„Woke Culture“ is a child of Neo-liberal capitalism

[Arakan]

49 minutes ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

Again, I commend the book to you.  "Meritocracy" as commonly understood and used today in English is inconsistent with these thoughts and in fact exactly the sort of neo-liberal philosophy you purport to be arguing against.  

In some ways, Calvinism as understood in its perfect form is exactly consistent with the teachings of Jesus - that is, grace is conferred not earned (people are elect or not).  This was a reaction to the idea that grace could be bought or earned through good works (which circled back around to buying grace when you cut through it all).  Jesus as portrayed in the Gospels was not a socialist.  He was a radical who was ultimately unconcerned with the role of the state in spiritual life. 

ETA: I agree that the prosperity gospel is incredibly problematic.

Interestingly the Catholic Social teaching (not surprisingly) comes to different conclusions which are insofar relevant as those teachings have been the backbone of Catholic and Lutheran dominated political parties in Europe. The concept of the European „social market economy“ finds its origin in those teachings. I see similarities in the South American liberation theology. But I am an agnostic so I am not well versed in the inner-Christian ideology or interpretation debates. 

[polishgenius]

3 hours ago, Arakan said:

Wrt Greta Thunberg: when she sailed to NY on a multi-Million Dollar ship to make a point while the crew to bring the ship back to Europe was flown in, she lost me. Just another upper class person with self-righteousness issues.  

 

There's a 'but you participate in society. Hmmm' energy here. She made a point she needed making but except for sailing the boat back herself- which she coulda done but she had a schedule of, you know, fighting the system to keep - someone was gonna have to fly at some point. But the point was made and Greta has apparently had a measurable statistical effect in the frequency of flights taken particularly in Sweden so...

 

 

Like, is Greta wrong? Do you have a problem with the actual message that the climate is in crisis? Or do you just have a problem because the message is being delivered most effectively by a rich-ish girl and not a poor man? Like you call her self-righteous but she doesn't go around preaching at people who have no power to enact real change even though she has messages for us, she dedicates her life to putting pressure on the powerful.


I'm sorry but Greta hipsterism really fucking bores me.

 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

2 hours ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

I want to circle back to your claim that you believe in meritocracy.  I commend for your reading The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good by Michael Sandel.  While I do not agree with everything in the book, it persuasively argues that “merit” is the wrong judge of “worth”, but that over the past 60 or so years we have conflated the terms.  He argues that the origin of the term “meritocracy” was originally a satirical reflection on certain features of post-modern life, but got co-opted by Reagan/Thatcher politics.  And in fact, much of what we deem “merit” could better be described as “grace” or “luck.”  It’s an interesting (quasi-Calvinistic) trap - if we have a meritocracy as currently understood, then the logical inference is that people who are successful must be more worthy because their “merit” is greater.  This is true even if we were to have a utopia where “merit” actually always coincided with success because how society judges “merit” is always going to be subjective, and any attempt to objectivism it will come down to a measurable metric like...money.

I am not a socialist.  Far from it.  But I do think that an emphasis on merit is actually far afield from socialist principles.  Human worth should not be measured by “merit” as commonly understood. This is where my Christianity comes into play, but if I truly believe that all souls are equal under the sight of heaven, then “merit” should not be my driving force and instead I should look at the successful as recipients of grace who should do their best to share their grace so that more can participate.

We own the Michael Sandel book too.  

[Arakan]

I will admit: my OP was very provocative but sometimes that’s the only way to get a discussion with real content started. 
 

With regards to FFF. In principle a good thing but a movement cannot be separated from its leaders. In Germany Luise Neubauer was basically our Greta. She decried that international air travel is a big CO2 sinner and way too cheap. All the while herself as a Young Woman traveling the world „to explore“ and „find herself“. Called out on the hypocrisy (the power of Instagram) she basically said that she would be fine to pay much more to contribute. Got it. Of course she herself, coming from a wealthy background, has no problem to pay more. The problem are those charter flights of people who once in a year fly to Spain for holidays. Those who already have not much. I mean don’t those people have any self-awareness? How things like this come across?

