OnlySubs Episode 142: Is the “Woke Right” Really Woke? is available for FREE to everyone! To get access to all past and future episodes, consider becoming a contributor on one of the following platforms:
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What is the “Woke Right”? Does it really exist? Is it really Woke? If so, how? These are increasingly important questions in our present circumstances as a visibly radicalized Rightism is emerging from within the broader conservative coalition and aiming to distort its aims and values along some new (or new-old) path. In this special long episode of James Lindsay OnlySubs, my subscribers’ only podcast, I take you through an essay about the Woke Right written by someone ostensibly on the Woke Right, C. Jay Engel, published in late May 2024 in American Reformer. Join me to explore the idea that the Woke Right really is Woke (and the Right hand of the Left) through an analysis of one of its members’ own words.
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10 comments
Lots to chew on and digest here (and some to disagree with). First, remember who the political enemies to conservatives are: the Left, whether it be Marxist, cultural Marxist, child groomers, Woke, BLM, Bernie Sanders, or the Democrat Party when they support the Left. Our political allies are primarily (not exclusively) conservatives, Republicans and Christians. Criticize the Left with all intellectual guns blazing, but have some proportion when you criticize the Right and do it with some prudence. Don’t hamstring the conservative momentum by policing speech on the Right. Having just won a great election, it would be folly to destroy political capital by descending into internecine squabbling.
Yes, Engel’s essay is edgy! Particularly his claim that Buckley co-opted the conservative movement away from the “True Right”. Also, he is sloppy in not well defining terms such as “individualism”, or “universal propositions”. But there is much in his essay that rings true if one can back away from the “this sounds like fascism” cliché, which is way too close to how the Left would criticize him.
IMO the term “Woke Right” is not a good one. The term “woke” is understood by 99% of the public to describe left-wing politics. In a pithy statement, Tucker Carlson called it “LGBTQ race Communism”. James says that restricting “woke” only to left-wing politics only is “thin”, but we are not doing academic/mathematical pontificating here. We are arguing political philosophy, which should be more oriented to mass understanding and common sense. “Woke” is now firmly left-wing and to muddle the definition now will just confuse everybody (as Chris Rufo just said). Perhaps one could say that conservatives have slowly “awakened” to the fact that the Left is running a cultural bulldozer over America. But don’t call it “woke”.
Instead of “Woke Right”, I suggest trying the following phrases that fit different aspects of Engel’s essay:
• “awakened conservatives” – conservatives are now awakened to the threats to our civilization, as mentioned above.
• “nostalgic Christian right” – this applies to anyone who thinks that America has declined morally since the 1950s (which is virtually everybody) and wishes to somehow get back to the moral climate in place then. (Not getting back of course, to southern segregation – this would be the silly left-wing accusation.)
• “edgy Christian Right” – this might apply to some things said in Engel’s essay. Christians don’t want to be trampled in the prone position as they’ve been the last 50 years, and are becoming more edgy or aggressive.
• “newly assertive Right” – this is anyone who has awakened to the fact that non-assertive conservatism has barely slowed down the Left’s cultural domination in the last half-century.
On James’ assertion that whites are not the real target in the Left’s war on whiteness, but just a symbolic target group (like the “great Russian”) in order to gain power; this seems to be (again) distinctly over-academicizing the issue. I think that anti-white racism is very real, whether or not it is primarily to serve a power grab.
James, I appreciate very much your anti-Marxist/anti-woke research, as well as your insight into Hegelism and Gnosticism! I think that keeping your arguments against the Left is very valuable, but turning such arguments against certain kinds of right wing thought just doesn’t ring as true. I would suggest that you abandon your usage of the term “Woke Right” and keep your focus upon our true political enemies, the “Woke Left.”
Engels seems to be wobbling off kilter. He uses the term Liberal, but describes Classical Liberalism, another animal entirely. His diatribe is rife with misstatements and seems to be a jumble of misunderstanding and misapplication. I have no idea if his definition of WOKE right is valid since he writes like so many indoctrinated by the public education system… full of sound and fury signifying nothing.
It seems unkind to take seriously his offering in the same way that it would be unwise to loan money to an addict, the act only serves to enable dysfunctional behavior.
For clarity I think some terms need to be created, defined and used so people don’t get their wires crossed as you maneuver around in a complex subject. Use terms that stand for and distinguish particular ideas, like neocon, rino, right, conservative, republican, liberal, or anything you want to make up, that carry meaning different from each other
James goes on and on against Marxism but has a blind spot for stolen land redistributed to a group of religious supremacists because it’s “antisemtic” to point out how Israel is a Marxist construct. Call them out for what they are or you’re just a gay woke right cuck for the Zionists.
‘Sociologist’ is mistaken in part at least. Yes, behind a great many politicians there is little other than desire for self-advancement, but behind the politicians and activists there are 10,000 college professors pushing ideas, and behind the petty professors there are major influencers, and behind the major influencers there are mighty spiritual/religious desires, just as JL identifies. They may not know it explicitly, but the smallest destructive activist is feeding off those forces. JL does a fantastic job of tracing things back to their roots.
