Very glad you wrote about this. I actually keep up with that group as I also keep up with the majority of MAGA. Here's what I've determined:
1. They are not the same two groups. One is wholly separate from the other and the group Lindsay is obsessed with is the very smallest.
2. Most of their stuff is truly just pushing boundaries. I'd guess they are young and like to make off-color jokes for shock value more than anything else. It comes across as silly. Some in this group don't make those jokes and instead write long essays about different ways to think. Only a complete moron would think these people are a threat. They just like to make noise online. There is no institutional power there. Most MAGA probably don't even know they exist.
3. What Lindsay looks like to me is a person who made their living being anti-woke so when woke starts receding, he needed a new target to stay in business.
4. I've read his woke-right analogies and points. They don't fit and they don't make sense. He's trying to force them, along with Richard Hannania who used to write a bunch of racist, pro-underage sex stuff under a pseudonym, got called out, and now just tries to ingratiate himself with anyone he thinks has power.
5. No one offline knows or cares about any of these idiots and that includes a majority of Trump voters. Only a very small percentage use X, I've looked into the numbers.
6. The movement under Trump's leadership is the one and only shot we get to change a few systems in order to save ourselves from a nihilistic, degraded, hopeless, chaotic, hostile future. Lindsay needs to shut his mouth or change his registration.
Whew. Sorry for the too long comment. I guess I've been waiting for someone to write about this. 🤣
EXACTLY. I'm relieved to find that someone else sees all this -- I feel quite literally, exactly the same. Although I do admit it crosses my mind if there is some kind of pay to play thing going on. I'm very not conspiratorial by nature, I'm quite Pollyanna-ish actually, but then people I respect tell me off the record how much corruption and backstabbing there is in the intellectual celeb world, so it could be these absolutely ridiculous views are being boosted for a nefarious purpose.
I think you may be on to something. Lindsay stole a lot of the anti-woke stiff from someone else the very first time he started his career. He just happened to take off online better than the female.
I am not a fan of this person, but it's just a matter of personal taste and nothing she has done wrong. Her name is Karlyn Borysenko. She wrote a book titled "Actively Unwoke." Every time she would go undercover and write about it, he would start talking about it the very next day without ever giving credit. I'm sure she would be very glad to talk about it. As a matter of fact, I think she has talked about it in the past. She may still be doing it. I wouldn't be surprised to find out she started talking about the woke-right before he did.
"To try to shoehorn in a very amorphous hodgepodge of contemporary right wing thinkers is to blur that clear line — which is not just a disservice, it is a danger." Excellent point! For example, Tucker conducts long form interviews with many different types of people. Regarding your discussion of antisemitism, I've always found it strange that the very liberal Steven Spielberg can create a moving documentary recording the memories of holocaust survivors yet won't speak out about antisemitism occurring in his real time life!
Well stated Jenny. I too became a fan of Lindsay around the same time you note and found his work satisfying in providing a deep dive into the sources and contradictions of "woke". I have not followed closely his new direction into battling the "woke right" probably from an instinctive aversion to something that is superficially appealing but probably unwholesome and corrupted. Whenever a line of thought continues on without reference to and reinforcement from a source bigger than itself, it will eventually deviate into hair-splitting and fake demon slaying. I get the feeling Lindsay's thought derives more from an impulse for self aggrandizement than truth discovery and as such is susceptible to following an errant path. I'm not a mind reader or soul seer, just my sense of it.
Your phrase "unwholesome and corrupted" is the perfect description of how this seems to me as well. Also 'fake demon slaying'
And yes, I agree that it very much seems like self-aggrandisement, which is so disappointing from someone I once respected. There was this utterly bizarre segment of his interview with Peterson where he actually complains that mean people on Twitter refer to him as "Jimmy" and "Jimmy Concepts" -- like this is some huge violation. He sounded like Meghan Markle!!
LoL, James as the fake duchess of the internet. He's the one who named himself "Conceptual James". Reminds me of an anecdote about Faulkner who at one time went around Oxford, Miss. in high British sartorial style, fashioning himself "the count" but became known to some locals as Count No-account.
I will always be grateful for the Boghossian/Pluckrose/Lindsay, grievance studies affair. Hilarious! But Lindsay has a fault more typically found among males (imo), and that's the hubris that leads to him believing he is now The Expert voice on everything, and he's giving these few the attention they want. There's a reason the few loons he is so focused on are called the far-right, while the 99% of the right are still the classic liberals. But then we have the other side where there is no left, just a deranged far-left that fell off the earth.
Happy to say, I've missed this trend (spending less time on X than around the election). Thank you (!) for the heads up, though. I'm sure it won't be long until I'm hearing/reading this phrase regurgitated by some progressive media sock-puppet or activists. Nice call on WF Buckley. Loved to hear him talk, brilliant. Forgot how he had evolved.
