"Wokeist" - When people talk about progressivism without acquaintance

[João III]

I hope I haven't accidentally derailed this thread into a discussion on class

 

[Narz]

I'd say there's a few caveat to money = class.

The second, related, is support networks. Having little actual money to your name but a huge array of contacts who can materially support your projects even if the wealth isn't yours is a wholly different game than being poor and knowing only other poor people.

This one is huge & probably underestimated.

Who one can borrow from, sell to, leverage the name of, work with, etc. Jewish people are really good at networking in this way.

Class mobility is kind of a joke now. You could reach a new tax bracket and the only change will be a different flavour of poverty.

It's still possible just alot more difficult.

 

[Narz]

I hope I haven't accidentally derailed this thread into a discussion on class

Can always be c&p-ed into a new topic

 

[Narz]

Peeps just keep wishing they were of that upper class but, no, they ain't.

And often spend like they are, much to the enjoyment of the credit card companies

 

[BornInCantaloup]

This grew up poor on welfare, lower middle class now by income assets we own house freehold so idk if that's +1 ranking idk.

No kids also helps.

Honestly, ownership is at the basis of the class system. So, there's that. Rent income, interests.
Of course, the total income can also be a factor. Especially if you combine wage + rent, then you might wanna weight some of those factors.

There's no shame in being lower or even upper class (even upper class !). The tragedy comes when people misrepresent their class for another, 'cause of lifestyle or whatever, and then mistake their interests for those of the ennemy.
In my country, most of the long-distance truck drivers (example) misrepresent their interests, they believe they are those of the multi-billionary-international-financiary-complex-industriaro-military-actives. Well, no, they're not, they're just misguided.

I wouldn't worry about derailing a 22 pages long thread, by the way. People have said what they had to say, by now.

 

[bernie14]

I hope I haven't accidentally derailed this thread into a discussion on class

Nah, just getting acquainted with some wokiest material

 

[Farm Boy]

Too woke to wake.

 

[RobAnybody]

I am behind. Note to self: check in here more often! Catching up a bit...

I don’t actually think the move typically is to „change“ the meaning of terminology, but rather to drain a term of meaning, leaving behind, an empty signifier, free for each individual subject to apply whatever meanings, significances, and cultural associations one chooses.

Totally agree with this. The Right is great at both advancing new terms that somehow take root in the public consciousness & neutering terms from the Left, even weaponizing them via ridicule.
Re: especially this point:

It’s the same with all the other big Republican bugbears: CRT, idpol, sjw, PC, socialist/communist/anarchist. Etc..

But oddly, it doesn't seem to work in the reverse. What happens on the left (& I empathize with the left like 80-90% of the time!) is they tend to overuse a term so much themselves that it loses all meaning, like...

Also it’s not like the left is immune to this process either: fascist is the big one that immediately comes to mind.

Exactly. Also racist, sexist, Nazi (Russia has helped with that a bit), etc. The overuse just morphs into "y'all use that for everyone you disagree with" - not saying I agree with that mindset but it's what happens & so dilutes places where those terms are actually valid. IMO.

...& making milktoast (sp?)

milquetoast, fwiw. no judgement judgment

 

[Lexicus]

I hope I haven't accidentally derailed this thread into a discussion on class

Talking about class is like an OVER 9000 times better use of everyone's time than talking about "wokeism" (no offense to Angst)

anyway mfw the thread is derailed into a discussion of class

As to @BornInCantaloup's points, the "rich" are the people who own enough to survive, preferably in style, purely on the rental income. The rest of us survive by selling our labor, and some of us indeed pretend to be rich.

 

[El_Machinae]

There are two categories of rich, even (though they're very broad). One category doesn't need to work, and can (in fact) pass on wealth to their kids such that the kids won't need to work ... though that often ends. The 2nd group gets richer automatically every year despite not needing to work.

Don't confuse 'rich' with 'being able to retire'. To go back quite a bit, there's a bit of resentment between the cohorts that will be able to retire and those who won't. But these two groups just have nothing compared to the rich.

 

[Farm Boy]

Don't worry big blue thing. For the woke, "I'm rich," and it is for no other reason than they think they smell loot. Like a Russian infantry army. But better, because they're too useless and horsehockey to pick up a rifle. Their "desperation" is a lie. Nothing would be more satifsying for them than to make me work harder, but I'm out of hours in the day.

 

[Evie]

Yes, "not needing to work in their late life because they put money away in such a way that they can now live off that" is really not the same as "never needed to work". One is people who worked their whole lives within a hostile system to get some semblance of rest toward the end; the other are the class responsible for that system.

