Where Do We Go After Anti-Wokeness? Dissident Dialogues Offered An Inspiration and A Warning

A battle between classical liberalism and collectivism.

In our hyper-connected world, it increasingly seems there’s always an emergency or ideology threatening to alter our lives. When the stakes feel high, and we feel desperate, anything that appears it could keep threats at bay will call to us. But often, “anything” is a thing that imperils the very life we’re trying to protect: internment camps for Japanese-Americans, anti-hate speech laws, and the PATRIOT Act. It’s harder than ever to retain our principles in such times, but if we fail, we risk displacing the external threat only to become an even greater threat ourselves.

Today, the classical liberalism that made America uniquely successful faces challenges it hasn’t seen in decades.

When Critical Race Theory-inspired leftists defended riots and looting in the name of “retributive justice,” I defended the classical liberal principle of treating all people according to the rule of law. When COVID-inspired authoritarians defended lockdowns and forced vaccination in the name of “public safety,” I defended the classical liberal principles of private property and bodily autonomy. Each time, I felt isolated and misunderstood within a collective gripped by fear, but slowly and surely more people joined me in speaking up. Together, this “anti-woke” subculture arose to defend the principles that made America a thriving nation. Across social media, podcasts, newsletters, and more, we defended free speech, civil discourse, objective truth, and treating people as individuals, not “privileged” or “marginalized” collectives. It was a small, but desperately needed intellectual rebellion against the regressive mindset possessing people in the name of “progress.” 

Several years past the dark age of 2020, our subculture is no longer so small. “Anti-wokeness” is its own movement, an ideological umbrella under which those of different political persuasions, from conservatives to traditional liberals, oppose an authoritarian Left that denigrates our classical liberal heritage: rather than force and coercion, we address conflicts with rational debate and due process.

But as any movement expands, fractures emerge. Is the “anti-woke” subculture falling prey to the same fear of impending threats that’s repeatedly led people to abandon their principles? 

When I recently spoke out against Zionism (a Jewish ethno-nationalist ideology inherently at odds with the classical liberal principle of equal treatment under the law), I found myself critiquing both the Left and the Right—the latter comprised of people who once stood with me against the Left’s own identity politics. People turning on their principles in wartime is nothing new, but it’s left me wondering: what comes after anti-wokeness? Attending Dissident Dialogues helped me answer that.

After a five-and-a-half-hour traffic-delayed drive and a terrible night of sleep in a terribly-priced Brooklyn hotel, day one of Dissident Dialogues arrived. A festival “for dangerous ideas,” read the bright red flyer with modern typeface advertising what looked like a music festival. Dissident Dialogues was a two-day event featuring all your favorite Joe Rogan adjacents, bodyguard-trailed dissidents, and cancel culture veterans. It was Coachella for people who know what “heterodox” means. Winston Marshall and Desh Amila collaborated to make our newsfeed favorites manifest in the physical realm. It was exactly the kind of event I wanted to see—one that takes the ideals the anti-woke space preaches and puts them into practice. 

Should an event like this accomplish nothing else, at least we got to share space in real-time with kindred spirits. But Dissident Dialogues accomplished much more than just the fun of a festival: attendees got a transcendent dialogue between Richard Dawkins and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a dramatic debate on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and un-cancellable comedy from Bridget Phetasy and Francis Foster in the opposite of a comedy club—an airplane-hanger-sized warehouse with floor-to-ceiling windows and a view of Manhattan’s cityscape across the water. Iranian dissident Masih Alinejad reminded us why opposing authoritarianism—the woke variety or otherwise—is crucial for both our society and the hope of individuals in places where it can’t be escaped. Writer and speaker Africa Brooke—author of Why I’m Leaving the Cult of Wokeness and The Third Perspective—reminded us to ground our challenging discussions in courage and openness. Ayishat Akanbi, exemplar of rationality in an irrational era, spoke with Thomas Chatterton Williams and John McWhorter—all concluded we are past peak woke.

