I’m glad to notice that if this was written by someone I don’t trust and respect as much as I trust and respect you, I would easily get bristly about it, and assume you had some secret ‘anti poor / brown / female / queer people agenda’, even though you express very clearly that’s not where you’re coming from. Which I guess is part of your point 😊
So thank you for voicing this - it helps me to think and be aware of my biases, and see beyond the binaries that it’s so easy to fall into, and to feel some oh-so-helpful discomfort.
This all makes a lot of sense to me, and I like the distinction between anti-woke (which I guess would include most who have never been woke) and post-woke, which is more like "been there, done that", or more intellectually "transcend and include", taking the good points and making an escape from the stultifying dogmatism that too often can be found. Sure, some people will be upset by this, but I don't see how that can be avoided, other than by continued dialogue. Cancelling was one of the problems here, because it logically implied ceasing dialogue.
I feel similarly. I left most social media platforms recently and it was partly because of the ways I felt manipulated by the capitalist agenda of the platforms’ ownership and partly because I was weary of leftists policing each other instead of finding ways to work together. I’m returning to grassroots movements where we sit face-to-face and hopefully have a better chance of seeing each other’s humanity.
thanks Rich! feel like a lot of my peer group (whos just getting started politically) trends left but disillusioned w the party we’re inheriting and runs “apolitical” as a result, so its refreshing to see similar critiques coming from someone w a track record here
i like that you’re feeling your political roots/desires come up! eyyy :) when i look at the meme with the two paths you put here i see two faraway and high castles that both can only be reached by a narrow path. and in between them there’s a green pasture that looks pretty nice … and it’s kinda even nicer cause it has a view on both of the castles
I listened to that DO episode when it came out last week and the part of that other podcast at the end where you talk about vibe shift.
A lot of the stuff you say makes sense and I definitely agree with focusing on a local neighborhood and focusing on the real material needs of the real people around me.
At the same time, I have a hard time seeing the integration part of the equation in what you have been writing and saying about "post-woke". Yes, I can see you are trying to have a nuanced take on this and yet I mostly just get a basically emotional charge that feels like resentment and not much else beyond that. Maybe this is mostly because the people you are engaging with in that conversation are mostly still stuck in the venting and resentment phase and not trying very hard to integrate much ?
It's hard for me to get much besides the reactionary anti woke when you talk about post woke basically. Maybe I am not the target audience and I am not supposed to engage with it and that's ok. But I just wanted to let you know how it comes across.
I appreciate you sharing your perspective man, I’ve been thinking about this since you posted.
I do have a lot of emotional charge: I’m angry about all the wasted energy, all the good projects and groups and communities that disintegrated in the past decade because they got overrun by a fundamentalist ideology. I am resentful about having been mistreated, and denied support or restitution because I’m a man so I’m supposed to just put up with it. I’m ashamed that I wasn’t more public in standing up for people when they were being attacked by a mob. I’m frightened by the ways I submitted to an ideology against my better judgement.
I think there’s a kind of tightrope: when the emotions run too hot, all you get is reactionary / us-vs-them / arms race dynamics. But on the other hand I feel like I have gotten myself in trouble by trying to suppress my emotions too. I want to be honest about the anger and disgust and fear and shame. And I don’t want to lose my head in the process and dehumanise others or get caught in the drama triangle.
I think in my current state, I’m not in the best position to articulate the integration. I’m not there yet. But the more honest I can be, the closer I feel to that destination.
I think the post-woke position will reject a lot of woke ideas, but it should draw from the same deep values of equity, care, solidarity, liberation, tolerance, justice, inclusion.
At the end of the day I’m a pragmatist. I care about the evidence: can we learn to organise good groups, groups that are harmonious, fun, effective, wholesome, prosperous, developmental and generous? I’ll be satisfied when we can find a set of principles and practices that get us that result.
In the DO podcast I tried to articulate some of those principles as they apply to leadership and conflict management; those are two specific components of a post-woke position that I am confident in. I don’t think they are reactionary. And to be frank: I am making a claim that I have got a good track record on those issues. The proof is in the pudding.
Thank you, I appreciate this. This feels very honest and vulnerable.
I feel relief also when you say that in your current state you are not in the best position to articulate the integration. And I agree that the only way to get there is to be honest about how you are feeling.
I have been in what could be labeled as "woke" groups that have the scold and shame and attack dynamics and I have been in groups that manage to be "woke" without getting into those negative dynamics.
I am guessing that the essence of the dynamics that created the resentment is something like: hey dude, you're a white dude with some privilege that you may or may not be aware of, and in the last 5-10 years you have had some people lash out at you, that's not such a big deal, other kinds of people have had it worse.
