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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?

#901

Post by iammisc »

jrm4 wrote: post #780

I hate the phrase, because people on the other side use it to conflate longstanding serious thought and action on the matters with young naive liberal chatter. That being said, the easiest way to cut through most of it is to look toward people who have dealt with this sort of thing most of their lives, and "older black professionals" nearly always fit the bill. There's an unfortunate 'survival of the fittest' bent to…

Older black professionals will empirically speaking also be against transgenderism and homosexual marriage.

To those who will inevitably down vote me, I am describing demographically informed stances on arguments not saying what the correct answer is.

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

#902

Post by raknj »

finfinfin wrote: post #888
rayiner wrote: post #856

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s convenient that under wokeness, the real bad guys are my white in laws in rural Oregon and not the white people “doing the work” in Wall Street and SV.

I highly doubt many “woke” people would agree with you and call an unknown white family in Oregon—and not Zuckerberg—“the real bad guys” .

I'd say the woke faction of MAGAF employees rationalize the behavior of their corporate masters.

They claim to protect the weak while acting ruthlessly in software projects.

They claim to be oppressed by people earning much less than them.

They claim for strive for equity but never give up their MAGAF positions, council memberships or president titles.

In general, they are useless and should be fired.

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

#903

Post by iammisc »

guerrilla wrote: post #834
beerandt wrote: post #705

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Those still searching almost always have a belief system and are now looking for a group that shares it. Or a group that can clarify it

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

#904

Post by ip26 »

finfinfin wrote: post #888
rayiner wrote: post #856

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s convenient that under wokeness, the real bad guys are my white in laws in rural Oregon and not the white people “doing the work” in Wall Street and SV.

I highly doubt many “woke” people would agree with you and call an unknown white family in Oregon—and not Zuckerberg—“the real bad guys” .

Reading between the lines, perhaps some of his in-laws were at Malheur Wildlife Refuge.

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

#905

Post by iammisc »

TameAntelope wrote: post #110
Barrin92 wrote: post #7

I'm glad that the Economist points out at the end that 'wokeness' has become a favorite of business, and the reason is pretty obvious, as a movement it's self-defeating because all identitarian politics eventually ends in infighting, with its subjective, choice and preference based worldview it's actually ill-equipped to move anything. It might exist in academia or PR departments or journalism or facebook pages and t…

I'm curious what any possible alternatives might be to the practical problems "wokeness" tries to present itself as a solution to. I don't think the problem of racism and sexism (two classic "woke" topics) are "Left" problems, which is why it strikes me as odd that I don't see ideas about how to deal with them coming from everyone, beyond a straight denial they exist, or that it's actually the fault of the folks expe…

The conservative approach to racism would be to equalize opportunity (to the extent the government is allowed to) and replace the instincts that lead to racism with strong civic nationalism and then wait a very very long time, which is a solution that acknowledges that social change takes a long time.

You claim this is denial, but that's a biased reframing of the stated solution. This is a potential solution, but is not acceptable to the 'woke'

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

#906

Post by angelzen »

jtsiskin wrote: post #892
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.

How does this work, practically? Do the owners of media corporations call up their reports and say “hey, focus on gender issues, stop those wealth inequality articles?”

WYFIWYG: What You Fund Is What You Get.

Recent anecdote of notoriety: Twitter CEO publicly bankrolling Kendism. Though some read that as indulgence purchase.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WYSIWYG

https://www.bu.edu/articles/2020/jack-dorsey-bu-center-for-a...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indulgence

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

#907

Post by iammisc »

SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #466
tomp wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm curious what any possible alternatives might be to the practical problems "wokeness" tries to present itself as a solution to. The obvious solution is meritocracy and race/sex blindness. That's the world I wish to live in - non-discrimination & equality of opportunity, not "positive" discrimination (it's always positive for someone ) and (enforced) equality of outcome. But the Woke Left has been quite hostile t…

This is something I genuinely am curious about: how do you get equality of opportunity without first getting equality of outcome in a system where money opens doors and inheritance exists? Just-freed black people started with nothing when white slave owners had farms to pass onto their children. If (I think it is) obvious that wealth provides more opportunity, there’s no way for black people to ever have equal opport…

Hold on hold on. This comment presupposes that blacks have ways been disadvantaged. That's not true at all. Before the civil rights movement of the 60s, black incomes were increasing at a faster rate than whites and were on track to surpass the white income. Blacks even had more kids born within wedlock. The ghettoization of the African American community is a recent development. For most of the post bellum period, African Americans were on a swift upward trajectory. They were much like Asians today, who also often started with nothing in this country (due to currency export restrictions) and whose education achievement and incomes surpass whites...

Indeed poor black immigrants to this country do extremely well also.

All this is detailed extensively in the vision of the anointed by Thomas sowell (an accomplished black man from this era)

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

#908

Post by ip26 »

zpeti wrote: post #719
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".

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.

Big L Libertarians in the US go hard on Austrian economics. As a result, if you ask Americans what they think of libertarianism (as you suggest), they’ll mostly be thinking about adherents to Mises & Cato.

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

#909

Post by rayiner »

finfinfin wrote: post #888
rayiner wrote: post #856

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s convenient that under wokeness, the real bad guys are my white in laws in rural Oregon and not the white people “doing the work” in Wall Street and SV.

I highly doubt many “woke” people would agree with you and call an unknown white family in Oregon—and not Zuckerberg—“the real bad guys” .

Have you read the New York Times or watched CNN or MSNBC in the last five years? Rural and working class white people ("deplorables") have replaced Wall Street as the enemy.

It's of course in-character for the New York Times to punch down. That's the same thing they did when Wall Street was full of Rockefeller Republicans while rural and working class white people voted Democrat. The only thing that's changed is the moral failings assigned to them.

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

#910

Post by iammisc »

klyrs wrote: post #209
invalidOrTaken wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To an extent left and right are asymmetrical---leftist groups tend to be groups organized around being leftist as their main purpose, while "rightist" groups (churches, police unions, gun enthusiasts) tend to be rightist incidentally . Neo Nazis feel like the exception that proves the rule.

I know some Quakers who put your "churches are rightist groups" to the lie. Not new either; read up on Public Universal Friend.

The quakers are today so small as to be completely irrelevant. And the existence of the quakers proves the commenters points that right wing groups tend to be right wing only incidentally. They have another main purpose. He gives churches as an example. People go to church for religion. Coincidentally, many of them also happen to be conservative. That there are churches where this is not true only emphasizes this point that right wing groups tend to form incidentally.
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