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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?

#271

Post by Epa095 »

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.

Your sentiment reminds me of this part from the article:

>'One prominent journalist argued for replacing “neutral objectivity” with “moral clarity”—making unflinching distinctions between right and wrong.'

This piece is certainly not an example of "neutral objectivity".

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

#272

Post by hardlianotion »

mannschott wrote: post #157
unity1001 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It is a lot

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

#273

Post by jhgb »

lvxferre wrote: post #259
IkmoIkmo wrote: post #201

I don't really see the big issue with Latinx... it seems to me an easy and correct way to refer to latinos and latinas, without saying both, or one or the other, or bringing in gender. Just like we don't have Asianas and Asianos, and we can simply say Asians. It makes less sense to add an s to Latin because Latins refers to something completely different already. Language is constantly changing. As long as references…

>I don't really see the big issue with Latinx... it seems to me an easy and correct way to refer to latinos and latinas, without saying both, or one or the other, or bringing in gender. I see two issues in Spanish, one in English, and two in general. The only viable way to read this word in Spanish would be /latinks/, and it's against the language's phonotactics. So if you must replace the gender mark with something…

> It is not necessary though, simply because grammatical gender is not social gender. There are a thousand ways to conceal the gender of someone in Spanish - refer to "la persona" (always feminine, no matter if you're referring to a man), plurify (the plural will take the masculine for mixed groups), so goes on. Or even, you know, use the default grammatical masculine, like the RAE recommends? Granted the RAE is a bunch of pedants but they're spot on in this case.

I'm wondering, is it the case in Spanish as well that interrogative, negative, and indefinite personal pronouns are grammatically masculine? In those cases you have no other choice in Slavic languages, for example.

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

#274

Post by scollet »

concordDance wrote: post #225
cgrealy wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And let’s be honest: The “satanic panic” had no basis in fact. The idea that role playing gamers were going to do actual magic (or even think they were doing magic) is clearly nonsense. But if you use human ethnicities as the basis for your games monsters… yeah, that’s a real problem. It doesn’t mean you have to ban D&D, but it does mean it should address those issues. Same with rock music. I don’t care if bands writ…

> But if you use human ethnicities as the basis for your games monsters… yeah, that’s a real problem. But they don't? The concept of an orc (big, strong and dumb) does not depend on the existence of any real races.

You picked the one fictional species that does have a questionable origin.

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

#275

Post by lwhi »

franczesko wrote: post #257
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…

The question would be, how many people who declare up front that they're transgender are actually medically diagnosed with such condition and how many just jumped on the bandwagon of what is fancy on the internet right now? Disclaimer - personally, I'm sceptical about the concept and scientific grounds behind transgenderism and I expect my comment to be downvoted.

Preempting downvotes, because you know your comment is not acceptable to the majority, feels like a very cynical device designed to limit that behaviour.

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

#276

Post by joconde »

jurassic wrote: post #252
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…

Anecdotally, in the startup where I worked there was one summer in 2017 when 3 white women (a significant percent of the women in the office at the time) all suddenly came out as non-binary and asked to be called they/them. If that's not some kind of freaky bandwagon thing going on then I don't know what is. It was like a competition to see who could get the most oppression points or something. Now I'm in a different…

> Anecdotally, in the startup where I worked there was one summer in 2017 when 3 white women (a significant percent of the women in the office at the time) all suddenly came out as non-binary and asked to be called they/them. If that's not some kind of freaky bandwagon thing going on then I don't know what is.

Have you considered that they may have been talking about it privately, and decided to come out at the same time to reduce the risk of being singled out for it? I don't see how the timing implies a "bandwagon". It seems obvious that doing that together is less scary than alone.

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

#277

Post by nathias »

wisty wrote: post #25

See "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…

leaky abstractions

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

#278

Post by dragonwriter »

mjburgess wrote: post #150
TameAntelope wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious what any possible alternatives might be to the practical problems "wokeness" tries to present itself as a solution to. I don't think the problem of racism and sexism (two classic "woke" topics) are "Left" problems, which is why it strikes me as odd that I don't see ideas about how to deal with them coming from everyone, beyond a straight denial they exist, or that it's actually the fault of the folks expe…

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.

That’s because “Wokeism” doesn’t exist. Being “woke”, was never a descriptor of a politics but of the state of being aware of and engaged in social and political issues affecting a disadvantaged (originally, specifically Black American) community. It’s now morphed into a label assigned by outside group to anyone whose politics the speakers disagrees with for being too focussed, or focussed in the wrong way, on identity issues. So, yes, there is no coherent material program of Wokeism, because Wokeism isn’t a thing.

Now, within the broad mass that any user of the term labels “Wokeism”, there are many groups that have within them extensive, coherent lists of material demands,

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

#279

Post by jhgb »

dfgpart wrote: post #218
IkmoIkmo wrote: post #201

I don't really see the big issue with Latinx... it seems to me an easy and correct way to refer to latinos and latinas, without saying both, or one or the other, or bringing in gender. Just like we don't have Asianas and Asianos, and we can simply say Asians. It makes less sense to add an s to Latin because Latins refers to something completely different already. Language is constantly changing. As long as references…

Would you say Gringx instead of Gringo? Or afficionadx instead of afficionado? Let the Latin language people decide and not delegate to white commissars.

> Let the Latin language people decide and not delegate to white commissars.

Latins (later known as Romans) were white, though. So their commissars would be white, too.

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

#280

Post by czzr »

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]

No, it just means that the parties switched labels. What the republic party stands for today bears little relation to the party of Lincoln. https://www.google.nl/amp/s/www.history.com/.amp/news/how-th...
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