"Wokeist" - When people talk about progressivism without acquaintance

[Cloud_Strife]

We are not getting it. Wokeism is an impediment to understanding.

You are Literally annoyed at things you don't and cant be bothered to, understand

 

[Angst]

I really like the OP.

Now, I perceive the word "woke" as a very different thing. It's not a nuanced criticism of any specific academic topic. It's a short-hand criticism/insult of a position or statement that someone is making that is within the spectrum of "annoyingly naive" to "frustratingly dangerous", but on a topic we associate with a specific cohort of activism. Now, it's a dismissive criticism, but ehn.

I don't think any of those academic arenas have called themselves 'woke', right? At least, not with any reasonable accuracy, and not with one that was respected even within their circle of allies?

I didn't realize that people assumed that it was perceived as criticism of an actual academic topic, more that it was a criticism of their half-baked allies.

I watch and read a lot of right wing media to keep up. It's definitely pinpointed to academia too.

edit Forgot to say. Thanks for the kind words.

 

[amadeus]

I’ve been sitting at my phone like a dummy for the last twenty minutes trying to piece together a coherent thought. Here goes!

The validity of arguments aside, how we broadly categorize people comes down to expediency? Just as an example, the groups that Angst mentions, feminists, Marxists, whoever, would all broadly be opposed to the right which labels them as “woke.” But then even amongst the feminists, etc. there are disagreements and then even in this category of feminists there are sub-categories and so on and so forth.

Is it a time problem? I don’t have the time to read and address each specific point by x scholar, and even if I did I don’t know how invested I’d be in it, so it’s easier to use this broad, imprecise label at the risk of there being an inaccuracy.

But then again, in that broad and imprecise label is there not some truth? Myself, I would have to self-identify as right because, again, broadly, I wouldn’t “fit” anywhere into the left despite some sympathies on individual policies which are neither here nor there for the purposes of this discussion.

 

[Naskra]

You are Literally annoyed at things you don't and cant be bothered to, understand

Good point. I will add "literally" to list of locutions symptomatic of wokery.

 

[RobAnybody]

Short version - litmus test. If someone says "political correctness" or "wokeism" they are not acquainted with any sort of the literature they're criticizing. Noone in the literature identifies themselves as such, and they're often diametrically opposed to each other. They're only identified as such when talked about between right wingers who, by the way, also have their speech reflected by virtue of not having read a damn article of the positions they don't like.

fwiw, the very first time I ever heard the term "woke" was while listening to the Director's Commentary to the movie Get Out. Jordan Peele used it to describe himself & how he wanted his movie to be sort of a "woke" horror movie. He viewed it as a positive that he wanted to encourage in others.

So while it has become a term mostly used as a criticism, I don't think it started out that way.

 

[Gorbles]

fwiw, the very first time I ever heard the term "woke" was while listening to the Director's Commentary to the movie Get Out. Jordan Peele used it to describe himself & how he wanted his movie to be sort of a "woke" horror movie. He viewed it as a positive that he wanted to encourage in others.

So while it has become a term mostly used as a criticism, I don't think it started out that way.

Interesting tangent that I was holding off on because it wasn't really relevant, but I'd imagine some part of that is due to it originating in AAVE (Wikipedia link to "Woke").

 

[Kaitzilla]

fwiw, the very first time I ever heard the term "woke" was while listening to the Director's Commentary to the movie Get Out. Jordan Peele used it to describe himself & how he wanted his movie to be sort of a "woke" horror movie. He viewed it as a positive that he wanted to encourage in others.

So while it has become a term mostly used as a criticism, I don't think it started out that way.

I'm very much looking forward to his new horror movie 'Nope'.

I hope he stays in the business long enough to make 'Hell No' and then 'I'm Getting The Hell Out Of Here'. (Get Out 2)

 

[Angst]

I’ve been sitting at my phone like a dummy for the last twenty minutes trying to piece together a coherent thought. Here goes!

The validity of arguments aside, how we broadly categorize people comes down to expediency? Just as an example, the groups that Angst mentions, feminists, Marxists, whoever, would all broadly be opposed to the right which labels them as “woke.” But then even amongst the feminists, etc. there are disagreements and then even in this category of feminists there are sub-categories and so on and so forth.

Is it a time problem? I don’t have the time to read and address each specific point by x scholar, and even if I did I don’t know how invested I’d be in it, so it’s easier to use this broad, imprecise label at the risk of there being an inaccuracy.

But then again, in that broad and imprecise label is there not some truth? Myself, I would have to self-identify as right because, again, broadly, I wouldn’t “fit” anywhere into the left despite some sympathies on individual policies which are neither here nor there for the purposes of this discussion.