 

[Mlle. Zabzie]

Look, only one more comment on the religious piece - I'm not going to further turn this into a religious debate which is outside the point of this thread.  But I stand by my statements, and if folks think that is bull$hit, fine, but there is plenty of textual evidence that supports the idea that spiritual equality differs from material equality.  The nuance that is being missed is that at least as I read the texts, this difference does not at all justify material inequality.  Quite the contrary in fact - material equality is neither necessary nor sufficient for spiritual equality.  However, those who are granted/graced with more material equality must grapple with that difference in order to pursue grace and spiritual rewards, as pursuit of material rewards distracts from and is inconsistent with the pursuit of spiritual wealth.  The state is largely irrelevant to all of this, so neither communism nor socialism is truly relevant (we like it to be sometimes because it fits our worldviews).

Back on topic, I also commend to everyone the concept of restorative justice as a framework for active listening and understanding other points of view.  

[Arakan]

4 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

 

There's a 'but you participate in society. Hmmm' energy here. She made a point she needed making but except for sailing the boat back herself- which she coulda done but she had a schedule of, you know, fighting the system to keep - someone was gonna have to fly at some point. But the point was made and Greta has apparently had a measurable statistical effect in the frequency of flights taken particularly in Sweden so...

 

 

Like, is Greta wrong? Do you have a problem with the actual message that the climate is in crisis? Or do you just have a problem because the message is being delivered most effectively by a rich-ish girl and not a poor man? Like you call her self-righteous but she doesn't go around preaching at people who have no power to enact real change even though she has messages for us, she dedicates her life to putting pressure on the powerful.


I'm sorry but Greta hipsterism really fucking bores me.

 

Don’t you see the hypocrisy of rich people with all possibilities in life telling poor people how to properly live? It’s condescending and it is blind towards the reality. You know I would love that everyone drives a PEV but guess what? Billions of people simply cannot afford it. 

Please don’t come with that meme because it simply doesn’t fit. There is a German saying: „Wasser predigen und Wein saufen.“ (preach water and Drink wine). This is how many of those people come across. 

Anecdote: Many Green voters in Germany live in their nice suburban houses. Nothing wrong with that. Though those houses have a much bigger environmental impact than urban multi-family homes. Was quite the outcry in Germany when that point was made. Guess what happens? As elections are close that point was dropped very fast. 

[polishgenius]

6 minutes ago, Arakan said:

Don’t you see the hypocrisy of rich people with all possibilities in life telling poor people how to properly live? It’s condescending and it is blind towards the reality. You know I would love that everyone drives a PEV but guess what? Billions of people simply cannot afford it. 

 

I would be if that's what Greta was doing but again literally the whole point of her campaign is to put pressure on the rich and powerful.

 

6 minutes ago, Arakan said:

Anecdote: Many Green voters in Germany live in their nice suburban houses. Nothing wrong with that. Though those houses have a much bigger environmental impact than urban multi-family homes. Was quite the outcry in Germany when that point was made. Guess what happens? As elections are close that point was dropped very fast. 

This is really beside the original point. Are there hypocrites using causes to make themselves look or feel good, or people better off demanding poorer people do things they can't afford? Sure. I'm dirt poor, I find that infuriating.

But what you did is decide that because those causes are joined by those people the causes must be worthless. And as people pointed out you claim to decry their right wing but used all their definitions and talking points about 'wokeness' to decry it without bothering to do any research to find out where 'woke' actually came from.

Now you're pretending the OP was deliberately provocative to start a serious discussion but let's not play around with nonsense like that. You were just surprised at the degree of backlash. This board sees plenty of serious discussion started off with serious posts.

 

 

You still haven't answered my question as to whether you actually think Greta is wrong. Like, the point she is making, the cause she's fighting for, is it wrong.

[DMC]

13 hours ago, DanteGabriel said:

"Woke" -- another word lifted from black vernacular and weaponized into something opposite by colonizing white folks.

