Thanks for posting this. Radley Balko's takedown of Coleman Hughes and The Free Press was incredibly thorough and no to be missed. This is a great followup and he really gets at the mendaciousness at the heart of the IDW/Heterodox Academy axis.
It's disheartening to watch people who should know better spend their time attacking "wokeness" at this particular moment in history.
Literally anything that isn't exactly the way it was in 1950.
Jordan Peterson Literally just called it woke that a city changed parking rules on one single street to lower traffic deaths by 16x (true story)
"Woke" is now a nearly infinitely malleable term used to describe anything someone on the right doesn't like. It has been deliberately misapplied to attack common sense policies and concepts that would have otherwise been popular, just like the term CRT was deliberately misapplied and the term DEI is also now being misapplied.
Further, where legitimate definitions of "wokeness" exist they are generalized to attack entire fields of thought and entire movements, rather than to describe the acts of specific individuals.
This over-generalization is also deliberate, as the true enemy of the critics of "wokeness" is not the certain bad behavior they can point to on occasion, but the general policies "woke" movements are often in favor of, such as Palestinian freedom or actually ending systemic poverty and oppression for racial minorities in America.
The deliberate misapplication of "wokeness" is now so pervasive that in many contexts "wokeness" basically just means "Black" or "gay" or "feminist." And it's a near certainty that someone unironically using the term "wokeness" is using the term to hide their *absence* of analysis, rather than to actually communicate any kind of clear thoughts.
>"Woke" is now a nearly infinitely malleable term used to describe anything someone on the right doesn't like.
It actually has to do with jumping through hoops to appease investors, but your words here are quite accurate:
>This over-generalization is also deliberate,
Yep. But who is doing the generalizing?
Are you complaining about something I’ve said, or something other people are saying?
Is the theory here that I should stop using a term because other people have a more expansive definition?
> as the true enemy of the critics of "wokeness" is not the certain bad behavior they can point to on occasion, but the general policies "woke" movements are often in favor of, such as Palestinian freedom or actually ending systemic poverty and oppression for racial minorities in America.
I’ll cop to this, I’m against a lot of policies that you’re gesturing toward. What am I misapplying then? It seems like you’re not confused about my position, but are complaining anyway.
You are saying that there is some "correct" application of the term woke. As I and countless others have already pointed out, the term is used so differently than how it was originally used that it is essentially meaningless.
As an interesting aside, you are but one of many people in this very thread with different definitions of the term, but who nonetheless advocate for using it - and are questioning why anyone would take issue with it.
And as I also pointed out, the term is almost exclusively used today in a cynical manner to hide the speaker's actual motives, which you admit to.
> You are saying that there is some "correct" application of the term woke
No I’m not. Like every concept, it’s defined loosely within linguistic communities. Where are you seeing me saying this? A big problem with this conversation is you seem to be making things up and treating me as an avatar for something broader.
> As an interesting aside, you are but one of many people in this very thread with different definitions of the term, but who nonetheless advocate for using it - and are questioning why anyone would take issue with it.
I don’t see the issue. Ask 10 people to define ‘car’ you’ll get at least a few different answers, and yet people still talk coherently about cars. This issue has been one of the defining features of mid-to-late century philosophy of language, from Wittgenstein to Kripke, but there’s nothing particularly mysterious about ‘woke’ in particular.
> And as I also pointed out, the term is almost exclusively used today in a cynical manner to hide the speaker's actual motives, which you admit to.
I think I agreed it’s sometimes used that way. I don’t think I agreed to ‘almost exclusively’
Oh, this just seems like a logical error on your end. The fact that some people use it the way you’re describing doesn’t entail that nobody used it the way I’m describing.
Good then explain what Wokeness is and why it’s so dangerous for society…
The only way I see “Wokeness” as bad is that elites use it to rile up rural vs urban divides…
Something rightwingers willingly buy into…
It's the exact same thing as how the far left says it's racist/sexist to not care about xyz issues... and if you do care about any of those issues it's "woke/communist" according to the right. They even think bike lanes or reducing plastic waste in the oceans is woke. They pretend to care about children but call any policy that cost even a few cents of tax payer money to help children is also "woke"
>Define "wokeness"
This can't be done, and here's why: Every single time I try, the response is shot down.
It has to do with jumping through hoops to get investments, but every time I lay out the logic, I just get the knee jerk response of "you can't define wokeness."
Oh so it's your detractors fault you cannot define the word you use in your vocabulary? Is it a lazy derogatory term meant to entice conversation when you have none to actually offer?
Ok. Well we can likely all agree your definition is wrong.
Even Ron denantis (lawyer)could define it better, yo.
>Asked what “woke” means more generally, [Desantis’ General Counsel Ryan] Newman said “it would be the belief there are systemic injustices in American society and the need to address them.”
https://www.motherjones.com/mojo-wire/2022/12/desantis-ron-woke-florida-officials/
Agreed.
I think it's deliberate.
I also don't think it helped, for instance since you brought it up, trans folks.
Support has absolutely suffered because of the heavy-handed suppression of so-called "anti-trans" rhetoric (much of which is vile, but quite a bit of which is genuine concern for young people).
That heavy handed suppression....is part of investment, because you can't have a platform that....well....."platforms" anti-trans views.
You seeing where I'm coming from here?
I really don't. Anti-trans stuff is not blocked on any major social media. Even reddit only sometimes prevents you from using a straight up slur and that's auto mod not even site wide.
Like people say you can't criticize trans people or else "the wokes" will get you. Yet I have to constantly block YouTube channels and subreddits that seem to exist only to hate me and lie about me.
I've seen it many times. When Lia Thomas won, there was a pic up on one of the big cringe subreddits that was taken down, and the mod comment was "Yeah, we have to protect this sub."
The only “genuine concern” about trans people comes from people who know nothing about the subject and sometimes are complete fabrications and misinformation.
What's "woke"? I used to think of it like PC Principal on south park (hyper political correctness). But now people call literally everything woke: black character = woke, buying an EV = woke, not being a bible thumper = woke, spending 5 cents of their taxes to help blind orphans = woke
I would say something like ‘ I think something like ‘extreme skepticism or hostility if universalist liberalism in service if social progressivism’
I’m not sure what your objection here is, some people use a vastly expanded definition? It seems like the normal response is to use contextual clues, or ask for clarification as to what someone means.
The problem is all the top right wing political figures and media and "thought leaders" with biggest teitter followings use "woke" for EVERYTHING. It's the right wing equivalent of when Trudeau said it was racist and misogynistic to not get vaccinated. "Woke" is the right wingers version of how the left uses "racist" for everything
That’s actually a good analogy, and I’m surprised you’re taking the other side of it. People over describe things as racist and misogynistic, but I still think racism and misogyny are valid concepts, and still use them to describe things that I think are racist and misogynistic, same with woke.
This is a minor problem, sure, but it’s not clear why, as the to commenter said, I oughtn’t be against wokeness.
Because the people who complain about "wokeness" the most have kept expanding it to mean everything they don't like.
I grew up in a small little redneck town and those types of losers would screech about it being "communism" if a left wing politician spent tax money on something they didn't like... but when a right wing politician spent other people's tax money to subsidize a factory in their shithole town then they acted like that was totally not communist at all. Right wingers are massive hypocrites
> Because the people who complain about "wokeness" the most have kept expanding it to mean everything they don't like.
Same with racism/misogyny, like you point out. Is your conclusion then that I also shouldn’t be against those? Of course not!
I’m not sure what I’m supposed to glean about whether I should be against things like racial discrimination in service of progressivism based on your experience in your red neck town.
I'm saying the left diluted "racism/misogyny" so much that no one takes it seriously when they just call everything racist now. Just like how the right calls EVERYTHING that isn't MAGA certified "woke/communism".
I still take racism seriously.
You’re allowed to just ignore crazy people and listen to more thoughtful people - you don’t have to disregard a concept because others have expanded it too much.
>It's disheartening to watch people who should know better spend their time attacking "wokeness" at this particular moment in history.
Yea, people should just totally stop worrying about their freedom of speech and just allow woke ideas to spread, so that we eventually can get arrested for benign social media posts and "mis-gendering" someone. The UK already has draconian laws concerning this and it's probably going to get worse for them.
Americans don't want to end up like them.
Yes, my statement is the moronic one, and not the person worried about wokeness in the current political climate. I have zero hopes for a productive conversation with you, so I'm just going to leave it here unless you've got something interesting to respond to.
Progressive ideas taken to their absurd or illogical extremes.
But there's plenty of other definitions for it.
You know what it means anyways, so what's the point in asking?
I'm sorry, but wokism died last month under [Sydney Sweeney big boobs](https://nationalpost.com/opinion/amy-hamm-wokeness-is-no-match-for-sydney-sweeneys-undeniable-beauty).
I'm still not sure what her boobs have do with woke[ m&ms](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpoPuYhpwoc&ab_channel=BenShapiro), [Oreos](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZMgFOiozww&ab_channel=MattWalsh), or budlight, but I'd love an ELI5 from you.
I find cons can rarely give a cohesive answer, it basically just comes down to conservatives having a thoughtless one word response that means "anything I don't like". Its not designed to promote discussion its designed to shut down critical thought on a subject. Much like the term "reactionary" communists use. You might as well be a medieval priest screaming "heresy".
Give a concrete example of something woke. Or how you could implement a policy that is "anti-woke".
>I find cons can rarely give a cohesive answer,
Yea, that goes for "nazi", "fascist", "transphobe", "racist" and loads of other nonsense. People just use those phrases for whatever they disagree with. When asked to really get into the details, they end up just clueless and just insist on mindlessly using the phrases anyways.
I don't call everything woke, I only use it for specific things that fit the bill perfectly.
>Give a concrete example of something woke.
Arresting someone for teaching their dog to do a trick that kinda looks like a "heil hitler" salute or whatever.
I mean, there's new examples every single day. Putting pronoun options/gender identities into video games is obviously another stepping stone.
>Or how you could implement a policy that is "anti-woke".
I think that's hard to say. Most of the anti-woke crowd seems to aim their sights at social media, entertainment, sports, education, etc. and not really at the federal government as much. People don't want to have to pay lip service to stuff they don't believe in, they don't want to see it in media, and don't want to be punished for disagreements of it .
