Why the Left Doesn't Need to Be Woke

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Zardnaar

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Online people seem to equate social justice to be a major components of being the left.

Problem being from an electoral PoV it's poison. It's bad when the lefts main hope of winning an election is the right throwing up even worse electoral poison eg Trump, Scomo, Boris or what National vomited up here vs Jacinda.

Ah Zard you beer living drunken kiwi you live in one of the most liberal countries in the world don't lecture us!!!!!

Here we are very progressive by worldwide standards (we fail online purity tests like most places) because of what our ancestors passed back in the 19th and early 20th century.

They were not progressive in modern terms. Our equivalent of FDR on modern terms was racist vs Chinese for example at the time we had some sort of whites only immigration policy.

The key thing was the economic side of things. They passed a lot of legislation around things like universal healthcare, pensions, welfare, education etc.

That system lasted until 1984 and they've been slowly dismantling it but some of the ideals at least still form a large part of the national psyche.

If the economy is going to crap without that social safety net people will slide to populists who make big promises and extremism.

You need the cultural and economic environment to promote liberal ideals trying to push it and force it creates a backlash. It will either happen or it won't.

Look at eastern Europe eg Poland and Hungary for example. Harder you push they push back.

Is it ideal no but the world isn't an ideal place. Different cultures and people think differently. There's no right and wrong as such in terms of values although I have my preferences just like everyone else.

I can't change the way people think it's possible but it takes time as in generations. Expecting eastern Europe let alone places like Afghanistan to embrace western values is a waste of time it's up to them.

I won't mention places like China, Russia, India, or Saudi Arabia. Let them change or not under their own steam. At least in internal matters.

External stuff eg invasions are not what I'm talking about.

Clinton was right it's the economy stupid. There's some big problems and the left is unable or unwilling to fix them the right either doesn't acknowledge those problems or it's working as intended.

You need to nurture the environment you live in to encourage "wokism" and the left are clueless on several multiple things at least when it comes to winning elections.

Progress (ideal) 1,2,3,4,5,6
Online 1,2,3,4,9,10
Reality 1,2,3,4,5,3,3,4,2,6
 
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This seems to be founded on some weird definition of "the left" which isn't reflected by most, of the opposition parties you're on about. If it's even reflected by any of them.

Also, we've done this discussion a bazillion times. We get it. You can't go left because it makes the right stronger, but for some weird reason we can keep on going right and that seems to never get pushback. Or still be "the left's" fault :D
 
Define woke. When coined it meant something like "awake to the injustice of the world". The left really needs to be aware of the that, because you know darn well that the powers on the right know that full well as they have spent most of their power creating it.

If you mean the cultural side of the leftist movement, as opposed to the economic side, then what do you thing the left should give up on? Abortion is clearly the big one ATM, and few will agree that we should give up on that. There are also the other rights that are threatened by the cases highlighted as open to review, such as gay sex and marriage, contraception and even interracial marriage. Are you saying those should be abandoned to increase the chance of a higher minimum wage?

If you have any other active political issues that should be abandoned then that may help, but it is not like the main body of the "left" is fighting for stuff that does not make people's lives better.
 
Define woke. When coined it meant something like "awake to the injustice of the world". The left really needs to be aware of the that, because you know darn well that the powers on the right know that full well as they have spent most of their power creating it.

If you mean the cultural side of the leftist movement, as opposed to the economic side, then what do you thing the left should give up on? Abortion is clearly the big one ATM, and few will agree that we should give up on that. There are also the other rights that are threatened by the cases highlighted as open to review, such as gay sex and marriage, contraception and even interracial marriage. Are you saying those should be abandoned to increase the chance of a higher minimum wage?

If you have any other active political issues that should be abandoned then that may help, but it is not like the main body of the "left" is fighting for stuff that does not make people's lives better.

Means don't shout about controversial things.

If you don't build the foundation right to begin with you're one election loss or supreme court ruling away from getting wrecked.

It's cart before horse sure you might get a law passed but laws can be repealed or revoked it worked around.

People might want XYZ lose an election fail to get XYZ then lose ABC as well.

So you can preen online but the best play would be not push for XYZ, keep ABC and wait to pass XYZ later even if it's in ten years.
 
Define woke...
I think this has been defined a million times on this board. Wokeism (Wokery, or Wokeness) is a leftist ideology that promotes social vengeance, rooted in conflict theory, against straight white cis males because they're classed as the "privileged" category and are the scapegoat to the ideology due to historical wrongs and having less "oppression points" within intersectionalism. The ideology is also highly authoritarian in which anything said against the cult or anything that goes against the dogma of wokeism are branded as a heretic (e.g. called all sorts of istaphobic names like racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, fascist, Nazi, etc) and canceled/censored. The wokeists are favor making the marginalized rise to a privileged sacred cow social caste and bringing down white straight cis males to the lowest social caste.

