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?

#841

Post by 93po » Sat, Sep 04, 2021, 5:27 PM UTC

gavinray wrote: post #707

babyshake wrote: post #28

It definitely seems as though specifying your preferred gender pronouns is no longer optional. This is required "in solidarity". Being an otherwise progressive person, I don't feel great about this and how quickly it happened.

If a company asked this I would put "gavinray [I don't give a flying fuck what you call me]". Happy to use other people's pronouns if it makes them happy, it really makes no difference to me, and clearly it's a big deal to some people so I've no problem obliging. But if you ask for something this stupid, company-wide, IMO you're due what you ask for. Because there's my pronoun. Call me he/she/they, or a goddamn Attac…

I think you're missing the point a bit, but I understand why one would. The point of asking everyone to label their pronouns isn't some sense of hollow solidarity for trans people, it's so that trans people can be given the decency and space to label their pronouns in a way that isn't ostracizing and isolating.

Yes, you don't care what pronouns people use for you. You're privileged in that you've never struggled with gender and gender identity in a society that shames and ridicules you for it. Giving people space to be themselves (in a very basic human-rights sort of way) shouldn't be narrowly dismissed as stupid and "a big deal to some people".

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

#842

Post by beerandt » Sat, Sep 04, 2021, 5:28 PM UTC

the_why_of_y wrote: post #804

beerandt wrote: post #718

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Private property rights, or being manifestly in control of the fruits of ones labor. Or the exact opposite of slavery.

Lew Rockwell, chairman of the Mises Institute: A postscript on voluntary slavery. I am on record on numerous occasions in support of voluntary slavery; some other libertarians support me on this issue as well. See Andersson, 2007; Block, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007A, 2007B, 2009A, 2009B; Lester, 2000; Nozick, 1974, pp. 58, 283, 331; Philmore, 1982; Steiner, 1994, pp. 232. https://www.lewrockwell.co…

Voluntary slavery here, means that the ultimate control of your own life includes the right to give it away, sell it, or end it.

It does not mean chattel slavery, or involuntary servitude, or even involuntary government seizures.

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

#843

Post by smegger001 » Sat, Sep 04, 2021, 5:29 PM UTC

kortilla wrote: post #458

lemmsjid wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

But the core principles of being woke require ruthlessness (“silence is violence”, etc).

I think this will ultimately be Wokeness downfall. The woke turn on themselves for perceived lack of purity to the cause almost as quickly as their adversaries. look at far left movements of the past for example, the french revolution started beheading people that had been for the revolution because they weren't revolutionary enough.

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

#844

Post by kortilla » Sat, Sep 04, 2021, 5:30 PM UTC

zzzeek wrote: post #728

beerandt wrote: post #718

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Private property rights, or being manifestly in control of the fruits of ones labor. Or the exact opposite of slavery.

the core value of libertarianism is that the strong will dominate the weak, meaning a pure libertarian society would feature widespread slavery as a primary feature.

> the core value of libertarianism is that the strong will dominate the weak, meaning a pure libertarian society would feature widespread slavery as a primary feature.

No it’s not, it’s freedom from being coerced into doing things. Quite literally the opposite of slavery.

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

#845

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Sep 04, 2021, 5:35 PM UTC

colinmhayes wrote: post #723

babyshake wrote: post #28

It definitely seems as though specifying your preferred gender pronouns is no longer optional. This is required "in solidarity". Being an otherwise progressive person, I don't feel great about this and how quickly it happened.

Legitimately who cares? It's not like you have to sacrifice anything by just saying you'd like to be called he or whatever. It's an incredibly easy thing to do.

[deleted]

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

#846

Post by kortilla » Sat, Sep 04, 2021, 5:37 PM UTC

brokencode wrote: post #687

zpeti wrote: post #669

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately this laissez fair approach is the exact opposite of modern wokeness. It’s their way or it’s attacks and cancellation. If you’re an oppressor class you have almost no way to be forgiven. The easiest way to show this is just ask some woke stars on their views of libertarianism, which is literally to let everyone be themselves.

From my experience, what libertarians really want is freedom for themselves. They do not actually care how their actions affect others. For example, I’ve yet to meet a libertarian who cares about their carbon emissions, even though that affects everybody else via climate change. Same goes for coronavirus - they don’t care if they spread the disease to others, but they feel like it’s oppression if they have to wear a…

> For example, I’ve yet to meet a libertarian who cares about their carbon emissions

Something tells me you’ve yet to a meet a libertarian at all. Being held accountable for your pollution of others’ property is a tenant of libertarianism.