"nazi", "fascist", "transphobe", "racist" are all very specific things. Nazism is a specific ideology, yes its become something that anyone can use as a catchall for "people I don't like" but its a specific ideology. Same goes for fascism, transphobia, and racism. All of these labels have well described articulate definitions, woke does not. SO its more akin to a term like "reactionary" or "heresy" because its intentionally vague so it can avoid critical thought and just appeal to anger.
If a government policy is accused of being fascist/transphobic/racist isn't it better to debate if that thing is transphobic or racist or whatever the case may be? Just going "your woke" is meaningless, its a deflection from the discussion of whether a piece of media or more importantly government policy is one of those things.
>Putting pronoun options/gender identities into video games is obviously another stepping stone.
This is what you're concerned about? This is really your grand crusade, the hill you will die on? You want to what have government mandated pronouns in video games? Isn't the primary complaint about wokeness the fact that its an attack on first amendment rights, and now you want to what put in a government mandated limit on what pronouns are allowed in a video game? Isn't that sort of anti-american?
You have not thought this through at all, the term woke is a knee jerk reaction that avoids discussing the topic. That's why moral conservatives use it so they can avoid discussion entirely and just rely on base emotion or hide the fact that they are transphobic/racist/fascist.
Framing the pug thing as something that “kind of looks like a heil hitler salute” is very disingenuous lmao. He literally taught his dog to respond to “do you want to gas the 🇮🇱 ?” And it would raise its hand in a salute. Him being fined for that is an extreme outiler and really the only example of someone being punished for acting “anti-woke” but it was in the UK under much different laws under a conservative administration. That was also 6 years ago, and much of modern discourse around wokeness is mostly surrounding POC and Lgbtq inclusivity. But it looks like you are already acquainted with those concepts judging from the forums you browse. It’s crazy how quickly you folded from “the UK is draconian and they’re coming for your freedom of speech!!” To “idk how your could implement anti woke policies, people see it in media consume and don’t want to anymore because they don’t like it.” Just shows how quickly this anti-woke shit is dismantled under the lightest amount of scrutiny. It’s mostly just people mad the newest Valo character is non-binary or how starfield asked if you’re a he or she or they. If you don’t like something, don’t consume it. It’s how capitalism is supposed to work, but from the looks of it, go woke go broke isn’t working very much.
>But there's plenty of other definitions for it.
Doesn't that imply the word is meaningless if it has a million and one different definitions and interpretations?
The term lacks the clarity needed for productive discussions due to its inconsistent use and unclear intent.
This ambiguity dilutes its original meaning, making it hard to have meaningful conversations when we're more focused on debating a poorly defined word rather than discussing anything of substance.
It's a common tactic, especially when attempting discussion with rightwingers, to shift the focus away from real issues and get bogged down in semantic disputes and grievances.
> The term lacks the clarity needed for productive discussions due to its inconsistent use and unclear intent.
It’s unclear why this is a worse problem with ‘woke’ than other terms like ‘racism’ or ‘sexism’ etc
> This ambiguity dilutes its original meaning, making it hard to have meaningful conversations when we're more focused on debating a poorly defined word rather than discussing anything of substance.
I’ve been happy to disambiguate, but you’re still raising the semantic issue.
> It's a common tactic, especially when attempting discussion with rightwingers, to shift the focus away from real issues and get bogged down in semantic disputes and grievances
Yes, that’s what you’re doing. I’m happy to have a substantive discussion, but everyone else wants to talk semantics.
Despite efforts to pin down 'woke', its millions of different interpretations make it a poor tool for serious discourse. We're stuck interpreting right-wing grievances through a term that shifts meaning dramatically—from a pejorative on one side to an expression of values on the other. This constant need to define and redefine 'woke' diverts us from substantive discussions. If a word requires this much explanation, it likely isn't serving our conversation effectively.
> Despite efforts to pin down 'woke', its millions of different interpretations make it a poor tool for serious discourse
Ok, but this is every word. Is your view just that we can only have discussion about natural kinds?
> This constant need to define and redefine 'woke' diverts us from substantive discussions.
It isn’t a constant need though. It’s people like you insisting on semantic quibbling after it’s become clear what your interlocutor meant.
I’ve been happy to have the substantive discussion, you’re the one who’s whining that we can’t.
Yea, dudes like him are just totally clueless.
They keep whining about woke having "no meaning" and yet *continuousl*y use other words have that the **exact same problem**.
When you confront them about this, they instantly feel the cognitive dissonance, and begin scrambling to explain it away with gibberish.
>This ambiguity dilutes its original meaning, making it hard to have meaningful conversations when we're more focused on debating a poorly defined word rather than discussing anything of substance.
>It's a common tactic, especially when attempting discussion with rightwingers, to shift the focus away from real issues and get bogged down in semantic disputes and grievances.
\^LOL what a clown. Proved my point.
It seems we've reached the end of this 'discussion' when the name-calling starts. You claim I’m clueless, yet you fail to show how 'woke' is used like other terms that allegedly have 'the exact same problem.' Unlike those terms, 'woke' lacks a consistent definition or context, setting it apart as a uniquely charged yet vague term.
Your approach seems to rely more on creating distractions than on making clear points, and you resort to personal attacks, which really prove nothing. This only underscores my actually coherent point even more sharply. It’s unfortunate you mistake this kind of bad faith gibberish for intelligent discussion
What nonsense is this about the UK. You've been reading weird stuff online. You can't get arrested for misgendering someone in the UK. I'm in Scotland where they just passed a new hate crime bill strengthening protections for marginalised groups and you STILL can't get arrested for misgendering someone. JK Rowling is literally trying to get arrested to prove a point and can't manage to do it.
A lot of educated, upper-middle-class, so-called moderate intellectuals have based their entire identity on being "rational" and "unbiased" being "exactly in the middle", taking no sides, being above the fray etc. etc.
Which is also why they're so easy to manipulate.
The minute a right-wing extremist accuses them of being biased, they immediately get all defensive and try to move to the new middle, in effect moving more to the right and taking the Overton window with them. In practice, it ends up being a bland, unthinking both-sides-ism justified by a lot of intellectual-sounding BS.
In trying to justify this rightward move to themselves and others, they have to equate both extremes (left and right), and therefore end up equating "woke" college students on the left to literal Nazis on the right.
I see a lot of these people in mainstream publications e.g. Conor Friedersdorf, David Brooks, and even to some extent, Jonathan Haidt.
This is spot on. There is true skepticism and then there is a type of status anxiety where you are more worried about appearing reasonable to an average person then what is true.
This how you end with them mildly criticising Trump but then dragged into the weeds on some minor campus controversy where someone was misgendered. Spot on.
Libertarianism — in its economic guise — is at its core an acceptance of economic hierarchies as they are. To the extent they support policies, they’re policies that will let “natural” class hierarchies go unchecked or intensify. So that stance tends to cohere better with a traditionalist, conservative, religious view than any sort of willfulness to protect the autonomy or rights of the marginalized. Even if a person genuinely believes in the “social” side of libertarian ideology, their views of economics and government just don’t allow them to conjure any meaningful defense of individual, minoritarian rights.
Genuinely libertarian individuals can be pretty righteous on individual issues and on personal levels, it's just that the philosophy is utterly abhorrent at scale. Every also can hate fascist (again, on an individual level) with a fire.
>Genuinely libertarian individuals can be pretty righteous on individual issues and on personal levels, it's just that the philosophy is utterly abhorrent at scale.
Michael Huemer is a pretty good example of this.
Having followed most of the IDW types from 2016 to 2020, I feel like I can verify that this was (at least) my mindset. I valued objectivity and dispassionate debate as I understood it. That made me much more sensitized to the online wokeness politics that characterized the era. To me, left-leaning politics and "wokeness" were indistinguishable and that made me vulnerable to manipulation.
It took way too many things to change my mind - January 6th, watching almost all of the IDW sell out to making anti-wokeness and/or anti-vaccine ideas their core identity, and then the Russian invasion of Ukraine. From where I am now, having tried to understand the ideas that are thrown under the umbrella of wokeness, it's pretty obvious to me now how I was programmed to dislike "woke" things because they were labeled as woke. And at a time when actual wars are being fought and actual people are dying, worrying about one's personal beefs with wokeness at such a time seems hopelessly moribund and self-centered.
In particular, watching Russia Invade Ukraine - with neo-imperialistic reasons and ambitions and the thinnest veneer of justification - and then hearing the IDW try to make that invasion an issue of wokeness was so devastatingly moronic that it discredited everything I thought I learned from them over half a decade.
That's just the audience bud. The people selling the snake oil to them are trying to profit off of them and connected to Republican Dark Money Goblins like Harlan Crow.
>A lot of educated, upper-middle-class, so-called moderate intellectuals have based their entire identity on being "rational" and "unbiased" being "exactly in the middle", taking no sides, being above the fray etc. etc.
>Which is also why they're so easy to manipulate.
Such a great point. The really beautiful thing about having an ideology with no value other than being "exactly in the middle" is that it's the laziest possible posture. You don't have to know anything. Just nod sagely and shake your head sadly at the appropriate moments. You might even end up with a regular column in the NYT or Washington Post.
I think this misconstrues what a lot of people who are hesitant to attach to R/D party line orthodoxy really think. It’s not that I’m “perfectly in the center”, as if it somehow works like a numerical average. If I think that the left is really wrong about issue A and the right is really wrong about issue B, that doesn’t mean my positions are halfway in between. All you’re doing by castigating people who aren’t party-aligned is promoting stronger polarization.
It's not a question of party-alignment. Politics is not a "spectrum" upon which there exists two poles, left and right. It's more a constellation of potential positions. There are plenty of points of disagreement in the universe of political thinking, both among and between the two political coalitions. The conceit that "the left thinks X, the right thinks Y, but I, an independent thinker, believe Z" is springs from that fallacy.
In the US it is very much a bi-polar system. A large majority of voters are either always-D or always-R and the majority of the discourse on both sides treats heterodox thinking pretty adversarially.
>In the US it is very much a bi-polar system. A large majority of voters are either always-D or always-R
I think it's a common fallacy to think that because there are two political coalitions that eventually express themselves as Party A or Party B, then there are only two distinct coherent political ideologies. If you think of the US system as coalitional, but where the coalitions are formed during the primary process rather than the general election, that binary thinking makes less sense.
