Don't Be Woke About the "Woke Right": Part III

On the future of this debate, and on the future of the right as a whole

This is Part III of a multi-part series as the whole James Lindsay saga is massive, and he, as well as his opponents, are crazily prolific. He has for example published over 272,000+ X posts (tweets). Part I detailed the background of James Lindsay as well as arguments for what he is right about. Part II focused on where he and his much-loved vision of classical liberalism are wrong, or at least how he is much more paranoid than he should be, as well as how he is falling into the same sort of mimetic dialectical trap that he critiques. This, Part III will discuss the future, and how the right should view and relate to Haywood and Lindsay.

Link to the audio version of the entire series here:

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As I’ve claimed in Parts I and II of this series thus far, James Lindsay has a point in critiquing the “woke right” but his critiques go way too far and he himself ends up in a paranoid, wokish state of mind.¹ So what sort of political future does this leave America and the world considering that it’s also obvious that classical liberalism by itself is not sufficient? What sort of a political future is possible for the right that excludes the woke epistemology and worldview found in people like Andrew Tate and Nick Fuentes while remaining effective in defeating the dangers from the left?

Can you have an effectual right wing that avoids the flaws that Lindsay rightly critiques but which also moves government—and society in a more positive direction? And who is in this “effectual right”? Are Charles Hawyood, Tucker Carlson, and Darryl Cooper a part of it? Or do they cross the line into being part of the “woke right”?

Most of all, what stance towards this array of movements should the prudent bystander take? What guardrails should we put on our own beliefs and associations? What does it mean to go too far concerning the “woke right”? And what is the minimum amount of “being right-wing” necessary to be effective in restoring order to society and government, or at least ensuring that our current trajectory of collapse is avoided?

I don’t know how to answer all these questions (or I’d be the Maximum Leader and have 10 million X-followers but I have at least some beginning thoughts to share.²

Adopting Woke Right Epistemology vs. Individual Stances

I will start by presuming here, although I said more in Part I, that there is a very real “woke right” and it is a real danger to both the conservative movement and to society as a whole, both by adopting destructive and immoral ends because of its flawed vision on the world, as well as, by its extremism, becoming both ineffectual and unappealing as a movement, and retarding more general conservative efforts along with it. I agree with James Lindsay on this as a general point. However, while I believe that people like Nick Fuentes and Andrew Tate should be classified in this camp, to take a phrase from Glenn Beck’s one-time critique of another supposed “woke right” member, as “false prophets,” I do not believe that Darryl Cooper, Dave Smith, Tucker Carlson, or Charles Haywood necessarily deserve this label.

A primary distinction that I believe could be made to reconcile Lindsay’s critiques of wokeism on the right with some of the very people he critiques is to evaluate their opinions and see whether they flow from a single “woke” epistemology or merely happen to agree with that epistemology in individual stances. Do so-called members of the woke right actually adopt the rightfully critiqued (see Part I) gnostic epistemology of all-encompassing oppressive hierarchies that must be entirely overthrown? Do they, like Marx, call only to destroy—and then—upon entirely new foundations, to build a new utopia? If so, then such men are rightfully to be critiqued as unconstrained ideologues, whose ideas, like those of the “woke left”, Communism, Nazism, or any other cult before it, have no anchor cord tying them down to reality and morality and ultimately lead to “purity spirals” of ever-increasing ideological intensity, fervor, and ultimately fanatical derangement and violence.

But if people accused of being “woke right” do have real and strong bonds that restrain their political ideology, and still adopt positions that agree with “woke right” ones on some certain issues, they are not necessarily themselves “woke right”. There is a line between one’s opinions following from an ideology that they have handed themselves over to wholesale, and, on the other hand, people who have rationally, and independent of group/tribe/mimetic pressure, come to some of these same, or perhaps, as I will get to soon, similar but distinct conclusions for other reasons.