I know that's not all of it, there are nth order dynamics in the groups that start from that.
But, ultimately, if we want a new integrated thing that doesn't suffer from the same dynamics, I am not sure that resentment is the right fuel for it. If resentment is still the primary fuel it feels way too much like what the Trumpers are doing or trying to do.
Most ideologies end up dysfunctional and counterproductive when the action is not grounded in some physical reality.
I wonder what the minimum viable ideology is in any specific group situation that would facilitate the richness of all the possibilities and aspirations and hidden gifts latent in that group.
Thank you for passing along the “breath of fresh air” you found. We’ve also left and found ourselves groupless, yet still with plenty of energy to actively participate in fighting for flourishing and freedom. Excited to follow along!
I've been thinking about this through the lens of polarities. Part of my sense of where we're stuck is neither side is willing to own its own shadow until they feel heard/appreciated for their intent/upside... and the other side acknowledges their own downside.
We absolutely have to correct for the shortcomings of our movements; if we don't change the bathwater, the other side will come in and toss out the baby (as indeed is happening right now in the U.S.)
My own sense is that social justice movements have been the largest force for positive change in the last decade... and therefore any critique must begin from a place of appreciation. Justice (and effectiveness!) to me suggests this sequencing:
1) lead with appreciation, both for intent and positive impact
2) acknowledge the downside they are seeking to correct for
3) build enough relationship to have standing... and invite consent to offer feedback
Movements are so often subjected to bad-faith critiques that they are understandably resistant to feedback that doesn't follow this sequencing... especially from bodies that look like those offering bad-faith critique. And I think it's incumbent upon us--those of us who share goals and are more insulated from the ravages of these systems--to manage our own reactivity/resentment/anger to persist in sharing our loving invitations to transformation in a way that they can be heard.
I found both the Liu podcast with Chris Hayes and the Chibber interview on the Dig so fascinating. In both cases they started out absolutely spot-on... then in both cases veered off into some reactive/ad hominem energy that ended up undermining the truths they were trying to impart. We have to be better than that... or we will continue not to be heard, and movements won't course-correct, and the far-right will continue to gain power.
Finally, I honor both your intent here and agree with @Diego's point below. Yes of course we have be able have hard conversations... and I'm sure you would agree that it's important to read the room and adjust tone to timing (the funeral is not the place to critique the dead). Your reaction to @Ioan was beautiful: more of that energy. Big love, hombre.
appreciate you homie. I think part of what I'm getting at here is, I'm no longer willing to play the game of evaluating claims based on the body making the claim. I understand why people need to make that move. but I don't accept it as the default mode of discourse.
I'm with you, and that's definitely the outcome we're striving for.
Unfortunately, it seems to me that to insist upon that as a precondition of discourse is ahistorical; it doesn't reckon with the epigenetic warnings stored in our bodies. It asks too much... without going through the steps above.
Dominant culture makes this mistake with bodies of color, listening through a prism that discounts their voices based on their bodies. And movement culture makes the same mistake in reverse. This is understandable, and we need to correct it... and my sense is how we (those of us in privileged bodies) show up is a big part of how we correct it. I haven't seen a better path to the outcome we both seek... but I'm open if you have!
I wrote an essay about how to implement Post-Woke in forward vision that embraces aspects of Post-Liberalism. I think you’d enjoy and am curious to hear your POVs on what outlined.
My essay "Beyond Bigotry" approaches this subject in a relatively technical and modularized way. "Affirmations of Injustice" acknowledges key roots of why it's important to, shall we say, "experience awakening". "Exploring Woke Bigotry" explores the corruption of personal awakening into terribly misleading and counterproductive practices.
Of course, we need to do more than identify problems! Beyond Bigotry focuses on breaking the vicious cycle (of alienation), with a special focus on enforceable policies and practices.
I don't appreciate the timing of this reflection. To me it sounds like now that Elon Musk is running the world on an anti-woke agenda let's take the courage to speak up against our social context belonging requirements. Exactly when the people it seems to me you want to talk to are feeling threatened and targeted. I know, sometimes it feels it's never the right moment to open certain conversations that are uncomfortable. But I would wonder why it feels more comfortable now. And for me it's not a good thing.
My interpretation of Diego’s comment is “people are feeling exceptionally threatened right now, there’s more danger than ever, so this is the wrong time to criticise the movement that is trying to protect them.” Am I misreading?
