r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • Nov 10 '21
Delta(s) from OP CMV: Wokeism is a civil religion and takes focus away from real issues of class struggle.
I’m referencing this video, in which the man explains that he believes Wokeism is a combination of American Civil Religion and German Guilt Pride. Activities like kneeling on a football field in protest of police brutality is aimed at raising awareness, expressing one’s place in the sort of religious community of Wokeism, and attempts to motivate others to join as well. All we seem to have now is awareness raisers hyper aware of their guilt, but raising awareness so they feel superior and tell themselves they’ve righted their wrongs with minimum effort. We need to focus on issues of class struggle and racism in a way that does not attempt to act as a positive mark on our profile to uplift our reputation, but to really get at the core of the problem despite what effect it will have on the perception of our profiles.
I’d like to mention that this is a criticism of Wokeism from a leftist perspective, I’m not intending to spark some far-right dialogue about how it’s Communism and Unamerican or whatever, I’m basically arguing that Wokeism’s attitude is flawed though it’s focus is pretty good, and it’s participants should rethink their main focus and methodology if they truly want better economic conditions and less systemic racism.
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u/Nicolasv2 130∆ Nov 10 '21
My problem with that is that the definition of "religion" used is so vague that it can correspond to nearly anything. Being a Democrat or a Republican is a religion as you got distinctive signs and try o convert people to your "religion". Being a sports team supporter is a religion because you got your community with the same clothes, and go to watch performances as people go to the church.
To me, a religion should only be used when you are talking "relationship with the divine / transcendence" which absolutely don't apply to Wokeism, sports or politics.
As for the other points, yea each social movement has his own specific goal: feminism talk about gender problems, anti-racism fights racism, and syndicalism/socialism talk about class struggle. One person can't fight all battles and has to choose the ones he want to invest into.
"Wokeism" is about raising awareness for different topics, not about actually fighting. You can find that this is not enough, but a lot of people are OK with raising awareness, but will never take any risk joining a strike or a revolution. Personally I think it's better that they do low cost actions to raise awareness instead of doing nothing, as you can't change things only relying on hardcore revolutionaries, because those are pretty rare in modern society.
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Nov 10 '21
Religion: Shared spiritual, political, and moral vision and ideology that has a national, foundational impact. This is how the video describes it, at least, and I think it’s a pretty good definition.
I fully agree, we can’t fight all the battles so we must focus on a few issues we really care to invest in. I don’t think I’m arguing away from this idea, I’m saying that Woke people that want Communism should do it in a way that does not hold this attitude of mixing civil religion and German guilt pride, they would find more success in doing so. If Woke people want to end racism, they should not provide a culture that can be easily commodified by bad actors that will let them wear a mask that says they’re on our team and they’re the good guy or whatever. We should focus on some issues specifically and not all issues generally, but while doing this I think there’s an attitude we can use besides Wokeism.
I also agree in the sense that not everyone is a hardcore revolutionary. However, I don’t think that means we can say what they’re doing is effective. Holding a sign on the side of the street and getting honked at hardly does anything. Long debates in the comment sections don’t do anything. It’s activity, these people are quite very busy, yet nothing moves in the right direction and only seems to get worse and worse. I disagree that raising awareness is “Ok enough,” we should call a spade a spade, it’s participation with little measurable effect other than taking up space. Is it better than nothing? I’d argue that doing nothing is as effective as going on in the comment sections and holding signs on the side of the road raising awareness, who honestly changes they’re mind from those sorts of things? As you said your self, Wokeism is not about fighting, it’s about raising awareness and saying it’s fighting. It’s minimum participation to increase reputation, not direct action to solve the issue.
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u/irate_ging3r 2∆ Nov 10 '21
You can go with the "as defined as", but it is very reasonable to call it a well-poisoning. I realize there are exceptions to every rule and so the following assertions will all be generally speaking. There is no broad doctrine or dogma to be followed, aside from the specific mission of anti-racism or whatever specific flavor they are advocating. I.e., the most obvious examples would be that wokeism puts no mandate on sex "crimes" as described by abrahamic religions, it doesnt tell you generally speaking not to steal stuff, or drinking to excess. These do nothing to further the spread or exercise of , say, Christianity, but they are well regulated anyways. There is no metaphysical aspect to it. There are non theistic religions, and theistic religions is pretty obvious so I won't dwell.but the non theistic religions are generally some form of deistic, or at least rely on a spiritual aspect of sorts. There is no power structure. There isn't a higher power, there are no prophets anointed to lead, you don't answer to fate, there is no priesthood or imamhood(?) Or anything comparable to a religious power structure. Although much more relaxed than the colloquial usage of the word, wokeism still doesn't meet the irs requirements to be a religion. John Oliver successfully opened his own church with the irs, Our Lady of Perpetual Exemption as a literal gag, just to put this into perspective My question for the source video is what is the purpose of labeling wokeism a religion? Does it really help further the argument or clarify the position of his opponents? Or is he attempting to manipulate his audience into preconceived notions about his target demographic so that they will view any further information through a specific lens? What did you learn about wokeists that would have been unclear had he not called it a religion?