If you mean the cultural side of the leftist movement, as opposed to the economic side, then what do you thing the left should give up on? Abortion is clearly the big one ATM, and few will agree that we should give up on that. There are also the other rights that are threatened by the cases highlighted as open to review, such as gay sex and marriage, contraception and even interracial marriage. Are you saying those should be abandoned to increase the chance of a higher minimum wage?

If you have any other active political issues that should be abandoned then that may help, but it is not like the main body of the "left" is fighting for stuff that does not make people's lives better.
The thing that the left should give up on is the demonization and scapegoating of white straight cis males. If someone says they side with abortion being "safe, legal, and rare", they shouldn't have their heads bitten off because they've dared spoken against the dogma of wokeism. The other thing on the leftist movement I'm not a fan of is the abolishment and abandonment of a capitalist economic system. Contrary to belief, I'd like to see capitalism reformed, humanize, and restrained to best fit a mixed economic system and not have it become a pure laissez faire capitalist system. I defenately don't want to have an economic system that's authoritarian communism where I own little to nothing and everything is the property of the state.
 
Means don't shout about controversial things.

If you don't build the foundation right to begin with you're one election kiss or supreme court ruling away from getting wrecked.

It's cart before horse sure you might get a law passed but laws can be repealed or revoked it worked around.

People might want XYZ lose an election fail to get XYZ then lose ABC as well.

So you can preen online but the best play would be not push for XYZ, keep ABC and wait to pass XYZ later even if it's in ten years.
I am still none the wiser about specific values for XYZ that you classify as "woke political issues".
 
I think this has been defined a million times on this board. Wokeism (Wokery, or Wokeness) is a leftist ideology that promotes social vengeance, rooted in conflict theory, against straight white cis males because they're classed as the "privileged" category and are the scapegoat to the ideology due to historical wrongs and having less "oppression points" within intersectionalism. The ideology is also highly authoritarian in which anything said against the cult or anything that goes against the dogma of wokeism are branded as a heretic (e.g. called all sorts of istaphobic names like racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, fascist, Nazi, etc) and canceled/censored. The wokeists are favor making the marginalized rise to a privileged sacred cow social caste and bringing down white straight cis males to the lowest social caste.


The thing that the left should give up on is the demonization and scapegoating of white straight cis males. If someone says they side with abortion being "safe, legal, and rare", they shouldn't have their heads bitten off because they've dared spoken against the dogma of wokeism. The other thing on the leftist movement I'm not a fan of is the abolishment and abandonment of a capitalist economic system. Contrary to belief, I'd like to see capitalism reformed, humanize, and restrained to best fit a mixed economic system and not have it become a pure laissez faire capitalist system. I defenately don't want to have an economic system that's authoritarian communism where I own little to nothing and everything is the property of the state.
Well, if I ever see any of that I shall be sure to not get involved with that political movement. I suspect it does not exist outside of some peoples heads, but who knows.
 
I am still none the wiser about specific values for XYZ that you classify as "woke political issues".

XYZ is a metafor can be whatever issue you care about.

Online there's a quest for purity but even if you pass said laws they're bit safe because bigger issues are being ignored.

Alot of those causes don't appeal to the masses hence lack of electoral support.

Eg cost of living, basically everything post Reagan in the USA.

In practice it translates to "you don't care about us you care about them I'm voting for thus guy promising the moon instead".

Social stuff doesn't cost money.
 
XYZ is a metafor can be whatever issue you care about.

Online there's a quest for purity but even if you pass said laws they're bit safe because bigger issues are being ignored.

Alot of those causes don't appeal to the masses hence lack of electoral support.

Eg cost of living, basically everything post Reagan in the USA.

In practice it translates to "you don't care about us you care about them I'm voting for thus guy promising the moon instead".
This kind of makes the OP a circular argument. If you define woke as support for things that do not have electoral support then advocating for them will not have electoral support.
 
I think this has been defined a million times on this board. Wokeism (Wokery, or Wokeness) is a leftist ideology that promotes social vengeance, rooted in conflict theory, against straight white cis males because they're classed as the "privileged" category and are the scapegoat to the ideology due to historical wrongs and having less "oppression points" within intersectionalism. The ideology is also highly authoritarian in which anything said against the cult or anything that goes against the dogma of wokeism are branded as a heretic (e.g. called all sorts of istaphobic names like racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, fascist, Nazi, etc) and canceled/censored. The wokeists are favor making the marginalized rise to a privileged sacred cow social caste and bringing down white straight cis males to the lowest social caste.


