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The Origins of Wokeness

paulgraham.com

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Re: The Origins of Wokeness

#361

Post by dowager_dan99 »

BurningFrog wrote: post #97
rhelz wrote: post #5

From the article: "Twitter, which was arguably the hub of wokeness, was bought by Elon Musk in order to neutralize it, and he seems to have succeeded — and not, incidentally, by censoring left-wing users the way Twitter used to censor right-wing ones, but without censoring either. [14]" Then follow to the footnote: "[14] Elon did something else that tilted Twitter rightward though: he gave more visibility to paying u…

[flagged]

Perhaps the more accurate term is "suppressing" - you can do this directly or by crowding out or deprioritizing specific content based on many attributes. Content is both literal and second-order (like paid vs. unpaid)

Re: The Origins of Wokeness

#362

Post by aspenmayer »

Here are some takes on woke from the left:

The Origins of Contemporary Woke Culture ft Christian Parenti

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxdBOxl_eik

which is an excerpt from the full This is Revolution podcast episode:

The Cargo Cult of Woke ft. Christian Parenti

https://www.youtube.com/live/6TJbv45DJyk

Chris Hedges interviewed Parenti also https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTpeQ4V-YeY

https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/how-wokeness-kills-class-...

Re: The Origins of Wokeness

#363

Post by soheil »

justinrstout wrote: post #200

This article never takes up the cause of the minorities who are being harassed and killed on a daily basis, but spends a lot of time whining about having to show even a modicum of empathy by using more inclusive language. For this reason it reeks of self-centered willful ignorance.

Who's being killed on a daily basis? Could you provide sources?

Re: The Origins of Wokeness

#365

Post by rukuu001 »

karaterobot wrote: post #164
kelseyfrog wrote: post #134

The article missed the biggest opportunity to be curious by avoiding the question: What if they're right?

> But by the same token we should not automatically reject everything the woke believe... It would be a mistake to discard them all just because one didn't share the religion that espoused them. It would be the sort of thing a religious zealot would do. To be fair, he does say the above, which is close enough. The problem with asking "what if they're right" is that there's no single formulation of beliefs shared univ…

But there’s this statement as well:

> Racism, for example, is a genuine problem. Not a problem on the scale that the woke believe it to be…

The whole idea of woke (in the non pejorative sense) is that you’ve done the work to perceive the actual problem.

That statement shows that he hasn’t, which I think undermines the good parts of the essay.

Re: The Origins of Wokeness

#367

Post by prewett »

Leary wrote: post #59

I think there’s a fascinating throughline from older Christian moral enforcement to what the essay calls “wokeness.” Historically, a lot of Christian movements had the same impulse to legislate language and behaviors—just grounded in sin rather than privilege. For instance, the 19th-century American Puritans famously policed each other’s speech and actions because the stakes were framed as eternal salvation versus da…

The book "American Nations", whose basic idea is that the US + Canada is composed of 12 cultural "nations", also observes that the Puritans were rather intolerant. The Puritan culture influenced what he calls "Yankeedom" (New England west to Minnesota) and the "Left Coast", which was settled by Yankee shipping. My impression is that these two areas are the most "woke"; it seems that Puritan intolerance casts a long shadow, even though those areas rejected orthodox Christianity a long time ago.

Re: The Origins of Wokeness

#368

Post by hwillis »

daseiner1 wrote: post #176
Ukv wrote: post #38

> Imagine having to explain to a well-meaning visitor from another planet why using the phrase "people of color" is considered particularly enlightened, but saying "colored people" gets you fired. [...] There are no underlying principles. To understand much of our language, Gnorts would have to already be aware that our words and symbols gain meaning from how they're used, and you couldn't, for instance, determine th…

they’re not negroes, they’re colored they’re not colored, they’re African-American they’re not African-American, they’re black they’re not black, they’re Black they’re not Black, they’re People of Color they’re not People of Color, they’re BIPOC I wonder what the next twist of the pretzel will look like

Absolutely insane equivocation. "Negro" has always been associated with slavery and that's why it was used up until even recently by people like Malcom X. "Colored" is associated with apartheid America in the same way.

African American was a term used around return-to-africa movements and was always heavily associated with non-americanness.

> they’re not black, they’re Black

Somebody has never heard of proper nouns

> they’re not Black, they’re People of Color

Yes... nobody ever called indigenous people negroes. It's not the same thing as black. People use the phrase to talk about more than just black people.

> they’re not People of Color, they’re BIPOC

The I stands for indigenous.

Re: The Origins of Wokeness

#369

Post by whatever1 »

So now the ones who want to preserve the constitution and the democratic processes (aka by demanding peaceful handover of power instead of hanging the Vice President), are woke.

Strong Weimar vibes from our billionaires.

Re: The Origins of Wokeness

#370

Post by UncleMeat »

elsonrodriguez wrote: post #220

>Racism, for example, is a genuine problem. Not a problem on the scale that the woke believe it to be, but a genuine one. I don't think any reasonable person would deny that. The problem with political correctness was not that it focused on marginalized groups, but the shallow, aggressive way in which it did so. Instead of going out into the world and quietly helping members of marginalized groups, the politically co…

I'm reminded of a lyric from "Mississippi Goddamn."

> Don't tell me, I tell you

> Me and my people just about due

> I've been there so I know

> They keep on saying "Go slow"

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