I think the subscription to a seemingly unrelated cluster of ideas has become common amongst the right and left. This is where I think they mirror eachother. Eric Kaufmann defines woke as the making sacred of race, sex and sexuality. Yet many woke are also environmentalists, pro-choice and pro-Palestine which should be separate issues imo. Likewise, many of the anti-woke take a conservative view on abortion, display some signs of climate skepticism and are largely pro-Israel. I see no reason why one can't be woke in supporting gay pride and transgenderism and also support Israel in light of them being a more gay friendly society. Likewise, why can't some who are against the woke be more sympathetic towards the plight of Gazans from a humanitarian perspective. I feel the core problem has now become being unable to look at each issue separately through a non-tribal lens.
In Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari shows how this tendency can be advantageous in terms of survival. For example, neanderthals were much more physically impressive, but the ability to form large groups and adhere to groupthink was imperative to our survival. I would've thought serious academics could temper this tendency by looking at things in a more unbiased scientific manner. Unfortunately, figures like Orwell who could see the horrors of communism despite many in his tribe being sympathetic are quite rare.
This guy and his ilk have one object in mind, coordinated or not: changing three million votes. The dems were flat and scared, now they are trying anything, everything, to eat into the election majority before the midterms. First Bernie & Lexie and the Oligarch tour, now yard signs to Stop the Oligarchs, “Vintage Tesla: Before the Madness” bumper sticker, even reporting that sales of American cars are down—for the long-term!!—in Europe. It’s easier to suck up sound bytes than think. Good on you Jenny for trying to WAKE FOLKS UP.
Throwing out word combinations like "woke right" and "Christian nationalism" might make some feel cute and clever but that doesn't make them true. They then evolve into the usual insults thrown out at people with whom the left disagrees (now often ignored because of overuse and inappropriate use), "racism" being the most obvious. Commentators need to remember the biblical admonition to "speak the truth in love."
Jenny, this was great. I have read James Lindsay's stuff for years. But, if I can be honest, from day 1 a lot of his writing is disorganized which, to me, suggests the ideas are not well-formed. To be clear, he has done some important work and brought to line big issues.
But when someone's thoughts and ideas poorly constructed- is that person as erudite as some may think?
Not worried! The Trumpster has them in a kamakzi fire drill! They are incoherent! Woke Right! Really! Their base is fractured and they have no rally point! Soon they will have a very reduced readership and no money! Hot damn! I mean all of them: Bari, Matt et al.
Interesting article & very relevant, thank you - Tucker Carlson is talking about Woke Right on his latest podcast today. I heard James Lindsay speak at a conference about education a few years ago, and he was passionate/inspiring. What has happened to him?
Great article! Deals very well with the meat and potatoes of the topic. J D Haltigan did a deep-dive on this which I read last week and Bret Weinstein danced around it gracefully too, but your piece strips it back nicely adding some new detail and perspective. I had forgotten he was involved in writing the fake woke projects wich gained academic acceptance. You said it well about his Twitter composure too. I had to unfollow JL and New Discourses, as it became distracting and even unfollowed some cool people who kept reposting WR stuff!
Great to see you back on The Radical Centre, word had it you were under the weather, so great to see you back on fine form. Best Wishes
I listened to Lindsay over time and considered him a thinker, but last year I listened to lectures by him and geeez, he is not the same as he seemed not to speak English anymore as the words seemed to be coming from a French philosopher smoking Maui Wowee. Too much brilliance I say. MAGA to me is a society saver, a last hope of our’s to stop the left from swallowing us whole. I like Bannon, met him in 2015. I worked knocking on doors for Karoline Leavitt for Congress and am a Tucker fan. Sasha Stone is another voice I like, and of course Jenny Holland. I am getting to be an old man now and I care about the Constitution and I believe the ship is going in the correct direction. Woke Right is dumb.
MAGA is our last hope. And I will not have people from "our side" pull the guilt by association trick that the corporate media tried years ago, conflating MAGA with the bugaloo boys (??) and the Proud Boys etc. That is what Lindsay is doing here.
Very glad you wrote about this. I actually keep up with that group as I also keep up with the majority of MAGA. Here's what I've determined:
1. They are not the same two groups. One is wholly separate from the other and the group Lindsay is obsessed with is the very smallest.
2. Most of their stuff is truly just pushing boundaries. I'd guess they are young and like to make off-color jokes for shock value more than anything else. It comes across as silly. Some in this group don't make those jokes and instead write long essays about different ways to think. Only a complete moron would think these people are a threat. They just like to make noise online. There is no institutional power there. Most MAGA probably don't even know they exist.
