Why Settle For Less?
(Inspired by Academic Agent’s piece on “The Anti-Woke Scolds”.)
The aptly named Anti-Woke scolds share a sizable portion of what we are told is the Right wing space; GB News, various members of the IDW, Prager U and countless other outlets and talking heads all, whether knowingly or not, participate in the role of containing and directing political energy. Whilst some differing opinions may exist between the Anti-Woke scolds they almost all exclusively centre themselves, and subsequently define much of their world view, around being opposed to the Woke Left. This opposition more often than not takes the form of dreary media content that assaults surface level leftism, armed only with Hanlon’s Razor and an appeal to abysmally grasped liberalism. Yet such content has a decent proportion of the masses in its midst, it keeps them hooked on story after story of the next “Marxist-Fascist” leftist boogiemen. At best it is vapid entertainment, at worst it is the perfect technique for the distraction and appeasement of what would be an otherwise disenfranchised group. As identified by Jacques Ellul this is the same role played by that of Krokodil in the USSR, a magazine which was sanctioned by the regime to satirise itself. Ellul recognised that, under given conditions, propaganda that on the surface counters the regime can be just as effective as propaganda which supports said regime.
Anti-Wokism will become all the more dangerous as it takes up a greater presence in the political foray, and one can see why it would. Why bother with new monetary policy solutions or the immigration scourge, when instead you can repeat Anti-Woke talking points ad nauseum to the raucous applause of the distracted masses. At the same time a great opportunity is granted to any emerging elites who wish to tap into this rhetoric for their own ends. I’m sure the various factions of the Anti-Woke political base will eat up technocratic schemes, biometric scans to keep trannies out of public bathrooms and “NO ID, NO DOLE!” ‘ought to sort out those pesky migrants. At one point there was an almost perfect overlap of Anti-Woke voices and those who took up the position of “Vaccine Nationalism”. Furthermore, anyone keeping an eye on Tony Blair will have seen his newfound tact of bashing the current Labour party with the label of Woke. His association with technocrats and globalists far and wide, who we know have no ties or loyalty to ideas and values besides their own, begs a number of questions. When we are more often than not given a portrayal of the Left in media at its most absurd and Woke forms, the Right in contrast should have a relatively positive public image, but it does not. There are a whole host of reasons for this, too many for just this piece, however one that is glaringly obvious is that the Right is either completely hopeless or willingly self-sabotaging, very likely a mix of the two. So when the agitation reaches its peak and the calls come en masse for Wokism to be dealt with for good, if the Right has only a pithy answer we may find that the likes of Blair swoop in to take on the call. “Based Blair!” they’ll cry in adulation from the rooftops as they sign themselves off to the technocratic endgame, all the while the Right’s role in society becomes further superseded. How do we stop this? We don’t settle for less.
A stark example of settling for less has been the recent state law in Florida which prohibits the teaching of sexual education to school children. Or at least that’s what the headlines say, in fact the bill itself only prohibits children under the age of 10 or what the yanks call 3rd grade. This bill changes very little from what should be the perspective of the Right. There are still children being given sex education lessons–which should be the issue here. Instead it's seen as a win over in the Anti-Woke circles as they effectively sanction the legal age of sexualising children at 10 years of age. Who drafted this law, and were they responsible for the stipulation of age instead of the blanket ban that should’ve been argued for? Or is this the beauty of partisan politics were lawmakers must find the oh so pragmatic comprise of which age to deem appropriate for teaching children about sex? In all the Anti-Woke bluster the naïve crowd settles for nothing and claims it a win.
Wokism has allowed for the rise of a new and completely performative variant of Right wing politics, one in which as Academic Agent identifies there is a reflection of much of the same pathetic victimhood narratives and virtue signalling we would generally associate with modern leftism. It brings with it the death of any notion of genuine virtue, morals become warped as they are appealed to in what amounts to little else than political point scoring. At the time of writing this Boris Johnson is making headlines for saying “...biological males should not be competing in female sporting events.” a statement that should carry with it no political capital at all. If anything one might want to consider asking why he did not feel at liberty to say “men”. And of course the height of modern conservative values is the appeal to the sanctity of “professional women’s sports''. Any possible appeals to the long tradition of conservative thought are dead and gone, buzzwords and common sense are all the rage.
Therein lies the rub, those who decades prior truly grasped what Wokism is and what purpose it serves are drowned out in the Anti-Woke rabble. Providing they were not already nixed in the past for being unwilling to settle for less. Even the Anti-Woke talking heads of today, who speak at no end about cancel culture, have played their own role in this. Such as the spineless Dinesh D’Souza and his upending of the late Sam Francis. Now the only education on what it means to be Right wing that ever regularly breaks into the mainstream is tainted with the need to be Anti-Woke first and foremost. Very few of the Anti-Woke scolds are ever capable of breaking out of the strictures of presently oriented thought, they all speak in a language which ultimately defends all but the very worst parts of the status quo. A rear guard action for the regime a la Krokodil. Only those who are authentically committed to Right wing thought are able to elucidate accurately that the very foundations of the status quo are rotten, not just the fringes. That we are not at war with just the radical Woke Left, but the very society which has spent over a century breeding them.
To those who are authentically Right it is paramount that one never settles for what the Anti-Woke scolds want, nor should we let ourselves get wrapped up in pointless mass partisan agitations programs for the eventual officiation of child abuse–or democratic politics as its more commonly known. Instead one must separate oneself from society as far as one possibly can, so that what we have left can remain untainted and in a fit state to pass on to the next generation that refuses to settle for less. One would expect the Anti-Woke scolds to disappear in short order upon the eventual routing of Wokism, providing there isn’t a Woke 2 just around the corner. However I feel the mass engagement of the Woke debacle is probably nowhere near its peak, nor has the energy around it lost its potency. The cancelling of those who aren’t Woke enough will go hand in hand with the constant trimming back of the Woke fringes until all political capital in the dialectic is depleted .There is a culture war afoot and it is directed, in part, at us. Despite this I would argue that it shouldn’t affect us as Anti-Wokism isn’t our culture, we are so much more. So instead of jumping at rainbow coloured shadows like the distracted masses, we should be building and furthering our own culture. One which in future won't even recognise Wokism as that is ultimately the only remedy.