Wokeism Explained

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  1. Readmikenow profile image83
    Readmikenowposted 3 years ago

    This article is spot on about the "Woke Culture"

    It begins by stipulating that the forces of justice and progress are in a war against backwardness and tyranny. And in a war, the normal rules of the game must be suspended. Indeed, this ideology would argue that those rules are not just obstacles to justice, but tools of oppression. They are the master’s tools.  And the master’s tools cannot dismantle the master’s house.

    So the tools themselves are not just replaced but repudiated. And in so doing, persuasion—the purpose of argument—is replaced with public shaming. Moral complexity is replaced with moral certainty. Facts are replaced with feelings.

    Ideas are replaced with identity. Forgiveness is replaced with punishment. Debate is replaced with de-platforming. Diversity is replaced with homogeneity of thought. Inclusion, with exclusion.

    In this ideology, speech is violence. But violence, when carried out by the right people in pursuit of a just cause, is not violence at all. In this ideology, bullying is wrong, unless you are bullying the right people, in which case it’s very, very good. In this ideology, education is not about teaching people how to think, it’s about reeducating them in what to think. In this ideology, the need to feel safe trumps the need to speak truthfully.

    In this ideology, if you do not tweet the right tweet or share the right slogan, your whole life can be ruined. Just ask Tiffany Riley, a Vermont school principal who was fired—fired—because she said she supports black lives but not the organization Black Lives Matter.

    In this ideology, the past cannot be understood on its own terms, but must be judged through the morals and mores of the present. It is why statues of Grant and Washington are being torn down. And it is why William Peris, a UCLA lecturer and an Air Force veteran, was investigated for reading Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” out loud in class.

    In this ideology, intentions don’t matter. That is why Emmanuel Cafferty, a Hispanic utility worker at San Diego Gas and Electric, was fired for making what someone said he thought was a white-supremacist hand gesture—when in fact he was cracking his knuckles out of his car window.

    In this ideology, the equality of opportunity is replaced with equality of outcome as a measure of fairness. If everyone doesn’t finish the race at the same time, the course must have been defective. Thus, the argument to get rid of the SAT. Or the admissions tests for public schools like Stuyvesant in New York or Lowell in San Francisco.

    In this ideology, you are guilty for the sins of your fathers. In other words: You are not you. You are only a mere avatar of your race or your religion or your class. That is why third-graders in Cupertino, California, were asked to rate themselves in terms of their power and privilege. In third grade.

    In this system, we are all placed neatly on a spectrum of “privileged” to “oppressed.” We are ranked somewhere on this spectrum in different categories: race, gender, sexual orientation, and class. Then we are given an overall score, based on the sum of these rankings. Having privilege means that your character and your ideas are tainted. This is why, one high-schooler in New York tells me, students in his school are told, “If you are white and male, you are second in line to speak.” This is considered a normal and necessary redistribution of power.

    Racism has been redefined. It is no longer about discrimination based on the color of someone’s skin. Racism is any system that allows for disparate outcomes between racial groups. If disparity is present, as the high priest of this ideology, Ibram X. Kendi, has explained, racism is present. According to this totalizing new view, we are all either racist or anti-racist. To be a Good Person and not a Bad Person, you must be an “anti-racist.” There is no neutrality. There is no such thing as “not racist.”

    Most important: In this revolution, skeptics of any part of this radical ideology are recast as heretics. Those who do not abide by every single aspect of its creed are tarnished as bigots, subjected to boycotts and their work to political litmus tests. The Enlightenment, as the critic Edward Rothstein has put it, has been replaced by the exorcism.

    What we call “cancel culture” is really the justice system of this revolution. And the goal of the cancellations is not merely to punish the person being cancelled. The goal is to send a message to everyone else: Step out of line and you are next.

    It has worked. A recent CATO study found that 62 percent of Americans are afraid to voice their true views. Nearly a quarter of American academics endorse ousting a colleague for having a wrong opinion about hot-button issues such as immigration or gender differences. And nearly 70 percent of students favor reporting professors if the professor says something that students find offensive, according to a Challey Institute for Global Innovation survey."

    https://www.commentary.org/articles/bar … evolution/

    1. Sharlee01 profile image83
      Sharlee01posted 3 years agoin reply to this

      Interesting article. I feel wokeism was a fad and is on its way out. I think most American's caught on quickly to how destructive this type of mentality is. 

      I will admit I have thought a lot about the concept of wokeism.

      It definitely belongs to liberals alone...    I  proposed that there is a happiness gap between liberals and conservatives. Liberal seem to need gimmicks such as wokeness to prop up low self-esteem...  They just need the comfort of one for all ideologies. Wokeness offered them this. An instant proper upper for low self-esteem.  Feeling they could make all rules, and enforce those rules with no barriers.   

      There are such differences in specific attitudes and personality differences associated with liberals and conservatives. Liberals  IMO tend to be fearful, defensive, and many exhibit symptoms of low self-esteem.  They go to great lengths to call out what they perceive as social inequalities in order to justify all the many things that make them fearful.   In comparison, conservatives and many independents expressed greater personal control over what makes them fearful.   They also tend to have a more positive outlook (e.g., optimism, self-worth).  They have solid moral beliefs, greater moral clarity,  and are less tolerant of transgressions. Conservatives have generalized belief in fairness, and these many differences accounted for why you won't find conservatives involved in wokeism.

      1. Readmikenow profile image83
        Readmikenowposted 3 years agoin reply to this

        I agree this is a liberal issue. 

        I also believe it is a warped and bizarre way of looking at the world.

        It is something that would only appeal to the weak-minded and emotionally needy.

        1. Sharlee01 profile image83
          Sharlee01posted 3 years agoin reply to this

          Yes, it is a warped ideology. It's an upsidedown, half-ass backward ideolgy.If you watch Seinfeld, it is referred to as A George --- Where Goerge decided to do the opposite of the norm. 

          Wokeism is literally a safe space for those that have weak minds. The main concept of groupthing gives a wonderful space for people that lack self-esteem or the power to think on their own.

    2. Kyler J Falk profile image77
      Kyler J Falkposted 3 years agoin reply to this

      At the risk of looking like an uncouth peasant, there were too many big words in this to keep me reading. If I have to pull out the dictionary more than twice, screw it, I'm going to admit my blatant ignorance. Give me the short and sweet on this one, because the topic interests me greatly.

 
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