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and-then-there-were-n0ne · 5 months

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N.S. Lyons: Woke is Individualist

Charles, I find your classification of racial idenitarianism and radical environmentalism as the two competing “pillars” of “Woke” to be particularly interesting, and want to hone in on that. This is because I think this classification misidentifies the true competing forces among the Woke, and in doing so accidentally elides its true origin and character, and therefore the broader nature of the challenge to our societies. Obviously this diagnosis is important to get right because the answer will structure how we should respond.

To me, the existing internal divide among the Woke doesn’t appear to be between identitarian racialism and environmentalism (the latter of which notably long predates Wokeism and seems to have simply agglomerated itself to Woke via common association among the people involved in Progressive political movements). Instead the obvious divide seems to clearly be between the two big camps of Race and Trans. You have not touched on transgenderism above at all, but it has become by far the most visible and aggressive aspect of Woke radicalism today other than “anti-racism” (and indeed today seems to have even have surpassed it). But whereas racialism is, I agree, collectivist in nature (though perhaps is more specifically described as a tribalist), the trans craze is not. Rather, it is a manifestation of an out-of-control hyper-individualism.

Trans ideology asserts that an inner psychological “self” is not only a but the only legitimate and authoritative judge of truth and reality. The authority of the self is then asserted as superior over all external claims, whether social or biological. Even the material reality of the body itself is seen only as a form of unjust oppression, an artificial limit imposed on the full sovereignty and “freedom” of the self and its desires that must be overcome through “liberation.” Moreover, the “true identity” of the self (whether conceived of as fixed or fluid) is taken to be so unimpeachable that it can justifiably be imposed externally, in the form of demands for total acceptance and affirmation from others, whose own sovereignty is necessarily seen as subservient to the true self (me). Indeed trans ideology’s central demand is that, for the sake of justice, the world must conform to the will, rather than the will to the world. In this, transgenderism is the ultimate expression of a centering of the individual will to power – and, arguably, of “identitarianism” in a larger sense: of making one’s inner “identity” the cornerstone of reality. But, again, this identitarianism is radically individualist, not collectivist.

Obviously this is all in direct contradiction with the narrative of the racialist camp: their position is that fundamental identity is determined by the biological (skin color and ethnicity), and that identity is immutable and unchangeable precisely for this reason. Those who have tried to import the trans paradigm to the racial sphere – e.g. all those white people who pretend to be black or indigenous while claiming that this is who they “truly are on the inside” – have so far been met only with acute hostility. These two tribes of the Woke are united only through the doctrine of intersectionality (co-identification of the “white cis-heteronormative” as shared oppressor and enemy to be overthrown).

If I had to pick one of these two positions as the more likely to “win” and come to dominate the direction of Wokeism moving forward (though this is unnecessary), I might actually pick trans over race. Racialism is ultimately a cynical grift, an attempt to redistribute resources, power, and status; trans is a religion. Minority racialism is at least somewhat limited in potential scale by the presence, size, and resentment of minority populations (though these have been sufficient to nonetheless make it terribly destructive); in comparison, the offer the trans cult holds out is universal: “do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.”

The core feature of Wokeism is really the narcissism of “the self without limit,” made possible by complete faith in Progress, the malleability of both Nature and Man, and ultimately man’s ability to fully control, organize, and manage reality as if he were a god (thus producing equity and social justice, i.e. heaven on earth). In other words it encapsulates all the most defining characteristics of our modern age. I believe this should raise some uncomfortable questions for what might be called the “liberal theory of Woke.” For what is the true origin of Woke? Was it some outside anti-liberal force? Or was it really Enlightenment liberalism itself that gave birth to its own successor ideology? I am inclined to see it as the latter. The progressive liberation of the individual self from limits is after all that which puts the lib in liberalism.

