OnlySubs Episode 6: A Spanish Vaccine for Woke Bullying is now available exclusively for New Discourses contributors on the following platforms:
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I was recently asked why you don’t see the Woke going after the Spanish colonizers of history, who arguably had the most brutal colonial project of all European colonialism. This is something that isn’t totally absent in the Woke literature, of course, but it is conspicuously less prevalent in their “scholarship” and activism than going after British colonialism and the United States. There are a variety of answers to why this might be the case, not least that the point of the whole project is to undermine American global hegemony, which also requires poisoning British influence, and also that much of the Theory arose in the American and British contexts, but there’s something else too that I’ve had occasion to discuss several times but never really connected to the bigger picture. The Spanish are proud, perhaps to a fault.
I once witnessed a Spanish leftist going on about Native Americans, slavery, and all the rest, criticizing the United States (while in the US, of course) in the presence of someone who was at least halfway Woke. What happened next was astonishing at the time and is properly interesting now that I know more. She had none of it and, in a completely ahistorical and chauvinistic rant, informed the Wokie of the full pride and glory of Spain’s history and how its colonization projects brought culture and improvement everywhere they went. This went on at some length and was quite heated, and the Wokie had nothing much to say, despite small attempts to argue back.
That’s interesting, and after having read Shelby Steele’s White Guilt, it makes a lot of sense: he couldn’t use his Woke critique to diminish the Spaniard’s pride in herself or her country, that is, her moral authority remained untouched. To understand Steele, though, is to realize that bullying over someone’s moral authority is how the entire (Woke) Critical Theory manipulation works. Thus, while I’m not sure what to do with it, as I wouldn’t recommend chauvinism of anyone, the ingredients for a Woke vaccine exist somewhere in here. Just being utterly unwilling to be diminished in one’s moral authority by Woke manipulation stops it in its tracks. Join me in this short subscribers’-only podcast to hear the story and to start thinking more about it.
Previous episodes of OnlySubs can be found here.
33 comments
The system of slavery that America and other nations participated in started in the 1490’s when the Portuguese began buying and selling slaves from North Africa. If we want to go back to the beginning, this is where it starts, not in 1619, or 1770’s but in the 1400’s.
Being an immigrant and Hispanic, my take is that most Americans have no idea what the cultural, demographic, and political history of Spain and Latin America are. Plus they lump us in with Mexicans generically. Evidence is that most people just call us Spanish because we speak Spanish not because we are Spanish. They don’t even care or know to ask what we are. Thus, it’s a minefield for the majority of Americans. It doesn’t fit into their narrative of cultural wokeness. They simply don’t know and don’t care – go away.
Separately, Spanish colonizers didn’t bring women. They mostly married into the native population initially. Unlike the British and northern europeans in the U.S. So, there are much more of a mixed race and mixed culture in Latin America. This continued with Africans as they were brought over.
Plus politically there is little too no talk of color differences in Latin america. That’s more a political context here not there.
Before the Europeans came to America (north and south), 15% of native peoples lived in now U.S. and Canada. Now it’s 4%. People are taught the Spaniards were brutal, and they were, but not to the extent of the British, Dutch, and French. Which killed off much more of the native populations.
I don’t agree and I haven’t read evidence that the US had a more brutal past than the rest of the Americas. Although there will be no open discussion among academics in favor of the US, you almost never see comparisons simply because, as you said, Americans are rather ignorant to South and Central American history. Americans judge ourselves as if no other country has a history. Only those who study Latin America recognize the shocking discrepancy in judgement over the US past versus Spanish-ruled America, precisely what this article is about. Knowledgeable historians might even argue the Spaniards were so thorough in wiping out and raping into submission native populations there were few left to fight by the time the British even began to arrive in the New World. Arguably what would become US American culture was more keen on negotiations than genocide, something the conquistadors clearly never considered. Now let us leap to the 21st century. I’m still waiting for a person of color to have any influence or power in the Americas outside the US. Where are they? South and Central America, including Mexico, are still ruled by European colonists. This is why I’m convinced anti-Americanism, i.e., Woke, is really a neo-conservative white supremacist movement.