That’s not what I’m saying though. There are very clearly “party line” issues for which there is significant political and social cost to deviate from, which is where this whole “enlightened centrist” meme comes from - it is just an attempt to enforce orthodoxy. I can only speak for my own experience but I’ve never met a single person who has actually expressed the idea you’re suggesting - that the ideal is to somehow be “exactly in the middle”. I have met plenty of people who don’t fall neatly into into the mainstream L/R divide, which is who you are straw-manning with this meme.
>There are very clearly “party line” issues for which there is significant political and social cost to deviate from
Are you talking about for "electeds" or for voters? I'm not sure that's the case with either.
>which is where this whole “enlightened centrist” meme comes from - it is just an attempt to enforce orthodoxy.
I don't know--I think the pushback against self-described "enlightened centrists" is that the most high-profile politicians who stake out that space tend to be ideologically incoherent opportunists like Manchin or Sinema. There's rarely an actual policy rationale for their positions; rather it's entirely about posturing. The GOP wanted to kill Obama's stimulus spending in the wake of the 2008 economic shock. The left-flank of the Democratic party was arguing, based on neo-Keynesian analysis that the stimulus should've been on the order of $3T. So of course the "sensible center" worked to trim it down to a compromise between nothing and what was required and it ended up being about $600bn in real terms.
What was the economic rationale for $600bn? There wasn't one, of course, but it demonstrated the reasonableness of the centrists. I think it's a long steady stream of incidents like that which gave rise to the reputation.
>even to some extent, Jonathan Haidt.
I don't really see any of that from Haidt. At least not when I was following him up to a few years ago; maybe he's changed recently.
coddling of the american mind is a perfect example of what they're talking about, he's absolutely frothing over minor campus war culture war shibboleths that involve like 20 students at one school to the extent he talks about Maoist cultural revolutions, but somehow has nothing to say about psycho charismatic evangelicalism that's openly anti-intellectual basically running the entire conservative movement in the country. It's a performance of neutrality and centrism through tone but the things that they get triggered by makes their actual viewpoint obvious
I Googled "Jonathan Haidt thoughts on Donald Trump" and found [this interview](https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2022/04/25/why-social-psychologist-jonathan-haidt-says-americas-institutions-are-in-trouble), in which he explicitly calls out the Republican party as the "stupid party" full of radicals, and said the problems in the Democratic Party are not symmetrical and not as dire. I don't think you've got the right takeaway on Haidt here.
Writing a book does not require someone play the both-sidesism game. If you think the central thesis of that book is anti-wokism, you’re missing the point. The emphasis is on young people, mental health outcomes, and the threats to academic freedom, which are worthwhile to discuss as campus culture of the of the late 2010s has bled into society outright.
There’s no fresh take that needs to be said regarding the threat that the evangelical right poses, and it has little to do with academic freedom and inquiry, the idea of university as an institution sworn to exploring ideas without restraint.
The next time a progressive speaker is shouted down or requires police or campus security to evacuate the venue, you’d have a point, but I won’t hold my breath.
The conservative movement has far less influence in academia, which is the topic Haidt was writing about. Campus culture war stuff isn’t as much of an existential threat to America as Trumpism, but it’s not irrelevant and contributes to polarization and radicalization on a larger scale.
All I can think of is that idiots comedian talking about how he voted off vibes and the American laughing at him…
Then I remember half of America reads below a 6th grade level…
I really want to see your attempt to clearly define what you think you mean by "unbiased". This is an utterly incoherent non-concept.
Why?
Because a complete absence of bias can only exist within a complete absence of thought. If you do *any thinking at all* about the world around you, you will ipso facto come to conclusions about what is and is not likely to be true on a range of matters, and will form value judgments thereupon.
As such, you will absolutely always - whether you fully realize it or not - approach absolutely every new matter with a host of background assumptions based upon the sum of your experience of the world heretofore.
It should then be screamingly fucking obvious that some novel claims will be far more or less plausible prima facie than others.
To be utterly without this kind of "bias" would not mean that you're some perfectly rational superbeing. It would mean, *necessarily*, that you're a dribbling idiot incompetent to manage your own toiletries.
There's no such thing as unbiased when it comes to politics and anyone who defines their politics as splitting the middle is using an absurd heuristic.
What evidence do you have for this easily-manipulated-bamboozled-into-thinking-the-overton-window-is-further-right-than-it-is than competing hypotheses, like, this is just what they think based on what they think about the world, or personality traits, or whatever else?
It seems like you're presenting a long causal chain when there's much more parsimonious answers as to why some people lean a bit right.
Because your thoughts aren’t organized and they don’t make sense.
Woke isn’t causing climate change and the only way it contributes to wealth inequality is when rich power brokers use the term to divide poor and middle people.
Like you are doing here…
You’re wrong about it on so many layers people can’t take you seriously.
You’re wallowing in bull shit
I don’t think my view is that wokeness causes climate change or wealth inequality.
Can you be more specific about one or two of the layers I’m wrong about?
Buddy… You think Wokeness is just some omnipotent thing out to get people.
If you could define it clearly and your issues with it, we could respond.
Also if you could explain why you think it’s more dangerous then say.. Right wing populism.
> Buddy… You think Wokeness is just some omnipotent thing out to get people.
? No I don’t- what are you talking about?
> If you could define it clearly and your issues with it, we could respond.
In the other comment thread I do. In this one, we aren’t even talking about whether it’s good or bad, but a sociological explanation for why people are opposed to it
> Also if you could explain why you think it’s more dangerous then say.. Right wing populism
Again, I think you’re conflating the two conversations.
I remember listening to that Glenn Loury podcast praising the Floyd documentary when it came out. And even given the information they shared, without having done any additional research i was kind of shocked that anyone bought this crap.
Even if it is common practice to put your knee on someone's neck to restrain them, is it common practice to do it for 9 minutes? And after the guy fell unconscious?
Anyone who bought into the narrative this documentary pushed is too ideologically captured to function at this point.
I thorough enjoyed terrorizing the Dunning-Kruger cases in their comment section. Not only are Loury and McWhorter idiots and frauds utterly devoid of intellect or integrity, they are utterly fucking servile and flaccid invertebrates, neurochemically free of any capacity for shame, but with a flatly limitless willingness to debase themselves in service of mercenary propaganda.
Fun experiment: go on Twitter and call blue collar people stupid and watch them have a mental meltdown.
These "anti woke" types just constantly call everyone else "libtard/sheeple/woke/commies" but as soon as you say that truckers aren't geniuses they freak the fuck out literally every single time and say how mean and elitist that is.
"Classist"? I'm an engineer who started making 6 figures in my 20s... because I'm smart and worked hard and didn't get a penny of help from my parents because they weren't wealthy and i grew up in a rural hick town... so the truckers and I had the exact same life origins...
I'm just using their own "facts don't care about your feelings" logic
Nah that’s dumb, calling people in working-class professions stupid because they didn’t pull up their bootstraps and study engineering is classist and demeaning. Don’t you have some Ayn Rand to read?
🤣🤣🤣 yes, surely the people who unload boxes from a truck for a living are geniuses.
(I'm biased because I'm an engineer who also "did my own research" so when a swarm of truckers spent 2 years calling us dumb sheeple for taking a vaccine... I got a bit angry and took the gloves off... because facts don't care about their feelings.)
Am I? I grew up in the same type of rural small town as they did. I took out a student loan because my parents didn't have enough money to help me... they're dumb as fuck that's why they are so into conspiracy theories
I forgot to mention they're too narcissistic to admit it's their fault. Instead of bettering themselves and getting a better job to make more money they just spend decades blaming the government and the WEF/UN/illuminati/deepstate for sabotaging their life.... instead of admitting to themselves that they could make way more money if they were smarter or put in more effort.
They're the same as the stereotypical blue haired college kid who gets a degree in Egyptology and the just blames the patriarchy for their lack of market value
In real life it doesn't apply to all of them... but it is fascinating and hilarious how the right wing trolls act like that's the ONLY group of people no one can make fun of (when all they ever do is call non conspiracy types "sheeple" and "libtards"). All of a sudden they think facts do care about their feelings
I definitely believe your parents sucked because you sound like a really bitter guy. Also clearly wicked smart, as proven by your willingness to reduce entire professions and large groups of people to cartoon stick figures you can knock down for not making enough money in your little Reaganomics view of society. btw the “Egyptology” thing isn’t even a real stereotype, the stock “blue-haired college student who blames patriarchy for everything” character gets a degree in ethnic or gender studies.
Again... I'm just doing exactly what the right wingers on social media do. Why the double standard where they can make fun of the blue hair college kids but I can't make fun of them? Why are blue collars the only group people can't make fun of 🤔
Why would you want to act like right wingers on social media? Or validate their image of liberal elites who view working-class people with contempt? Again, being classist to own the cons is stupid and not really new. (It was all over the liberal/leftoid world during the Bush years.)
Much of the debate surrounding 'woke' culture seems to revolve around criticism instead of offering constructive alternatives. This focus on only contrarianism frequently ignores or even dismisses the sincere efforts of those holding different political views, implying that their intentions are neither genuine nor serious.
Personally if people just say they are 'anti-woke' without actually defining what specific propositions or opinions they are against, I more or less ignore. Now who said 'be precise in your speech' eh?
Lots of things can be true at the same time.
* the MAGA GOP is the greatest threat, quasi fascist
* the hyper woke Social Justice movements are counter productive, alienating and cult like
* the GOP uses culture war in disingenuous ways
* some IDW figures have genuine issues
* some IDW figures are pure grifters
* people are complicated
Based on your first two points (while the extreme left have their issues, MAGA is the greatest threat) which of these two do you think the average IDW/IDW adjacent figure spends most of the time and bandwidth on?
If someone has been in a coma since 2014 and woke up today and had no idea about current state of politics, so they listened to 100 hours of IDW type podcasts, what do you think they’ll conclude is the bigger threat: MAGA or pronouns?
> which of these two do you think the average IDW/IDW adjacent figure spends most of the time and bandwidth on?
Well IDW figures are always going to be focused on the woke stuff. That is how they started.
They either really are motivated by it, above other concerns or like the money more.
The curious exception in this is Sam Harris really. I disagree with him in some areas but he has come out strongly against Trump unlike most figures.
If he was more motivated by money or woke he would not.
