James Lindsay is one of the Fake Right Gatekeepers’ lesser lights, with whom most of you are blessedly unfamiliar. But he’s gone all in on the nonsensical concept of the “Woke Right” which is the way Conservative Inc. describes those on the Right who believe that winning is more important than losing gracefully by refusing to make use of the weapons utilized by the enemy.
You see, that’s why the people conquered by the British Empire were the real winners of the Colonial Era, because their noble decision to eschew the use of the Gatling Gun ensured that while they were defeated, occupied, and oppressed for more than a century, they maintained the moral high ground throughout.
In any event, he has written what purports to be a manifesto, and William Briggs, to his very great credit, has spared the rest of us the painful task of slogging through it ourselves.
When I first heard the term ‘woke right’, championed by Lindsay, I thought it a wonderful description of those normally said to be “of the left”, but who had embraced an element or two of Reality: a modern version of ‘neo-con’ without the overseas passions. Turns out Lindsay meant it as one who is mostly “of the right” and who accepts the Reality that it is sometimes acceptable to base decisions on someone’s race.
He thinks that since, for instance, the woke promoted (with a vengeance) blacks because they were black, regardless of ability, any and all race-based decisions are wrong. If a white (and only a white) makes a decision in favor of his own race, he is ‘woke right’. Lindsay never argues why. He assumes his conclusions are obvious.
The same lack of argument is found throughout his Manifesto (grandiose word!). Science, the Good, truth, individualism, on and on, all marched out to agree with Lindsay. But he simply cannot be bothered to say what he means by any of these words. Nor can he be, as we’ll see, consistent.
He has a go at defining Modernity, that ideal state of the world he would see preserved:
“Modernity” is the name for the profound cultural transformation which saw the rise of representative democracy, the age of science, the supersedence of reason over superstition, and the establishment of individual liberties to live according to one’s own values.
He sums up his own argument with this, what he must have thought was brilliant, bullet point: “Most people support Modernity and wish its anti-modern enemies would shut up.”
What if my own values are contrary to and would do violence to Lindsay’s? Perhaps he’d say we’d vote to decide whose views will be imposed. What if my side wins? Is the outcome Reason? And is Lindsay’s losing side thus proven superstition? Is this outcome the Good?
Nearest he comes to defining the Good is this:
An earnest appreciation that the Good is best achieved through a balance between human cooperation and competition brokered and mediated through the interplay of institutions that work on behalf of public and private interests.
This is as close to a non-definition as you can get…
It’s becoming ever more clear where the lines are now drawn. Not between Left and Right, or Conservative and Liberal, but between Enlightenment and Post-Enlightenment. There is no fundamental difference between the godless communist Left-Liberal and the Churchian zionist Right-Conservative, as they accept fundamentally the same precepts and principles and differ only in how those precepts and principles are best applied.
And while they will obviously attempt to portray us as Pre-Enlightenment skeptics, that portrayal is outdated and and fundamentally false. The Pre-Enlightenment skeptics were correct, for the most part, but they held their beliefs on the basis of logic and reason. They did not have the benefit that we do of seeing how these untested theories actually played out over time. We Post-Enlightenment rejecters hold our beliefs on the basis of logic, reason, and undeniable, irrefutable evidence.
The principles of the Enlightenment were appealing back in the day. They promised a better world, which, for a time, they even appeared to deliver.
But now we know better. We now know where “representative democracy” leads: to something that is neither representative nor democracy. We now know where “freedom of speech” leads: to deplatformings, demonetizations, and prison. We now know where “free trade” leads: to the destruction of the industrial base, widespread unemployment, and lower wages. We now know where “the free movement of peoples” leads: mass migration, high crime, and the devastation of the social fabric.
Their very victory has doomed them. The societies in which their principles persist are dying, and the rest of the world no longer even pretends to believe in them.
History is not on their side. To the contrary: history condemns them!