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Black person here. Like most discussions of "woke" and "wokeness," this one too fails HARD by not fully and directly addressing the origins of the term -- and

by jrm4 2y ago

Black person here. Like most discussions of "woke" and "wokeness," this one too fails HARD by not fully and directly addressing the origins of the term -- and by "fails hard" I do mean will almost certainly do more obscuring than clarifying by starting from an information-deficient premise. Including, e.g. "The term 'woke' has its origins in the Black American community as a signifier of awareness about ones political and social situation..." is a bare minimum.

causal 2y ago
There is so very little citation or substantiation in the entire essay. Even the footnotes are largely just more speculation. He presents it as some kind of historical record but it's literally just his thoughts.
- avs733 2y ago
  It’s almost like that is the entirety of the rhetorical and argument station expectations when people comment on too much wokeness. Vibes. “I invented a meaning for this word that bears no resemblance to its actual meaning and then am critical of others because I think my invented definition is bad”
  - kubb 2y ago
    1. Build a strawman. 2. Beat the living hell out of the strawman. 3.”I’m sure this will trigger some people”. 4. Get a standing ovation from Elon Musk. 5. Lots of money from private capital.
    - avs733 2y ago
      He didn’t even have to build his own strawman. It is a shared strawman - which is more efficient. PG out there disrupting the bad faith argument industry.
blast 2y ago
You're right, but I don't think he's interested in the term. He's interested in the social phenomenon that (briefly) appropriated the term before the other side started using it as a negative.
mmcwilliams 2y ago
This is maybe not unknown but often intentionally avoided by people like Graham who discuss this topic with an anti-woke bias. The exercise is to create a false origin and attack that rather than address the actual history of the term and its origin.
jimbokun 2y ago
Sure but that has almost nothing to do with how it’s used today. Language and the meanings of words change over time, and it’s all but impossible to make people go back to using tre old definition.
- snozolli 2y ago
  It's what it meant until white people started lecturing each other on what it means, then conservatives started using it as a derisive catch-all for anything conceivably liberal or simply empathetic.
- greenie_beans 2y ago
  but don't you think an essay titled "the origins of wokeness" should consider that definition?
- antifa 2y ago
  The second definition is a gentrification of the first definition. It has everything to do with how it's used today.
preciousoo 2y ago
It is actually insane how far I had to scroll to see the first comment mentioning this. He has merits in his comparison to religion but this essay is a huge miss. Edit: in this thread, the actual origin of “woke” is only mentioned 3 times, the thread has 1942 comments as I type
- Manuel_D 2y ago
  https://x.com/seunosewa/status/1878835480424513903 https://x.com/seunosewa/status/1878835480424513903 "Usage is usage. I don't make the rules." He also clarifies he's referring to the contemporary meaning in the linked essay: > Wokeness is a second, more aggressive wave of political correctness, which started in the late 1980s, died down in the late 1990s, and then returned with a vengeance in the early 2010s, finally peaking after the riots of 2020. > This was not the original meaning of woke, but it's rarely used in the original sense now. Now the pejorative sense is the dominant one. What does it mean now?
  - preciousoo 2y ago
    He doesn’t even attempt to touch on the actual origins in the essay however. There are a lot of loose ends in it and this is a glaring one. He also uses “political correctness”, which is a more precise way to describe the phenomenon he talks about. But that buzzword died a long time ago, so “the origins of woke” without actually touching on the origin of “woke” will do.
    - Manuel_D 2y ago
      > He doesn’t even attempt to touch on the actual origins in the essay however Because he's not talking about the terms original meaning. Plenty of people are reading the title thinking he's digging into the etymological origins of the term. He's talking about the origins of the ideas that contemporary people call "woke". It's not an omission. Paul explicitly clarifies what he's talking about near the top of the piece. You and other readers simply wanted him to write about a different topic entirely.
zackmorris 2y ago
jrm4, yours should be the top comment. I denounce Paul Graham's essay. At a time when our leaders - especially our thought leaders - reliably do the wrong thing, it's especially appalling that he has the wrong take on wokeness, transparently and self-evidently to appease Donald Trump and his followers in order to protect his financial ties to Y Combinator startups. That's low, bordering on unforgivable, and until he retracts his statements, I'm afraid that I've lost respect for him and his opinion in all other matters. It's obvious that pg isn't schooled in the basic civic virtues that I assumed he was. Such as: in journalism one always punches up. That's perhaps the simplest litmus test to know if one is siding with the oppressor. I identify as woke and progressive. I speak out against all forms of oppression. I call out othering such as sexism, racism, ableism and ageism. I watched political correctness rise and fall under the boot of capitalist authoritarianism. I witnessed the wrong people win the internet lottery and deliberately undermine everything the civil rights movement achieved since the 1960s, as well as the shared prosperity that the New Deal brought since FDR. I watched them monopolize our media, take over and corrupt symbols of what's possible like Twitter and Wikipedia, attack beloved institutions like the US Department of Education and Environmental Protection Agency, divide us on wedge issues in order to enrich themselves, and capture our regulatory bodies through lobbying and packing courts with judges and justices who toe the party line. I watched the winners sell out like pg just did. I watched my heroes fall. I thought the readership of Hacker News was with me on this stuff. But I guess I was wrong. It's apparent that too many people here just don't get it. They don't work on their unhealed traumas, they don't seek equitable solutions. They just side with concentrated wealth and power, whether out of fear over their own job security, greed by hoping to be at the top of the pyramid someday, or through simple projection by not nurturing their own dignity and the power that their voice could have to shed grace and light onto the world. If everything I just said is performative, so be it. I'd rather be on the side of peace, love and righteousness than whatever all this is.
- coderc 2y ago
  Because you said that this author has the "wrong take on wokeness", what do you believe to be "the right take on wokeness"? And by the way, I do think you are being more than a little bit performative here, because it seems you're just displaying how morally superior you believe yourself to be over Paul Graham, your heroes, and the readership of HN. But I would still like to hear your answer to my question.
majani 2y ago
I'm also black and growing up I had the impression that "woke" referred to left-leaning conspiracy theorists and activists. 9/11 truthers and gay rights activists were the main woke groups of the Bush era
- jrm4 2y ago
  Going to guess you're pretty young? Seems odd to have not heard it differently elsewhere first.