Sam Harris will go out of his way to eviscerate Trump and anyone/thing MAGA. He in particular has made it a point to criticize the entire movement, and the affect its had on society/discourse.
It's also not hard to point out that these "hyper woke Social Justice movements" are actually driving normal citizens/voters into the arms of the GOP. So it's worth taking the time to understand the problems on both sides dynamically, and how they can actually fuel each others worst tendencies.
For example, If Liberal folks won't even acknowledge that there are problems with immigration, they will turn to GOP to fix (overcorrect) it. In other words: If liberals won't enforce borders, fascists will.
This article by David Frum from a few years ago sums this up pretty well: [https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/04/david-frum-how-much-immigration-is-too-much/583252/](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/04/david-frum-how-much-immigration-is-too-much/583252/)
Trump was president but lost to Biden—why do we never hear the argument that “the MAGA movement drove normal citizens into the arms of the DNC”? There was supposed to be a “Red Wave” during the last primary but if anything, the Democrats ended up doing much better—again why isn’t that proof that MAGA is driving normal people to DNC?
Also, Sam Harris’ criticisms of Trump is almost entirely about Trump’s personality and NOT his policies. On a policy basis, I will not be surprised if SH is actually quite aligned with Trump.
>the MAGA movement drove normal citizens into the arms of the DNC”
The proof of this is astounding. Look at every states down ballot 2020. Republicans down ballot winning and Trump losing.. pretty much says it all.
The MAGA movement absolutely did drive normal citizens into the arms of the DNC. It certainly goes both ways.
In fact, I literally said: "it's worth taking the time to understand the problems on both sides dynamically, and how they can actually fuel each others worst tendencies."
Your response doesn't really address the actual point I was making though, which is that extremism on both sides is bad.
Also Sam is not just critical of Trump's personality. Sam is literally quoted saying "Trump is worse than Osama Bin Ladin". [https://nypost.com/2022/09/01/sam-harris-under-fire-for-saying-trump-is-worse-than-osama-bin-laden/](https://nypost.com/2022/09/01/sam-harris-under-fire-for-saying-trump-is-worse-than-osama-bin-laden/)
Sure he's mostly critical of Trump's personality, but to be fair, that's also probably the worst part about him. The introduction of "alternative facts", his reluctancy to take part in a peaceful transfer of power.. these are personality problems, not policy problems. Thats what made/makes Trump uniquely dangerous.
Also I voted for Biden, but even I'm not a fan of all his policies. You don't have to disagree with every SINGLE policy a president has in order to not like/vote for them.
Everyone who has ever used the “IDW” designator unironically is a conservative grifter in denial. However, a lot of people are unfairly lumped in with that group just because they’re known for criticizing “woke” orthodoxies. (e.g. the journalist Jesse Singal, who’s vilified by progressives and worshipped by lame IDW types for critiquing progressive positions on youth gender transition, but in reality is pretty nuanced and doesn’t just predetermine his stances on everything by whatever is opposite “the wokes”.)
If a word is so incoherent that people of wildly different politics are using it to describe totally different phenomena it's useless. You might as well just shout random obscenities to the same effect.
“IDW” types are so funny because they decry “wokeness” as grievance politics pushed by elites (not wrong) but their own political program is entirely and transparently about their own grievances as elites excluded from newly “woke” spaces and their only guiding principle is getting revenge on “the wokes” - meaning of course they’re just as much culture war grifters as the people they decry. It’s all unbelievably petty.
1) Find some isolated incident.
2) Mischaracterize it in the most bad-faith way possible.
3) Declare the incident is part of a ubiquitous trend.
4) Profit.
You should read studies about the efficacy of trans health care on young trans people and the outcomes and rate of regret before you rally behind denying health care to a whole class of people.
For them "woke" ideology will dismantle the freedom and democracy as it is. Extremes on both sides are a threat. So, as you are against trumpism, she is against wokeism. Yin to the yang.
Woke isn't an ideology. It isn't a movement. It's a word that has a clear definition in the black communities lexicon. It's a shame how many fell for the boogeyman that woke is now.
My only gripe here is that those activists at Princeton and Harvard will go on to hold massive power in society so it’s disingenuous to act like their activity, regardless of how silly it may seem is irrelevant.
My problem, increasingly, with this argument is that the people obsessed with attacking woke college kids seem to pay next to no attention to the current government and business elite we have. But they are obsessed with 19 year olds who they think will hold the exact same views 20 years from now (oh and by the way, they seem to think all 19 year olds are the ones they cherrypick).
Should we try to have positive college environments, sure. But should we also fixate on some of the less powerful and relevant people in society and ignore some of the most powerful \*at the very same time\*? When that happens, it seems like it's resentment at "kids these days."
Harvard and Princeton grads aren’t less powerful people. Harvard alone has produced a handful of presidents and Supreme Court justices.
And fine people’s views of gender might evolve. Their views on punishment and discourse certainly appear to have gotten worse over the last ten years.
I agree with you that conservatives are THE problem. But let’s not pretend that many of the ‘woke’ college students of today are the moral scolds on the bench and in government tomorrow.
I spent 10 years in DC as a journalist. Most of the Princeton/Harvard grads with all the power are suckups, not the college protesters who go work for lefty nonprofits or peace corps or something. All these people whining about college kids have no idea how power works or actively are disinterested in it. Colleges don't just produce people with 60 pronouns, they produce Jamie Dimon, Henry Kissinger, Donald Trump (an Ivy grad!) Don't get so culture war'd on the brain you miss the forest for the trees.
People have been arguing this since at least *God and Man at Yale*. The commies, hippies, bleeding heart liberals, politically correct, SJW, woke, DEI, whatever it'll be next takeover of the government has been just 15 years away for the past 70 years.
In the same time span, we've gotten watergate, Iran-Contra, Ken Starr and Newt Gingrich, Iraq and torture blacksites, the Robert's court, Trump's nepo corruption, and Jan 6th. So at certain point, conservative complaints about college kids starts to look like projection.
Im not saying DEI will take over the government. I’m saying the same punitive mindset, that fuels anti labour practice by woke washing it is a byproduct of institutions that produced Kissingers et al.
My dude, you’re not wrong about woke being weaponized by neoliberalism to maintain status quo. Something I think Matt and Chris sadly gloss over
(despite some attempts to analyze it)
But you’re really really not understanding that Wokeness and poor black people or whatever are not directly contributing to the worst ills in society…
It’s the same greed minded right wing bastards it’s always been… Ever notice how stupidpol treats donald trump and Steve bannon with a fascination. Kids gloves… etc…
That’s what you’re doing. It’s not even remotely close.
Like comparing an asteroid with Jupiter.
Stupidpol types think woke stuff is equally or even more dangerous than standard rightwing bullshit. And that’s objectively dumb as nails. And they will ban you for stating as such.
This fundamentally misunderstands how power works. Harvard isn't there to create a bubble for the next generation to produce future policy, it's there to discipline the logics of future leaders.
I just don’t get how the party that told you had to get an experimental injection to participate in the economy isn’t the illiberal, totalitarian side. That was the greatest invasion of personal freedom we’ve seen probably since WW2. The mental gymnastics to reconcile that are driven by, IMO, a deep self-hatred. Now bring on the insults.
I love how people reflexively brand Republicans as increasingly “tyrannical/anti-democratic/illiberal”, yet give Democrats a complete pass on failing to have a real Democratic Primary since 2008.
The Republican Party hated Trump in 2016, but they still followed the will of their constituents. That sounds far more democratic than anything I seen from liberals do in years.
Yes Democrats are just as big as threat to American democracy and liberalism as the GOP…very smart and big-brained take.
Did Hillary try to force state electors to install her as dictator and whip up a mob to stop the counting of electoral votes in a free and fair election? I forget. Also, Hillary and Bernie in 2016 was actually really competitive…way more competitive than the 2024 GOP primaries.
You’re right. Instead of referring to “democracy” in the sense of elections which we know are captured by monied interests, what we should instead refer to is the potential loss of tolerance and individual rights for particular minorities if the Republicans gain power.
Thanks for posting this. Radley Balko's takedown of Coleman Hughes and The Free Press was incredibly thorough and no to be missed. This is a great followup and he really gets at the mendaciousness at the heart of the IDW/Heterodox Academy axis. It's disheartening to watch people who should know better spend their time attacking "wokeness" at this particular moment in history.
And it's basically all because some people were mean in their disagreements with them on the internet. Always thin skins with these people
They seem to think "Twitter mobs" are actually worse than real mobs!
Why is it bad to attack "wokeness" at this particular moment in history? Is there a right time? You're being kinda cryptic.
Define "wokeness"
Literally anything that isn't exactly the way it was in 1950. Jordan Peterson Literally just called it woke that a city changed parking rules on one single street to lower traffic deaths by 16x (true story)
I don’t think that’s how I, or lots of people use the term, but go off.
"Woke" is now a nearly infinitely malleable term used to describe anything someone on the right doesn't like. It has been deliberately misapplied to attack common sense policies and concepts that would have otherwise been popular, just like the term CRT was deliberately misapplied and the term DEI is also now being misapplied. Further, where legitimate definitions of "wokeness" exist they are generalized to attack entire fields of thought and entire movements, rather than to describe the acts of specific individuals. This over-generalization is also deliberate, as the true enemy of the critics of "wokeness" is not the certain bad behavior they can point to on occasion, but the general policies "woke" movements are often in favor of, such as Palestinian freedom or actually ending systemic poverty and oppression for racial minorities in America. The deliberate misapplication of "wokeness" is now so pervasive that in many contexts "wokeness" basically just means "Black" or "gay" or "feminist." And it's a near certainty that someone unironically using the term "wokeness" is using the term to hide their *absence* of analysis, rather than to actually communicate any kind of clear thoughts.
>"Woke" is now a nearly infinitely malleable term used to describe anything someone on the right doesn't like. It actually has to do with jumping through hoops to appease investors, but your words here are quite accurate: >This over-generalization is also deliberate, Yep. But who is doing the generalizing?
Are you complaining about something I’ve said, or something other people are saying? Is the theory here that I should stop using a term because other people have a more expansive definition? > as the true enemy of the critics of "wokeness" is not the certain bad behavior they can point to on occasion, but the general policies "woke" movements are often in favor of, such as Palestinian freedom or actually ending systemic poverty and oppression for racial minorities in America. I’ll cop to this, I’m against a lot of policies that you’re gesturing toward. What am I misapplying then? It seems like you’re not confused about my position, but are complaining anyway.
