Note: Behind the green door is a post about Star Trek, a post about the Bud Light imbroglio and the Sunday podcast. You can sign up for a green door account at SubscribeStar or Substack.
A small debate on-line was kicked off by this post from the venerable Paul Gottfried regarding the topic of Wokism. Gottfried pointed out that it is an error to confuse this new ideology with Marxism. While many of the thinkers who laid the groundwork for what we presently call Wokism were Marxists or came out of the Marxist intellectual space, this new ideology is not Marxism. Marxism and Wokism operate in separate intellectual domains and traditions.
This did not sit well with those in the bourgeoning industry that revolves around verbal antagonism toward Wokism. James Lindsay felt it necessary to call Paul Gottfried an idiot while dismissing his post entirely. Lindsay makes his living these days peddling the idea that Wokism is “Marxist-Fascism” which is completely nuts, but it appears that he has been driven insane in his effort to make sense of the material within post-Marx culturalism that informs this new ideology.
It needs to be said that Paul Gottfried’s dog probably knows more about this topic than Lindsay will ever know. Given Gottfried’s connection to Frankfurt School theorist Herbert Marcuse, he is as close as we get to an expert on the forerunners of this new ideology gripping the minds of the ruling class. Gottfried is also a world-renowned expert on fascism as an intellectual concept. Paul can be an idiot like everyone else, but on this topic, he knows more than most.
That said, there is a tendency of people on what we call the Right to engage in the same binary thinking we see with the people we call the Left. That means playing the old game of linguistic guilt by association. Since Lindsay’s intended audience has been trained to hear “Marxism” and “Fascism” as scare words, he associates Wokism with those two words to stimulate his audience. Wokism, Marxism and Fascism just mean “bad” to the people in that scene.
On the other hand, there is a segment of the civic nationalist space that insists everything can be reduced to money and power. Their theory is that the people with all of the money and power are doing this Wokism thing because they want even more money and power. In other words, there is no reason to think too much about these novel cultural fads. The people behind them do not really believe that destroying whiteness leads to the promised land.
There is another camp that has chimed in on this topic, mostly in response to those who chant about liberalism being the only antidote to Wokism. The claim from this camp is that liberalism or some aspect of liberalism, like individualism, is responsible for the phenomena we call Wokism. Some say Wokism is just the full expression of liberalism, while others say liberalism is the manure that fertilized Wokism. Either way, this weird new ideology is the result of Western liberalism.
There is an interesting contrast here with the Hazony camp, who argue that Wokism is just a new form of collectivism. He says the antidote to this collective ideology is nationalism, which he defines as a collective defense of the tradition, culture, and history of a people. Those blaming liberalism, however, think the answer is a dictator acting on behalf of the people to defend their traditions, culture, and history. Put another way, the answer is either “good” nationalism or “bad” nationalism.
The result of this debate is a muddled picture of Wokism that mostly serves as a platform for whatever is being promoted as an alternative. They all agree that Wokism is bad, but they do not agree on what it is or why it exists. Everyone agrees that the 20th century was a disaster, giving birth to this bizarre mind virus called Wokism, yet everyone agrees we have to go back to the 20th century to reanimate one of the dead ideologies, but which one is the point of contention.
Interestingly, there is little attention to the word “woke” and why it became the preferred label of the people in this new ideology. The generally accepted explanation for the term is that it broke out of black politics into the broader Left as shorthand for being aware of the reality of the system. That reality was oppression, first in the name of white society, but then in the name of the abstract concept of whiteness. Awareness of the reality behind this false reality is what it means to be woke.
Not only is there nothing Marxist about the origins of the term, but there is also nothing liberal about it either. If anything, the root is paranoia and delusion. To be woke is to dismiss reality as a trick by white people. You must substitute your own reality, your lived experience, as it were, for the false reality. This is the sort of thinking that used to be associated with conspiracy theories. At essence, Wokism is simply awareness of the great conspiracy that lies behind reality.
This strikes most people as insane, but there is a logic to it. The core assumptions of the people we call the Left are egalitarianism and the blank slate. They assume that all people come into this world with the same potential. People are shaped by family life, society, and experience. The great variation we see in people is due to these social forces molding people during their life. You are a product of your environment, which means inequality is the result of those social forces.
Obviously, if some people benefit from the rules and others suffer, then there must be a reason for the rules benefiting one group over another. From a black identity perspective, this is a much better answer than biology. The condition of blacks in America is no longer a product of biological reality and instead the result of a system that harms them to the benefit of white people. This not only justifies questioning the system, but it also justifies attacking the system.
Of course, this framing can work for any identity group, real or imagined, that views themselves as oppressed. Anti-Semites use the same logic to explain why Jews run the world, despite being a tiny minority. Reality itself is a part of the great trick being played upon the oppressed. The people behind this false reality use it and their control over the systems of power to benefit themselves as an oppressor class at the expense of whoever is feeling oppressed at the moment.
This is something the “blame it on Marx” camp has right. Wokeness has borrowed the idea of class conflict and applied it to identity politics. For Marx, the proletariat was the only legitimate class, but for the Woke, every identity group is legitimate, no matter how obscure, except for the oppressor class. This is why white people, especially white males, are not allowed to be “allies” unless they either adopt some novel identity or fully confess their sins as a member of the oppressor class.
Of course, the anti-liberals can point to the business about oppression and claim it comes from liberalism. Liberalism has always conceded that coercion is a necessary part of every society. The goal of politics should be to reduce coercion, which is the argument for both popular government and cooperative government. Taken to its logical conclusion, the goal should be a society free of coercion, which by definition is a society that is free of all oppression.
Wokism would amount to nothing more than bourgeois decadence if not for the fact that rich white people are acting on it. Striking the radical pose has been around since the birth of the American empire. Things like black identity politics or novel sexual movements have always been popular with the bourgeois radical, but it never amounted to much in terms of policy. What is new is that it is aggressively embraced by the ruling class, which should fall into the oppressor bucket.
That is the key to understanding the reality of Wokism. Why all of a sudden are oligarchs investing in things like Black Lives Matter, which raked in billions and did nothing but set cities on fire? Why is the Secretary of State lecturing Saudi Arabia on their intolerance of crossdressers? America puts the sodomite flag up on its embassies during homosexual month. We now have months dedicated to various identity groups, real and imagined.
In this regard, the reductionists are correct in that this new ideology does something for the people embracing it. They get something from it. The reductionists are wrong, however, in assuming it gets them money and power. They have money and power, so the last thing they should want is to undermine the system that provides them with all of the money and power. They are getting something from this new way of thinking, but it is not the stuff they already possess to excess.
That is the key to understanding Wokism. It is not so much what it is but what it does for the people who embrace it. For the managerial elite, it provides a sense of legitimacy to their place atop the social hierarchy. For the climbers dreaming of a perch at the top and those who gain satisfaction aping those at the top, it provides an ever-changing set of cultural fashions. Primarily, Wokism provides a way to distinguish who is inside and who is outside the dominant social group.
This is why you see the convert-adherent dynamic within Wokism. For some people, delving into the esoteric thought that underlies Wokism is a revelation that cuts them off from their old life and sets them off into a new life. For most, it is just the thing they need to do to operate within their social class. These are the adherents. They are often the most aggressive at enforcing the moral code because they connect it with their own standing inside their social class.
Of course, all elites have two primary concerns. One is the peasant revolt and the other is the palace coup. Wokism provides a defense against the former by putting the peasants on their backfoot, always defending themselves against an evolving set of moral codes that violate their sense of decency. Like the corporate HR department, Wokism is always ready for a new initiative to change the culture by preventing the people from discussing the current culture.
The other side of Wokism is it enforces discipline withing the managerial elite by demanding the converts and adherent focus on the moral code. Those people with Ukraine flags on their Twitter profile used to have a syringe and before that a mask and before that a BLM badge. From the entry level to the C-suites, the managerial class spends more time keeping track of the current thing than they do in performing whatever task they are assigned in the system.