Time and resources are reasonable reasons for mislabeling and generalizing a bit, but there should be an expectancy of knowing that the pundit in question is at least talking about what they're talking about. Like if you do a podcast series about Marx, you might want to read his book so you know how to hate. The problem is that the environment right now is so incurious that people don't even care about what they're arguing against. As long as it fulfils its rhetorical function demonizing ideologies of people you don't like, it has filled its purpose in a sense. It just doesn't reflect the world, and it's very telling when people haven't even read a 10 page summary of someone's position (and trust me, it's easy to get hold of)

fwiw, the very first time I ever heard the term "woke" was while listening to the Director's Commentary to the movie Get Out. Jordan Peele used it to describe himself & how he wanted his movie to be sort of a "woke" horror movie. He viewed it as a positive that he wanted to encourage in others.

So while it has become a term mostly used as a criticism, I don't think it started out that way.

I think woke started out as a left identity politics Twitter thing (reasonably ironic) and was then appropriated to mean anything vaguely left, including quite dense academia. But I might have misremembered. It could be the other way around. Point is more, when talking points against Marx, don't title your article "countering wokeness in education".

 

[Naskra]

The Age of Enlightenment is winding down; wokery is a symptom of a deep change in our civilization. A new inchoate and still incoherent faith is rising. It's a kind of eco-egalatarianism. Too bad it has such god-awful prophets.

 

[Angst]

The Age of Enlightenment is winding down; wokery is a symptom of a deep change in our civilization. A new inchoate and still incoherent faith is rising. It's a kind of eco-egalatarianism. Too bad it has such god-awful prophets.

I'm sorry to ask, but is this intentional bait?

I'd outline the problems with this weirdness, but it's literally in the OP.

 

[Naskra]

I'm sorry to ask, but is this intentional bait?

Not at all, it's an explanation of where you are. What would it be bait for?

 

[Angst]

Not at all, it's an explanation of where you are. What would it be bait for?

 

[Kaitzilla]

Woke is an eco-religion focused on equality?


Well, first it needs to start out as a cult then.

An afterlife, set of beliefs, recruitment, sense of belonging, etc.

Can it convince people to cut off friends and family who won't accept the beliefs?

Graduating to a religion isn't easy.
Everyone wants that eternal tax exemption status.

 

[Angst]

Woke is an eco-religion focused on equality?


Well, first it needs to start out as a cult then.

An afterlife, set of beliefs, recruitment, sense of belonging, etc.

Can it convince people to cut off friends and family who won't accept the beliefs?

Graduating to a religion isn't easy.
Everyone wants that eternal tax exemption status.

I'm surprised that ~1/3 of people or whatever is part of an eco-religion without knowing its tenets at all, but you learn something new every day i guess

 

[amadeus]

The problem is that the environment right now is so incurious that people don't even care about what they're arguing against.

I wouldn’t say this is a new problem, just amplified with our access to new media. Regardless, the problem you point out remains and I don’t know where to go from here.

The Age of Enlightenment is winding down;

I’d say that ended with the Napoleonic wars. You’re 200 years late!

 

[Kaitzilla]

I'm surprised that ~1/3 of people or whatever is part of an eco-religion without knowing its tenets at all, but you learn something new every day i guess

I think I read somewhere that if belief in God goes down, people start worshipping superheroes, the President, planet Earth etc. to fill in the gap.

I ... hope that isn't true.

 

[Naskra]

Woke is an eco-religion focused on equality?

You repackage my words to your liking. I repeat, woke is an impediment to understanding.

Moderator Action: Warned for trolling for the sum of all posts. The_J

 

[amadeus]

I think I read somewhere that if belief in God goes down, people start worshipping superheroes, the President, planet Earth etc. to fill in the gap.

I ... hope that isn't true.

https://www.whitman.edu/VSA/trois.imposteurs.html

Voltaire?

 

[Angst]

I wouldn’t say this is a new problem, just amplified with our access to new media. Regardless, the problem you point out remains and I don’t know where to go from here.

I'm not acquainted with the problem's history. Popular ideologies are reasonably new historically, and most of the history I've read has been about misappropriating other movements additively, ie enlarging your political space and influence by using ideology wrong and therefore being inclusive to people that aren't actually agreeing with you on base tenets. EDIT: Nazis did both of course. National socialists and "cultural Marxism". But I don't know about other movements. But the awareness of this particular history is why the left often (and often rightfully) gets spooked when the right starts grouping them all into the same straw basket.

And for the record, I have no clue as to how to fix it either. The OP mostly has the point that if you stumble upon this kind of word usage, you know who you shouldn't listen to, even if you hate the ideology.

 

[Naskra]

I’d say that ended with the Napoleonic wars. You’re 200 years late!

I put 1914 as the real turning point, but I won't argue it.