3 ms·

Woke is a specific ideology that it places every individual into a strict hierarchy of oppressor/oppressed according to group racial and sexual identity. It ros

Woke is a specific ideology that it places every individual into a strict hierarchy of oppressor/oppressed according to group racial and sexual identity. It rose to prominence in American culture from around 2012, starting in universities. It revolves around a set of core concepts including privilege, marginalization, oppression, and equity. Now that we've defined what woke is, I hope we can move on from this 'you can't define woke' canard I keep seeing. Woke is no more difficult to define than any religion or ideology, except in that it deliberately pretends not to exist ("just basic decency", "just basic human rights") in order to be a more slippery target. -- *Side note to ward off the deliberate ignorance of people who are trying to find a way to misunderstand - I've attached some notes on how words work: 1- Often, things in the world we want to talk about have many characteristics and variants. 2- Words usually have fuzzy boundaries in what they refer to. 3- Despite the above, we can and do productively refer to such things using words. 4- We can define a thing by mentioning its most prominent feature(s). -- The above does NOT mean that the definition must encapsulate ALL features of the thing to be valid. -- The above does NOT mean that a thing with features outside the definition is not what the word refers to. 5- Attempting to shut down discussion by deliberately misunderstanding words or how they work is a sign of an inability to make productive valid points about reality.

smolder 3y ago
This is a recently imagined, ret-conned definition of what it is, complete with bias, to serve the purposes of the right wing. The definition, if there is to be one, should include that it isn't consistent across time or across political/cultural boundaries. I recommend people don't use the term with any seriousness, and I often ignore people who do. Address the specific ideas you associate with it instead, if you want to have a meaningful discussion.
smolder 3y ago
> Attempting to shut down discussion by deliberately misunderstanding words or how they work is a sign of an inability to make productive valid points about reality. Lumping a bunch of things together under a vague term to make it easier to vaguely complain about them is a sign of an inability to make productive valid points about reality.
- nate_meurer 3y ago
  You do exactly the same thing when you use phrases like "the right wing".
  - ben_w 3y ago
    I was about to say "right wing" hasn't shifted radically in the last decade, but then I guess it has shifted significantly in the UK at least; I hear it's also shifted significantly in the US, but I'm not at all confident in the reporting in that case.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
behnamoh 3y ago
According to this definition, "safe" LLMs are indeed generally "woke". For example, see examples here: https://old.reddit.com/r/LocalLLaMA/comments/1384u1g/wizardlm7buncensored/ https://old.reddit.com/r/LocalLLaMA/comments/1384u1g/wizardl... The authors of WizardLM literally censored its output to say "white people are NOT awesome" and "Fox is not awesome but CNN is".
8note 3y ago
The best definition I can think of is "things that are common sense for black americans to be safe in white dominated america" Yours has important inaccuracies, for example, it's not an ideology, let alone a specific one. There's definitely no specification, only a gut feeling of "I know it when I see it" The most obvious problem with your definition is that Woke is an adjective and not a noun. It's a property of a statement or idea, not an idea in and of itself
dragonwriter 3y ago
> Woke is a specific ideology No, its not. > that it places every individual into a strict hierarchy of oppressor/oppressed according to group racial and sexual identity Not only is that not “woke”, its not any left leaning ideology, nor is it an ideology, AFAICT, that in any meaningful sense actually exists. Its an idea that if anyone actually held it (rather than it being a right-wing projection of the left-of-their-fantasy) would be radically opposed to actual left/progressive ideas like intersectionality. "Woke" is a state of awareness (particularly, pragmatic rather than abstract awareness) of structure/institutional racism (primarily and originally) and inequity more generally (in the newer and broader sense.) It doesn't particularly correspond to a particular normative view of how society should be, so its not an ideology (concern for it correlates historically with a variety of different ideologies, whose only really common factor is general opposition to structural racism but with lots of different normative ideals, and views of praxis of change.) > It rose to prominence in American culture from around 2012, starting in universities. “Woke” originated in the 1930s, and its evolutions and spread in the 2010s started in the black activist community, not universities. By the late 2010s, the political Right adopted it as a generic term for everything they oppose, basically a rhetorical drop-in for their long-time favorite of “political correctness”. Your description seems typically of attempts to try to retroactively justify the right-wing use of the term as referring to a phenomenon that is both new and real rather than an empty epithet, despite the fact that the actual use is generally in contexts of right-wing complaints that haven’t changed for about 5 decades, except literally the substitution of “woke” for “politically correct”.
ben_w 3y ago
That's one definition, sure. > Now that we've defined what woke is, I hope we can move on from this 'you can't define woke' canard I keep seeing. Trouble is, I said "[not] coherent enough to be tested" rather than "you can't define it"; and the comment you're replying to gives another definition that is a better pattern match for the following headlines: "The woke mob can rant for all they're worth, but I'll keep adding Worcester sauce to my spag bol" - Daily Mail, 22 April 2021 "UK builders go WOKE: Study finds three quarters of tradesmen discuss their feelings with colleagues while two thirds shun the fried breakfasts and nearly half say they are history buffs" - Daily Mail, 18 June 2022 Here's another definition of "woke": "alert to racial prejudice and discrimination" — c. 1930s AAVE But again, here's a completely different one, one that doesn't directly touch on race issues at all: "to be woke is to be radically aware and justifiably paranoid. It is to be cognizant of the rot pervading the power structures." — David Brooks, 2017 When a word means everything, it means nothing; when it shifts meaning under your feet as fast as "woke" has, it's as valuable for communicating as the Papiermark in the Weimar Republic was for trading.
- revelio 3y ago
  Proof by Daily Mail headline, really? Do you think that's convincing to anyone? The word woke doesn't mean everything, it has a very widely understood meaning. Even though you're literally citing clickbait as a rebuttal, the first article you mention is consistent with the definitions given above: > "The woke mob can rant for all they're worth, but I'll keep adding Worcester sauce to my spag bol" - Daily Mail, 22 April 2021 This is a reference to woke people's usage of "cultural appropriation" as an attack, arguing that "white" people shouldn't cook or alter the recipes for dishes from other cultures. It's an outgrowth of the obsession with race. > to be woke is to be radically aware and justifiably paranoid. It is to be cognizant of the rot pervading the power structures. You say this quote has nothing to do with race. From just a few sentences earlier in the article you're quoting: The woke mentality became prominent in 2012 and 2013 with the Trayvon Martin case and the rise of Black Lives Matter. Embrace it or not, B.L.M. is the most complete social movement in America today, as a communal, intellectual, moral and political force. The reality is that the word woke is a very clear ideology with well understood roots in Marxist oppressor/oppressed worldviews. There isn't actually any lack of understanding of what it means, except amongst woke people themselves who like to believe that they aren't ideological actors following a herd but rather purely rational beings who just all happen to conclude the same things at the same time.