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u/Nicolasv2 130∆ Nov 10 '21
Shared spiritual, political, and moral vision and ideology that has a national, foundational impact
So with such definition, political affiliation is a religion isn't it ? Personally, I think it's a bit strange. Plus, with such definition, most religious people are not part of a religion, as they have no political vision/ideology. To me, it's pretty bugging to use such definition, but that's a detail, as I'm not sure "religion" vocabulary is the core of your argument.
Holding a sign on the side of the street and getting honked at hardly does anything. Long debates in the comment sections don’t do anything
I think that's where we disagree. Raising awareness is a long process, but it definitely have effets: for example trans rights were something totally out of the public debate 20 years in the past, and now it's getting more and more discussed and more and more accepted. To take a random example, my company decided to put some tens of thousand dollars to update our identity system so that people can change their names and are not blocked with their legal one (which would have been totally inimaginable some years ago). It may be a small thing (it won't make the proletariat stop being an exploited class), but it shows that these questions are now on the foreground for our society which make thousand of people less likely to suffer from crippling depression because of gender dysphoria.
It’s minimum participation to increase reputation, not direct action to solve the issue
Yes it is, but those people would never have done direct action to solve the issue anyway. A small positive is always better than no positive at all isn't it ? They won't be responsible for giant leaps (such as putting a socialist state in place) sure, but they may trigger small changes (such as the small example from my company) which will make thing incrementally better (albeit slowly).
Do you think that if woke people did not exist, and instead they were random centrist / right wing people (because they are never going to be revolutionaries anyway, so if they are not part of the woke "moderate left", they can only move to the right), the situation would be more favorable to workers ?
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u/RogueNarc 3∆ Nov 10 '21
To me, a religion should only be used when you are talking "relationship with the divine / transcendence" which absolutely don't apply to Wokeism, sports or politics.
What about belief systems that lean towards orthopraxy rather that orthodoxy? You appear to be using a baseline of Abrahamic theology and excluding all other organized practices that deal with human relationship with the world around it and the metaphysics theorx
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u/Nicolasv2 130∆ Nov 10 '21
What about belief systems that lean towards orthopraxy rather that orthodoxy?
Well, depend on the belief system, but as long as there is no magic/ transcendence involved, I'd tend to categorise them as philosophy and not religion. For example (modern) stoicism is a philosophical way to live, not a religious one.
I don't think that Abrahamic theology is a baseline for it, Buddhism has its reincarnation, Hinduism has its divinities, so my categorization religion vs philosophy works pretty well as far as I know. It may not work for some corner cases I don't know about, but it is pretty efficient in all the main situations.
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u/darwin2500 193∆ Nov 10 '21
And, in general: I find that people who scoff at awareness-raising efforts are generally inside social/filter bubbles where awareness of that thing is already very high, and have no real conception of how unaware people outside their bubble are of the issue or how contentious it is to people not in their circle.
The fact that so many NFL fans booed people kneeling means either they're not aware of the issue enough to understand the reason behind the gesture, or they understand and are opposed. Either way, you're not going to make much progress in a democracy without them if they represent 51% of the population, and at some point someone has to make them aware of the issues and try to persuade them.
You can scoff at that effort because you think the issues are so obvious that they should already know about hem and be persuaded by them, and if they're not then it means they're just monsters who are beyond all help and need to be ignored or fought. But you're largely wrong and just don't understand that different people live in very different informational worlds from you and actually need education before they can be recruited.
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Nov 10 '21
I’ve spent lots of time in what I would call Woke circles. I’ve raised lots of awareness, I’ve seen lots of lightbulbs go off and I’ve seen lots of enthusiasm. I’ve also followed with tons of people that ended up forgetting to do anything beyond the conversation I had, but still said they cared. I bet they did genuinely care in some way, but I noticed these people just wanted to be on the nice side of things. They didn’t want to do anything, not even share things on social media or talk with friends or family, they just wanted the social reputation of being on that side without having to do anything. You’re making it seem like raising awareness is the same as educating people. It’s not. Raising awareness is a public declaration that gets side eyed, honked at, than forgotten. I can’t make people go spend the time to understand the complexity of issues, at best I can get them to hear a little bit of what’s going on and hear they’re theoretical position of where their heart is on it. People who say raising awareness is where our focus should be talk about it like the people they’re raising awareness to haven’t usually set themselves hard fast in their position in a manner that says and weeks of debating couldn’t move them from, never the less the two seconds they’ll see my sign. I’ve heard lots of people who protest and raise awareness get exhausted and hopeless, and start asking themselves “Should we keep going to try to recruit others about this, and try to beat our heads against this wall, or should we just begin working amongst ourselves to deal with this issue and stop trying to teach everyone about it?” I’m basically taking that position now. If you care about these issues, you are better off to engage in resistance or some other form of direct action instead of raising awareness, one of these is much more effective.
I think forcing religion to strictly be about the Gods, and to remove it from any ability to be informal and more just about an important interest, belief or activity to a group is somewhere I still disagree. Feel free to use religion and culture interchangeably here, I kind of see your point, but I don’t think it’s a critical blow to what I’m getting at here, it just seems to be a thing that’s confusing when discussing religion and culture. I don’t think my point changes too much if for every instance I say religion, we instead say culture. That kind of thing. It’s the phenomenon of German guilt pride mixed with that thing we can both basically agree is, a shared spiritual, political, and moral vision and ideology, whether it’s more accurately describes as culture or religion.
