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I think the word “woke” means very different things to some people. As an example I think people from the American political left to somewhere(?) in the middle

• spondylosaurus 2y ago
  "Woke" was originally an AAVE term, popular in the midcentury civil rights era and beyond. Literally meaning "awake [to what's happening to you and your community]," as opposed to being ignorant and asleep. Not really a statement about your own behavior so much as an acknowledgement of what other people are doing to you—it just meant you're well-informed. Perhaps not a coincidence that reactionaries have now co-opted black slang to mean "things minorities do that I don't like."
  • themaninthedark 2y ago
    Generally the reaction is not to minorities(non-white, is what I am assuming you mean) but to people from outside of a group trying to tell a group what words to use i.e. LatinX. An aside: If someone who is white is talking to the Spanish speaking community, would they be considered a minority? If so, then the parent premise would hold true.
    • spondylosaurus 2y ago
      I mean any kind of minority, although I would generally say "marginalized group" instead of "minority." But this is HN, so trying to stick to more commonly-known terminology :P I also think the "latinx" thing is overblown and generally used as an "anti-woke" shibboleth by people who want to get mad at something. Literally never seen an Anglophone yelling at a Spanish speaker about it before, only queer Spanish speakers who use it to refer to themselves. Also worth noting that there have been other variations that predate "latinx" and have seen more widespread usage. There's "latine," and "latin@", although the former is both easier to write and to pronounce.
      • svieira 2y ago
        > Literally never seen an Anglophone yelling at a Spanish speaker about it before, only queer Spanish speakers who use it to refer to themselves. You and I move in different circles. I was definitely running into "normal" Spanish speakers for the past few years who's awakening experience with "wokeness" was seeing the word "Latinx" on some HR form and being told that the reason was "for Hispanic comfort" ... which every single one of them found gaslighting in the extreme (since none of them liked it, even a little bit).
        • dalmo3 2y ago
          > seeing the word "Latinx" on some HR form Yes, very common in job application forms. I don't find it offensive per se, but it makes me wonder if this is the kind of company where bullshit reigns in the workplace.
          • deleted 2y ago
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        • spondylosaurus 2y ago
          Ah, HR... and here I thought we were talking about real people! ;) I've been condescended by (generally well-meaning) corporate diversity initiatives on many occasions, but I think it's hard to take that as a statement about progressive movements in general. Corporate shit tends to be toothless and cringey across the board.
          • svieira 2y ago
            > I think it's hard to take that as a statement about progressive movements in general True, but remember that many people's experience of any movement will be through an interface that is both lossy and hostile (whether it be government, corporate, clan leadership, what have you). "The effects that this had were well beyond the scope of what we intended" is so old it's in the Old Testament (but there as an answer-in-advance): > These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen, and to run before his chariots; and he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his courtiers. He will take one-tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and his courtiers. He will take your male and female slaves, and the best of your cattle and donkeys, and put them to his work. He will take one-tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves. And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves; but the Lord will not answer you in that day. ~ 1 Samuel Chapter 8 via https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Samuel%208%2C1%20Samuel%2028&version=NRSVCE https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Samuel%208%...
    • UncleMeat 2y ago
      Latinx is a great example of the overreaction. Some people use this term. It was briefly catching on among groups with power, but ultimately never did. But it is spoken about like Harris was saying "latinx" in all of her campaign videos and that people are being fired for using "latino" or "latina" or even "latin." Ultimately, I think it is important that groups are able to try things and then later determine that they weren't the best idea. Shouldn't this be ceelbrated?
      • jl6 2y ago
        It would indeed be nice if these things were introduced as “let’s try a new thing and then choose to accept or reject it later, based on results”, rather than “we have determined there is only one correct way of thinking about this topic, and if you don’t like it, you’re a Nazi”.
        • UncleMeat 2y ago
          I suppose I would ask where you've seen or heard this sort of ultimatum about Latinx.
          • dolni 2y ago
            Isn't it interesting that your response here is questioning and perhaps dismissive? If a minority were sharing their perspective about whatever their lived experience was with regards to racism, would you respond this way? I'll answer that: no, you wouldn't. Which very quickly lifts the curtain. The movement is not about empathy or understanding. It's about empathy and understanding for people you deem worthy of receiving it.
            • UncleMeat 2y ago
              I really don't understand how this relates.
              • dolni 2y ago
  • llm_nerd 2y ago
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    • spondylosaurus 2y ago
      It's not "racially gated," lol. It's a word that was popularized and primarily used by black activists, just like how "bikeshed" as a verb was invented by and mainly used by software engineers.
      • UncleOxidant 2y ago
        > like how "bikeshed" as a verb was invented by and mainly used by software engineers How dare you occupationally gate this term! (if it's not clear /s)
        • llm_nerd 2y ago
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          • UncleOxidant 2y ago
            Oh, thank you for this rebuke kind sir!