Dissident Dialogues let us scratch our anti-woke itch, but was there an appreciation for true dissent or was this just an anti-woke echo chamber? It’s easy to think yourself a dissident when you compare yourself to the authoritarian Left, but the Right isn’t exactly a fringe political faction. Although they’ve adopted the image of being anti-establishment political outsiders, the conservative Right had their own dark days as war-mongers, cancel mobs, and establishment darlings. Being right-wing might be unpopular in pop culture, but being unpopular doesn’t make you a dissident.

If the anti-woke Right is to remain a subversive, effective movement, it has to avoid the common trap for all things that become mainstream: stagnating on its laurels. Instead, it has to push ever-forward.

All groups are prone to groupthink and conformity. The only way to know if your group is different is by testing its tolerance for dissent—that’s exactly what Dissident Dialogues did. While many of the debates were more like discussions on topics that most speakers and attendees largely agreed on (e.g. Is This The End of Mainstream Media?) there were enough debates on major points of contention to save this event from becoming a festival celebrating not being a leftist. Three debates in particular served as microcosmic crystal balls for what direction the anti-woke Right could take next.

Debate: Is Israel’s War Against Hamas a Just War?

Less than three days before the festival, The Black Sheep co-founder (and Salomé Sibonex boyfriend) Jake Klein was invited to replace a drop-out for a debate on Is Israel’s War Against Hamas a Just War? Interviews, audiobooks, and debates on 2x speed were my soundtrack for over 48 hours, paused only for breaks to listen to the triumphant soundtrack of Rocky. 

This debate was always going to be a shit show. While hosting it was one of the most important choices that prevented Dissident Dialogues from becoming an echo chamber, it also revealed how many attendees were already in one. But that’s exactly what made a debate on this issue important. There can be multiple arguments supporting a position, some stronger than others, which is why examining all of them is crucial. Jake’s last-minute addition to the debate provided a right-wing libertarian perspective for the anti-war side. Debating with Jake was Briahna Joy Gray and, unsurprisingly, this anti-woke audience was uncharitable to a former Bernie Sanders spokeswoman. Arguing for the pro-war side was Eli Lake, a neoconservative who continued to argue there were WMDs in Iraq even after the Bush administration admitted there weren’t, and who coined the slur “AsAJew” to denigrate those with heterodox perspectives on Zionism. Lake was joined by Michael Moynihan, whose knowledge of the conflict was aided by an AIPAC propaganda trip.

Lake misinterpreted statements to obfuscate opposing arguments and repeated slogans in place of reasoning. Moynihan, who had stayed silent as Lake’s repeated interruptions derailed other speakers, emotionally exploded at Jake for interrupting Lake to flag a proven falsehood. When prompted to give their solution to the conflict, both answered that Palestinians should ultimately accept the status quo. As bad as these speakers were in their approach to this topic, the audience was arguably worse. They dismissively laughed at talk of dead Palestinian children, heckled throughout, and cheered for the surprisingly flimsy Zionist sloganeering. While I’ve argued that Zionism is incompatible with classical liberalism, the problem isn’t this one ideology. Any ideology that encourages tribalism and discussing issues with the energy of a wrestling match takes us in the wrong direction. When that energy is brought to discussions on a conflict that has ended thousands of innocent lives, it reveals just how regressive this mindset is.

If this debate predicts what will come from the anti-woke movement—ethno-nationalist identity politics, collectivism, and tribalism—you can start preparing today for a necessary anti-collectivist backlash against the Right in the name of preserving classical liberalism.

The silver lining to this ugly discovery was the substantial number of people who came up to Jake and I afterward to express relief that a competent, right-of-center, anti-Zionist perspective on the issue finally got a hearing. Those people—some who still disagreed, but valued Jake’s use of reason and facts to elevate a generally irrational and insult-inundated discourse—gave me hope. This debate crystalized an alternative to the anti-woke Right’s potential future as just another collectivist echo chamber that uses words like “individualism” with as much honesty as the Left uses “equality,” and who decry tribalism and identity politics only on the other side. Like all movements towards enlightenment, it’s not the majority that our future relies on, but the minority who can genuinely transcend these destructive cycles—and that minority was present at Dissident Dialogues.