smolder 3y ago

This is a recently imagined, ret-conned definition of what it is, complete with bias, to serve the purposes of the right wing. The definition, if there is to be one, should include that it isn't consistent across time or across political/cultural boundaries. I recommend people don't use the term with any seriousness, and I often ignore people who do. Address the specific ideas you associate with it instead, if you want to have a meaningful discussion.

smolder 3y ago

> Attempting to shut down discussion by deliberately misunderstanding words or how they work is a sign of an inability to make productive valid points about reality. Lumping a bunch of things together under a vague term to make it easier to vaguely complain about them is a sign of an inability to make productive valid points about reality.

nate_meurer 3y ago
You do exactly the same thing when you use phrases like "the right wing".
- ben_w 3y ago
  I was about to say "right wing" hasn't shifted radically in the last decade, but then I guess it has shifted significantly in the UK at least; I hear it's also shifted significantly in the US, but I'm not at all confident in the reporting in that case.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

behnamoh 3y ago

According to this definition, "safe" LLMs are indeed generally "woke". For example, see examples here: https://old.reddit.com/r/LocalLLaMA/comments/1384u1g/wizardlm7buncensored/ https://old.reddit.com/r/LocalLLaMA/comments/1384u1g/wizardl... The authors of WizardLM literally censored its output to say "white people are NOT awesome" and "Fox is not awesome but CNN is".

