Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin - The Problem with the Woke Left isn't the Woke Part

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Nov. 22, 2025 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin

11:29

The Problem with the Woke Left isn't the Woke Part

It's the left part. My NCF Bath event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9kdlFgqmBY

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	I thought we'd have a quick chat about the schism on the right, because this whole thing I think probably was inevitable and only actually resolves in one way.
	So you've got people like James Lindsay and the rest of the sort of centre-right types.
	Joel Berry was on Tim Paul's podcast yesterday discussing this, and they're deeply concerned about something they call the woke right.
	And I spoke to James about this at the last art conference, and he told me that he deliberately used this term frivolously in order to sow discord on the right.
	Because what's actually happening here is that the Buckleyite libs are reacting to the rise of a new form of ethno-nationalism on the right that resembles, but is not accurate or concurrent to a sort of degenerated form of Nazism.
	And they want to make sure their movement isn't caught up with it.
	And from their perspective, this is understandable.
	You can see why this is something that bothers them.
	And they can't just call them Nazis.
	Because, of course, the left has been crying wolf for many years and made calling someone a Nazi a rather unfashionable thing.
	And so, with this being passe, they need some new ideological tool in order to stipulate who they're talking about.
	But the problem is, these people basically aren't woke.
	It's not that they are woke.
	What it is, is that they are self-interested and they are reacting against a series of power structures that they perceive.
	And it is in this that James is identifying the wokeness.
	In discussing this on my ACAD Daily channel, I offhandedly said, well, the problem with the woke left isn't really the woke part, it's the left part.
	And I've had this thrown back in my face several times, so I just want to be categoric.
	That statement is true.
	That is completely correct.
	And I stand by it.
	Because actually, the problem isn't the woke part.
	It is the left part because the left part is what informs the woke part.
	I will explain, but the people who are reacting to this, they've been primed by James Lindsay and Joel Berry to react to this, are just reacting from ignorance.
	They just don't know what they're dealing with.
	However, I do know what they're dealing with because I spent the last, what, seven or eight years deeply studying left-wing ideology through their primary texts.
	I would read their university books.
	I would read the books that they brought to bear on the poor students in the universities to make them into woke leftists.
	And so I went through all of these.
	I went through all of the critical theory manuals and like the tomes and the lectures that I had studied.
	I listened to their thought leaders.
	And then I also did my philosophy degree and I also did my master's degree in philosophy studying liberalism.
	So I have a much better grasp of liberalism and leftism than any of these people who are calling me names.
	And I am telling you that the difference between the only difference, really, apart from the depth of knowledge, but the only real difference between myself and the centre-right critics of woke is that I let my attachment to liberalism go.
	I realized that that fundamentally is a teleological ideology that is trying to create something.
	And so I can approach this subject without moral investment, without emotional investment in it.
	Because James Lindsay and Joel Berry are trying to defend liberalism.
	And frankly, I think that that's where the problem lies.
	Woke itself is actually not the issue.
	Woke is what we colloquially call intersectionality, which is actually a descriptive framework that identifies the different intersections of where certain identities, and they're picked by the woke leftists themselves, but you could apply this to any identity you like, where they intersect in a social manner.
	This highlighting of the interaction between personal identities and people purports to describe how wider society is construed.
	Woke, then, is actually a tool developed by the communists to identify those points of weakness in the hierarchy of society so they could, in Gramscian fashion, formulate their arguments to further tear them down, to further equalize society.
	The issue is not actually that identification, because the identification of the structures of society is something that anyone can do.
	And honestly, if you want to have a proper understanding of society, you kind of do need to do that.
	And if you don't do that, what you're actually doing is rendering yourself willfully blind.
	I mean, one of the criticisms the woke left have of the sort of centre-right liberals is actually the liberal mysticism that I've been talking about, that it deliberately obscures things that are otherwise true about society.
	The woke left doesn't have a monopoly on identifying power dynamics.
	They just have a very easy-to-use tool and framework with which to do it, which is why there are so many woke leftists constantly making power critiques about society.
	But like I said, the issue is actually not that they have a descriptive lens to explain what society is actually like.