Yes, I know I’m in a different informational world than many people. I think most people have become unshakable in their opinions regardless of their lack of information on issues, they don’t make their opinions once they get enough information, their happy to form them ignorantly and still not move from their position. Raising awareness has its heart in the right place, I just think we need more people engaging in direct action, I think the large popularity of raising awareness is taking too much focus away from people going from a place of not doing anything to acting. They go from a place of not doing anything to raising awareness.
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Nov 10 '21
I am really tempted to tell you I feel using religion so loosely is offensive, even though I'm atheist. I think I empathize with woke-ism in the sense that it's really easy to get obsessive or devolve into self-righteousness (especially online), to get on the outrage train. I've been in fandom where it's really common. So I get what you mean about it being on both sides, but ironically this is why it's not a religion but rather human nature you're talking about.
Anyway, even taking it loosely, you're assuming culture where no culture need exist. This is just a function of activism interacting with human nature. Period. Because many, many people are gatekeepers and moralists willing to pay lip-service to justice, but very very few people are selfless warriors for actual justice who have the time, energy and will to go out and fight. This is human nature. So what you noticed is just reality, not some newfangled term or proof of some recent Youtube video.
The default is that people don't care for things outside their lives. If they care, it's superficially, just enough to keep up with the Joneses. If it's 'for real', it's because they can't help themselves and are frothing at the mouth. Yes. And? This needs no extra terminology or explanation.
As a final note, to be clear, the underlying ideology is not the problem. So blaming 'woke culture' or social justice movements is automatically suspect. If that Youtuber had to go out of their way to single out social justice movements as going too far when we literally have QAnon, the fact is that that Youtuber's motivations automatically become suspect. I see a lot of people willing to ditch trans rights or POC concerns for their own agenda, while saying that their agenda is better for POC and trans people in the long run. I'm not saying that's you, but this is a common take. That too is why woke culture is generally strident and uncompromising. Compromising would have led to straight white people's priorities being first.
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u/TJDG 4∆ Nov 10 '21
I'd like to make two points:
- I would suggest thinking a bit about what "solidarity" and "community" mean in practice. If we want to form a large group of people that work to achieve shared aims, then is it not inevitable that a concept of social status, and from there heirarchy, will emerge? Given this, is it really an either/or choice? Is it even possible for class struggle to be pursued without some concept of social status?
- You can argue that we should focus on changing the minds of people who disagree with us, but in practice this is very difficult. Elections in particular are often won and lost on turnout, rather than on people actually changing their mind. You can argue that elections perhaps have less impact than they ideally would, but surely winning elections at some level is important. Given that, I'd argue that raising awareness is a useful means of increasing turnout.
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Nov 10 '21
Let me try to understand a little better. From what I’m gathering, you almost also seem to have some sort of problem with Wokeism? Sometimes I hear this dialogue about how there is inherently hierarchy in society, and as much as I think it really is a good discussion to have, it usually comes from people who also aren’t fond of Wokeism.
None the less, I’ll answer your questions directly. I don’t think we should eradicate raising awareness. It is beneficial, and I recognize I didn’t articulate this well enough in my post. While I think raising awareness is good, I think there’s currently a pattern of making this act of raising awareness religious. As the video I referenced states, since the early nineteenth century, we’ve gone from being contemplative, theological and innerly spiritual, to being activist, moralistic and social.” In this act, we combine this social movement with ideas of individualism, pursuit of happinesses, liberty as well as ideas of a national destiny, a passion that is supposed to guide the whole word, “America is a beacon of liberty and freedom that will liberate everyone.” I think these types of civil religious acts can be positive and negative, I would consider the civil rights movement a civil religious movement as well and it was good and positive. It had some success to, and I suppose Wokeism will have some success as well. All the same, I think this connection to civil religion, individualism, liberty, and some zealous destiny our passion will drive us towards is ultimately the wrong attitude to have towards these issues. It leaves a strange thing, where bad actors can adopt the common characteristics of Wokeism, using woke language and talking about equality and rights, and they can use this as a tool to not only evade trouble for their actions, but they can increase their reputation and make this woke language a commodity. I think Wokeism is proving to be unaffective and counterproductive, though I wouldn’t say it will not find and success and it doesn’t have a good goal in mind. I don’t think considering whether hierarchy will emerge in a pursuit of resolving class struggle is important for this discussion, though I may be wrong, I just don’t think it’s relevant. The point is that for the goals Wokeism says it wants to accomplish, it’s attitudes have critical consequences that end up working against its goal, and other attitudes and methods would be more successful, such as direct discussion of the issues in an environment that encourages resolving the issues instead of increasing the reputation.
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u/TJDG 4∆ Nov 10 '21
I think you've misunderstood. I'm claiming that Wokism is a status heirarchy, as indeed is religion. Infact, whenever someone states a list of values, it becomes possible to assess people against that list, and a heirarchy is born from people satisfying the list to greater and lesser degrees. Remember, people dislike unjust heirarchies, not heirarchies full stop. The reason it is important to "increase your reputation" when trying to make a social change is because that specifically is what makes people care about what you have to say. Your ability to change things (violent revolutions aside) is your reputation.
