"Woke" - what does it really mean?

[Ser Reptitious]

I think given the current obsession of certain political quarters at the moment with this word, and since the discussion has somewhat derailed the US and UK Politics threads of this forum at the moment, this might be a good place to carry on the discussion.

As you were. 

P.S. Sorry @Ser Scot A Ellison for stealing your spin-off thread thunder! 

[Ser Reptitious]

@TrackerNeil

Quote

I'm not going to argue semantics--you can substitute social justice politics for wokeness if you prefer.

 

The questions you ask aren't easy, but I think it is indeed possible to address systemic injustice without reverting to tribalism and ideological purity. These are the tools of the right, and I refuse to adopt them.

I like and respect you, but this feels like a dodge. Instead of simply saying "this is not the way to do it", can you give a concrete, realistic example of how it could be done?

Also, for sure there will be some self-proclaimed "woke" activists who push things too far (although again, where the line is subjective), but that inevitably happens in any movement. Does that taint the whole movement? 

[TrackerNeil]

20 minutes ago, Ser Reptitious said:

@TrackerNeil

I like and respect you, but this feels like a dodge. Instead of simply saying "this is not the way to do it", can you give a concrete, realistic example of how it could be done?

Also, for sure there will be some self-proclaimed "woke" activists who push things too far (although again, where the line is subjective), but that inevitably happens in any movement. Does that taint the whole movement? 

Let me answer your question more generally. My problem with wokeness/social justice politics/whatever is not the goals, which I generally share, but a reliance on doctrines which may never be questioned: Believe Victims, Children Know Their Gender...I am sure you can name other examples. If you ever disagree with these Statements of Truth, then clearly you don't care about victims/children/whoever. 

Doctrine excludes nuance and ignores context, both of which are vital to understanding and resolving any social problem. Also, if doctrine turned me on, I'd just be a conservative. 

So, to get closer to answering a specific question, I think that systemic injustice is real and must be dealt with, but how that's best accomplished is hard to know. Doctrine is simple, but real life is complicated.

I hope that satisfies. If you are asking me for specifics on fighting systemic injustice, I'm afraid I don't have a ten-minute answer, or all of the answers. I think we have to do our best, see what works, adjust, and try to do better tomorrow than we did today. 

[Heartofice]

Why not check the Oxford Dictionary for a definition and never think any harder than that?

[BigFatCoward]

30 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Why not check the Oxford Dictionary for a definition and never think any harder than that?

'Oh we’ve had enough of experts.’ 

[mormont]

Let me sum the argument up:

Quote

‘…and that shows that there are three hundred and sixty-four days when you might get un-birthday presents––‘
           ‘Certainly,’ said Alice.
           ‘And only one for birthday presents, you know. There’s glory for you!’           
      ‘I don’t know what you mean by “glory”,’ Alice said.
           ‘Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. ‘Of course you don’t–till I tell you. I meant “there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!”’
           ‘But “glory” doesn’t mean “a nice knock-down argument”, Alice objected.
           ‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean–neither more nor less.’
           ‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean different things–that’s all.’
           ‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master–that’s all’

 

[A wilding]

And didn't this whole thing get started off by Liz Truss calling high taxes "woke"?

[Ser Reptitious]

45 minutes ago, TrackerNeil said:

Let me answer your question more generally. My problem with wokeness/social justice politics/whatever is not the goals, which I generally share, but a reliance on doctrines which may never be questioned: Believe Victims, Children Know Their Gender...I am sure you can name other examples. If you ever disagree with these Statements of Truth, then clearly you don't care about victims/children/whoever. 

Thanks for your thorough response. I hope you don't mind if, for the sake of brevity, I zero in on the bolded above. 

I completely agree with you that nuance, especially involving such complex issues, is very important.

But the problem is that whenever a previously ignored group challenges the status quo and demands to be listened to (racial equality, feminism, and LGBTQ+ are obvious examples), it's not like society just sits down and gives them an open and fair hearing. There are entrenched power structures that will fight back as viciously as possible to protect their enhanced status (or alternatively simply use the opportunity to "divide and conquer", to stoke hatred between groups that might otherwise possibly unite against them). They will not hesitate to use their bullhorns to that effect. 

