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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?

#231

Post by concordDance »

Niten wrote: post #202
geewee wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. The author obviously considers "wokeness" stupid as hell, but hides with the thinnest veneer of neutrality.

By the same logic, a far-right person could complain about a "veneer of neutrality" in the mainstream press's coverage of, say, the Proud Boys. But that would be ridiculous. Some things really are objectively stupid as hell.

I have no opinion on the Proud Boys because I have no access to untainted information on them. But in general you should strongly distrust news orgs talking about anything with political or culture war implications. Every single case I've had personal experience with has had massively misleading coverage.

Gell-Mann Amnesia.

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

#232

Post by Clewza313 »

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #214
Epa095 wrote: post #149

This is one of those articles which kind of pretends to be neutral, but are still so oppinionated that I don't know if I ended up smarter or dumber after reading it :-/

It's a distraction piece: Is the important issue in the US the enraged far right mob that attacked the Capitol in January, and continues to deny the legitimacy of elections, and plans further violence? Is it the actual COVID pandemic? Is it the science denial that accompanies the pandemic and has people turning to unproven horse-dewormer over proven vaccines? Is it the disinformation engines on social media and their…

You're attacking a straw man of your own invention here. The Economist has devoted pages and pages to the Capitol attack, the COVID pandemic, climate change, social media, abortion rights etc.

I find it kind of sad that the US is so polarized that everything (like the Economist) that doesn't fit neatly into Democrat/left vs Republican/right is nonetheless forcibly pigeonholed into one of the two camps, with absurd results like you labeling the Economist -- historically a very liberal/libertarian publication -- some kind of right wing Trojan horse.

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

#233

Post by skrebbel »

DanBC wrote: post #195
blub wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This book’s trying to explain why this is happening for girls: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreversible_Damage

That book relies on the concept of ROGD, which is something that doesn't exist. Anybody pushing ROGD, or supporting other people who push ROGD, is anti-science and anti-fact. You should consider why you feel comfortable pushing something that's obviously bollocks, just because it supports your anti-trans activism. https://www.caaps.co/rogd-statement

Totally off topic, and I have no strong opinion on the whole transgender and ROGD thing (i learned that acronym from your comment), but:

> anti-science and anti-fact

This combination of words doesn't make sense to me. Science constantly discovers new "facts" that invalidate old "facts". I understand stuff like "the current scientific consensus", but I don't understand how you can call people who question the current scientific consensus on something "anti-fact". Especially in the context of psychology and psychiatry, where lately the facts have been superseding themselves rather rapidly.

Tldr, if you're pro science, shouldn't you by definition be ever so mildly sceptical of facts?

EDIT: note, I'm not trying to attack you personally nor weasel in some alt right talking point. I've seen words like "anti-fact" used a lot lately, I think I understand where it comes from, especially in the context of American hyper-polarized politics. I guess i wrote.my comment hoping to contribute to slightly more constructive language, at least from the sane side of the aisle.

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

#234

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

Clewza313 wrote: post #232
SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a distraction piece: Is the important issue in the US the enraged far right mob that attacked the Capitol in January, and continues to deny the legitimacy of elections, and plans further violence? Is it the actual COVID pandemic? Is it the science denial that accompanies the pandemic and has people turning to unproven horse-dewormer over proven vaccines? Is it the disinformation engines on social media and their…

You're attacking a straw man of your own invention here. The Economist has devoted pages and pages to the Capitol attack, the COVID pandemic, climate change, social media, abortion rights etc. I find it kind of sad that the US is so polarized that everything (like the Economist) that doesn't fit neatly into Democrat/left vs Republican/right is nonetheless forcibly pigeonholed into one of the two camps, with absurd re…

I have read the Economist many times, although not in the last 5 years. And I would not call it "liberal" at all. I stopped because of the bias.

Did the other topics that the Economist "devoted pages and pages to" get as much uptake here as this one?

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

#236

Post by concordDance »

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…

Languages also evolve due to political/social movement pressures. With words taking on new meanings so that the old connotations and slogans can be attached to these new meanings.

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

#237

Post by MrsPeaches »

concordDance wrote: post #212
mjburgess wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most virulent forms of racism are a symptom of material conditions, eg., that poor black people live uniformly in one area, and rich white people in another. This creates a competition for local resources, including demands on police time and attention. This competition reporduces racism, in that it is very hard not to have racism when "looking out for one's own" is a racial matter. What we have in Wokeism is a p…

> What we have in Wokeism is a pseudo-politics, in that, it make no material demands. A plain reading of this seems false. Wokism definitely makes demands.

material [1] demands.

[1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_materialism

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

#238

Post by KozmoNau7 »

golergka wrote: post #188
hnbad wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you ignore the American political spectrum for a hot minute and get down to the core of it, a practical definition of "left" and "right" is "no hierarchy" vs "hierarchy". This holds true in economics as well as social issues: Racism is a system of hierarchy where one race is inherently good and normal and others are deviations from that, or at least every race is good or bad in some ways and there is an implied va…

> practical definition of "left" and "right" is "no hierarchy" vs "hierarchy" Absolutely not: it's the left that's usually the favor of giving more power to the most oppressive and monopolic hierarchy there is, the government, while the right is fighting to dismantle it.

I take it you haven't talked to many leftists, then. We're quite anti-authoritarian and opposed to hierarchy.

If you consider US democrats to be "left", you are sadly mistaken.

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

#239

Post by hn-is-life »

Labelling people based on sexuality, gender identity, race, religion is just… arbitrary. Why not label people based on their IQ? If I knew people’s IQ I would simply ignore everyone below mine and only talk to my peers.

“Hello, I’m John. I’m IQ140” “Hi John, I’m Mohammed, I’m IQ145”

Instatnt friendship.

“Hello John, I’m Peter, IQ90.” “bye Peter”

I think sorting and discriminating on IQ is the only way to build some form of cohesive society.

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

#240

Post by ZephyrBlu »

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…

> The "X" suffix is an attempt by younger Spanish speakers to introduce a neuter gender to their native language

Is it? I mostly see non-Spanish people using "latinx".

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