Based is no longer anti-woke
on the latest vibe shift
So I’ve been observing in internet circles (and in my IRL encounters) that “basedness” is no longer functioning as a pure reaction against wokeness. Now that wokeness is no longer fashionable, based people (people who aren’t woke) feel more free to acknowledge that which is true about some woke platitudes.
It is now acceptable for based people to assume positions/make assertions that were once left-coded, cringe, and thus, taboo.
For example, it is cool to acknowledge that:
hardcore zionism is not good, and that the IDF is indeed committing atrocities against Gazans, and that some level of Palestinian sovereignty might possibly be a good thing, and that equating anti-zionism with anti-semitism is a false construct, and that whining about everything and everyone being anti-semitic is not exactly cool.
Also that the Palestinians are more bro-coded than Israelis. Exhibit A:
systemic racism is still a real thing, and that despite the errors of affirmative action and the policing of language and microagressions, blacks are still oppressed and something needs to be done about it, other than pinning all blacks’s problems on their lack of work ethics (or worse, their “genetic inferiority”) and insisting that race relations have improved so much since the 60s that we should no longer worry about racism
furthermore, that black American culture is actually very based, and that black people are responsible for founding American culture (especially music) and for building our economy (for free!)
while open borders propels globohomo, that Latinos are not all gangsters and rapists, and in fact are very based and provide a net positive to (US) American society (most are God-fearing Catholics who love the virgin Mary, value family and traditional morals, and have lively, vibrant cultures and a real zest for life)
that white people are not in fact superior (especially not WASPs), and that Anglo-American culture is anti-traditional, quite stale, and is in fact responsible for inventing globohomo; and that celebrating ethnic roots (diversity!) is actually really awesome and healthy
as much as wokies are wrong to insists that gender is not binary and that heterosexuality is not normative, that queer people actually deserve to be treated with some modicum of respect and that gay/transbashing is not a good thing, and that in fact many queer people are very cool and intelligent and interesting and fun (not to mention that most gay men are NOT very politically correct)…and that you actually need them for society to function
that socialism/communism are actually not the worst things in the world in as much as they entail a reasonable redistribution of wealth and value working-class rights/culture and pose a threat to global elites (not to mention that communism’s authoritarian bent and its aesthetics are kinda based). The Lina Khan-Steve Bannon-Zohran Mamdani horseshoe is a prime example of this.
Christianity is not merely a tool to preserve “Western civilization” but to promote charity, mercy, forgiveness, healing of wounds, dialogue, loving your enemy (as in being less of an asshole), community, and JOY (as in actually enjoying life more)
That “traditional values” like “traditional masculinity/femininity,” the nuclear family, and the TLM are not actually that traditional and are actually very (post)modern because they are more of a LARP than tapping into a living tradition that is handed down from actual human beings (and not influencers you never met)
Acceptance, mercy, and niceness are—within certain limits—actually pretty cool. As
recently wrote about his being an ex-Ben Shapiro bro:
We saw [Shapiro] as an exemplar of male rationality (i.e., his catchphrase, “facts don’t care about your feelings,” and his Daily Wire tumbler “Leftist Tears”), juxtaposed against the female irrationality we perceived in the girls our age, whom we didn’t yet know how to talk to. The girls were the “libs,” especially as the Gen Z gender-political divide was beginning to form, and we didn’t want to catch their BLM-protesting, rainbow flag-loving, Joe Biden-supporting cooties.
Yes, facts were still great, but so was hearing people out. As was caring for others, and actually conversing with the other sex. All of a sudden, things like, “there’s an extremely strong case for reasonable doubt” that Derek Chauvin didn’t really murder George Floyd sounded not “cool,” but rather, cruel. Even if we stayed on the right, Shapiro was no longer our “master.” Some of us, seeing Shapiro for the GOP apparatchik he was, instead went over to the left, or started holding a diverse range of perspectives not easily placed on the binary political spectrum.
Furthermore, the more anti-wokeness has become a thing in itself, people are “waking up” to the fact that (1) it is cringe because it has come to function as a highly manufactured psyop being used to further propel the media’s hysteria cycle, rather than to cut through the BS and recover a our collective common sense and (2) purely reactionary postures are devoid of substance and end up becoming a mere mirror opposite of the posture they are reacting against, rendering the, functionally the same as their alleged enemy.
Once again, thanks for a thoughtful post and written during a remarkably trying week. Not so sure, though, about socialism/communism not being the worst thing in the world. They might not be the worst, but they are far from good. I am pretty sure that the capitalist elite will be replaced with the socialist elite. I'll be doing my small part to live as a distributist as best I can in this fallen world. That aside, I count on your giving me something to cogitate on for the better part of a week.