I'm much more interested in people's opinions about the contents of articles than whether they are or aren't suspicious of authors' motivations. In fact, I think that much of the under-performance of justice movements comes from focusing too much on supposed character and motivations instead of demonstrable actions.
When I first read your comment, I thought “oh yeah, you’re right, the timing is off”, but that thought was followed up with “maybe this is precisely the right time, when the left needs to regroup and consider what’s at the heart of their resistance so that they can gather people around a common commitment.” I had both thoughts, so I’m not sure which is more true, but I’m leaning toward the second because we need to be ready to host spaces for meaningful, thoughtful, non-reactive dialogue.
The idea that there is a right and a wrong time to have a conversation, and that we could infer the answer by guessing how many people might be offended at a given moment, is a perfect example of the kind of self-defeating irrational thinking that has become so normalised on the left.
In my work, I often talk about the "Hard P's" baked into patriarchal, colonialist, capitalist systems (policing, punishment, productivity, perfectionism, purity, performance measurement, etc.). Again and again I see how we internalize those P's and (especially when we're unconscious of them) bring them along into every system we create.
I guess my question is, how can you hope to have some sort of moral high ground and integrate very complicated things that are opposed to each other if or when you are in a developmental phase or in an emotional environment within yourself in which there is more resentment than love or care?
I don't mean this for you personally, it's more a metric that I use when engaging with people and trying to decide how much i trust the stuff that they come up with. If I detect resentment or a big chip on their shoulder about some stuff i don't feel a lot of trust.
I’m glad to notice that if this was written by someone I don’t trust and respect as much as I trust and respect you, I would easily get bristly about it, and assume you had some secret ‘anti poor / brown / female / queer people agenda’, even though you express very clearly that’s not where you’re coming from. Which I guess is part of your point 😊
So thank you for voicing this - it helps me to think and be aware of my biases, and see beyond the binaries that it’s so easy to fall into, and to feel some oh-so-helpful discomfort.
My secret agenda is that I like free thinking and cognitive dissonance is one of my favourite sources of mental pleasure.
My guess is it would be much more popular if it was named cognitive frisson 😊
haha that rules
This all makes a lot of sense to me, and I like the distinction between anti-woke (which I guess would include most who have never been woke) and post-woke, which is more like "been there, done that", or more intellectually "transcend and include", taking the good points and making an escape from the stultifying dogmatism that too often can be found. Sure, some people will be upset by this, but I don't see how that can be avoided, other than by continued dialogue. Cancelling was one of the problems here, because it logically implied ceasing dialogue.
I feel similarly. I left most social media platforms recently and it was partly because of the ways I felt manipulated by the capitalist agenda of the platforms’ ownership and partly because I was weary of leftists policing each other instead of finding ways to work together. I’m returning to grassroots movements where we sit face-to-face and hopefully have a better chance of seeing each other’s humanity.
I’m with you!
thanks Rich! feel like a lot of my peer group (whos just getting started politically) trends left but disillusioned w the party we’re inheriting and runs “apolitical” as a result, so its refreshing to see similar critiques coming from someone w a track record here
i like that you’re feeling your political roots/desires come up! eyyy :) when i look at the meme with the two paths you put here i see two faraway and high castles that both can only be reached by a narrow path. and in between them there’s a green pasture that looks pretty nice … and it’s kinda even nicer cause it has a view on both of the castles
Here's some research you might be interested in, in the Guardian yesterday: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/feb/19/leftwing-activists-less-likely-work-political-rivals-other-uk-groups-study
I listened to that DO episode when it came out last week and the part of that other podcast at the end where you talk about vibe shift.
A lot of the stuff you say makes sense and I definitely agree with focusing on a local neighborhood and focusing on the real material needs of the real people around me.
At the same time, I have a hard time seeing the integration part of the equation in what you have been writing and saying about "post-woke". Yes, I can see you are trying to have a nuanced take on this and yet I mostly just get a basically emotional charge that feels like resentment and not much else beyond that. Maybe this is mostly because the people you are engaging with in that conversation are mostly still stuck in the venting and resentment phase and not trying very hard to integrate much ?
It's hard for me to get much besides the reactionary anti woke when you talk about post woke basically. Maybe I am not the target audience and I am not supposed to engage with it and that's ok. But I just wanted to let you know how it comes across.
I appreciate you sharing your perspective man, I’ve been thinking about this since you posted.
I do have a lot of emotional charge: I’m angry about all the wasted energy, all the good projects and groups and communities that disintegrated in the past decade because they got overrun by a fundamentalist ideology. I am resentful about having been mistreated, and denied support or restitution because I’m a man so I’m supposed to just put up with it. I’m ashamed that I wasn’t more public in standing up for people when they were being attacked by a mob. I’m frightened by the ways I submitted to an ideology against my better judgement.
