' mostly white, educated, left-leaning Americans' is not the same as ' most white, educated, left-leaning Americans'
While you are semantically correct, you're ignoring the actual phenomenon that is being discussed. Whether or not a literal majority of white, middle-class, left-leaning Americans believe in Critical Race Theory or The Patriarchy is irrelevant. 20 years ago it was only discussed in Academia, whereas now these theories hold a significant influence over many peoples' political, business and social lives.
While I agree that it's no longer confined to Liberal Arts departments, I don't agree that it has influence on many people's lives (although that depends on how we define 'many'.)
Wokeness is generally treated as a joke among virtually every American whose employment is not dependent on 'public opinion', SNL's Levi's Woke Jeans skit is a classic take on that.
I don't know whether politicians are catering to over the top wokeness in order to be all-inclusive for votes, or if they believe (because they let someone else do their homework) that the majority of their constituency demands it.
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 beca…
Wokeness is essentially a New England Puritan movement with some minor modifications. Even the sources (Ivy Leagues) are the same. If you view it through this lens, the lack of tolerance and crusader zeal becomes very apparent. It is perhaps the exact opposite of libertarianism.
Edit: some Puritan libertarians do not like this comment :)
You've nailed it. Analysis of social movements often doesn't take the intent of the ruling class into account nearly enough, and for good reason - part of their program is to deflect attention away from themselves and make it look organic.
> part of their program Who's they? Name names.
Goldman Sachs is happy to sponsor floats for the gay pride parade (which incidentally is by now a huge commercial opportunity anyways), they were far less happy about the Occupy Wallstreet movement.
I agree, and I'm concerned about the divide and conquer-type of impact it's having in societal discourse. This effect seems way too convenient (and beneficial) for the ruling class, and in that respect, I'm afraid academia may be inadvertantly working against the common interest of the working classes by pushing these worldviews.
It's called recuperation and it doesn't even require nefarious intent. These days anti-capitalism is literally sold as a commodity. Anti-consumerism has become a consumer identity. While this helps deradicalization by diverting the radical energy away from actual causes towards consumption, it also tends to make a good profit. The problem isn't the worldviews. The problem is that you can't fight capitalism through co…
You, i like you. I did not know about the Union stuff nor the movie "Pride", so thank you. You are saying what i've been trying to say, staying factual and mesured.
I have no data or research supporting my opinion.
What I think is happening is this:
Rich countries now allow people to have an abundance of free time and an easy way to connect to like minded peers.
This results in anyone in a "phase" of their life finding a number of other people in a similar "phase" and instead of moving on to the next "phase" they re-enforce each other's current "phase".
As an example, this means a person who would temporarily feel insecure about their "gender" (maybe 1 transgender person in a 1000) and who would normally get to ignore it, now these people are a lot more likely to find support for their current "phase" online and decide to follow through.
What does this say about people?
We are all sheep that find like minded peers to help us conform to our current state of mind.
In the past it was much harder to stray away from "traditional" view of world but now it is much easier and more accessible.
The problem is not with people following through and embracing different view of the world, the problem is that they are now expecting everyone else to "embrace" their new view of the world and themselves.
While it is perfectly valid to expect to be treated equally in the view of the "law", I believe it is equally invalid to force your view of the world onto other people.
Let's be blunt - if I believe I am GOD and control the world, I cannot reasonably expect other people to accept this and conform to my wishes.
The "woke" culture is trying to do the something similar, is is no longer enough to be equal = now "woke" people expect everyone to accept that their "woke" view of the world is valid and whatever other views may exist are irrelevant.
This is, in my opinion, just an immature and narrow minded expectation as the old no-homosexual, no-transgender views that existed in the past.
What you see yourself as right now is your problem and other people can perceive you however they see fit.
We are all most likely just a bunch of assholes anyway so leave everyone else alone and live your life.
>The Current Dominant Culture Haha, travel more buddy, the dominant culture is the country's own culture, not the one from the US. You know, the US adapted Beer and Sushi too. BTW: Movies, Games and "Social-media" is NOT Culture but cheap entertainment.
Spaniard here. Here, If you are aware of new wokeness trends in the US is question of about 3 months until the spanish left and media start parroting the new word, idea or whatever. The consumed culture is overwhelmingly US based. Netflix, social media... The local shows that happen to succeed, mostly are created due to legal obligations imposed by the goverment. If it were not for that...
An obervation, though, is that the academic underpinnings of the “wokeness trends” you’re describing were very explicitly leveraging modern French philosophers. Don’t pretend Continental thinking did not have a string influence on the situation :). That’s to your first paragraph, I quite share your thoughts on your second one.
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…
If you want to go deep down the rabbit hole here, break your brain, probably ruin your career and seriously damage your ability to interact with woke culture ever again, you can listen to an interview with the author of the book, "The Transgender Industrial Complex" in which the author alleges with copious documentation that the transgender movement is complete astroturf. He did deep research to discover where the tr…
This is ridiculous; I've known people through their transition. It is not a fad.
Has everyone forgotten famous hacker Sophie Wilson?
More weird is that Merican Wokeness is replacing *ness in other countries. Finnish has only one personal pronoun for all sexes, but Woke Finns add American Pronouns to their twitter pages.
> Woke Finns add American Pronouns to their twitter pages
Social memia is the game of acquiring cheap prestige. Imitation of fleeting English fads is one such cheap use.
I 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.
Indeed, there are only two positions available on any given issue and we are all compelled to pick one.