They don’t consider Spaniards white (which is bollocks of course) and by extension see them as a minority (an oppressed group, what proletariat was for classic marxists) that’s why they don’t go after them and their heritage
Sounds like the solution is to be as assertive as the woke are vicious. We need to get people to understand that wokies don’t care about your true intentions and will bully you until they feel you have sufficiently bent to their will. Meaning it isn’t the correct context to be having productive conversations and must be stopped in its tracks.
Notice though the woke usually bait people into responding, leading to cancellation, because the woke choose the time and place so that the relevant authority is siding with the woke. So it’s a 1-2 punch, the woke set you up to say something, anything! And the relevant authority uses that as a pretext to cancel you.
So one has to carefully asses the situation, and chose the right time and place, where the relevant authority still acts in an objective manner. This is not always easy to find, and it’s getting harder.
Otherwise, you just got played, and soon cancelled – which is the original intent of any interaction coming from the woke.
Well put! I think this shows we need to be able to predict woke activism. This isn’t always clear, which wokies tend to take advantage of. Someone might call for abolishing the police, though it remains to be seen how invested they are in the ideology. Still, distinguishing between wokeness and true social justice is critical to prevent ourselves from falling into the same pre-enlightenment, crusading mentality.
I think it was James or Benjamin Boyce that pointed out that woke campaigns are usually driven by a small group of people. These people have high verbal intelligence, but are also resentful of society. This was consistent with my experience in a woke activist group. Assuming this is true (which would have to be tested), I think one solution might be to target these higher-ups…
What is “true social justice” though? Also, what would you suggest be done to the “higher-ups” once they’re targeted?
As to the distinction between the woke version and “true social justice”;
The woke generally adopt a shortcut to reality, the “empowerment before education” idea, and that can go a long way to correctly explain the difference between true, rational social justice and the woke version of social “justice”.
From a left perspective, one can readily refer to John Dewey and his ideas, quite popular for a long time, before the postmodernism gained dominance. The caveat is that “empowerment before education” (as the woke feel entitled to) appears so much more attractive than getting a practical education first, which requires effort and ability. STEM is hard, now we know why the woke do mostly social studies, and not so much engineering.
Q: Also, what would you suggest be done to the “higher-ups” once they’re targeted?
That is a very good question, indeed. A short answer, but firmly stated: legal, nonviolent actions are the only ones acceptable.
On the other hand, there is much to learn from Alinsky, about methods. His book “Rules for Radicals” found an intriguing rewrite, turned on it’s head to be used by conservatives: “Rules for Radical Conservatives: Beating the Left at Its Own Game to Take Back America” (Amazon)
Perhaps the first step is to research, document and expose in detail the woke power structure, and the particular position the external experts play in that scheme.
One outcome of such research would be to prove, or disprove, if the woke violence on the street is somehow linked with the relevant authorities who show significant bias towards the woke. Chances are, but that needs to be proven first, that the external experts may be the missing link that connects the dots.
I think it is better to look at distinctions on a case by case basis. I would not want to label someone as an ideologue just because they have pronouns in their bios.
I think someone that is sincerely pushing for deranged policy changes like abolishing the police (in my case they encouraged not calling EMS on a suicidal person) and doing it in tangible, destructive ways (such as doxxing people who disagree) is a pretty clear ideologue.
As for the higher-ups, I do not want harrassment or violence. From my experience, you can organize some pushback from moderates by calling out what the leaders are doing, but I also think the little success I had was because of how clearly insane the group was.
Dan,
“STEM is hard, now we know why the woke do mostly social studies, and not so much engineering.”
True, but CT is thoroughly embedded in STEM and Business departments now. Economics is overrun and has been for quite awhile. When the Right abandoned academia and left those orbiting the center to hold the line, the trajectory was inevitable.