I think there’s a kind of tightrope: when the emotions run too hot, all you get is reactionary / us-vs-them / arms race dynamics. But on the other hand I feel like I have gotten myself in trouble by trying to suppress my emotions too. I want to be honest about the anger and disgust and fear and shame. And I don’t want to lose my head in the process and dehumanise others or get caught in the drama triangle.
I think in my current state, I’m not in the best position to articulate the integration. I’m not there yet. But the more honest I can be, the closer I feel to that destination.
I think the post-woke position will reject a lot of woke ideas, but it should draw from the same deep values of equity, care, solidarity, liberation, tolerance, justice, inclusion.
At the end of the day I’m a pragmatist. I care about the evidence: can we learn to organise good groups, groups that are harmonious, fun, effective, wholesome, prosperous, developmental and generous? I’ll be satisfied when we can find a set of principles and practices that get us that result.
In the DO podcast I tried to articulate some of those principles as they apply to leadership and conflict management; those are two specific components of a post-woke position that I am confident in. I don’t think they are reactionary. And to be frank: I am making a claim that I have got a good track record on those issues. The proof is in the pudding.
Thank you, I appreciate this. This feels very honest and vulnerable.
I feel relief also when you say that in your current state you are not in the best position to articulate the integration. And I agree that the only way to get there is to be honest about how you are feeling.
I have been in what could be labeled as "woke" groups that have the scold and shame and attack dynamics and I have been in groups that manage to be "woke" without getting into those negative dynamics.
I am guessing that the essence of the dynamics that created the resentment is something like: hey dude, you're a white dude with some privilege that you may or may not be aware of, and in the last 5-10 years you have had some people lash out at you, that's not such a big deal, other kinds of people have had it worse.
I know that's not all of it, there are nth order dynamics in the groups that start from that.
But, ultimately, if we want a new integrated thing that doesn't suffer from the same dynamics, I am not sure that resentment is the right fuel for it. If resentment is still the primary fuel it feels way too much like what the Trumpers are doing or trying to do.
I don’t overly mind getting my feelings hurt occasionally, my main motivation is that the ideology is dysfunctional and counterproductive.
Yes, it is dysfunctional and counterproductive.
Most ideologies end up dysfunctional and counterproductive when the action is not grounded in some physical reality.
I wonder what the minimum viable ideology is in any specific group situation that would facilitate the richness of all the possibilities and aspirations and hidden gifts latent in that group.
Is that part of the post-woke you imagine?
minimum viable ideology for group coherence is another way of saying microsoldarity
Cool, I will try that on next time I explain microsolidarity to someone and see how it goes!
Thank you for passing along the “breath of fresh air” you found. We’ve also left and found ourselves groupless, yet still with plenty of energy to actively participate in fighting for flourishing and freedom. Excited to follow along!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Rich.
I've been thinking about this through the lens of polarities. Part of my sense of where we're stuck is neither side is willing to own its own shadow until they feel heard/appreciated for their intent/upside... and the other side acknowledges their own downside.
We absolutely have to correct for the shortcomings of our movements; if we don't change the bathwater, the other side will come in and toss out the baby (as indeed is happening right now in the U.S.)
My own sense is that social justice movements have been the largest force for positive change in the last decade... and therefore any critique must begin from a place of appreciation. Justice (and effectiveness!) to me suggests this sequencing:
1) lead with appreciation, both for intent and positive impact
2) acknowledge the downside they are seeking to correct for
3) build enough relationship to have standing... and invite consent to offer feedback
Movements are so often subjected to bad-faith critiques that they are understandably resistant to feedback that doesn't follow this sequencing... especially from bodies that look like those offering bad-faith critique. And I think it's incumbent upon us--those of us who share goals and are more insulated from the ravages of these systems--to manage our own reactivity/resentment/anger to persist in sharing our loving invitations to transformation in a way that they can be heard.
I found both the Liu podcast with Chris Hayes and the Chibber interview on the Dig so fascinating. In both cases they started out absolutely spot-on... then in both cases veered off into some reactive/ad hominem energy that ended up undermining the truths they were trying to impart. We have to be better than that... or we will continue not to be heard, and movements won't course-correct, and the far-right will continue to gain power.
