How to Build the Post Woke Movement | TER Post Woke

It won't be easy, and we need a plan.

Welcome to TaraElla Report Post Woke, where we consciously aim to move beyond the woke vs anti-woke culture wars, and towards a post-woke model of culture and politics. Previously, I have outlined what a post-woke alternative would look like. Today, I want to talk about how we can advance the post-woke alternative in the cultural discourse.

As I said before, the current cultural and political discourse of the West is dominated by two echo chambers, the so-called woke and anti-woke. The existence of these echo chambers essentially keep other ways of thinking at the margins, severely limiting the influence of any post-woke ideas. Moreover, the echo chambers are maintained by everything from confirmation bias and habitual behavioral patterns, to cancel culture, to deliberate organization and interests backed by lots of money. Therefore, the key to building a successful post-woke alternative is to pierce and disrupt the echo chambers on both sides. If we can do this, then we can truly end the woke vs anti-woke wars. If not, then post-wokeism will remain no more than a nice theoretical idea, with very little practical influence in the real world.

I guess the first thing to do is to accept that we are not operating on a level playing field, compared to the media personalities and influencers on both sides, who use their big platforms to reinforce the dominant ideas of the echo chambers. This means that we have to start small, be patient, and wait for it to snowball into something bigger over time. We need to insist on talking about the post-woke alternative, and providing the post-woke voice when it comes to various social and cultural debates. Some days we might get very frustrated, feeling like we are essentially shouting into the void. Other days it might all feel futile, as our well-reasoned positions get drowned out by the loud culture warriors on both sides. But we need to keep going, if we are to have any chance of changing things at all.

Next, we need to recognize that many people who are trapped in the echo chambers actually feel uncomfortable with the status quo too. This even includes people whose work are essential to holding up the dominant narratives of the echo chambers, like journalists, media personalities, intellectuals, influencers and more. They might be quietly questioning the dominant narrative in their echo chambers, the echo chambers they are otherwise helping to maintain. We need to help that questioning process along. For example, whenever a culture war flare up occurs between the two sides, it actually provides a good opportunity to intervene, to help people question the soundness of the whole thing.

Finally, we need to be able to regularly come up with unique and innovative solutions to the problems and controversies that make up the fault lines of our cultural landscape. This is the best way to demonstrate the advantages of the post-woke approach compared to both the woke and anti-woke orthodoxies. People generally pay attention to something new, and prefer fresh ideas to talking points that have been repeated over and over again. Moreover, many people out there are actually looking for ways to build bridges across factions, perhaps because they want society to function again, or perhaps just because they don't want their family and friends to keep fighting the same old fights all the time. Anyway, the post-woke movement should provide these answers, when the woke and anti-woke factions can't and won't. Many people will appreciate it, and it will make our movement bigger and stronger over time.

Summing up, this is my three step plan for building the post-woke alternative: firstly, we need a lot of patience and perseverence, and recognition that this isn't going to be easy. Secondly, we need to seek opportunities to help more people question the status quo. Finally, we need to provide solutions to build bridges and resolve conflicts where the woke and anti-woke won't.

Two Perspectives: The Need for a Post Woke Alternative | TER Post Woke

Welcome to TaraElla Report Post Woke, where we consciously aim to move beyond the woke vs anti-woke culture wars, and towards a post-woke model of culture and politics.

Perspective 1: I have long been passionate about equality for minorities, addressing climate change, and being open-minded about different ways to solve our social problems. That is why I've always identified as a progressive. However, in recent years, I feel like progressives have been shooting ourselves in the foot. For some reason, the most divisive, counter-productive and literally stupid so-called 'solutions' are given the most attention, and the most controversial voices are often given the biggest platforms, as if the more controversial the better. This has generated nothing but backlash, which has prevented the necessary consensus building to make reforms possible. What I want is for there to be a way to move beyond this tragic situation.