            • llm_nerd 2y ago
              Oh such a polite and wonderful retort! Love your thoughtful contribution! (/s)
      • llm_nerd 2y ago
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        • spondylosaurus 2y ago
          > Did I misunderstand? Yes, and perhaps deliberately so, lol. "Woke" was a word invented by black activists in the context of civil rights activism and is now being used disparagingly by people who are against modern forms of progressive activism. (I didn't use the word "white" once in the comments you're replying to, and you can CTRL+F me on that.) I also think it's telling that a lot of people like to die on the hill of "retarded used to be a clinical term!" but far fewer people are willing to die on the hill of "mongoloid used to be a clinical term!", despite both being true in roughly the same context.
  • pessimizer 2y ago
    > "Woke" was originally an AAVE term, popular in the midcentury civil rights era and beyond. Literally meaning "awake [to what's happening to you and your community]," as opposed to being ignorant and asleep. This is distorted history. "Woke" is just the word in a bunch of black dialects for "awake." We just say "are you woke?" instead of "are you awake?" What happened is at some point some white woman somewhere had a black person explaining their political beliefs to her. It was likely a black person who was working for her (doing her nails, washing her clothes, or serving her food) who she had a faux friendship with and considered a spiritual guru and a connection to the real world and real suffering, in that way white people do (magical negro.) She carried these pearls of wisdom to her white friends, or to her students at the university, or to the nonprofit that she worked at, and it entered into the white lexicon as a magic word. If a white hippie, in the middle of a righteous rant, said "you've got to stay awake, man..." as many have, it wouldn't have been so exotic and interesting to tell their white friends. Or as useful to get yourself a job as a consultant. At that point, it became a thing that white people would use to abuse other white people as racists. The sin wasn't calling white people racists, it's that a certain self-selected white elect declared themselves to be not racist, or even anti-racist, in order to attack other white people. And they decided this gave them the right to control how other white people speak. And a government who hates the way people can talk to each other on the internet about what the government is lying about supported them whole-heartedly. Woke policing was an excellent way to use legal means to keep people asleep. And black people got blamed, as always. Because America is racist. Black people didn't benefit an iota from any of this. Approximately 0.0% of DEI managers are black men. Black people got poorer during the entire period. Now the anti-woke are going to unleash their revenge on black people, and the ex-woke are going to resent black people for not recognizing their sainthood. > Perhaps not a coincidence that reactionaries have now co-opted black slang to mean "things minorities do that I don't like." Meanwhile, the first step of wokeness was to erase black people altogether and replace them with "minorities" and "people of color," as if the only thing important to note about black people is their lack of whiteness. Or, since sexual minorities are included in "minorities", black people now have no problems that can be distinguished from the desires of white upper-middle class transwomen. Wokeness erased slavery and Jim Crow, and all that money that white people inherit, just as much as anti-wokeness did. Now the real crime was that white people weren't feeling the right things, and weren't saying the right things. Complete Caucasian auto-fixation. The only thing racial about black people's problems is that white people used race as the criterion to enslave. Slavery and Jim Crow were the point, and all of the freebies handed from government to people's white ancestors that weren't given to slaves and ex-slaves, and all of the labor and torture visited on slaves and ex-slaves turned into profit that went into the pockets of white people and was taxed into government coffers. There were blond-haired blue-eyed slaves; the "race" stuff is a white invention, not something they get to act like is an imposition from their ex-property. And that experience is not something that everybody non-white or non-straight gets to steal.
  • archagon 2y ago
    When you’re woke, it’s bad. But when you’re red-pilled, it’s apparently good?
• JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > the divide has originated from taking unlikeable behaviour and labeling that as ‘woke’ (in bad faith of course) and some people have just bonded to that definition so much that they see it as that CPG Grey’s co-dependent memes video comes to mind [1]. Each group defines wokeness (and defines how other groups define it) to maximise outrage. To the extent there is a mind virus it’s in using the term at all. (Which is where I appreciate Graham bringing the term prig into the discussion.) [1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc
  • yurodivuie 2y ago
    Sadly, this is where we are in politics. Pick any term that you like to replace the concept and a rival campaign to redefine it will begin. Your vocabulary is just another battleground.
• Apreche 2y ago
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  • glitchc 2y ago
    > The people on the left, while far from perfect, are generally morally superior to those on the right. Do you have evidence of this claim? If not, your stance is factually incorrect. I have evidence of the opposite [1]. [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34429211/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34429211/
    • JKCalhoun 2y ago
      This seems to show the opposite: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29739293/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29739293/
      • glitchc 2y ago
        Feeling more empathy and doing something about it are two very different things.
    • gamma42 2y ago
      Liberal =/= leftist
    • bagrow 2y ago
      > I have evidence of the opposite. Do you? [1] [1] https://myscp.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jcpy.1164 https://myscp.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jcpy.1...
      • glitchc 2y ago
        It seems the only thing this paper demonstrates is that both sides will invest in causes they believe in. It draws the conclusion that liberals support equality more because they support more institutions that talk about equality. How much those institutions actually contribute towards reducing inequality is not measured or discussed.