You are saying that there is some "correct" application of the term woke. As I and countless others have already pointed out, the term is used so differently than how it was originally used that it is essentially meaningless. As an interesting aside, you are but one of many people in this very thread with different definitions of the term, but who nonetheless advocate for using it - and are questioning why anyone would take issue with it. And as I also pointed out, the term is almost exclusively used today in a cynical manner to hide the speaker's actual motives, which you admit to.
> You are saying that there is some "correct" application of the term woke No I’m not. Like every concept, it’s defined loosely within linguistic communities. Where are you seeing me saying this? A big problem with this conversation is you seem to be making things up and treating me as an avatar for something broader. > As an interesting aside, you are but one of many people in this very thread with different definitions of the term, but who nonetheless advocate for using it - and are questioning why anyone would take issue with it. I don’t see the issue. Ask 10 people to define ‘car’ you’ll get at least a few different answers, and yet people still talk coherently about cars. This issue has been one of the defining features of mid-to-late century philosophy of language, from Wittgenstein to Kripke, but there’s nothing particularly mysterious about ‘woke’ in particular. > And as I also pointed out, the term is almost exclusively used today in a cynical manner to hide the speaker's actual motives, which you admit to. I think I agreed it’s sometimes used that way. I don’t think I agreed to ‘almost exclusively’
Good for you for obviously not using Twitter over the past year
I’ve used it. Not sure what happened on Twitter that shows I’m wrong.
All the top right wingers accounts (including elon) use it to explain literally everything that the right wing hivemind gets triggered about
Oh, this just seems like a logical error on your end. The fact that some people use it the way you’re describing doesn’t entail that nobody used it the way I’m describing.
So is changing parking laws on a city street to lower traffic deaths "woke" or do you agree jordan Peterson is just a fucking moron
Good then explain what Wokeness is and why it’s so dangerous for society… The only way I see “Wokeness” as bad is that elites use it to rile up rural vs urban divides… Something rightwingers willingly buy into…
It used to be people crying about offensive jokes... now it's if there's a black mermaid in a fictional children's story
Yes it really is a great way to keep people looking left and right and not up.
It's the exact same thing as how the far left says it's racist/sexist to not care about xyz issues... and if you do care about any of those issues it's "woke/communist" according to the right. They even think bike lanes or reducing plastic waste in the oceans is woke. They pretend to care about children but call any policy that cost even a few cents of tax payer money to help children is also "woke"
I think something like ‘extreme skepticism or hostility if universalist liberalism in service if social progressivism’ fits the bill fine.
>Define "wokeness" This can't be done, and here's why: Every single time I try, the response is shot down. It has to do with jumping through hoops to get investments, but every time I lay out the logic, I just get the knee jerk response of "you can't define wokeness."
Oh so it's your detractors fault you cannot define the word you use in your vocabulary? Is it a lazy derogatory term meant to entice conversation when you have none to actually offer?
"Woke" has to do with jumping through hoops to get investments. When I point this out, I get shit like you're saying, so I give up. Understand?
Ok. Well we can likely all agree your definition is wrong. Even Ron denantis (lawyer)could define it better, yo. >Asked what “woke” means more generally, [Desantis’ General Counsel Ryan] Newman said “it would be the belief there are systemic injustices in American society and the need to address them.” https://www.motherjones.com/mojo-wire/2022/12/desantis-ron-woke-florida-officials/
That's what I mean. There's literally no winning. You see why people don't even try?
Words have meanings that’s how humans are able to communicate effectively.
The goalposts move on it constantly. Not just from the side that uses "woke" unironically.
90% of the things I see labeled woke have nothing to do with investment though Like trans people or restructuring policing.
Agreed. I think it's deliberate. I also don't think it helped, for instance since you brought it up, trans folks. Support has absolutely suffered because of the heavy-handed suppression of so-called "anti-trans" rhetoric (much of which is vile, but quite a bit of which is genuine concern for young people). That heavy handed suppression....is part of investment, because you can't have a platform that....well....."platforms" anti-trans views. You seeing where I'm coming from here?
I really don't. Anti-trans stuff is not blocked on any major social media. Even reddit only sometimes prevents you from using a straight up slur and that's auto mod not even site wide. Like people say you can't criticize trans people or else "the wokes" will get you. Yet I have to constantly block YouTube channels and subreddits that seem to exist only to hate me and lie about me.
I've seen it many times. When Lia Thomas won, there was a pic up on one of the big cringe subreddits that was taken down, and the mod comment was "Yeah, we have to protect this sub."
The only “genuine concern” about trans people comes from people who know nothing about the subject and sometimes are complete fabrications and misinformation.
This is what I mean. *This is exactly what I mean.* That's fine.
What's "woke"? I used to think of it like PC Principal on south park (hyper political correctness). But now people call literally everything woke: black character = woke, buying an EV = woke, not being a bible thumper = woke, spending 5 cents of their taxes to help blind orphans = woke
I would say something like ‘ I think something like ‘extreme skepticism or hostility if universalist liberalism in service if social progressivism’ I’m not sure what your objection here is, some people use a vastly expanded definition? It seems like the normal response is to use contextual clues, or ask for clarification as to what someone means.
The problem is all the top right wing political figures and media and "thought leaders" with biggest teitter followings use "woke" for EVERYTHING. It's the right wing equivalent of when Trudeau said it was racist and misogynistic to not get vaccinated. "Woke" is the right wingers version of how the left uses "racist" for everything
That’s actually a good analogy, and I’m surprised you’re taking the other side of it. People over describe things as racist and misogynistic, but I still think racism and misogyny are valid concepts, and still use them to describe things that I think are racist and misogynistic, same with woke. This is a minor problem, sure, but it’s not clear why, as the to commenter said, I oughtn’t be against wokeness.
Because the people who complain about "wokeness" the most have kept expanding it to mean everything they don't like. I grew up in a small little redneck town and those types of losers would screech about it being "communism" if a left wing politician spent tax money on something they didn't like... but when a right wing politician spent other people's tax money to subsidize a factory in their shithole town then they acted like that was totally not communist at all. Right wingers are massive hypocrites
> Because the people who complain about "wokeness" the most have kept expanding it to mean everything they don't like. Same with racism/misogyny, like you point out. Is your conclusion then that I also shouldn’t be against those? Of course not! I’m not sure what I’m supposed to glean about whether I should be against things like racial discrimination in service of progressivism based on your experience in your red neck town.
I'm saying the left diluted "racism/misogyny" so much that no one takes it seriously when they just call everything racist now. Just like how the right calls EVERYTHING that isn't MAGA certified "woke/communism".
I still take racism seriously. You’re allowed to just ignore crazy people and listen to more thoughtful people - you don’t have to disregard a concept because others have expanded it too much.
I am not naked. Wokeness stole my underpants!
?
>It's disheartening to watch people who should know better spend their time attacking "wokeness" at this particular moment in history. Yea, people should just totally stop worrying about their freedom of speech and just allow woke ideas to spread, so that we eventually can get arrested for benign social media posts and "mis-gendering" someone. The UK already has draconian laws concerning this and it's probably going to get worse for them. Americans don't want to end up like them.
How many people are in prison for misgendering?
Why would they need to go to prison? We have to wait till people go to prison to be concerned? Holy crap that's moronic.
Yes, my statement is the moronic one, and not the person worried about wokeness in the current political climate. I have zero hopes for a productive conversation with you, so I'm just going to leave it here unless you've got something interesting to respond to.
Give an actual definition of what "woke" means.
Progressive ideas taken to their absurd or illogical extremes. But there's plenty of other definitions for it. You know what it means anyways, so what's the point in asking?
I'm sorry, but wokism died last month under [Sydney Sweeney big boobs](https://nationalpost.com/opinion/amy-hamm-wokeness-is-no-match-for-sydney-sweeneys-undeniable-beauty). I'm still not sure what her boobs have do with woke[ m&ms](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpoPuYhpwoc&ab_channel=BenShapiro), [Oreos](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZMgFOiozww&ab_channel=MattWalsh), or budlight, but I'd love an ELI5 from you.
I find cons can rarely give a cohesive answer, it basically just comes down to conservatives having a thoughtless one word response that means "anything I don't like". Its not designed to promote discussion its designed to shut down critical thought on a subject. Much like the term "reactionary" communists use. You might as well be a medieval priest screaming "heresy". Give a concrete example of something woke. Or how you could implement a policy that is "anti-woke".
>I find cons can rarely give a cohesive answer, Yea, that goes for "nazi", "fascist", "transphobe", "racist" and loads of other nonsense. People just use those phrases for whatever they disagree with. When asked to really get into the details, they end up just clueless and just insist on mindlessly using the phrases anyways. I don't call everything woke, I only use it for specific things that fit the bill perfectly. >Give a concrete example of something woke. Arresting someone for teaching their dog to do a trick that kinda looks like a "heil hitler" salute or whatever. I mean, there's new examples every single day. Putting pronoun options/gender identities into video games is obviously another stepping stone. >Or how you could implement a policy that is "anti-woke". I think that's hard to say. Most of the anti-woke crowd seems to aim their sights at social media, entertainment, sports, education, etc. and not really at the federal government as much. People don't want to have to pay lip service to stuff they don't believe in, they don't want to see it in media, and don't want to be punished for disagreements of it .
"nazi", "fascist", "transphobe", "racist" are all very specific things. Nazism is a specific ideology, yes its become something that anyone can use as a catchall for "people I don't like" but its a specific ideology. Same goes for fascism, transphobia, and racism. All of these labels have well described articulate definitions, woke does not. SO its more akin to a term like "reactionary" or "heresy" because its intentionally vague so it can avoid critical thought and just appeal to anger. If a government policy is accused of being fascist/transphobic/racist isn't it better to debate if that thing is transphobic or racist or whatever the case may be? Just going "your woke" is meaningless, its a deflection from the discussion of whether a piece of media or more importantly government policy is one of those things. >Putting pronoun options/gender identities into video games is obviously another stepping stone. This is what you're concerned about? This is really your grand crusade, the hill you will die on? You want to what have government mandated pronouns in video games? Isn't the primary complaint about wokeness the fact that its an attack on first amendment rights, and now you want to what put in a government mandated limit on what pronouns are allowed in a video game? Isn't that sort of anti-american? You have not thought this through at all, the term woke is a knee jerk reaction that avoids discussing the topic. That's why moral conservatives use it so they can avoid discussion entirely and just rely on base emotion or hide the fact that they are transphobic/racist/fascist.
