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The Origins of Woke has not become a best seller. As of this writing, the top non-fiction book on both the Publishers Weekly and NYT best sellers lists is The Democrat Party Hates America by Mark R. Levin. While I haven't read Levin's book, I'm sure it's as disposable as any other political tract by a Fox News host, while The Origins of Woke is legitimately the most important conservative book of the last 20 years.
Argument: It's not selling well because of the Huffington Post article that exposed his old blog posts to the masses. Counterargument: Conservatives are the target market, and they tend not to "cancel" people over things like this.
Argument: It's not selling more copies because the name is cringe. Counterargument: Donald J. Trump Jr's book "Triggered" became a best seller.
Argument: It's not selling more copies because Hanania isn't a celebrity. Counterargument: Andy Ngo doesn't host anything or do many public appearances, but his book was still a best-seller.
I don't care whether Hanania is personally successful, but I really, really want the ideas in this book to gain widespread recognition. Hanania offers provide a plausible-enough plan to defeat not only wokeness, but also all of the ideologies that have gained popularity in the wake of Conservative Inc's failure to stop wokeness, including white nationalism and NRx. Speaking as a former white nationalist (or whatever you wanna call VDare readers), people with moderate temperaments adopt extreme beliefs because the mainstream hasn't offered any believable alternative.
Ben Shapiro says that we should just argue people into adopting our views because it'll suddenly work, even though we've been trying for years and it hasn't worked. Peter Brimelow says we should close the border and have white babies. Curtis Yarvin says that we should put a dictator in charge, or at least whatever FDR was. Caldwell says that we should repeal the Civil Rights Act, even though it's as much a part of our national identity at this point as the Constitution.
Hanania's proposal is essentially a modification of Caldwell's that takes political realities into account. Instead of repealing the Civil Rights Act, we should just re-interpret it in an originalist light and repeal the modifications made in the decades afterwards.
I can't say for certain why this book isn't making bank, but I theorize that it has to do with the fact that no mainstream conservative figure like a Ben Shapiro or a Steven Crowder has reviewed it or interviewed him. They're ignoring him, even though his politics are totally aligned with theirs, because they don't want to platform someone who was once a racist. National Review hasn't even reviewed The Origins of Woke.. and they reviewed Christopher Caldwell's Age of Entitlement!
So, here are three questions I have in no particular order.
Build a parallel status economy.
Every social system should either work for us or not work at all. Actively attack enemy-held institutions by any means necessary.
reject and subvert systems that work against our interests. Deny their power, hamper their operations, refuse their legitimacy, appropriate or destroy their resources.
Focus on outcomes, not process. Process is for coordinating cooperation, and that is not a thing our present society is capable of maintaining.
The goal should be a breakdown of federal authority, and acceleration in the decay of existing systems of social control such as the media ecosystem, educational system, academia generally, the courts, and the federal bureaucracy. Delegitimizing these institutions in the eyes of as much of the public as possible is a good first step.
Ive seen several of these types of posts from you but this time I feel compelled to say something. The motte seems to be one very rare place where people on the left and right can engage in intellectual cooperation with some semblance of a shared set of principles. These polemics against perceived enemies on the left, in a tone so radical and final, is just shitting on the public good here. Given what you've written here it's obviously pointless for anyone who might disagree to engage with you.
I cannot fathom why the community tolerates this kind of thing; certainly it would never tolerate any naked calls for the explicit demolition of conservative power structures from anyone left of center.
I do not think the claim that "we" share principles is a supportable assumption, whether referring to you and me or the community generally. What the community shares is a standard of decorum.
What level of evidence would you require to consider removing the "perceived" from that phrase? If you're left-wing or Blue Tribe or a moderate or whatever, I'm happy to talk with you politely, but I'm pretty sure you're my enemy, and not in a loosey-goosey metaphorical sense. I'd give it better than 70% odds that you or a close friend or family member would experience net-positive qualia if they heard about me being fired from my job, imprisoned, seriously injured or killed due to a politically-colored incident.
This is not a claim that you or your friends or family are in any way unusual; the above applies to me, and without the caveat of friends and family. I observe that a lot of Americans legitimately hate each other across the red/blue divide with great fervor and zeal. I have consumed memes about bad things happening to Blues in politically-charged incidents, and experienced positive qualia. I think it's fairly obvious that most politically-aware people on both sides have. That is not a good thing, but it is a thing, it is not hard to find, and pretending it isn't real doesn't make it go away.
The post I was replying to was putting forward the idea that Hanania is providing a viable path forward for, broadly speaking, "the Right". They listed off the other, obviously-non-viable alternatives. I listed the alternative they left off the list, which happens to be the most viable, easiest to execute given the givens, and probably one of the least destructive. Every tactic I listed has been a standard part of the political environment for decades. No violence is required. To the extent that laws can be said to exist in a meaningful sense, there's no need to break them. All that is needed is to recognize that our values are not, in fact, reconcilable, and that we are all better off if we stop pretending otherwise. It is better to divorce and then leave each other alone if we can, than to continue the endlessly-escalating fight for dominance.
I don't think this is true. You are free to disagree if you like, and I will do my best to be polite and respectful in return.
You are free to argue for the explicit demolition of conservative power structures, and people have. You are free to argue for Communist revolution if you like. During the riots, people argued that rioting was a good thing and that burning police stations was awesome. I'm religious; someone elsewhere in this week's thread has argued that religion should be considered a mental illness. He's allowed to do that.
Yes it is all about decorum, that is in fact my point. I have seen many people criticize conservatives, but none that I have seen have done so with decorum youve shown-- the finality of the tone and extreme positions advocated for, (at least originally) without explicit argument, while at the same time telegraphing your intent to defect from your enemies...
You say this could be tolerated from the left, but I really don't believe it. I would welcome some examples from you if you think otherwise.
Well, I've kind of been doing this for a while.
Have you read Scott's Conflict vs Mistake theory, or Sort by Controversial? I see in another comment that you've read Conservatives as moral mutants, but have you read Zunger's Tolerance is not a moral precept.
In Conflict vs Mistake, Scott lays out two basic ways that people can frame disagreement, either as a mistake to be corrected so cooperation can be restored, or as a conflict where cooperation is impossible. The thing to note from that one is that from a materialist, rationalist perspective, the two are asymmetric; if one side thinks it's a conflict, and you can't convince them they're wrong, you are in a conflict whether you think they're making a mistake or not.
Conservatives as Moral Mutants might require some background to appreciate the full effect; the author is (or was at the time of writing, I haven't followed their writing in years) an eminently reasonable, charitable, thoughtful person. The takeaway is that values, at the end of the day, are by definition the only things that matter to any of us, and not all values are compatible.
Tolerance Is Not a Moral Precept addresses the question of what we do when we are confronted by incompatible values. He points out that tolerance has never been more than a least-worst alternative to what we all want, which is for things to be Right. We accept that we can't have things perfectly right because we can't all agree on what "Right" is, so we tolerate some deviation to keep the peace. But deviation that can be suppressed without compromising the peace always has been and always will be suppressed. If it can't be suppressed, the alternatives are separation or war. In my opinion, it's one of the best essays I've ever read.
Sort By Controversial is the chaser, compressing into a short-story something of the actual feeling of long-term exposure to the culture war.
If you've read them, I'd be interested to know what you think of them.
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