• grahamj 2y ago
  > i.e. the morality of homelessness and not having a disdain for them but empathy for them instead. > people on the American political right see it as what this website describes it as “ A self-righteously moralistic person who behaves as if superior to others.” I think those are just two perspectives on the same situation. “wokeness” is realizing we should be treating people better and “anti-wokness” is people feeling called out by that. People tend not to like it being pointed out that they are assholes, especially when they know it’s true. That’s pretty much the whole “anti-woke” thing in a nut.
  • deleted 2y ago
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  • UncleOxidant 2y ago
    completely agree. The Right uses "woke" as sort of an anti-virtue-signal.
  • bpt3 2y ago
    You missed the point of the article completely. Wokeness (as PG defined it, which I would agree is the most commonly used definition today) isn't merely realizing we should be treating people better, it's realizing that people should be treated better and focusing on being a "prig" about completely inconsequential and tangentially relevant concerns as a result of that rather than taking meaningful action.
    • grahamj 2y ago
      No. “Anti-woke” people have latched onto the “prig” aspects of social justice because being against what it’s actually about would highlight what they really have a problem with: equality. If someone says “hey you can’t say the n-word, that’s racist” and someone’s reply is “don’t censor me!” the latter isn’t advocating for freedom of speech, they’re advocating for racism. Defining what “woke” means in terms of the fake justifications of the “anti-woke” crowd is BS. What people labelled as “woke” want is for people to treat people better. “Anti-woke” doesn’t want that.
  • StanislavPetrov 2y ago
• deleted 2y ago
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• cmdli 2y ago
  “Woke”, for the most part, is a boogeyman that the conservative right uses as a summary label for various political movements on the left. Basically nobody on the left talks about “woke” except for perhaps a period of six months back in 2017. Many political groups do this: they identify some aspect of the opposition, preferably one that is easy to ridicule, and then repeat those accusations ad-nauseum. The complaints about, say, LatinX have far surpassed the number of actual proponents of it, which were a small number of people of the left. However, it still brought up again and again because it forms a useful image of what people are fighting against. The trouble with this is that a groups idea of the “enemy” typically outlasts and often surpasses the actual enemy that idea is based off of. People on the right will write endless articles and videos about wokeness not because there actually exists a problem with wokeness but to try to gain political and social status with their political group.
  • wendyshu 2y ago
    > The complaints about, say, LatinX have far surpassed the number of actual proponents of it, which were a small number of people of the left. Even if true, so what? People are still pushing it.
  • dnissley 2y ago
    If you tried to steelman woke, what would fall under it?
    • rectang 2y ago
      Conscious of the effects of structural racism.
      • jpadkins 2y ago
        if the movement stopped at the level of consciousness, then there wouldn't have been as much backlash. It went way beyond consciousness. You are admonished if you aren't actively anti-racist.
        • 2y ago
• Molitor5901 2y ago
  I think it's much simpler than that. Woke is power, it's a moral position that can be used like a club to force others into a specific line of thinking. While it's basic mission of recognizing discrimination, etc. around us, it morphed into a political and societal weapon to force people and institutions to do certain things, like establishing DEI offices.
  • prewett 2y ago
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• AlexandrB 2y ago
  > i.e. the morality of homelessness and not having a disdain for them but empathy for them instead. Ok, I'll bite. What is having empathy for the homeless? Is allowing unconstrained immigration to increase competition for entry-level positions empathy? What about restrictions on construction that make housing completely unaffordable? Is that empathy? Is leaving the drug-addicted portion of the homeless out on the street to battle their addictions on their own empathy[1]? Saying nice words (not having disdain) is not the same thing as helping someone. [1] https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/you-call-that-compassion https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/you-call-that-compassio...
  • suzzer99 2y ago
    I am very sympathetic to the idea that some harm-reduction policies do more to enable drug addiction among the homeless than help them. But the immigration stuff is just right-wing nonsense. a) We don't have anything like unrestrained immigration, that's propaganda. Obama and Biden both deported more people than any other presidents in history to that point (https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/biden-deportation-record https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/biden-deportation-re..., https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/obamas-deportation-policy-numbers/story?id=41715661 https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/obamas-deportation-policy-nu...). And b) the percentage of homeless who might compete with a Honduran immigrant for a day-laborer job is a tiny sliver.
    • AlexandrB 2y ago
      On the immigration issue, I'm mostly speaking from personal experience. I think this issue, just like immigration itself, is very regional and doesn't present the same way everywhere. In the town where I live it's now basically impossible to get an entry level job - the competition is fierce[1]. This is a result of a mass influx of foreign students thanks to a local diploma mill. Not surprisingly, the rents and homeless population have increased rapidly over the same period. [1] https://www.therecord.com/news/waterloo-region/massive-lineup-of-employment-seekers-at-longos-job-fair/article_82907ef5-bec7-5e88-8eee-4a39f8cb5ec3.html https://www.therecord.com/news/waterloo-region/massive-lineu...