This is not as much of a novelty as it seems. In the court of Louis XIV, the people in Versailles often participated in humiliation rituals. A part of who they were was their willingness to degrade themselves. It is an elite version of the Theodore Dalrymple observation about communist societies and political correctness. “A society of emasculated liars is easy to control.” Wokism provides a necessary enforcement mechanism to maintain elite solidarity.
What Wokism does is fill the role of religion for the ruling elite. If you go back and examine the language of abolitionists or New Deal reformers, you will find that the language is not particularly different from the language of Wokism. The main difference is the overt references to God and Christian morality. It is not hard to imagine the grievance studies departments singing a Woke version of the Battle Hymn of the Republic before every staff meeting.
Every elite needs a sense of legitimacy. This is what authorizes their use of force to coerce the people into compliance. “Because we can” is never enough. Elites must operate from “because we must” and Wokism not only provides the moral force behind their actions but justifies their position at the top. Their commitment to these social causes, to the liberation of man from the human condition, is proof that they deserve their position at the top, as leaders of the people.
Finally, we are left with the question of why this ridiculous collection of beliefs has filled the elite’s need for an organizing purpose. One reason is timing. The radicals that fled Europe in the middle of the last century arrived when the elite of the new American empire was in need of a new organizing ethos. Protestantism was no longer a good fit as Jews took up positions in the managerial elite. A new elite needed a new ideology, and the new radicalism was there to supply that need.
The necessity of the Cold War, however, limited the growth of this new religion among the elites, as the threat of nuclear war required serious men. When the fate of the world is on the line, you cannot afford to humor the man in a dress. Of course, the conflict with the Soviets provided all the required villains for the ruling class. In fact, a radical complaint in the Cold War was that anti-communism sucked all of the air out of the room, leaving no space for the new ideas.
The end of the Cold War removed that constraint. It also left a void in the ruling elite that what we now call Wokism was ready to fill. Now that we have reached the end of history, the ruling elite of the empire could get on with the project of liberating mankind from the oppression and unfairness of the human condition. Wokism is the new religion of this new ruling elite that exists to liberate humanity. From the war on Islam to the current war on Russia, Wokism is about freeing the world.
Many have noted that Wokism sounds like Gnosticism. That is because embedded in human experience is the desire to transcend this life. That sense becomes acute for those who rise to the top of society. If you possess God-like power over your fellow man, why not take the final step? Our managerial elite embraces Wokism because it promises to give them power over the human condition. When you can turn boys into girls, you have become a god.
In the end, this is where most of the critics of Wokism fall short. They cannot accept that vagueness as the answer. They insist that the Woke know why they believe what they believe or that they know it is all nonsense. None of this matters. Beliefs exist because they serve a purpose. For our present elites, Wokism fills a need, so they do not have to think about the logic behind it. If the time comes when Wokism stops filling the needs of the elite, they get a new religion, or we get a new elite.
If you like my work and wish to kick in a few bucks, you can buy me a beer. You can sign up for a SubscribeStar subscription and get some extra content. You can donate via PayPal. My crypto addresses are here for those who prefer that option. You can send gold bars to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 432 Cockeysville, MD 21030-0432. Thank you for your support!
Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. The Pepper Cave produces exotic peppers, pepper seeds and plants, hot sauce and seasonings. Their spice infused salts are a great add to the chili head spice armory.
Above Time Coffee Roasters are a small, dissident friendly company that roasts its own coffee and ships all over the country. They actually roast the beans themselves based on their own secret coffee magic. If you like coffee, buy it from these folks as they are great people who deserve your support.
Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start.
Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link. If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb. Just email them directly to book at
sa***@mi*********************.com
.
Wokism is just another word meaning ‘bien pensant’. A bunch of uncritically accepted, fashionable views for the low IQ.
IQ has nothing to do with it. Plenty of high IQ people go with whatever is trendy and gives status. And plenty of lower IQ people have the common sense to reject beliefs that are divorced from reality.
What Marxists and Frankfort School cultural Marxists have in common is that they recognize the importance of governing cities. Marxists believed in an urban revolutionary class that would rise with the rise of factories and industry, and did in fact for over a century, but automation eventually diminished the power of this class. Cultural Marxists simply pick up where class consciousness Marxists left, making a new urban revolutionary class out of r-selected degenerates who are kept fed by those mostly automated factories, and the empire. Both types of Marxists despise the rural suburban/conservative conservative. Cultural Marxists are clowns compared to… Read more »
“In the court of Louis XIV, the people in Versailles often participated in humiliation rituals. A part of who they were was their willingness to degrade themselves.”
This reminded me of a charming little book of Graham Greene’s: _Dr. Fisher of Geneva or The Bomb Party_.
A rich industrialist in Switzerland gives parties where he humiliates his guests, who are themselves rich, famous, elite types (movie stars, financiers, generals) who willingly submit.
They made a pretty nice movie of it too, with Alan Bates and James Mason. Wish I could find it.
Wokism in liberal democracy has formed in the same manner Protestantism appeared in Christianity or Wahhabism in Islam, it started as a status signifier for the upper-middle strata, eager to be distinguished from the low classes. Not wielding real power, but being status-conscious, their only avenue for societal progression higher is ethical purity spiral, within the the said religious and societal framework. If the critical mass is reached, real elites will adopt it too, or will be swept by the tide. However, Wokism is intrinsically linked to NW Europeans and the human& technological capital they produced and once it’s spent,… Read more »
The black mayor of New York just published a statement about meat and dairy products causing climate change. You’ll never convince me blacks or Hispanics buy any of that crap, or care about gays or trannies. It’s the white liberals and Jews in power who have become possessed by this new religion and the POCs are just falling in line to keep their jobs. Also, for those of you outside of the religious circles, both churches I attend refer to wokeism as demon possession and satan deceiving the country. They don’t talk about commies or marxists, it’s just all satan.… Read more »
Z makes a strong case that the genesis of woke isn’t as simplistic as the various factions of the right would like it to be. However, there is one major driving force behind woke in white countries that he didn’t dwell on: university educated young white women. Woke is a great fit for female psychology: 1. They love hysteria & every woke current thing is sold as a hysteria. If we don’t stop cows from farting and start eating bugs, we will all die! 2. Women are very in tune w/ the current fashions whether shoes or politics 3. Being… Read more »
PS just look at the woke protests and you will see a disproportionate number of young white women and girls
Spot on. Woke is largely a phenomenon of politically empowered white women.
Women in general are the core of Leftism, Progressivism, and Perpetual Rebellion.
Well, you made it!
Top, Front and center at Zerohedge today. Tuesday
Why Bud Went Broke.
Devoted to your Twitter piece.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2023-04-17/why-anheuser-busch-went-woke
Did it really go broke, though? It lost some money, but I don’t see a Chapter 7 or 11 in its near future. Plus, like the idiot Cringeshaw, they will “stick it to Bud” by drinking Karbach or one if its other affiliated brands. I would be ecstatic to see them really feel pain. Some brands are a little more susceptible to the woke/broke risk (e.g., Black Riffle Coffee), but AB seems pretty robust and is much more established. And while AB’s products are mediocre, BRCC is simply bad. If not for its Vet grift, they would hardly sell at… Read more »
This is nothing but psychological warfare tactics, undermine and destroy other tribes
Any tribe accepts docile idea such as communism, feminism, anti-racism will be an easy prey for the other tribe
Han Chinese and Other Asian don’t accept those ideas, they only accept western technology and claim it that they created it
Smart move compared to white people
Who’s sucker now?
For me, the “real simple” understanding of Wokism is Allyship:
“We are the Allies of the Oppressed Peoples fighting against the White Oppressors.”
Note that the Oppressed Peoples can be anyone, from the workers to the transgenders. And We Allies are here to help! And unless We Allies are here to help it’s the end of the world as we know it.
