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> Can't really agree. Especially in the wake of the 2024 election, there's been quite a bit of discussion about wokeness on the left. We'd have to figure out w

• cle 2y ago
  TFA spends the first 7-8 paragraphs defining "woke", even a dedicated callout to a concise definition: > An aggressively performative focus on social justice.
  • tomlockwood 2y ago
    That's a pretty subjective definition. We're back where we started.
    • cle 2y ago
      Helpfully he spends most of the article elaborating on what he means by "aggressively performative".
      • tomlockwood 2y ago
        So, not such a "concise definition".
        • dgfitz 2y ago
          [flagged]
          • tomlockwood 2y ago
            It either has a concise definition that actually defines the term or it doesn't. I leave it to the anti-woke to tell me which it is, and I'm still waiting. "It has a concise definition!" moments later "It took a whole article to explain!!!" Also entertaining - the idea that racism has an uncontested definition.
        • nl 2y ago
          I think any definition of a contested term is going to end up having a longer explanation (See this whole discussion as a proof-by-example). It seems like a reasonably concise definition to me. It's reasonable to disagree with the definition of course, but to merely dismiss it as not concise is both incorrect and not useful because it lacks specific criticisms.
          • tomlockwood 2y ago
            You understand as well as anyone that something is either a definition of a term, or it isn't. I'm simply pointing to someone who says "This is a concise definition," and then pointing out that, no, if the definition isn't complete, it isn't a concise definition. And that's fine, we just need to acknowledge that the way people use "woke" is a shorthand for something else, in this case I'd characterize it as the pseudointellectual wet fish flopping of a billionaire struggling to blame someone, anyone, for the world being bad, when he's had outsized control and influence over it for the entirety of his career. But I acknowledge people may disagree with this.
  • PittleyDunkin 2y ago
    what does "performative" mean in this context? I honestly can't tell. It would really help if pg provided an example so we could evaluate for ourselves. Meanwhile, basically all national politics is performative bullshit. Why are we not calling both parties woke?
    • cle 2y ago
      Well b/c of the "focus on social justice" clause. I'd definitely agree though that both parties are way too "aggressively performative".
      • PittleyDunkin 2y ago
        Well, I wonder what he thinks non-performative social justice looks like. The civil rights movement was certainly performative (as is all protest) and that's basically the only narrative we were offered growing up for how to affect social change.
        • cle 2y ago
          > Instead of going out into the world and quietly helping members of marginalized groups, the politically correct focused on getting people in trouble for using the wrong words to talk about them. I also think there's a pretty big difference between keyboard jockeying / speech policing, and putting yourself in physical danger by physically confronting racists who'd lynch you if there weren't cameras around.
          • threeseed 2y ago
            So what is the point here. That woke people should be resorting to physical violence to further their cause. Doesn't seem productive or healthy for society.
            • cle 2y ago
              No that's not the point.
  • guelo 2y ago
    Calling it performative (aka "virtue signaling") is either mind reading or casting aspersion without evidence.
    • deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    • cle 2y ago
      I don't know what you want. Most of the article is spent elaborating on what that means and providing examples of it. > Instead of going out into the world and quietly helping members of marginalized groups, the politically correct focused on getting people in trouble for using the wrong words to talk about them. > The problem with political correctness was not that it focused on marginalized groups, but the shallow, aggressive way in which it did so.
      • guelo 2y ago
        Why does he want it to be done quietly? The only way democracy can work is that you convince others of your ideas. Seems like he doesn't want certain ideas to be advocated for at all, go work on them if you want but shut up about it.
        • bpt3 2y ago
          Because loudly attacking individuals for not being in complete agreement with your views is rarely effective? Even more so when some of your views are not widely seen as an agreed upon social norm. Also, I didn't see anything arguing for this in the article in the first place.
          • threeseed 2y ago
            > Because loudly attacking individuals for not being in complete agreement with your views is rarely effective It's worked wonders for Donald Trump.
      • edwinjm 2y ago
  • mseepgood 2y ago
    "aggressively" and "performative" already contain a judgement. The actual meaning of "wokeness" is an "awareness of the existence of social injustice".
    • cle 2y ago
      The whole article is an opinion piece that is judging a group of people. I don't think most people would agree with your definition. And besides, the definition of "woke" is a secondary issue anyway, the article's purpose isn't to propose a definition of woke, it's to judge and criticize people who behave a certain way, and he's done an adequate job IMO of describing the behaviors he's criticizing.
    • tivert 2y ago
      > The actual meaning of "wokeness" is an "awareness of the existence of social injustice". The actual meaning of "wokeness" is that it has several different meanings. For instancee, the first could be what you outlined: 1. an "awareness of the existence of social injustice" And another, equally valid one (that comes about from the reaction to people who embraced the first meaning and proceeded to behave obnoxiously and gain lots of attention) is: 2. the obnoxious and doctrinaire enforcement of the values of the "social justice" subculture on the wider population through bullying tactics (e.g. social media pile ons) etc. Taking one as the "one true meaning" is almost always just a tactic to delegitimize an opponent (usually by the left, as they have more access prestigious institutions, but language is language and no authority can suppress new words and new senses of existing words).
