Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

991–1000 of 1001 posts

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

#991

Post by clusterfish »

tux3 wrote: post #459
clusterfish wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But lots of people want that power. And most of us agree that it's bad. But most of us somehow don't agree that forcing wokeness on others is bad. Because the woke ones can't possibly imagine being wrong. Theirs is the right way, everyone else are bigots and racists. It's an aggressive religion, a cult even.

Most of us are good, and the few extremists don't represent who we are. Most of them can't possibly imagine being wrong. They're fanatical cultists. Here's the problem: These two paragraphs are unrestricted opinions, it's a feeling that anyone could have about anyone, and there's nothing factual about it. This is a feeling that's not rooted in falsifiable observations, and so, there is nothing that prevents the same…

I am condemning Christian fanatics. You are however writing abstract apologetics for woke cultists instead of condemning them. That's the difference between us. No need for all this mental gymnastics imagining that most other people on "my side" are worse than me and on "your side" better than you. At least do your own part.

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

#992

Post by clusterfish »

SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #452
clusterfish wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But lots of people want that power. And most of us agree that it's bad. But most of us somehow don't agree that forcing wokeness on others is bad. Because the woke ones can't possibly imagine being wrong. Theirs is the right way, everyone else are bigots and racists. It's an aggressive religion, a cult even.

That’s only the woke people you hear about. I consider myself pretty woke and the only woke thing I could imagine to demand from a workplace is sexual harassment policies with real teeth. (And not a he said she said scenario but Eg. Dont pinch the ass of your direct report against their consent or else you’re out of the door). I think there are people who take it too far just like there are people who take anything t…

You know how woke people say that being silent about racism you see is being complicit in it? Well it goes both ways. My woke-tending friends refuse to express any opinion condemning any of the woke bullshit, never happened even once. I wonder if that's because they agree with all of that bullshit, or if they're afraid of speaking their mind for dear of being labelled a racist by their own peers. End result is the same though.

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

#993

Post by pseudalopex »

zozbot234 wrote: post #887
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'll give you Wall Street, but SV is very much a target of this Neo-Maoist craziness. And don't get me wrong, there are plenty of interesting problems wrt. how to improve diversity and equity in the industry, but politicized catchphrases like "there's no such thing as meritocracy" (a prime example of Orwellian duckspeak if there ever was one) are not conducive to this goal.

Meritocracy was coined to satirize the concept.[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_of_the_Meritocracy

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

#994

Post by Siira »

pseudalopex wrote: post #993
zozbot234 wrote: post #887

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll give you Wall Street, but SV is very much a target of this Neo-Maoist craziness. And don't get me wrong, there are plenty of interesting problems wrt. how to improve diversity and equity in the industry, but politicized catchphrases like "there's no such thing as meritocracy" (a prime example of Orwellian duckspeak if there ever was one) are not conducive to this goal.

Meritocracy was coined to satirize the concept.[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_of_the_Meritocracy

The origins of a word don’t quite determine the physical reality of the ideas around it.

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

#995

Post by pseudalopex »

Siira wrote: post #994
pseudalopex wrote: post #993

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meritocracy was coined to satirize the concept.[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_of_the_Meritocracy

The origins of a word don’t quite determine the physical reality of the ideas around it.

Physical reality? What physical instrument measures merit?

The origin of the word shows criticism of the concept isn't just "Orwellian duckspeak".

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

#996

Post by [deleted] »

pugz wrote: post #407
eweise wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My last job we were all highly encouraged by the CEO to add our preferred pronouns to our profiles. Just another reason I left.

Us too. I found it super useful because I have lots of Chinese coworkers and I have no idea whether to use “he” or “she” based on their name. Edit: I didn’t see the last bit. Why did it factor into leaving? Were they aggressive about it or something?

[deleted]

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

#997

Post by fridif »

swarnie wrote: post #139
fridif wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably for the same reason that foot biding took off in China

I'm not sure anyone has a clue what you're on about. Care to expand?

Sorry, realized I never replied.

First, yes, I made a typo and meant to say "foot binding".

The reason I mentioned this is because foot binding originally began as a cultural practice among a small group of people in the 10th century. By the time of the Qing dynasty (1644-1912), most social classes were practicing foot binding.

Thus, what I'm trying to say is that the Finns are adopting a cultural practice (pronouns in their twitter bio) as a result of being exposed to another group of people doing it.

The reasons for why they chose to adopt it, though....

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

#998

Post by sgregnt »

notacoward wrote: post #954
sgregnt wrote: post #713

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> lack of coercion of any kind In practice, it means lack of government coercion because that's the easiest kind to oppose. Weaken government too much, and other forms of coercion will come to the fore. Changing that would require changing human nature though, so most libertarians prefer to turn a blind eye to it.

I'm not sure why you think government is easier to oppose. Or what it has to do with the core principles of Libertarianism.

In any case, of cause, the reality is much more complicated, if there is a dispute over property rights or a form of coercion you go to court to decide who is right and who is wrong. Libertarianism is not anarchism. At the same time, in spite of all the complications of the real world, there is a clear difference in ideology between libertarianism and social democracy, for example. And one can claim the difference stems from the core principle where the two worldviews differ in certain values.

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

#999

Post by sgregnt »

AFAIS, defense of anything is often a coercion, yes. There are millions of subtle situations for court to decide who, on the one hand, exercised his freedom and who, on the other hand, initiated a coertion, who responded to a coercion, and there is a room for interpretation.

Also, the core principle is not a set of laws, it's just a guiding principle. If a court interprets certain possessions of proprties or certain actions as an initiation of coercion on other individuals, than it can judge it unlawful. For example if you place a bomb near someone, or your property blocks an entrance for someone etc... that could be a coercion, AFAIS.

At the same time the core principle is akin to declaration of a constitution and as such it steers the lawmakers and society toward certain direction. But it's not an utopia that aims to describe everything by a single short paragraph.

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

#1000

Post by jrm4 »

iammisc wrote: post #962
jrm4 wrote: post #930

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost. 5-10 years ago, they would be. In 5-10 years, they will almost certainly universally won't, and that's kind of part of my point; On one hand, yes, our "internal" debates on this type of stuff end up being very public, and as such, people who lean in strong directions become visible. But also, we tend to collectively adapt much quicker and much better. I'm pretty comfortable claiming that this will be the case…

Okay... So basically you're claim is to listen to black professionals at some uncertain point in the future at which they'll agree with you? That's very... Woke.

My claim is (at this present time, due to recent historical circumstances, on balance, especially those older and in the professional world) black folks tend to be much wiser and "more adaptable" than their non-black counterparts.

Furthermore, I'll claim that the homophobia et al that you see is actually the process of a people learning to deal with new circumstances (e.g. if you look at black comedy from the 90's, you'll see a lot of stuff that doesn't age well -- BUT that should be recognized as literally the opposite of "problematic" -- what that was was learning and adapting and growth."

Post reply on HN