Replacing Whiteness With Diversity

How The Far Left Exclude White Identity And Enlightenment Rationality

Photo by Ashkan Forouzani on Unsplash

I’ve been deep into writing a comprehensive 4,000 plus word essay on a particularly disturbing term coming from today's identity politics insanity; whiteness. While writing about it, I made some important connections that have really broadened my understanding of the culture wars. 

So instead of rushing out the essay in my excitement (before I really get the chance to get feed-back from trusted colleagues and tweak the hell out of it), I thought I would take an opportunity to share here some of the meat of my forth-coming essay on whiteness.

To give a brief summery -  the culture war is about the replacement of whiteness with diversity. That’s it. Everything associated with culture war identity politics ultimately points to this. Whiteness is not just any term coming from the new identity politics, it is THE term! 

I say this based on the following six points of rationale:

1 - The Movement

Previously I’ve written about one of the research groups I work with. We are trying to understand everything we can about the nature of the culture wars. During this process, one of the researchers coined the term The Great Illiberal Subversion. In my view this is the movement that must be countered. The subverting of liberalism is in plain-sight, and requires no understanding of the academic theories that seek to justify the subversion. But some understanding and attention paid to the sights of subversion is required if one wishes not to be swallowed whole by an encroachment intended to obliterate the West of enlightened principles.

The culture war represents a battle between those wishing to subvert liberalism and replace whiteness with diversity (regardless if voters support this) and those that wish to prevent the dismantling of democratic and liberal norms (because they recognize the good in enlightenment values). My approach to understanding this movement is to emulate to the best of my ability the approach I imagine Marshall McLuhan would take. On one side I rely heavily on the academic analysis of people like Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay, but a McLuhan-esque approach (similar to political economy) involves stepping back and observing the overarching mechanisms at play. 

This can best be achieved through what McLuhan referred to as the medium of the artist; pattern-recognition. My study of the culture wars involves a lot of observation of emergent patterns. A pattern seen often in The Great Illiberal Subversion is the problematizing of whiteness, while simultaneously advocating for diversity (do you see the contradiction?). You should be terrified!

2 - The Ideology

I’ve been threatening to write a deep-dive post on the ideology of wokeism. And in order to keep this post to a manageable size I once again defer this task to a future post. But I will offer a brief summation for now.

A better term for wokeism, the ideology of The Great Illiberal Subversion,  is reified postmodern identity politics (with totalitarian characteristics). The part outside of the brackets is mostly stolen from Helen Pluckrose, James Lindsay, and Frances Widdownson. The part inside the brackets is a homage to The Chinese Communist Party who describe their economic system as “socialism with Chinese characteristics.” You should be terrified!

3 - The Mission

To replace Whiteness with Diversity. 

How do I really know that this is always the mission of the Great Illiberal Subversion? What does gender ideology or trans-activism have to do with whiteness?

These are important questions. The answers lead to the big picture understanding of the culture wars (as I alluded to in the introduction of this piece). But first, we have to define both whiteness and diversity as they are conceived of within the framework of woke identity politics.

Whiteness - refers both to white people, but also white ethnicity. Let's unpack it further. Ethnicity refers to race, language and religion (although a given ethnicity does not require all three). White ethnicity refers to white identity. In Canada, the ethnic majority population is white. And, like in other Western democracies, the national identity is blurred into the ethnic identity of the majority population. This is why a lot of white Canadians don’t realize that the concept of white ethnicity exists. They simply see themselves as Canadians.

This is mostly informed by the work of Canadian political scientist, Eric Kaufmann (who I cite extensively in my upcoming essay). In his book Whiteshift, he explains and explores these concepts mostly through his expert analysis of demographic data. Kaufmann, through his work and analysis, believes that an anti-majority adversarial far left movement is seeking to replace whiteness with diversity. This is consistent with everything I have seen, and seems to be the best explanation for exactly what wokeism is.

