What’s the point of being anti woke?

This past week I have been asking myself a question — what is the point of the culture war? Inspiring this question was the ARC (Alliance for Responsible Citizenship) conference, held in the echoing shopping centre that is London’s ExCel Centre. Even a few years ago a conference like this in Britain would have been unthinkable. Four thousand delegates, the leaders of two political parties, journalists, CEOs and activists all gathered in opposition to progressivism. 

As one hurried into the venue to escape the bitter cold wind, banners advertised both the ARC conference, and the international Pokémon championships. Brightly coloured fictional Japanese creatures cavorted above our heads — perhaps like the unicorn, there wasn’t room for them on Noah’s Ark. 

Inside the ARC there was scarcely less fantastical biodiversity. A dizzying, kaleidoscopic horde of people flowed by — it felt like every cancelled academic, right wing pundit and populist podcaster was sipping lukewarm coffee and catching up with old friends. Organisations that in many cases didn’t even exist a few years ago were now mainstays of an anti-woke ecosystem, their stalls set up and leaflets in hand. GB News, the Free Speech Union, Courage Media, History Reclaimed and dozens of others were flying the flag. 

It’s no longer enough to say Net Zero is barmy without suggesting a viable alternative

But what is it all for? At the height of the great awokening, it could feel like a victory to even be able to gather, to tell the truth about gender, migration, or policing. So censorious was the climate, and so absurd the lines being held, the bar for resistance and defiance could be ridiculously low. This pressure cooker of intellectual repression allowed many in the “anti-woke” world to acquire fame, following and fortune by acting as a release valve for the unthinkable and unsayable. Unlikely coalitions between dissidents of left and right emerged under this same extreme pressure, and libertarians, conservatives, post-liberals, rationalists, classical liberals and reactionaries all found themselves improbably cast adrift on the same raft. 

The raft, I thought to myself as I looked about, is starting to get very big. Nobody clambers aboard a makeshift raft in order to get somewhere — you throw yourself onto it to avoid being pulled underwater. But once the storm dies down, you may find yourself floating aimlessly, with no land in sight.

That isn’t to say one isn’t still glad to be onboard. In Britain especially, a hysterical progressivism seems to be shambling on long after its heart has ceased to beat. Cultural, administrative and academic institutions remain trapped in the death grip of left liberal elites. On Starmer’s watch, a pattern of police going after speech rather than crime only looks set to intensify. 

But the battlefield has fundamentally changed. In politics and the press, gender ideology and open borders are not only challenged but those who advocate too loudly for them are made to pay a real political cost. It’s by no means an even fight, but after years of diving for cover, the other side of the culture war is finally firing back.

Having power and platforms is a new experience, and it is not without costs. For one there are diminishing returns for those looking to build their anti-woke career on substack and podcasts. We need not weep for the content farmers, but we should be worried that the means to support and fund ideas outside of the liberal progressive mainstream at scale are not emerging. Creative and intelligent people who do not want to obsess about gender, class or race in the arts and academia will simply self-select out, or never get ahead, rather than being noisily cancelled. In the UK in particular, right wing money men are unlikely to open their wallets to fund art galleries, universities, think tanks or small arts journals. 

This shallow intellectual bench is not unrelated to a far more serious consequence of the newly gained ground in the culture war — a lack of ideas and positive policy. Before, it was easy to feel virtuous, because after all, classical liberals and conservatives were the victims, or as they’d probably prefer to think of it, the plucky rebels. Trump coming to power, and not just outsourcing his policy to the centre right establishment, has changed all that. 

You don’t have to think seriously about governance or the global order when you are on the outs. It was enough to say that Net Zero was barmy without suggesting a viable alternative, or to question the wisdom of getting involved in Ukraine without worrying about how to contain Russia. But long-fermented anger and frustration, for all that much of it was righteous, can have dark consequences when unleashed without thought. One can believe, as I do, that the relationship between government aid and NGOs is broken and corrupt, but realise that simply scrapping USAid overnight is not the act of a moral or responsible regime. 

Over the past decade the political Right has discovered not only the unexpected agonies, but also the unfamiliar joys of being on the political margins. It’s fun to throw rhetorical bombs from the sidelines, to sneer at the elites, and to meet in darkened rooms to plot revenge. But American populists are waking up to find themselves responsible for the deaths of AIDS sufferers in Africa, reversing the legacy not of a liberal government, but of George Bush’s evangelically infused compassionate conservatism. From Badenoch’s lurch into secularism on the first day of ARC, to Musk’s enthusiasm for a transhumanist future, one can sense the raft being caught and spun about by currents that few onboard are likely to welcome.

For years, people in my space — alternative media, the dissident left and right, rebel academics — have been focused on survival, carving out bunkers in which to shelter. The culture war is not over, but the nature of the fight has fundamentally changed. We’re now in a position to build and create, to shape and influence public life rather than just hope to be allowed in the door. Solidarity is a noble habit, but it has to be built on something more than common enemies. Those who rightly despised progressive authoritarianism must now find shared loves around which to gather, rather than shared hates.