The concern trolling (using the cloak of feminism) over transgender women somehow being a threat to women is one recent example.

To directly address the bolded, "believe victims" comes from the fact that all too often (even now, post #metoo) they are automatically viewed with scepticism, even though false rape claims (while they do exist) are vastly outnumbered by genuine claims never getting their just due. Thus, I can't exactly blame someone advocating for the victims to view someone who voices general reservations with a certain level of suspicion. 

The same goes for the children/gender issue. There can be genuine concerns, for sure. But with so many bad-faith actors putting themselves in the mix, it is perfectly understandable that the onus of proving one's genuine concern about such an issue (especially if one is not directly affected - which may also raise questions about why they decide to get involved) is on them.

Blaming the victims of oppression and painting them as radicals for raising their concerns is (sadly) a time-honored tradition. That is as true of the demonization of "woke" today as it was of, say, the idea of same-sex marriage in 2004.

[Zorral]

That kind of argument is exactly the same as to why we can't have social programs, etc.: somebody somewhere might take advantage and cheat.  We can't talk about social justice with works that speak to those mattes because somebody somewhere may not be nuanced in interpretation.  Gimme a break.  Remember who has stolen FEMA money to used for the relief of people whose lives have been overturned by disasters and ... done ... what with funds -- o ya, just pocked them.  But none of the others -- even freakin' reichs -- say we can't have federal disaster relief because corporate types, trump, you name them, will steal the money.  Feh.

[Varysblackfyre321]

1 hour ago, BigFatCoward said:

'Oh we’ve had enough of experts.’ 

Heh. Anti-intellectualism does deserve to be mocked,

[Varysblackfyre321]

2 hours ago, TrackerNeil said:

Let me answer your question more generally. My problem with wokeness/social justice politics/whatever is not the goals,

Have you ever read MLK’s dissertation on the white moderate cooing on how they agree with the general aims of civil rights activists but the radical language and action in pursuit of their rights.

 

2 hours ago, TrackerNeil said:

Believe Victims, Children Know Their Gender...I am sure you can name other examples. If you ever disagree with these Statements of Truth, then clearly you don't care about victims/children/whoever. 

Generally most children do know their gender before they’re 18 yes.

Especially when they by the time they puberty.

2 hours ago, TrackerNeil said:

Doctrine excludes nuance and ignores context, both of which are vital to understanding and resolving any social problem.

This is a doctrine I’ll die on: Homosexuals shouldn’t be imprisoned for same-sex activity.

Some may call this woke—they’re not wrong.

2 hours ago, TrackerNeil said:

So, to get closer to answering a specific question, I think that systemic injustice is real and must be dealt with, but how that's best accomplished is hard to know. Doctrine is simple, but real life is complicated.

Yeah the most empirically evidence based answers on how best to do that often times are the ones being called woke.

 

Hey I don’t want to ban adults from medically and socially transitioning because it helps over 97% of the time to help improve wellbeing of the people doing it. 

[sifth]

Let's be real, woke just means something you don't like. More often than not, I just view it as someone being a jerk. When a white person who likes to make Mexican food, gets called out for not being the right race to make that food, by someone who is Mexican, than that person is woke.

[Varysblackfyre321]

I said it in the US  thread but Woke is ultimately the all encompassing word conservatives use to refer to things they things believed by liberals or progressives

You can put social Justice in any place woke is and it’d work just as well.

You can also put communist. 
 

The purpose for all of them is to communicate an idea of something having inherent degeneracy without specificity.

[Ser Drewy]

IIRC it originated in the African-American community and was really just as slang term for being politically aware on black rights issues.  Since it went mainstream cross-culturally, it's largely taken on a significantly more expansive and vague definition, mostly used derisively for any kind of liberal/left/identity political view. So now: it's a right wing buzzword that is just a sneer at things you don't like. 

[TrackerNeil]

1 hour ago, Ser Reptitious said:

The same goes for the children/gender issue. There can be genuine concerns, for sure. But with so many bad-faith actors putting themselves in the mix, it is perfectly understandable that the onus of proving one's genuine concern about such an issue (especially if one is not directly affected - which may also raise questions about why they decide to get involved) is on them.

