There Really is a Woke Right, and it is a Grave Threat to Freedom
The evidence is solid, despite the loud and desperate denials
Recently, there has been a lot of discussion about whether there is a ‘woke right’. Some moderates have long used the the term ‘woke right’ to describe reactionary right-wing culture warriors who engage in cancel culture and other forms of free speech denial, but this term was only embraced by a small minority, until James Lindsay and several other key influencers on the right began promoting it in recent months. As you might expect, some on the right have been quite defensive, and dismissive of the idea that the right can be ‘woke’ too, going so far as to accuse Lindsay and others of promoting left-wing ideas (this clearly has the same energy as far-left activists trying to paint Barack Obama and Joe Biden as right-wing). It is in this context, particularly the right’s defensive, tribalist and almost anti-intellectual response, that I began thinking about whether a ‘woke right’ might indeed exist.
When a few people began talking about the ‘woke right’ two or three years ago, my initial attitude was skeptical. After all, wokeness arose from postmodernism and critical theory, philosophies which are firmly rooted in the left, and have only been (openly) embraced by left-wing people and movements. Just because something looks similar to woke doesn’t make it woke. I mean, Christian and Islamic fundamentalism are authoritarian and anti-LGBT, and so is fascism, but religious fundamentalism and fascism are clearly two different things.
However, over time, I have observed that the similarities between the woke left and the new movement of culture warriors on the right are simply too many to ignore. Both despise free speech, and distrust the marketplace of ideas to the point that they believe they have to actively shut down speech and ideas they disagree with, often using unscrupulous means. This, ultimately, stems from a belief on both sides that society and culture are controlled by an all-pervasive power structure, that would not allow the truth to emerge simply from free speech and free debate. There’s a clear oppressor vs oppressed worldview at work here on both sides, although there is clearly disagreement on which groups are the oppressor and which groups are the oppressed. There’s also a ‘let’s turn the tables of oppression’, revenge on the oppressors is legitimate feeling on both sides, and the ‘oppressors’ are seen as one indistinguishable bloc, so it would be okay to hurt all of them without considering individual guilt or lack thereof. Above all, for both sides, the biggest goal of politics is to dismantle the power structure and disarm those who are propping up the power structure, and this has to be done at all costs, including costs to individual liberty, as well as actual harms to actual people. The last point is important, because not many ideologies in the modern West would condone this ‘whatever it takes’, ‘the ends justify the means’ attitude, for good reason.
It is clear from the above analysis that the woke left and the New Right culture warriors share not only superficial similarities or even just tactics, but rather, they ultimately share the same kind of worldview about culture, human nature and the general epistemology of society. Given this, I think we are talking less about two things that are only superficially similar like fascism vs religious authoritarianism here, but rather two things that actually share the same core nature, like Italian fascism and German Nazism. Just like we can put both Italian fascism and German Nazism under the same general umbrella called ‘fascism’, I think we can justifiably put both the ‘woke left’ and the ‘woke right’ under the same general umbrella called ‘wokeism’. Indeed, failing to do so would severely limit, and even distort, our view of reality.
This still leaves the problem of the clear influence of postmodern critical theory on the left, and the lack of such influence in explicit terms on the right. However, the same idea can go by different names, or be described in different terms, in different cultures and contexts (and the left and the right are clearly different cultures in the modern West). An apple might not be called an apple in Japan, simply because they speak a different language, but this wouldn’t make it not an apple. If I went to a store in Tokyo and bought a ‘ringo’, it would still taste very similar to the apples from my local supermarket, and they would still be essentially the same thing. The ultimate answer as to whether the New Right culture warriors are actually ‘woke’ is whether they share the essence of the critical theory mode of thinking, not whether they speak the language of postmodern critical theory per se.
To answer the question of whether the New Right embodies the essence of wokeness, we need to turn to the actual theory they write, read, believe and practice. Contrary to popular belief, New Right theory is as much a real thing as New Left theory. From what I’ve observed, the Neoreaction movement, inspired by the writings of Curtis Yarvin and Nick Land, represent the most influential faction of New Right theory so far. Many New Right intellectuals, including soon-to-be Vice President JD Vance, have expressed sympathy towards Yarvin’s writings. The neoreactionary idea that there is a ‘cathedral’ centered in journalism and academia, controlling society’s culture, right down to the way people think subconsciously, akin to the Catholic Church in the middle ages, is clearly analogous to how the various critical theories claim that our society is fundamentally shaped by the ‘systems’ of white supremacy, patriarchy and heteronormativity. Moreover, the all-encompassing pernicious control of both the ‘cathedral’ and the ‘systems of oppression’ are made invisible to, and/or taken for granted by the majority of the public, and only apparent to those who have been enlightened (‘red-pilled’ or ‘awoken’) by the relevant theory. Furthermore, given the all-encompassing nature of the influence of both the ‘cathedral’ and the ‘systems of oppression’, there is no way to fairly debate ideas and achieve good outcomes in the current society. Dismantling the ‘cathedral’ or the ‘systems of oppression’ is the most important goal in politics, and must be achieved no matter the costs to individual freedom, peace and the immediate welfare of citizens.