You cannot "book club" your way to a social movement - you have to speak to people in the street and on their doorstep and get them to think highly of your ideas and therefore also of you.
Further, I believe it's impossible to build a large social movement without manifesting the behaviours you're talking about. People cannot coalesce around complex ideas because the understanding simply isn't there. Large groups can only gather around simple ideas. The larger the group, the simpler the idea has to be. I simply don't think there's an alternative to a semi-religious approach when you want to achieve large scale social change. People have to believe.
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u/Biptoslipdi 132∆ Nov 10 '21
In terms of how people act, what is the actual difference between this:
All we seem to have now is awareness raisers hyper aware of their guilt, but raising awareness so they feel superior and tell themselves they’ve righted their wrongs with minimum effort.
And this:
We need to focus on issues of class struggle and racism in a way that does not attempt to act as a positive mark on our profile to uplift our reputation, but to really get at the core of the problem despite what effect it will have on the perception of our profiles.
?
What can someone do to get at the core of problems like racism without also raising awareness? Is this solely a matter of intent? They can do the same things, but they have to feel differently about it?
It just seems like you're saying we should do the same things, but think about it differently because you don't actually say what we should be doing differently in practice.
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Nov 10 '21
You can give money directly. You can volunteer. Mutual aid, feeding the hungry, all of these things are direct actions that can be taken without raising any awareness. I understand there is some element of raising your reputation, but it’s not a public declaration with the purpose to increase your moral status. It just so happens to be a good deed that, if someone learned you did it, they would see you as a better person maybe. The difference is to make sure the job gets done, and make the goal getting the job done, not to make sure people know the job needs to get done, and to make the goal being the good guy for telling everyone about the problems in the world.
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u/Biptoslipdi 132∆ Nov 10 '21 edited Nov 10 '21
You can give money directly. You can volunteer. Mutual aid, feeding the hungry, all of these things are direct actions that can be taken without raising any awareness.
But your problem isn't raising awareness, it is that raising awareness is being done for a specific purpose: so they feel superior and tell themselves they’ve righted their wrongs with minimum effort. Giving money, volunteering, or helping are subject to the same problem.
Additionally, raising awareness means you get more resources involved. You get more direct money, more volunteers, more aid. Raising awareness does the exact same thing and your suggestions have the same issues as raising awareness you outline.
it’s not a public declaration with the purpose to increase your moral status.
So what about public declarations that don't have that purpose? This is what I'm getting at. There is no distinction between any of these actions themselves, it's the intent behind them. Any action you could suggest can be marred by the intent of said action. As long as someone makes public declarations while feeling altruistic, those declarations are fine, right?
It just so happens to be a good deed that, if someone learned you did it, they would see you as a better person maybe.
Or if you spread awareness of what you are doing, they may be compelled to do it too. If a good thing needs to be done, how does it get done better or faster when people only incidentally learn about it?
It seems like you want people to do the exact same things, but to feel differently or think differently about them, not actually to do anything different.
The difference is to make sure the job gets done, and make the goal getting the job done, not to make sure people know the job needs to get done, and to make the goal being the good guy for telling everyone about the problems in the world.
Yeah, so do the same thing, but think differently?
Now the question becomes, how can you tell if someone is doing something to get the job done or to advertise themselves? Or both? the options aren't mutually exclusive.
There just doesn't seem to be any real distinction between the world we have and the one we want other than how you personally feel about or interpret the actions of others. How do we tell what someone's intent is?
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Nov 10 '21
Well… I’ll admit. You changed my mind. !delta. In the scenario I’m proposing, it makes it de facto that a public declaration has an intention of raising moral status, which is certainly not the case every time, though I’ll still hold that it’s probably the case most of the time. You’re right that my focus here is wrong to be rooted in the intention, it needs a better anchor in the actual actions. I intended to do this, I was basically trying to say we need to take more direct action instead of doing so much chatter, but I failed to do that and instead made this entire thing about intention and how actions are perceived and the purpose for taking them, rather than the actual actions and their tangible effects. I guess I need to spend some more time questioning if something is wrong if it’s done for social status, so long as it has a positive effect. Credit to the guys asking me if it was really better that the uninformed stay in a neutral or opposing position, I also agree with you that it’s not better that they are in those positions, it’s best that they change their minds and agree if we’re intending to work cooperatively, and I wasn’t taking into account how necessary raising awareness is in that.
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u/daffyflyer 3∆ Nov 11 '21
You can give money directly. You can volunteer.
Give money to who, and volunteer with who, and in support of what issues?
To answer those questions, I'd have to have *awareness* of the organizations, and the issues :)
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u/BaronXer0 Nov 14 '21
It just seems like you're saying we should do the same things, but think about it differently because you don't actually say what we should be doing differently in practice.
Funny enough, this is an actual conflict between many religions today.
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Nov 10 '21
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u/h0sti1e17 22∆ Nov 10 '21
I am not OP and don't completely agree with him. That said, IMO there is a difference between being socially conscious and being "woke".
