Here is my admittedly somewhat subjective list of the five most absurd and outrageous woke ideas being discussed in 2020. I owe a debt of gratitude to New Discourses for its Social Justice Encyclopedia, which allowed me to easily pick from its long litany of woke folly.
One must make choices, and my criteria were twofold: a concept had to stand out as (1) silly and (2) insidious in its ability to influence people (the “coattail effect,” as we will discuss). There are many concepts that didn’t make the cut because either they seemed too nonsensical, too extreme or too pedantic to gain any real traction in the discourse. But, then again, I’ve been repeatedly surprised in recent times by how inane ideas have been mainstreamed so maybe next year I’ll need to update the list. Let’s hope not.
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Abolitionism
Who doesn’t support abolition, as in the abolishment of slavery? In today’s woke context, however, abolition suggests we abolish police and prisons. To be sure, there is much that needs fixing in policing and prisons. Abolition, like so much in the woke lexicon, latches on to a concept deeply ingrained in our collective consciousness, in this case ending slavery. I call this the coattail effect, whereby a woke ideavirus rides on the coattails of a more legitimate social concept, gaining greater acceptance along the way. It seduces well meaning people who (rightfully, in my view) want to see changes to drug policy or cash bail or aggressive policing tactics, etc. into embracing something completely absurd—that we should do away with police and prisons.The more moderate woke activists know that abolition is a very bad idea but pretend that it’s reasonable so as not to incur the wrath of radical activists. And like so much of wokery, it becomes established thinking in progressive circles because everyone who knows better is too afraid to challenge it (we need a good name for this fear-acquiescence-establishment dynamic). The reaction to abolition probably had a major impact down ballot on the national elections. Some locales, like Minneapolis, even went through with abolishing the police!
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Cultural Appropriation
LeRhonda S. Manigault-Bryant, a professor of Africana studies at Williams College, says that the term “refers to taking someone else’s culture—intellectual property, artifacts, style, art form, etc.—without permission.” One wonders whom in a particular culture has the standing to “give permission” to an outsider? To whom should I pay proceeds for wearing a Sari? No one in Maylasia asked me for permission to eat a McDonald’s hamburger. Anyway, this concept demonizes the utterly normal, healthy, necessary and inevitable cultural mingling and melding that happens in every time and place in human history where two or more cultures come in contact with one another. Cultural sharing is actually good, not bad, for pluralistic societies. I cannot believe anyone takes cultural appropriation seriously. Yet they do! Perhaps that is because on an intuitive level it feels disrespectful or exploitative for a white person to dress up as a minority (e.g., Blackface). And, of course, some measure of common sense and decency is in order here. Mimicking another culture can be demeaning, especially if the intent was to demean. But, here again, we see the coattails effect in action: a crazy ideology latches on to an intuition that we should be careful in caricaturing other cultures and gains a measure of social acceptance.
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Brown Complicity
This concept suggests that Brown people have often refused to distance themselves from and have sometimes been complicit in white supremacy and “anti-Blackness.” Brown complicity demonizes Asian and Latino groups who have found success in American society. Some academics have gone so far as to say that the reason why some Asians have succeeded is whites needed to show that they weren’t racist so they propped up Asians. Of course, this fails to answer why Asians have outperformed whites, their supposed benefactors. The concept is used to warn away anyone tempted to make cultural arguments for why some cultures are more successful than others. Brown complicity made my top five as it strikes me as especially odious in scapegoating and demeaning Asians and “white adjacent” Latinos.
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Equity
This concept sounds totally acceptable (like equality, but “better”!), which is why it’s wokified form is so dangerous. The concept of equity has been around a long time, and I am less concerned with the line of argument supporting affirmative action (i.e., that equality of opportunity is insufficient and that society has an obligation to make up for historic discrimination) than with what’s passing under this term. The woke revamping of the equity concept goes much further, suggesting that any differences in group outcomes is prima facie evidence of discrimination. Under this line of reasoning, for example, the fact that black males commit more crime is proof of a lack of equity in law enforcement. And by the same logic, if it were consistent, the fact that Asian Americans do better than whites should be proof of inequities toward whites (which, of course, is absurd, and, of course, is not how the logic is applied). Equity is also used by woke idealogues to mean that everyone should be given an equal share of the social-economic pie, rather than everyone should be given a fair shake. Taken to its logical conclusion, an equity policy would turn economic and political liberalism on its head.
