A first-rate piece of work. It is not only a „must read,“ it is a „must share widely“ with friends, family, and colleagues, and yes, even those who are woke and arguably need to read this most!
One last thing, it is also a „must save!“ I will be referring to Mr. Rauch‘s article frequently in the future, in fact, I will probably start by rereading it tonight.
Well I'll be danged. Maybe I'm a liberal again. Rauch makes a lot of sense out of the ideas behind classical liberalism and leaves room for those of us who are at least partially traditionalist, as well. Ideas, ideology and muscularity all in one swipe. What's not to like? Nihilism is popular on either edge of the spectrum and its fatal weakness is clear: it is "against" rather than "for." Societies are not built that way and I pray that the younger among us, who were raised with "woke" ideology, will learn to think constructively. I agree with them; there is a great deal wrong. We simply have to pay attention to what deserves to be built upon. That, after all, is the original concept behind "progress."
Outstanding analysis. This is the most thoughtful and clearest assessment of our postmodern political, cultural and social era to date. This goes in the save forever folder.
Nope. The woke left is the Professional Managerial Class... the top 10% that owns all the money and power. What you claim as woke right is just a movement to crush the authoritarian 10% that showed us what they are during the global pandemic.
Two cheers for Mr Rauch’s analysis. That right and left have converged in key ways is, however, not a new observation. The characteristics of ‘post-modernism’ go back (at least) to Nietzsche, whose attack on reason and teaching about the primacy of the will deeply influenced not just Fascists but also Marxists. Leninism is in effect a rejection of Marx’s attempt at a scientific, objective teaching about history. For Lenin—and Mao, and most other real-world Marxists—there was no need to wait for industrialization to create the proletariat; the revolution can come about if you just want it badly enough. Steve Bannon has described himself as a “Leninist” for this very reason.
In 2016 one of Trump’s most influential internet-troll supporters, Mike Cernovich, said in a New Yorker interview: “Look, I read postmodernist theory in college. If everything is a narrative, then we need alternatives to the dominant narrative.” He smiled. “I don’t seem like a guy who reads Lacan, do I?”
What I find questionable is that Mr Rauch insists on equating the two versions of ‘woke’. He is right that the left version has had its greatest success in academia and in sectors most occupied by literature majors and sociologists—journalism, Hollywood, liberal churches. This has sometimes been destructive and is highly visible. But it has never taken over a political party or powerful national movement, not even close. Democrats have regularly nominated Presidential candidates who are dyed in the wool centrists—Kerry, Obama, Clinton, Biden. These candidates pay some lip service to woke ideas, but are grounded in conventional liberalism. Left-wing ‘wokism’ is dedicated to swimming upstream against American exceptionalism. This has frequently resulted in intemperate and emotional criticism, but you can argue that the rhetoric was needed given the strength of conventional views.
Not so on the right, where the tenets of ‘wokism’ have been put in service to the very worst versions of these conventional views: suspicion of elites, science, and expertise; anger at immigrants and ‘others’; selfishness and shortsightedness in dealing with the outside world; disdain for the rule of law. They have been empowered and legitimized, and taken life in a national movement and a single leader.
In short, they are not two sides of an equal coin. One side flaps its gums, the other side has real power, and is using it. The danger of equating the two is that I think it plays into the hands of the right, whose message has been that ‘wokism’ is a powerful conspiracy and an existential threat to all we hold dear. Therefore anything needed to stop it is justified.
Biden may have been a moderate, but he was not president (at least in 2024, if not earlier). So who was president? I have no idea. Does anyone remember the disastrous debate? The Hur report (that came earlier).
'Woke' has real power. The prevalence of scientifically inaccurate terms such as AFAB and AMAB (sex is observed, not assigned) is one measure. Biden's failure to control the border is another. The SFFA case revealed that test score differentials are very real and large. The California DOE (Department of Education) went to pains to "Reject Ideas of Natural Gifts and Talents’". A paper titled "In Defense of Merit in Science" was rejected by PNAS. The power of 'woke' is hardly limited to the USA. In the UK, men were allowed to rape young girls (with the help of the police) because it was PC.
'Woke' has hardly disappeared. In 2024, a male (Imane Khelif) boxer was allowed to beat up women and was rewarded with a Gold medal at the 2024 Olympics. The ever loathsome, Dylan Mulvaney visited the White House in 2023. Even now, BlueSky is loudly proclaiming its support for illegal aliens. The SFFA decision was also in 2023. 'Woke' may be in decline. It has hardly gone away.
Great post! A tour de force of intellectual archaeology—with a twist of guerrilla theatre. Lindsay’s hoax not only skewers the Right’s postmodern turn but reveals how easily rhetoric, once used to deconstruct, can now be used to reconstruct dogma in a different key.
Your analysis lays bare the symmetry of extremes: when truth becomes tactical and coherence optional, all that's left is who shouts last. What’s most chilling (and clarifying) is not that the mask slipped—but that no one seemed to mind.
Thank you for exposing the mirror play. Some ghosts haunt us because we keep inviting them back.
Is it ignorance and stupidity or speculation on the superficial judgement of the readership that leads someone to describe Marx's Communist Manifesto as an expression of the bloodiest left-wing ideology in human history?
I find it difficult to follow an author who discredits liberal thinking with such statements before he has even begun his argument.
A first-rate piece of work. It is not only a „must read,“ it is a „must share widely“ with friends, family, and colleagues, and yes, even those who are woke and arguably need to read this most!