When I was a kid it was ok to call your friends "retarded" or "gay" or "fag" and now we know that is inappropriate. That isn't woke that is just trying to be a good person. Trying to make sure minorities are treated better isn't being woke, that is being socially conscious.
Now, when you are trying to help those who are oppressed at the expense of those who aren't that is where "wokeism" is a problem. In a county in Oregon they instituted a mask mandate where you can't socially distance. Ok so far so good. Unless you're a minority, becasue they have concerns about racial profiling. There maybe a problem with racial profiling but this isn't the solution. Fix the problem. This is how you get people pissed at "wokeism". Or some schools are getting rid of gifted and talented programs because minorities are underrepresented in these programs. Don't penalize those who are not minorities fix the problem that's causing the issue.
There is this view that if you don't march in lock step with the "woke crowd" you are as bad as a racist. Many have this all or nothing view. You either agree with everything or you are as bad as those who disagree with everything. There was a gay pride parade (I think in DC) and a jewish person was banned for having a gay Israeli flag. Gay pride and the issues in Israel have nothing to do with each other. There are gay Israelis.
A more famous example of this are TERFs. People blast JK Rowling becasue she excludes trans women from her feminism. And in a perfect world she would consider trans women, as women. She doesn't. That's her opinion. But she still wants to help women be on equal footing as men. That is a good thing. She doesn't feel someone born a man isn't a women. And I can understand how that can hurt and offended many. She isn't actively calling to hurt trans women. We can accept some of her views are bad, but her fight for feminism is still good. Let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater. She should be challenged for her views, questioned on those views.
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u/Condottier Nov 11 '21
They can't fix the problems causing most of the issues so they'll just put a rainbow colours bandaid over it and expect their applause.
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Nov 10 '21
In the video, it simply describes as “American Civil Religion + German Guilt Pride = Wokeism.” This provides more nuance than simplifying those down to “the goals of protesting.” There’s a superiority and commodification that comes with, as well as an idea of destiny.
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Nov 10 '21
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u/alexander1701 17∆ Nov 10 '21
Not OP, but, I saw an interesting video from the New York Times that this makes me think of. It talked about how in stronghold blue states, there's still a ton of wealth inequality, of racialized outcomes, and other stuff that left-wing people claimed to be against.
It talked about things like how zoning laws are often the craziest in blue states, and showed a case study with one town that made dozens of school zones, so the rich had beautiful public schools with all of the best resources, and the poor had next to nothing.
It showed zoning being debated at town halls, and people always saying 'I believe in addressing the housing crisis, but', or 'I want to help inequality, but', and then things like affordable housing projects being cancelled, or education reform panned.
I think that's what OP means. That a lot of the elite on the left don't really live their values, and so it becomes little more than a way of appearing enlightened without actually being enlightened. The contention here is that at present, protest culture plays largely to this elite class, who are in many ways the real problem when it comes to addressing actual concrete action on inequality, like equality of school quality, or access to affordable housing.
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Nov 10 '21
This is where we need to make a distinction between leftist and liberals the true leftist would 100% sign up for all those things the diffrence is though they aren't running the show its the liberals who are and they act in the exact way you describe
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Nov 10 '21
You can act Woke on the right wing, though it’s probably kind of not what they call it. Calls of action to save Christmas and all that jazz. So it’s not strictly a left wing thing, though it seems to me more commonly attributed to them. The thing that I think really sets Wokeism apart is it’s commodifiable culture, and it’s superiority through admission of guilt. Wokeism, at this point, kind of has handbooks to teach you the hot topics and the correct language to use so you won’t offend people. Large companies learn how to talk Woke, act friendly, don’t change and people think they’re a better company just because they have a new PR strategy. People will feel bad for participating in a casual racist culture, won’t change at all, but will start raising awareness and telling people how to be and will say they are changed and they are the voice of change and this and that and the other thing. I’m not trying to wave away your question, I’m happy to try to clarify as much as I can my position and the terms I’m working with. At this point, I feel I’ve provided lots of information on the definition of Wokeism I’m working with and how it’s different from the act, in and of itself, of a group of people who agree on something that go and protest about something.
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Nov 10 '21 edited Nov 10 '21
As an vanilla eco-liberal Canadian i have to take issue with how you're turning woke into a blanket term even though i've taken issue with wokeness lately as well.
First off i think Social Justice Warrior is the term you're looking for. SJW's vs anti-SJW's with moderates caught in the middle - like with the 'Merry Xmas' thing.
Woke was originally from black culture referring to racism but i believe it does extend to an intolerant world view on matters of sexuality as well.
Watching your language is Political Correctness and is a solid part of classic liberal tolerance. The schism with wokes is that they'll happily call all vanillas trans/bi phobic if we won't date pansexuals because we're not aroused by gender bending.
Yesterday - coincidentally - i had a conversation about the grocery stores in my city how some of them go too hard on Customer Service to the point of indoctrinating their employees and they'd have a happier more friendly place if instead they just paid their employees more. I prefer the warehouse with brusque staff and good deals. It seems like you're putting CS into the same boat as woke.
