This is a follow-up piece to last week's How to Deal with a Leftist (link below). This went through a dozen different versions before I landed on a Q&A, which seems the clearest way to highlight what's going on here. Comments are open for a bit. Let me know what you think of either piece. And thanks for reading.
Sadly and depressingly spot on. Tribal thinking has become so widespread. Could it be that as national boundaries are eroding, people need to identify with some kind of tribe and the internet makes it possible. Or is it the erosion of Christian values? Then there’s the slow indoctrination that’s been happening in the west via the Frankfurt School and the Fabian Society both of which want to destroy western democracies, values and culture. People want something to believe in and are currently scrabbling around to find a tribe amongst all the chaos. Unfortunately it would seem that too many educated people have lost the ability to think critically and are choosing the tribe that shouts the loudest. I can only think that they’re basically cowards.
I loved the piece from last week. I used to write comments in the Guardian during the Brexit debate and thoroughly enjoyed winding up all the emerging wokerati.
Thanks, TT. I agree – it’s probably a mix of all the things you mention. The erosion of Christian values, especially, tends to get overlooked in Europe and the UK.
I still worry more about the progressive-left variety because it’s been so successful at capturing institutions and the education system, which is where so much of the groupthink starts. But the backlash is a worry too.
As for comment sections, I’ve been called a communist and a fascist on Substack and elsewhere. Ha, what a world.
I completely agree, the left has gone insane - and I speak as an ex leftie. Now I try to think in terms of right and wrong rather than left/right.
There was always going to be a backlash when you think of how bad the left has become. We can only hope that common sense will eventually prevail which is where most of ‘the plebs’ are…..although Starmer and the EU are doing their best to shut us all up.
The only difference I can see between communists and fascists is that communists convince themselves they’re doing good, fascists don’t care as long as they get what they want. Can’t see you in either role!
Outstanding piece and one of the best I've read on this subject. Highly recommend Ben Shapiro's recent TPUSA speech where he takes Carlson, Owens and others aprt. Very satisfying.
The woke left movement certainly warrants a backlash. It’s weird and dystopian and is designed to turn everything on its head. Civilisation could not continue if we were all woke lefties. So, we need to keep up the momentum, but keep it sensible. Fortunately, I believe Carlson and Owens are the exception. Unfortunately, they do have a huge following.
Researching this piece, I was struck by how extreme some of this has become – a genuine strain of fascism bubbling away beneath the surface of some parts of the right.
Of course, the left’s constant overuse of the term "fascism" has largely robbed the word of its power. Fools.
Excellent article Frederick I was looking forward to this and it didn't disappoint. Spot on! As for the causes of the woke right you could say they're similar to the origins of the woke left and the pendulum swings the other way. Trust lies at the root of it and many people no longer trust a lot of things they used to. Both sides are concerned with power - one the imagined demons that attack their intersectional victims the other the power of the elites. We have come full circle haven't we when both Chomsky and Carlson support Putin. As you rightly say the boring work is the key work like checking the facts and applying rational arguments. Just because democracy appears to have failed us doesn't mean we must slide into authoritarianism as the alternative.
I'm no fan of some of these things happening on the Right, but with due respect, the Right did not "go woke." To fall to using this term to describe the phenomena you cite is to drain *wokeism* of its specificity. Wokeism is a left-wing movement and what is happening on some corners of the Right, though one can make parallels, is not the same thing. Worse, to employ this usage is to weaken your stance against wokeism.
Let's trace wokeism to post-structuralist, late Frankfurt-School-inspired leftism in the universities. That's correct. Let's keep focused on its enthusiasm for censorship and social engineering--as part and parcel of a Left project. Do these "woke" figures you see on the Right have any relationship to that tradition? Do they favor censorship? Are they utopians?
That they fall into conspiratorial thinking isn't woke. That they're kneejerk and contrarian also isn't woke. Such tendencies have happened before. Long before "wokeism."
We need to respect the specificity of terms, otherwise we foster thinking as sloppy as what we see on the emotivist woke Left.
Please think about it, Frederick. Again, with due respect.
This was from some time back, but he's still right in his assessment:
Surely the “excess” is tautology It’s woke which is by definition reality denying excess. “The backlash to woke excess was inevitable and justified.”
All or almost all novel things the liberal establishment tell one are lies.
Winston C /Israel being bad guy is to agree with progressive left which is weird.
There is zero possibility that man landed on the moon. The technology did not exist to allows it to happen and it would be an enormous challenge even now which is presumably why no one repeats the exercise when the capacity to verify whether/not it is achieved exists.
The most that can be said about the manned Moon landings is that it is difficult to see how such a thing happened given the state of technology at the time. I think that they did happen, but there is an element of doubt, partly fuelled by the observation about no repeats since 1972. I am willing to have my mind changed by evidence - are you?
Is there a similar collection of theories claiming that the Mars robot landers (something far more difficult) didn't happen?
