wokeness

M

mathman

Valued Senior Member
The term 'wokeness' seems to be a term by extreme rightists to put down progressive ideas. What does it mean? A major usage by state officials is laws regulating trans-genders. Any other ideas?
 
"alert to racial prejudice and discrimination" - Google

"Hey all!! Just found out I’m woke… all this time I just thought I was good at history." - Jon Stewart

"Yes I've heard this word. I think sociopaths use it in an attempt to discredit the notion of empathy." - John Cleese
 
mathman said:
The term 'wokeness' seems to be a term by extreme rightists to put down progressive ideas. What does it mean? A major usage by state officials is laws regulating trans-genders. Any other ideas?
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Dates back to the 1930s, revived during the New Left era of the '60s and '70s, before finally being wholly appropriated from African-Americans, in this century, for application to "broader issues" of systemic oppression. Then hijacked again for pejorative use, by the opposite side.

Progressives are capitalists who merely appropriate the Leftangelical narrative and its ideological artifacts for opportunistic reasons. Not unlike the West's own institutionalized looting of indigenous cultural ideas and resources over the centuries.

The systemic oppression conspiracy mindset itself is a long, profusely sprouting lineage of the left (cultural hegemony), beginning with the intellectual class manipulating the white proletariat to facilitate its own "philosopher kings" rise to power, and then refining to other marginalized population groups as those duped myrmidons began to dry up as the backbone. (Akin to the rebellious exodus exemplified by the red states of the US, despite a history of poor white trash accepting welfare or government handouts for decades, and some of their working-class C Party ancestors toting mandolins with hammer/sickle icons on the back.)

Along the way, Leftangelicalism found a wonderful anti-Western niche in continental philosophy (Europe, France particularly), excreting glorious fountains of fashionable nonsense with respect to postmodernism (and post-colonial angst/guilt).

If you have any distaste at all for the religious exploitation of do-gooderism, then you ought to be able to recognize the secular equivalent of it. Marx was a copycat genius, and I consider the incrementally developing shades of this "para-religion"[1] and its evolving crusades over the decades to actually be a tribute to [bogus] Christianity's craftiness, rather than an insult.

Comparing Wokeness to Christianity is an insult to the Church
https://quillette.com/blog/2023/02/20/comparing-wokeness-to-christianity-is-an-insult-to-the-church/

"To the extent social-justice extremism resembles a puritanical faith, it’s one that provides believers with no grace and no hope of redemption."

- - - footnote - - -

[1] George Bernard Shaw: I am a Socialist and a Democrat myself, the hero of a hundred platforms, one of the leaders of the most notable Socialist organizations in England. I am as conspicuous in English Socialism as Bebel is in German Socialism; but do you suppose that the German Social-Democrats tolerate me? Not a bit of it.

[...] All they want to know is; Am I orthodox? Am I correct in my revolutionary views? Am I reverent to the revolutionary authorities? Because I am a genuine free-thinker they look at me as a policeman looks at a midnight prowler or as a Berlin bourgeois looks at a suspicious foreigner.

They ask "Do you believe that Marx was omniscient and infallible; that Engels was his prophet; that Bebel and Singer are his inspired apostles; and that Das Kapital is the Bible?"

[...] I read Das Kapital in the year 1882 or thereabouts [...] its general attempt to disguise a masterpiece of propagandist journalism and prophetic invective as a drily scientific treatise of the sort that used to impose on people in 1860, when any book that pretended to be scientific was accepted as a Bible.

In those days Darwin and Helmholtz were the real fathers of the Church; and nobody would listen to religion, poetry or rhetoric; so that even Socialism had to call itself "scientific," and predict the date of the revolution, as if it were a comet, by calculations founded on "historic laws."

To my amazement these reasonable remarks were received as hideous blasphemies; none of the party papers were allowed to print any word of mine ... I found myself an outcast from German Social-Democracy at the moment...

[...] Thus you may see that when a German, by becoming a Social-Democrat, throws off all the bonds of convention, and stands free from all allegiance to established religion, law, order, patriotism, and learning, he promptly uses his freedom to put on a headier set of chains... [return to a religious-like, extremist mindset, but secular] --The Perfect Wagnerite: A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring
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mathman said:
The term 'wokeness' seems to be a term by extreme rightists to put down progressive ideas. What does it mean?
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I think you've got it.

Basically, it's a label attached to various people and ideas by some other people.

It means different things to different people. From a certain point of view, currently in vogue, "wokeness" is problematic in various ways; I'm inclined to agree, from that point of view. From a different point of view, "wokeness" is great - it just sums up a set of progressive values and is about being aware of (and usually opposed to) a certain set of social inequalities and injustices. I'm also inclined to agree with that, from that point of view.

Probably it's best not to focus too much on the label, used either perjoratively or approvingly. It's better to focus on the actual debates that are said to fall under the banner of "woke". That is, debate the issues, not the label.
 
James R said:
Probably it's best not to focus too much on the label, used either perjoratively or approvingly. It's better to focus on the actual debates that are said to fall under the banner of "woke". That is, debate the issues, not the label.
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+1.
Labels are easy to pollute by distilling away the spirit, leaving just the word - whose meaning can be corrupted. 'Wokeness' is a textbook example.
 
O. W. Grant said:
17,607
You are smart. No need to play the game.
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There is no need to be intimidated. You could have zero posts to your name and you still have as much right as anyone to discuss things, provided they follow forum rules and make an effort at rational thinking.

If you want to join the discussion, why not do so? If this topic is not to your taste and something else is, why not start a new thread?
 
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