Perspective 2: I believe in the value of traditions and traditional institutions. This is why I'm a conservative. However, I also believe that traditions must remain adaptive to remain relevant and maintain widespread support. The way to achieve this is to have good faith and respectful discussions about how we should move into the future, and to resolve our differences. The problem is that, modern conservatism is more like a culture war tribe that reinforces each others' existing views, and is not that interested in having productive discussions. The result is that they often hold onto maladaptive solutions and policies, which can ultimately lead to the discrediting of traditional values and institutions.

I think the problem with the current social and political discourse is that people are divided into two main tribes, each tribe exists in its own echo chamber, and the worst ideas in each echo chamber are allowed to become dominant, because of the lack of real challenge from other perspectives. Call it progressive vs conservative, woke vs anti-woke, or whatever, this is actually very unhealthy, and will certainly not lead our society towards good outcomes. This is why we need a post-woke alternative, where we acknowledge all that has gone wrong since the rise of the current round of the culture wars about a decade ago, and come together for a sincere discussion on how we can do better going forward.

The key to this is to puncture and disrupt the echo chambers that are the root cause of the current dynamic. The trouble is, this won't be an easy task, because the echo chambers are maintained by everything from confirmation bias and habitual behavioral patterns, to cancel culture, to deliberate organization and interests backed by lots of money. This means we need to consciously aim to disrupt the echo chambers, especially the dominant narratives in each echo chamber that are repeatedly reinforced. This disruption will be key to building the post-woke alternative. This is why, going forward, I will be talking a lot more about the strategies we can use to disrupt the echo chambers.

On Wokeness, Anti-Woke and Intellectualism | TER Post Woke

Why we need to bring back sincere intellectuals

Welcome to TaraElla Report Post Woke, where we consciously aim to move beyond the woke vs anti-woke culture wars, and towards a post-woke model of culture and politics. Today, I want to talk about why both the woke and anti-woke positions are insufficiently intellectual, and why a truly intellectual atmosphere is essential for a post-woke movement.

Let's start with the woke position first. As we have previously established, wokeness is actually rooted in philosophy and theory that came out of academia. This is why, to some people, it has the veneer of being intellectual. However, since the woke theories are not products of unbiased discussion and debate, truly open-minded truth seeking, and a commitment to objectivity, I would have to say that they are not truly 'intellectual' in the traditional sense. Rather, I think they are more like activists' wishes phrased in intellectual language. Indeed, one could argue that a worldview that fundamentally sees language, knowledge and discourse as products of power, and objectivity as nothing more than pretense, would actually be incompatible with being 'intellectual' in the traditional sense.

Given the intellectual deficiencies of wokeness, the anti-woke position could naturally have been built on a foundation of restoring the meaning of being an 'intellectual' in the traditional sense. And to some extent, the early anti-woke movement did go a bit in that direction. There was plenty of discussion about the values of the Enlightenment, why free speech is essential, and so on. But ultimately, the anti-woke movement came to be dominated by culture warriors, who had no patience for proper intellectual exploration and argumentation either. I believe this is why anti-woke intellectual projects like the Intellectual Dark Web (IDW) ultimately ended up quite hollow and unattractive after a while. The same talking points are repeated again and again, and the discourse seems to not be very open to unexplored possibilities. To be honest, I think many IDW figures sound more like culture warriors than sincere intellectuals nowadays.

I believe an important part of moving beyond the woke vs anti-woke culture wars is to actually bring back sincere intellectualism. We need people who are dedicated to exploring the objective truth of the world, rather than just seeing the world as they wish, or worse, selectively picking and choosing facts to build a biased narrative to suit their political agenda. We need people who actually want to have open-minded discussions about the important issues, rather than just wanting their side to 'win' and their 'enemies' to lose. A sincere intellectual today should be able to easily tell that both the woke and anti-woke positions are unsound. Sadly, too many people can't even see that right now.

The Problem with Anti-Woke and Anti-Anti-Woke | TER Post Woke

Why reaction is maladaptive, and will just perpetuate the problem

Welcome to TaraElla Report Post Woke, where we consciously aim to move beyond the woke vs anti-woke culture wars, and towards a post-woke model of culture and politics.