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Research Justice
This concept suggests that scientific research institutions should empower marginalized voices in the scientific process, cite minority research, and provide marginalized groups the “capacity and resources to use and wield all forms of its knowledge to effectively advance their agenda.” Where does one begin? Any politicization of the scientific process and deviation of the meritocratic imperative will only curtail scientific inquiry and discovery. We cannot and should not subject scientific research to diversity requirements. Moreover,we do not do science to “advance an agenda.” We do science to learn the truth. This corrupted approach to science would over time make America and other Western countries uncompetitive on the world stage. Peter Boghossian quipped that our competitors the Chinese certainly won’t be seeking marginalized Uyghur voices in scientific research. That is not to say America shouldn’t be investing in, recruiting and mentoring minority scientists. We can and should.
(Learn more about this idea here)
Until and unless enough thoughtful, liberally-minded people fight back, nutty woke concepts will continue to take root and metastasize.
97 comments
Are you sure “Black men commit more crimes”? Maybe they just get arrested and convicted more often maybe they are dealing with zealous overpolicing that doesn’t patrol white neighborhoods scouring for people doing cocaine at pool parties with the same level of “enthusiasm”
I know it’s hard to accept the truth; as in “fact”. Facts don’t care about your feelings. African Americans commit about 54% of ALL crime… and they only make up about 13% of the total US population. There might be a few bad cops here and there, but even if we took that into consideration, it wouldn’t affect even a single percentage point. The truth is that young black men are far more likely to be involved in gang activity, and unfortunately, gangs commit atrocities, many times in the form of unspeakable violence. This is a fact, but it doesn’t have to stay like this. As a nation, we should be addressing this problem and coming up with ways to educate young black men to remove themselves from these familial cycles of violence. It’s a problem I truly believe we could fix if we only addressed it instead of enabling it. Too often as a society, we rely on how certain things make us feel. We need to put our feelings aside, look at the data, pull up our big-boy pants, and get to work.
I am an educator writing an essay about the evolution of the term ‘woke’, and I came across this article. I couldn’t help but reply to this comment because it is a perfect example of a faulty line of reasoning that I discuss with my students when learning epistemology in the area of mathematics. We are taught that numbers don’t lie–that they are black and white and cannot be altered. However, statistics can be presented in a number of different ways to fit the narrative of whoever is presenting them. For example, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons (important to cite sources), 44% of all crimes for which people in the U.S. are imprisoned are drug offences. Violent crime and the taking of property together only make up about 8% of crimes for which people are imprisoned. Since you didn’t cite your source for the 54% number, I’ll take it at face value for the sake of argument and point out that a statistic like that can only refer to those ARRESTED for crimes, not to crimes COMMITTED. Going back to the fact that drug offenders make up that vast majority of prisoners, that same 54% statistic could be used to support an argument that black people are more likely to be arrested and sentenced for drug crimes than white people. Anecdotally, I always point out that if police were serious about policing drugs rather than certain groups of people, they would raid college campuses regularly. My years in university were spent watching countless people, mostly white, do all kinds of drugs with little fear of law enforcement ever getting involved. This is common knowledge, but the drug activity that gets policed more often is that which takes place in impoverished communities, where black people are more likely to live (another statistic that can be presented to fit opposing narratives). To say that 54% of ALL crimes are committed by black people, completely out of context, to further a narrative that seems to suggest there’s just something wrong with young black men, seems at best irresponsible and at worst sinister. Call it woke if you like, but I think it’s important to understand the context of statistics before we go hurling them around as if there’s nothing more to learn about them. Numbers don’t lie, but they are often the beginning of a story rather than a definitive end.
Too many opinions, too few remedies! Spend more time living and less worrying about dying. More laughing, less crying! Be the ideas you profess and we will all progress. Love not hate you all!
