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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?

#681

Post by eplanit »

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…

What about if their tattoos are swastikas or nooses, and the "non-conformist" views are antithetical with the ideals of "wokeness"? They're "doing as they like", so let them express and find themselves, right?

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

#682

Post by refurb »

elzbardico wrote: post #607
yawaworht1978 wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's permanent, it will just change shape and be less radical. The hippies are still a bit hippies deep down inside, and their main objective has been achieved. People know they can be hippies and it will be fine. I am more unsure as to why subcultures have been ostracized in the first place if they do no harm to others. When I lived in a huge city for the first time, i realized how unimportant all that was,…

Let's not forget that most Jack-Welch yuppie downsizing acolytes were hippies in a former life. Kind of scary when you think about it.

Of course. Steve Jobs dropped acid, went to India and didn’t bath. He also stole ideas from others, screamed at people who disagreed and drove his employees like slaves and became a billionaire.

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

#683

Post by Zababa »

karmelapple wrote: post #488
FiberBundle wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some, even most, of the goals of that movement are commendable, with the exception of the more idealistic goals such as equality of outcome. What I find worrying, however, are the tactics that are used to accomplish those goals. I find it hard to understand how people do not see how discriminating against other people because of their views is not the right approach to solve discrimination.

Do you have a few concrete examples of large groups strongly advocating for equality of outcomes? I’ve had discussions about “equality” with folks aligned across the political spectrum, and most everyone agrees they want equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome. I’m confused about who or what group is speaking about people desiring equality of outcome. And discriminating against other people because of their…

Aren't many groups advocating for quotas? In France, it's a thing now to try to always have as much women as men in groups, especially those with high prestige (government, board of directors, etc). I don't know if it's precisely a few groups advocating for it, but it's now a thing most people expect. That's for me an example of equality of outcomes and not of oppurtunity.

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

#684

Post by benlivengood »

FiberBundle wrote: post #487
jasonlotito wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would you suggest that wasn’t tried before? Conversations, education, peaceful protests, etc. None worked as well as this. If someone is punching you in the face every single day, and nothing you try that’s non violent works, but suddenly you get results when you push back, wouldn’t you employ that method? Sure, it hurts the person punching you, but they were punching you.

Well a good first step would be to accept that societal changes take time to develop. We have made huge progress in areas such as women's rights. Asian immigrants, which were severely discriminated against in the past, have achieved tremendous upward mobility in our society. There are many other areas in which our society has progressed. All of this progress has occurred without any of the radical discrimatory tactic…

> We have made huge progress in areas such as women's rights.

In the U.S. there is still a major fight for women's reproductive rights, with frequent backsliding (TX is the most extreme recent example).

> All of this progress has occurred without any of the radical discrimatory tactics that are used today.

Every step toward restoring human rights to marginalized groups has been labeled radical (because technically it is radical compared to the status quo) and must come at the expense of some privilege that others hold. Privilege, however, is not a human right and therefore not something inherently worthy of protection.

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

#685

Post by concordDance »

mkr-hn wrote: post #597
concordDance wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ki…

Goodness is orthogonal to liberalism. Something can be illiberal but good or Liberal but bad.

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

#686

Post by evv555 »

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…

See syllogisms. Technically a battle against "whiteness" is not the same as a battle against "white". But in practice the syllogism makes the two indifferentiable.

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

#687

Post by brokencode »

zpeti wrote: post #669
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…

Unfortunately this laissez fair approach is the exact opposite of modern wokeness. It’s their way or it’s attacks and cancellation. If you’re an oppressor class you have almost no way to be forgiven. The easiest way to show this is just ask some woke stars on their views of libertarianism, which is literally to let everyone be themselves.

From my experience, what libertarians really want is freedom for themselves. They do not actually care how their actions affect others.

For example, I’ve yet to meet a libertarian who cares about their carbon emissions, even though that affects everybody else via climate change. Same goes for coronavirus - they don’t care if they spread the disease to others, but they feel like it’s oppression if they have to wear a mask.

And the same goes for trampling on the feelings of others, or passively accepting that they’ve been given huge advantages over others in society. They feel like they should be able to do anything short of actually stealing from or hurting others physically, and don’t consider the subtle ways they impact others in society.

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

#688

Post by refurb »

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…

Not going to lie, but that type of education seems like a great way to create a massive bolus of right-leaning kids that reject the ideas forced on them by their parents generation (they always rebel!) that just lead to self-defeating internal dialogue.

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

#689

Post by rdtwo »

bambataa wrote: post #216
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…

I have noticed this with “victim blaming”. I understood it to refer fairly specifically to sexual assault victims being blamed for “asking for it” by wearing a skirt or whatever. Now I see it being used in relationship advice subreddits and agony aunt columns to basically mean “don’t dare disagree with me” when someone decides that they were the victim in some some dispute.

Victim blaming is still acceptable in our culture except the victim has to fall into a certain demographic.

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

#690

Post by bushbaba »

graeme wrote: post #623
rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gendered nouns are kind of silly and antiquated when you think about it though, and many languages have a neuter gender too (e.g. German). The "X" suffix is an attempt by younger Spanish speakers to introduce a neuter gender to their native language. English doesn't have gendered nouns, but we do have gendered pronouns, which not all languages have. Chinese doesn't have gendered pronouns, which is why you'll often he…

> The "X" suffix is an attempt by younger Spanish speakers to introduce a neuter gender to their native language. This isn’t true. The term is enormously unpopular with latinos, only 3% use it. The entire spanish language uses gendered nouns, and unlike german has no neuter. The term may have originated with puerto rican academics but it is mostly used by English speakers. https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2020/08…

It’s being driven by non Hispanics. Almost an example of a group using their privilege to force unwanted action on a minority.
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