So while I wouldn’t disagree that Woke often functions practically as a collectivist ideology, I would point out that this is a reactive instinct. Woke is a product of the world liberalism made: a world of atomized hyper-individuals, liberated from every authority but the inner self and its will to power; for whom every higher authority outside the self has been torn down, and every social norm, duty, responsibility, or unchosen bond to a community beyond the individual destroyed. But in such a wasteland, individuals (still being human) crave nothing more than community and connection, and meaning, and so they seek it – with no authority or inherited guidance or structure (for such things are considered illiberal) – and increasingly find it in toxic, moralistic, pseudo-religious collectives like the Woke movement.

Note well that the cries for “justice” and “sustainability” that you rightly identify as the magic invocations wielded by the Woke both reflect a deep (even existential) sense of alienation; this is no coincidence, for today increasingly we are all alienated from anything beyond ourselves. Meanwhile there is only one entity, one Potemkin community still standing and ready (and very happy) to gather together and embrace all these atomized and alienated individuals, and to flatter, affirm, protect, and provide for all their anxieties and desires: the managerial state. Its growth and that of the atomized modern self proceed hand-in-hand, for there is no other form of authoritative community remaining. And who created this wasteland of deracinated alienation, narcissistic self-worship, and wrecked authority that has led to the Woke total state? Perhaps here Hayek and the libertarians deserve to be put in the hot seat to sweat a while.

What is the way out of Woke? Would a radical reassertion of the individual over the collective do the trick? No, I think clearly not. This can only drive us deeper into the abyss. For the libertarian approach simply cannot provide the kind of robust community, meaning, and direction that people are increasingly lacking and desperate for, and for which they are drawn to totalitarian ideological movements like the Woke. Nor can libertarianism provide strong communities capable of serving as an intermediary force between people and state, counter-balancing the managerial state’s authority and limiting centralization and eventually totalization. Instead libertarianism can only accelerate social breakdown and atomization. This has always been its most fatal, self-destructive flaw.

It is easy to assume that the solution to mass group-think is to champion the individual, but unfortunately it’s not that straightforward. Only an individual buffered and fortified by robust communities, social frameworks, and authorities like inherited tradition and religious faith will be strong enough to truly function as what we think of as a self-governing individual. Otherwise, exposed in the open and under bombardment, he will rush for the safety of the collective herd, and the state.

So, if we want to defeat it, we’d be much better off if we accept the truth: Woke is individualist.

N.S. Lyons: Radical Individualism Produced a Radical Reaction

I would certainly agree that an assumed universal Christian moral foundation seems to have been what allowed classical liberalism to function as a workable system for the centuries that it lasted. I’d therefore suggest that the logical conclusion about what is happening now is that this foundation has been so completely eroded that, in its absence, liberalism is now collapsing in on itself. But I would point out that it was liberalism itself that eroded away – “liberated” us from – that pre-liberal foundation in the first place.

I’d also note that I am quite sceptical of the argument that, by virtue of its moderation, classical liberalism is somehow the “true liberalism,” while “libertarianism” is deformed by its comparative extremism into something different from liberalism. As far as I’m concerned, if something becomes more purely and completely itself (that is, more “extreme”), it cannot be said to have changed its nature into something different. Rather the original compound – in this case what we call “classical liberalism” – was in itself a product of its character as a mixed or diluted thing. Originally it contained and was moderated by non-liberal elements. It then became more and more liberal precisely as it became less and less classical.

But I suppose this is getting a bit off topic. I think your identification of trans, sexual, and other minority identities as groups that people “join” in order to gain membership in a quasi-tribal collective to be insightful and quite clearly correct. Though I would say that this only occurs because of the state of atomization such people find themselves in as individuals. Those people most adrift, alone, and exposed, are the ones most primed to run to these toxic identity groups for shelter, protection, and some kind of organizing structure for the psyche. And this state of atomization is, again, created by radical individualism – this is a reaction by liberal individuals to the reality of liberal individualism.

I would suggest, however, that we have managed to arrive at a productive conclusion here from slightly different directions: perhaps we can agree that if such identitarian collectives are dangerous – which obviously I think we can – and that we want people to avoid joining these collectives en masse, then we’re probably going to have to try, one way or another, to reconstruct at least some of the moral and psychological foundations that once successfully undergirded classical liberalism for so long.

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