Well given that they have to redefine terms under new names and to create a newspeak for all of this, it was not long until it had spread unchallenged from the social-sciences classrooms in universities to the workplace and we now see rejected concepts that were left in the past to later resurface under a redefinition under newspeak. A great way to confuse the general public and push an agenda to create a culture of…
How did American “wokeness” jump from elite schools to everyday life?
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Re: How did American “wokeness” jump from elite schools to everyday life?
#22Well given that they have to redefine terms under new names and to create a newspeak for all of this, it was not long until it had spread unchallenged from the social-sciences classrooms in universities to the workplace and we now see rejected concepts that were left in the past to later resurface under a redefinition under newspeak. A great way to confuse the general public and push an agenda to create a culture of…
That's what's bothersome. It's not just advocacy. It's mandatory advocacy. That generates a backlash.
The push for transgender bathroom privileges just before the 2016 elections may have pushed Trump over the top.
Re: How did American “wokeness” jump from elite schools to everyday life?
#23I'm saddened that "intellectual dark web" stuff has purchase here. But then again SV is where it metastasized.
Re: How did American “wokeness” jump from elite schools to everyday life?
#24So the cultural disconnect isn't new or a problem. The problem is that this ideology seems to be (1) heavily focused on race and (2) be the most credible home for a resurgence of the ideas that powered the communist disasters of last century.
It is deviant from cultural norms. And that is fine and dandy, elite cultures are always deviant. The problem is this culture looks bad. It has abandoned some excellent ideals of tolerance and liberty.
Re: How did American “wokeness” jump from elite schools to everyday life?
#25Abstract:
> Many of psychology's concepts have undergone semantic shifts in recent years. These conceptual changes follow a consistent trend. Concepts that refer to the negative aspects of human experience and behavior have expanded their meanings so that they now encompass a much broader range of phenomena than before. This expansion takes “horizontal” and “vertical” forms: concepts extend outward to capture qualitatively new phenomena and downward to capture quantitatively less extreme phenomena. The concepts of abuse, bullying, trauma, mental disorder, addiction, and prejudice are examined to illustrate these historical changes. In each case, the concept's boundary has stretched and its meaning has dilated. A variety of explanations for this pattern of “concept creep” are considered and its implications are explored. I contend that the expansion primarily reflects an ever-increasing sensitivity to harm, reflecting a liberal moral agenda. Its implications are ambivalent, however. Although conceptual change is inevitable and often well motivated, concept creep runs the risk of pathologizing everyday experience and encouraging a sense of virtuous but impotent victimhood.
The full article has a bit more nuance. It points out that intolerance to minor forms of harm has both pros and cons.
Re: How did American “wokeness” jump from elite schools to everyday life?
#26Fundamentally languages have been evolving in a reductive manner, which is why adding syllables to terms like in "Latino/Latina -> Latin-x -> Latinx+" won't last. People will quickly eschew these terms for things that are easier to pronounce. There's no malice in this - just a natural evolution of language towards efficiency. As such its an endless cycle: new stuff is introduced to everyday language then reduced to s…
To replace she vs he.
Re: How did American “wokeness” jump from elite schools to everyday life?
#27I think this is the result of the gradual femininization of our culture. It started with the feminist/gender-studies types and slowly caught on. Not because people necessarily wanted to change, but cancel culture makes it so that you can't risk nonconforming. At first it was little things like switching to softer language and giving kids participation trophies so that they don't feel bad. Now it's spread to the point…
Re: How did American “wokeness” jump from elite schools to everyday life?
#28Re: How did American “wokeness” jump from elite schools to everyday life?
#29I'm saddened that "intellectual dark web" stuff has purchase here. But then again SV is where it metastasized.
Re: How did American “wokeness” jump from elite schools to everyday life?
#30I still don't get the term latinx. Have they considered... Latin . As in, Latin America, for instance?