• asabjorn 2y ago
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• kardianos 2y ago
  Woke is critical construcivism. The belief consists of two parts: 1. That truth is socially constructed thus when we see bad things, it means society created these bad things. 2. In order to determine what parts of society to cut-out to make society better, so bad things stop happening, use a critical theory to determine who should be removed from society so it can be more equitable (usually the stand in for good. Woke normally holds that goodness is when results are equal, and if they are not equal, they have license to adjust them to equal (This is the core argument of Marxism, though woke could be said to be identity or social Marxism rather then just the economic Marxism presented, though in practice class identity was present from the start as well and expanded in practice under Mao).
  • glitchc 2y ago
    This is where wokeism falls apart as an ideology: It is outcome driven instead of opportunity driven. Equality becomes the goal regardless of motivation, ambition or merit. Why would the best, or more broadly anyone better than average, participate in such a society? What's their incentive? When you define woke this way, you ultimately admit that wokeism is just a veneer of identity politics layered over good old-fashioned communism. The problem with communism is that it sounds great, but doesn't work. How many times must it fail before people realize that?
    • Supermancho 2y ago
      > participate in such a sociehttps://news.ycombinator.com/newsty https://news.ycombinator.com/newsty? What's their incentive? This has never made sense to me. People don't need an external motivator. People who like to collect things or complete puzzle (including high performers), do so because they like to collect them, not because society rewards them. It generally penalizes them as it's wasted time or capital. Granted, sometimes recognition is a good motivator, but that's fleeting over a non-trivial timeline (like a season) and not specifically tied to society at large (eg the longest running game of Tag).
    • wing-_-nuts 2y ago
      I don't mind having 'equality' on the basics. I would gladly pay the taxes necessary to ensure my fellow man has access to food, housing, healthcare and maybe a few other things needed to live a life with dignity. I think that's the whole premise behind UBI, and we're going to have to make our peace with it. There will always be 'incentive' to work and gain more than the very basics. Honestly, given how much of our science has been written by 'gentlemen scholars' who were rich enough to be able to pursue their field without worry of putting food on the table, it may well advance humanity.
• UncleOxidant 2y ago
  You're right. It's really lazy to use the term at this point as there isn't a shared meaning assigned to it. It's mostly used as a pejorative by the right at this point, but it's original meaning was very different and indicated a positive attribute. Whenever I'm in a conversation with someone who uses the word, I stop them and ask them to define what they're talking about. Usually they end up with something vague that boils down to "stuff I don't like".
  • causal 2y ago
    I liked PG's attempts to define the perjorative form of "wokeness". I was disappointed that the rest of the essay didn't serve the discourse much. What I was really hoping for was focused analysis on how to make social media more useful to the earnest helpers instead of the "loud prigs". That would have made for an interesting discussion here.
    • UncleOxidant 2y ago
      The problem is that he thinks he solves the problem by bringing 'prig' into the conversation and in reality he just paints a broad swath of people with a broad brush. A lot of folks who are in the "earnest helpers" category are also categorized by the right as "woke". That's the problem with the word right now, it can go all over the place. "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 right and the slaveholders wrong. MLK was viewed as a "prig" by many southern whites for interfering in their racism. But MLK was right.
      • causal 2y ago
        I agree. The essay seems to assume there are clean lines separating the "good ones" from the "bad ones". It's very reductionist.
    • deleted 2y ago
• commandlinefan 2y ago
  > not having a disdain for them but empathy for them instead [4] The woke sometimes claim that wokeness is simply treating people with respect. But if it were, that would be the only rule you'd have to remember, and this is comically far from being the case. My younger son likes to imitate voices, and at one point when he was about seven I had to explain which accents it was currently safe to imitate publicly and which not. It took about ten minutes, and I still hadn't covered all the cases.
  • josh-sematic 2y ago
    Treating people with respect can sometimes mean learning enough about them to understand a little about what life is like in their shoes. There are a lot of different kinds of people wearing a lot of shoes. Learning about them is a lifelong process. It’s not about learning “a long list of rules” but more “learning about a lot of kinds of people and their experiences.”
    • StanislavPetrov 2y ago
      I think something a lot of people don't understand is that nobody is entitled to respect. Respect is something that is earned. If someone behaves in ways that you disagree with, you are not obligated to respect that behavior, or the person engaging in that behavior. I think one of the greatest disservices we have done to our young people, for a couple of generations now, is to teach them that everyone is entitled to respect no matter what they do. Just as it is your right to behave however you want in society (within legal limits), it is everyone else's right to judge you for that behavior. The younger generations act as if "judgement" is a dirty word, and that people are committing some sort of grave transgression if they judge you.
      • josh-sematic 2y ago
        Are you suggesting that you think that disrespect is a better default behavior towards others than respect? For example, would you prefer that people respond to your comments disrespectfully until they have seen enough of them to believe you “deserve their respect?” Edit: if you are saying that it is reasonable that some actions can induce a loss of respect, I agree. Though I firmly believe respect is the default behavior and also that there is a base level of respect that should be accorded to even our worst enemies.