Today, I want to talk about two movements or perspectives that have arisen as a consequence of the rise of woke culture: anti-woke, and anti-anti-woke. I believe the 'reactive' nature of these movements have ultimately meant that they have just perpetuated the problems that were started by woke culture. I will illustrate how this happens, and what we should do instead to break the vicious cycle.

From what I see, the default stance of the anti-woke is to basically do the opposite of what woke culture demands every time, believing that this is an effective way to resist woke culture. Instead of critizing wokeness where it goes wrong, anti-woke culture prefers to 'trigger' the woke, by doing the opposite of what they want. For example, whatever woke culture wants to ban people from saying, the anti-woke will deliberately say it. Whatever groups woke culture upholds as 'oppressed' and hence worthy of special consideration above others, the anti-woke will deliberately dismiss their issues. The problem with this is, woke culture's enabling of the mistreatment of people based on immutable characteristics and group membership also transfers to anti-woke culture, because of its 'equal but opposite' response to everything woke. This inevitably leads to withholding decency, compassion and fairness from people by immutable characteristics and group membership sometimes. Furthermore, over time, because of its lazy reactionary posture, anti-woke has also developed into an increasingly conformist and predictable movement, and it has become effectively as unwelcoming of independent thinking as woke culture itself. Hence, anti-woke culture has replicated the two biggest errors of woke culture, i.e. the lack of independent thinking, and the normalization of dehumanizing people based on group membership.

The problems of anti-woke culture, and its ongoing association with elements of the authoritarian right, have led some people to adopt an anti-anti-woke stance in reaction. Anti-anti-woke starts with the position that the anti-woke movement is inherently bad, and whatever points they raise are inherently invalid or even dangerous. The problem with this, however, is that it leads to deliberately ignoring the problems brought by woke culture, and hence the normalization of these problems. This means that anti-anti-woke is basically complicit in the normalization of dehumanizing people based on group membership, and the erosion of the Enlightenment values of freedom of conscience, independent thinking and objectivity. Even if there are problems with the anti-woke movement, the answer is clearly not to ignore or suppress whatever they say.

The examples of anti-woke and anti-anti-woke demonstrate how taking a reactionary or oppositional stance is ultimately counter-productive. This is why it is better to go back to the roots of where woke culture went wrong, and address those problems directly. This way, we can be constructive rather than reactive. As I previously said, woke culture basically turned the desire for social justice into its opposite, through the application of theories rooted in postmodernism and critical theory. The way to stop this happening is to prevent those passionate about social justice from embracing these theories, and we can do that by upholding what I call the core post-woke values: decency, fairness and genuineness. By emphasizing these values, we can shine a light on how postmodernism and critical theory are flawed worldviews at their core, and hence begin to undo the problems that woke culture brought.

The Real Problem With Wokeness | TER Post Woke

How Wokeness Misdirected the Desire for Social Justice

Welcome to TaraElla Report Post Woke, where we consciously aim to move beyond the woke vs anti-woke culture wars, and towards a post-woke model of culture and politics.

I believe that, to truly move beyond wokeness, we need to understand where it went wrong. In my mind, the main difference between an anti-woke stance and a post-woke stance is that anti-woke only tries to 'attack' wokeness by doing the opposite of what it appears to demand, while post-woke actually aims to resolve the problem by correcting where wokeness went wrong, and putting things right again, so that we can move forward having conquered this obstacle.

So what is wokeness? While the term is now overused and has lost much of its clarity, going back to the way it was used before, we can argue that it refers to approaches to social change and activism rooted in postmodernism, critical theory, and adjacent ideas. These ideas are problematic because they often pit one group against another, and provide excuses for practices like cancel culture. The reason why they became popular was because they were offered as a ticket to improving social justice, even though this is clearly a false promise that can never be fulfilled. Hence, looking at it from a bigger picture perspective, wokeness is a misdirection of the impulse for social justice, that has driven a desire for compassion and fairness into its opposite, via a lot of misguided theory and philosophy. The misdirection of social justice into its opposite has caused both a well-justified backlash to postmodernism and critical theory, as well as a reactionary backlash to all social justice aims in general, with both parts of the backlash packaged into a broad 'anti-woke' movement. The overall effect of wokeness is therefore the confusion and defeat of social justice, as well as things like cancel culture, polarization, and the division of people by immutable characteristics.