Since James Lindsay’s definition of the “woke right” is, on the face of it, just rehashing the thoughts and ideas of Charles Haywood, this might seem to be a hard case to make.³ Haywood, as the poster child for all Lindsay bemoans and criticizes on the “right”, does seem to make many claims that seem “woke” in epistemology such as this desire for temporary DEI preference for whites:

or his thoughts about foreign immigration to Indiana:

or his statement about the murder of Brian Thompson:

and especially Haywood’s seeming paraphrase of Karl Marx’s favorite quote from Faust: “Everything that exists deserves to perish”:

At the very least one must say that the bold way Haywood writes makes it harder to argue that he’s not a woke ideologue of the right in his epistemology, someone who, like the Marxists or “woke left” believes that they and only they have the secret knowledge that they are bound up by all-consuming structural oppression and only DEI tactics to benefit the oppressed class and an ultimate destruction of all the oppressive structures will restore “justice.”

Yet Haywood’s views, as he has expressed them at greater length, even if seemingly very close to these, are not necessarily “woke” in their origin. Even though he vigorously critiques much of today’s Western society, and especially desires the destruction of “autonomic enlightenment liberalism” he does not call people to a proposed utopian future based on a radical epistemological rethinking of everything but merely a realistic, practical one. His theory and proposals (foundationalism) are based on maximization, aiming for the best possible given the circumstances and common sense, and not for a utopian ideal based on a novel reinterpretation of reality.

Foundationalism does not guarantee happiness. The apocatastasis, the universal reconciliation, is not its concern. It is not an ideology—it does not offer all the answers. What it offers is a positive vision for a maximized future. The goal is to all muddle through together, to achieve as much human flourishing as reasonably possible, buffering the miseries inherent to human life. Foundationalism offers all members of society a chance for meaning, for transcendence, not through utopian ideology, but through rebasing ourselves in the real.⁴

Haywood’s foundationalism is in the strict sense not conservative, because he does not aim to conserve the present. In this, he does seem to be “woke” in the Marxist sense of desiring to destroy the systemic and evil oppressive structures of the present:

Why a wholesale destruction and replacement, rather than incremental corrections, what we are told is the prim and proper conservative solution to problems? Because Foundationalism does not aim to conserve. It is a wholesale rebellion against the powers of the modern world, which realizes that those powers must be shattered, the world must be broken, to clear the way for new growth.

However, since Haywood grounds his politics on the prior Western tradition, he is in a certain sense more traditional and more conservative than conservatives who merely seek to preserve our present order of classical liberalism:

Foundationalism is grounded in what is universally known to be true, or what was once universally known to be true; it does not invent new truths. Thus, it contains a strong bias toward traditional Western knowledge and modes of thought, without calcification of application. The asteroid miner who knows his Aristotle and his Aquinas, and extracts metals to build great works with a picture of Henry the Navigator in his rocket ship—he is a Foundationalist.

Charles wants the present errors to be swept away, the infected branches, by analogy, in order to preserve unharmed the roots. In sum, his political program reminds me of Mary’s prayer in response to the angel Gabriel known as the Magnificat:

My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has regarded the low estate of his handmaiden.
For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed;
for he who is mighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
And his mercy is on those who fear him
from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm,
he has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts,
he has put down the mighty from their thrones,
and exalted those of low degree;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent empty away.
He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
as he spoke to our fathers,
to Abraham and to his posterity for ever.⁵

At first, this reads like a revolutionary manifesto. And in the same sense that Haywood’s program is revolutionary, so it is, in its calls to “scatter the proud” and “put down the mighty”. But it is revolutionary against the false order, the present order, in order to conserve, to set right, and to restore a deeper order, God’s kingdom.⁶ By analogy, so also is foundationalism both revolutionary and yet more conservative than all other “lesser”, ineffectual versions of conservatism, which in blindly preserving the present, preserves its injustices, evils, and false hierarchies and principles along with it.

Charles’ view of “regular” or what he calls “ineffectual” conservatism is parodied to a hilarious end in this video below.

