"To adjust the font size in the Substack app, you can change the text size settings in your iPhone's settings under Accessibility, which will be reflected in the app. Substack is also planning to introduce in-app font size adjustments in the future."
I have been one of the few who have been standing behind James Lindsay’s warnings about the Woke Right. The reaction from those who apparently “hate” his use of the term has been fascinating. Vitriol, ad hominems, mocking, and much much worse. I’ve even gotten it for supporting his very prescient warnings. Funny thing is that their nasty vitriol gives proof to his warnings.
The coalition of "High-Low" versus "Middle" is a real phenomenon, and one which has been identified by many who apparently fall under the opprobrious label "Woke Right". As has been pointed out by many others, one can see this phenomenon at work, for instance, in the push for "diversity" in corporations such as Amazon. Diversity might be Amazon's strength, but it is the workers' weakness, because it has made them much less likely to unionize. Solidarity is not a feature one should expect of pluralist, multicultural democracies.
Thus the power of intermediate institutions is more easily eroded by the top elite, employing the fickle, frenetic, and easily manipulable support of the bottom masses (not least by means of propaganda terms like "diversity" and "hate"). Consequently things begin to look more and more like a pyramid with a hollow midsection: a very small ruling regime, and an enormous substructure of slaves.
But in-group preference is something one ought to recognize as an inevitable part of healthy, organic human society. Does that recognition make one "Woke Right"? If so, then being Woke Right simply means being a sensible realist. Yet sensible realism will lead one to want to protect the buffer of intermediate institutions, with all kinds of stigma, taboo, and "hateful" (because preferential and discriminatory) language. Is that what you (or Lindsay) mean by the concept of the Woke Right?
This is really excellent. I've spent years in therapy defining "love," and settled on "a commitment to another person's well-being that extends far enough to include a willingness to sacrifice." I like that definition because it allows for a spectrum. There are a few people, by that definition, that I love a little -- I'd send them enough money to notice the expenditure, if they were in trouble. And there are people, by that definition, I love a lot -- they need money? Here's my PIN and the card tied to my emergency fund. They need a kidney? Sign me up. They need a place to stay? Help me get the air mattress out from under my bed and get them set up to share my space for as long as it takes.
As with your essay, this is an unedited/unpolished first draft, but with that caveat -- if "hate" is the opposite of love, then hate is animus that extends far enough to include a willingness to sacrifice. And by that definition, I hate plenty of ideologies. I'd die to end (not slow down...end) gender ideology or communism in my country. But I don't think I actually hate any individual people. Which...surprises me. Hmm. *goes off to think harder*
Thanks for the thought provoking g post. I’ve had some thoughts about combining the words ‘hate’ and ‘crime’. Is a murder somehow MORE murderous if it’s committed by someone who ‘hates’? Is the dead person more dead? Why an additional penalty? Why is who / what anyone ‘hates’ important if there’s no action or harm done?
I could say the same about adding the suffix ‘-phobic’ onto who / what someone is accused of ‘hating’ but merely is suspicious of or opposed to.
I have said it many times, and I will say it until I can no longer draw a breath. The “optimistic” and “gentlemanly” “positive” thinkers are a BIGGER threat than the Commies. If you’re one of these people, hang your head in shame. You are more responsible for us being “here” than the perpetrators, because you could have stopped it and chose not to.
Everything Josh talks about here is a function of this.
All of you true believers in the cult of Elon Musk should do likewise. Trust me - he is absolutely going to knife Trump as soon as it suits him. Trump once again, has foolishly surrounded himself with snakes. I may wish that it wasn’t so, but that doesn’t change reality.
Hate is a word that has no meaning anymore. Similar to saying someone is "insert word" phobic. I don't believe them anymore. When I hear certain terms now, I hear the sound of the adults in Charlie Brown TV shows. Wawawawa....
Very interesting piece, Josh. It’s very telling that this kind of redefinition of terms moves directly into the realm of emotions, and forbidding them. Many years ago, I was convinced by someone much smarter than me that emotions were the manifestations of subconscious value judgements. This is why it’s so dangerous to criminalize them (literally in the case of hate crimes) or use them as an excuse to abrogate someone’s rights in the case of restrictions on “hate speech.” After all can you prove that you weren’t feeling hatred when you said something someone didn’t want to hear? Is it accurate to say that I hate Anthony Fauci? Absolutely. Does how I feel about the man have anything to do with whether or not what I say about him is true. Fuck no.