Being woke means reality doesn’t matter. A 110 pound woman can beat up a squad of black ops dudes. Blacks are brilliant and gentle. Boys are girls and girls are boys. So now everyone can be anything.
“Being woke means reality doesn’t matter.”
^^^ nailed it.
I see that others have mentioned this a few times already in the comments, but I will state it with annoying economy: Wokism is an attack on traditional whites. Full stop. It is not Marxism. It is not Cultural Marxism. It is not Gnosticism. It is an attack on traditional whites perpetrated by those who hate us and those whom they can incentivize. If you find yourself saying that wokism is Cultural Marxism then ask yourself, after you’ve noted that Marx politicized class and the woke politicize every identity, why all this machinery is only aimed at whites. Because wokism… Read more »
I can’t believe no one has gone here yet: What is woke? Baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me, no more….
I was going more with: What is [woke]? What’s [woke] today might become passe’. And sometimes wokeness is what it ain’t.
Chiming in late but this but I think the birth of Woke basically went this way: “Wokism” coalesced on microblog sites like Tumblr in the late-2000-aughts, when young white women started getting on (umm poisoning) the internet with smart-phones, and had fully manifested by the early 2000teens. Wokeism is feminism+misplaced nurturing instincts, which sprung from the idea of the “intersectionality” of politics. It isn’t just an attack on white people. It is an attack from a lot of vectors against straight, white, often Christian, and “generally conservative”, men. It is unfortunately led by white millennial women. In a sense it… Read more »
It’s not LED by white millennial women. C’mon…
White women are one of the most approval hungry, conformist groups that you can find. They rarely lead anything. Maybe they lead the temperance movement. Maybe.
I’m not white knighting. As I said, women in general have far less ability to think independently.
I think “led” can mean different things. It’s not “led” in a top-down, organizational sense. It is led in the sense that white women are the “true believers”, the zealots. The rank and file. But it isn’t top-down. It’s more organic than that. Like the “Borg”, hiveminded. “Woke” is led by white women, but not by “a white woman”. I can’t point to any one woman and say, “she’s the leader.” I can’t even offer a list of names of “women in leadership positions”. That’s because women do not work that way. They move together like migrating birds in a… Read more »
Not so much led by them as in being it s progenitor, as much as they are its shock troops, tip of the spear, vanguard pointed in that direction by others.
Wokism is Biological Leninism. Nothing else needs to be said.
I assume everyone here knows what Biological Leninism is. If you don’t, then read all three parts of this:
https://spandrell.com/2017/11/14/biological-leninism/
Required reading for new dissidents.
Totally. Woke puts perverts and obese mental defectives in middle management power over the peasants when their rightful position is in cages at circus freakshows, so they’re fanatically loyal to the woke state.
You’re constructing a needlessly complicated ediface of theory, possibly to avoid talking about the groups that are directing the attack.
It’s not a complicated edifice, it’s a very simple idea.
Summarized: It will always be easier to make a political army out of losers and defectives.
That’s why it’s important to understand this idea. It’s an optimized political strategy that won’t ever go away. You can fight it, but you can’t go back to a time before it was invented. It’s a permanent part of the world now.
As for the group directing the attacks, talk about them as much as you want. But it’s still important to understand how their army of spiteful mutants is mobilized.
One of the reasons this term never got traction is it does not make a lot of sense. It is no different from Lindsay calling it Marxist-Fascism. Bio-Leninism is just the use of a scare word. The originator admits that upfront. The bigger problem is it relies on a total misreading of Marxism and the Bolsheviks.
If it’s a misunderstanding of how the Bolsheviks took power I’d love to hear more about it. I’m no exert in that period, but what I know matches the theory nicely. I’ll’ just quote the original essay that defined the term. This is what is meant by ‘Leninism’: “Leninism is, of course, applied socialism. … [ two papragraphs omitted here ] … Socialism works only because it promises higher status to a lot of people. Socialism is catnip because it promises status to people who, deep down, know they shouldn’t have it. There is such a thing as natural law,… Read more »
Jim Goad called it Passover Syndrome although clearly, the faster growing contingent of the wokeatarian church shows up primarily out of material motivation to exploit the more desperate/flighty members, rather than just praying together in the support-group aspect. A better term is Abstract Antiwhiteness, AA for short. Something I see leftists learning belatedly, long out of college, is that echt Marxism is very white. The brands of Mao and Mengistu types masquerading under Marxism were already really stretching the concept, and this was apparent at the time. Naipaul’s “Michael X and the Killings in Trinidad” gives you a sense of… Read more »
The confused discussion as to whether wokism is fascism, democracy or Marxism is an indication that the intellectual and ideological crisis of Europe a century ago have never been adequately resolved. The Second World War was a ideological conflict within industrialized, developed white society. All three of these ideologies — fascism, liberal democracy, and Marxism — were democratic, totalitarian movements that claimed universal authority in the name of “The People.” The central question was this: how will postmodern technology and economic development be used on behalf of “The People”? Democracy and Marxism claimed a universal, borderless mandate (i.e., “The Universal… Read more »
Economic development may be an enabling factor, but it’s not a causal one. Since all of us here benefited from that too. I’d narrow it down from there to sense of entitlement, lack of gratitude, presumption of abundance, and in many cases mental illness. A psychological phenomenon that, for the believer, finds expression in the political.
wokism is weimar 2.0, US took the frankfurt school people from germany & brought them to America to educate the masses. Nazis were literally burning tranny books, it’s the same shit all over again.
wokism is what happens when there’s no king or dictator to put a leash on the Tribe (or kick them out), it’s that simple.
OT: Zman, you got a big mention on a Zerohedge article today! Is that a good thing for you?
Gotta link?
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2023-04-17/why-anheuser-busch-went-woke
down the page a bit
Somebody’s gonna be trouble at Zerohedge.
The right does seem to be obsessed with the Frankfurt School. But the real intellectual guiding light of modern cultural thought in the Universities is the late Italian/Catholic thinker Antonio Gramsci. His prison notebooks were translated, edited and collected for publication by the late Joseph A. Buttigieg, Professor of Humanities at Notre Dame. Dr. Buttigieg’s only son, Pete, is credited in the forward to Gramsci’s works with helping in this task. Pete Buttigieg is the current Secretary of Transportation in the Biden administration and has been groomed for high office since he was a young lad. Mr. Buttigieg is also… Read more »
Surprise, surprise that the formerly magical, now holy negro is a primary root cause of this current insanity. Add in various other coloreds and sexual deviants to complete the rot. It’s hard to understand why the White race has chosen to basically commit suicide over the over the past century. First with two industrial slaughterfests and now enthusiastically inundating their lands and people with worldwide sludge – and elevating that sludge to boot. The future is looking pretty damn dark, both literally and figuratively…
The BLM movement really got going in 2014, organized, I believe, by the community organizer in chief. But its embrace by the rest of the wokosphere is due to the factor I posted below. The dirt people being perceived to be racist and homophobic, the woke thus had to put on a black and gay face.
Commit suicide? No. Being MURDERED. And currently we are too polite and civil to do much about it.
Eventually these niceties will have to go.
I see the tranny-freak movement we have today as an anti-eucharist in the profane new state religion. Maybe this should have been obvious a long time ago. The symbolism they chose is certainly not subtle. My secular humanism blinded me to the possibility. What religion would appeal to those with such power and the towering pride and arrogance it must instill?