I feel like this got..liked a lot, but not emphasized nearly enough.  The title of this thread is preposterously inaccurate, "wokeness" was initially an attempt to give a voice to the voiceless.  Primarily from black and LGTBQIA+ communities.  Just because it was bastardized and weaponized by the usual fuckwads doesn't change that - and it certainly doesn't make it a "child" of "neoliberal capitalism."  I mean that just smacks of horseshit said by someone who didn't know jack shit about any of the terms involved and is competing for a special level of stupid. 

Wokeness meant accountability for systemic racism, etc, that's all.  It's every bit as "communitarian" as Michael Sandel - who apparently is also getting mentioned in this thread.  So it appears some of you also were forced to read Michael Sandel.  I am very sorry to all. 

[Arakan]

6 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

Now you're pretending the OP was deliberately provocative to start a serious discussion but let's not play around with nonsense like that. You were just surprised at the degree of backlash. This board sees plenty of serious discussion started off with serious posts.

 

I don’t care about the backlash. I am direct and I am able to take it as much as I dish out. 

 

9 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

You still haven't answered my question as to whether you actually think Greta is wrong. Like, the point she is making, the cause she's fighting for, is it wrong.

No. Greta is right. I support the cause itself. But I don’t support privileged people telling poor people how to properly live without giving those poor people the means to live a „proper“ life. 

[Mlle. Zabzie]

3 minutes ago, DMC said:

I feel like this got..liked a lot, but not emphasized nearly enough.  The title of this thread is preposterously inaccurate, "wokeness" was initially an attempt to give a voice to the voiceless.  Primarily from black and LGTBQIA+ communities.  Just because it was bastardized and weaponized by the usual fuckwads doesn't change that - and it certainly doesn't make it a "child" of "neoliberal capitalism."  I mean that just smacks of horseshit said by someone who didn't know jack shit about any of the terms involved and is competing for a special level of stupid. 

Wokeness meant accountability for systemic racism, etc, that's all.  It's every bit as "communitarian" as Michael Sandel - who apparently is also getting mentioned in this thread.  So it appears some of you also were forced to read Michael Sandel.  I am very sorry to all. 

Please explain in greater detail your take on Sandel (whose point I didn't think was commutarian at all - personally thought the book was interesting; didnt agree with all of it at ALL and thought that some of it was rank BS, but also thought some of it was very thought provoking.  I don't read books like that to agree with them, but rather to engage with them....)

[Arakan]

6 minutes ago, DMC said:

I feel like this got..liked a lot, but not emphasized nearly enough.  The title of this thread is preposterously inaccurate, "wokeness" was initially an attempt to give a voice to the voiceless.  Primarily from black and LGTBQIA+ communities.  Just because it was bastardized and weaponized by the usual fuckwads doesn't change that - and it certainly doesn't make it a "child" of "neoliberal capitalism."  I mean that just smacks of horseshit said by someone who didn't know jack shit about any of the terms involved and is competing for a special level of stupid. 

Wokeness meant accountability for systemic racism, etc, that's all.  It's every bit as "communitarian" as Michael Sandel - who apparently is also getting mentioned in this thread.  So it appears some of you also were forced to read Michael Sandel.  I am very sorry to all. 

I am sorry if I misused this word but I can only use what I know linguistically. English is not my mother language. 
 

Anyway, if all you have is personal insults then that’s also ok for me :).

 

[Arakan]

Interestingly almost no one (except @JoannaL and @Rippounet with very good posts) reacted to anything I said with regards to the LBJ example or if ultra-capitalism and racism are two different sides of the same medal. Or if it was ok for the outrage brigade to attack an Afghan professor. Nope it’s my usage of the word „woke“ and Greta. 

[Heartofice]

20 minutes ago, Arakan said:

I am sorry if I misused this word but I can only use what I know linguistically. English is not my mother language. 
 

Anyway, if all you have is personal insults then that’s also ok for me :).