Kaufman takes the discussion of national identity and white ethnicity/white identity, further through his coining of the term; ethno-traditional nationalism (this is much of what my forthcoming big essay is about). Whiteness is associated with the traditions and values of the white ethnic group of primarily Western European descent. In other words, this implies that Whiteness is inexorably connected to the values and traditions of enlightenment rationality. That is what is being replaced. 

Diversity - In the framework of identity politics diversity refers to diversity of identity, not diversity of viewpoint. Here we see the totalitarian nature of The Great Illiberal Subversion. Since spaces with woke diversity are hostile to those who may question the central premise of diversity, ideological dissenters are weeded out. Spaces with woke diversity are “self-licking ice cream cones,” they are echo chambers where everyone is simultaneously engaged in a seemingly humanistic mission of inclusion and acceptance, while doing everything in their power to advocate for the eradication of whiteness (white people are only included if they reject their ethnic identity…no other group of people is ever asked to do such a foul and offensive thing).

“What are the alleged “compelling” benefits of “diversity“? They are as invisible as the proverbial emperor’s new clothes. Yet everyone has to pretend to believe in those benefits, as they pretended to admire the naked emperor’s wardrobe.” -Thomas Sowell

So what About Queer Theory And Gender Ideology, how are they attacking whiteness?

The mission to replace whiteness with diversity is accomplished by advocating for anything that is at odds with the traditions and values coming from enlightenment rationality. White ethnic identity, if we break it down to the components of ethnicity, gives us white English-speaking Christians. You do not need to be a practicing Christian to value this religious tradition. As Tom Holland’s brilliant book Dominion illuminated for me, liberalism is a secularized version of Christianity. This means that the human rights and other traditions found within Western liberal societies, are thoroughly inextricable from the foundational tenets of Christianity.

To attack Christianity, liberalism, English authors, objectivity, or any of the products of the dead white men of the enlightenment (everything related to rationality and Jonathan Rauch’s liberal science), is to attack whiteness, is to attack white people. If you look closely, almost everything the woke far left advocate for, is in direct opposition to Western values (whiteness). That is no accident, their mission is to replace whiteness with a diversity that requires everyone to think the same. You should be terrified!

4 - The Rationale 

Ahistoricism, not limited to, but largely related to racism and colonization. The woke have taken up a short-sighted conception of history, which in the case of colonialism, ignores the brutal conditions that existed in the area now known as Canada, previous to contact with migrating European settlers. And in the case of racism, ignores that Western democracies alone (and the White majorities that filled them), are responsible for ending the vile practice of slavery.

Ignoring these two facts, and many other realities of both historical and present-day conditions in liberal society, allows for far left progressives to cherry pick through history, and through examples of present day injustices, in order to craft an alternate narrative that serves to bolster their ideological ends. 

Through this process whiteness is problematized. Proto-genocidal language related to the eradication of whiteness is employed religiously. You should be terrified!

5 - The Mechanism

The fourth and final law, of Marshall McLuhan’s laws of media is the most fascinating. At first Marshall, and his son Eric (who co-wrote the 1980 book The Laws of Media), thought that maybe there were just three laws - retrieval, obsolescence, and enhancement - but something about that didn’t feel complete. It wasn’t until a break-through was made and the crucial law of reversal was discovered, that a triumvirate of terms became a tetrad. 

Now known, among media ecologists, as the media tetrad. It is a framework that explores the mechanisms of media (defined as any human invention or idea). When a new thing appears on the scene, it always 1) retrieves something from the past 2) obsolesces something from the present 2) Enhances or extends some human attribute 4) reverses its characteristic, once pushed past the limits of its potential.

I have started a series exploring the ideas of Marshall McLuhan that attempts to apply his media theory (now known as media ecology) to develop a more complete understanding of the culture wars.

Reversal explains much about wokeism and The Great Illiberal Subversion. Take for example the civil rights movement and the concept of racism. Martin Luthor King had an idea he called color blindness. Everyone agreed this was the answer to racism, that seeing a person only as a product of their race was illiberal. However, King’s idea, like all ideas, does not exist in a static state, or in a vacuum. By contrast ideas/inventions and the environments they appear in, are highly dynamic and in constant motion.

