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?

#711

Post by jackson1442 » Sat, Sep 04, 2021, 3:02 PM UTC

bequanna wrote: post #696

zpeti wrote: post #669

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Indeed. The woke are experts at placing people into endless categories and determining which is “good” or “bad”. Which are the “oppressors” and the “victims”. Listen to their rhetoric, it is pretty much the opposite of live and let live. One of the more ridiculous ideas to come out of this is that “everything is a human construct”. For example, it appears to be a woke idea that mathematics, science is some human (mor…

> For example, it appears to be a woke idea that mathematics, science is some human (more specifically, white) invention and we should explore “alternative mathematics” or “alternative science”.

Do you have a source for this? I’ve never heard of either of these terms, the closest being the “alternative facts” of one of Trump’s press secretaries.

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

#712

Post by luckylion » Sat, Sep 04, 2021, 3:03 PM UTC

the_rectifier wrote: post #627

kongin wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It already happened with rape. We need a separate word for leering, groping, fondling, sex with dubious consent, and violently beating someone during penetration without consent. Rape used to mean only the last thing and it was regarded as basically the worst form of assault short of murder since it included every possible form of assault. Today it's moved to fondling and people are trying to make it include leering.…

> Rape used to mean only the last thing and it was regarded as basically the worst form of assault No, it did not. That's why you find courts always charged offenders for multiple different crimes when they are carried out together: rape, assault, kidnapping, life threats...

It's much clearer in German. Rape = Vergewaltigung. It contains gewalt = violence. Stuff like "rape by deception" as a court ruled in Israel because a Jewish Israeli woman had sex with a man she though to be Jewish but wasn't shouldn't be considered rape (I'd argue being the wrong ethnicity while having consensual sex shouldn't be a crime at all).

Now we have rape and we also have rape rape, like, the real rape.

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

#713

Post by sgregnt » Sat, Sep 04, 2021, 3:03 PM UTC

cloudfifty wrote: post #695

zpeti wrote: post #669

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> libertarianism, which is literally to let everyone be themselves No, it isn't. Its core is to enforce private property rights? That will very likely not translate into "letting everyone be themselves".

AFAIK The core is freedom, i.e. a lack of coercion of any kind.

If, to be yourself, you need to claim someone else property, then Libertrarians would say it goes against the core principles of liberty, because to execute this claim you exercise coertion.

But as long as you do not exert coercion on no one else, you're free to be yourself anyway you like.

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

#714

Post by colinmhayes » Sat, Sep 04, 2021, 3:04 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…

I went to a decently progressive elementary school, and the kids were absolutely racist by second grade. It'd be nice if we could just ignore race, but that's not reality yet.

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

#715

Post by jhgb » Sat, Sep 04, 2021, 3:04 PM UTC

ukoki wrote: post #180

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…

> Today, young English speakers are trying to popularize "they" as an English neuter pronoun, and it's not too absurd: we already use "they" this way when the gender of the person is unknown. I can understand why 'they' is chosen as a way to introduce neutrality of gender but it pains me that this also introduces of ambiguity of plurality. We _really_ need a gender-neutral third-person singular pronoun. We're lucky t…

> We're lucky that our first and second-person pronouns and our plural pronouns by fluke of language evolution just happen to already be gender neutral.

Is it "a fluke"? You generally know a lot about the first and second person in a conversation. You know yourself and you see who you're talking to. There's no need for more precision for the first or second person. When trying to point to a specific individual other than one of the two interlocutors, however, finer distinctions help. That doesn't seem like "a fluke" to me. That actually seems to make quite a lot of sense.

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

#716

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Sep 04, 2021, 3:04 PM UTC

seastonATccs wrote: post #645

"Wokeness" is not jumping. The idea that everyone, even traditionally protected classes, should be held responsible for their actions is spreading.

[deleted]

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

#717

Post by igravious » Sat, Sep 04, 2021, 3:04 PM UTC

DethNinja wrote: post #680

I think people are over-analysing this issue here at HN. It is far better for upper class to ensure that people discuss and focus on issues like gender and skin colour than the class differences. Hence, they ensured that this is the issue plebs would hear all over on the media and shift their attention from class divides to gender and skin colour.

This is correct with the caveat that there's no "they" there.

Or like people say, there's identity politics and then there's actual politics.

Or yet another way of putting it is that class differences trump fake differences in the real world but academia and the media focus on fake differences.

Hierarchies and social strata exist and persist over centuries. The problem of economic inequality is a tough nut to crack. We have pretended to ourselves that there is decent social mobility and that economic inequality is not too bad. But it's bad, so – hey – let's focus on non-issues of race and gender and whatnot.

Some call "wokeness" radical egalitarianism – enlightenment ideals taken to their breaking point and beyond. People urge us to focus on reaching some utopian ideal of equality of outcomes. Better to focus on reducing economic inequalities. But entrenched interests will not share the pot without being forced to, I believe.

This is the defining struggle of our era – of every era really. The struggle between those who have access to opportunity and wealth and those that barely do.

It's a lie that we've had a bunch of popular revolutions. We've never truly had one. A landed aristocracy and merchant class has held sway over us all (systemically) from feudal and aristocratic times down through to this era of nation states – be they communist or capitalist, doesn't matter.

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

#718

Post by beerandt » Sat, Sep 04, 2021, 3:05 PM UTC

cloudfifty wrote: post #695

zpeti wrote: post #669

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> libertarianism, which is literally to let everyone be themselves No, it isn't. Its core is to enforce private property rights? That will very likely not translate into "letting everyone be themselves".

Private property rights, or being manifestly in control of the fruits of ones labor.

Or the exact opposite of slavery.

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

#719

Post by zpeti » Sat, Sep 04, 2021, 3:05 PM UTC

cloudfifty wrote: post #695

zpeti wrote: post #669

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> libertarianism, which is literally to let everyone be themselves No, it isn't. Its core is to enforce private property rights? That will very likely not translate into "letting everyone be themselves".

If a group wants to organise a non property right town or city or country, that’s fine by libertarians. If everyone is making that choice freely.

So freedom is the core.

What you are talking about is more Austrian economics.

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

#720

Post by achenatx » Sat, Sep 04, 2021, 3:06 PM UTC

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…

Any outcome that diverges from the percent population means the institution is racist. This is literally the foundation of woke culture

1) More blacks are incarcerated than their representation in the population. Therefore the justice/police system is racist and must be abolished (BLM)

2) Minorities cant get loans in proportion to their representation in the population therefore the financial system is racist and must be abolished. Banking must be taken over by the govt

https://www.sierraclub.org/articles/2020/12/follow-money-how...

3) Minorities cannot achieve the same scores in math and science, therefore math and science are racist and must be abolished.

https://money.cnn.com/2016/09/06/technology/weapons-of-math-... etc etc. This goes for any disparity of outcome by race.