So-called “wokism” is nothing more than 1960s New Left radicalism at its most fevered pitch. All of this BLM and anti-whiteness garbage is simply the Weather Men and the Black Panthers writ large. Pro-sexual deviance movements, too, were springing up in the early 70s. Contemporary tranny madness is merely the current stage of those movements. Naturally, there is an ideological underpinning to the New Left (Woke), but it is not Marxism, liberalism or even the Frankfurt School. It is postmodernism, or more accurately, poststructuralism. Briefly put, the pomos argue that language, which does not actually signify the real world accurately,… Read more »
“that different linguistic/cultural groups live distinct realities that cannot be accurately understood by people in other linguistic/cultural groups. And because of this cultural incommensurability, there can be no overarching standard to judge the comparative merits of these groups.” I agree. I believe the Nazis agreed. That’s why the Nazis talked about things like “Aryan science” and “Jewish science.” I don’t think it was a rejection of objective reality per se, but it was a statement that different groups have their own internal logics and interests. Thus, it’s conquered or be conquered and peace is NOT an option. Hard to argue… Read more »
The Nazis borrowed a great deal from Nietzsche, Bataille and Heidegger, and so have the pomos. And it’s hardly surprising then, that we see distinct indicators of fascism in today’s Power Structure. But the pomos aren’t interested in separation. Their only goal is the elimination of Western civilization, and perhaps the white race as well. Inclusion–one leg of the DIE triad–is a key weapon for achieving those goals.
You’ll need some citations for that. Heidegger was a Nazi in 1933, but the idea that the Nazis “borrowed” from him is incorrect. He spent his Nietzsche lectures (1935 onward) couching criticism of the regime in careful terms. No Nazi spoke of “Being and Time” in any of their propaganda, nor does the existential analytic of Dasein lend itself to political activity in any concrete sense. As for Bataille — he wrote an essay in 1937 denouncing the Nazis as fascists: http://i.a.m.free.fr/acephale/nietzsheetlesfascistes.html It is simply absurd and utterly moronic to claim that Heidegger and Bataille had any influence upon Naziism… Read more »
What’s worse is that you believe these writers wrote with the intention of eliminating white people. In Heidegger’s case, this is simply so far from the truth that there’s no place to start in correcting you. It’s hopeless to even try. If you got to this point in life with that sort of thought, nothing is going to dislodge it.
Carefully couched, indeed! So much so that it hardly counted as criticism of the regime. Additionally, Being and Time was not Heidegger’s only work. That Nazis were not quoting it hardly means they didn’t have recourse to other Heidegger. Likewise, Bataille’s denunciation of the Nazis hardly means they weren’t sympathetic to his philosophy. In point of fact, the atavistic warrior-culture features of Bataille’s work meshed seamlessly with Aryanism. Indeed, the identity is so close that one would be a fool to think the Nazis handn’t lifted it, at least partially, from Bataille. And as for moronism, I dare say you… Read more »
As for Heidegger desiring to eliminate white people, are you really that obtuse? Nowhere did I remotely make that claim. Much more modestly, I noted that Heidegger was a fascist–much like Hitler who, I believe, didn’t not wish to liquidate the white race, either–that there are elements of fascism in political postmodernism, and that a great many (most?) postmodern theorists admired and admire Heidegger. That Heidegger had no brief with the white race hardly means that later postmodernists don’t either. For a bloke who pretends to be a philosopher of sorts, your grasp of logic is shaky, indeed.
“Separation seems more humane to me”
This exactly. A safe space for every race. Who could object to such a nice thing?
Excellent as always on Pomo, Ostei. Pierre Bourdieu is the figure I see as most relevant as this transitions (heh) from fashion to state religion. The Critical Legal Theory conferences in the UK in the Seventies before Bordieu overturned the applecart in France were more the incubators for all this madness even more than was the Frankfurt School.
As an aside, I don’t know whether their professed belief about language is genuine, but the Pomos hammered it into a highly effective weapon of mass destruction.
Complete misreading of that whole subject
Frankfurt school had institutional backing, as did the French intellectuals..
You might also look at citations of various academics in acaemic papers as a useful metric for who and what drove this rot through the universities.
Yeah, I’m a big fan of Ostei’s but I think he missed it here.
Wrong. The influence of Horkheimer, Adorno and Marcuse combined was brief, and didn’t match that of Foucault by himself. In fact, Adorno and Horkheimer rejected the student radicals, calling them leftwing fascists, before 1970, and Horkheimer even became something of a conservative later in life. Marcuse was the only Frankfurter with any legs, so to speak, and he is no longer a factor whereas the entire pomo corpus is stronger than ever.
Okay, thanks for clarifying about the history. I guess my point was that the Pomos (as you call them) would have gotten minimal traction in academia without Marcuse as a precursor. Maybe we can agree to disagree here.
I also agree with you about your analysis of the Pomo movement re language. That said, I think everyone since Wittgenstein onwards in traditional philosophy has rejected the “private language” construct of the Pomos. So there’s no “discourse” with people if they speak a private language.
@Captain Willard, my response was to Didier, not you. I would never be that testy with you.
“different linguistic/cultural groups live distinct realities that cannot be accurately understood by people in other linguistic/cultural groups” Oddly, I tend to agree with this. People don’t understand though that this DEMANDS a commitment to total dominance over the “other” groups. Our ancestors understood this intuitively and projected the kind of naked force needed to achieve and project dominance. Our society will succumb to the lesser groups it has glorified because they also understand this intuitively while being too stupid to grasp the academic philosophies of pomo. Glenfilthie has a post further down that sums this up too. The view from… Read more »
“Jojo” Rosenbaum was not a tribesman despite the common Jewish name. Don’t forget that one of mustache man’s henchmen was named Alfred Rosenberg.
Despite many Jews having these Jewish names some people with those names are in fact of German origin.
Jews having German names, I meant to say
Somewhat OT, last week I attended a regional planning meeting, spoke to a fellow attendee of some local influence outside as we were leaving. A boomer, this man. He said we can’t stop the changes, only influence them a little. Nearby, a crew was tearing up railroad tracks to convert the right-of-way to rail-trail. I said I bet in a few years they’re laying down tracks again, because if we’re going to pick fights with China, we’re going to have to re-industrialize. He was bemused (You can’t do that. Norfolk Southern is forfeiting the right-of-way. It’s gone for good). Never… Read more »
Paintersforms – “He was bemused (You can’t do that. Norfolk Southern is forfeiting the right-of-way. It’s gone for good)”.
I know something about railroad law and it is exceedingly rare that railroads ever abandon a line segment permanently. RRs almost always will “rail-bank” a line which means they have the right to take it back to rebuild it if they have a need to do so (usually a large industrial development project like a vehicle assembly plant, intermodal yard, etc). So your boomer friend probably doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
Interesting! I don’t know either tbh, far as I know it’s a public park now, but I do know it wouldn’t take much to restore the tracks.
Kind of like the houses built in the last 25 years or so. Wouldn’t take much to make cornfields again.
Kind of makes me wonder if it’s not accidental the new development is throwaway.
“While many of the thinkers who laid the groundwork for what we presently call Wokism were Marxists or came out of the Marxist intellectual space, this new ideology is not Marxism. Marxism and Wokism operate in separate intellectual domains and traditions.” ————————————————– “Lindsay makes his living these days peddling the idea that Wokism is “Marxist-Fascism” which is completely nuts….” —————————————————- Well maybe I am nuts too, Z. Gawd knows these perverts, lefties and turd brains drive me insane too. Other than you I don’t know any of the personalities involved, but it sounds unfair to write Lindsay off as an… Read more »
Lindsay is making passionate arguments about leftists being unreasonable about a decade after everyone else already figured it out.
Wokeism as we know it today doesn’t exist without Donald Trump’s victory in 2016. The disparate elements of it have been around for a long time, some of them a very long time, but they didn’t coalesce into a whole, into a movement, into a thing with a name, until Trump won. It was upon his election that this kicked into high gear and clown world was born. The common thread of the various elements of Wokeism is that they are things the practitioner of Wokeism is sure that the dirt people Trump supporters are against. That’s it. That’s the… Read more »
Trump just flushed it to the surface, I think. All of the items you listed had floated around for some time; Critical Legal Theory, the father of Critical Race Theory, had been around more than half a century (it actually does have roots in Marxism). Critical Race Theory itself had been a thing at least a decade prior to Trump. Transgenderism initially appeared as a new way to virtue signal immediately after the Supreme Court sacralized gay marriage–some think it was a political ploy to keep the sexuality train running. The Green stuff was gaining steam by the late Eighties.… Read more »
First they asked us to be tolerant. That was a pretty long time ago.
