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.