I wasn’t aware of the mirror universe Rules for Radicals. I’ll have to check it out. The radical left has stacks of literature on organizing and activism that the center Left through far Right (I exclude the practically non-existent White Supremacists that get lumped in there) would do well to brush up on. I just don’t know the titles offhand.
“Perhaps the first step is to research, document and expose in detail the woke power structure, and the particular position the external experts play in that scheme.”</i
Seems reasonable. We already have a good base of knowledge here and a few places elsewhere to undermine the intellectual underpinnings (even from the reasonable Left), but still lack a clear methodology for rhetorical (broad sense) response techniques. Something the movement or radical Left does that is highly effective is signal amplification. Social media is a force multiplier for this. So while the Right may call for a relatively ineffective boycott, the Left understands the power structures and contacts of their target organization. Then they proceed to contact that organization’s clients, sponsors, or supporting/supply businesses (the latter in the case of the organization standing its ground). As we can see from the last few months, particularly the last couple of weeks, it’s extraordinarily effective.
“One outcome of such research would be to prove, or disprove, if the woke violence on the street is somehow linked with the relevant authorities who show significant bias towards the woke. “
This strikes me as a non-starter. “Proof” falls within a theoretical framework that the Woke reject. Much of the research here is done by academics with a vested interest in pushing their ideology and the majority of researchers here, if not Woke, are decidedly on the Left. With the media all-in, and the Federal government about to be all-in again, good luck “proving” anything to them. This is the same Federal government who has been pushing the quite obvious lie that Right Wing violence is the greater threat to society than Left wing. You dig into their data and it appears legit. You dig into their classification system and it’s hot garbage.
I’m unclear on your use of “external experts”, could you please explain?
hasnoname,
Your personal experience sounds interesting and absolutely relevant to the discussion. Would you be comfortable going into more detail?
gmmay70
About “external experts” – these are political activists, trained in certain leadership schools such as “Industrial Areas Foundation” or one of it’s many affiliates, for the purpose of community organizing. They focus on a certain community and organize it to act, according to their ideology. Initially they were not members of the community they organized, hence “external organizers”. This was in accord with the concept of “empowerment before education”, a departure from the John Dewey suggestion that the destitute can and should emancipate themselves through education. By relying on external experts to decide everything, the community organizing is also highly paternalistic and patronizing, which is quite ironic, considering they organize the destitute to act against the “oppressor”, deemed to be patronizing and paternalistic.
So look up those leadership schools for community organizing, there is the place you will find the curriculum that explains how things are done to get Antifa and BLM on the street. And those schools alumni are the ones actually making it happen, the street preachers and evangelists of the new woke faith system.
gmmay70
About finding proof for a suspicion that the street violence is somehow related to the relevant authority showing bias;
If one researches something and encounters obstruction, then they can document the obstruction honestly, to show due diligence, then decide on the balance of probabilities (logical induction). This does not guarantee a correct decision, but it is a morally justified decision nevertheless.
Dan,
Thanks for elaborating on “external experts”.
A good reference, to understand the woke activism, might be “Rules for Radicals” (Alinsky). The role of the “external expert” in the movement is clearly described, basically managing everything of importance. Alinsky had previous experience as a community organizer, but also did first hand research on the methods used by the Chicago mob (even got permission to attend some mob operations, as a non-participating observer). Alinsky later complained about the poor judgement of the community leaders, after the external expert stopped guiding them (moved on to different projects). The bitter complaining included the flagship community project in South Chicago. Meanwhile H Clinton debated Alinsky on the use of external experts, considered by her to be patronizing (she wrote a graduation thesis on Alinsky).
So it may be justified to address the issues (always legally and without violence), directly with the external experts. How exactly to do that (always legally and without violence), remains to be determined.
Oh, also would you say lust for power is a feeling or emotion? I assert that humans are much more primitive than our hubris will allow us to admit.