Then they asked us to embrace. Now they demand that we celebrate. Or else…
There is a local libertardian talk host on the AM here. I tried to explain the slippery slope going on about the time of gay marriage, but he would have none of it. “Oh they love each other and it doesn’t affect me.” Claims to be in Mensa. Still a tard.
The run-of-the-mill jogger shooting in Lagos doesn’t “affect” Z-Man or other DR types living in that benighted burg, but being forced to live in proximity to a violent race of people does.
In the same way, two random ankle scratchers playing house doesn’t directly affect me, but living in a modern day Sodom does.
Most non-Mensa types understand these concepts.
Wokism or proto-Wokism has been around a lot longer than a decade. Political correctness (PC) was an early, inchoate form of Wokism. PC dates back to at least the end of the Cold War in the the early 1990s. One major difference between 1990s era PC and today’s Woke ideology is that PC ideology was mostly limited to college campuses, Hollywood, or the most liberal areas of left wing cities. PC was not the seemingly omnipresent miasma that suffuses the entire culture today, as is the case with Wokist agitprop.
This morning I was reading the December, 1979 issue of the National Lampoon. In the (fictional) letters section was this:
Sirs:
I am a gay, black, Jewish, nonsmoking, female civil servant with a law degree, and if you don’t think I have it made, you’re nuts.
Eva McKinley-Roth
New York, NY
This was penned in the 70’s!
“Wokeness” is hardly something new under the sun. Most people don’t understand that.
I entered both college and the “real world” during the PC phase of the cultural apocalypse (that must ever be renamed).
In college it was a set of social rules, shibboleths, unquestionable axioms, and a hall of saints—the religion of the “thinking” class, a new American theology. Fittingly, Theology, then recently renamed Religious Studies, was the most PC department.
In the corporate *and* the normal business world, the PC I found there was a rigidly enforced dominance hierarchy—an explicit program of division, indoctrination, discipline, spying and selling out.
Academic PC is not genetically dominant.
You can trace the roots of every ghastly thing presently occurring to academia. The dreadful ideas are incubated and hatched there, and are then disseminated throughout society by college graduates. The effects of this happening for roughly half a century are all around us.
Trump terrified them because he was a true shock to the inevitability of history of which they were on the right side. This galvanized them, into wokeness.
The severity of that shock cannot be overstated. Only a few hours before, they were smugly, sneeringly, 100% sure we were on our way to the inevitable progressive utopia. They still, to this day, have not recovered from the shock. I don’t know if they can.
Absolutely. Trump’s election sometimes is cited as the reason Woke came into being, but all the elements were already there. I think it accelerated things that would have happened anyway, but, yeah, the shock never will go away.
I agree. If you were ever witness to any day in Berkeley or any protest in the Bay Area, or an Organic Food fest in the Bay Area and talked to a black person who worked at Glide Church, it was all there. Mush it up with Wall St. needing a scapegoat after ’08, Silicon Valley bleeding in from SF/Berkeley/Glide, an extremely organized and pathological black supremacist movement, an, “elite”, that is incredibly poorly educated and very weak and you get woke. I do think Lindsey is bumping around closer to a better picture. Recently he has been naming and… Read more »
Wokism Lite was around long before 2016. It really started going in the 1990s, maybe even a touch before. And, yes, while it has elements of the beautiful people shoving down the throats of dirt people whatever stupid idea they come up with that week, the tenets of Wokism – minority rights and the inclusion of minorities in your society – weren’t just random ideas that popped up. They were put into the PC worldview which later morphed into Wokism by a very powerful group that wanted those ideals integrated into American society, and now is trying to impose those… Read more »
Many American conservatives have a maddening habit of mind-reading. This takes the form of interminable debates over why leftists/progressives are acting in the way they do. It seems as if most commentary these days is devoted to speculation about the contents of other people’s minds, in fact. Being around your average conservative these days is like being around women asking their boyfriends or husbands “what are you thinking? You get that from Marx, right? You’re after power, right? Money?” And while this is occurring, their car is being set on fire. The injection of psychologism — or maybe it’s just… Read more »
The right continuously loses the moral argument, and so retreats to intellectualizing because of the weakness of their gut convictions. It’s all cope.
That they lose he moral argument is simply because hey are defending the status quo, or the status quo of 30 years ago. There is no forward thinking, just navel gazing.
How true. Your observation and also that the Right simply fails to attack with the same vigor/tactics of the Left. Hence the admonition here to “leave one’s virtues at the door”. Case in point, the Gov has recently vetoed a legislative bill to make drag queen shows classified as “adult entertainment” and therefore off limit to children. Her justification is that this law is an unnecessary infringement of parental rights (as if the Left cares). The real issue is not preventing children from seeing such spectacle, but why are “drag queens” so obsessed with performing in front of young children?… Read more »
That is an important point. The laws to prosecute child drag shows already exist. But there is nobody in power willing to enforce them.
Philosophizing is all the right really can do. They have zero real power at this point within anything that matters culturally – government, media, academia, entertainment, religion, industry, finance, you name it. The only power it might have is “sand in the gears” type action and it seems deathly afraid of using it because normie is still too comfortable and it requires a level of organization that would attract Imperial attention.
100% this. You even see it right here in this very set of replies people agonizing over the minutiae of how to quantify it. A religion? A cult? Groupthink? Marxist? Fascist? Postmodern? A collective of grievances? The correct answer is… wait for it… wait for it… Who gives a shit. I’ve made this comparison before and it totally jives with your take on all this: “Conservatives are bringing a psychology manual to a knife fight.” They are attempting to understand, categorize, label, and define. And as you so astutely pointed out, this is while the other side is shanking you,… Read more »
There are those of us who seek to understand the enemy the better to thoroughly annihilate it, once and for all. Nothing cuckish in that.
But you don’t. You don’t even understand Heidegger or Nietzsche.
You need to start again. You believe you know, but you do not. You have the foundation all wrong, which means anything built upon it is faulty as well. You’ll end up annihilating the wrong people.
You don’t understand basic logic, and your reading comprehension is weak. The fact that you misread my posts gives me little confidence that you remotely understand Nietzsche and Heidegger yourself.
Wokism is the new religion of this new ruling elite Wokeism is not a religion. The difference might be small but it is quite important if you want to understand what’s going on. If you have a conversation with an intelligent and honest Christian, he’ll eventually tell you that there is no rational, logical reason to believe in God, that it is a matter of blind faith. The woke might believe in a million preposterous things but xir is utterly convinced that his opinions are based in fact and reason. This difference means that you can de-program the woke, as… Read more »
Maybe it’s best described now as a “cult” rather than “religion”.
Religion is by nature a conservative thing, developed over hundreds if not thousands of years. The old Romans were right in describing Christianity as a “cult” while their pagan rituals were true religion. Nowadays JWs and Mormons are cults. If they survive the test of time, well, God help us, they become religions.
That which survives is worth conserving and celebrating.
“Cult” and “religion” are synonymous in all but scale. The defining quality that separates it from a fad or a mass delusion is a stated belief in the supernatural.
Ask a Christian whether Christianity is a religion and he will tell you yes. Ask a wokester if woke is a religion and he’ll say no, it’s muh science.
“I doubt many (if any) of the actual elite believe in the woke”
What difference does it make if they believe in it or do not believe in it? If God gave you the final, definitive answer as to their state of mind, what would you do with it? What *could* you do with it?
Why do you need to know why a masked man with a gun is standing in your kitchen at 3 a.m. holding your daughter hostage, unless you have chosen to be a philosopher at a moment when the very last thing needed is philosophizing?
What difference does it make if they believe in it or do not believe in it?
That was an aside, but a comment on the theory that the elites actually believe in the current thing because the elites are stupid.