The thing that the left should give up on is the demonization and scapegoating of white straight cis males. If someone says they side with abortion being "safe, legal, and rare", they shouldn't have their heads bitten off because they've dared spoken against the dogma of wokeism. The other thing on the leftist movement I'm not a fan of is the abolishment and abandonment of a capitalist economic system. Contrary to belief, I'd like to see capitalism reformed, humanize, and restrained to best fit a mixed economic system and not have it become a pure laissez faire capitalist system. I defenately don't want to have an economic system that's authoritarian communism where I own little to nothing and everything is the property of the state.

Fairly idiotic take.

The preaching, posing and judgemental side is counter productive though.
 
I think this has been defined a million times on this board. Wokeism (Wokery, or Wokeness) is a leftist ideology that promotes social vengeance, rooted in conflict theory, against straight white cis males because they're classed as the "privileged" category and are the scapegoat to the ideology due to historical wrongs and having less "oppression points" within intersectionalism. The ideology is also highly authoritarian in which anything said against the cult or anything that goes against the dogma of wokeism are branded as a heretic (e.g. called all sorts of istaphobic names like racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, fascist, Nazi, etc) and canceled/censored. The wokeists are favor making the marginalized rise to a privileged sacred cow social caste and bringing down white straight cis males to the lowest social caste.


The thing that the left should give up on is the demonization and scapegoating of white straight cis males. If someone says they side with abortion being "safe, legal, and rare", they shouldn't have their heads bitten off because they've dared spoken against the dogma of wokeism. The other thing on the leftist movement I'm not a fan of is the abolishment and abandonment of a capitalist economic system. Contrary to belief, I'd like to see capitalism reformed, humanize, and restrained to best fit a mixed economic system and not have it become a pure laissez faire capitalist system. I defenately don't want to have an economic system that's authoritarian communism where I own little to nothing and everything is the property of the state.
truly a bad time to be white, straight, cis, and male, aye
 
This kind of makes the OP a circular argument. If you define woke as support for things that do not have electoral support then advocating for them will not have electoral support.

Well it doesn't work maybe later down the line.

Here in a vastly more liberal country than the USA Jacinda was elected in a landslide because of Covid basically.

They've been pushing for Maori co governance (which no one knows what it really means Maori are well represented in parliament).
Anyway she's getting mau kk Ed in the polls and is looking at electoral defeat next year.

The overiding issue last 5 years has been housing. Her Covid relief package ended up going mostly to business's iwners and propping up the housing market creating a bigger bubble that popped.
Despite being told at the time that's exactly what would happen.

Looks like they're back tracking anyway. They were pushing something popular in urban liberal circles (not even that popular outside the Greens 5% support).
 
a leftist ideology that promotes social vengeance, rooted in conflict theory, against straight white cis males because they're classed as the "privileged" category and are the scapegoat to the ideology due to historical wrongs

That's not what that word means

and having less "oppression points" within intersectionalism.

that's not what that word means

Contrary to belief, I'd like to see capitalism reformed, humanize, and restrained to best fit a mixed economic system and not have it become a pure laissez faire capitalist system.

that's not what that word means

I defenately don't want to have an economic system that's authoritarian communism where I own little to nothing and everything is the property of the state.

that's not what that word means
 
I agree in the most general sense that wedge issues aren’t a good platform in a constituency that doesn’t share those same views, but I don’t think most of the time you have candidates that do that—rural and suburban Democrats don’t run on them, and Republicans in coastal cities don’t run on them.
 
I am still none the wiser about specific values for XYZ that you classify as "woke political issues".

vocal minority do adhere more or less to what was defined above. quite a small minority at that, but some of that dogma gets pushed up the chain a bit.

it is probably accurate to say that a functional democratic candidate would want to distance themself from that, similar to how distancing oneself from actual far-right authoritarianism is a good idea.

democrats also don't have to be married to crap like crt. shouldn't be, if they want to win.
 
vocal minority do adhere more or less to what was defined above. quite a small minority at that, but some of that dogma gets pushed up the chain a bit.

it is probably accurate to say that a functional democratic candidate would want to distance themself from that, similar to how distancing oneself from actual far-right authoritarianism is a good idea.

democrats also don't have to be married to crap like crt. shouldn't be, if they want to win.

I don't think to many buy into cry even if they want to improve conditions for minorities.

It's an easy attack avenue for the right who have hyped it up. CRT doesn't really get used here as it's an American academic type thing.
 
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