by jrm4 2y ago

causal 2y ago

There is so very little citation or substantiation in the entire essay. Even the footnotes are largely just more speculation. He presents it as some kind of historical record but it's literally just his thoughts.

avs733 2y ago
It’s almost like that is the entirety of the rhetorical and argument station expectations when people comment on too much wokeness. Vibes. “I invented a meaning for this word that bears no resemblance to its actual meaning and then am critical of others because I think my invented definition is bad”
- kubb 2y ago
  1. Build a strawman. 2. Beat the living hell out of the strawman. 3.”I’m sure this will trigger some people”. 4. Get a standing ovation from Elon Musk. 5. Lots of money from private capital.
  - avs733 2y ago
    He didn’t even have to build his own strawman. It is a shared strawman - which is more efficient. PG out there disrupting the bad faith argument industry.

blast 2y ago

You're right, but I don't think he's interested in the term. He's interested in the social phenomenon that (briefly) appropriated the term before the other side started using it as a negative.

mmcwilliams 2y ago

This is maybe not unknown but often intentionally avoided by people like Graham who discuss this topic with an anti-woke bias. The exercise is to create a false origin and attack that rather than address the actual history of the term and its origin.

jimbokun 2y ago

Sure but that has almost nothing to do with how it’s used today. Language and the meanings of words change over time, and it’s all but impossible to make people go back to using tre old definition.

snozolli 2y ago
It's what it meant until white people started lecturing each other on what it means, then conservatives started using it as a derisive catch-all for anything conceivably liberal or simply empathetic.
greenie_beans 2y ago
but don't you think an essay titled "the origins of wokeness" should consider that definition?
antifa 2y ago
The second definition is a gentrification of the first definition. It has everything to do with how it's used today.