They know very well what they are doing and there will be no insanity pleas accepted at the Truth- and Reconciliation Tribunal.
“If you have a conversation with an intelligent and honest Christian, he’ll eventually tell you that there is no rational, logical reason to believe in God, that it is a matter of blind faith.” This is not quite right. Belief in God Himself as ipsum esse subsistens, as the necessary being, is supremely rational and logical, cf. the Five Ways of St. Thomas Aquinas. The fact that the existence of God is knowable through the natural reason alone is, in fact, part of the doctrine of the faith, so any “intelligent and honest Christian” who suggests otherwise is not only… Read more »
Well said. Thanks.
This is not quite right. Belief in God Himself as ipsum esse subsistens, as the necessary being, is supremely rational and logical, cf. the Five Ways of St. Thomas Aquinas.
He would say that, wouldn’t he?
You can not prove religion with theology.
It’s rational to believe in God because it’s rational to believe in a creator because something cannot come from nothing; let alone the complexity of the universe and life itself.
Beyond that, it’s all a leap of faith.
All we know is that the observable universe was extremely dense and hot at some point in the past. Saying that the universe came from nothing with or without a creator is a big assumption.
By this logic – where did God came from?
“Also, I doubt many (if any) of the actual elite believe in the woke, it’s something they foist upon the great unwashed because they’re trying to stop us from breeding.” Initially the elite used Woke as a tool but over time many themselves came to believe it. In that way, and many others, it is very much a religion. All the necessary elements–the ever present devil, the Divine, the creeds, the whole works–are there. No doubt Woke started as a power grab (and remains one) but in-group pressure and conformity has led to actual belief at the highest levels, which… Read more »
All the necessary elements–the ever present devil, the Divine, the creeds, the whole works–are there.
Except the crucial part: the confession of faith.
Woke is not an organic phenomenon, it’s a designer fad empowered and finances by the actual elite, disseminated by useful idiots and spread by social contagion, like anorexia or bulimia.
“Except the crucial part: the confession of faith.”
Granted, it is evolving and not yet static but we can already see doctrinal outlines, no? The Nicene Creed followed four centuries of Christianity and even then on the peripheries remained nebulous for several more. One claim is Mohammed developed Islam after finding Arabian Christians unable to articulate in a uniform fashion what they believed.
I agree about the control mechanism aspect but almost all previous religions sprung from organic movements that became instruments to obtain and consolidate power. The bulimia analogy is great, btw.
*Woke does have organic antecedents, primarily Critical Legal Theory.
I suppose that could happen but it would require a fundamental qualitative change in the woke doctrine, a disavowal of muh science, something like “it’s true because a unicorn told me”. The core of Christianity is the belief that Jesus was the son of God. The core of woke is that a man can become a woman if he puts on a dress, but if you ask them, there is no miracle involved, nothing supernatural or numinous about it. It’s all muh science, no talking unicorns. And I don’t believe Bill Gates is actually woke, nor that he believes in… Read more »
Hm. Seems my last post got stuck in mod – Z usually gets around to it, so be patient.
Even if the woke claim critical theory ancestry, they don’t go woke by reading Marcuse, they go woke because their (metaphorical) priesthood is financially rewarded and the acolytes socially so.
@Felix:
“The core of woke is that a man can become a woman if he puts on a dress, but if you ask them, there is no miracle involved, nothing supernatural or numinous about it.
It’s all muh science, no talking unicorns.”
It may identify as science, but a more supernatural belief than a man can wish himself to be a woman is…impossible.
I don’t believe it’s a true religion, either, but not because there’s no confession in faith. In fact, in many higher level academic jobs, one is required to submit a statement in support of DIE along with the rest of his application materials. If that’s not a confession of faith, I don’t know what is.
If that’s not a confession of faith, I don’t know what is.
It’s not a confession of faith because they don’t believe – in the religious sense – that DIE is a divine law or commandment. They know it’s about secular politics, secular ethics and very secular ju$$$tice. They don’t claim supernatural guidance or sanction.
The term “religion” is being frivolously flung at any irrational group behavior like climate panic, Covid panic, race panic etc. I’m surprised that Christians aren’t offended at that: “hold on, we’re nothing like these retards!”
“empowered and financed by the actual elite”
Yes. It would have gotten NOWHERE had not the uberbankers showered billions of their fake and gay fiat currency all over these people.
Always follow the money.
if some people benefit from the rules and others suffer, then there must be a reason for the rules benefiting one group over another. From a black identity perspective, this is a much better answer than biology. The condition of blacks in America is no longer a product of biological reality and instead the result of a system that harms them to the benefit of white people. This not only justifies questioning the system, but it also justifies attacking the system. Well, they aren’t completely wrong. White societies were built by Whites based upon White culture/virtues, and thus the system… Read more »
You talk like a missionary. “We must raise up these heathen!” Blacks are not whites. Blacks will never be whites. Blacks don’t want to be whites – though they do like our stuff. You are demanding that blacks act white. And just how do you propose to do this? In the 1950s, whites imposed their culture on blacks, by force when needed. Is that what you want? Because we’ll need to do forever. It’s holding a chair over your head. You can do it for awhile, but, eventually, you have to drop it. That’s the case with blacks. The answer,… Read more »
1950s is a good start. Being a realist, there is the fact that they are here, now. By making BIPOCs obey the rules (by force where necessary) there is a realistic chance that they will either conform (and therefore not be an issue) or leave thus arrive at your separation answer. While the latter is the ideal, at least achieving the former is an improvement and increases the chances of achieving the latter.
If some blacks conform to White society, then you still have the issue of their children and what happens when they grow up. Regression to the mean and all of that business. The problems never end.
Meanwhile in Ghana, Nigeria and Senegal, blacks are living their lives and aren’t a problem for Western Whites.
But that plan is both morally wrong and practically impossible. It’s wrong to force other races to live by the rules of a different race.
For example, would white kids achieve better grades if they were grinds like Asian kids? Yes. But they’d be miserable. White kids aren’t grinds.
Second, there is no chance that we’re bringing Jim Crow back. Granted, there’s extremely little chance that we’ll be able to separate from blacks anytime soon, but I’d say that we more of a chance to someday have separate communities than we have of bringing back Jim Crow.
Far from making blacks obey white rules, we are now obeying rules made to help blacks and harm whites. I fear we’ve got a long, long way to go. Total separation strikes me as more plausible.
This is somewhat off topic but has anyone come to the conclusion that the CIA and guys like j Edgar were anticommunist but not for the same reasons that a Jesse helms or Phyllis schlafly type was? I’m saying this as someone with sympathy toward the red diaper baby left.
I think that the cold war is one of the most misunderstood events of the 20th century.
Iirc a couple of years ago somebody commented on here that when he was growing up, it was commonly understood that fascism is Catholic and communism is Jewish, if that’s what you’re getting at.
I don’t know that any of us can comment on who the heck J Edgar Hoover really was unless & until we fully understand Hoover’s relationship with the sodomite Sanhedrin interlocutor, Roy Cohn. Similarly, we don’t know the extent to which Wild Bill Donovan ackshually controlled the OSS/CIA, versus the extent to which he was merely yet another idiot goysiche golem which simply mouthed the words his Sanhedrin controllers wrote for him to mouth. We do know with certainty that the Sanhedrin had infiltrated and controlled Military Intelligence during WWII – they were reading Patton’s letters sent home to his… Read more »
As I began reading your comment, I started to think how much Eisenhower was the anti-Patton. I don’t think that Patton would have sent in the army in Arkansas to enforce educational intergration for instance…
Eisenhower was indeed an apt tool for the Sanhedrin, thawing out a policy straight out of the days of Reconstruction like the good blank-slate Republican Yankee that he was.
Wasn’t it Patton who said we defeated the wrong enemy?
No point in trying to make sense of something that makes no sense. As you say, it fills the need to self-justify the elites lording it over you (why they feel a need for justification, who knows. Probably some deep-seated psychological disorder). And the more ridiculous, the better, as the more ridiculous the bigger the flex.
