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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.
We absolutely would. We had marxbro and Impassionata and a few other hyper-leftists posting on the reddit site for a while - they eventually got permabanned not because they were advocating for "explicit demolition of conservative power structures" (which they absolutely were) but because they were incapable of being civil and just flat-out insulted anyone who didn't buy their premises. Do leftists who post here get reported, a lot? Yes, absolutely. Fortunately, the people who report everyone who disagrees with them are not mods and hopefully will never become mods.
@FCfromSSC is many things, but one thing he's not is impolite, and whatever you might think of our moderation policies, we very explicitly allow people to say things that would be considered "unacceptable in polite society" in most other places, as long as you are, well, polite about it. So yes, "Disenfranchise people I hate" is an allowable argument. "Accelerate until the system breaks" is an allowable argument. "People I hate are scum who should all die" is not an allowable argument. "I specifically wish harm on you" is not an allowable argument.
But there is always the low-grade sophistry or condescending remark that gets through that is not breaking the rules, but is in some ways worse by being personal and directed at the recipient, than just openly rude to a broader outgroup.
Generally speaking, if we see someone using "low-grade sophistry" or condescension directed at individuals, we will mod it. We don't get every single one, and we probably won't always agree with you about what should be modded.
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