I tend to think it’s both, with an addictive component as well. Addictive personalities are far more likely to push it to extremes, while others can regulate it. In other words, becoming head of the bowling team may be enough for some, while others want to rule the world.
If the white Woke are a special sort of tribe-worshipping tribe then really all that’s needed to defeat them is bullishness and chauvinism. They patronise a weak horse, but they love a strong horse. In any case, they can’t do a damn thing about a strong horse. They completely fold in front of one. They have nothing to say before Islam or China, or the Mormons or the Amish. Have they cancelled any Mormons cake bakers lately? They go weak and flee in confusion from them.
All this deplatforming and cancelling, and maybe the motivation for some of the restrictions of the lockdowns, is to stop Americans gathering, talking and refinding their self-confidence. That people submit to the restrictions shows that lack of confidence. Strong groups ignore them.
What you’re trying to put your finger on is pure Dynamism, the self-actualising potential. Where does this come from? At the grandest level, in some reflexive way, God is dunamis, the unfolding of Consciousness over itself, and outwards to create the cosmos.
To quote the great and mighty Bowden..
“One of the reasons our religions and some of our structures are collapsed is because we think more than most other groups. We dialecticize more. We debate more. Most Muslims just kneel in the dust and accept what is given to them. But we won’t do that. But what we have done as a civilization is made a crucial mistake. We’ve become confused. We’ve become undisciplined. We’ve become lax and liberal-minded, because it’s all so complicated once you open things up. When you begin to debate the meaning of life, what truth is, what justice is, what beauty is, what law is, what evil is. It’s all so complicated.”
And Mark, please, Australia has its aboriginals behind barbed wire? Europe is every nation on earth? LOL
Fantastic article! I’ve been challenging the anti-Americans for years on this exact same fact. If Americans must carry the weight of colonialism and slavery, why not every other nation on earth? It’s tough to even think of one country that has NOT been colonized by Europe. Thailand? The Spanish conquistadors were so brutal in wiping out natives Mexicans believe they are all descendants of the same rape. Cuba and Brazil held slaves 20 years longer than the US. Canada’s indigenous population has some of the highest suicide and homicide rates in the world. Australia currently has the world’s largest containment of humans, corralling nearly 1 million aborigines behind barbed wire, making America’s reservation system look like theme parks. Anti-Americanism is in itself white centric, and a luxury only the well off can afford. The rest of us must deal with reality.
*Anti-Americanism is in itself white centric, and a luxury only the well off can afford. The rest of us must deal with reality.*
I really feel this.
This topic might benefit when connecting with commentary about honor – dignity – victimhood culture, as referred to in this article.
In summary, one could suggest that the woke themselves would not be a problem, if reverting to the honor culture model when interacting with them, a regression from the dignity culture that we prefer. That might not work though, because the relevant authority is biased when inflicting cancel culture, significantly in favor of the woke.
To elaborate, at first glance, one could suggest, the victimhood culture could be countered in a fair way, when the targets of the woke will also revert to the honor culture style of interaction, as depicted in the story with the Spanish characters.
There is no need here to be chauvinistic, but one can and should clearly state when they are offended by an unfair woke statement, whenever that is the case. Of course, there is more than one side to every story, but the acute problem is the woke unfairly targeting you, so focus on that. In the context of honor culture, the false victimhood culture will fail to induce their targets to stop defending themselves. As a result, the woke won’t be as ready to start yet another frivolous conflict. Only then we can go back to the dignity culture, that the woke currently reject.
However, there is a major problem: The difference between the woke in a Spanish story and the North American variety of woke, is their respective capability to cancel their targets. And this entirely depends on the benevolent attitude of the relevant authority, towards the woke, and away from objective judgement. While the woke mostly play language games, they currently do have the backing of the real power structures behind them, resulting in significant cancel outcomes for the targets of the woke. What to do about that is not clear.
I keep meaning to pick up Coddling…, but never get around to it.