As I just said, the biggest problem with wokeness is that it has turned the desire for social justice into its opposite. One of the most important ways this happens is through the routine description of certain groups as 'privileged', as in 'white privilege' or 'male privilege'. This is morally wrong for two reasons: firstly, to label a whole group of people, based on an immutable characteristic, is effectively an act of deliberately obscuring the differences in individual cases, which is very dehumanizing. This is clearly harmful from a justice point of view, if we are to truly care about there being justice for every individual. But even more importantly, to label a whole group of people as having unearned privilege is effectively an act of inviting people to treat them less favorably. To label people as privileged effectively says it is OK to treat them less well, less decently, less fairly. This psychological effect is undeniable, and is indeed consistent with some of what has been observed in real life in 'very woke' social circles in recent years.

The negative effects of calling people 'privileged' based on immutable characteristics may start with the groups being called privileged, but it surely doesn't end there either. Ultimately, the important thing here isn't which specific groups are being called 'privileged'. Rather, the important thing is that the normative value of treating everyone with the same decency and compassion, and the taboo against differential treatment of people based on membership of groups, are shattered. Once it becomes acceptable to treat people badly based on group-based perceptions, it can then apply in any direction, towards any group. Postmodern critical theory itself of course doesn't intend to allow this, as it clearly defines which groups are supposed to be 'oppressors' and which are 'oppressed' based on its analysis of history. However, human nature doesn't work like that, and there are strong evolutionary psychology reasons why people generally insist that the same rules and same conditions apply to everyone. Therefore, once postmodern critical theory breaks the normative values of liberalism, it unavoidably opens the floodgates to racism and bigotry in every direction. This is why, I believe, the rise of woke culture is the actual cause behind the recent rise in racism and bigotry across the Western world. This actually means we must put an end to woke culture if we want to end the current wave of bigotry targeted at minorities. This kind of analysis has sometimes been rendered taboo in so-called progressive circles, but it is clearly well justified, and I believe we need to give it much more attention if we want to make things better.

The other main problem with wokeness is that it often disrespects people's freedom of conscience and independent thinking. This is where things like cancel culture and deplatforming come from. This phenomenon, again, is rooted in theories based on postmodernism and critical theory. The overall worldview of these theories is that almost everything is changeable because they are all 'social constructs', and the barrier to radical progress is the current culture and its institutions, which form a power structure serving the interests of the oppressor groups against the oppressed. In this worldview, there is effectively no respect for the fact that people have an ability to think for themselves, and also no respect for the fact that people have reliable ways to discern the objective truth, even if they might be imperfect and might take some time. The denial of free thinking and free speech, as well as the denial of the importance of objectivity, are all clearly bad for justice, as history has shown.

As you can see, woke culture has been able to turn the desire of social justice into its opposite, through the application of theories rooted in the philosophies broadly described as postmodernism and critical theory. Therefore, the solution to stop this process from happening is to stop people who are passionate about social justice from embracing these faulty theories and believing in what they have to say. I think this can be best achieved by emphasizing certain values, which are a natural part of pro-social justice thinking, but are also an antidote to what is proposed in these theories. The values I propose are decency, fairness and genuineness. By demanding that decency and fairness be upheld at all times, there will be no room for things like calling people 'privileged' based solely on group membership. By demanding that genuineness and fairness be respected, there will be no room for things like cancel culture. The rise of woke culture reflects the failure of social justice advocates to uphold these values in the recent past, and the unconditional re-embrace of these values will rectify the problem. Therefore, I believe that decency, fairness and genuineness should be the three core post-woke values, the values that will lead us away from the mess created by woke culture.