Alright, my defense of Charles is over. It’s not ultimate. I have qualms about revolution. Revolutionary movements are unpredictable. Charles’ view of the idea of “fellow travelers”, what he calls “No Enemies On the Right”, does, I admit, by setting no limits to whom we on the right should collaborate with, seem slightly dangerous in practical outlook if a say, revolution were to take place, let alone morally, as it suggests that yes, you should work with neo-Nazis and the “woke right” against the left. I can’t argue against his extensive treatment of this question rationally, but I must admit that I just don’t want to work with woke ideologues of the right like Nick Fuentes and Andrew Tate even if they are willing to be temporary allies. I just don’t like their attitude, their ungroundedness from Christian morality, etc. Even temporary cooperation as Haywood’s principles propose, just feels, to use the technical term, icky.

The line between such men and Haywood is semi-permeable but yet exists. Haywood’s Christian faith, and the demands of charity, strained near to the point of wokeness as it may seem in some of his more nationality and race-oriented posts, is evident through self-criticism he makes throughout his work in a way that is not present in Tate, Fuentes, or perhaps even people like Andrew Torba. And as such, that faith and its accompanying charity is Charles’ moral grounding. He may agree upon many issues with them through his strong takes on immigration, destruction of the leftist control of institutions, etc. but yet he does so out of more rooted and ancient, more traditional, ultimately, the most conservative reasons. And yet many of his own friends and followers do cross over a line into a more purely revolutionary, gnostic, and utopian, racialist ideology that is upstream from their positions, and, which, in an ungrounded and un-guardrailed manner controls them.

This distinction is but a special case of the more general difference between quia and proper quid arguments. Knowing that something is true and that that something, perhaps, is a bad state of affairs, is very different from making a proper quid argument about exactly why it is true. People can come to the same practical answers and to propose similar methods for very different reasons. I’m merely suggesting that even many of Haywood’s most radical positions come from a more guardrailed, but at the very least, different perspective than a race-first perspective like that of Fuentes.

Even James Lindsay himself has made this type of distinction in arguing that Marx may have gotten things right positionally, but not vectorally, that he got certain details right, but from an entirely flawed view of the world.⁷ The “woke right” may make similar claims to Haywood, but they do so, or at least, mostly do so, from a different epistemological basis, and so, perhaps, we can listen to Haywood, and even more so to Darryl Cooper, who even if he can be critiqued for being overly critical of Churchill and the English, is even more of a reality-oriented non-ideologue than Haywood is. The cases for Dave Smith and Tucker Carlson being “woke right” are even looser. If anything Tucker is CIA, and Dave’s “just a comedian” but even then I’m dubious about all of them.

But What Now?

I have not answered every objection against Haywood and company, not probably can I. They do seem to walk the edge of the very real problem of the “woke right” that Lindsay is rightfully critiquing.

But since, Haywood, is, I believe, on the moral, Christian side of the line in that his statements, even if often far too radical for my moral taste, are more grounded than that of the “real” “woke right” that he does share some practical proscriptions with, his ideas for the future of the right can be followed in a manner that the “woke right” should not.

Just adopt Haywood’s ideas for the right reasons, for the reason that they make sense out of a Christian reality-based epistemology and not for having come to them from a more radical, that is gnostic epistemology. For as Lindsay does rightfully warn the “woke right” will not stop at their current state, but will proceed to a greater state of “awakening” and ever-deeper wokeness where their separation from the demands of Christian charity will become all too clear. Once you are bound ideologically to a group that all believes in an ideology, in-group mimesis will take your ideology to new levels of extremism by way of the social pressure-induced purity spiral.

Lindsay himself, as a “woke centrist” who without proper cause is overly defending classical liberalism, should not be followed entirely. While he has rightfully uncovered a real problem with the political right, he is wrong, as I covered in Part II in his paranoid critique of everyone who dares to critique classical liberalism. His policy program is more utopian than Haywood’s as it proposes the demonstrably impossible. We cannot return to classical liberalism. It no longer exists. One is forced to pick a side, either that of wokeness of the left or right, or the ideologically restrained yet suggestions of realism proposed by such as Haywood’s foundationalism.