• Larrikin 2y ago
  Anyone using the term woke in 2025 is using the term in bad faith and to create the bogeyman you describe. It's actually hard to find the time when anyone on the left actually used it. Seems like it was a little under a year and the term was dropped to be more specific actions.
  • diggan 2y ago
    Reading and understanding the article beyond the title, it's just a term that used to be called something else before, and will be called something else in the future. I think you're focusing too much on the actual word, rather than the "movement", which is what pg's article is really about.
    • Larrikin 2y ago
      The point is that anyone using the term woke is using it in bad faith or if they think they are not using it offensively then it's poorly researched.
      • diggan 2y ago
        So anyone discussing/posting thoughts about "woke" and "wokeness" are using it in bad faith? Would it matter if the person puts a positive or negative spin on it, or are some topics just straight up "no no" to discuss? Seems like we should aim to critique the content of articles, not just critique the usage of a single word. But you do you.
        • zug_zug 2y ago
          I think it's okay to refer to the word "woke", but if you use it more than 3 times in your writing, then it's hard to take you seriously. Why? Because it's a word that gets people emotional. Getting people emotional is the opposite of what you want to do when you're trying to intellectually dissect something. But it's exactly what you want to do when you're grinding a gear. It's just like if somebody wrote a piece about trump, but mentioned he was a felon 4+ times, you'd know they weren't writing an unemotional thinkpiece.
• throw101010qwe 2y ago
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• Melomomololo 2y ago
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• electriclove 2y ago
  There are many things on which I don’t agree with pg. But I feel he is accurate with describing wokeness as the term is commonly used currently. He doesn’t go into the history of the word in this essay.
  • greycol 2y ago
    You certainly don't use it to mean "those crazy people who are pro interacial marriage" but some do. The woke people supporting trans rights almost certainly don't support macho man randy savage chucking on a dress and that same day competing in the olympics but the characture that supports it is part of the woke mob. People scoff and think of course I know what woke means, because the people the people they talk to/media they consume have the word at roughly the same level of meaning, not internalising the next more or less extreme group that isn't in their social circle include more or less in the meaning. These days the word woke might as well serve the same purpose as "If by scotsman..." in that no one will disagree with you unless you get into specifics.
    • ilioi 2y ago
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• ToValueFunfetti 2y ago
  The only people who could plausibly define 'woke' as 'people who investigate their own values and have empathy' are people who consider themselves woke and are sufficiently under pg's 'prig' definition to believe that is exclusive to them, and sociopaths. What emotionally normal person would say membership of another group is defined by 'basic human decency' and 'thinking about whether their objectives are any good'?
• abstractbill 2y ago
  A friend and I love to send each other examples of ridiculous things being labeled "woke". Lately we are spoiled for choice. British tabloid newspapers are an especially good source. In his post, pg says "Political correctness seemed to burn out in the second half of the 1990s. One reason, perhaps the main reason, was that it literally became a joke. It offered rich material for comedians, who performed their usual disinfectant action upon it." What I remember the most from that time period was comedians making jokes about exactly this effect: At some point people started labeling everything they didn't like as "political correctness", and the phrase lost all meaning. (I don't have particularly strong feelings about pg's essay tbh. I've personally managed to completely ignore political correctness and wokeness without anything bad happening).
• LeroyRaz 2y ago
  Why and how is labelling unlikable behaviour as woke bad faith. As I understand the right using the term, they use it consistently to refer to a very specific type of behaviour they see as bad (one core aspect is prioritising signalling being virtuous over actually improving the world). Is your complaint that this usage unfairly co-opts the original left usage of the word?
  • thruway516 2y ago
    Imagine I wrote an essay on Christianity and based it entirely on the behavior of evangelicals in the South who attend megachurchies (a very vocal minority). Surely you'd expect other Christians (all around the world) who equally claim true usage to object.
    • bpt3 2y ago
      I think the similarities to a religion are a strong indication that there's a serious issue
      • kevingadd 2y ago
        "Anti-woke" itself has become something of a religion itself with no real core principles or guiding ruleset. In opposition to something that is poorly defined
      • thruway516 2y ago
        I only used religion as an example, not to set up a false dichotomy. It could be anything people care about - 'love', 'patriotism', 'fairness', 'rule of law' ...
        • bpt3 2y ago
          One of those is not like the others...
          • thruway516 2y ago
• blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
  One thing I wanted to point out: I’ve seen a lot of people on HN and elsewhere allege that moderates or the “right” (in quotes because it is overused as a pejorative label) cannot define what “woke” is. But I disagree, and think most people who complain against this term can easily point to what ideas it represents, and what it means to them. Even if that is not very precise, it is real and meaningful. Enough so that they can find common ground with other people who use the word, even if they aren’t exact matches. The accusation that people can’t define it is itself a tactic meant to undermine the credibility of complaints against it. But is it really any less imprecise than people using broad labels of other kinds (things like liberal or conservative)?