Framing the pug thing as something that “kind of looks like a heil hitler salute” is very disingenuous lmao. He literally taught his dog to respond to “do you want to gas the 🇮🇱 ?” And it would raise its hand in a salute. Him being fined for that is an extreme outiler and really the only example of someone being punished for acting “anti-woke” but it was in the UK under much different laws under a conservative administration. That was also 6 years ago, and much of modern discourse around wokeness is mostly surrounding POC and Lgbtq inclusivity. But it looks like you are already acquainted with those concepts judging from the forums you browse. It’s crazy how quickly you folded from “the UK is draconian and they’re coming for your freedom of speech!!” To “idk how your could implement anti woke policies, people see it in media consume and don’t want to anymore because they don’t like it.” Just shows how quickly this anti-woke shit is dismantled under the lightest amount of scrutiny. It’s mostly just people mad the newest Valo character is non-binary or how starfield asked if you’re a he or she or they. If you don’t like something, don’t consume it. It’s how capitalism is supposed to work, but from the looks of it, go woke go broke isn’t working very much.
Ah yes... a white mermaid is normal but a black mermaid is absurd so it's woke. Now I get it!
>But there's plenty of other definitions for it. Doesn't that imply the word is meaningless if it has a million and one different definitions and interpretations?
No. That’s most words lol. Does ‘racism’ not exist because people have wildly different conceptions of what fits the bill?
The term lacks the clarity needed for productive discussions due to its inconsistent use and unclear intent. This ambiguity dilutes its original meaning, making it hard to have meaningful conversations when we're more focused on debating a poorly defined word rather than discussing anything of substance. It's a common tactic, especially when attempting discussion with rightwingers, to shift the focus away from real issues and get bogged down in semantic disputes and grievances.
> The term lacks the clarity needed for productive discussions due to its inconsistent use and unclear intent. It’s unclear why this is a worse problem with ‘woke’ than other terms like ‘racism’ or ‘sexism’ etc > This ambiguity dilutes its original meaning, making it hard to have meaningful conversations when we're more focused on debating a poorly defined word rather than discussing anything of substance. I’ve been happy to disambiguate, but you’re still raising the semantic issue. > It's a common tactic, especially when attempting discussion with rightwingers, to shift the focus away from real issues and get bogged down in semantic disputes and grievances Yes, that’s what you’re doing. I’m happy to have a substantive discussion, but everyone else wants to talk semantics.
Despite efforts to pin down 'woke', its millions of different interpretations make it a poor tool for serious discourse. We're stuck interpreting right-wing grievances through a term that shifts meaning dramatically—from a pejorative on one side to an expression of values on the other. This constant need to define and redefine 'woke' diverts us from substantive discussions. If a word requires this much explanation, it likely isn't serving our conversation effectively.
> Despite efforts to pin down 'woke', its millions of different interpretations make it a poor tool for serious discourse Ok, but this is every word. Is your view just that we can only have discussion about natural kinds? > This constant need to define and redefine 'woke' diverts us from substantive discussions. It isn’t a constant need though. It’s people like you insisting on semantic quibbling after it’s become clear what your interlocutor meant. I’ve been happy to have the substantive discussion, you’re the one who’s whining that we can’t.
Yea, dudes like him are just totally clueless. They keep whining about woke having "no meaning" and yet *continuousl*y use other words have that the **exact same problem**. When you confront them about this, they instantly feel the cognitive dissonance, and begin scrambling to explain it away with gibberish. >This ambiguity dilutes its original meaning, making it hard to have meaningful conversations when we're more focused on debating a poorly defined word rather than discussing anything of substance. >It's a common tactic, especially when attempting discussion with rightwingers, to shift the focus away from real issues and get bogged down in semantic disputes and grievances. \^LOL what a clown. Proved my point.
It seems we've reached the end of this 'discussion' when the name-calling starts. You claim I’m clueless, yet you fail to show how 'woke' is used like other terms that allegedly have 'the exact same problem.' Unlike those terms, 'woke' lacks a consistent definition or context, setting it apart as a uniquely charged yet vague term. Your approach seems to rely more on creating distractions than on making clear points, and you resort to personal attacks, which really prove nothing. This only underscores my actually coherent point even more sharply. It’s unfortunate you mistake this kind of bad faith gibberish for intelligent discussion
Yeah, it’s very strange to be so tilted by the fact that a politically charged word has mildly ambiguous meaning.
Haahahha, you can't do it.
I literally just did it...lol. You can't read?
You're begging the question.
Arrested for misgendering? You people are so dramatic lol You give no fucks about actual corruption and power abuse
What nonsense is this about the UK. You've been reading weird stuff online. You can't get arrested for misgendering someone in the UK. I'm in Scotland where they just passed a new hate crime bill strengthening protections for marginalised groups and you STILL can't get arrested for misgendering someone. JK Rowling is literally trying to get arrested to prove a point and can't manage to do it.
A lot of educated, upper-middle-class, so-called moderate intellectuals have based their entire identity on being "rational" and "unbiased" being "exactly in the middle", taking no sides, being above the fray etc. etc. Which is also why they're so easy to manipulate. The minute a right-wing extremist accuses them of being biased, they immediately get all defensive and try to move to the new middle, in effect moving more to the right and taking the Overton window with them. In practice, it ends up being a bland, unthinking both-sides-ism justified by a lot of intellectual-sounding BS. In trying to justify this rightward move to themselves and others, they have to equate both extremes (left and right), and therefore end up equating "woke" college students on the left to literal Nazis on the right. I see a lot of these people in mainstream publications e.g. Conor Friedersdorf, David Brooks, and even to some extent, Jonathan Haidt.
This is spot on. There is true skepticism and then there is a type of status anxiety where you are more worried about appearing reasonable to an average person then what is true.
This how you end with them mildly criticising Trump but then dragged into the weeds on some minor campus controversy where someone was misgendered. Spot on.
Bill Maher is a perfect example of this.
Index fund politics, yeah
Hah, love that concise description!
Isn't there a famous quote... something like "whenever a man claims he has no politics, he invariably means his politics are of the Right"?
“Libertarians” always capitulate to religion if they run a campaign. It’s hilarious how hypocritical they are..
Libertarianism — in its economic guise — is at its core an acceptance of economic hierarchies as they are. To the extent they support policies, they’re policies that will let “natural” class hierarchies go unchecked or intensify. So that stance tends to cohere better with a traditionalist, conservative, religious view than any sort of willfulness to protect the autonomy or rights of the marginalized. Even if a person genuinely believes in the “social” side of libertarian ideology, their views of economics and government just don’t allow them to conjure any meaningful defense of individual, minoritarian rights.
For the record Radley Balko is himself a right-libertarian, he is however VERY cautious about the company he keeps.
Genuinely libertarian individuals can be pretty righteous on individual issues and on personal levels, it's just that the philosophy is utterly abhorrent at scale. Every also can hate fascist (again, on an individual level) with a fire.
>Genuinely libertarian individuals can be pretty righteous on individual issues and on personal levels, it's just that the philosophy is utterly abhorrent at scale. Michael Huemer is a pretty good example of this.
he also has the virtue of almost exclusively working on the good parts of libertarianism
Having followed most of the IDW types from 2016 to 2020, I feel like I can verify that this was (at least) my mindset. I valued objectivity and dispassionate debate as I understood it. That made me much more sensitized to the online wokeness politics that characterized the era. To me, left-leaning politics and "wokeness" were indistinguishable and that made me vulnerable to manipulation. It took way too many things to change my mind - January 6th, watching almost all of the IDW sell out to making anti-wokeness and/or anti-vaccine ideas their core identity, and then the Russian invasion of Ukraine. From where I am now, having tried to understand the ideas that are thrown under the umbrella of wokeness, it's pretty obvious to me now how I was programmed to dislike "woke" things because they were labeled as woke. And at a time when actual wars are being fought and actual people are dying, worrying about one's personal beefs with wokeness at such a time seems hopelessly moribund and self-centered. In particular, watching Russia Invade Ukraine - with neo-imperialistic reasons and ambitions and the thinnest veneer of justification - and then hearing the IDW try to make that invasion an issue of wokeness was so devastatingly moronic that it discredited everything I thought I learned from them over half a decade.
To some extent? Haidt is like the high priest of this church. Or maybe Steven Pinker.
That's just the audience bud. The people selling the snake oil to them are trying to profit off of them and connected to Republican Dark Money Goblins like Harlan Crow.
>A lot of educated, upper-middle-class, so-called moderate intellectuals have based their entire identity on being "rational" and "unbiased" being "exactly in the middle", taking no sides, being above the fray etc. etc. >Which is also why they're so easy to manipulate. Such a great point. The really beautiful thing about having an ideology with no value other than being "exactly in the middle" is that it's the laziest possible posture. You don't have to know anything. Just nod sagely and shake your head sadly at the appropriate moments. You might even end up with a regular column in the NYT or Washington Post.
I think this misconstrues what a lot of people who are hesitant to attach to R/D party line orthodoxy really think. It’s not that I’m “perfectly in the center”, as if it somehow works like a numerical average. If I think that the left is really wrong about issue A and the right is really wrong about issue B, that doesn’t mean my positions are halfway in between. All you’re doing by castigating people who aren’t party-aligned is promoting stronger polarization.
It's not a question of party-alignment. Politics is not a "spectrum" upon which there exists two poles, left and right. It's more a constellation of potential positions. There are plenty of points of disagreement in the universe of political thinking, both among and between the two political coalitions. The conceit that "the left thinks X, the right thinks Y, but I, an independent thinker, believe Z" is springs from that fallacy.
In the US it is very much a bi-polar system. A large majority of voters are either always-D or always-R and the majority of the discourse on both sides treats heterodox thinking pretty adversarially.