“Moreover,we do not do science to “advance an agenda.” We do science to learn the truth. ” Could somebody run this by Dr. Fauci?
Enjoyed the article! Thanks for sharing some humor!
Yes, Fauci and the CDC (and Trump) caused more harm than good with their lies about the pandemic, but that does not mean that trolling YouTube for doctors who support anti-vax bullshit constitutes “doing your own research”. But for that propaganda, we would be done with the pandemic by now.
OT-Is the word “Schadenfreude” banned here? How about “glucksmertz”?
Yeah, they are German words and express a state of mind or feeling.
Geez.
David-
Kind of OT but…I realized what seems to be missing (my opinion) on this website-humor, satire, irony, puns, etc.
CT and its bastard children are easy targets for humor.
Yeah, yeah I agree CT ad nauseum is a problem, but why be so serious about it?
Points can be made through humor. It gets kind of old reading dour pieces and comments.
I realize this site is dedicated to providing information however. A good coping skill for stress is humor.
it’s actually hard to be funny about topics of identity and race, without sounding like an asshole. I think some of what passes for humor on wokeness strikes people as assholery. We can always try though
David-
Chris Rock and John Cleese would might say something different I think.
Rock won’t play college campuses because students are so intolerant of ” intolerance”, but that’s old news.
Anyway, I’m not suggesting writing humorous essays. I’m looking for a piece that intersperses or sprinkles some parody, puns, or satire (etc) throughout it. Humor, by the way, promotes learning and concept retention. (I don’t know if teaching concepts is part of your purpose though) Humor serves other purposes as well such as bringing people closer.
Two other thoughts: Yes, don’t do something to others you wouldn’t want done to you. Also, use common courtesy. However, irreverence and satire (see Richard Pryor and George Carlin) are gold!
As to others’ opinions, I think and practice this: we all are responsible for our own thoughts, feelings, and actions. How someone choses to react it on them.
My purpose is to identify patterns of argument that the woke use and provide counter-arguments that are simple to understand and make. I’m also interested in understanding why wokeness spreads so we can effectively counter it. I’m interested in taking the “high road,” even if I sometimes fall short in doing so myself. That is, I am not interested in fighting stupidity with stupidity or illogic with illogic, even if it sometimes “works.” I’m interested in fighting wokeness with logic because I believe ultimately we need a more rational body politic that can make sense of the world.
David Bern–I actually laughed a few times while reading your essay. It is not without humor. But I don’t come here looking for comedy. Thanks for a thoughtful piece of writing.
This is a good point, Cal, but ultimately New Discourses fights intellectual fraud with the heft and seriousness this insidious problem demands. Combating the degradation of reason requires a battalion, not a minstrel show.
Satirist Titania McGrath is the Woke establishment’s foremost and visible adversary, but her humorous exaggerations (e.g. Mary Poppins’ “soot” scene is racist blackface.) become Woke gospel in due time. Ten years from now, someone might read McGrath’s tweet—decontextualized—and fail to see the humor.
We need New Discourse’s dispassionate dispatching of such absurdities. The longterm worth of this site’s content is secure, but political humor often ebbs with the times.
Bold Inq-
I’m no suggesting Tatiana McGrath or Babylon Bee presentations. Agree, plays/novels that use themes rooted in one time period are not timeless and thus, lose their impact.
OTOH, Shakespeare produced some satires and used that device in plays about love and marriage.
Satyricon is a classic Latin play (also a Fellini movies) that uses irony and satire.
“Being There” a satirical book by Jerzy Kosinski and later, a movie is still funny as hell. “The Ruling Class” is another.
All of the above speak to history, human foibles/traits, and politics.
Teaching needn’t be only seriousness.
Agreed, and I do think a dash of irreverance in the spirit of Tom Wolfe or HL Mencken (without his contempt for regular Americans) would provide some welcome levity.
Bold-
H. L. Mencken- exactly! Maybe some Mark Twain too.
Bod, why is it “immaterial” that some Jews fight for free expression, but material that Paul Wolfowitz factors in Israel in his military strategy? Why are the only material Jews the ones you despise?
