Thoughts on Counter Wokecraft
Took a little stroll this week through Counter Wokecraft by Charles Pincourt (which I believe is a pseudonym). James Lindsay of New Discourses, in addition to contributing directly to the book and helping publish it, recently outlined what it was and why it might be a helpful read. It was this overview that persuaded me to pull the trigger.
I am somewhat familiar with the field of higher education (though not a member of faculty at a University), so it seemed timely to have a good “field manual” on the topic of Woke. I suppose that we are all going to be talking (or sometimes unfortunately self-censoring) about this for the foreseeable future, especially in educational institutions.
Counter Wokecraft’s three chapters deal with defining “Woke,” recognizing Woke tactics (the eponymous “Wokecraft”), and countering those tactics — in that order. The following are a few of my thoughts on the book. I’m not being paid to promote it or anything but I would recommend it regardless.
Definitions
This may have actually been the section I got the least from personally. Don’t get me wrong; it rings true and competently describes both the ideas and factions involved in the Woke debate. It is just that, since I would certainly classify myself as a “dissident” per the book’s own taxonomy, I probably stand to gain (learn) less from this chapter. Nonetheless it is important and necessary and foundational for the rest.
Probably the most helpful idea for me as an unrepentant Fascist™ who just wants to label everyone is that of the range of participation (or dissent) regarding Woke. One of the reason Woke picked up traction is that it has been so tactics-resistant, and it gets its tactics-resistance from its disdain for concrete definitions and nomenclature (by design and by postmodern heritage). As Sun Tzu notes in The Art of War: “All warfare is based on deception.”
A brief tangent on strategy
Actually, a significant chunk of the principles in Art of War have to do with sizing up one’s own forces and those of one’s adversary. If you know yourself and your opponent, you will be victorious; if you only know yourself, but not your opponent, you flip a coin to determine the outcome. Honestly, if you have not read Art of War, maybe do that because it still tells you some valuable things about strategy even today.
Woke activists are much better at strategy than the complacent administrations they seek to dismantle. They know both themselves and their targets. Meanwhile many institutions in 2021 barely know themselves, and they certainly don’t know the Woke (except for what is telegraphed from the friendly-looking “Bailey” of their tactical apparatus). Guess which side is likely to gain strategic ground under these circumstances?
That is why this first chapter is important (as well as resources like New Discourses); they help us to clearly identify Woke. Yes, even label it.
The middle
But, back to that range of participation. A key takeaway here is that probably the bulk of players in most insitutions are not Woke Evangelists or True Believers. Some are just attending for a seat at the table of the potluck dinner they hope will come after the sermon (they will find to their dismay that the menu is comprised of crickets and soybean oil), while others aren’t even aware a new religion is forming down the street. Of the latter group, some would be instinctively opposed to Woke advances if they knew to spot them and take them seriously. There are likely more of this group than any other described, and the ideas in this and the next two chapters should be made accessible to them more than anyone else.
Seeing the game
The second chapter, having defined the goals and values of Woke, and how both their allies and adversaries fit into that worldview, moves on to identify specific tactics. This is where we really get into the meat on the bones, concrete phenomena you can and likely will observe in lots of office/corporate work environments these days.
Some of these tactics are not novel to me, but I find Pincourt Clean and Articulate (heh) in discussing them. Again, the idea is to make these issues widely accessible (perhaps primarily to those he classifies as latent dissidents) and that is well accomplished here.
One of the trickiest tools in the Box of Wokecraft is this idea of the Motte and Bailey. That itself is a familiar concept to me, but in Counter Wokecraft we see an even more insidious and offensively-oriented variant of it, the “Reverse Motte and Bailey Trojan Horse.” Basically smuggling in a known objectionable position by encasing it in the veneer of a mild, uncontroversial one instead. Then the soldiers leap out of the horse, and you get the gist from there.