 

[Lexicus]

Don't worry big blue thing. For the woke, "I'm rich," and it is for no other reason than they think they smell loot. Like a Russian infantry army. But better, because they're too useless and ****** to pick up a rifle. Their "desperation" is a lie. Nothing would be more satifsying for them than to make me work harder, but I'm out of hours in the day.

If this is a reference to "the woke" in general, I don't think you're right - at least, most of the woke seem more concerned with cultivating "______ success/excellence" than with some kind of indiscriminate leveling impulse.

If you're saying I think you're rich, well, I don't.

If you're saying neither - I guess I played myself

 

[cardgame]

Moral superiority isn't really a left/right thing it's a human thing.

Why did you quote me?

 

[El_Machinae]

Yes, "not needing to work in their late life because they put money away in such a way that they can now live off that" is really not the same as "never needed to work". One is people who worked their whole lives within a hostile system to get some semblance of rest toward the end; the other are the class responsible for that system.

That won't entirely be true. Needing to work to retire is a function of reality, and in any advanced economy means that a retiree gains a claim against the output of a younger worker. As well, even though the 'rich' own a lot of the wealth, merely distributing that downwards would affect retirement less than we might think. Retiring requires production and that someone is working while you're not. A lot of the 'wealth' the rich own (but not a majority, just 'a lot') is of assets that don't really matter when it comes to who owns them, just that they exist. And they income they provide is used to just shuttle ownership around.

Think of it like this. Suppose someone 'owned' the statue of liberty. I have no idea if it runs a profit, but let's pretend that it doesn't. It's just a statue. Now, if we divided up the ownership of this statue to people, there would be no additional food produced, no additional homes heated, nada that helps people retire. The best that could happen is that people could sell their ownership in exchange for those goods. But it's the basal productivity that matters. So, if two owners of national monuments gain income from them, then a portion of that income is spent competing against workers for their output, and another portion of that income just shuttles back and forth in the form of 'ownership', from which nothing is produced.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

When have democrats made cancel culture the law of the land? I can name a dozen times Republicans have done so.

you're seriously asking this? just as an example, right now you endure a greater penalty if enough people think your crime was motivated by racism than if it was motivated by height. you are similarly punished more greatly for discriminating on factors people can't control, than for discriminating on factors people can't control.

but realistically, neither party can make "cancel culture" the law. its function is to use pressure from disproportionately small group of people to pressure companies and people out of jobs/etc. once something is codified, this "tool" isn't needed, you just show the person did something illegal.

Oh, go ahead and tell us how statistics and reality work, then. Tell us how the income and wealth of black people is completely independent of societal forces

lol, you enjoying trying to talk down and act morally superior?

the funny thing is that you a) ignored my argument about stratification of populations (which is crushing) and b) are somehow separating black people themselves from one of those "societal forces".

but no, there really is a difference between poor urban black culture, those born into wealth, and immigrants with educational backgrounds. if the factor were skin color, we should expect all three of these groups to suffer discrimination similarly. but it's not what actually happens in most cases. we would also expect other "races" to follow similar trends since coming to usa, since for example asian and hispanic populations have had huge subsets who were also poor/had limited educations. yet in those cases, the progression/integration into broader us culture was different.

we also know this is not genetic, because of stratifications noted above (and lack of said culture in other countries). separated from a toxic culture/bad environment (both from within community and from government policy), performance differences between "race" of children in school is pretty negligible. but you still have to actually value that, and not for example ostracize or even beat the crap out of them if they start doing well relative to peers.

Do you remember the influencing factor that made marijuana criminal? Can you extrapolate from its origin to its harsher enforcement in the drug war?

speaking of war on drugs, a certain party in the 1990s sure seemed to escalate the hell out of it, a process which ultimately led to the largest scale state-sanctioned banditry operation in us history, still ongoing today. actually since you're asking for nuance, i have seen no evidence that any us party in my lifetime or significantly before has been seriously interested in reforming law enforcement or altering the deal wrt prison labor.

 

[Gorbles]

you're seriously asking this? just as an example, right now you endure a greater penalty if enough people think your crime was motivated by racism than if it was motivated by height. you are similarly punished more greatly for discriminating on factors people can't control, than for discriminating on factors people can't control.

Comparing racism to . . . height? Sure is a nuanced and in-depth insight into how you view racism.

Continuing the trend, we have this gem:

if the factor were skin color, we should expect all three of these groups to suffer discrimination similarly.

You seem to be labouring under the mistaken impression that there is a single factor. cardgame specifically asked you to demonstrate how income and wealth were separate of societal forces. They didn't claim societal forces was another way of saying "skin colour and the discrimination that arises from it". There are a bunch of compounding factors, of which treatment of skin colour is one (important one).