King’s idea has been around too long apparently, it has been twisted and re-interpreted, and re-iterated until eventually flipped 180 degrees. Today, Ibram Kendi pronounces that anti-racism means dealing with past racism with present racism. Kendi prescribes racism, and the woke call it anti-racism. The founding philosophies of the civil rights movement, as they manifest under so-called social justice, have reversed their characteristics utterly.

Maybe this is an inevitable cultural condition. Maybe things work in cycles. And reversal of most things is just a matter of time. And that unfortunately, we just happen to be living through the point of reversal. Some things have already flipped, some are still in the process, and a decreasing number remain untouched in their pre-culture war, pre-identity politics orientation. We must rally around those things and protect them, as we must seek to reverse-back those things that have already completely flipped. Until we do, you should be terrified!

6 - The Truth

Where do I begin?  Who’s truth?

Perhaps never, has there been such a simple concept as truth, so thoroughly and successfully complicated by those outwardly hostile to a universally accepted notion, like the one upon which this concept sits. Truth should require no further qualifiers. There is no need for truth plus. As in, “my truth”, “your truth” “queer truth” or “indigenous truth.” These are impossible concepts, and the consequence is the undermining and confounding of the simple premise that if something is not true, it must be false.

Regarding colonization - a story of theft and atrocities by white skinned perpetrators justifies a program the woke refer to as de-colonization. You must “decolonize your mind,” they say. And institutions must remove the statues and symbols associated with colonialism. It is clear that de-colonization is part of the larger program of replacing whiteness with diversity. 

But the truth is, the worst human atrocities by far, that occurred in history in the area now known as Canada, were committed before the arrival of European settlers, and all of the perpetrators were indigenous. The situation with European colonization in Canada never came close to the level of savage depravity that existed pre-contact. 

Here is a great piece by professor Bruce Gilley, The Case For Colonialism, and another by Canadian author Peter Best, Great Britain: A Conquerer With A Conscience. They both offer some much needed perspective on colonialism.

Regarding Racism, and specifically the theory of systemic racism. Despite present-day racial disparities, this ignores the progress, not just in terms of civil rights, but by most markers of socio-economic and education/career outcomes. There are countless examples of people of all ethnic groups, both male and female, of any sexual orientation, who work hard and succeed. There is a winning formula, not a guarantee, but a worthwhile life-way in which one exercises agency and takes responsibility for their self-improvement and advancement through society.

I’ve never seen a hard worker full of enthusiasm and energy, eager to learn, and contribute, who is unable to do well, unless that person is aiming for something they are either not ready for, or not cut-out for. If the formula fails, the only thing to do is try and try again. Sometimes a change is what is needed, a switch to something else, an admission that some things are not meant to be. Of course for anyone but white guys, blame for failures can be placed on racism or sexism or transphobia, and a victim mentality can take hold, leading one to a career as a grievance activist, virtually ensuring one gets nowhere. 

Conditions are tough today, young people need a positive message, something to believe in. Yes, at the moment a house is beyond affordability for a huge group of people. There are many other challenges we are facing that can easily manifest in disenfranchisement. I understand the frustration people feel, and what they are going through. Adopting an overly cheery ideology that ignores all the problems and only sees the good in everything would be misleading and not helpful, but neither is the woke ideology of the opposite extreme, which sees only irreconcilability and dysfunction, and can only think to “tear it all down.” You should be terrified! 

Conclusion

So, gentle, and I should expect at this point, thoroughly enraged and terrified reader, it is our duty to convert our rage and terror into action. We are all different, so we will act in different ways, but act we must.

___________________

Reach out to me through Twitter or Facebook if you would like to organize with other Canadians and become part of the pushback against the great illiberal subversion.

Thanks for reading friends. If you appreciate the work I’m doing please consider becoming a paid subscriber.