“Interestingly, there is little attention to the word “woke” and why it became the preferred label of the people in this new ideology” “Woke” is Conservative, inc’s white flag of rhetorical surrender. The term SJW was humiliating for the progs. They absolutely hated it. They tried to turn it back against the right with the term right wing SJW along with “right wing snowflake” Snowflake always bothered them for the same reason, it’s dripping with contempt. SJW is inherently dripping with sarcasm and contempt in a way that “woke” is not. The SJW thing also discredited and ridiculed the concept… Read more »
Z and Gottfried are above my pay grade, but I’ll give the midwit perspective. Wokism is indeed a religion, filling the void left by the death of Christianity and providing a structure and justification for the managerial class to operate within and to punish non-believers. Wokism is also very much the natural successor to that particularly annoying brand of Yankee Protestantism with its focus on forcing the world to convert to its morality, particularly the Enlightenment ideal of equality. However, Wokism did not emerge organically. It very much is a construction of Jewish elites. The focus on minority rights and… Read more »
Whites, especially individualistic Americans, are mostly suckers. Being a schemer myself, I can see it. I choose not to con my own people, obviously. But this must be glaringly obvious for groups with more “experience” in scheming and negotiating. I think the deviation from the church and social conservatism was probably inevitable. This happened in Europe and Quebec naturally. Europe still has far healthier societies than the Anglosphere, but are quite liberal. Americans were also looking for change, but were given a ramp to head right into the most destructive ideas. And they bit hard. Individualism, materialism, divorce, hedonism, drug… Read more »
Yep. I don’t blame Jewish elites for taking advantage of the situation. They saw the angle and took it.
Whites aren’t the victims. We did this to ourselves. Jewish elites certainly made it easier for us, but we decided to accept Wokism and continue to accept it. Of course, that doesn’t mean that we should forget the role of Jewish elites in our current predicament, but we also shouldn’t forget that, ultimately, we are to blame for our own problems.
Unless & until you frame “Woke-ism” as the psychological warfare campaign which it is, targetted at precisely the kinds of volatile personalities which are at risk of falling prey to the psychological warfare campaign of “Woke-ism”, you simply cannot understand what is happening. I’d also like to point out that Sanhedrin such as Sigmund Freud created the discipline of psychiatric analysis NOT TO HELP their patients, but rather to lure their patients into revealing those patients’ deepest, most disturbing psychological weaknesses [weaknesses from a classical Western European Christian point of view, but powerful, near omnipotent strengths from the modern Frankfurt… Read more »
Wokism is a cult, not a religion. Religions are, to put it simply, cults which have stood the test of time. Every movement starts as a cult, which is parts mysterious and scary and attractive to all people. Most cults eventually get hurled into the void, or, in the case of Christianity, it grows exponentially and flowers intellectually. Will this happen to Wokeness? I think not. It’s way too weird, anti-human, and self-destructive. Christianity was none of those things, even as a cult 2,000 years ago. I give every movement 500 years. Maybe a millennia, before I consider it worthy… Read more »
I don’t think wokeness, at least in its current form, will last much longer. It really started at the end of WW2 and took hold during a very abnormal period. Things are already starting to change with the rising powers outside of the Allies and the early possible crumbling of the Dollar world order. Hungry people don’t care about the cast of weirdos making up the woke.
Cults follow all the rules of natural selection, being essentially mutations of established species of religion or culture. Most mutations are deleterious and end the new line within a single generation. This is the majority of cults where the Grand Poobah can’t resist the temptation to tell his followers to cut off their balls and give all their women to him. Some cults accidentally end up telling their followers to make productive use of their lives, like Mormonism. So now you have lots of Mormons working hard and breeding, even despite believing in magic underpants. Woke is a cult most… Read more »
To me “woke” is opppsition to anything “strong”. And promotion of everything “weak” – from a perspective of the year 1960 at the latest. Regular White people are strong, so they must be disrupted in any way possible. Black people are oppressed, they must be raised up in any way possible. Men are strong, so women need to be promoted. Christianity is strong so it must be subverted and watered down, and other religions must be promoted above it. Every single aspect of traditional Western society – and in fact eventually almost every human society – must be torn down,… Read more »
If society is infected with a debilitating disease, does it really matter what motivates the disease? If the disease is insidious and harms brain function (like rabies) such that you are unable to marshal the cognitive awareness that may lead you to remedy, is it really OK for you to just muddle-through and hope it passes like a common cold? If the disease goes untreated for long enough such that it eventually kills you (like a cancer), do you really care what it’s origin is? If you convince yourself that a folk remedy like “persuasion” will ultimately cure the disease,… Read more »
I don’t necessarily disagree, but some accurate knowledge of the origin of the disease is helpful in fighting it. It is not useful to treat a virus with anti-biotics.
“Gottfried pointed out that it is an error to confuse this new ideology with Marxism.” Although I’m somewhat prescinding from the topic of today’s post, I just wanted to mention that I’ve long thought that the reflexive use of the term “Marxism” by contemporary dissidents to condemn whatever they dislike about the Left, is rather misplaced. In fact, I am in favor of a partial rehabilitation of Marxism. Now, as a Catholic and a Traditionalist, I will never forget or excuse what the Communists did to my foregoers in the faith. The Church opposes Communism for many theological and practical… Read more »
“The great task of the 21st century will consist in building a goods-based economy that replaces the corrupt money-based economy.”
Life was simpler back then. Today we have a lot of “goods”, not all very tangible in the medieval sense. Not sure how you get rid of money—if that’s where you’re going—and therefore the imbalance of money in too few person’s hands. Russia and the Ukraine are famous for their oligarchs and the corruption that stems from such persons so how are they held up as a positive example?
Good piece. Yes the pseudo-elite replaced God with Woke or Identity Politics. Those groups controlling the political elite do not, however, worship at Woke Altar. They are luciferians and for them Woke and Identity Politics are just another tool in the Great Project Toolbox, a logical extension of the rabid-dog egalite they artificed and set loose in France. Also, Woke would never function without the ‘liberation’ of women and the development of mass political female power and group-consciousness. Reason being females are fundamentally different critters than males: women maintain a sort of mass Hive Mind which facilitates collective decision-making. Naturally… Read more »
There is a reason bars have ladies’ night.
Can’t define it, but I know it when I read it, hear it, or see it.
I agree – allegiance and obedience to the latest stupid thing is more important than the details. It certainly has roots in communism and the ideas of activist scum like Gramsci and Alinsky. And yes, the late Empire decadence and loss of morality is a key ingredient. Countries around the world that aren’t part of the empire and still have morals look at Americans waving the perversion flag with disgust. Our State Department’s obsession with preaching the good news of gay sex has seriously damaged relations and trade around the globe. They just shrug of news of BRICS expanding and… Read more »
Wokism is the state of permanent cultural revolution in the west. It is a top-down movement, but then again so was the Chinese cultural revolution. Once you create this atmosphere for revolution, it feeds itself. Our education system has been training revolutionaries for a few generations now and it is bearing fruit. Just the other day I saw an article in the “conservative” NY Post about some morbidly obese (to put it lightly) woman complaining about fat discrimination while flying. Now, the NY Post put it there because it gets clicks and outrages its readers, but this is what I… Read more »
30 paragraphs? You should have broken it into two articles.
Two paragraphs start with – “That is the key to understanding Wokism.”
I like it that, like my landlord, you provide duplicate keys.
🙂
Nah, I like it when our host stretches it out now and then.
Is this the real Paul Gottfried? If so . . . much respect! You are truly a man among boys in these quarters.
No, I am not. I am just a cross-namer (like this cross-dresser pretending to be an “admiral”).
https://www.hhs.gov/about/leadership/rachel-levine.html
If this had been a general audience, yes, it would have been helpful to serialize the essay. For this audience this outlier worked beautifully and was worth the reading time invested.