And if you truly despise identity politics on the left, why try to uphold it on the right with white identity? Why not say I’m opposed to identity politics?
David,
It’s immaterial because it’s like saying Shelby Steele, Glenn Loury, Larry Elder, and John McWhorter all negate the claim that Blacks overwhelmingly support Black & Democratic candidates. Exceptions only prove the rule. As for Wolfowitz, I’m not comfortable having an American secretary of defense shape our foreign policy around the interests of a foreign nation.
Identity politics on the Left is wholly about redress, reparations, undercutting norms, and demoraliziing White men, which is not even in the same universe as trying to defend and preserve one’s ethnic heritage and cultural values. No one calls it ‘identity politics’ when Native Americans fight for their ethnic preservation. Unlike you, I recognize the value of ethnic diversity and appreciate that there are Black Africans in Africa, Japanese in Japan, and White Europeans in Europe. No, I don’t want to visit Sweden and see majority Afghan Muslims. I don’t want to visit Mumbai and see majority British colonialists.
Racial identity will never in a million years disappear from our collective purview, so you might as well accept it.
And for you to say I “despise” even some people simply because they’re Jews is hardly worth dignifying a response. I’ve said nothing of the sort as I criticize actions and actions alone.
Bold, Paul Wolfowitz was not secretary of defense (and I do not agree, btw, that Israel was a motivation. Wolfowitz, like other neocons, had a strong belief–arguably very wrong– that the Arab world could democratize with a nudge from the US). What do we make of the fact that plain old white folks like Pres George W Bush, Donald Rumsfeld (sec of def), and Dick Cheney (VP) were actually the decision makers in Iraq? Why the emphasis on Wolfowitz and not these white dudes? And it you use the logic that “the exception proves the rule,” what do you make of the fact that the overwhelming majority of American Jews opposed the Iraq war? Why are they immaterial and Wolfowitz is material? Last question: what do you propose that America does about its supposed Jewish problem?
‘Nothing’ is what we do about the “Jewish problem.” Your attempt to straw man me as David Duke has not gone unnoticed. The only problem is bad ideas taking hold in the mainstream and affecting our day-to-day lives, and believe it or not, bad ideas can be ethnically motivated. Drawing attention to them, dismissing them, and replacing them with good Western ideas like data-driven science, private property rights, personal liberty, free speech, due process, and self-determination is a good start.
Jewish-influenced movements like Marxism, multiculturalism, Boasian anthropology, psychoanalysis, and the Frankfurt school have all, to some degree, undermined those ideas.
Bold, I don’t think you’re David Duke. But I do think you’re linking your least favorite intellectual movements to Jewish influence, where apparently the small numbers involved are critical and worth taking notice of, and de-linking your favorite movements to Jewish influence, where apparently the Jewish influence is trivial and unworthy of note. And I think that tendency betrays animus and a conspiratorial mindset which corrupts your thinking. Again, it doesn’t make you Hitler. But I do think you should reflect on these views and stick to analyzing ideas.
There’s no de-linking going on, at all. For instance, I’ve been consistently vocal about the wonders of Jewish humor versus the lesser WASP variety. I’ve just never proclaimed it on this website. Jews have enriched American comedy immeasurably. And no, you can’t separate the genius of Larry David or Woody Allen from its ethnic flavor. Identity matters, and try as she might, Caryn Elaine Johnson (aka Whoopi Goldberg) can’t kvetch.
The rigorous way, imo, to analyze an idea is to see what it is and who it benefits, and why.
Intersectionality is an idea. It was “established” by a black woman to expressly benefit women of color, and to de-emphasize the life experiences of people who look like me.
Critical theory is an idea. It was later developed in America by Jews in order to “problematize” the norms of White Christian capitalist culture, which was undoubtedly a survival strategy to avoid another round of German fascism.
Observing such is not “animus” aided by “conspiratorial” thinking.
Bold, does that mean “Intersectionality” is Black-influenced and therefore there is a problem with Black-influence undermining White culture?
Additionally, you are conflating good intentions with bad outcomes. Karl Marx can be forgiven for his ideas, considering how post=enlightenment values had not had longevity when he was around. Noone knew where these experiments would ultimately end up.