 

I wouldn’t worry about it, if the word means something to you then I think it is fine. It certainly has twisted in its meaning, but then words do change over time

[DMC]

10 minutes ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

Please explain in greater detail your take on Sandel (whose point I didn't think was commutarian at all

Sandel's critique of Rawls and the veil of ignorance is very much rooted in common communitarian points of contention - most essentially that no person ever could be completely extricated from their cultural/communal identities (which is true but decidedly besides Rawls' point).  He was also part of the refrain/concern of "liberalism" perpetuating a more atomistic society - which I think should be more squarely placed on other philosophies, or at least political philosophies. 

Anyway, don't have a terribly detailed or nuanced take on him.  Was mainly being a smartass and complaining about him being boring.  But most of what I read of him was his criticism of Rawls and, again, in that way he's very much a communitarian.

20 minutes ago, Arakan said:

I am sorry if I misused this word but I can only use what I know linguistically. English is not my mother language. 

Ok.  Maybe don't start a whole topic criticizing a term if you're unsure of its meaning.

[Mlle. Zabzie]

8 minutes ago, DMC said:

Sandel's critique of Rawls and the veil of ignorance is very much rooted in common communitarian points of contention - most essentially that no person ever could be completely extricated from their cultural/communal identities (which is true but decidedly besides Rawls' point).  He was also part of the refrain/concern of "liberalism" perpetuating a more atomistic society - which I think should be more squarely placed on other philosophies, or at least political philosophies. 

Anyway, don't have a terribly detailed or nuanced take on him.  Was mainly being a smartass and complaining about him being boring.  But most of what I read of him was his criticism of Rawls and, again, in that way he's very much a communitarian.

Ok.  Maybe don't start a whole topic criticizing a term if you're unsure of its meaning.

Got it.  Not a big fan of Rawls either, myself, but actually, on further reflection, I have problems with most philosopher types (but I enjoy reading them to disagree with them, and borrow bits and pieces here and there for my own personal philosophy, which is also insufferable, but isn’t all philosophy?).

Smarta$$ is correct way to approach all of this!!!!

[Arakan]

I summarize my position:

To fight for ones fair share in an unjust system without fighting the unjust system as a whole is useless and pure hypocrisy It is simply shifting justice/injustice from one group to another. One either fights for justice for all or justice for no one. 
 

Fighting for justice for one‘s own or one specific group while at the same time accepting or even supporting injustice for another group (LBJ in case of China, progressive celebrities who produce their fashion collections with exploitative work in poor countries) destroys any legitimacy and integrity. 
 

Attacks of underprivileged people (like my Afghan professor) by privileged people, especially when done with a moral stance, is not acceptable for me. 

That is my core belief. 

 

[Varysblackfyre321]

1 hour ago, Rippounet said:

That theoretical is unlikely to say the least. Marxism pretty much helped create what we call feminism. In a similar way, racial studies ("decolonial" studies here) alwas presented minorities as the most exploited workers of the capitalist structure, and the socialists originally helped defend and organize immigrants (as the most vulnerable group within the proletariat).

Point is, it's actually extremely rare for the far-right to delve into redistributive ideas, quite the opposite. Here in France, Le Pen briefly flirted with the idea and then quickly got rid of it (in a rather spectacular way too).

I meant In terms of appropriation of class conscious rhetoric fascists have done this.

Example: National socialism.

I would agree generally they’re not actually interested in any redistribution or bringing forth any equality. 
But it can lure in people who may not be as proud to be a bigot.

Feminist rhetoric also often gets appropriated in order to fearmonger about the evils of certain migrant men.

1 hour ago, Rippounet said:

It's easy to see why. First the far-right bases its approach on "traditional" "family values" according to which the woman belongs at home raising the kids, so any progressive idea about gender roles will be rejected outright.
As far as socio-economics go, the far-right's approach is always hierarchical, and the racial/cultural/civilisational hierarchy it spreads is reflected in the capitalist pyramidal structure. Another way of saying it is that the far-right is all about legitimising inequality, certainly not reducing it. Any noise it makes about "justice" or "social justice" only seeks to reaffirm some form of hierarchy: to be clear, it often seeks to put the white worker above the immigrant worker, and in doing so reaffirms their status as workers, as instruments rather than agents.