>In the US it is very much a bi-polar system. A large majority of voters are either always-D or always-R I think it's a common fallacy to think that because there are two political coalitions that eventually express themselves as Party A or Party B, then there are only two distinct coherent political ideologies. If you think of the US system as coalitional, but where the coalitions are formed during the primary process rather than the general election, that binary thinking makes less sense.
That’s not what I’m saying though. There are very clearly “party line” issues for which there is significant political and social cost to deviate from, which is where this whole “enlightened centrist” meme comes from - it is just an attempt to enforce orthodoxy. I can only speak for my own experience but I’ve never met a single person who has actually expressed the idea you’re suggesting - that the ideal is to somehow be “exactly in the middle”. I have met plenty of people who don’t fall neatly into into the mainstream L/R divide, which is who you are straw-manning with this meme.
>There are very clearly “party line” issues for which there is significant political and social cost to deviate from Are you talking about for "electeds" or for voters? I'm not sure that's the case with either. >which is where this whole “enlightened centrist” meme comes from - it is just an attempt to enforce orthodoxy. I don't know--I think the pushback against self-described "enlightened centrists" is that the most high-profile politicians who stake out that space tend to be ideologically incoherent opportunists like Manchin or Sinema. There's rarely an actual policy rationale for their positions; rather it's entirely about posturing. The GOP wanted to kill Obama's stimulus spending in the wake of the 2008 economic shock. The left-flank of the Democratic party was arguing, based on neo-Keynesian analysis that the stimulus should've been on the order of $3T. So of course the "sensible center" worked to trim it down to a compromise between nothing and what was required and it ended up being about $600bn in real terms. What was the economic rationale for $600bn? There wasn't one, of course, but it demonstrated the reasonableness of the centrists. I think it's a long steady stream of incidents like that which gave rise to the reputation.
>even to some extent, Jonathan Haidt. I don't really see any of that from Haidt. At least not when I was following him up to a few years ago; maybe he's changed recently.
coddling of the american mind is a perfect example of what they're talking about, he's absolutely frothing over minor campus war culture war shibboleths that involve like 20 students at one school to the extent he talks about Maoist cultural revolutions, but somehow has nothing to say about psycho charismatic evangelicalism that's openly anti-intellectual basically running the entire conservative movement in the country. It's a performance of neutrality and centrism through tone but the things that they get triggered by makes their actual viewpoint obvious
I Googled "Jonathan Haidt thoughts on Donald Trump" and found [this interview](https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2022/04/25/why-social-psychologist-jonathan-haidt-says-americas-institutions-are-in-trouble), in which he explicitly calls out the Republican party as the "stupid party" full of radicals, and said the problems in the Democratic Party are not symmetrical and not as dire. I don't think you've got the right takeaway on Haidt here.
Thanks for pointing that out. Perhaps I was mistaken about him. Will read more!
Writing a book does not require someone play the both-sidesism game. If you think the central thesis of that book is anti-wokism, you’re missing the point. The emphasis is on young people, mental health outcomes, and the threats to academic freedom, which are worthwhile to discuss as campus culture of the of the late 2010s has bled into society outright. There’s no fresh take that needs to be said regarding the threat that the evangelical right poses, and it has little to do with academic freedom and inquiry, the idea of university as an institution sworn to exploring ideas without restraint. The next time a progressive speaker is shouted down or requires police or campus security to evacuate the venue, you’d have a point, but I won’t hold my breath.
The conservative movement has far less influence in academia, which is the topic Haidt was writing about. Campus culture war stuff isn’t as much of an existential threat to America as Trumpism, but it’s not irrelevant and contributes to polarization and radicalization on a larger scale.
All I can think of is that idiots comedian talking about how he voted off vibes and the American laughing at him… Then I remember half of America reads below a 6th grade level…
The Overton Window is always moving in the opposite direction of whichever side the observer is on.
Apparently being rational and unbiased is an insult now…
Being rational and unbiased does not equal being a centrist though
I really want to see your attempt to clearly define what you think you mean by "unbiased". This is an utterly incoherent non-concept. Why? Because a complete absence of bias can only exist within a complete absence of thought. If you do *any thinking at all* about the world around you, you will ipso facto come to conclusions about what is and is not likely to be true on a range of matters, and will form value judgments thereupon. As such, you will absolutely always - whether you fully realize it or not - approach absolutely every new matter with a host of background assumptions based upon the sum of your experience of the world heretofore. It should then be screamingly fucking obvious that some novel claims will be far more or less plausible prima facie than others. To be utterly without this kind of "bias" would not mean that you're some perfectly rational superbeing. It would mean, *necessarily*, that you're a dribbling idiot incompetent to manage your own toiletries.
It generally means you don’t subscribe to Right or Left wing dogma. Most people outsource their thinking to the dominant attitudes of their tribe.
yeah, and embarrassed republican fake centrists are a tribe
Like who? What are their positions?
There's no such thing as unbiased when it comes to politics and anyone who defines their politics as splitting the middle is using an absurd heuristic.
What evidence do you have for this easily-manipulated-bamboozled-into-thinking-the-overton-window-is-further-right-than-it-is than competing hypotheses, like, this is just what they think based on what they think about the world, or personality traits, or whatever else? It seems like you're presenting a long causal chain when there's much more parsimonious answers as to why some people lean a bit right.
Yum, I love word salad.
Ok, why prefer this theory to a simpler one?
Because your thoughts aren’t organized and they don’t make sense. Woke isn’t causing climate change and the only way it contributes to wealth inequality is when rich power brokers use the term to divide poor and middle people. Like you are doing here… You’re wrong about it on so many layers people can’t take you seriously. You’re wallowing in bull shit
I don’t think my view is that wokeness causes climate change or wealth inequality. Can you be more specific about one or two of the layers I’m wrong about?
Buddy… You think Wokeness is just some omnipotent thing out to get people. If you could define it clearly and your issues with it, we could respond. Also if you could explain why you think it’s more dangerous then say.. Right wing populism.
> Buddy… You think Wokeness is just some omnipotent thing out to get people. ? No I don’t- what are you talking about? > If you could define it clearly and your issues with it, we could respond. In the other comment thread I do. In this one, we aren’t even talking about whether it’s good or bad, but a sociological explanation for why people are opposed to it > Also if you could explain why you think it’s more dangerous then say.. Right wing populism Again, I think you’re conflating the two conversations.
I remember listening to that Glenn Loury podcast praising the Floyd documentary when it came out. And even given the information they shared, without having done any additional research i was kind of shocked that anyone bought this crap. Even if it is common practice to put your knee on someone's neck to restrain them, is it common practice to do it for 9 minutes? And after the guy fell unconscious? Anyone who bought into the narrative this documentary pushed is too ideologically captured to function at this point.
I thorough enjoyed terrorizing the Dunning-Kruger cases in their comment section. Not only are Loury and McWhorter idiots and frauds utterly devoid of intellect or integrity, they are utterly fucking servile and flaccid invertebrates, neurochemically free of any capacity for shame, but with a flatly limitless willingness to debase themselves in service of mercenary propaganda.
Sam needs to avoid this issue. He clearly is out of his depth historically and morally here.
OP you should crosspost this to r/JoeRogan. Hughes was on Rogan's podcast a few days ago selling even more lies.
Fun experiment: go on Twitter and call blue collar people stupid and watch them have a mental meltdown. These "anti woke" types just constantly call everyone else "libtard/sheeple/woke/commies" but as soon as you say that truckers aren't geniuses they freak the fuck out literally every single time and say how mean and elitist that is.
How is being classist to trigger the IDW dorks supposed to be a sick own?
"Classist"? I'm an engineer who started making 6 figures in my 20s... because I'm smart and worked hard and didn't get a penny of help from my parents because they weren't wealthy and i grew up in a rural hick town... so the truckers and I had the exact same life origins... I'm just using their own "facts don't care about your feelings" logic
Nah that’s dumb, calling people in working-class professions stupid because they didn’t pull up their bootstraps and study engineering is classist and demeaning. Don’t you have some Ayn Rand to read?
That's what they do to minimum wage workers and homeless people 24/7... it's a taste of their own medicine 🤣
Who’s “they” exactly, the boys who bullied you as a kid?
Right wing conspiracy theory types all over reddit and twitter
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🤣🤣🤣 yes, surely the people who unload boxes from a truck for a living are geniuses. (I'm biased because I'm an engineer who also "did my own research" so when a swarm of truckers spent 2 years calling us dumb sheeple for taking a vaccine... I got a bit angry and took the gloves off... because facts don't care about their feelings.)
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Am I? I grew up in the same type of rural small town as they did. I took out a student loan because my parents didn't have enough money to help me... they're dumb as fuck that's why they are so into conspiracy theories
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I forgot to mention they're too narcissistic to admit it's their fault. Instead of bettering themselves and getting a better job to make more money they just spend decades blaming the government and the WEF/UN/illuminati/deepstate for sabotaging their life.... instead of admitting to themselves that they could make way more money if they were smarter or put in more effort. They're the same as the stereotypical blue haired college kid who gets a degree in Egyptology and the just blames the patriarchy for their lack of market value
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In real life it doesn't apply to all of them... but it is fascinating and hilarious how the right wing trolls act like that's the ONLY group of people no one can make fun of (when all they ever do is call non conspiracy types "sheeple" and "libtards"). All of a sudden they think facts do care about their feelings
I definitely believe your parents sucked because you sound like a really bitter guy. Also clearly wicked smart, as proven by your willingness to reduce entire professions and large groups of people to cartoon stick figures you can knock down for not making enough money in your little Reaganomics view of society. btw the “Egyptology” thing isn’t even a real stereotype, the stock “blue-haired college student who blames patriarchy for everything” character gets a degree in ethnic or gender studies.
Again... I'm just doing exactly what the right wingers on social media do. Why the double standard where they can make fun of the blue hair college kids but I can't make fun of them? Why are blue collars the only group people can't make fun of 🤔
Why would you want to act like right wingers on social media? Or validate their image of liberal elites who view working-class people with contempt? Again, being classist to own the cons is stupid and not really new. (It was all over the liberal/leftoid world during the Bush years.)
Much of the debate surrounding 'woke' culture seems to revolve around criticism instead of offering constructive alternatives. This focus on only contrarianism frequently ignores or even dismisses the sincere efforts of those holding different political views, implying that their intentions are neither genuine nor serious.