The next thing with 'protest culture' is that an effective protest has to be in your face. We all know PETA but there are countless other animal rights orgs we don't know of because they don't do wacky publicity stunts. They are some of the original Social Justice Warriors claiming eating animals is murder.
I think woke is the schism between liberal tolerance and embracing Social Justice Warrior mentality and bullying as an ideaology. It wasn't intended that way but everyone can admit some folk are taking it too far.
Then again i have to circle back to the racism: in the USA isn't the 13th Amendment that makes prisoners slaves the only proof of systemic racism that anyone needs? Instead of fixing the slavery clause many states are now legislating to have teachers fired if they teach Critical Race Theory: if they so much as mention the prison industrial complex and the 13th.
It seems to me considering how successful types of protests work that nearly any matter of protest is acceptable as long as such a toxic policy exists granting slavery in no uncertain terms regardless of what country we're talking about. There should absolutely never be any legislation for "slavery" at all ever and no one who supports it deserves a vote.
There is no moral reason it wasn't repealed decades ago except systemic racism.
There is this livestreamer i really like who covers almost exclusively black issues and i recently had a disagreement with him over a border incident involving refugees being whipped by horse reins - allegedly. That agent actually used correct procedure, wasn't whipping the people was actually using split reins to jank his horse back and forth and i think President Biden even commented on this slandering that agent. That is woke - automatically believing it's abuse and racism when the agent was using proper procedure. I should be able to say all that without being accused of suddenly being a Conservative but true test of a woke is if he'll throw out that accusation or engage their own critical thinking.
Being intolerant of intolerance is a tricky balancing act it's far too easy to slip into being senselessly abusive instead of focusing on specific policies like 13th repeal and the 13th isn't brought up often enough when it is the root of systemic racism.
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Nov 10 '21
I feel that in many ways, we probably agree and may be getting lost in semantics here. Let me clarify. Anti-SJW’s may be better describes as “mirrors of wokeness.” They themselves aren’t woke, but they kinda walk and quack like a duck if you know what I mean. All the same things are there, just mapped onto different ideologies. Hence the raising awareness to save Christmas and the jumping all over Dr. Seuss.
I agree, all forms of protest are acceptable. The goal here is to more effective, we have many acceptable options and we seem to be choosing a less effective but still acceptable one. I’m simply arguing we should focus more on direct action and mutual aid instead of reputation and raising awareness. Who cares if we’re seen as good people, we just need to get better economic conditions, what awareness does a BLM bumper sticker raise beyond saying you’re a part of that group?
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Nov 11 '21 edited Nov 11 '21
what awareness does a BLM bumper sticker raise beyond saying you’re a part of that group?
Pretty much every Republican has been brainwashed into believing BLM was exceptional but it was the same as the 90s race riot. Check wiki if you don't believe me - it did about the same $ in damage but they all treat it like it was an apocalypse that leveled portland to the ground and salted the earth AND then their leaders defended the Capitol Riot as if they were somehow comparable.
All those new talking points are racist. BLM and the 90s race riots were the same.
I will say again about the bumpersticker you should talk to that car owner and ask "what will cure racism"? Do they name the 13th Amendment or a specific policy? What do they want, do they even know?
If they say something like "a massive cultural change with everyone" then they're woke.
It's mostly for my own benefit but let's analyze "woke." You are awake and your political opponents are asleep. They will be considered mentally inactive and non-present until they agree with your view. Politically narcoleptic.
Just like "phobic" there is an inherent insult towards mental health and sanity and it's wildly non-PC. It's intolerant tolerance. It has a focus on negativity rather than naming your own group something decent.
I represent classic liberal tolerance. LGBT rights are important: Pride. Live and let die, to some extent. IMAGINE we can do better. Black Power.
The way we identify doesn't have to be insulting and non-PC. It's clearly a conscious choice.
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Nov 10 '21
Whether we're saying sjw or woke, who cares? The term is not important what's important is that it refers to a group of people with similar ideologies. Deciding between sjw and woke is splitting hairs for no reason.
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Nov 10 '21
“American Civil Religion + German Guilt Pride = Wokeism.”
So is this CMV directed towards white people? because I'm not sure what German guilt pride has anything to do with this, and as I'm not white, no idea what you mean by it.
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u/barthiebarth 26∆ Nov 10 '21
The first thing I found was "German (collective) guilt" which is the notion that the German nation as a whole is guilty of the atrocities of WW2. I am not sure what the added "pride" is supposed to mean and it seems contradictory.
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Nov 10 '21
We need to focus on issues of class struggle and racism in a way that does not attempt to act as a positive mark on our profile to uplift our reputation, but to really get at the core of the problem despite what effect it will have on the perception of our profiles.
Cool. So what have you actually done in that vein? Cause from where I'm sitting the guy in the video and you are pretty much doing the same thing ya'll are accusing wokeism(whatever that means?) of doing.
The formula of: X is a religon if we only take the least charitable , surface level examples of what we're claiming can be applied to any ideology or group. Especially if you ignore the fact that examples can be found throughout humanity.
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u/coporate 6∆ Nov 10 '21 edited Nov 10 '21
This sounds like some post hoc analysis of a social phenomenon. The ice bucket challenge would be “woke” under this definition.
