
We will probably see the main pillars, esp. anti-racism, as the new religious believe system, as the “moral sharia” of the west. It is clearly bending existing power structures by corrupting its backbone (white males/females with high orderliness) by enforcing guilt, using public shame, decent nudging and “moral” guidelines.
It succeeds, because it keeps existing and corrupted elites in place, merging them or keeping them in check with a new priest cast (or moral polit officers) via growing DIE departments in EVERY institution. Once established, they control and further corrupt every power structure, up to the corporate boards (e.g. an Adidas board member had to resign last week). We already see something like a Woke cadre party with vertical structures on universities and will see them in the corporate DIE departments soon. They already organize huge party conferences (or religious events?) with networking, activist trainings and theory (how math/biology is racist).
To see the idea behind it, think bigger: The Woke ideological power structures are already used to manage the shifts of the western demographic decline and handling large-scale migration from tribalistic honour cultures into a new cast-like Diversity society. HR/DIE structures immediatley corrupt new competence cadres – otherwise they don ´ t get the job (Diversity slots are variable). They were forced to ongoing DIE trainings, so they were indoctrinated, what they can say and how they should morally behave, to keep keep them in line. This is how socialism works: it bends the sense of reality step by step and makes people complicit by turning them into liars. This is the reason, why they are attacking the Freedom of speech first – otherwise they canot achieve corruption! The trick is simple: confront your targets with clear nonsense (men = women) to make them lie (= join) or break them (divide them through a constant attrition in the process).
At the same time 3rd world migrants land into victimhood classes with an enforced victimhood mindset – which makes them managable from the moment they arrive – by promising wealth transfers and jobs (quotas!). These are simply human shields for the greater agenda or personal gains.
If somebody steps out of line (including blacks or POC): “part of the problem, institutional racism, white supremacy”, canceling, student mobs, public shaming, moral policing – you name it.
This way the old white working class, high level migrants and POC newcomers are positioned to keep each other in checkmate. This system is controlled by woke media, gov./corporate burocracy and education workers on top of them. Most importantly, it keeps corporates in control, by adapting and controlling the diversity “moral-based” power structures (blueprint: universities).
At the same time an incompetent generation of mostly white Social Media addicts can simply make a career in the new Woke church and enforce its gospel, by not knowing any “white supremacy infested knowledge”, outside of the cults literature (see the role and history of Quaran schools in Pakistan).
In the moment it seems to work against whites, but it works much more against minorities, by pitting them against the existing power structures (war of attrition), keeping them down and dependent.
The Woke gospel will be probably changed slightly more in favor for the white working class, when they are a minority all over the west to keep them also dependent – which will happen in the next 20 years – and control the “diverse” majority with a range of minorities.
I think they will soon flip the switch against Asians as the rising competence backbone of the US, to keep them out and bend in-system-members to the religious power structures (see the discrimination law in California).
I think Wokism can and will fail miserably, because it canot fix deeper problems and removes competence from the system. We´ve seen this before: Christianity was not able to fix the roman empire. It contributed to the ongoing downfall, but it was adapted anyway and the new priest class was soon the essential power structure – controlling all knowledge.
We will see what happens. Existing religions will fight back or adapt wokism, like the churches in Germany. Some players will surely reveal more of their cards before the election in November.
Anyhow, please keep up the fight.
Can someone send me/post a link to the part where James talks about a clip being used to form a particular narrative? I’d like to see the clip where it looks like it’s about the riots, but then it looks like it’s about Trump, and then it sounds like it’s about Obama.
@Matt If you want to link to a specific time in a youtube video, just take the URL and add &t=1h23m45s (that’s not the exact time you’re looking for, just an example). Be aware though, if you link this in a chat like discord for example, the embedded preview that pops up might not start there, but if people actually open the link in their browsers it will go right to it.
The part about people choosing simpler Degrees is so bang on. I’ve lost count of the amount of people who think that their degree is as good as or better than others. Sociologists who claim (without proof) that they could have studied law and got rich but decided to do Sociology instead, heard the same claim from communications and Fine Arts grads.
It really isn’t true, because you cannot use something imaginary to bolster your standing. It’s the same with comparing what is happening with an imaginary state e.g poverty with an imagined Utopia.
Great to hear you got round to the meaning of Folks.
for volk and leader……
Great podcast! I’ve shared your podcast and website with dozens of friends and family! You were able to perfectly articulate the crazy world around us!!! Thank you!!!!
Great discussion! The 3 hrs flew by.