	The issue is the normative framework that instructs a person on what to do with that information.
	Woke, as an intersectionality itself, cannot actually command what ought to be done with the information that it provides.
	That actually does have to come from outside of intersectionality.
	And because the framework was designed and used by communists, obviously everyone naturally associates it very closely with the communist desire to tear everything down.
	And this close contact makes them look indistinguishable to the layman outside of it, but actually they aren't.
	It's actually quite possible to read against the grain, as it were, with woke as an ideological lens to identify those social structures upon which society rests and shore them up.
	A right-wing approach to woke ideology actually tells us where society needs help and support.
	But again, the liberal mysticism tries to cloud our vision and prevent us from seeing that.
	That's why the thing I keep saying over and over is just pick up the phone and ring your mum.
	Actually, the social bonds between us, these relationships between parents and children, brothers and sisters, neighbours and the local community, these are the things that actually we need to improve.
	And this is where woke would try and intercede and say, ah, but there is a hidden power dynamic here.
	Yeah, there is a power dynamic between parents and child, between one person and another person.
	Society is hierarchical, and that is good and normal.
	And actually, in many respects, it's our duty to uphold these hierarchies.
	And so we should strengthen these social bonds.
	But the problem that the Joel Berrys and James Lindsays of the world have is that, well, frankly, liberalism was the original woke movement.
	It was designed against hierarchies, which is why it acts as a universal acid against any kind of social bond.
	The very purpose, man is free and everywhere he's in chains.
	Well, the chains themselves are these relationships, are the social bonds.
	And woke leftism is just an attempt to more accurately define what these social bonds are.
	And Joel Berry and James Lindsay and all their sort of cohort, all they've done is said, no, I'm actually happy with this level of freedom.
	I am a liberal from I am a leftist from 200 years ago, and this version of leftism suits me.
	But it doesn't suit others, which is why they're constantly being dragged further and further to the left, and why they identify woke as the problem rather than leftism itself.
	Because they are actually just old leftists.
	Their position is to carve woke away from the left and contain the left in the old version of the woke frame that they use.
	And so what they're doing is in fact a rearguard action in defense of the left itself.
	Because on a subconscious, fundamental level, they concede that the left aligns itself with their own goals.
	By saying, no, it's not the left that is the problem, it is the woke that is the problem.
	What they are saying is leftism is a core part of their own philosophy, which is why they are leaping to its defense.
	And I just want to be clear, I understand that they are afraid.
	The future is an unpredictable thing.
	It is much more reassuring to take solace in past iterations of the ideology.
	They think they have a handle on things, but unfortunately, the world has changed around them.
	The liberal mysticism that prevented them from seeing what was actually happening has concealed a wide array of different changes on both the left and the right.
	And actually, I think we should approach this with clear eyes and be just determinate and honest about what is actually happening and what is actually good for man.
	And so the question that they'll raise is, well, does moving beyond liberalism as the foundation of our society mean that we have to become rabid, low IQ anti-Semites or cast every minority over the cliffs of Dover or you know out of the country or whatever?
	And the answer is no, of course not.
	Of course we don't have to do that.
	But liberalism does have the habit of fetishizing those who are not the equals of society writ large and provides them with a smokescreen so that their bad behavior can be concealed behind the rubric of systemic injustice.
	And this is not acceptable.
	This is just not an acceptable thing to have carry on.
	Our societies ought to be for the dominant majority groups before they are for anyone else and therefore should be calibrated to serve us before we serve others.
	This is not an unreasonable request.
	Indeed, social justice, if one wished to characterize it this way, would demand as much.
	And clearly, it's an idea whose time has come.
	Now, I realize that I'm saying a lot in this short video, but I did actually post a much longer form discussion that I had at the New Culture Forum in Bath yesterday, which I'll leave linked in the description.
	And in it, I explain these opinions and positions and this new non-liberal way of looking at things in much greater detail.
	So I'll leave a link in the description to that.
	Do check it out.
	But just to round up, I utterly stand on my point.
	The problem with the woke left is not really the woke part, because the woke part is purely descriptive.
	It is actually with the normative left part of it, which is why Joel Berry and James Lindsay are freaking out and diving to be in the way to protect the left.

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