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?

#591

Post by vidarh » Sat, Sep 04, 2021, 1:24 PM UTC

pigeonhole123 wrote: post #524

vidarh wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking as someone who has my pronouns on my Twitter page, the main purpose is to keep those who get bothered by it away, especially because it should be such a little thing that those that manage to get worked up over it are not people I'm interested in spending time on. I have no problem being on friendly terms with people who think it's a bit silly of me to have them there. But people who are so offended they don…

Don’t you risk adding fuel to a pointless fire?

I tend to see it the opposite way: If it adds fuel, then that is evidence it's not pointless.

If people just disagree and find it silly (and I did myself at one point), then that's their business.

But using someones preferred pronoun is no different from trying to get their name right. It's basic respect and courtesy. That so many people take offence at being asked to show basic respect for others is the reason why so many people who have no personal use for putting our pronouns anywhere increasingly do so, to help normalise it.

People don't need to like that.

But if that's enough to fuel a fire, then let it burn.

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

#592

Post by bawana » Sat, Sep 04, 2021, 1:24 PM UTC

Is ‘Jordan Peterson-ism’ a reaction to wokeness?

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

#593

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Sep 04, 2021, 1:24 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #549

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 pre…

[deleted]

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

#594

Post by dukeofdoom » Sat, Sep 04, 2021, 1:24 PM UTC

nonameiguess wrote: post #554

zpeti wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the entire reason Maybe it’s a teeny weeny more complex than that? Plenty of cultures and religions that did the same don’t exist any more. So I don’t think killing heretics and taking their children is a guarantee to success for a religion.

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

#595

Post by amanaplanacanal » Sat, Sep 04, 2021, 1:25 PM UTC

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…

I’m not sure why there would be a backlash. Why would anybody else care if I identify as male, female, or nonbinary? And frankly, why should I care about what those people think?

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

#596

Post by luffapi » Sat, Sep 04, 2021, 1:27 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #553

christophilus wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that teaching kids to be critical of one sliver of reality, while uncritically absorbing anything from another sliver is a pedagogical crime. What we ought to be teaching is critical thinking.

Kids need to be socialized in the ideas and values that make their civilization successful. Critical thinking is one piece of that, but we focus too much on it in elite environs. We also need to teach kids to tend to the edifice of civilization we’ve built, not just how to tear pieces of it down.

What does it mean for a civilization to be “successful”? The vast majority of our progress has been made off of exploration, slavery and war. The latter fueling the entire tech industry starting with the code cracking computers of WWII and the nuclear holocaust survivable internet. Who is working the mines for the materials in our iPhones, and under what conditions?

It’s worthwhile to teach children the true history of progress and ask if perhaps there isn’t a better way.

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

#597

Post by mkr-hn » Sat, Sep 04, 2021, 1:27 PM UTC

concordDance wrote: post #331

yawaworht1978 wrote: post #327

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.

Some of those Xes, Ys, and Zs are actually good points and it's good the people who were talking about it all along have a voice now. Just because some people, usually not those actually affected, go overboard or talk over the people they're trying to help doesn't invalidate the concerns.

It's actually good that, now, I understand the big ol generic "Indian" with a war bonnet painted in the school gym when I was a kid was a misrepresentation and misuse of sacred, hard-earned symbols. It's good that I know whose land those pipelines cut across now. It's good that I understand spirit animals are a sacred, private thing, not something to bandy about or declare for every fleeting interest on Twitter. It's good that I know naming certain evils is kind of a jerk move to do in a crowd of people who believe in them.

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

#598

Post by spangry » Sat, Sep 04, 2021, 1:29 PM UTC

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…

Sounds very similar to "Prevalence-induced concept change in human judgment" - https://www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/science.aap8731

> Why do some social problems seem so intractable? In a series of experiments, we show that people often respond to decreases in the prevalence of a stimulus by expanding their concept of it. When blue dots became rare, participants began to see purple dots as blue; when threatening faces became rare, participants began to see neutral faces as threatening; and when unethical requests became rare, participants began to see innocuous requests as unethical. This “prevalence-induced concept change” occurred even when participants were forewarned about it and even when they were instructed and paid to resist it. Social problems may seem intractable in part because reductions in their prevalence lead people to see more of them.

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

#599

Post by fallingknife » Sat, Sep 04, 2021, 1:30 PM UTC

chakkepolja wrote: post #354

chakkepolja wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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I can't edit, but what was wrong with that question? I am not american btw.

Nothing. You are just on a forum that is populated mostly by people on the left of the political spectrum in the US, and you alluded to fact that contradicts their current moral panic about the danger of "Nazi" groups in the US. And, yes, they are much rarer.

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

#600

Post by notacoward » Sat, Sep 04, 2021, 1:31 PM UTC

lemmsjid wrote: post #358

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 think the answer to your question is actually answered in your first paragraph. In the same way that you believe all Christians shouldn’t be judged by those who haven’t “practiced what they’ve preached”, consider that your understanding of “woke” people might be tainted by the fact that whatever media you are consuming might be focusing on the ones who also don’t practice what they preach. In other words, any movem…

Exactly. It's selection bias, ruthlessly exploited by people who have their own agenda and therefore an interest in focusing attention on the worst excesses of those who resist (continued) imposition of that agenda.

What might that agenda be? Here's a hint. A certain "shadow docket" decision by the US Supreme Court has been in the news a bit lately. As it turns out, all five of the concurring justices are Catholic, and under pressure (e.g. threats of being denied communion) to decide as they did. That pressure should have been grounds for recusal, but of course none of the five had the decency to do that. Where's the "mercy and grace" in that law? What "woke" group is doing that much harm to that many people's lives?