Why I didn’t call my Substack “anti-woke”
There’s something to be said for simple messaging. The easier it is for people to understand what your “thing” is the easier time they will have clicking that ever-sought after follow button. In politics, the moral edge goes to the side you already agree with. Growing up you’re given a false sense of the degree to which you make your own decisions. Despite protestations - many that I made in the past - politics comes down to at most 3 options.
Choosing the Left
Choosing the Right
Abstention
Are their subdivisions within each of these choices? Absolutely.
Does this change how most people operate? Not really.
Applying the cultural lens, the Left is best defined as maximal egalitarianism and maximal liberation. It is belief without limit. The Right would be any set of beliefs which opposes this, that is to say it is the belief that there are differences (hierarchy) and duty (obligation). Those who abstain will temperamentally fall into one of the two categories. For a variety of reasons some have decided to remove themselves from political questions, or advocate for “another way,” but like neutrons in an atom they effect peripheral properties without changing the substance.1
Choosing the Left or Choosing the Right in America should not be confused with support for a major political party. While most will coalesce into these democratic vehicles, individual perspectives will vary on how to classify a given politician. You may not like a politician but that doesn’t absolve you from a designation.
When I started this project almost 4 years ago, I was a member of the abstention category. I advocated heavily for broadly libertarian ideas and despite overwhelming evidence advocated for support of 3rd parties as a vehicle for change. Despite this, I was and remain a member of the right, influenced heavily by my family’s escape from communism which was the most material and devastating representation of leftist ideology. If I had a different temperament I would have called this Substack and my publication “anti-woke” or “end wokeness.” I would have reached for the lowest fruit and let the dopamine drip of easy likes surge through my veins; but that is not my path.
The mission of this project is “better sensemaking” and more often than not that means counter-signaling commonly held tropes to bring the willing participant to a higher level of understanding. It means I don’t act like a stuffy professor in an ivory tower or a sophist engaging in clever rhetoric. While capable of both - neither fulfills the mission of actually helping someone have a better grasp on reality.
The mantra of TV news has always been “if it bleeds it leads.” Sensational stories capture people’s attention, and the pithy responses or mundane observations clothed in flowery language make the herd of humanity nod in agreement. Nuance is a choice, and comes with its own perils, but simplicity is a luxury for the plebs. If you take for granted that an elite will always exist, then it follows those people and/or their advisors should be capable of more than soundbites.
The purpose of Been Awake is to fill that role. To examine with detachment while never straying from eternal principles. Thank you for being a member of that mission.
Physicists need not belabor my simple metaphor