This is a silly straw man argument with lots of claims and little evidence supporting them.
The Origins of Wokeness
751–760 of 1001 posts
Re: The Origins of Wokeness
#752Wow! This is basically a master class in performative mediocrity.
Re: The Origins of Wokeness
#753[flagged]
Re: The Origins of Wokeness
#754For over 20 years I've been clicking on pg's essays, knowing that I can look forward to an interesting and insightful read. I can no longer assume that.
Re: The Origins of Wokeness
#755> The number of true things we can't say should not increase. If it does, something is wrong. Word.
Everyone agrees with this. Obviously, the problem is determining what is true. There is significant disagreement. This is the root of the problem, not that people are preventing other people from saying things that they themselves believe are true.
Re: The Origins of Wokeness
#756"Prig" is in the eye of the beholder. What about when the "prigs" were right? I'm sure the Quakers were seen as "prigs" by the southern slaveholders/traders. The Quakers were early to the abolition party and their opposition to slavery was based on religious zeal which made them seem like "prigs" to the people in the South who's whole society and economy was built on slavery. But we now consider the Quakers were righ…
> What about when the "prigs" were right? I think the big take away is that being right via a lecture doesn't do anything. If you are morally right, and your aim is social justice, you should stop lecturing people, because it doesn't actually achieve what you are aiming for or really even advance the cause (in fact it may run backwards). Instead, go out and do something. For example, defer typing up that long comment…
> If you are morally right, and your aim is social justice, you should stop lecturing people, because it doesn't actually achieve what you are aiming for or really even advance the cause (in fact it may run backwards).
Actually it's through Internet conversations and mostly online education that my mind was changed, my whole worldview in fact.
Quietly doing good is admirable. So is speaking up where people are talking. Both is even better still.
Re: The Origins of Wokeness
#757Unbelievable how anti-pg hn has gotten. I don't think what pg is saying is anything new, he's always had the same sentiment around anti-censorship, anti-authoritarian/mob and pro-breaking-the-rules attitude. It's called "hacker" news for a reason.
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Re: The Origins of Wokeness
#758It was a good analysis but definitely longer than it should have been to communicate the came thing.
A glaring omissions is overlooking the origin of the term "woke" in the context it is being used today.
It was around 2010 as a rallying call for black folk to be aware of being taking for a fool. Then the Occupy Protests and Black Lives Matter came next and as usual it was hijacked by more savvy operators.
Re: The Origins of Wokeness
#759[deleted]
Re: The Origins of Wokeness
#760I 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…
i definitely believe in the relationship between modern wokeness and some older religious traditions of moral policing
there seems to be a territorial overlap between the two