You can watch the debate for yourself here (and make sure you’re subscribed to The Black Sheep for our upcoming response video):

Debate: Can Liberalism Be Saved?

Only sillier than having to defend classical liberalism while enjoying its fruits is denouncing it while doing so, which Mary Harrington and Sohrab Ahmari did in their debate against Nick Gillespie and Florence Read. That liberalism is up for debate among the anti-woke Right is itself a sign of impending problems, much like when people who’ve enjoyed free speech all their lives get comfortable curtailing it for others. But proving its worth, this debate helped clarify what a future molded by certain ideas would look like, such as Sohrab Ahmari’s post-liberalism, which openly advocates for devaluing individual autonomy and dictating how others should live for the “greater good.” Harrington posed a problem we’re all too familiar with: masses untrained in the skills of clear thinking and constructive dialogue take to social media to ruin intellectual discourse for us all. Gillespie patiently reminded us all that the imperfections in a system adopted to solve worse problems aren’t best addressed by throwing it out entirely. Having one’s speech suppressed and having a majority force their personal preferences on you were the exact problems liberalism solved.

This debate was an important window into a brewing but ironic problem on the Right, considering it’s exactly what they criticize the Left for: forgetting that freedom was never free, but has always cost us the discomfort of tolerating the freedom of people we dislike. If the Right continues to embrace the cynical “liberalism has failed” argument, they will inevitably throw out individual rights in exchange for some people getting to control all people—a luxurious perspective for those with too much time to worry about the personal lives of others. This debate offered me another glimpse of a fracture in the anti-woke sphere that could lead to a future I want no part in. The audience agreed, voting to provide a resounding victory in favor of saving liberalism.

Debate: You Are Not A Christian 

I’m not seeking a utopia where everyone finally agrees about everything. My vision is that as we move away from leftist cultural dominance, we can move back toward what we were defending all along. Rather than succumbing to different kinds of collectivism and identity politics, those of us in the “anti-woke” world need to build a movement that transcends these traps. That vision was put into practice during the final event at Dissident Dialogues, as Richard Dawkins and Ayaan Hirsi Ali disagreed on one of the most historically dangerous topics to do so: religion. They disagreed about the benefit of placing your faith in unproven religious claims, the need to prioritize truth above religion’s emotional support, and the role faith plays in combatting destructive ideologies like Leftism and Islamism. Dawkins pressed Ayaan on whether she truly believed in scientifically implausible faith claims to discern whether she was merely a “cultural Christian” (like him) or a true believer. Ayaan’s careful response, “I choose to believe,” was enough for Dawkins to admit she is indeed a Christian. 

Despite never reaching a full resolution, their debate proved that disagreement in good faith, with respect for each other’s humanity, and in service of understanding instead of “winning,” still yields more progress than any alternative. There was something unusually powerful about their disagreement that filled the entire space and held the audience in perfect attention. Dawkins and Ali gave us a glimpse of our ideal: intelligent people with fundamental disagreements who rely on reason and civility to navigate them in the pursuit of greater understanding. At a time when it increasingly feels like domination is the only answer to conflict, I was almost moved to tears by this pinnacle of civil disagreement. 

I’ve watched people across the political spectrum abandon their principles when emotions run high and opt for the easy fix of hating the “other side.” I went to Dissident Dialogues looking for more than just the same anti-woke hot takes I’ve heard repeated for years—I wanted to see whether something better than just bashing the Left and becoming our own collectivist echo chamber could come of this movement. There will never be an end to the upsetting events and sense of emergency that modern life thrusts upon us. The future of what comes after anti-wokeness isn’t clear; Dissident Dialogues showed me that those who are simply looking to form a new tribe are already doing so, but that more of us than ever before are sick of the same old destructive patterns. It’s high time for those of us who see a better future to build it.