How did American “wokeness” jump from elite schools to everyday life? • Hacker News Board

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

#541

Post by swayvil » Sat, Sep 04, 2021, 12:37 PM UTC

sandworm101 wrote: post #453

clusterfish wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But lots of people want that power. And most of us agree that it's bad. But most of us somehow don't agree that forcing wokeness on others is bad. Because the woke ones can't possibly imagine being wrong. Theirs is the right way, everyone else are bigots and racists. It's an aggressive religion, a cult even.

Because wokeness is not enforced by the state. It is a matter for individuals and companies. No swords are involved.

Losing your job can be pretty sword-like.

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

#542

Post by School-Cotton » Sat, Sep 04, 2021, 12:37 PM UTC

cout wrote: post #474

School-Cotton wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Latino/a excludes French-speaking Haitians The vast majority of Haitians don’t speak French, but if they did, why would “Latino” exclude them? French is a Latin-derived language as much as Spanish and Portuguese are, and “latino” is a substring of the word for “Latin American” in all three languages (Latinoaméricain, in the case of French).

Correct, the majority speak Haitian Creole, though that is a language derived in part from French. I don't want to debate whether Creole-speaking and French-speaking Haitians should be considered Latin, only point out that many people do consider them Latin, since Hispanola is part of Latin America. French typically uses no suffix for masculine words and a -e suffix for feminine words. I am not a fluent French speake…

Latinoaméricain is not derived from Spanish; it follows native French conventions for demonyms (e.g. New Zealanders are néozélandais).

The term Latin America (Amérique latine) was in fact often used with the explicit intent of highlighting the cultural similarity between French people and Latin Americans.

From Wikipedia:

There is no universal agreement on the origin of the term Latin America. The concept and term came into being in the nineteenth century, following political independence of countries from Spain and Portugal. It was popularized in 1860s France during the reign of Napoleon III. The term Latin America was a part of its attempt to create a French empire in the Americas.[13] Research has shown that the idea that a part of the Americas has a linguistic and cultural affinity with the Romance cultures as a whole can be traced back to the 1830s, in the writing of the French Saint-Simonian Michel Chevalier, who postulated that this part of the Americas was inhabited by people of a "Latin race", and that it could, therefore, ally itself with "Latin Europe", ultimately overlapping the Latin Church, in a struggle with "Teutonic Europe", "Anglo-Saxon America," and "Slavic Europe."[14]

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

#543

Post by octonion » Sat, Sep 04, 2021, 12:37 PM UTC

AbrahamParangi wrote: post #451

p0d wrote: post #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 beca…

Under the woke philosophy the criterion for deserving forgiveness still exists but is changed. In classical Christian philosophy, forgiveness requires contrition whereas under woke philosophy forgiveness requires powerlessness . This is often misinterpreted as an absence of forgiveness because no amount of contrition seems to abate the condemnation.

Under American society it had been deemed adequate to feign contrition to maintain the entrenched power structure, while continuing to engage in the same terrible behavior as before. That's no longer being tolerated.

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

#544

Post by howinteresting » Sat, Sep 04, 2021, 12:38 PM UTC

eweise wrote: post #117

soared wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Id recommend getting outside of your social circle/geo a bit more. I’ve never once experienced this in Denver, and have only ever seen gender pronouns be a thing on linkedin.

My last job we were all highly encouraged by the CEO to add our preferred pronouns to our profiles. Just another reason I left.

That seems like a good thing for the trans and nonbinary employees at your former workplace.

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

#545

Post by swayvil » Sat, Sep 04, 2021, 12:40 PM UTC

AbrahamParangi wrote: post #451

p0d wrote: post #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 beca…

Under the woke philosophy the criterion for deserving forgiveness still exists but is changed. In classical Christian philosophy, forgiveness requires contrition whereas under woke philosophy forgiveness requires powerlessness . This is often misinterpreted as an absence of forgiveness because no amount of contrition seems to abate the condemnation.

Thus the power of the victim.

So many arguments start with a declaration of victimhood.

So many arguments over who is the greatest victim.

Greatest victim = greatest authority.

And so it follows that "suffering" carries the greatest epistemological weight. Which sounds kinda awful on the face of it.

