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How did American “wokeness” jump from elite schools to everyday life?

economist.com

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Re: How did American “wokeness” jump from elite schools to everyday life?

#151

Post by nix23 »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #135
invalidOrTaken wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To an extent left and right are asymmetrical---leftist groups tend to be groups organized around being leftist as their main purpose, while "rightist" groups (churches, police unions, gun enthusiasts) tend to be rightist incidentally . Neo Nazis feel like the exception that proves the rule.

[flagged]

>The idea that Nazis are right-wing is also kind of a modern conceit

Absolutely correct, if you have a right/left clock Hitler stays at 11:59 and Stalin at 00:01, they are the same. National SOCIALIST Party...hello?

Just in modern times being National means right-wing. But with that logic the CCP must be pretty right-wing.

Re: How did American “wokeness” jump from elite schools to everyday life?

#152

Post by axiosgunnar »

keewee7 wrote: post #130

Many Millennials now have very high-paying and influential jobs but still hold the very anti-capitalist and anti-billionaire views they had during the height of the Occupy Wall Street movement. It will be interesting how corporations will react to a new generation of Millennial managers and leaders who seek to undermine capitalism.

One can only hope the free market will take care of those companies (ie they implement woke policies and become bankrupt)

Re: How did American “wokeness” jump from elite schools to everyday life?

#153

Post by JCharante »

rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote: post #137
chmod775 wrote: post #6

Fundamentally 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…

Gendered nouns are kind of silly and antiquated when you think about it though, and many languages have a neuter gender too (e.g. German). The "X" suffix is an attempt by younger Spanish speakers to introduce a neuter gender to their native language. English doesn't have gendered nouns, but we do have gendered pronouns, which not all languages have. Chinese doesn't have gendered pronouns, which is why you'll often he…

> Chinese doesn't have gendered pronouns, which is why you'll often hear native Chinese speakers accidentally refer to a woman in English as "he".

This is interesting because I've heard this explanation before from an international student. You still have 他/he 她/she despite them being pronounced the same, so the gendered pronouns still do exist, but the mistake of switching he/she in conversation is still commonly made.

It's not like Vietnamese where Em ấy or Ẻm (both meaning he/she for someone younger than the speaker) where a genderless pronoun is used, and yet I've seen he/she mixed up a lot less often.

Re: How did American “wokeness” jump from elite schools to everyday life?

#154

Post by yifanl »

carlmr wrote: post #108
bengold14 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nor is it confined to the Left: neo-Nazi groups offer some of the clearest examples of purity spirals Seems like your own linked article says it's not just a leftist thing?

Doesn't saying "but you can find this on the other side" imply that it's much more common on the side you're comparing to?

Not really, it just implies that there's a common perception that may or may not reflect reality.

Re: How did American “wokeness” jump from elite schools to everyday life?

#155

Post by quattrofan »

Most of us as teens and younger have struggled with growing up, raging hormones etc. Now with this woke garbage i fear we are setting up many more psychological and family problems to satisfy a bullshit agenda. There are certainly people who legitimately feel they are in the wrong body and society should support them, but this deluge of identity questioning is going to manufacture a problem that doesn't exist.

Re: How did American “wokeness” jump from elite schools to everyday life?

#156

Post by bopbeepboop »

spats1990 wrote: post #64
badRNG wrote: post #37

It seems like this question could be asked at any period of social conflict historically in the West. How did ideas that were once extremely radical like women's equality in the social sphere (to include holding office and suffrage), desegregation, slavery abolition, and many more work their way from the intelligensia (academics, philosophers) to the masses? How did "Marxism" jump from academia to workers in the late…

Yeah, I tend to think "woke" as a sneer word is just the new "PC/politically correct" as a sneer word. Corporations wouldn't be engaging in this kind of token support for progressive issues if they did not believe such issues were broadly popular. Such organizations rarely do anything for free. The token support is a reflection of something in the culture. Most of the "backlash" to "woke stuff" is a working-through o…

[dead]

Re: How did American “wokeness” jump from elite schools to everyday life?

#157

Post by mannschott »

unity1001 wrote: post #123
eulenteufel wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The East German stasi absolutely did turn a lot of normal non-spy people into snitches.

Turning someone into a snitch, basically a spy is one thing, making everyone a snitch is another.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unofficial_collaborator

Looks like about 1% of the population were snitches for the Stasi. You can decide for yourself if that's "a lot" or not.

Re: How did American “wokeness” jump from elite schools to everyday life?

#159

Post by itronitron »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #35
spamizbad wrote: post #13

It didn't. It lives entirely in elite society. If you aren't a member of an elite social strata it doesn't impact you and nobody gives a damn.

From the article: "What links these developments is a loose constellation of ideas that is changing the way that mostly white, educated, left-leaning Americans view the world." It's moved from academic circles to "regular" middle-to-upper-middle class society for sure. You can argue that they're "elite" in some respects, but at the same time you're looking at an "elite" 30-40% of the population compared to the single…

'mostly white, educated, left-leaning Americans' is not the same as 'most white, educated, left-leaning Americans'

Re: How did American “wokeness” jump from elite schools to everyday life?

#160

Post by pjc50 »

SunlightEdge wrote: post #109

On 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…

On the other hand, there's no easy way to count the suicides who were closet-trans or just dysphoric without having the words for it. I've now known at least two adults with histories of depression who have transitioned and report being much happier.
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