One last thing, it is also a „must save!“ I will be referring to Mr. Rauch‘s article frequently in the future, in fact, I will probably start by rereading it tonight.
Well I'll be danged. Maybe I'm a liberal again. Rauch makes a lot of sense out of the ideas behind classical liberalism and leaves room for those of us who are at least partially traditionalist, as well. Ideas, ideology and muscularity all in one swipe. What's not to like? Nihilism is popular on either edge of the spectrum and its fatal weakness is clear: it is "against" rather than "for." Societies are not built that way and I pray that the younger among us, who were raised with "woke" ideology, will learn to think constructively. I agree with them; there is a great deal wrong. We simply have to pay attention to what deserves to be built upon. That, after all, is the original concept behind "progress."
Outstanding analysis. This is the most thoughtful and clearest assessment of our postmodern political, cultural and social era to date. This goes in the save forever folder.
Nope. The woke left is the Professional Managerial Class... the top 10% that owns all the money and power. What you claim as woke right is just a movement to crush the authoritarian 10% that showed us what they are during the global pandemic.
Persuasion, might you set up a Zoom webinar where Mr. Rauch can discuss this further with Q&A by Persuasion/American Purpose supporters?
Jonathan Rausch delivers here his usual cogent insight into a difficult, often opaque subject and does so with exceptional precision and clarity.
Two cheers for Mr Rauch’s analysis. That right and left have converged in key ways is, however, not a new observation. The characteristics of ‘post-modernism’ go back (at least) to Nietzsche, whose attack on reason and teaching about the primacy of the will deeply influenced not just Fascists but also Marxists. Leninism is in effect a rejection of Marx’s attempt at a scientific, objective teaching about history. For Lenin—and Mao, and most other real-world Marxists—there was no need to wait for industrialization to create the proletariat; the revolution can come about if you just want it badly enough. Steve Bannon has described himself as a “Leninist” for this very reason.
In 2016 one of Trump’s most influential internet-troll supporters, Mike Cernovich, said in a New Yorker interview: “Look, I read postmodernist theory in college. If everything is a narrative, then we need alternatives to the dominant narrative.” He smiled. “I don’t seem like a guy who reads Lacan, do I?”
What I find questionable is that Mr Rauch insists on equating the two versions of ‘woke’. He is right that the left version has had its greatest success in academia and in sectors most occupied by literature majors and sociologists—journalism, Hollywood, liberal churches. This has sometimes been destructive and is highly visible. But it has never taken over a political party or powerful national movement, not even close. Democrats have regularly nominated Presidential candidates who are dyed in the wool centrists—Kerry, Obama, Clinton, Biden. These candidates pay some lip service to woke ideas, but are grounded in conventional liberalism. Left-wing ‘wokism’ is dedicated to swimming upstream against American exceptionalism. This has frequently resulted in intemperate and emotional criticism, but you can argue that the rhetoric was needed given the strength of conventional views.
Not so on the right, where the tenets of ‘wokism’ have been put in service to the very worst versions of these conventional views: suspicion of elites, science, and expertise; anger at immigrants and ‘others’; selfishness and shortsightedness in dealing with the outside world; disdain for the rule of law. They have been empowered and legitimized, and taken life in a national movement and a single leader.
In short, they are not two sides of an equal coin. One side flaps its gums, the other side has real power, and is using it. The danger of equating the two is that I think it plays into the hands of the right, whose message has been that ‘wokism’ is a powerful conspiracy and an existential threat to all we hold dear. Therefore anything needed to stop it is justified.
Biden may have been a moderate, but he was not president (at least in 2024, if not earlier). So who was president? I have no idea. Does anyone remember the disastrous debate? The Hur report (that came earlier).
'Woke' has real power. The prevalence of scientifically inaccurate terms such as AFAB and AMAB (sex is observed, not assigned) is one measure. Biden's failure to control the border is another. The SFFA case revealed that test score differentials are very real and large. The California DOE (Department of Education) went to pains to "Reject Ideas of Natural Gifts and Talents’". A paper titled "In Defense of Merit in Science" was rejected by PNAS. The power of 'woke' is hardly limited to the USA. In the UK, men were allowed to rape young girls (with the help of the police) because it was PC.
'Woke' has hardly disappeared. In 2024, a male (Imane Khelif) boxer was allowed to beat up women and was rewarded with a Gold medal at the 2024 Olympics. The ever loathsome, Dylan Mulvaney visited the White House in 2023. Even now, BlueSky is loudly proclaiming its support for illegal aliens. The SFFA decision was also in 2023. 'Woke' may be in decline. It has hardly gone away.
Great post! A tour de force of intellectual archaeology—with a twist of guerrilla theatre. Lindsay’s hoax not only skewers the Right’s postmodern turn but reveals how easily rhetoric, once used to deconstruct, can now be used to reconstruct dogma in a different key.
Your analysis lays bare the symmetry of extremes: when truth becomes tactical and coherence optional, all that's left is who shouts last. What’s most chilling (and clarifying) is not that the mask slipped—but that no one seemed to mind.
Thank you for exposing the mirror play. Some ghosts haunt us because we keep inviting them back.
Is it ignorance and stupidity or speculation on the superficial judgement of the readership that leads someone to describe Marx's Communist Manifesto as an expression of the bloodiest left-wing ideology in human history?
I find it difficult to follow an author who discredits liberal thinking with such statements before he has even begun his argument.
I'm so tired of pundits using postmodern humanities courses and instructors as a synecdoche for "universities".