This is why I’ve found all this talk about how we “have to stop hatred” to be a fools errand. First of all, sometimes hatred is absolutely the proper response to certain kinds of behavior, (for people who gleefully mutilate children as a random example), but more nefariously, I think this cultural criminalization of hate is deliberately attempt to psychologically browbeat people into not hating things that they should damn well hate.
I love this “hate” piece, Josh. You’ve hit on the importance of not allowing our wannabe overlords to manipulate language in order to divide, conquer, label and “other” any and all dissenters. Nicely done, sir.
In Catholic teaching, hatred is a sin defined as actively wishing, or seeking to inflict, harm upon another human being. It really only applies to humans, as it’s considered an offense against the command to ‘love thy neighbor.’ It’s probably closer to what in colloquial English would be called ‘malice’ than the watered-down version of ‘hate’ that Josh is railing against. So it’s perfectly OK to ‘hate’ spinach, or death metal, or Hallmark movies — or, more aptly, to hate the *practice* of homosexual behavior, if you believe that it is an offense against the law of God. But it is *not* OK to hate a gay person. That person is a child of God, just like you are. Your responsibility is to look him or her in the face and see Christ’s face there, even if that person is doing things you find troubling and contrary to moral behavior.
And doing this is really hard. Actually, it’s impossible without the assistance of God’s grace. We still gotta try.
I used to be irritated by the phrase “hate the sin not the sinner” . I found it rather smug, but have come around to acceptance of that stance. I have always promoted the idea of pluralism - we can each live our lives how we want, believe what we what, so long as we are not hurting anyone else by it. I’m not religious but (probably smugly) thought religions should be tolerated so long as they didn’t hurt anyone. (This instantly takes Islam out as it hurts women, denies rights and freedoms to gays and sometimes mutilates as in fgm). But seeing how paedophiles have used the idea “love is love” has shown me that there must be stated limits to behaviour and that religious dogmas which I may not agree with have a valuable role in society. Jordan Peterson taught me that.
I'm old enough to remember when H8 came into the political lexicon: it was during the push for "marriage equality."
The issue was framed as an absolute binary -- you're either for love or hate. No matter how you expressed your objections to altering the components of marriage -- no matter how gentle you were with the same-sex attracted -- any opposition to changing the definition of marriage was labeled "H8."
All of it. By definition.
Because when you define the contest as love vs H8, how can you support H8? How can you defend it? Those who support H8 shouldn't get equal time -- are you crazy? They need to be purged from society, starting with Brandon Eich from Mozilla. His gay employees "felt unsafe" around him.
So he had to go. And so did all the others.
He was the first high-profile "cancellation" (crucifixion, purging, excommunication). From thence, the idea that your political opponents were H8ers -- and H8 is utterly indefensible -- got applied across the board.
I found it absolutely alarming at the time, because people were imputing blanket evil motivations to their political opponents. It's step one on the path to genocide, where one group is characterized as monsters who are Ruining Everything.
It also shut down debate, like the SNAP of a mousetrap. It's depressingly easy to convince a lot of people (especially women) to shy away from anything labeled H8, to not engage with it or examine it or touch it will a 100ft pole. Because one thing we know about Nazis is that they were H8ers, and no one wants to be a Nazi (but everyone wants to call others Nazis, it turns out).
It was a diabolically clever tactic. As you say, people on the right accepted the premise and the language, at least somewhat. (I never did, because I recognized the tactic when it emerged.)
I welcome the death of "you're either an ally or a bigot," but as long as the personal is made political, it will be hard to get rid of. Too many people benefit from it.
It was also during the push for "equal marriage" that the anodyne slogan "love is love" got pushed down our throats, further cementing this absolute binary.
Josh, this is some insightful consideration! Growing up, we had a dear family friend, sweet and playful to us children, who had certain “hates” that she would declaim, such as…Maybelline mascara! and as we got older, Snuggli baby carriers that our husbands could wear. Who knows why? As I have reached an age older than she was, I have found myself in recent days declaring that I “hate” : leaving dog shit on the sidewalk; speeding on a street where children play; driving in this busy metro Atlanta area that endangers others. These are BEHAVIORS, as opposed to identities.
"To adjust the font size in the Substack app, you can change the text size settings in your iPhone's settings under Accessibility, which will be reflected in the app. Substack is also planning to introduce in-app font size adjustments in the future."