> Same goes for coronavirus - they don’t care if they spread the disease to others

This sounds quite the opposite of libertarianism. Hurting/killing others isn’t part of the ideology.

It sounds like you’re just describing people who don’t understand science, which has nothing to do with libertarianism.

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

#847

Post by kortilla » Sat, Sep 04, 2021, 5:39 PM UTC

zzzeek wrote: post #743

zpeti wrote: post #694

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ACLU supported the rights of neo nazis to protest in a Jewish neighborhood. While not strictly a libertarian organisation, that is exactly the attitude. And libertarians would support that too. The rights of others to be free just like myself. It’s not selfish in any way. And you should read up about why the aclu did this, they say some very relevant things to today.

Assuming I were part of an identity group such as Judaism, this would mean parades of people who want to murder me and my family being welcome outside my door to shout for hours of their intent, with no possibility of relief. sign me up for libertarianism!

This is literally how it works today in the US.

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

#848

Post by 8eye » Sat, Sep 04, 2021, 5:42 PM UTC

people want to make money, being rude to others often prevents that, “elite” schools teach “elite” students who end up in places of privilege, they then teach or pass those lessons onto their workers. wokensss is really just HR on steroids

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

#849

Post by nonameiguess » Sat, Sep 04, 2021, 5:42 PM UTC

angelzen wrote: post #643

nonameiguess wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may personally believe in mercy and grace and not forcing people to be Christian, but historically, the entire reason Christianity is so prevalent is Christians traveled to other continents with guns and forcibly slaughtered or enslaved the natives if they didn't convert and took their children away and forced them into Christian schools. Whatever you think of "wokeness," it isn't anywhere near a level of world-c…

Have you visited any American school recently? No cross in sight, but plenty of rainbow flags. Not sure about the gunpoint (in both historical and contemporary sides of the argument), but mass conversion it is.

Yes, actually. I live in the heart of downtown Dallas and was a fairly active Pokemon Go player for years, so I traveled all over the city to gyms and raids, many of which were at schools. I don't recall seeing a rainbow flag at any school at all. I do recall seeing them at City Hall and at a Raytheon facility, bizarrely enough. The only thing that stood out about the schools is how many of them had the names of confederate generals that never lived anywhere near Texas and they all seemed to magically acquire these names right as civil rights legislation was being passed in the 60s.

That said, I don't exactly doubt that tolerance and acceptance of gay people is being taught in many places, but I find this quite baffling as something that I am apparently supposed to find troubling and a sign of violent conquest at the illiberal hands of people advocating for tolerance and acceptance of gay people.

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

#850

Post by GiorgioG » Sat, Sep 04, 2021, 5:43 PM UTC

nsilvestri wrote: post #830

GiorgioG wrote: post #787

What exactly is the goal of the 'woke' as it pertains to race or gender? If success to them looks like an equal number of white/black/asian/women it's an unreachable goal. According to the 2020 census: 57.8% of Americans are white, 16.3% are hispanic, 12.2% are black, and 5.9% are asian. It seems as plain as day that even if we could remove racism from the equation, it's more likely that whites will make up more shar…

To begin with, no reasonable person is saying there should be a completely even balance in proportions of race in any field, for exactly the reasons you point out. The problem is that in reality, certain "merit-based" programs such as workplaces or colleges don't also align with the racial demographics of the general public, and it's a discrepancy that should make you ask "why?". The problem with a blind "merit-based…

> The problem is that in reality, certain "merit-based" programs such as workplaces or colleges don't also align with the racial demographics of the general public, and it's a discrepancy that should make you ask "why?".

> Of course we want to only hire qualified people, but a disproportionate number of people of certain races were not given the opportunity to get those skills already.

Like all wicked problems, there are many reasons - not exclusively caused by one group. I'm the son of italian & french immigrants and I grew up in a poor neighborhood with many black/hispanic neighbors. I wasn't poor, I was middle class. In my observation (admittedly a relatively small sample), the differentiator between my peers (white and non-white, poor and not) was the parental emphasis or lack-thereof on education. My parents never made it beyond high school education, but it was assumed I was going to college. The friends (white and non-white) whose parents emphasized education have fared better than those who did not. How do you fix that? We can offer everyone the opportuntity to go get an education, but we can't change the parents' mindset to its importance.

A stable home environment and an emphasis on education at home would do wonders to advance these inequalities. To be clear, I'm not saying it "their fault", but there is plenty of "blame" to go around. Let's give people a living wage. Let's stop treating K-12 school like a babysitting service, etc.