The point about the Woke that do wield real power gets to the heart of why this is so important.
What they’re doing can be accurately described as sanctioned abuse. That’s why some of us commenters have discussed potential legal remedies before. I would really like to hear from a legal expert with experience in Title VII law, or more general labor law to get an idea of how viable a legal remedy might be.
Even if a legal remedy may not be readily available, expert legal advice would be useful to explain how the relevant authority manages to circumvent an expectation for objective judgement. Perhaps it is more than Title VII? How about racketeering?
It looks as if the groups over-acting in the public space load emotionally the situation, and in so doing sufficiently distract the observer from noticing the subjective, self-serving decisions of the relevant authority. Meanwhile, the relevant authority has credible deniability against the accusation of self serving actions, by pretending that the “normal” rule of law was not applied as expected, only because there was a special situation that demanded a special response.
Doesn’t this look like racketeering? First create a major problem, by exaggerating an issue, then in the confusion, push through with a self serving “solution”, that would be otherwise strongly rejected. I wonder what the legal experts might have to say, from this perspective.
At some point, another useful tool might be to create a collection of relevant case studies, analyzed from an objective frame of reference, to better illustrate the situations discussed here.
IANAL, but I do have a bit more than a layman’s understanding and education in the legal system. Suffice it to say for now, Racketeering seems a stretch, but there’s no reason not to explore every conceivable legal option. Lawyers do tend to throw whatever they can at the bench to see what sticks.
” Thus, while I’m not sure what to do with it, as I wouldn’t recommend chauvinism of anyone, the ingredients for a Woke vaccine exist somewhere in here. Just being utterly unwilling to be diminished in one’s moral authority by Woke manipulation stops it in its tracks.”
Not to be the broken record, but I’m sure this enters into the psychological territories home to effective counters to CSJ. I firmly believe we’re dealing with psychology, hence the utter failure of politics or philosophy to make any headway. CSJ adopts the trappings of philosophy, but is driven by psychology for political aims.
As I’ve given this more thought, we’re dealing with image maintenance (narcissism) and constructing an elaborate internal fantasy detached from emotional intimacy and vulnerability in the real world (schizoid inclinations). Social media enables this and exacerbates it. I’m not sure if OnlySubs: Psychopathy and Social Media covers this. If so, you might sucker some money out of me.
Political compromises and greater commitments to diversity will not fix this.
gammayo70-
Agree wholeheartedly with your assessment. Logic and fact alone will never counter the overwhelming influence of feelings.
A few ideas follow:
Before people are willing to change, they must acknowledge “the” problem is somehow within themselves, not somebody else. Woke people appear to lack insight and empathy. Why should they change?
In contrast, people who are in therapy frequently, but not always (some are court mandated) are there because they have some insight that something is wrong in their lives, not society. Many, but not all, genuinely want to learn new ways to behave more healthfully. Some insist on blaming others and never move on.
It important to know that emotions can and do direct people’s moral choices, not just behavior. Think about this: how is it that young children say “It’s not fair!” when someone takes something away from them. Four year olds don’t know Rousseau from Von Mises.
People typically don’t cease a behavior until its risks far exceed the benefits.
“People typically don’t cease a behavior until its risks far exceed the benefits.”
This is why Lindsay’s closing provisional prescription should suffice for now until we can develop a more robust method for countering CSJ. A firm “No” holds some psychological weight. It stops their forward progress and unbalances them, long enough to create an opening. Before they can deploy the kafkatrap, you turn the tables. Reject then counter-accuse. “I feel like you’re attacking me. This is unsafe and abusive.” Appeals to emotion, labels them as the transgressor, uses their language. It has the added benefit of being concise and entirely true. Such sort of passive-aggressiveness might feel slimy (it does to me), but when you launch into an intellectual critique of their ideology – no matter how valid it might be – you’ve lost.
