Konstantin Kisin: Why woke ideology weakens Western freedom

Kisin explains ‘perception is projection’: if you’re primed to see yourself as a victim (of racism, sexism, etc.), you interpret neutral or ambiguous events as hostile, react defensively, and often produce worse outcomes. He cites the ‘scar experiment’, where participants believed they were facially disfigured (but weren’t) and then reported discrimination that hadn’t occurred, and ‘stereotype threat’ research, where simply highlighting identity before a test depresses performance. His practical implication: stop reinforcing fragility and instead tell people—especially genuinely disadvantaged groups—“you can be whatever you want; your job is to play the hand you’ve been dealt as well as possible.”

Kisin argues that classical Marxism divided society into economic oppressors (bourgeoisie) and oppressed (workers). When Western workers refused revolution, Marxists in academia re‑coded the framework around race, sex, and identity—creating a hierarchy of oppression where some groups are morally elevated and others are presumed oppressors (white, male, successful minorities like East Asians). This lens, he says, forbids neutral explanations (culture, behaviour, choices) and insists all unequal outcomes imply oppression, fracturing society into tribes and making multi‑racial coexistence much harder.

Historically, Kisin notes, civilizations usually fall from within, not via conquest. When a dominant civilization stops believing it’s worth defending, stops teaching its children its virtues, and becomes absorbed in trivial internal fights, rivals move. He links Western ‘weakness signals’ and division to events like Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, US withdrawal from Afghanistan, Iran‑backed Hamas attacking Israel, and China’s assertiveness over Taiwan. His warning: if the West continues to portray itself as fundamentally oppressive and illegitimate, fewer people will defend it, and global conflict will rise as other powers contest leadership.

Social media, he argues, detached activism from real‑world feedback, elevating symbolic gestures (e.g. black Instagram tiles) over effective policy and rewarding performative virtue rather than results. He describes Russian ‘demoralization’ strategy, based on Soviet methods: not electing specific candidates but saturating environments with conflicting narratives to erode trust and clarity. The Tenet Media case, where right‑wing influencers were unknowingly paid via a Russia‑linked outlet, illustrates how existing internal grievances are identified and amplified, not created from scratch. Kisin’s proposed counter: rebuild a clear, truthful story about Western history and values so people are less susceptible to manipulation.

He points to male underperformance in education, higher suicide rates, and social demonization of masculinity. In advertising and media, men are often portrayed as weak or buffoonish, while traits like strength, dominance, and aggression are pathologized. Kisin sees the appeal of Andrew Tate, Islam, combat sports, and gym culture as symptoms of a hunger for discipline, status, and socially allowed masculinity. His advice: channel male drives into constructive roles (building, protecting, providing, taking responsibility), call out toxic men specifically (e.g. Weinstein) rather than all men, and emphasize cooperation: men and women “hold each other up” and are biologically and psychologically complementary.