I have to agree with this part.

The far-right’s identity politics are meant to constrict and exclude people and mostly serve to cement further an already dominant group’s place in their rigid view of natural hierarchy.

Its why generally why the left-wing a group is the higher the higher the diversity and actually a purer form of unity.

for example the democrats and republicans; democrats tend to win the clear majority of groups that aren’t white males. 
 

[DanteGabriel]

I almost thought that this topic was going to be about how misuse of the word "woke" is a shabby but effective ploy for white elites to villainize the very people they've been shitting on for centuries. Like how wealthy people who have stacked the economic deck on their favor will refer to attempts to increase their taxes as "class warfare." Or how the gatekeepers and beneficiaries of systemic racism will whine about the "race card" when those iniquities are pointed out.

So @Arakan you did sort of stumble into a hornet's nest by starting off by condemning "woke" culture. You may not be a colonizer but you've adopted their use of the word and your post somewhat echoes the Fox News attack angle that the biggest problem in the world is "woke" people complaining about injustice. Which, to me, seems counterproductive to the causes you espouse.

Unfortunately the rest of what I've seen from your argument on this is incoherent or poorly reasoned. I don't even know where to start. It does seem like you are trying to tar a whole group of people with the "intolerant leftists run amok" trope, which is another common tactic of the entrenched power structures.

I also don't think much of your post that says you were being provocative to inspire real discussion. That also seems counterproductive to me. You can't complain about the provoked reactions you got after doing something you said yourself was meant to provoke.

What happened to that one professor of yours sounds terrible. But -- forgive me for questioning your account -- I've seen a very common pattern where people use the injustice visited upon one innocent by the "woke mob" as an excuse to condemn everyone who may travel in the same political direction. And in some cases, the issues of great injustice inflicted by the woke mob are not as clear-cut as they seem. Complicating details are omitted or glossed over. There was a time in a previous "cancel culture" thread where HoI linked a site that purported to list dozens of innocents who were unjustly "cancelled" for one little mistake. When I dug a little deeper into a handful of individual cases, most of them turned out to have a lot more complicated histories than just "this person said something innocuous and the intolerant left destroyed their life." Almost the entire time I have been aware of HoI's posting, he has been trying to sell the "intolerant leftists are ruining people's lives for nothing" narrative.

I don't deny that there are some left-leaning people out there who are as dogmatic and vicious as people on the right. I know that there are, in fact, innocent people who have suffered blowback from unthinking social media mobs who claim to hold liberal or leftist beliefs. I just am not convinced it's as big a problem as the "cancel culture" panic paints it to be, and it's certainly not behavior that's exclusive to the left.

So forgive my skepticism of your angle, especially if it relies on a single example of injustice visited upon someone you know. For all that conservatives like to decry "oppression Olympics," they sure do like to spin individual cases into indictments of everyone who disagrees with them.

 

 

[Varysblackfyre321]

2 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

There was a time in a previous "cancel culture" thread where HoI linked a site that purported to list dozens of innocents who were unjustly "cancelled" for one little mistake. When I dug a little deeper into a handful of individual cases, most of them turned out to have a lot more complicated histories than just "this person said something innocuous and the intolerant left destroyed their life." Almost the entire time I have been aware of HoI's posting, he has been trying to sell the "intolerant leftists are ruining people's lives for nothing" narrative.

Hey someone in the UK was arrested for saying they’d blow up an airport. 
Cancel culture run amok./s

[DanteGabriel]

1 minute ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

Hey someone in the UK was arrested for saying they’d blow up an airport. 
Cancel culture run amok./s

Don't forget Roseann Barr, who was so badly canceled after mere accusations of racism that Vice ran a feature on her.