8note 3y ago

The best definition I can think of is "things that are common sense for black americans to be safe in white dominated america" Yours has important inaccuracies, for example, it's not an ideology, let alone a specific one. There's definitely no specification, only a gut feeling of "I know it when I see it" The most obvious problem with your definition is that Woke is an adjective and not a noun. It's a property of a statement or idea, not an idea in and of itself

dragonwriter 3y ago

> Woke is a specific ideology No, its not. > that it places every individual into a strict hierarchy of oppressor/oppressed according to group racial and sexual identity Not only is that not “woke”, its not any left leaning ideology, nor is it an ideology, AFAICT, that in any meaningful sense actually exists. Its an idea that if anyone actually held it (rather than it being a right-wing projection of the left-of-their-fantasy) would be radically opposed to actual left/progressive ideas like intersectionality. "Woke" is a state of awareness (particularly, pragmatic rather than abstract awareness) of structure/institutional racism (primarily and originally) and inequity more generally (in the newer and broader sense.) It doesn't particularly correspond to a particular normative view of how society should be, so its not an ideology (concern for it correlates historically with a variety of different ideologies, whose only really common factor is general opposition to structural racism but with lots of different normative ideals, and views of praxis of change.) > It rose to prominence in American culture from around 2012, starting in universities. “Woke” originated in the 1930s, and its evolutions and spread in the 2010s started in the black activist community, not universities. By the late 2010s, the political Right adopted it as a generic term for everything they oppose, basically a rhetorical drop-in for their long-time favorite of “political correctness”. Your description seems typically of attempts to try to retroactively justify the right-wing use of the term as referring to a phenomenon that is both new and real rather than an empty epithet, despite the fact that the actual use is generally in contexts of right-wing complaints that haven’t changed for about 5 decades, except literally the substitution of “woke” for “politically correct”.

ben_w 3y ago

That's one definition, sure. > Now that we've defined what woke is, I hope we can move on from this 'you can't define woke' canard I keep seeing. Trouble is, I said "[not] coherent enough to be tested" rather than "you can't define it"; and the comment you're replying to gives another definition that is a better pattern match for the following headlines: "The woke mob can rant for all they're worth, but I'll keep adding Worcester sauce to my spag bol" - Daily Mail, 22 April 2021 "UK builders go WOKE: Study finds three quarters of tradesmen discuss their feelings with colleagues while two thirds shun the fried breakfasts and nearly half say they are history buffs" - Daily Mail, 18 June 2022 Here's another definition of "woke": "alert to racial prejudice and discrimination" — c. 1930s AAVE But again, here's a completely different one, one that doesn't directly touch on race issues at all: "to be woke is to be radically aware and justifiably paranoid. It is to be cognizant of the rot pervading the power structures." — David Brooks, 2017 When a word means everything, it means nothing; when it shifts meaning under your feet as fast as "woke" has, it's as valuable for communicating as the Papiermark in the Weimar Republic was for trading.

revelio 3y ago
Proof by Daily Mail headline, really? Do you think that's convincing to anyone? The word woke doesn't mean everything, it has a very widely understood meaning. Even though you're literally citing clickbait as a rebuttal, the first article you mention is consistent with the definitions given above: > "The woke mob can rant for all they're worth, but I'll keep adding Worcester sauce to my spag bol" - Daily Mail, 22 April 2021 This is a reference to woke people's usage of "cultural appropriation" as an attack, arguing that "white" people shouldn't cook or alter the recipes for dishes from other cultures. It's an outgrowth of the obsession with race. > to be woke is to be radically aware and justifiably paranoid. It is to be cognizant of the rot pervading the power structures. You say this quote has nothing to do with race. From just a few sentences earlier in the article you're quoting: The woke mentality became prominent in 2012 and 2013 with the Trayvon Martin case and the rise of Black Lives Matter. Embrace it or not, B.L.M. is the most complete social movement in America today, as a communal, intellectual, moral and political force. The reality is that the word woke is a very clear ideology with well understood roots in Marxist oppressor/oppressed worldviews. There isn't actually any lack of understanding of what it means, except amongst woke people themselves who like to believe that they aren't ideological actors following a herd but rather purely rational beings who just all happen to conclude the same things at the same time.