5 ms·

It always astonishes me the degree to which “don’t be an asshole” is considered a radical position. oh, zarzavat, of course, you are obviously correct: it’s t

• skinkestek 5y ago
  > It always astonishes me the degree to which “don’t be an asshole” is considered a radical position. That is not what wokeism means. Wokeism is about - making boys and men feel shameful for being boys and men - making white people feel shameful for being white - and other such things. What you talk about is not something that any reasonable HNer would call wokeism.
  • antris 5y ago
    If you think this type of "wokeism" exists in this society in any powerful form, you are delusional. You're upset at a few people making hot takes on the internet, while the worlds powerful institutions are built upon white male supremacy.
    • skinkestek 5y ago
      > If you think this type of "wokeism" exists in this society in any powerful form, you are delusional. This is lited almost straight from the article isn't it? "If you disagree with our group you are dumb." > while the worlds powerful institutions are built upon white male supremacy. See what I wrote above about trying to make people ashamed to be born white or male.
      • antris 5y ago
        I didn't say you were dumb or that you should be ashamed. I'm just saying such "wokeism" doesn't exist. Interesting how you see this as a personal attack. Also I'm not representing any "group". I'm just speaking for myself. Seems like you see this as some kind of team sports?
        • skinkestek 5y ago
          > I didn't say you were dumb or that you should be ashamed. You did say that white males where the root of the problem. I am a white male.
          • antris 5y ago
            Where did I say white males were the problem? I said the system is built upon white male supremacy, but I didn't blame anyone for it. The system is the problem, not people of any specific identity. White male supremacy is an ideology, not an identity. Anyone can be white male supremacist, regardless of gender or race. Also, you can definitely be a white male who's not a white male supremacist.
            • skinkestek 5y ago
              > White male supremacy is an ideology, not an identity. So where do these have their meetups? Where can I find contemporary writings that explain the superiority of white males?
              • antris 5y ago
                Depends on where you live. In the US the most obvious mainstream example is republicans upholding white male supremacist laws. Of course they avoid direct language and use dog whistles instead, because saying out loud that you're a white male supremacist isn't a good look anymore. Of course the democrats do it too, but their dog whistles are more subtle and not as obvious.
                • 5y ago
  • krapp 5y ago
    >What you talk about is not something that any reasonable HNer would call wokeism. Almost no HNer has anything approaching a reasonable, good-faith or even well-informed opinion on "wokeism" to begin with.
    • skinkestek 5y ago
      Maybe. Maybe it has just taken a meaning unrelated to the original meaning, just like "evangelical". But I am afraid that just like evangelical, woke has been tainted beyond repair.
  • freen 5y ago
    Ah, yes, at all costs, we mustn’t make white dudes feel uncomfortable. That would be a disaster! They’ve only been running things since the outset of our country, and literally using the force of law and violence to guarantee their social dominance for generations. If we point that out, and how injustice in the past impacts the present, white dudes will feel bad, and that’s intolerable. Edit: I am a white dude. And I don’t feel shame, I feel responsibility. Ask a German how they feel about Hitler.
    • hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
      You have no idea how strange your comment sounds in some countries outside of the USA.
      • guerrilla 5y ago
        Can you elaborate on what you mean? This was very vague.
        • hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
          This is a complex matter and it's hard to describe adequately in a single comment. In short, the USA has a very specific racial situation: black people had been slaves, and until quite recently (some HN readers may even remember that) there was racial segregation. The consequences of that are omnipresent today: black people are, on average, in a worse social situation than white people. One would hope that with time the situation would get better, but it's not happening at the speed one would hope. Also, for some reason people don't like to mix that much. Black-white marriages are not a norm - and it doesn't look like this is going to change soon. To add insult to injury, the children from mixed couples have another set of challenges: often they are made felt they don't belong to either community. The issue of race does mean a lot in individual and social contexts. Now imagine you are living in Russia. Over centuries you were a poor peasant, always at the mercy of someone. In the end you believe all your woes will end if you join others in yet another attempt to make things right, you kill the tzar, and soon you realized you just exchanged one tyrant for another. This is going on more or less until today. Nothing here has anything to do with race. It's similar in many other countries. But Americans have the tendency to perceive everything through their own context and project it onto the whole world. It makes no sense.
  • IIAOPSW 5y ago
    Wow, you ran out of gas by point 3 and went with "other stuff". Talk about shameless.
    • skinkestek 5y ago
      - defund the police / acab - inventing pronouns and demand people use them - modern cancel culture - probably a few more
      • freen 5y ago
        Defund the police: budget allocation. Spend more money on social services so police aren’t the only tool in the govt toolkit. Not controversial. Pronouns: White people used to call black people terrible things too. Things change. Cancel culture is a moral panic like the satanic panic and strangers with candy kidnapping. https://kottke.org/22/02/cancel-culture-is-a-moral-panic https://kottke.org/22/02/cancel-culture-is-a-moral-panic Got more fictions to peddle? GOP introduced bills to make it legal to run over protestors in your car, illegal to teach about slavery, and consider the violent insurrection of Jan 6th “legitimate political discourse”.
        • rascul 5y ago
          > Defund the police: budget allocation. Spend more money on social services so police aren’t the only tool in the govt toolkit. Not controversial. Seems quite apparent to me over the last couple years that it is indeed controversial. Perhaps there wouldn't have been protests, riots, etc. if it weren't.
          • freen 5y ago
            Maybe controversial is the wrong term. In the age of historical low crime, perhaps we allocate resources elsewhere shouldn’t be a radical take. That some folks consider it to be speaks more about them than anything else.
            • 5y ago
  • guerrilla 5y ago
    Maybe people should stop using inflammatory and ambiguous words and actually bring up those points then. Taking shortcuts is not working and is just causing flamewars.
  • avs733 5y ago
    this is helpful. None of these things are even remotely true, therefore wokeism (by your definition) can be dismissed as nonsense.