This is a follow-up piece to last week's How to Deal with a Leftist (link below). This went through a dozen different versions before I landed on a Q&A, which seems the clearest way to highlight what's going on here. Comments are open for a bit. Let me know what you think of either piece. And thanks for reading.
https://www.gadflynotes.com/p/how-to-deal-with-a-leftist
Sadly and depressingly spot on. Tribal thinking has become so widespread. Could it be that as national boundaries are eroding, people need to identify with some kind of tribe and the internet makes it possible. Or is it the erosion of Christian values? Then there’s the slow indoctrination that’s been happening in the west via the Frankfurt School and the Fabian Society both of which want to destroy western democracies, values and culture. People want something to believe in and are currently scrabbling around to find a tribe amongst all the chaos. Unfortunately it would seem that too many educated people have lost the ability to think critically and are choosing the tribe that shouts the loudest. I can only think that they’re basically cowards.
I loved the piece from last week. I used to write comments in the Guardian during the Brexit debate and thoroughly enjoyed winding up all the emerging wokerati.
Thanks, TT. I agree – it’s probably a mix of all the things you mention. The erosion of Christian values, especially, tends to get overlooked in Europe and the UK.
I still worry more about the progressive-left variety because it’s been so successful at capturing institutions and the education system, which is where so much of the groupthink starts. But the backlash is a worry too.
As for comment sections, I’ve been called a communist and a fascist on Substack and elsewhere. Ha, what a world.
I completely agree, the left has gone insane - and I speak as an ex leftie. Now I try to think in terms of right and wrong rather than left/right.
There was always going to be a backlash when you think of how bad the left has become. We can only hope that common sense will eventually prevail which is where most of ‘the plebs’ are…..although Starmer and the EU are doing their best to shut us all up.
The only difference I can see between communists and fascists is that communists convince themselves they’re doing good, fascists don’t care as long as they get what they want. Can’t see you in either role!
Haha, yeah. If I have one constant, it's that I can't bear fanatics of any stripe. Not that I'm a centrist either (so often the problem).
"Now I try to think in terms of right and wrong rather than left/right." That's a very good way to think about it.
Outstanding piece and one of the best I've read on this subject. Highly recommend Ben Shapiro's recent TPUSA speech where he takes Carlson, Owens and others aprt. Very satisfying.
Thank you. Yes, Ben Shapiro – spot on. One of the sanest voices out there right now.
The woke left movement certainly warrants a backlash. It’s weird and dystopian and is designed to turn everything on its head. Civilisation could not continue if we were all woke lefties. So, we need to keep up the momentum, but keep it sensible. Fortunately, I believe Carlson and Owens are the exception. Unfortunately, they do have a huge following.
Researching this piece, I was struck by how extreme some of this has become – a genuine strain of fascism bubbling away beneath the surface of some parts of the right.
Of course, the left’s constant overuse of the term "fascism" has largely robbed the word of its power. Fools.
Fools indeed. We brush it off by claiming, ‘We are all fascists now’ - except some of us actually are!
Excellent article Frederick I was looking forward to this and it didn't disappoint. Spot on! As for the causes of the woke right you could say they're similar to the origins of the woke left and the pendulum swings the other way. Trust lies at the root of it and many people no longer trust a lot of things they used to. Both sides are concerned with power - one the imagined demons that attack their intersectional victims the other the power of the elites. We have come full circle haven't we when both Chomsky and Carlson support Putin. As you rightly say the boring work is the key work like checking the facts and applying rational arguments. Just because democracy appears to have failed us doesn't mean we must slide into authoritarianism as the alternative.
I'm no fan of some of these things happening on the Right, but with due respect, the Right did not "go woke." To fall to using this term to describe the phenomena you cite is to drain *wokeism* of its specificity. Wokeism is a left-wing movement and what is happening on some corners of the Right, though one can make parallels, is not the same thing. Worse, to employ this usage is to weaken your stance against wokeism.
Let's trace wokeism to post-structuralist, late Frankfurt-School-inspired leftism in the universities. That's correct. Let's keep focused on its enthusiasm for censorship and social engineering--as part and parcel of a Left project. Do these "woke" figures you see on the Right have any relationship to that tradition? Do they favor censorship? Are they utopians?
That they fall into conspiratorial thinking isn't woke. That they're kneejerk and contrarian also isn't woke. Such tendencies have happened before. Long before "wokeism."
We need to respect the specificity of terms, otherwise we foster thinking as sloppy as what we see on the emotivist woke Left.
Please think about it, Frederick. Again, with due respect.
This was from some time back, but he's still right in his assessment:
https://www.theblaze.com/columns/opinion/meet-the-schmucks-trying-to-kneecap-the-anti-woke-alliance
Fair enough , but:
Surely the “excess” is tautology It’s woke which is by definition reality denying excess. “The backlash to woke excess was inevitable and justified.”
All or almost all novel things the liberal establishment tell one are lies.
Winston C /Israel being bad guy is to agree with progressive left which is weird.
There is zero possibility that man landed on the moon. The technology did not exist to allows it to happen and it would be an enormous challenge even now which is presumably why no one repeats the exercise when the capacity to verify whether/not it is achieved exists.
The most that can be said about the manned Moon landings is that it is difficult to see how such a thing happened given the state of technology at the time. I think that they did happen, but there is an element of doubt, partly fuelled by the observation about no repeats since 1972. I am willing to have my mind changed by evidence - are you?
Is there a similar collection of theories claiming that the Mars robot landers (something far more difficult) didn't happen?
It hasn't happened again since 1972 because it was a tremendously expensive pissing contest with no economic benefit.