But please do continue demonstrating how well you understand "wokery" at more than a surface level.

speaking of war on drugs, a certain party in the 1990s sure seemed to escalate the hell out of it

It continues to be funny how much conservatives rely on this gotcha, as though because someone is left-of-centre they're somehow going to be Defeated Eternally by criticism of the Democrats.

 

[cardgame]

you're seriously asking this? just as an example, right now you endure a greater penalty if enough people think your crime was motivated by racism

Is this supposed to be an example of cancel culture? Because it isn't. Furthermore, you are making this sound like a bad thing, which is... questionable. To put it lightly.

but realistically, neither party can make "cancel culture" the law. its function is to use pressure from disproportionately small group of people to pressure companies and people out of jobs/etc. once something is codified, this "tool" isn't needed, you just show the person did something illegal.

Texas made cancel culture into law by... using pressure from a disproportionately small group of people (its legislature) to put people (teachers) out of their jobs if they boycotted Israel. A clear-cut example of cancel culture according to your own words.

lol, you enjoying trying to talk down and act morally superior?

act?

the funny thing is that you a) ignored my argument about stratification of populations (which is crushing) and b) are somehow separating black people themselves from one of those "societal forces".

Oh, wanna talk about stratification? How about the stratification of a population between white people and property? That was a fun stratification that definitely didn't and doesn't have any impact on racial affairs in the present day, no sir! It's not like slavery and the subjugation of black people on this continent has been around longer than the United States government has.

You might as well blame Indians for their "culture" of drinking alcohol on their reservations, as if history never existed.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

That was a fun stratification that definitely didn't and doesn't have any impact on racial affairs in the present day, no sir!

we're still blaming the toxic culture on this despite that the toxic culture didn't exist prior massive welfare state? the trends for usa's black community before and after adding welfare at large scales/incentivizing single parent households are ridiculous.

race baiting and toxic culture have been effective tools indeed, but not effective towards good ends.

note that we can observe a lot of similar or even identical patterns in poor white communities, including punishing/disincentivizing good performance from young age.

act?

that's going to be the assertion when one advocates harmful policy and talks down to others.

exas made cancel culture into law by... using pressure from a disproportionately small group of people (its legislature) to put people (teachers) out of their jobs if they boycotted Israel. A clear-cut example of cancel culture according to your own words.

if you do that, everything is cancel culture though, because legislatures are disproportionately small. our government operates on the assumption that legislatures represent the will of their voters, however. i suppose we'd agree that's bs though, so maybe you're onto something in this regard.

but i'm curious how this particular example worked/works? it sounds unconstitutional on its face, and what does one mean for a teacher in texas to "boycott isreal", what actions are they actually taking that would result in the government noticing?

Because it isn't. Furthermore, you are making this sound like a bad thing, which is... questionable. To put it lightly.

it's never been clear to me why discrimination on factors people can't control is worse than discrimination on factors people can't control. that this is nevertheless taken as a given somehow is...questionable, to put it mildly.

You might as well blame Indians for their "culture" of drinking alcohol on their reservations, as if history never existed.

it's interesting where you are willing to count history, and where you are not.

i also find it interesting that people call out modern western culture for its legacy of slavery. nevermind that it was the norm pretty much worldwide prior to modern western societies, or which people actually fought in order to stop it. i won't say western culture gets a pass for having done it, but it's kind of wild how much it's vilified despite being literally the first example in human history of an active effort to destroy the practice at a continent-spanning scale. one which has largely been successful.

but yeah, for indians too, they got horribly conquered and the usa reneged on deals with them. but i don't think it's functional for indians alive today to blame >century old practices for their choices. if we again look at how different populations have acted from say 1900 until now, populations who have been exposed to atrocity at scale more recently are doing much better. so even if we accept historical atrocity as a partial explanation for toxic culture in a causal sequence, it is clearly not the dominant factor.

 

[Samson]

but i'm curious how this particular example worked/works? it sounds unconstitutional on its face, and what does one mean for a teacher in texas to "boycott isreal", what actions are they actually taking that would result in the government noticing?

It is shocking:

A CHILDREN’S SPEECH PATHOLOGIST who has worked for the last nine years with developmentally disabled, autistic, and speech-impaired elementary school students in Austin, Texas, has been told that she can no longer work with the public school district, after she refused to sign an oath vowing that she “does not” and “will not” engage in a boycott of Israel or “otherwise tak[e] any action that is intended to inflict economic harm” on that foreign nation. A lawsuit on her behalf was filed early Monday morning in a federal court in the Western District of Texas, alleging a violation of her First Amendment right of free speech.​