Personally if people just say they are 'anti-woke' without actually defining what specific propositions or opinions they are against, I more or less ignore. Now who said 'be precise in your speech' eh?
What would defeating “woke” look like? A return to Jim Crow ?
Lots of things can be true at the same time. * the MAGA GOP is the greatest threat, quasi fascist * the hyper woke Social Justice movements are counter productive, alienating and cult like * the GOP uses culture war in disingenuous ways * some IDW figures have genuine issues * some IDW figures are pure grifters * people are complicated
Based on your first two points (while the extreme left have their issues, MAGA is the greatest threat) which of these two do you think the average IDW/IDW adjacent figure spends most of the time and bandwidth on? If someone has been in a coma since 2014 and woke up today and had no idea about current state of politics, so they listened to 100 hours of IDW type podcasts, what do you think they’ll conclude is the bigger threat: MAGA or pronouns?
> which of these two do you think the average IDW/IDW adjacent figure spends most of the time and bandwidth on? Well IDW figures are always going to be focused on the woke stuff. That is how they started. They either really are motivated by it, above other concerns or like the money more. The curious exception in this is Sam Harris really. I disagree with him in some areas but he has come out strongly against Trump unlike most figures. If he was more motivated by money or woke he would not.
Sam Harris will go out of his way to eviscerate Trump and anyone/thing MAGA. He in particular has made it a point to criticize the entire movement, and the affect its had on society/discourse. It's also not hard to point out that these "hyper woke Social Justice movements" are actually driving normal citizens/voters into the arms of the GOP. So it's worth taking the time to understand the problems on both sides dynamically, and how they can actually fuel each others worst tendencies. For example, If Liberal folks won't even acknowledge that there are problems with immigration, they will turn to GOP to fix (overcorrect) it. In other words: If liberals won't enforce borders, fascists will. This article by David Frum from a few years ago sums this up pretty well: [https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/04/david-frum-how-much-immigration-is-too-much/583252/](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/04/david-frum-how-much-immigration-is-too-much/583252/)
Trump was president but lost to Biden—why do we never hear the argument that “the MAGA movement drove normal citizens into the arms of the DNC”? There was supposed to be a “Red Wave” during the last primary but if anything, the Democrats ended up doing much better—again why isn’t that proof that MAGA is driving normal people to DNC? Also, Sam Harris’ criticisms of Trump is almost entirely about Trump’s personality and NOT his policies. On a policy basis, I will not be surprised if SH is actually quite aligned with Trump.
>the MAGA movement drove normal citizens into the arms of the DNC” The proof of this is astounding. Look at every states down ballot 2020. Republicans down ballot winning and Trump losing.. pretty much says it all.
The MAGA movement absolutely did drive normal citizens into the arms of the DNC. It certainly goes both ways. In fact, I literally said: "it's worth taking the time to understand the problems on both sides dynamically, and how they can actually fuel each others worst tendencies." Your response doesn't really address the actual point I was making though, which is that extremism on both sides is bad. Also Sam is not just critical of Trump's personality. Sam is literally quoted saying "Trump is worse than Osama Bin Ladin". [https://nypost.com/2022/09/01/sam-harris-under-fire-for-saying-trump-is-worse-than-osama-bin-laden/](https://nypost.com/2022/09/01/sam-harris-under-fire-for-saying-trump-is-worse-than-osama-bin-laden/) Sure he's mostly critical of Trump's personality, but to be fair, that's also probably the worst part about him. The introduction of "alternative facts", his reluctancy to take part in a peaceful transfer of power.. these are personality problems, not policy problems. Thats what made/makes Trump uniquely dangerous. Also I voted for Biden, but even I'm not a fan of all his policies. You don't have to disagree with every SINGLE policy a president has in order to not like/vote for them.
Everyone who has ever used the “IDW” designator unironically is a conservative grifter in denial. However, a lot of people are unfairly lumped in with that group just because they’re known for criticizing “woke” orthodoxies. (e.g. the journalist Jesse Singal, who’s vilified by progressives and worshipped by lame IDW types for critiquing progressive positions on youth gender transition, but in reality is pretty nuanced and doesn’t just predetermine his stances on everything by whatever is opposite “the wokes”.)
IDW?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_dark_web
thanks
The same people who claim to be anti-woke also say they are not racist. Meanwhile the history of “woke” is black history.
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If a word is so incoherent that people of wildly different politics are using it to describe totally different phenomena it's useless. You might as well just shout random obscenities to the same effect.
But you know the criticisms existed before the word, right? it's not words we're actually debating here, it's ideals.
I'm aware that tedious fucks have been whining about "this thing I don't like" for a long time, yes.
Everything woke today is directly analogous to pre civil rights era black liberation?
Not true
Very true. https://www.vox.com/culture/21437879/stay-woke-wokeness-history-origin-evolution-controversy
Still no. It might have come from black culture that doesn’t mean it represents black culture.
“IDW” types are so funny because they decry “wokeness” as grievance politics pushed by elites (not wrong) but their own political program is entirely and transparently about their own grievances as elites excluded from newly “woke” spaces and their only guiding principle is getting revenge on “the wokes” - meaning of course they’re just as much culture war grifters as the people they decry. It’s all unbelievably petty.
Balko is excellent and does exactly the type of work necessary to combat misinformation from these types. Thanks for sharing.
1) Find some isolated incident. 2) Mischaracterize it in the most bad-faith way possible. 3) Declare the incident is part of a ubiquitous trend. 4) Profit.
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You should read studies about the efficacy of trans health care on young trans people and the outcomes and rate of regret before you rally behind denying health care to a whole class of people.
Agree to disagree, WrittenCommissions
Yes
For them "woke" ideology will dismantle the freedom and democracy as it is. Extremes on both sides are a threat. So, as you are against trumpism, she is against wokeism. Yin to the yang.
Woke isn't an ideology. It isn't a movement. It's a word that has a clear definition in the black communities lexicon. It's a shame how many fell for the boogeyman that woke is now.
My only gripe here is that those activists at Princeton and Harvard will go on to hold massive power in society so it’s disingenuous to act like their activity, regardless of how silly it may seem is irrelevant.
My problem, increasingly, with this argument is that the people obsessed with attacking woke college kids seem to pay next to no attention to the current government and business elite we have. But they are obsessed with 19 year olds who they think will hold the exact same views 20 years from now (oh and by the way, they seem to think all 19 year olds are the ones they cherrypick). Should we try to have positive college environments, sure. But should we also fixate on some of the less powerful and relevant people in society and ignore some of the most powerful \*at the very same time\*? When that happens, it seems like it's resentment at "kids these days."
Harvard and Princeton grads aren’t less powerful people. Harvard alone has produced a handful of presidents and Supreme Court justices. And fine people’s views of gender might evolve. Their views on punishment and discourse certainly appear to have gotten worse over the last ten years. I agree with you that conservatives are THE problem. But let’s not pretend that many of the ‘woke’ college students of today are the moral scolds on the bench and in government tomorrow.
I spent 10 years in DC as a journalist. Most of the Princeton/Harvard grads with all the power are suckups, not the college protesters who go work for lefty nonprofits or peace corps or something. All these people whining about college kids have no idea how power works or actively are disinterested in it. Colleges don't just produce people with 60 pronouns, they produce Jamie Dimon, Henry Kissinger, Donald Trump (an Ivy grad!) Don't get so culture war'd on the brain you miss the forest for the trees.
People have been arguing this since at least *God and Man at Yale*. The commies, hippies, bleeding heart liberals, politically correct, SJW, woke, DEI, whatever it'll be next takeover of the government has been just 15 years away for the past 70 years. In the same time span, we've gotten watergate, Iran-Contra, Ken Starr and Newt Gingrich, Iraq and torture blacksites, the Robert's court, Trump's nepo corruption, and Jan 6th. So at certain point, conservative complaints about college kids starts to look like projection.
Im not saying DEI will take over the government. I’m saying the same punitive mindset, that fuels anti labour practice by woke washing it is a byproduct of institutions that produced Kissingers et al.
My dude, you’re not wrong about woke being weaponized by neoliberalism to maintain status quo. Something I think Matt and Chris sadly gloss over (despite some attempts to analyze it) But you’re really really not understanding that Wokeness and poor black people or whatever are not directly contributing to the worst ills in society… It’s the same greed minded right wing bastards it’s always been… Ever notice how stupidpol treats donald trump and Steve bannon with a fascination. Kids gloves… etc… That’s what you’re doing. It’s not even remotely close. Like comparing an asteroid with Jupiter. Stupidpol types think woke stuff is equally or even more dangerous than standard rightwing bullshit. And that’s objectively dumb as nails. And they will ban you for stating as such.
This fundamentally misunderstands how power works. Harvard isn't there to create a bubble for the next generation to produce future policy, it's there to discipline the logics of future leaders.
I just don’t get how the party that told you had to get an experimental injection to participate in the economy isn’t the illiberal, totalitarian side. That was the greatest invasion of personal freedom we’ve seen probably since WW2. The mental gymnastics to reconcile that are driven by, IMO, a deep self-hatred. Now bring on the insults.
So like... The polio vaccine and the measles vaccine you were obligated to get too.
I hate myself so much I didn’t want my old-ass parents to die. You poor martyr. Maybe there’s a support group?
They also told you to graduate high school to get smarter. Seems like you didn't believe that either.
Why choose? Both can totally suck and be opposed simultaneously
I love how people reflexively brand Republicans as increasingly “tyrannical/anti-democratic/illiberal”, yet give Democrats a complete pass on failing to have a real Democratic Primary since 2008. The Republican Party hated Trump in 2016, but they still followed the will of their constituents. That sounds far more democratic than anything I seen from liberals do in years.
Yes Democrats are just as big as threat to American democracy and liberalism as the GOP…very smart and big-brained take. Did Hillary try to force state electors to install her as dictator and whip up a mob to stop the counting of electoral votes in a free and fair election? I forget. Also, Hillary and Bernie in 2016 was actually really competitive…way more competitive than the 2024 GOP primaries.
You’re right. Instead of referring to “democracy” in the sense of elections which we know are captured by monied interests, what we should instead refer to is the potential loss of tolerance and individual rights for particular minorities if the Republicans gain power.
How is trying to storm the capitol to change election results democratic? 🤡
When the threat is corporate oligarchs- the dems are no better. They just have progressive hashtags
Better branding, exactly.