I'm glad that the Economist points out at the end that 'wokeness' has become a favorite of business, and the reason is pretty obvious, as a movement it's self-defeating because all identitarian politics eventually ends in infighting, with its subjective, choice and preference based worldview it's actually ill-equipped to move anything. It might exist in academia or PR departments or journalism or facebook pages and t…
How did American “wokeness” jump from elite schools to everyday life?
121–130 of 1001 posts
Re: How did American “wokeness” jump from elite schools to everyday life?
#122On a related point, what I'm uncertain about are the reasons for the increase in transgender kids in the west. I understand there's been a massive increase in cases for transmen in the UK and USA for example. Is this because we can identify these conditions much better now? Maybe. I don't have the background to say for sure. There is a real fear in society though that woke schools of thought are a harmful influence t…
Re: How did American “wokeness” jump from elite schools to everyday life?
#123Re: How did American “wokeness” jump from elite schools to everyday life?
#124I recommend anyone who spends a lot of time thinking about this type of thing to take a break for a few months in a country that doesn't indulge it, e.g. Russia.
Interesting you mention Russia. The leadership of Russia spends a lot of time thinking about how to denigrate LGBTQ+ folks. Racism is alive and thriving in Russia. They even recently went through the trouble of decriminalizing first time domestic violence. Could you elaborate on why you think a trip to Russia would be useful to [eta:American] progressives?
Re: How did American “wokeness” jump from elite schools to everyday life?
#125I still don't get the term latinx. Have they considered... Latin . As in, Latin America, for instance?
Re: How did American “wokeness” jump from elite schools to everyday life?
#126It definitely seems as though specifying your preferred gender pronouns is no longer optional. This is required "in solidarity". Being an otherwise progressive person, I don't feel great about this and how quickly it happened.
Re: How did American “wokeness” jump from elite schools to everyday life?
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
> How did fundamentalism jumped to real life? It’s always been in real life. Funny enough, there are some cultural remnants of certain leftists from the 90s/00s where they were the ones railing against “political correctness” in attempt to shock the religious right of the time. The way I see it things have simply reversed as the religious right seemingly lost ground over the past years and progressives became more pr…
Not applicable. The 'wokeness' in US largely encompasses things like minorities not tolerating being denigrated, debased, harassed anymore. Not even talking about things like nudity in beaches, abortion and other bullsh*t in which US still stays back 150 years in the past in US.
Re: How did American “wokeness” jump from elite schools to everyday life?
#128See "concept creep" - https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2016-08154-001 Abstract: > 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 “horizont…
Or maybe once you've weaponized a concept, it's tempting to use it as much as you can.
When being a nerd stopped being shameful and started being cool, all the cool kids started calling themselves nerds for liking Avengers and Harry Potter - why wouldn't you claim the social points that are just lying around?
And when you live in a society that rewards victimhood, when calling someone a bully gives you power over them - of course people will jump at any chance to call themselves a victim.
Re: How did American “wokeness” jump from elite schools to everyday life?
#129Re: How did American “wokeness” jump from elite schools to everyday life?
#130It will be interesting how corporations will react to a new generation of Millennial managers and leaders who seek to undermine capitalism.