Seen in this way, neoreactionism is basically a form of critical theory, one that paints a picture of the systemic oppression of liberalism against cultural reactionaries. In this worldview, the oppressors are university academics, experts and liberal journalists, and the history of this oppression actually began with the Whigs in England several centuries ago. Just like with oppressor vs oppressed critical theory in general, there is no nuance displayed, no consideration for differences between individuals, and no role for individual agency at all. All individuals are inevitably seen as just parts of the system, whether they like it or not. Moreover, occasionally, demographic groups seen as supported by the aforementioned classes, e.g. LGBT people, could be identified with the oppressors too, in a similar way to how the most extreme woke-leftists insist that ‘all men’ are responsible for patriarchy, or that ‘all white people’ are responsible for white supremacy. The oppressed here are supposedly the general public which have been harmed by the liberal ideas coming from the aforementioned institutions. However, we must remember that, even though many of us have valid criticisms of academia and mainstream media, there isn’t actually objective evidence that society has been fundamentally harmed in a systemic way by these institutions as a whole. Rather, given that it is only in the neoreactionary worldview that this is the case, the oppressed are actually only those who hold neoreactionary or adjacent beliefs, projecting their feelings of oppression onto the rest of the population. This is similar to how critical race theory claims to speak for all black people, or how radical feminism and postmodern feminism pretend to speak for all women.
The neoreactionary’s feelings of ‘oppression’ are largely rooted in their inability to live in their utopia free of the influence of liberal and left-of-center ideas, which they blame the ‘oppressors’ in academia and media for foistering on society. This is analogous to Herbert Marcuse’s view in Repressive Tolerance that the existence, expression and influence of conservative ideas in society represents unacceptable repression and oppression that justifies illiberal means to combat it. Of course, these people tend to forget that nobody gets to choose to live in a society devoid of ideas they don’t like. Also, there are good reasons why most of us wouldn’t want to live in a society where all abortion and divorce is illegal, where homosexuality is illegal, or where freedom of expression is limited by Taliban-style religious laws, and we’re not brainwashed by academia and mainstream media to think this way. Of course, viewing the simple existence of difference in opinion and not getting your way sometimes as ‘oppression’, and those who disagree as ‘oppressors’, fantasizing that such ‘oppression’ has come about as a result of nefarious hidden powerful forces, as well as irrationally extrapolating one’s own feelings of ‘oppression’ to a much wider population, are all hallmarks of the most extreme kind of woke thinking.
Besides neoreactionism, other parts of the New Right also exhibit critical theory-like thinking. For example, Patrick Deneen has called for a ‘regime change’ in America. He decries the status quo as some kind of ‘tyranny’, where genuine conservatism has been made impossible by the dominance of liberalism. Through this, he justifies a radical reordering of everything through illiberal means, which would ultimately pave the way for his utopia of the supposed ‘common good’. This lines up with the aforementioned neoreaction worldview (even though Deneen, as far as I’m aware, is not a neoreactionary), and also with the general format of postmodern critical theory thinking. Similarly, Christopher Rufo has argued that the radical left has ‘conquered everything’, using cherry-picked evidence, to justify the idea that an illiberal ‘counter-revolution’ is needed. Again, this selective use of evidence to create a narrative of power imbalance, to justify an illiberal politics, fits very well into the basic format of critical theory. Moreover, Rufo once said of critical race theory that ‘we will eventually turn it toxic, as we put all of the various cultural insanities under that brand category’, demonstrating a willingness to resort to dishonest tactics which pollute the cultural discourse in order to achieve political ends. My regular audience would know how strongly I feel about opposing critical race theory, yet this dishonest and politically motivated approach is something that I vehemently oppose. The disrespect of objective truth, and the underlying view of speech and discourse as a device for power is all very postmodern. Overall, using selective anecdotal evidence to create a narrative of liberal cultural dominance and systemic oppression of ‘conservatives’, and justification of illiberal (and often dishonest) action to remedy this ‘oppression’, is a recurring theme throughout the New Right’s intellectual output. Thus, the New Right’s worldview clearly fits into the genre of critical theory, even if New Right intellectuals don’t actually speak the same language as leftist critical theorists.
In conclusion, there is plenty of evidence to prove that the New Right culture warriors do, in fact, share the essence of woke thinking. Therefore, they can justifiably be called the ‘woke right’. (After all, if the ‘woke right’ really didn’t exist, why would there be such an overreaction to Lindsay et al.? This overreaction really smells just like how the woke left overreacted to Jordan Peterson back in 2018! Which clearly means they have something to hide.) Indeed, any discussion of wokeness that does not include the ‘woke right’ would be incomplete, and making conclusions based on incomplete evidence is always going to be inherently biased. Therefore, I believe that any future criticisms of wokeness going forward must also include the ‘woke right’, to capture the whole spectrum of woke thinking. Also, given that the woke right is already weaponizing the existence of the woke left to justify its own authoritarian moves, it is becoming more and more urgent that we develop a new woke-critical narrative that covers both the woke left and the woke right. I will have more to say on this in the near future.
Originally published at https://taraella.substack.com.
TaraElla is a singer-songwriter and author, who is the author of the Moral Libertarian Manifesto and the Moral Libertarian book series, which argue that liberalism is still the most moral and effective value system for the West.
She is also the author of The Trans Case Against Queer Theory and The TaraElla Story (her autobiography).