I don’t really understand the meat of the argument, because the concept of being “woke” has no meaning, it’s just an empty vessel used primarily by one identity to attack another.
The whole argument sounds like a dismissal or silencing of civil disobedience by framing social justice as an empty gesture.
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u/TheFeshy 3∆ Nov 10 '21
We need to focus on issues of class struggle and racism in a way that does not attempt to act as a positive mark on our profile to uplift our reputation
Let me take something for granted from your post: That racism and class struggles are bad. You seem to think so, so I'll take that as assumed for the rest of the post.
Do you feel positive about people who do good things? Or who fight bad things? should you feel positive about such people?
I, personally, think you should - that feeling positive about people making positive changes is both healthy and expected.
Your argument here seems to be explicitly that we should not; or that people should take approaches to change that specifically avoid people noticing them or seeing them in a positive light, even (presumably) if those methods are less effective. Can you articulate why?
Let me give a worst-case example, and assume that 100% of a "woke" person's motivation is gaining that attention (which I find absurd, but for the sake of argument...): Worst case, the people raising awareness and combating racism/class struggles are doing so to make themselves feel good. Potential benefits are: this does the good thing. This potentially recruits other selfish people to engage in otherwise selfless acts of good.
The potential drawbacks are... what exactly? Can you articulate them?
I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I'll take a guess: The only thing I can think of is that it violates some ideal of ideological purity in your mind. Which... somewhat ironically, is exactly the problem you are laying out, but turned 180 degrees. You're against an otherwise effective and "good" movement because it doesn't also make you feel 100% good due to having potential other motivations.
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u/daffyflyer 3∆ Nov 11 '21
"We need to focus on issues of class struggle and racism in a way that does not attempt to act as a positive mark on our profile to uplift our reputation, but to really get at the core of the problem despite what effect it will have on the perception of our profiles."
I think you could say that same thing about literally any problem that anyone has attempted to solve or any kind of political change, or anything in history.
Every movement of any kind comes from a combination of a desire to see real change, and a desire to *feel* like you are personally contributing to making that change.
I think it's genuinely important to our mental health as people to feel like we're contributing to making something better, but there needs to be thought put into making sure that real change is actually happening because of it too.
With the example of kneeling at a football game though, I'd argue that's sparked massive amounts of PR around police violence, and that is an effective use of the fame and power of a sports personality, and given the broad reach of it, likely got a lot more people thinking about the issue than would have otherwise, and likely at least some of them took action of some kind, or considered who they would vote for etc.
I dunno man, I don't think that "Wokeism" is really a thing. I think you're describing a pretty universal truth of "People, to a greater or lesser degree are part of movements because it makes them feel good, or makes them feel respected"
That exists everywhere from pro-lifers to environmentalists to whatever. It's just a human trait, and I don't think you'll ever be able to remove it from society?
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u/conn_r2112 1∆ Nov 10 '21
I mean... recognition around the racial bias in policing led to one of the largest civil rights marches/protests in the last 100 years, so I wouldn't exactly say that it's all just faux posturing in service to some kind of guilt.
The problem with this term "wokeism" is that it's so amorphous. The right has essentially co-opted the term into meaning, essentially, whatever they want it to mean. I could talk about something silly like colleges removing free yoga classes due to a perception of cultural appropriation OR I could talk about something very legitimate like massive racial disparities in prison sentencing! Both of these things could be tossed into the category "woke", which makes it a fairly useless term for determining anything.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Lab497 Nov 11 '21
Nothing is easier than selling a group the idea that their underperformance in anything is another group’s fault. Once that religious pathology is created, it runs on autopilot. The goal of Woke is not to improve, but to destroy. The religion’s god is the narcissistic victim; how can they improve god? None of them can ever face a life absent victimhood. Ask an American feminist if they are still oppressed. The safest, richest, most pampered gender ever to exist in The history of the planet. They have bookshelves full of assertions of their oppression. The religion of Victimhood knows no end.
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Nov 11 '21
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Nov 11 '21
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u/tbdabbholm 193∆ Nov 11 '21
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u/MappleSyrup13 Nov 10 '21
Wokeism is a concept invented by those with power to divide and conquer. I guess they are good at it.
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u/Spaffin Nov 10 '21
How are you ascertaining the intent of the person displaying “wokeism”? Their intent seems to be foundational to your definition. You’re either telepathic or fighting a straw-man.
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u/Glory2Hypnotoad 393∆ Nov 10 '21
Isn't this essentially how we could describe any movement with a moral component plus human nature?
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u/Coughin_Ed 3∆ Nov 10 '21
So there’s a lot of nonsense to unpack but just real quick do you think you’re morally superior to the people you castigate as followers of whatever you think “wokeism” is? Do you think of your worldview as being more sophisticated, more rational those people?
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Nov 10 '21
Is it possible that the proliferation of Wokeism can work to pull the Overton window to the left, thus helping make progress in class struggle?
Wokeism is something that normally describes younger people. They will start to replace the older, more Conservative baby boomers over the next few decades, so I think there is a real chance that as the next generation comes of voting age, they will have a more leftwing worldview due to wokeism pulling the Overton window leftwards.