  • dmarcos 2y ago
    I agree. Wokeness has a very precise meaning: World is divided between oppressors and oppressed. Oppressors are white heterosexual men (white supremacy / heteropatriarchy) everyone else subjugated to them. Institutions, laws are created to perpetuate that power and must be dismantled / subverted via revolution. Most understand it even if they can’t articulate a definition. Easy to point out when a movie or corporate initiative, behavior is woke.
  • Levitz 2y ago
    I'd say it's hard to give a clear-cut, very specific definition of the word. It's also really hard to believe that people can't figure out the meaning given context and such. It is by no means whatsoever a less defined term than "fascist" and the semantic problem seems missing there.
• toddmorey 2y ago
  What Paul Graham misses is the "aggressively performative moralism" that appeared in response to wokeism. For those hungry for attention, it was a very useful enemy. In many ways, the narrative of what it even meant to be "woke" was quickly hijacked and controlled by those opposed to it. Deriding anyone of color in a leadership position as a DEI hire is a good example. None of this was a call for reason or to return to balance. It was an equally performative stunt to cast anything that event hinted at inclusiveness as evil intent.
• rayiner 2y ago
  There is nothing “bad faith” about appropriating an evocative term to label ideologically connected ideas. It’s like how the left uses the term “capitalism.” In the last few years, we have seen corporations and universities push for race-conscious hiring and promotion decisions, while schools are putting kids in racially segregated affinity groups. These are obviously ideologically related efforts. It’s perfectly fine for opponents of these efforts to group them together under the label of “woke.”
• anon291 2y ago
  Both characterizations actually mean the same thing and you said it in your description of the person on the left. Because, thinking that a right-wing solution to homelessness 'lacks empathy' and only you have empathy for the homeless is exactly the sort of self-righteousness the right correctly criticizes.
• atoav 2y ago
  Woke in is when you don't play there games. Don't wanna join them beating up whoever is at the wrong end of the stick ? Woke. See a observed phenomena as a result of complex socioeconomic circumstances instead of making a deliriously stupid absolute statements? Woke. Defend a person that is weaker than you , has a different gender or skin color? Woke. They are fucking bullies and if you are simple a decent, considerate person your behavior points that out . And like all bullies they hate that.
  • moshegramovsky 2y ago
    Well said. I've long believed that racism, sexism, homophobia are basically forms of bullying. All are antisocial behavior and quite bad for society. I endured near constant bullying for a lot of my early life, as well as sporadic racism. When I hear the word woke, I think about people who are against this kind of behavior whether its conducted by an individual, a company, a society, or a government. But all the time I wish that people would just call it what is is: bullying. It would be much more effective than calling people racist or homophobic or sexist.
• babyshake 2y ago
  My original understanding of "woke" was similar to what in the 60s they might have called being "turned on". Being awake and seeing the actual reality of things for what they are.
• _yb2s 2y ago
  Insightful comment. While some of wokeness involves performative aspects like PG mentioned, it also seems to involve a genuine increase in awareness about injustice, and a desire to do something about it- which is much needed. I’m concerned that this desire to “end wokeness” will throw the baby out with the bathwater, and end us in a situation where it becomes taboo to point out or do anything about injustice. It’s insane that PG seems to think racism isn’t a very big problem- hard to imagine he is living on the same planet I am.
  • aprilthird2021 2y ago
    Idk, he spent a good chunk of the blog post saying that we shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater
• Tycho 2y ago
  In the late 90s and 2000s there was a big thing in hiphop music about “conscious rap”. At first, rappers differentiated themselves from the mainstream by emphasising that they were “conscious” in their lyrics of the harm done by perpetuating stereotypes or promoting dysfunctional lifestyles or failing to challenge systematic oppression. Then it became passé and rappers like Taleb Kweli lamented that they were stuck with this label, which had become a term of derision. Whole thing was like an early run of “woke”.
• gumball-amp 2y ago
  I think this is a fair assumption to make if you haven't been in some of the places where this has been most contentious -- in particular, I think left-wing activist circles, or segments of industry where the workplace has switched from being "apolitical" -- I know that term is contested, but I don't have a better one to use -- to shifting to an overtly social-justice-oriented space. I've spent the last decade in these environments. My own upbringing and general disposition is left-wing, but the last few years have been stressful and much less productive. Somebody downthread mentioned how "latinx" was just a small minority of advocates, but we had painful discussions about it, including objections from latino staff, and ended up using it. Our (obligatory) sexual harassment training switched from a standard legal footing to one that was preceded by a long explanation of the oppressive nature of Europeans. Group chats moved towards political conversations, and even minor questioning of the (quite sudden) norm shift led to ostracization, with two people, not including me, ultimately leaving the company because they felt uncomfortable with the social pressure. One senior executive was pushed out because they made a joke about having pronouns in video profiles. We pursued a diverse hiring policy that ended up with patently unsuitable, but diverse, employees including an alcoholic, and someone who had a mental health breakdown in a meeting. Staff would increasingly reach for untouchably political accusations when maneuvering against other individuals at the workplace, accusing them of racism, intolerance, and harassment when there was little evidence that this was going on (none of this was from white males, but between other less privileged groups). I move in other circles too, academic and professional, and there have been similar dynamics. Not only do I know people who have been "cancelled" (ie lost jobs or opportunities because of public statements that, while politically mainstream, went against local norms), but I also know people who did the cancelling, get cancelled in turn. None of this was about anything demonstrably and objectively offensive; sometimes it was about defending arguably offensive behaviour; sometimes it was just an uncharitable reading of an innocuous comment, taken out of context. What I would say is that there has been a shifting and narrowing of politically acceptable statements, and a pressure to conform with the consensus in certain kinds of tech work and other high-status societal environments, which I think would make people of Paul Graham's age uncomfortable; he would definitely have seen the "worst" of it. I think part of its spread has been due to it looking, without closer examination, like what you have described. But as someone who was raised by socialists who got there largely by their empathy for others, the degree of cruelty and arbitrary punishment through social sanction has been unusually vicious and hard to bear. I still feel I can't talk about this except with a few very close friends. This is a throwaway account.
