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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?

#331

It's just a shift from older, less flexible values like family, church etc to the more open minded approach, "do as you like". Nothing wrong with people having tattoos everywhere, green or violet hair, non conformist clothing and views. Let them be, let them express and find themselves. I am the shave every day suit kinda guy and will remain so, but if someone chooses to be different or wants to complain about new wo…

Modern wokism is actually defined by illiberalism. It's very much about what you are not allowed to do. Not dressing like X, not using Y things, not saying Z, not getting a place at uni or a job due to having the wrong skin color, etc.

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

#332
post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you describe as "fascinating" is just a crazy conspiracy theory. The link you give also just throws homosexuality and bisexuality in there as well and while not exactly saying that all those things are "unhealthy for a society" basically alledges this in the first few sentences.

These guys interviewing him are right-wing Christians, who are the only people who would ever interview this guy, as he wouldn't get past the woke filter on just about any other podcast, so you'll just have to accept that they're going to have that point of view to begin with. The guy has a lot of documentation for where this all came from out of nowhere. I bought the book and it's fascinating how much documentation…

Using an obviously derogatory term for trans people really doesn't help your point at all. It hints to the possibility that you have a personal belief that sees trans people as unnatural and because of that belief it's easier for you to believe in an outlandish conspiracy theory than simply accepting that the reason for an increase in visible trans people is acceptance by society.

Edit for context since OP has edited his comment without acknowledging it: Where it now says ""transsexuals"" it said "trannies" before.

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

#333

I noticed that when I click the thumbs-up emoji in Slack, I now have to select its skin color. That's fucking dystopian.

Be happy that you don't have to prove your skin color to Slack yet. You're currently still able to appropriate minority skin colors, but I guess we're just one white guy using a brown-skin thumbs-up ("it's literally the brown thumbs, it's the modern brown shirts") before Slack mandates skin color tests.

Do you honestly believe what you type?

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

#334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean I dated a transgender person, were they being paid or something? explain to me what was going on there.

They were being influenced. Influence is real. Advertising is not a trillion dollar business because it doesn't work.

Transgendered behavior has been recorded for quite some time. Advertising as a trillion dollar business is relatively new. How about applying Occams Razor? The simpler explanation of transgenderism is that the confluence of nature and nurture is as complex as all other biological processes we know about and leads to all sorts of expressions of gender self identification. I know it’s tempting to succumb to the notion that the universe is so orderly that aberrations must be explained by some overarching conspiracy (or godlike behavior), but that does fly in the face of observed behavior.

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

#335
post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's not the whole story. Kids are also very malleable, open to peer pressure and easily assume identities that earn them acceptance by their peers.

Exactly. Transphobia often leads to trauma after getting ostracized by one's peers. I've never seen evidence of "wokeness" being nearly as nasty. You don't get bullied or singled out for not being trans.

Sure but go spend about 9 minutes around the kubernetes Twittersphere (a group with a large amount of white trans people) and you’ll see very quickly just how nasty it can be in its own way

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

#336

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…

Alternative explanation: there have always been as many transgender kids, but they hid it because they knew they'd get bullied by everyone, including their own parents.

However there are things appearing such as clustering of cases (for want of a better word) amoung groups of friends. Times did a piece on it a few years back can't find it. Anyway that would suggest that prevalence stats might muddied somewhat.

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

#337

I noticed that when I click the thumbs-up emoji in Slack, I now have to select its skin color. That's fucking dystopian.

It is interesting. On the one hand, I can see how the previous model could be sightly alienating to anyone who's skin color doesn't obviously map to "Simpsons Yellow". However, whether people pay attention to it or not, the new interface quantifies approval in a way which can be segmented by skin color, which seems kind of odd.

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

#338
post #290
post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's dangerous to dismiss transgenderism to be the result of psychological mishaps caused by environmental mishaps. You're effectively presenting a transgender person as a second class person, or a mistake. You're also aligning the ability to grow a beard with being a 1st class citizen.

It is equally dangerous to ignore environmental factors. We also know that male fertility is on a sharp decline but don't know why, this may be related and should be investigated.

And we know biphenol/phthalate chemicals mimic estrogen in the body and have been in just about everything for the last couple generations. At least it has to be considered. Hormones

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

#339
post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's dangerous to dismiss transgenderism to be the result of psychological mishaps caused by environmental mishaps. You're effectively presenting a transgender person as a second class person, or a mistake. You're also aligning the ability to grow a beard with being a 1st class citizen.

Nope, what you’re doing is totally misrepresenting what I’ve said. I’m saying if there are more effeminate men you’ll have on average more people who are transgender. Myself I can barely grow a beard and have man boobs that I’m trying to get rid of and hardly any body hair (yet my Dad has a full beard and hairy chest, I’m asking why is there this big difference in just one generation) but hopefully I still count as a…

Be aware that men are coming under the same pressure on appearance that women have had for decades.

I'm in my 50's, and can remember a time when there wasn't this awareness of men's bodies. While it was admirable to be fit, and women certainly appreciated muscles and a lack of a beer gut, it wasn't seen as that important. Men could be flabby and still seen as physically attractive.

Moobs are normal. Not being able to grow a thick beard is normal. Body hair, or any hair, or not, is normal (I could count the number of hairs on my chest in my 20's and never once considered this to be unusual or in any way affecting my masculinity). I have friends who were balding in their mid-20's and that was normal.

The difference between 30 years ago and now is not in men's bodies. It's in our attitudes to men's bodies.

Men (and women, as always) are being taught to hate our bodies because businesses can profit from that emotion. We are being told that no-one will love us unless we're taller, stronger, hairier. We're being fed images of "perfect" men as aspirational targets that we should aspire to match (and to get there we need to buy a bunch of products, obviously).

We need to learn that all bodies are different, and all are acceptable. It's normal to have flabby bits. If you have to hate something, don't hate your body, hate the people telling you that your body is not good enough.

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

#340
As a christian I believe in mercy and grace. And yes, many of us 'believers' have not practised what we preached. Many of us do try however not to be hypocrites.

Here's my question. Where is mercy and grace in the midst of wokeness? I want you to believe my christian message but I will not force you to do so. I don't want to introduce laws to force you to believe what I believe. I don't want you to lose your job because you don't agree with me. There seems to me to be a ruthlessness to wokeness which I don't understand.

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