      • davorak 2y ago
        > Taking one as the "one true meaning" is almost always just a tactic to delegitimize an opponent I think the thought process is that there was a word and it had a positive meaning. It was then used in a negative way to delegitimize an opponent. So I think some people feel like the word is stolen or still being purposely miss used. For better or worse that is not how language works, in general new meanings can be attached to words and at least in my experience the majority of people using woke negatively are not trying to miss use the word.
  • boombabot 2y ago
    The problem appears to be with performativeness specifically. Because it is performative, it is superficial, and that's bad. What this post is hilariously doing is policing what is considered superficial humanity and what is not. Let's be woke but really mean it lads, then the conservatives will be with us!
• haswell 2y ago
  > We'd have to figure out what the hell people are referring to first Incidentally, this has been a major part of the post-election discussion about it. I agree that the term has become diluted to a point that it's lost most meaning, and in many cases it means "behaviors and opinions I disagree with". I think it mostly means some combination of: morality police, people against "wrongspeak", holier-than-thou attitudes, white people advocating for topics they don't understand, and in general a kind of tribal behavior that "others" people who don't fully buy into the entire spectrum of ideas this group is selling, i.e. they treat their beliefs as absolutely true, and anyone who questions them or wants to debate them are automatically othered. > People are just working themselves into a tizzy trying to figure out something to be mad at while also contorting themselves into knots trying to avoid discussing anything material, concrete, substantial, or tied to reality. I agree and disagree. The media landscape has had a major hand in shaping the discussion, and social media has validated the worst fears of the people working themselves into a tizzy. e.g. if someone supports trans rights but has concerns about minors receiving certain surgeries and wants to discuss those concerns, they're put in the same category as transphobes who wish real harm on other people. Depending on where they raise these topics, they'll automatically be blocked and/or put on lists of transphobic people. Discussions that actually focus on something material, concrete or substantial are derailed by collective community behaviors that refuse to engage with the concrete and substantial. It's a sad state of affairs for public discourse, and figuring out how to de-escalate the conversation and somehow return to substantive good-faith conversations might be the most important problem of the century.
  • F7F7F7 2y ago
    Mostly means or what it’s become to mean? I was on a college campus in 2002 and the word typically painted a picture. Someone who was hyperaware of real or perceived injustices and was likely to have incense burning in their rooms. The people who I thought were “woke” would have agreed with me. Down to the incense in a lot of cases. The right is notoriously great at hijacking words terms/words and flipping them into something nefarious. Or sometimes that exact opposite like they did turning the well supported by all Estate Tax into the conservative hating death tax. Now woke has morphed into this weird thing. A clapback insult for the insecure to justify their insistence at exclusion of one kind or another.
• xp84 2y ago
  The essay touches on something that I think explains that, though. Disputing an actual specific allegedly-woke idea requires one to confess their heresy specifically, so as the essay says, it's not smart to confess directly to holding a specific heretical opinion. Suppose that a person feels that Black people aren't being helped to succeed in our society, and are actually being harmed, by the way they are being told they are always victims with very little agency, as Black author John McWhorter argues. He gets called all kinds of nasty things for speaking that opinion, and he's Black! On the other hand, it's harder to "cancel" or accuse someone of absolute racism (or race traitor-hood) if they say "I don't think the woke mindset is helping, and I think there are better ways to help Black communities." So that's why imho the word "woke" is a popular tool among those who don't like the various components of it, which are much, much easier to enumerate than those on the Left incredulously pretend. It's basically just: 1. The idea that people can be harmed by hearing ideas they disagree with, and that society should punish those who spoke those ideas. 2. Ideologies about race and generational guilt which basically boil down to "the whole world would be much better off if all Europeans had mysteriously vanished 1500 years ago and we wish that had happened." 3. Ideologies that have to do with gender, which I dare not even elaborate on, because of how heretical all but one opinion on that subject is.
  • PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
    > ... and are actually being harmed, by the way they are being told they are always victims with very little agency Well, first we could start by having a discussion of whether or not it is actually true that "they are being told they are always victims with very little agency". Now, if that were in fact true, we could go on to talk about how we might reduce that harm, and one part of that might involve saying that less. But then again, were that not true, then we could pretty much discard the person's objections and move on to something that is actually happening. I read and respect McWhorter, but I don't think that (a) he's right about everything or that (b) your one line summary characterizes his position accurately. I'll reply separately to your attempted summary.
  • PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
    1. No, this is not the point at all. The actual view that you're referring to is that sometimes people are in fact harmed by verbal behavior and cultural phenomena, that we should recognize that, and when possible and appropriate seek to mitigate it. That doesn't mean punishment or book-banning (ideas which come from those most often associated with being anti-woke) but rather a willingness to examine reality through the eyes of people other than ourselves and above all to be kind. 2. No, that is also not the point at all. The actual view is that there has been, at least within the world once controlled by various European powers since somewhere in the range of 1200-1500, a wilful ignorance and downplaying of the horrors created by the colonialism perpetrated by those European powers. 3. Since you don't elaborate, it's hard to respond to this. But I will note that the recognition that gender and sex are not the same thing goes back many decades, if not centuries; that gender roles and sexuality have not been even remotely close to fixed across the time and space in which human civilization has existed; that the response from people who declaim the "woke" approach is so often summarizable as "I don't like it and other people should lead more miserable lives because I think so".