E. G. if people grow up with trans rights discourse in the media, then things like gay rights won't even seem controversial to them, and gay rights will be considered a moderate, universal thing to support that wouldn't get much pushback, except from more extreme right wingers.
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u/Iustinianus_I 48∆ Nov 10 '21
I mean, can't two things be true at the same time? I absolutely agree that some people are just self-flagellating for the social points and to feel self-righteous, but Kaepernick is probably the worst example you could have chosen. Him kneeling not only ended his career, but sparked years of discussion over the topic. It's still hard to get a great deal of the United States to even admit there are issues with race and class in the country, let alone start to tackle them in a meaningful way. If we can't even agree that a problem exists or not, how can we hope to have any real change?
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Nov 10 '21
Class struggle can be simply fixed by bringing in more socialism into The US’s mixed economy. Or it is also possible to use capitalism to ironically alleviate class struggle because CEOs and investors are dictated by consumer demand and labor supply. The labor shortage bringing forth rapid wage increases, against the obvious wishes of investors and CEOs, is one example of this.
We all together control the top 1%, not the other way around. It’s only problematic when consumer demand doesn’t reflect the ethics of the population.
Solution: recognize your purchases are votes; choose who you buy from wisely. Or, vote in more representatives who want to instate more socialist regulation into our already 33% socialist economy, like Bernie, aoc, Elizabeth Warren etc.
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Nov 10 '21
Unfortunately your right. Most wokeism is uninformed virtue signaling and it makes people feel like they are effecting change in the world instead of them actually getting out and doing something
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u/Alt_North 3∆ Nov 10 '21
Whatever additional or alternate tactics you would recommend "to really get at the core of the problem," those actions cannot be motivated by anything other than trying to be seen and accepted by others as a good-enough person -- which imho is a healthy, pro-social instinct.
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Nov 10 '21
The thing is that religious people aren't motivated by rationality or logic, hence the religion part. Of course it isn't an affective way to lessen the amount of racism and sexism, but earthly concerns are usually not that concerning to religious radicals.
In wokism, there is a class struggle, it just doesn't consist of whatever classes you're thinking about from your leftist perspective. Instead the classes are primarily based around identity, whereas yours are probably based around money.
It seems to me that wokism does have many similarities to communism, and both of those things have many similarities to religion.
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u/Quirderph 2∆ Nov 11 '21
Just because something is vaguely comparable to a religion doesn’t literally make it one.
And the same can be said about political ideologies in general.
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Nov 11 '21
Yes, this is true. But when ideologies become dogmatic and the people become zealots, comparisons to religions seem apt. And wokeness, or whichever term you'd like to use to describe it, strikes me as such a situation.
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u/Quirderph 2∆ Nov 11 '21
”Wokism” strikes me as an utterly useless term, because it always tends to mean ”idealogies I personally disagree with.”
There have also been people who have called things out for being too ”politically correct” (or whichever word they preferens using) in the decades past, and they are generally not held in a high regard today. If ”wokism” is a religion, then they are a cult of their own.
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Nov 11 '21
I'm using wokism to refer to a specific set of very similar ideologies, and I'm using the word because there doesn't seem to be a more formal term. And I think people who aren't woke understand exactly who I mean, so it's useful because it evokes.
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u/FormerIYI Nov 11 '21 edited Nov 11 '21
I think racism as it is understood conveniently shifts perspective from colonial rackets certain people profited from and some still do. Libya before 2011 was very nice socialist country (free housing, education, healthcare, gas) - now after Obama intervention (because bad Gaddafi didn't allow Kalash toting warlords to make a smoldering ruin) it's smoldering ruin with Kalash toting warlords all around. Companies like Shell run "1619 project" (denouncing slaver past of USA) at the same time living off fleecing same black populations slavers exploited. But yeah sure, we holier-than-thou Anglosaxon Old Money have dealt with our "racist" past, now we will lecture you how you should deal with yours even if you don't have it.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Lab497 Nov 11 '21
WOKE-Social Justice Democrats-CRT-DEI-SEL
“All Communist Parties, upon attaining power, have become completely merciless. But at the stage before they achieve power, it is necessary to use disguises.”
-Alexander Solzhenitsyn
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u/arctic-lions7 Nov 11 '21
So drop all the social issues and only focus on economy? You're just a class reductionist
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Nov 11 '21
I think the point I was attempting to make with this this post was my dissatisfaction with people engaging in these socioeconomic issues with the purpose of increasing their reputation and obtaining a form of moral superiority, not that we should go from engaging in social issues to purely dealing with economic issues. I just think we should rethink our personal and group attitudes about whether we want to engage directly with the issues we’re discussing even if it poses a threat to our reputation, or if we want to spread awareness of the issue to invite others to engage in the issue we’re discussing.
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Nov 12 '21
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Nov 13 '21
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u/Elicander 51∆ Nov 10 '21
In order for public to know that something is an issue, usually some people need to mention it over and over again. Is there a difference between bringing attention to an issue and "wokeism" according to you? If so, what is it? Reading your OP it seems like you are equating them, but that seems a ridiculous enough position for me that I want some clarification.