I have been one of the few who have been standing behind James Lindsay’s warnings about the Woke Right. The reaction from those who apparently “hate” his use of the term has been fascinating. Vitriol, ad hominems, mocking, and much much worse. I’ve even gotten it for supporting his very prescient warnings. Funny thing is that their nasty vitriol gives proof to his warnings.
The coalition of "High-Low" versus "Middle" is a real phenomenon, and one which has been identified by many who apparently fall under the opprobrious label "Woke Right". As has been pointed out by many others, one can see this phenomenon at work, for instance, in the push for "diversity" in corporations such as Amazon. Diversity might be Amazon's strength, but it is the workers' weakness, because it has made them much less likely to unionize. Solidarity is not a feature one should expect of pluralist, multicultural democracies.
Thus the power of intermediate institutions is more easily eroded by the top elite, employing the fickle, frenetic, and easily manipulable support of the bottom masses (not least by means of propaganda terms like "diversity" and "hate"). Consequently things begin to look more and more like a pyramid with a hollow midsection: a very small ruling regime, and an enormous substructure of slaves.
But in-group preference is something one ought to recognize as an inevitable part of healthy, organic human society. Does that recognition make one "Woke Right"? If so, then being Woke Right simply means being a sensible realist. Yet sensible realism will lead one to want to protect the buffer of intermediate institutions, with all kinds of stigma, taboo, and "hateful" (because preferential and discriminatory) language. Is that what you (or Lindsay) mean by the concept of the Woke Right?
This is really excellent. I've spent years in therapy defining "love," and settled on "a commitment to another person's well-being that extends far enough to include a willingness to sacrifice." I like that definition because it allows for a spectrum. There are a few people, by that definition, that I love a little -- I'd send them enough money to notice the expenditure, if they were in trouble. And there are people, by that definition, I love a lot -- they need money? Here's my PIN and the card tied to my emergency fund. They need a kidney? Sign me up. They need a place to stay? Help me get the air mattress out from under my bed and get them set up to share my space for as long as it takes.
As with your essay, this is an unedited/unpolished first draft, but with that caveat -- if "hate" is the opposite of love, then hate is animus that extends far enough to include a willingness to sacrifice. And by that definition, I hate plenty of ideologies. I'd die to end (not slow down...end) gender ideology or communism in my country. But I don't think I actually hate any individual people. Which...surprises me. Hmm. *goes off to think harder*
I like your take, just want to point out that many wise people have said that the opposite of love is indifference.
Excellent draft thus far - I think you may yet write the definitive anatomy of Hate, will be in line to get it. Cheers
Love it! No rewrite necessary. You nailed it, Josh. 🙌💕
Thanks for the thought provoking g post. I’ve had some thoughts about combining the words ‘hate’ and ‘crime’. Is a murder somehow MORE murderous if it’s committed by someone who ‘hates’? Is the dead person more dead? Why an additional penalty? Why is who / what anyone ‘hates’ important if there’s no action or harm done?
I could say the same about adding the suffix ‘-phobic’ onto who / what someone is accused of ‘hating’ but merely is suspicious of or opposed to.
The Language Police have to GO.
Phobic points to fear. I don’t fear those I hate. At all.
I have said it many times, and I will say it until I can no longer draw a breath. The “optimistic” and “gentlemanly” “positive” thinkers are a BIGGER threat than the Commies. If you’re one of these people, hang your head in shame. You are more responsible for us being “here” than the perpetrators, because you could have stopped it and chose not to.
Everything Josh talks about here is a function of this.
All of you true believers in the cult of Elon Musk should do likewise. Trust me - he is absolutely going to knife Trump as soon as it suits him. Trump once again, has foolishly surrounded himself with snakes. I may wish that it wasn’t so, but that doesn’t change reality.
Hate is a word that has no meaning anymore. Similar to saying someone is "insert word" phobic. I don't believe them anymore. When I hear certain terms now, I hear the sound of the adults in Charlie Brown TV shows. Wawawawa....
You nailed it. Everyone has things they hate: songs, food, situations. "Haters" is just more commie language bending. Don'tcha hate that?
a few years ago following came to me; I do not hate, I loathe and despise. more precise.
Very interesting piece, Josh. It’s very telling that this kind of redefinition of terms moves directly into the realm of emotions, and forbidding them. Many years ago, I was convinced by someone much smarter than me that emotions were the manifestations of subconscious value judgements. This is why it’s so dangerous to criminalize them (literally in the case of hate crimes) or use them as an excuse to abrogate someone’s rights in the case of restrictions on “hate speech.” After all can you prove that you weren’t feeling hatred when you said something someone didn’t want to hear? Is it accurate to say that I hate Anthony Fauci? Absolutely. Does how I feel about the man have anything to do with whether or not what I say about him is true. Fuck no.