However, I have to say that I don’t get it when he starts talking about the woke right. I thought by definition that woke is drag queens, DEI, transgenderism and every other evil manifestation of Marxism in its modern day form. It seems most confusing to start talking about a woke right; apart from anything else, it surely doesn’t have the same roots.
James you are constantly obsessed with ‘who’ believes ‘what’ when no significant person at the top / in power / cares to ‘believe’ in anything except what political strategy works or not. Populations all over the world are controlled by politics that make no difference to those in the ultra elite who are enforcing them // same way ‘what shall we have for dinner today’ scarcely matters. Your always perform your analysis based on the false premises that these various politicians actual believe in what they claim to exemplify. The reason for that is you we’re taught to do that by new atheism. So you force people to understand politics from a metaphysical assumption you’ve made concerning if they really BELIEVE in what they represent.And thus although you brain first class, you still find a way to demote most of what you are saying to nonsense.
Why don’t you start back at the beginning – every politicians in existence is a fucking liar even concerning the specific style of politics they claim to represent. The hang up you have is caused by failing to see that every political era is made out of a fabrication they’ve designed in advance & agreed to argue about!
Furthermore in this article mention ‘the left’ in relation to ‘the right’ whilst attempting to differentiate based on separate way they tend to armour their metaphysics. These parts began to make sense, but they’d have needed to demolish some of your own conclusions ( that are flawed ) – thats why you found a certain length of the pathway navigable, & the rest intractable. At least by applying logic against metaphysics you had gave yourself a guideline in the deep sea. Compare that with the gashy guesswork that new atheism taught you to use & theres a difference in intellectual class thats profound. How you’ve gone this long as a ‘cripple’ judging everything on the basis of a guess about persons deep seated ideas about gods ( conflated with marx ) & thus justifying ( to you ) that the elites are a religious cult who care about that more than money beats the shit out of me james. I only hope you’ve learned a lesson somehow and are now able to navigate by understanding the way metaphysics when misused in western as well as eastern philosophy is the villain of the piece. I say ‘when’. There are also non misused metaphysical strategies ofc. Rarely though ! – metaphysics is the most seductive tool of lazy power broking in non existence!
The other term you began using in a far more meaningful fashion is ‘demiurge’ // social demiurge. In the past you applied only about 5 of your many I.Q. to this area & you’ve sounded like something not much more that when the single celled org, now 2 celled existed the cosmic pond on the strength it could now crawl. Its like you’ve only recently had the penny drop that the bastards have a control of a neural like global instrument named the WWW @ that the social demiurge is actually real in that sense. You just thought it was religion & gnosticism you plank. NO they have got manipulation silly highway to the unconscious par excellence, that urges of us all to be stupid. At the core literally only control reasoning is happening no ontology of existentially based religion is need just in order for these elite nut jobs to have that luxury – EXCEPT ?
ATHEISM.
James Lindsay has sharpened every sword on ideas that religion is the attractant // inner conscience responsible for woke marxism / maoism. NO its Atheism & thus atheist designed metaphysics.Probably directly from a village called Over Norton. UK. Sorry James- they F’d you and Bogtart et all over big time.
However – if you now continue to discuss woke metaphysics appropriately in accordance to the logic & phenomenology the theory of mind ( and epistemology ) things can only get better.
“James Lindsay has sharpened every sword on ideas that religion is the attractant // inner conscience responsible for woke marxism / maoism. NO its Atheism & thus atheist designed metaphysics.”
I see that as two sides of the same coin.
The biological or existential need in humans for religion, but religion has been banned by marxism, so they must create something religious-like, for the hungry masses, which is not a religion in their own eyes – atheism and all the woke religion that follow that specific type of atheism.
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addendum. it came to me after i clicked with the idea i would like to link to this discourse within my substack. and so i have done that. your ideas are imo really important for us to renew in a new way the value of the individual expressing life.
all the best
guy
hola, james.
i’ve recently begun diving into your works. powerful and important! so important i’ve been sharing you far and wide!
wow! this particular title and the ideas in it caught my attention, in no small part because jan 7, 2024 i made similar claim that there is a woke right. i state that in my substack essay “Good-Bye Woke: It Was Fun While It Lasted”. (if curious: https://gduperreault.substack.com/p/good-bye-woke)
i make the argument that both ‘right’ and ‘left’ rely on the removal of the individual for the ‘good’ of the many. i wrote it in a rather circular way as i discovered it following a conversatoin by a devout ‘liberal. it was interesting to me to re-read quickly after listening to some of your discourses. i seem to have come to a similar kind of conclusion you have, albeit without the detail and history that you provide. (i’ll be re-looking at it more closely in time after investigating your history of ‘woke’ and its evolution.)
fascinating!
all the best with what is changing. everything changes! with peace, respect, love and exuberant joy.
🙏❤️🧘♂️☯️🧘♂️❤️🙏