3. What Lindsay looks like to me is a person who made their living being anti-woke so when woke starts receding, he needed a new target to stay in business.
4. I've read his woke-right analogies and points. They don't fit and they don't make sense. He's trying to force them, along with Richard Hannania who used to write a bunch of racist, pro-underage sex stuff under a pseudonym, got called out, and now just tries to ingratiate himself with anyone he thinks has power.
5. No one offline knows or cares about any of these idiots and that includes a majority of Trump voters. Only a very small percentage use X, I've looked into the numbers.
6. The movement under Trump's leadership is the one and only shot we get to change a few systems in order to save ourselves from a nihilistic, degraded, hopeless, chaotic, hostile future. Lindsay needs to shut his mouth or change his registration.
Whew. Sorry for the too long comment. I guess I've been waiting for someone to write about this. 🤣
EXACTLY. I'm relieved to find that someone else sees all this -- I feel quite literally, exactly the same. Although I do admit it crosses my mind if there is some kind of pay to play thing going on. I'm very not conspiratorial by nature, I'm quite Pollyanna-ish actually, but then people I respect tell me off the record how much corruption and backstabbing there is in the intellectual celeb world, so it could be these absolutely ridiculous views are being boosted for a nefarious purpose.
I think you may be on to something. Lindsay stole a lot of the anti-woke stiff from someone else the very first time he started his career. He just happened to take off online better than the female.
Uh...what? I want to know more!!!
I am not a fan of this person, but it's just a matter of personal taste and nothing she has done wrong. Her name is Karlyn Borysenko. She wrote a book titled "Actively Unwoke." Every time she would go undercover and write about it, he would start talking about it the very next day without ever giving credit. I'm sure she would be very glad to talk about it. As a matter of fact, I think she has talked about it in the past. She may still be doing it. I wouldn't be surprised to find out she started talking about the woke-right before he did.
I heard that too, I forget where, that the ideas were around in 2012 and that James adopted them
Yep.
"To try to shoehorn in a very amorphous hodgepodge of contemporary right wing thinkers is to blur that clear line — which is not just a disservice, it is a danger." Excellent point! For example, Tucker conducts long form interviews with many different types of people. Regarding your discussion of antisemitism, I've always found it strange that the very liberal Steven Spielberg can create a moving documentary recording the memories of holocaust survivors yet won't speak out about antisemitism occurring in his real time life!
I know -- that's an interesting point re Spielberg.
Well stated Jenny. I too became a fan of Lindsay around the same time you note and found his work satisfying in providing a deep dive into the sources and contradictions of "woke". I have not followed closely his new direction into battling the "woke right" probably from an instinctive aversion to something that is superficially appealing but probably unwholesome and corrupted. Whenever a line of thought continues on without reference to and reinforcement from a source bigger than itself, it will eventually deviate into hair-splitting and fake demon slaying. I get the feeling Lindsay's thought derives more from an impulse for self aggrandizement than truth discovery and as such is susceptible to following an errant path. I'm not a mind reader or soul seer, just my sense of it.
Your phrase "unwholesome and corrupted" is the perfect description of how this seems to me as well. Also 'fake demon slaying'
And yes, I agree that it very much seems like self-aggrandisement, which is so disappointing from someone I once respected. There was this utterly bizarre segment of his interview with Peterson where he actually complains that mean people on Twitter refer to him as "Jimmy" and "Jimmy Concepts" -- like this is some huge violation. He sounded like Meghan Markle!!
LoL, James as the fake duchess of the internet. He's the one who named himself "Conceptual James". Reminds me of an anecdote about Faulkner who at one time went around Oxford, Miss. in high British sartorial style, fashioning himself "the count" but became known to some locals as Count No-account.
I will always be grateful for the Boghossian/Pluckrose/Lindsay, grievance studies affair. Hilarious! But Lindsay has a fault more typically found among males (imo), and that's the hubris that leads to him believing he is now The Expert voice on everything, and he's giving these few the attention they want. There's a reason the few loons he is so focused on are called the far-right, while the 99% of the right are still the classic liberals. But then we have the other side where there is no left, just a deranged far-left that fell off the earth.
THANK YOU. It's such a male thing -- he's a pompous blowhard and only men present that way. Not all men, etc etc 🤣
Happy to say, I've missed this trend (spending less time on X than around the election). Thank you (!) for the heads up, though. I'm sure it won't be long until I'm hearing/reading this phrase regurgitated by some progressive media sock-puppet or activists. Nice call on WF Buckley. Loved to hear him talk, brilliant. Forgot how he had evolved.
It's already been in the Atlantic! And dammit, I forgot to mention that in my essay. That's why this is actually significant.
