Welcome to the Postmodern world...

We are living in a Postmodern world.

This Substack exists to help people understand postmodernism and its connection to what is now often called the “woke” movement.

I have been convinced we are living in a postmodern world for several years. So, in June of 2020 I started my twitter account, @wokal_distance, so I could decode, decipher, and explain the postmodern world in a way which was accesible to the average person. My goal was to help the average person who could feel the social fragmentation, instability and breaking apart of the social world, but could not grasp exactly how and why it was happening. I wanted to help average people find their bearings in the fog of the postmodern world. Further, there were many people who could see that there was something deeply wrong with the social justice movement that we now call “woke,” but did not know how to explain what was wrong with it.

I have been explaining wokeness and it’s postmodern underpinnings on twitter for two years now. My main tool for doing this was twitter threads in which I would unpack various elements of wokeness and postmodernism in a way that was accessible to the average person. As it stands today, I have 114,000 followers. This number still blows my mind.

Today, two years after I started, things have changed. While the west has continued to sink deeper into postmodernity, there has emerged a strong and robust counter response that did not exist even two years ago. A number of people who understand our cultural moment have stepped up to both ring the alarm and help defend our society from the destructive nature of wokeness and postmodernism. This is a wonderful development.

The response from those pushing Woke Social Justice has been to seek to stop our movement from gaining further traction by locking those of us who oppose wokeness out of the broader culture wide conversation. The woke don’t want to defeat us by having better arguments, they want to win by removing us from the debate. You can’t win a debate that you aren’t allowed to participate in.

One of key tactics the woke have employed has been deplatforming: the process of pressuring institutions, corporations, and social media companies to deny those who oppose wokenss a space to add their ideas to the conversation. The goal has been to try to relegate those who oppose wokeness to the outer edges of society so our arguments cannot reach the broader culture. This can take many forms including: losing a job, being kicked off of a social media site, or getting banned from a payment processor like paypal to cut off financial support. The goal is to make it as difficult as possible to oppose woke ideas, and to extract a social and financial price from those who stand against wokeness.

This has hit Twitter particularly hard. It is common to see someones twitter account locked, suspended, or banned because they took the wrong stance on an issue woke Social Justice activists care about. It has become clear that I may not be able to depend on twitter, my platform of choice, to keep my account open and available. For that reason I have decided to expand my online presence to this platform, Substack. I am doing this so if twitter decides to deplatform me at the behest of some activist or other I have a place where I can continue my work.

This Substack will be a place where I will explain, decipher, and decode the ideas that lie at the heart of wokeness and postmodernism. The medium here is different than twitter; there is no character limit and I do not need to depend on threads. This means I can more easily unpack and explain difficult concepts. As such, what I publish here will be more polished that my twitter work. This medium is more conducive to careful and detailed explanations, and it allows me to simplify difficult and confusing concepts in a way that a twitter thread does not. I look forward to doing that.

While Substack allows for monetization I will I never place my explanatory essays behind a paywall. When I do decide to add a paid subscription option, my explanations of wokeness will remain free: open and available to all. Further, I will continue to make explanatory threads on twitter for as long as I am allowed on that platform. I have always done that for free, and I will continue to do so.

This is a passion project, but it is also time intensive and I cannot continue to pour my full energy into it without some support. While my explanations will remain free for all (I want my explanations to be available to all, and I want people who cannot afford subscriptions to be able to fully participate in stopping wokeness…we need all hands on deck!) I will soon add a paid subscription option for those who are willing and able to financially support me. If I can figure out a way to create additional targeted content (IE: a Q and A for subscribers to be posted later for everyone to see and learn from) I may do that, but my focus is on content that is as readily available and easily accessible as possible.

For those who will choose to support me, I appreciate it more than I know how to express. “Thank you” does not even begin to cover it. For those who cannot afford to support me, I appreciate your willingness to read my explanations and participate in the conversation.

Welcome to the @Wokal_distance Substack.

Let’s get to work.

Sincerely,

@Wokal_distance