Finally, I honor both your intent here and agree with @Diego's point below. Yes of course we have be able have hard conversations... and I'm sure you would agree that it's important to read the room and adjust tone to timing (the funeral is not the place to critique the dead). Your reaction to @Ioan was beautiful: more of that energy. Big love, hombre.
appreciate you homie. I think part of what I'm getting at here is, I'm no longer willing to play the game of evaluating claims based on the body making the claim. I understand why people need to make that move. but I don't accept it as the default mode of discourse.
I'm with you, and that's definitely the outcome we're striving for.
Unfortunately, it seems to me that to insist upon that as a precondition of discourse is ahistorical; it doesn't reckon with the epigenetic warnings stored in our bodies. It asks too much... without going through the steps above.
Dominant culture makes this mistake with bodies of color, listening through a prism that discounts their voices based on their bodies. And movement culture makes the same mistake in reverse. This is understandable, and we need to correct it... and my sense is how we (those of us in privileged bodies) show up is a big part of how we correct it. I haven't seen a better path to the outcome we both seek... but I'm open if you have!
I wrote an essay about how to implement Post-Woke in forward vision that embraces aspects of Post-Liberalism. I think you’d enjoy and am curious to hear your POVs on what outlined.
https://open.substack.com/pub/tuckerwalsh/p/a-metamodern-vision-for-a-post-liberal-america-d51b98bcb454?r=a9syk&utm_medium=ios
You might appreciate this - some similar themes arose in our feral Bible study group when we read Isaiah 58 the week of the inauguration https://open.substack.com/pub/thetuningfork/p/shut-up-with-your-religion?r=1667u&utm_medium=ios
My essay "Beyond Bigotry" approaches this subject in a relatively technical and modularized way. "Affirmations of Injustice" acknowledges key roots of why it's important to, shall we say, "experience awakening". "Exploring Woke Bigotry" explores the corruption of personal awakening into terribly misleading and counterproductive practices.
Of course, we need to do more than identify problems! Beyond Bigotry focuses on breaking the vicious cycle (of alienation), with a special focus on enforceable policies and practices.
Evergreen/ living doc link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1978iDpis45yaZ_77crbvsD1N108rRAvzkMclpi8ELv4/edit?usp=sharing
I don't appreciate the timing of this reflection. To me it sounds like now that Elon Musk is running the world on an anti-woke agenda let's take the courage to speak up against our social context belonging requirements. Exactly when the people it seems to me you want to talk to are feeling threatened and targeted. I know, sometimes it feels it's never the right moment to open certain conversations that are uncomfortable. But I would wonder why it feels more comfortable now. And for me it's not a good thing.
Any movement that cannot sustain thoughtful critique is not a movement for me.
@Diego Galli ‘s critique of this post strikes me as pretty thoughtful.
My interpretation of Diego’s comment is “people are feeling exceptionally threatened right now, there’s more danger than ever, so this is the wrong time to criticise the movement that is trying to protect them.” Am I misreading?
I'm much more interested in people's opinions about the contents of articles than whether they are or aren't suspicious of authors' motivations. In fact, I think that much of the under-performance of justice movements comes from focusing too much on supposed character and motivations instead of demonstrable actions.
When I first read your comment, I thought “oh yeah, you’re right, the timing is off”, but that thought was followed up with “maybe this is precisely the right time, when the left needs to regroup and consider what’s at the heart of their resistance so that they can gather people around a common commitment.” I had both thoughts, so I’m not sure which is more true, but I’m leaning toward the second because we need to be ready to host spaces for meaningful, thoughtful, non-reactive dialogue.
The idea that there is a right and a wrong time to have a conversation, and that we could infer the answer by guessing how many people might be offended at a given moment, is a perfect example of the kind of self-defeating irrational thinking that has become so normalised on the left.
In my work, I often talk about the "Hard P's" baked into patriarchal, colonialist, capitalist systems (policing, punishment, productivity, perfectionism, purity, performance measurement, etc.). Again and again I see how we internalize those P's and (especially when we're unconscious of them) bring them along into every system we create.
I guess my question is, how can you hope to have some sort of moral high ground and integrate very complicated things that are opposed to each other if or when you are in a developmental phase or in an emotional environment within yourself in which there is more resentment than love or care?
I don't mean this for you personally, it's more a metric that I use when engaging with people and trying to decide how much i trust the stuff that they come up with. If I detect resentment or a big chip on their shoulder about some stuff i don't feel a lot of trust.
This is great, thank you! Richard, I would like to repost this in my newsletter -do you mind if I use the cover image, of course crediting you?
go ahead!
Thanks! :)
I wonder if you know of the work done by Jeremy Griffith the Australian biologist?
nope, say more?