I think the subscription to a seemingly unrelated cluster of ideas has become common amongst the right and left. This is where I think they mirror eachother. Eric Kaufmann defines woke as the making sacred of race, sex and sexuality. Yet many woke are also environmentalists, pro-choice and pro-Palestine which should be separate issues imo. Likewise, many of the anti-woke take a conservative view on abortion, display some signs of climate skepticism and are largely pro-Israel. I see no reason why one can't be woke in supporting gay pride and transgenderism and also support Israel in light of them being a more gay friendly society. Likewise, why can't some who are against the woke be more sympathetic towards the plight of Gazans from a humanitarian perspective. I feel the core problem has now become being unable to look at each issue separately through a non-tribal lens.
I believe most humans have always been unable to look at issues without checking with the tribe first. That's the human problem.
In Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari shows how this tendency can be advantageous in terms of survival. For example, neanderthals were much more physically impressive, but the ability to form large groups and adhere to groupthink was imperative to our survival. I would've thought serious academics could temper this tendency by looking at things in a more unbiased scientific manner. Unfortunately, figures like Orwell who could see the horrors of communism despite many in his tribe being sympathetic are quite rare.
If the Left can share a bed with Muslims to achieve their political goals, the Right and the Libertarians can find common cause.
You would think!
This guy and his ilk have one object in mind, coordinated or not: changing three million votes. The dems were flat and scared, now they are trying anything, everything, to eat into the election majority before the midterms. First Bernie & Lexie and the Oligarch tour, now yard signs to Stop the Oligarchs, “Vintage Tesla: Before the Madness” bumper sticker, even reporting that sales of American cars are down—for the long-term!!—in Europe. It’s easier to suck up sound bytes than think. Good on you Jenny for trying to WAKE FOLKS UP.
Whooo-eee: way to go, Jenny!
(And: Happy Mother's Day to you!)
Appreciating you much.
Thank you!
Throwing out word combinations like "woke right" and "Christian nationalism" might make some feel cute and clever but that doesn't make them true. They then evolve into the usual insults thrown out at people with whom the left disagrees (now often ignored because of overuse and inappropriate use), "racism" being the most obvious. Commentators need to remember the biblical admonition to "speak the truth in love."
Agreed!
Jenny, this was great. I have read James Lindsay's stuff for years. But, if I can be honest, from day 1 a lot of his writing is disorganized which, to me, suggests the ideas are not well-formed. To be clear, he has done some important work and brought to line big issues.
But when someone's thoughts and ideas poorly constructed- is that person as erudite as some may think?
Thank you! You are more discerning than I am! I was quite uncritical of his work until recently.
Not worried! The Trumpster has them in a kamakzi fire drill! They are incoherent! Woke Right! Really! Their base is fractured and they have no rally point! Soon they will have a very reduced readership and no money! Hot damn! I mean all of them: Bari, Matt et al.
War Room is by far the best!
Interesting article & very relevant, thank you - Tucker Carlson is talking about Woke Right on his latest podcast today. I heard James Lindsay speak at a conference about education a few years ago, and he was passionate/inspiring. What has happened to him?
Great article! Deals very well with the meat and potatoes of the topic. J D Haltigan did a deep-dive on this which I read last week and Bret Weinstein danced around it gracefully too, but your piece strips it back nicely adding some new detail and perspective. I had forgotten he was involved in writing the fake woke projects wich gained academic acceptance. You said it well about his Twitter composure too. I had to unfollow JL and New Discourses, as it became distracting and even unfollowed some cool people who kept reposting WR stuff!
Great to see you back on The Radical Centre, word had it you were under the weather, so great to see you back on fine form. Best Wishes
Thank you!
I generally avoid Lindsay because I find him as annoying as Destiny to listen to.
Ha! Devastatingly apt comparison 😂
I listened to Lindsay over time and considered him a thinker, but last year I listened to lectures by him and geeez, he is not the same as he seemed not to speak English anymore as the words seemed to be coming from a French philosopher smoking Maui Wowee. Too much brilliance I say. MAGA to me is a society saver, a last hope of our’s to stop the left from swallowing us whole. I like Bannon, met him in 2015. I worked knocking on doors for Karoline Leavitt for Congress and am a Tucker fan. Sasha Stone is another voice I like, and of course Jenny Holland. I am getting to be an old man now and I care about the Constitution and I believe the ship is going in the correct direction. Woke Right is dumb.
MAGA is our last hope. And I will not have people from "our side" pull the guilt by association trick that the corporate media tried years ago, conflating MAGA with the bugaloo boys (??) and the Proud Boys etc. That is what Lindsay is doing here.
I am not sure James Lindsay's problem is too much brilliance..