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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?

#831

Post by vidarh »

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".

Right wing libertarianism obsesses over property rights. The original left wing libertarianism rejects property rights as incompatible with maximising liberty.

Dejacque, the father or libertarianism criticised Proudhon, the father of anarchism for being a "moderate anarchist, liberal but not libertarian", but strongly supported his infamous "property is theft".

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

#832

Post by todd8 »

shlant wrote: post #724
karmelapple wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It does seem that the "equality of outcome" criticism mostly is coming from spaces inhabited and informed by people like Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro and Dennis Prager. From what I have seen it is mostly used as a strawman because, as you mentioned, I too have not really seen anyone seriously arguing for equality of outcomes (if anyone has examples, please share).

Aren't college admissions policies in the US a widespread, institutional example of "equality of outcomes" thinking?

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

#833

Post by cloudfifty »

vidarh wrote: post #831
cloudfifty wrote: post #695

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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".

Right wing libertarianism obsesses over property rights. The original left wing libertarianism rejects property rights as incompatible with maximising liberty. Dejacque, the father or libertarianism criticised Proudhon, the father of anarchism for being a "moderate anarchist, liberal but not libertarian", but strongly supported his infamous "property is theft".

yup, exactly. Unfortunately the original meaning is almost never what's meant by libertarianism.

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

#834

Post by guerrilla »

beerandt wrote: post #705
ahallock wrote: post #698

The "woke" movement uses the same tactics as religions. Followers try to shame you and offer absolution for your original sin of racism or transphobia. There are different sects of wokeness, similar to denominations in the Christian Church. It's also a form of mob mentality and bullying. Corporations, unsurprisingly, have also jumped on the trend.

Anyone who doesn't have a (or acknowledge their) religion is really just oblivious to what theirs really is. religion being the loose/broad definition, and not necessarily (but sometimes) the dogmatic and organized big R Religion.

I think there's a lot of truth in what you're saying but I think there are also many exceptions which would include many academic philosophers, people who vascilate a lot and people really looking for something but not having found it.

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

#835

Post by idroveatrain »

bsksi wrote: post #823
zozbot234 wrote: post #758

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's especially ironic since "upper class media" are far whiter than many other industries. Yet somehow, they're never expected to undergo the Maoist self-criticism and struggle sessions they demand from others.

White is not the race you're looking at.

Is "white" really even a race? There's a lot of distinct people in Europe. Are Spaniards, Portugese, Italians "white" are Slavs "white"? Scottish or Irish? Germans? Where do we draw the line of distinction? Or are we just going off skin color?

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

#836

Post by vidarh »

angelzen wrote: post #561
karmelapple wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Ibram X. Kendi: Any disparity in group outcomes is proof of a deeply flawed and malicious system. The darling of American academia and corporate. You can either have equality of opportunity and accept that the outcomes will be disparate, or have equality of (group) outcome. You can't have both. Your friends have not thought through the consequences of the current dominant ideology. > 'When I See Racial Disparities, I…

Arguing against disparity of group outcomes is not arguing for equality of outcome at the individual level.

It is arguing that there are no differences between groups that justifies disparities unless there are biases or oppression.

Even if he is wrong, this still does not become an argument for individual equality of outcome.

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

#837

Post by guerrilla »

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…

> 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.

Me too, deeply, but I've solved this: What we need to do is update plural they/them/theirs to theys/thems/theirses.

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

#838

Post by vidarh »

Zababa wrote: post #683
karmelapple wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

From I first encountered rules surrounding this, it has always been seen as a workaround to create the incentives to change sexism elsewhere.

E.g if boards are required to put women in place, it creates an organizational incentive to improve the conditions so more women gets the training and promotions and mentoring that makes then suitable for those board positions, and also takes away an ability to avoid hiring qualified women.

I don't know if anyone that see those rules as desirable in and of themselves.

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

#839

Post by dalyons »

artificialLimbs wrote: post #741
Zababa wrote: post #683

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A friend of mine applied to VMWare a year or two ago. They were asking him all sorts of questions about various disabilities; are you deaf? Do you use a wheelchair, etc.. The recruiter told him directly that they were looking for people with disabilities to fill their quota of people with disabilities, necessary because it was a government position. So we're definitely out of the game of recruiting based on merit in…

I find that very difficult to believe, as it’s very illegal to ask about disabilities during hiring. VMware as a large company with many lawyers and hr people would of course know the rules so I’d be shocked if this story is true.

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

#840

Post by visarga »

goodpoint wrote: post #523
inglor_cz wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the spectral signature of wokeness is that affluent white people whose knowledge of racial discrimination is at most anecdotal and second hand started treating racism as The Problem whose solution must get almost absolute priority, even at a cost of traditional civil liberties or putting other things (healthcare?) on the backburner. It looks like a weird neurotic guilt attack that is probably counterproductiv…

It's well known that in every movement some people can cherry-pick issues to focus on and neglect others. Sometimes it's an unconscious bias, sometimes is attention seeking, sometimes it's a deflection tactic. E.g. some "affluent white people" might talk all day about discrimination and never touch the painful topic of wealth inequality across the world. *BUT* this does not invalidates the valuable goals a whole move…

I'm wondering why the woke movement prefers to classify the people by race instead of wealth. Wealth is a much better indicator of systems of power.
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