This is why I’ve found all this talk about how we “have to stop hatred” to be a fools errand. First of all, sometimes hatred is absolutely the proper response to certain kinds of behavior, (for people who gleefully mutilate children as a random example), but more nefariously, I think this cultural criminalization of hate is deliberately attempt to psychologically browbeat people into not hating things that they should damn well hate.
🎯 Absolutely 100% spot on (especially your last sentence).
I love this “hate” piece, Josh. You’ve hit on the importance of not allowing our wannabe overlords to manipulate language in order to divide, conquer, label and “other” any and all dissenters. Nicely done, sir.
In Catholic teaching, hatred is a sin defined as actively wishing, or seeking to inflict, harm upon another human being. It really only applies to humans, as it’s considered an offense against the command to ‘love thy neighbor.’ It’s probably closer to what in colloquial English would be called ‘malice’ than the watered-down version of ‘hate’ that Josh is railing against. So it’s perfectly OK to ‘hate’ spinach, or death metal, or Hallmark movies — or, more aptly, to hate the *practice* of homosexual behavior, if you believe that it is an offense against the law of God. But it is *not* OK to hate a gay person. That person is a child of God, just like you are. Your responsibility is to look him or her in the face and see Christ’s face there, even if that person is doing things you find troubling and contrary to moral behavior.
And doing this is really hard. Actually, it’s impossible without the assistance of God’s grace. We still gotta try.
I used to be irritated by the phrase “hate the sin not the sinner” . I found it rather smug, but have come around to acceptance of that stance. I have always promoted the idea of pluralism - we can each live our lives how we want, believe what we what, so long as we are not hurting anyone else by it. I’m not religious but (probably smugly) thought religions should be tolerated so long as they didn’t hurt anyone. (This instantly takes Islam out as it hurts women, denies rights and freedoms to gays and sometimes mutilates as in fgm). But seeing how paedophiles have used the idea “love is love” has shown me that there must be stated limits to behaviour and that religious dogmas which I may not agree with have a valuable role in society. Jordan Peterson taught me that.
I've come around to the phrase and the sentiment, too.
I'm old enough to remember when H8 came into the political lexicon: it was during the push for "marriage equality."
The issue was framed as an absolute binary -- you're either for love or hate. No matter how you expressed your objections to altering the components of marriage -- no matter how gentle you were with the same-sex attracted -- any opposition to changing the definition of marriage was labeled "H8."
All of it. By definition.
Because when you define the contest as love vs H8, how can you support H8? How can you defend it? Those who support H8 shouldn't get equal time -- are you crazy? They need to be purged from society, starting with Brandon Eich from Mozilla. His gay employees "felt unsafe" around him.
So he had to go. And so did all the others.
He was the first high-profile "cancellation" (crucifixion, purging, excommunication). From thence, the idea that your political opponents were H8ers -- and H8 is utterly indefensible -- got applied across the board.
I found it absolutely alarming at the time, because people were imputing blanket evil motivations to their political opponents. It's step one on the path to genocide, where one group is characterized as monsters who are Ruining Everything.
It also shut down debate, like the SNAP of a mousetrap. It's depressingly easy to convince a lot of people (especially women) to shy away from anything labeled H8, to not engage with it or examine it or touch it will a 100ft pole. Because one thing we know about Nazis is that they were H8ers, and no one wants to be a Nazi (but everyone wants to call others Nazis, it turns out).
It was a diabolically clever tactic. As you say, people on the right accepted the premise and the language, at least somewhat. (I never did, because I recognized the tactic when it emerged.)
I welcome the death of "you're either an ally or a bigot," but as long as the personal is made political, it will be hard to get rid of. Too many people benefit from it.
It was also during the push for "equal marriage" that the anodyne slogan "love is love" got pushed down our throats, further cementing this absolute binary.
Bring back “dislike” and “disagree”
Josh, this is some insightful consideration! Growing up, we had a dear family friend, sweet and playful to us children, who had certain “hates” that she would declaim, such as…Maybelline mascara! and as we got older, Snuggli baby carriers that our husbands could wear. Who knows why? As I have reached an age older than she was, I have found myself in recent days declaring that I “hate” : leaving dog shit on the sidewalk; speeding on a street where children play; driving in this busy metro Atlanta area that endangers others. These are BEHAVIORS, as opposed to identities.