I’m on the fence about whether recognizing Motte-and-Bailey argumentation is actually all that helpful; almost anyone could be accused of it simply by clarifying his position even without consciously engaging in deception. In that way it could be like the infamous and obnoxiously liberally invoked Dunning-Kruger Effect; easy to level as an accusation, and difficult to substantiate. But all this aside, it does seem to unmistakably occur in Woke discourse, and as the Long March Through the Institutions progresses, we see it being employed offensively as well as defensively. That last bit is important because it signals a new level of institutional entrenchment to which few seem to have wised up yet.
Beyond that, there are plenty of smaller, snack-sized examinations of other tactics which are still important to recognize. Anecdotally, “running out the clock” seems to be another favorite I often see and hear about though it is not exclusively a Woke tactic (“we have to pass the bill to see what’s in it,” anyone?). The time constraints might even be real but the urgency is manufactured. I call this one out because it reinforces that common theme of Woke tactics which is to display paper-thin urgency and commonality, hoping for no close examination to occur.
That is, these tactics broadly seek to avoid the scrutiny under which Woke activists know their ideas will not hold up.
Just say “no”
The third chapter has to do with how practically to begin pushback within one’s institution when a pattern of Woke advances has been recognized. This is where Pincourt’s background in academia shows through the most and to which some of the suggestions seem primarily tailored. Nonetheless there are still valuable principles here, I believe, for any line of work. The overarching one is to undo any perception of being under threat for a would-be dissident.
l told you they was organized
I think probably the most easily generalized approach described here is to seek out allies or even co-belligerents in pushing back. This is important because, just as their postmodern heritage gives Woke activists a natural resistance to being described, so their collectivist heritage gives them a distinct advantage over liberal individualists in forming a united front.
To form a coalition is natural for a collectivist. But it takes real effort for someone who ultimately dislikes a disproportionate focus on group identity (and who likely wishes people would mind their own business a bit more). For me personally, it is even worse, since I am naturally introverted even when it comes to uncontroversial conversations. As such I hope I’ll be able to incorporate some of the tips on finding allies in the future. Remember that making you feel isolated is often deliberate:
An awful lot on secret ballots
Another main focus of the third chapter is not ceding the territory of formal decision-making. This is an under-recognized and under-opposed area of incursion because to make processes less formal, at first glance, also appears to just make life easier for all involved. However, what is made easier is also made easier to co-opt, that is, made less resilient.
Thus while it might seem strange to a non-academic to devote so much time to discussing meeting agendas and carefully designed voting processes, the real value of this section of the book comes from designing your operations in a way that resists the very ethos of Woke: it should encourage orderly discussion, not implicitly threaten dissenters, and devote due time to all issues on the table. You don’t always need to act this out through careful adherence to secret ballot voting, but you should resist the entropic tendency to eschew institutional formalities.
Where to take it next
While I did appreciate the pioneering nature of Counter Wokecraft, at not quite 100 pages, I think there is room to expand on a couple of points.
One note on the back cover is that although the material was developed in the context of academia, it easily generalizes. I personally see great opportunity to illustrate such generalization through stories of encounters with wokecraft in other organizations or fields; how the tactics and the appropriate responses might differ based on the terrain (and by the way, the irony is not lost on me that I am advocating for a “diverse” range of perspectives).
I’d also love to see this exploration continue to the point where it is possible to evaluate things like success rates for different Counter Wokecraft tactics. Which pushback efforts are the most likely to yield positive results? Which should be prioritized based on the ratio of difficulty to likelihood of success? This is a good early theoretical work on the topic, but perhaps the methods are less proven than what would be preferred by quantitatively-oriented academics (of necessity, granted, since this whole topic is still novel to most).
Finally, as I touched on earlier, it really seems that most people are not Woke but many have still swallowed the Bailey arguments involved in Woke Motte-and-Bailey tactics. I wonder if there is an opportunity to get into further detail on how to de-Bailey these individuals, on the assumption that they know not what they support. Is it even possible? I hope so.
Get Counter Wokecraft
Counter Wokecraft is available on Amazon for Kindle and paperback. It’s a pretty digestible read within a couple of lunch breaks or a Saturday afternoon with a mug of coffee. If you’re looking to better recognize the playbook and vulnerabilities of Woke infiltration of institutions, it’s worth grabbing.