preciousoo 2y ago

It is actually insane how far I had to scroll to see the first comment mentioning this. He has merits in his comparison to religion but this essay is a huge miss. Edit: in this thread, the actual origin of “woke” is only mentioned 3 times, the thread has 1942 comments as I type

Manuel_D 2y ago
https://x.com/seunosewa/status/1878835480424513903 https://x.com/seunosewa/status/1878835480424513903 "Usage is usage. I don't make the rules." He also clarifies he's referring to the contemporary meaning in the linked essay: > Wokeness is a second, more aggressive wave of political correctness, which started in the late 1980s, died down in the late 1990s, and then returned with a vengeance in the early 2010s, finally peaking after the riots of 2020. > This was not the original meaning of woke, but it's rarely used in the original sense now. Now the pejorative sense is the dominant one. What does it mean now?
- preciousoo 2y ago
  He doesn’t even attempt to touch on the actual origins in the essay however. There are a lot of loose ends in it and this is a glaring one. He also uses “political correctness”, which is a more precise way to describe the phenomenon he talks about. But that buzzword died a long time ago, so “the origins of woke” without actually touching on the origin of “woke” will do.
  - Manuel_D 2y ago
    > He doesn’t even attempt to touch on the actual origins in the essay however Because he's not talking about the terms original meaning. Plenty of people are reading the title thinking he's digging into the etymological origins of the term. He's talking about the origins of the ideas that contemporary people call "woke". It's not an omission. Paul explicitly clarifies what he's talking about near the top of the piece. You and other readers simply wanted him to write about a different topic entirely.

zackmorris 2y ago

jrm4, yours should be the top comment. I denounce Paul Graham's essay. At a time when our leaders - especially our thought leaders - reliably do the wrong thing, it's especially appalling that he has the wrong take on wokeness, transparently and self-evidently to appease Donald Trump and his followers in order to protect his financial ties to Y Combinator startups. That's low, bordering on unforgivable, and until he retracts his statements, I'm afraid that I've lost respect for him and his opinion in all other matters. It's obvious that pg isn't schooled in the basic civic virtues that I assumed he was. Such as: in journalism one always punches up. That's perhaps the simplest litmus test to know if one is siding with the oppressor. I identify as woke and progressive. I speak out against all forms of oppression. I call out othering such as sexism, racism, ableism and ageism. I watched political correctness rise and fall under the boot of capitalist authoritarianism. I witnessed the wrong people win the internet lottery and deliberately undermine everything the civil rights movement achieved since the 1960s, as well as the shared prosperity that the New Deal brought since FDR. I watched them monopolize our media, take over and corrupt symbols of what's possible like Twitter and Wikipedia, attack beloved institutions like the US Department of Education and Environmental Protection Agency, divide us on wedge issues in order to enrich themselves, and capture our regulatory bodies through lobbying and packing courts with judges and justices who toe the party line. I watched the winners sell out like pg just did. I watched my heroes fall. I thought the readership of Hacker News was with me on this stuff. But I guess I was wrong. It's apparent that too many people here just don't get it. They don't work on their unhealed traumas, they don't seek equitable solutions. They just side with concentrated wealth and power, whether out of fear over their own job security, greed by hoping to be at the top of the pyramid someday, or through simple projection by not nurturing their own dignity and the power that their voice could have to shed grace and light onto the world. If everything I just said is performative, so be it. I'd rather be on the side of peace, love and righteousness than whatever all this is.

coderc 2y ago
Because you said that this author has the "wrong take on wokeness", what do you believe to be "the right take on wokeness"? And by the way, I do think you are being more than a little bit performative here, because it seems you're just displaying how morally superior you believe yourself to be over Paul Graham, your heroes, and the readership of HN. But I would still like to hear your answer to my question.

majani 2y ago

I'm also black and growing up I had the impression that "woke" referred to left-leaning conspiracy theorists and activists. 9/11 truthers and gay rights activists were the main woke groups of the Bush era

jrm4 2y ago
Going to guess you're pretty young? Seems odd to have not heard it differently elsewhere first.