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

#546

Post by amanaplanacanal » Sat, Sep 04, 2021, 12:40 PM UTC

trainsplanes wrote: post #301

foldr wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most Latinos in the US are of Mexican origin. Mexico is not in South America.

Then the term there is Latin Americans

If they are immigrants. Wouldn’t fit if they are just visiting.

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

#547

Post by Zandikar » Sat, Sep 04, 2021, 12:43 PM UTC

p0d wrote: post #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 beca…

> 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.

Perhaps that's true. But too many of your fellow faithful do, or at least, want to. Just look at Texas and their recent abortion law for one of many egregious and current examples of "good christians" spreading the "good word".

The ruthlessness is born of centuries of persecution, belittlement, prejudice, and hate. This does not make it justified, but it is a natural consequence of the masses and the natural swing of the social pendulum.

I suspect you very much do understand, but just wish it weren't true, just as the woke and the progressive overlook their own overreach, hate, prejudice and hypocrisies in their plight to right perceived wrongs and pursue some balance of equality and opportunity.

In order to achieve peace and understanding, we must hold ourselves responsible, and our own accountable, and that starts with not being ignorant (willful or otherwise) to the misdeeds of those in each of our own tribes.

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

#548

Post by reycharles » Sat, Sep 04, 2021, 12:44 PM UTC

timonoko wrote: post #112

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.

Could it be these Finns interact with English speaking tweeps?

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

#549

Post by rayiner » Sat, Sep 04, 2021, 12:45 PM UTC

Our political and cultural institutions are dominated by people who attended those elite schools. This is the next batch of folks who will be doing your IPO paperwork: https://freebeacon.com/campus/northwestern-law-administrator...

Now it’s making the jump to K-12. My second grader is apparently learning how to develop an “identity” around her “skin tone” (according to an email from her teacher). This has had the predictable effect of making my daughter unhappy with her dark skin. Kids are perceptive. Her teacher is making a big deal out of skin tone and how society sees dark skinned people as inferior, and naturally she wonders why society might pervasively believe it if it wasn’t true. (She goes to a progressive, diverse, private school in deep blue Maryland, so she’s not developing this sentiment from the other kids. I went to a very white, quite red Virginia public school 30 years ago and nobody ever told me about brown skin being bad.)

Anyone who objects to this sort of teaching—not just teaching history, to be clear, but teaching woke concepts—is attacked as a Republican: https://www.vox.com/22644220/critical-race-theory-bans-antir...

> In early June, Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) signed a bill that restricts what teachers can teach in K-12 schools and at public universities, particularly when it comes to sexism and racism. It bans 10 concepts that Republican legislators define as “divisive,” including the idea that “one race or sex is superior to another,” that members of a particular race are inherently inclined to oppress others, and that “the U.S. and Iowa are fundamentally racist or sexist.”

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

#550

Post by foolinaround » Sat, Sep 04, 2021, 12:46 PM UTC

praestigiare wrote: post #516

p0d wrote: post #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 beca…

There is a significant difference in that woke, like SJW, is for the most part a derogatory term. It would be as if the word "christian" was a word created by athiests specifically to refer to those who did not practice what they preached. Any discussion of the merits of "wokeness" is approaching the subject in a biased and unproductive way. I would suggest that those you would describe as woke have, on average, just…

> It would be as if the word "christian" was a word created by athiests specifically to refer to those who did not practice what they preached.

May off-topic, but it might be interesting to note that 'christian' was similarly not something the Christians called themselves, but were derisively called that by others as in "followers of Christ or Messiah' alluding to the fact that they followed Jesus who proclaimed himself as messiah but was killed in a pitiful way in their eyes. The Christians actually called themselves "people of The Way"

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You make a good point that when starting with a derogatory term does not lead to a productive debate. How would the 'woke people' define themselves?

For example, justice is not a new concept. It exists in every society, even the most primitive ones. So, justice as we have it in the US or West, could be seen as derived from English Common Law, which in turn was derived from the Bible's Judeo-Christian origins. Since the times and the culture of the people had changed, the laws itself have evolved.

So, what should 'social justice' bring to the table? Are there opponents of these woke actions that agree with the perpetrators of sexual harassment? If not, why are we debating an area we are in full agreement?