• dogcomplex 2y ago
  Oh I'm sorry, are we now saying "woke" covers economic class issues like homelessness and poor people, instead of just social issues which both sides have used to suck all the air out of political discussion? Now that the neoliberals are embarrassed enough to throw out "woke", are we slipping in economic concerns too? PSA: YOU CAN STILL BE A SELF-RIGHTEOUSLY MORALISTIC PRICK, SO LONG AS IT'S BASED ON ACTUAL TANGIBLE ECONOMIC ISSUES THAT ARE SYSTEMIC AND ACTIONABLE
• hsuduebc2 2y ago
  "Woke" make as much sense as "liberal", "fascist" or "nazi" these days.
• timewizard 2y ago
  You're describing the difference between being inwardly moral and being outwardly a bully. When people use "woke" in a derogatory fashion they just mean "bully." Which is why James Lindsay's "woke right" comes across as so incomprehensible. He just means "right wing bullies."
• onetimeusename 2y ago
  I don't think I agree. I think the counterpoint of "woke" is "fascist" or "racist". People on the right call things woke and people on the left call things fascist. But I think the difference in the meaning of these words reveals a lot about who is saying them. For example, woke people are merely self-righteously moralistic but fascists are such a severe threat that we have to end things like free speech, etc. in order to prevent a constant threat to society. That might explain some of this divide.
• 0xDEAFBEAD 2y ago
  >As an example I think people from the American political left to somewhere(?) in the middle see it as what it has been introduced as, that being looking past the status quo and instead looking at your own values, i.e. the morality of homelessness and not having a disdain for them but empathy for them instead. I voted for Kamala, and I don't think this is accurate. I support having empathy for homeless people. I would love to see a movement focused on actually helping homeless people, by volunteering at soup kitchens and so on. Wokeness does not seem to be that movement. Insofar as wokeness concerns itself with homeless people, (a) it wants you to refer to them as 'unhoused' instead of homeless, (b) it wants to make sure you don't talk about it when they e.g. sexually assault you: https://x.com/CollinRugg/status/1845244113249063227 https://x.com/CollinRugg/status/1845244113249063227
• jimbokun 2y ago
  Paul makes clear what definition he is using, so let’s discuss that instead of an unbearably boring discussion about which definition of “woke” is the real one.
  • antifa 2y ago
    The second definition is a gentrification of the first definition. They are intrinsically linked and cannot be separated.
• Timber-6539 2y ago
  “ A self-righteously moralistic person who behaves as if superior to others.” This is accurate. A manifestation of the woke belief system. I see this bigotry all the time online whenever team blue joke about the right.
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• hoppp 2y ago
  As a non-american, reading the definition of woke I dont know what to think If woke means progressive and politically conscious then the opposite is what, uninformed,thoughtless. So people say they rather be ignorant than conscious? Sometimes I think people are not actually fully conscious and tend to behave like primitive animals and they are hating everything because reverting to hate is a primitive animalistic trait that requires little thinking or consciousness. Or its a racist thing because woke has roots in black culture?
  • wccrawford 2y ago
    Originally, people meant that you were inclusive and caring about all people. Except, you know, those hateful people on the right. Because fuck them. (I'm not even kidding. This is how they really felt, somehow.) But then "the right" got ahold of the term and used it to mean the people above who went above and beyond and were actually being harmful instead of helpful, in the name of "being woke". Personally, I think the pejorative term is a lot more accurate, especially for most people who consider themselves "woke". They drink their own koolaid and believe what they're doing is helpful, and can't see the divide that they are causing. Of course, there are a ton of trolls (who are also probably on "the right") that use it to cause the divide as well. So in the end, it ends up just being a way for jerks on both sides to rile each other up, instead of actually helping anyone.
