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?

#381

Post by Spazer » Sat, Sep 04, 2021, 10:47 AM UTC

narrator wrote: post #322

chki wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you describe as "fascinating" is just a crazy conspiracy theory. The link you give also just throws homosexuality and bisexuality in there as well and while not exactly saying that all those things are "unhealthy for a society" basically alledges this in the first few sentences.

These guys interviewing him are right-wing Christians, who are the only people who would ever interview this guy, as he wouldn't get past the woke filter on just about any other podcast, so you'll just have to accept that they're going to have that point of view to begin with. The guy has a lot of documentation for where this all came from out of nowhere. I bought the book and it's fascinating how much documentation…

Have you considered that oppression of trans people causes them to hide and the more widespread acceptance of other LGB identities causes trans people to let themselves be more visible in everyday life? Just because you didn't see them before doesn't mean they weren't there.

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

#382

Post by lemmsjid » Sat, Sep 04, 2021, 10:47 AM UTC

nradov wrote: post #15

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…

Leftist movements tend to consume themselves in escalating purity spirals. https://unherd.com/2020/01/cast-out-how-knitting-fell-into-a...

Heh. If you replaced “leftist movements” with “human movements” then I’d be with you. Witness the ever developing criteria for identifying and excising “RINOs” from the Trump movement. Find any decently sized organization with humans in it, and you will find a subset of its members actively attempting to identify and excise inpure members. The fallacy you are demonstrating is the notion that such behavior is relegated to a particular other group, as though ostracizing behavior doesn’t predate the very concept of “left” vs “right”.

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

#383

Post by luckylion » Sat, Sep 04, 2021, 10:47 AM UTC

Jochim wrote: post #186

luckylion wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It might exist in academia or PR departments or journalism or facebook pages and twitter threads but it does very little to affect material relations and power structures, so it's if anything the Left and not anyone else who should be concerned with it. Are you sure? It feels like it has a much stronger influence, at least in Western Europe.

The influence exerted is usually orthogonal to the traditional goal of improving the conditions of the working class. Instead identity politics focuses on a platform of "more POC female dictators" rather than one that actually fights to make a material difference in people's lives. It also destroys any form of class consciousness, replacing it with one based on race. The white middle class get the catharsis of flagel…

I agree completely. It reminds me of when German trade unions found out that their members are much more conservative than their apparatchiks and their response was "we'll teach them" and they pressed full force ahead, predictably losing 20% of their members in the past 20 years.

Inflation is much higher than wage increases, rent is exploding in the cities while jobs are being migrated into the cities, but thank god we have committees for identifying more and more absurd diversions and divisions.

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

#384

Post by sokoloff » Sat, Sep 04, 2021, 10:47 AM UTC

lemmsjid wrote: post #358

p0d wrote: post #340

As a christian I believe in mercy and grace. And yes, many of us 'believers' have not practised what we preached. Many of us do try however not to be hypocrites. Here's my question. Where is mercy and grace in the midst of wokeness? I want you to believe my christian message but I will not force you to do so. I don't want to introduce laws to force you to believe what I believe. I don't want you to lose your job beca…

I think the answer to your question is actually answered in your first paragraph. In the same way that you believe all Christians shouldn’t be judged by those who haven’t “practiced what they’ve preached”, consider that your understanding of “woke” people might be tainted by the fact that whatever media you are consuming might be focusing on the ones who also don’t practice what they preach. In other words, any movem…

Though this is undoubtedly good for click-rewarded media, it’s also good for society if it invokes a rejection of the extremists and unsavory outliers both from outside and within the community, whether woke extremists, Christian Taliban, or other.

Unfortunately, I don’t see quite strong enough (for my taste) version of that repudiation (in general across both causes I believe in and ones where I disagree).

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

#385

Post by cgrealy » Sat, Sep 04, 2021, 10:47 AM UTC

concordDance wrote: post #225

cgrealy wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And let’s be honest: The “satanic panic” had no basis in fact. The idea that role playing gamers were going to do actual magic (or even think they were doing magic) is clearly nonsense. But if you use human ethnicities as the basis for your games monsters… yeah, that’s a real problem. It doesn’t mean you have to ban D&D, but it does mean it should address those issues. Same with rock music. I don’t care if bands writ…

> But if you use human ethnicities as the basis for your games monsters… yeah, that’s a real problem. But they don't? The concept of an orc (big, strong and dumb) does not depend on the existence of any real races.

In a private letter, Tolkien described orcs as

“squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes: in fact degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types.”