I admire your work, by the way.
(Given the site’s lack of blue checkmarks, I assume this is the real Paul Gottfried)
An unfortunate misstep by Lindsay, especially since his breakdown of the Woke conception and use of, “midgrade violence,” is so good.
This is one of your best if not the best, Z, and one of the few things I’ve read twice in some time. Thank you. Wokism indeed is religion. All through history, religion has been used to control the masses and to take pressure off of the ruling class. Marx was right on that point. Marx missed a key element, though. The elite over time not only use religion as a cudgel but come to embrace its dogma. We are witnessing this now. Wokism is a bit of an outlier in that its devil Whiteness is divorced from its foot… Read more »
Scriptural prophecy never fails. Rather, it fails to arrive at the hour expected by men.
“To be woke is to dismiss reality as a trick by white people.” For some reason that line gave me a hearty chuckle. Maybe because it’s so on the nose. This was a fantastic essay! I think Zman is one hundred percent correct in stating that Wokeness is not Marxism. While Wokeness clearly derives its oppressor/oppressed paradigm from Marxism, Marxism was primarily concerned with economics, whereas Wokeness mainly arises from more deeply personal identity hang-ups, neuroses, and resentments. You won’t hear the Woke referring to “the working class.” Wokeness is also not Fascism. There’s a tendency to confate anything authoritarian… Read more »
Woke is the logical endpoint to Puritanism. I don’t really buy the claim that Christianity fertilized the ground that sprouted Marxism, but Cotton Mathers’ fingerprints are all over Woke even if he would have found it to be batshit crazy.
Good point. Maybe Wokeness is what results when Puritanism abandons its supposed Christian roots. Yahweh/Christ has been cast aside and the ever-evolving progressive consensus serves as the new deity.
it’s interesting to note that our billionaire class are obsessed with achieving immortality, or at least greatly extending their lifespans. judging by the appearance of bill gates et al, they are not, however, willing to exercise or eat healthily. bezos, for example, is clearly “juicing”.
soros and buffet are both 92 and appear to be going strong. Maybe gates and bezos are more like nouveau riche?
Communism is not mere collectivism. It is — and has always been — an ideology of envy. Ugly, sick, lazy losers taking violent revenge on their perceived enemies. The economics/ideology has always been window dressing. “Marxist” communists divided people along class. They believed history was nothing but the Bourgeoisie unfairly oppressing the heroic Proletariat. They genocided tens of millions of perceived “Bourgeoisie” last century everywhere communists where found. “Woke” communists divide people along *race*. They believe history is nothing but White people unfairly oppressing the heroic BIPOC people. What do you think they intend to do to you and your… Read more »
“Woke” communists divide people along *race*. — I’d say exploiting natural divisions that exist anyway, but yeah. Perhaps an interesting turning point here was back in 2008 when the elites got scared when the remnants of the old left said “first, kill all the bankers” and the tea party types on the right said “sounds good to us, knock yourselves out!”. Yes a lot of this garbage was hanging around out there already, but that’s when the “we’re no longer asking” phase of woke-ism broke out because anyone on the left wanted a sip from the cash spigot they had… Read more »
Religion of Resentment and Envy. Yep.
Yeah, this beef is why we’re in trouble in DR land. There has to be a calm synthesis between Gottfried and Lindsay available if they’d seek it. Both guys are very bright. Instead of trying to move the football down the field, they want to engage in egghead beefs about the use of semantic terms – Gnosticism, scientific Marxism, Woke etc.- that are going to be podcast fodder but won’t get men in dresses out of schools. I’ve listened to/read both guys extensively and I don’t think there’s much difference in their overall positions. Lindsay has this unfortunate Asperger-y mathematician’s… Read more »
Mussolini presents a problem for the left, but not in the way, say, Jonah Goldberg imagines.The example of Il Duce, I believe, is fundamentally the reason why the left abandoned class for race and sexuality after the war. Class distinctions are more or less arbitrary, and once they have been nominally erased by the revolution, society needs some other organizing principle. That principle is likely to be ethnic majoritarianism (Just look at the trajectory of Communist China). Needless to say, this is not what the Trotskyites had in mind, so to prevent this, cultural differences need to be exacerbated to… Read more »
An important point.
Economic immiseration of the workers under capitalism doesn’t happen, so misery must be inflicted in other ways, e.g., by programming their daughters to think father = idiot, putting uncanny-valley trannies on their beer cans, etc.
That’s Lenin, not Trotsky—but ruling-class thinking isn’t based on old essays. They just see us and want to hurt us.
Kind of surprised that Normiecon G. Civnats, along with uselessly chanting “DR3!”, haven’t discovered that Mustache Guy and super gay Ernst beat the Negroes to coining “Woke” with the phrase “Deutschland Erwache!” back in 1919, 104 years ago.
I mean, they even put it on a flag and everything…
gee those guys had some swell swag.
Yeah, Wally. Kinda, sorta.
A million years ago, in an interview Chomsky did with fellow-traveller David Barsamian, he talked about whenever some charismatic pastor-grifter at a megachurch got caught embezzling funds to buy himself a Bentley, or impregnated half his female parishioners. Chomsky said it relieved him that all they wanted was money, not power. There’s an obvious aspect of Jewish neurosis in there, but there’s also the fear of the zealot that most normal people have. The conservatives with their “go woke, go broke” mantra seem to be hallucinating corruption (which has a ridiculous dimension to it) with fanaticism (which can take a… Read more »
“I suggest the people calling themselves conservatives face the very unpleasant but unavoidable reality: the woke are very rich, very powerful, very crazy, and very dangerous.”
Great comment! The self-proclaimed conservatives mostly avoid the issue in the excerpt from you. To admit what is happening is to acknowledge everything they have pushed is false.
This point alone – the massive power and malevolent intentions held by the elites – is key. If the elites have that power, then we are relatively powerless, or at the least at the very infancy of developing a movements. So why do we have these little dogfights on terminology? Why do conservative and DR leaders pretend that the we enjoy popular support and power to take on these elites? And worse who is laying out any vision to protect our people and culture? I despair at the future – I do invest in my family, am part of a… Read more »
“When we win, do not forget that these people want you broke, dead, your kids r*ped and brainwashed, and they think it’s funny” — Sam Hyde
It is Jezebel’s nation and as she wanted eunuchs priorly, she wants them again. En masse. Nothing new under sun.
Speaking for myself, my amateur working theory was that Woke came out of the progressive/Marxist/Science! matrix, so I was thinking it had to be some curdled, retarded form of materialism. There were a lot of loose ends and things that didn’t add up. Then I had the experience I mention of the gas station tranny, realizing it was was easier for him to change his body than his mind, and that lead me on the trail of idealism. I am an amateur, a nobody with an opinion who doesn’t have the time to flesh these things out, but idealism seems… Read more »
“Wokism would amount to nothing more than bourgeois decadence if not for the fact that rich white people are acting on it.” “Their commitment to these social causes, to the liberation of man from the human condition, is proof that they deserve their position at the top, as leaders of the people.” “Protestantism was no longer a good fit as Jews took up positions in the managerial elite. A new elite needed a new ideology, and the new radicalism was there to supply that need.” “The end of the Cold War removed that constraint. It also left a void in… Read more »
*Apollonian* oh well 😆
“If you go back and examine the language of abolitionists or New Deal reformers, you will find that the language is not particularly different from the language of Wokism. The main difference is the overt references to God and Christian morality. It is not hard to imagine the grievance studies departments singing a Woke version of the Battle Hymn of the Republic before every staff meeting.” Wokeism is, in other words, the logical and unavoidable culmination of the “refounding” of “America” on specious Enlightenment principles. It is the “justice” toward which the arc of the universe is bending, according to… Read more »
A theory though: what if such tendencies are genetic? How many groups of Americans originated from European nations who were sick of their fanaticism and/or weird religious/political ideas and kicked them out? In other words, Puritanism is an inevitable result of Puritanical people?