    • btreecat 2y ago
      > Originally, people meant that you were inclusive and caring about all people. Except, you know, those hateful people on the right. Because fuck them. (I'm not even kidding. This is how they really felt, somehow.) Surely you have evidence for this claim that would counter all the other evidence that disputes it? Your definition doesn't even stand up to the first paragraph on Wikipedia - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woke https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woke - https://www.the-independent.com/news/uk/home-news/woke-meaning-word-history-b1790787.html https://www.the-independent.com/news/uk/home-news/woke-meani... - https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2023/06/06/what-does-woke-even-mean-how-a-decades-old-racial-justice-term-became-co-opted-by-politics/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2023/06/06/what-doe... If you're reading "stay woke" and understand it to me "fuck people we don't like" then I'm not sure what reading comprehension program to recommend.
• bugtodiffer 2y ago
  > Paul Graham > English programmer, venture capitalist, and essayist <tinfoilhat> I wonder why a venture capitalist would push this meaning of the word "woke" </tinfoilhat>
• trod1234 2y ago
  Woke-ism is a cult. There is no generally accepted definition of woke, and that is largely by design to mislead others through well known psychological blindspots (Cialdini), towards inducing others to join collectivism while also inspiring disunity and hate, albeit indirectly. The movement often couches its perspectives in power dynamics which follows elements common to Maoism and Communism, along with many other similar marxist movements. It also has elements from critical pedagogy (the critical turn), which has origins in Marxist movements. The mind virus part of it is the same with any belief system that lends itself towards irrational delusion, inducing bitter resentment in individuals and falsely criticizing without any rational framework or basis, often ignoring objective reality for a false narrative. Woke-ism is a cult of the semi-lucid insane brainwashed children they manage to mislead, who desperately try to poorly grapple with reality, miserably, and bitterly, while dragging everyone else down. Its rather sad for the individuals who become both victim and perpetrator. There is no cure for insanity, nor the blindness induced. If you want a rational discussion on this subject matter, I'd suggest checking over James Lindsay's work outing these type of movements. Your description is fairly misinformed. https://newdiscourses.com/2023/03/workings-of-the-woke-cult/ https://newdiscourses.com/2023/03/workings-of-the-woke-cult/
• ljm 2y ago
  The irony of all of this is that if you boil down the concept of 'wokeness' to simply looking past the status quo, then a lot of the things that are currently labelled 'woke' are in fact anything but. It transcends the political spectrum and simply becomes a cudgel for shit you don't like but can't explain why. Gay marriage? It's legal, therefore status quo. Making gay marriage illegal again? Not status quo, therefore woke. Abortion? If it's legal and you want to make it illegal, that's also changing the status quo. Woke. Immigration? Status quo is to hire employees who are citizens or resident. Laying them off in favour of H1B workers? Woke AF. Roe v Wade and the Chevron Doctrine? Those were status quo for decades! How woke of the Supreme Court to reverse those decisions after so many years. Of course in each of these cases the policy is actually regressive as it reverts society back to the point before the original policies were implemented, and to that extent the argument falls apart: none of that actually seems 'woke'. Except...the people who agree with all of the above would see it as progressive towards their own aims, so it pretty much is 'woke' for them, especially as they believe their own morals to be superior (and traditionally backed by religion).
  • btreecat 2y ago
    >that being looking past the status quo and instead looking at your own values, i.e. the morality of homelessness and not having a disdain for them but empathy for them instead. If you're going to be reductive with someone's argument, at least use the entire argument. If we do, IDK how you can say woke is just oppositional positions when that wasn't the idea OP proposed.
    • sagarm 2y ago
      Because it's actually just a verbal cudgel used by the right for things they don't like. Religious groups especially have all sorts of arbitrary rules for which words you can use to talk about them, and if you use the wrong words they'll absolutely cancel you - up to and including murder.
    • ljm 2y ago
      That is the entire argument though, it's just that the parent's idea is based on their own morality when, in fact, there is more than one morality in play. Flipping it on its head shows that it's not really about 'wokeness', which might as well be a thought terminating cliché at this point. Here is another part of the parent's post which I alluded to: > the people on the American political right see it as what this website describes it as “ A self-righteously moralistic person who behaves as if superior to others.” This is why it's ironic. Two sides of the same coin: one group of righteous people claims moral superiority over another group of infidels, and vice-versa. It's the Spidermen pointing at themselves meme. These conflicting beliefs can reasonably co-exist (as they always have done), so who stands to gain from treating them as mutually exclusive (there can only be one?)?
• flir 2y ago
  > I think the word “woke” means very different things to some people. Before that it was "social justice warrior", before that it was "political correctness". It's just a drumbeat of demonization. https://theonion.com/woke-conservatives-define-what-it-means-to-them-1850262972/ https://theonion.com/woke-conservatives-define-what-it-means... My favourite is number 5.
• prometheus76 2y ago
  I see it as a clash between people who are instinctually inclined towards philosophical nominalism (woke) and people who are instinctually inclined towards realism (not-woke). Dr. Nathan A. Jacobs lays out the details and the arguments for this way of defining our current culture war here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVmPIMg4St4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVmPIMg4St4
• steakscience 2y ago
  Even before the term "woke" was widespread, I noticed all my conservative friends would prefer to find the most ridiculous liberal woke example and mock it. Rather than actually discuss policy or anything concrete, because they have nothing to offer.