I agree that bad-faith actors make discussion difficult, but it's when we assume that everyone who disagrees with us is acting in bad faith...well, it makes discussion impossible. That's what doctrine does, and I don't get on with it.

[The Anti-Targ]

I'm pleased to see that the internet will finally have a definitive answer agreed by all. I'll check back in a few days.

[James Arryn]

3 hours ago, TrackerNeil said:

Let me answer your question more generally. My problem with wokeness/social justice politics/whatever is not the goals, which I generally share, but a reliance on doctrines which may never be questioned: Believe Victims, Children Know Their Gender...I am sure you can name other examples. If you ever disagree with these Statements of Truth, then clearly you don't care about victims/children/whoever. 

Doctrine excludes nuance and ignores context, both of which are vital to understanding and resolving any social problem. Also, if doctrine turned me on, I'd just be a conservative. 

So, to get closer to answering a specific question, I think that systemic injustice is real and must be dealt with, but how that's best accomplished is hard to know. Doctrine is simple, but real life is complicated.

I hope that satisfies. If you are asking me for specifics on fighting systemic injustice, I'm afraid I don't have a ten-minute answer, or all of the answers. I think we have to do our best, see what works, adjust, and try to do better tomorrow than we did today. 

Don’t fully agree, but well articulated. I’ll give you a bit of a full response to why I am sympathetic with the sense that, however well intentioned, the ‘don’t have the answer to the problem, but it is not this’ is that it is used almost ad nauseum to do nothing. Because, though you are not one of them, there are very many people who either don’t want change or a least don’t want it if it costs them anything. And those people will absolutely get on board with anything that works towards that end. 
 

I used to be against affirmative action. In principle I still am. On paper it’s raising walls of delineation and making people think in terms of race/gender/etc. when ideally we want to think less that way. So, on paper, not a solution. 
 

Except I took that position almost two decades ago, and in the intervening years absolutely no one has come up with a better solution. So, that’s fine, if like me your ivory tower position leaves you personally unaffected meantime while we are waiting for a solution without downsides, that addresses the issues without talking about them or w/e. Also over time studies showed that mere proximity towards w/e minority in question lowers prejudice a significant amount.
 

That was, I think, somewhat unforeseen. Which is good and bad in the sense that major repercussions are likely coming our way with any solution or non-solution that we won’t anticipate, for good in this case but equally possibly for bad. The combination of all these things has left me dissatisfied with ivory tower posturing ‘in the meantime’. If we haven’t had any better ideas yet, they are probably not forthcoming so let’s roll with our best plan. That’s how most of society’s ills have been mitigated in the past, with imperfect solutions that over time get the kinks worked out better. 

[Raja]

I can't fathom using 'believe victims' as one of the examples cited here as some 'doctrine', completely divorcing it from the context that people say that in and the history behind victims of sexual assault.

It's a bunch of rubbish, especially when you consider that no one in all these posts over the last 1-2 days has been dealing in such absolutes.

[James Arryn]

1 minute ago, Raja said:

I can't fathom using 'believe victims' as one of the examples cited here as some 'doctrine', completely divorcing it from the context that people say that in and the history behind victims of sexual assault.

It's a bunch of rubbish.

I think…I probably should not speak for another poster, but my reading was not that s/he disagreed that that is true most of the time, just that talking in absolutes will necessarily cause different kinds of victims. Not saying I totally agree, but if I was correct in my interpretation it’s not a completely unreasonable concern, especially about legal language. 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

5 hours ago, Ser Reptitious said:

The concern trolling (using the cloak of feminism) over transgender women somehow being a threat to women is one recent example.

I was briefly sucked into that several years ago.  It’s compelling (initially) because if feels like you are defending a marginalized group… women… but it is ultimately wrong.  As I was wrong because it discounts and minimizes the abuse suffered by an even more marginalized community.  Those who are transgender.

People should have the right to live their lives as they see fit regardless of how “society” may perceive their individuality.  So long as they aren’t hurting anyone else… which I recognize as the lie that is told by the right to make those in the LGBTQ community seem “scary”.  

Let people live their lives.  It isn’t a hard concept.  That said I do think “woke” has become for the right their carte blache word for anything they dislike.