One can and should practically critique liberalism without accepting a gnostic (woke) epistemology. One is not necessarily a woke ideologue if you make particular claims about oppression without accepting the entire package. But you are a woke ideologue if you make particular claims on the basis of the package. In order to not be captured by ideology you need a religion higher than your political ideology. Lindsay is himself setting up a dialectical trap in which everyone is forced to take a side. He is right to critique the “woke right” but he offers no realistic long-term path for society.

My view then, is one of offering restrained, cautious respect for both the Lindsay and the Haywood side of this debate about the “woke right.” I have respect for both as well as things I dislike about both. Even as I think the case for being against the actual factual “woke right” is clear, the future for the political right in America and around the world would do well to encompass both Lindsay’s urges of caution and self-policing with our own side as well as Haywood’s view of effectualism, that the right actually has to be meaningfully for something and be for effective change. Both are valid points in dealing with the left and I, having been liked/reposted by both Charles Haywood and James Lindsay on X on matters related to this topic, think it is not only possible but the only way of dealing with this debate. For, unless resolved soon, the current internecine warfare surrounding this debate seems worryingly close to splitting the right wing in America.

The past week’s worth of conversation on X, having moved to debate over the H1-B visa, illustrates this point more practically, as Lindsay himself argued that the sparking of that particular debate was but one example of a more general psy-op to make the right ineffectual at getting anything done.

For Lindsay, radicals on the “woke right” spark division within the movement and ultimately hinder the right from getting anything done.⁸ At the same time, for Haywood, liberals like Lindsay and this whole debate about the “woke right” spoil the chance of the right getting anywhere.

Even if we can’t ever get Haywood and Lindsay to make up and get along, we can at least find agreement on the idea that the debate about the “woke right” is a major obstacle to getting everything done. We need to find a way past it. I can’t spell out all the practical details of what a post-debate synthesis looks like, but I can, using my new favorite phrase appeal that the two of them, and their followers, or at least we ourselves begin treating each other on the right as fellow-travelers, people who disagree on many things but are least moving in the same general direction against the larger, more organized threats outside.

We agree on defeating the left and the “woke left.”

We agree that this debate is stopping us from doing that.

We both see elements of psy-op and manipulation directed against us within this debate.

Perhaps the synthesis at least begins with focusing on what unites us. That there is an us to this debate and a them who are trying to destroy us. The Western philosophical tradition—in its more ancient pre-Enlightenment—dare I say to James Lindsay Christian roots unites us? And it holds us to—dare I say to Charles Haywood and those who actually are of the “woke right” limits set by charity on our—justified for the moment—need for a revolutionary attitude against the status quo.

We are fellow travellers…

… against the centrally manipulated psy-ops meant to destroy us:

The future of the right if it is to survive in America and offer us a political future beyond our current troubles stands somewhere between James Lindsay and Charles Haywood.

And that future includes both of them.

At the very least let’s try not to be woke about the “woke right.”

1. I haven’t studied it in detail, but this article, shared by Lindsay, offers a great deeper dive into how there is a “woke right” ideologically developing within the right: https://shenviapologetics.com/what-is-the-woke-right/

2. I would be happy if you followed me: x.com/jamesgreenWY. I’m only 9,999,886 followers away and counting.

3. In fact, having spoken at far greater length to some of his friends than I ever have with Charles himself on these issues, I believe that many of Charles’ friends are definitely “woke right”, or at least unconsciously so.

4. https://theworthyhouse.com/2021/06/17/the-foundationalist-manifesto-the-politics-of-future-past/

5. Luke 1:46-55 RSVCE

6. Tom Holland’s book Dominion covers this point excellently, arguing that Christianity is a revolutionary anti-establishment movement and has always been so, through its demands for continual self-criticism and constant increase in charity.

7. See his discussion about accuracy about position versus accuracy about direction here:

https://x.com/ConceptualJames/status/1868335888394011031

8. https://x.com/ConceptualJames/status/1869058122905792964