Again, not saying we have to “cancel” Tolkien, but we should be aware of the issues and do better in future.

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

#386

Post by abrazame » Sat, Sep 04, 2021, 10:48 AM UTC

narrator wrote: post #268

SunlightEdge wrote: post #109

On a related point, what I'm uncertain about are the reasons for the increase in transgender kids in the west. I understand there's been a massive increase in cases for transmen in the UK and USA for example. Is this because we can identify these conditions much better now? Maybe. I don't have the background to say for sure. There is a real fear in society though that woke schools of thought are a harmful influence t…

If you want to go deep down the rabbit hole here, break your brain, probably ruin your career and seriously damage your ability to interact with woke culture ever again, you can listen to an interview with the author of the book, "The Transgender Industrial Complex" in which the author alleges with copious documentation that the transgender movement is complete astroturf. He did deep research to discover where the tr…

I'm fairly open-minded to a critical take on trans issues, so I gave the linked podcast a listen, and I just want to report back that it's pretty straight-up conspiracy theory thinking. For example, the author of the book notes that it was only two weeks between the SCOTUS gay marriage decision and Caitlyn Jenner's cover on Vanity Fair - saying it was "obviously coordinated". There's talk of "putting pieces together", etc. If you're not conspiracy theory inclined, you can save yourself the trouble.

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

#387

Post by FloNeu » Sat, Sep 04, 2021, 10:48 AM UTC

narrator wrote: post #322

chki wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you describe as "fascinating" is just a crazy conspiracy theory. The link you give also just throws homosexuality and bisexuality in there as well and while not exactly saying that all those things are "unhealthy for a society" basically alledges this in the first few sentences.

These guys interviewing him are right-wing Christians, who are the only people who would ever interview this guy, as he wouldn't get past the woke filter on just about any other podcast, so you'll just have to accept that they're going to have that point of view to begin with. The guy has a lot of documentation for where this all came from out of nowhere. I bought the book and it's fascinating how much documentation…

Rofl... Yes - only in San Francisco... Yeah you're obviously either very uneducated or willfully ignorant about global history and culture. In countries and times that weren't dominated by the christian ideas of moral oppression - that lead to criminalization or at a minimum being outcast because of a social stigma and fear of violence of everyone not straight - LGBT were and are a visible part of society - not especially visible because nobody cared about making them especially visible because it was normal and accepted. Now after the first wins against oppression due to activism the right produces this fear and panic of the 'wokeness' to again demonize these people and 'liberals'. It's the new fear of socialists basically - a useful buggyman for reactionaries and religious fundamentalists. I wouldn't even know what woke meant wouldn't I be on social media and being confronted by all this alt-right nonsense troll-posts where they blow up a noname 'dumb woke' liberal strawman-post on a daily basis.

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

#388

Post by praptak » Sat, Sep 04, 2021, 10:49 AM UTC

narrator wrote: post #268

SunlightEdge wrote: post #109

On a related point, what I'm uncertain about are the reasons for the increase in transgender kids in the west. I understand there's been a massive increase in cases for transmen in the UK and USA for example. Is this because we can identify these conditions much better now? Maybe. I don't have the background to say for sure. There is a real fear in society though that woke schools of thought are a harmful influence t…

If you want to go deep down the rabbit hole here, break your brain, probably ruin your career and seriously damage your ability to interact with woke culture ever again, you can listen to an interview with the author of the book, "The Transgender Industrial Complex" in which the author alleges with copious documentation that the transgender movement is complete astroturf. He did deep research to discover where the tr…

So what's in it for the billionaires? That looks like a pretty weak spot of this hypothesis.

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

#389

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Sep 04, 2021, 10:50 AM UTC

p0d wrote: post #340

As a christian I believe in mercy and grace. And yes, many of us 'believers' have not practised what we preached. Many of us do try however not to be hypocrites. Here's my question. Where is mercy and grace in the midst of wokeness? I want you to believe my christian message but I will not force you to do so. I don't want to introduce laws to force you to believe what I believe. I don't want you to lose your job beca…

[deleted]

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

#390

Post by FiberBundle » Sat, Sep 04, 2021, 10:54 AM UTC

yawaworht1978 wrote: post #327

It's just a shift from older, less flexible values like family, church etc to the more open minded approach, "do as you like". Nothing wrong with people having tattoos everywhere, green or violet hair, non conformist clothing and views. Let them be, let them express and find themselves. I am the shave every day suit kinda guy and will remain so, but if someone chooses to be different or wants to complain about new wo…

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.