As Dan says below and to your point here, the perpetrator who understands that xhe risks yet another frivolous conflict at xhis own insistence will at least tread more lightly in the future. As Chris below points out, they respond differently to a strong horse than a weak one. I imagine this is why Lindsay is still around. If you don’t give them anything to latch onto (they’re practically begging you to be combative and launch into more traditional epistemologies), they’re stuck, even if only temporarily.
Your point about moral choices being influenced by emotions is important. I would offer that CSJ adherents’ emotional quotient in their moral system isn’t appreciably restrained by an intellectual check. It seems an emotional appeal of some sort must begin any response intended to halt a CSJ attack.
This is exactly why I tend to compare the Wokeists to Nazis. The Nazi movement became what it was because Hitler in particular recognized (consciously or otherwise) the power of mass psychology and was able to use it to his great advantage. Goebbles was also quite good at this kind of thing, and once he fell under Hitler’s spell their psychological manipulation machine hit close to full power. The NSDAP, after all, existed before Hitler as one of many petty little right-wing parties in Munich. The Woke are quite similar in their fascination with race, cloaking their movement in the trappings of a philosophy, and preying on the same kind of people the NSDAP ended up attracting. The bullying tactics are also frighteningly similar, except instead of signs in windows they can now use Twitter and Facebook.
As an aside, I think the Woke ignore Spain because deep down they are (mostly) Americans, and there’s a profound historical ignorance of just what went on outside our borders prior to last week in a wide swath of this country (including the university system, where actual historians have been pushed out to make room for the various sub-species of the field and all the “fill in the blank studies” people). Plus, they in their own way believe in American exceptionalism. It wouldn’t do for someone to have been more horrible than us, would it?
I hadn’t considered that take on why Spain gets a pass. I looked at it as more along the lines of the Progressive Stack. Everyone knows Whitey is bad because he’s at the top of the heap; history can take off for lunch. Even when Whitey is no longer perceived to be at the top of the heap, we’ve got historical oppression. Welcome back history, now pay up. Hispanics or latinos or latinxs (or whatever the classification is this week) are troublesome for the Woke because the racial/ethnic/demographic classification for them is…problematic (beyond the nonsense of the classifications to begin with) due to the idea of White Hispanics.
The racial purity angle running through CSJ should make any proponent recoil in horror, given the historical track record, but history is cudgel to be used when convenient.
That’s what protects your argument from the much-beleaguered Godwin of these past few years. The parallels are so obvious, and so damning, but here we are.
The National Socialists are nothing like the woke. They knew more about Kultur than the woke who deride it on grounds of colour coding. Munich was not the centre of National Socialism. In part that myth was pushed after the war by mendacious German realigned politicians. As for the ‘manipulation machine hit close to full power’ is a simplification without meaning. The average person went into an ‘inner migration’ continued on East Germany. They survived mentally because they had turned off the way those who still watch commercials on TV. That is why post 45 the new world order ideologues were so appalled that no one remembered much about the Third Reich at all. They drank they ate screwed around and basically shut all the hype out. And Dr Goebbels don’t forget always said that propaganda is not about lies. It is about the spread of information. Furthermore unless specially specified on radio broadcasts the idea of entertainment was light music and operettas. [sic]. Heavy handed politics such as the Soviet Union practiced were categorically rejected. One of the reason only one movie is hung around the National Socialist neck. Because that was the only one [perhaps out of three] that were made during a dozen years. Comparisons with the woke is a show of appalling historical ignorance.
Have you hear about the Black Legend?
Bartolomé de las Casas, in the 16th century, denounced Spaniard imperialism and mass killing .
They sent Columbus backnin chains andcerased his memory for 3 centuries
Cortez blamed rent seekers for the abuses accusations. They wanted him jailed to take his money
Bernal Diaz del Catillo excused himself but blamed other Spaniards for abuses , even biological warfare.
Spaniards hate themselves more than Americans
In most LatinAmerica, the Spaniard heirs see the conquistador as worse than the cannibalist Aztecs