What about Rousseau or Kant, the philosophers who arguably started the whole “Relative Morality” thing that Postmodernism is descended from? What Jew was pulling the strings there?
Seriously, man, you’re just espousing “Critical Nordic-Anglo White Theory”. And that’s not an off-hand smear, check out the definition of Critical Race Theory here and replace “BIPOC” and its equivalents with “Whites” and replace “White Western Men” and its equivalents with “Jew”.
Re: my half formed thoughts on good intentions/bad ideas
Thinkers are bound by the knowledge of their times. I heard an Ayn Rand admirer (a blond white straight male, fwiw) claim that if Rand were around, she would not agree with her ideas since they’re based on “Tabula Rasa” which has essentially been disproven since her death. So she would disagree with the orthodox followers of her philosophy around today.
Marcuse, of the Frankfurt School, denounced (right before his death) those practicing his doctrine of Repressive Tolerance, stating that they had lost the ideological underpinnings of it and took it too far. Not that there can really be another way for it to go, but Marcuse can be forgiven for being naive.
So some people see problems in society. They rightly criticize the problems (Rand’s criticism of socialism in Atlas Shrugged is brilliant) but their solutions aren’t great (again, Atlas Shrugged has terrible “heroes”, taken as fictional characters in literature. No depth at all).
But at least they try to put forth solutions. The Woke of today (and postmodernists of yesterday) don’t even try that
Problem is the gate bearers view humor as heresy worthy of legal conviction! Sadly!
I seen a Woke dick measuring contest.
Smallest dick won.
Good news Bold. I discovered the Anti-Woke Jewish cabal. We need to expose them immediately. Headed by (((Sam Harris))), and of course these followers (((Bari Weiss, Stephen Pinker, Paul Bloom, Jonathan Rauch, Eric and Bret Weinstein, yoshka monk, Cathy young, Emily Yaffe, Ben Shapiro, Jesse Singal))). There are more!! These prolific writers have been tirelessly exposing woke ideology. And they threaten the white woke hierarchy. It’s rumored that James himself works for them.
Mr. Bern,
Wokeism is the inevitable result of decades and decades of deligitimizing WASP identity and traditional family values in the academy and media. Do you really see it as a White movement? To what do you attribute its foundations? Ostensibly it’s a White Leftist-Black-Latinx-POC alliance, but that’s because they’ve had good training and models. The interesting wrinkle here is that the activist Left has always had a militant Islamaphobia-phobia, so that’s created some interesting implications for Jews. Yet “Christianphobia” isn’t in the lexicon on the Left, nor has it ever been.
My Jewish faculty colleagues are still predictably the most outspoken advocates for anti-racist training, decolonizing the European canon, and multiculturalism. This is anecdotal, but I suspect my employer is not an anomaly. Many of the folks you listed are wonderful, courageous human beings, and have been instrumental in pushing back against the insanity; but they are also overpowered by the monster of WASP/Nordic contempt that was cultivated by their tribesmen for the past hundred + years. (idk, maybe the IDW folks et al. you listed are feeling the heat for being increasingly White-adjacent? lolz)
In other words, for every “Why Race Matters” by Michael Levin, there are about a million “Mismeasures of Men” by Stephen Jay Gould, to use an analogy and hyperbole.
Respectfully,
Bold Inquiry
All one need do is open their eyes. I saw a tweet today from Jen Bokoff, a Leftist Jew dedicated to anti-racism and to helping “all humans live freely” without discrimination.
(Well, maybe not all humans.)
“This is your annual reminder that not everyone celebrates Christmas! The default to “Merry Christmas” as a normal greeting is white supremacy culture at work.”
So a majority White-Christian nation, founded on European principles, gets to be scolded about their traditions on one of their most cherished holidays.
Bold, So a single wokescold Jewish woman who tells you that Merry xmas is white supremacy does represent all Jews or the threat of Jews, but the idea of the IDW, which came out of a conversation of three Jews–Sam Harris, Eric Weinstein and Ben Shapiro–and was popularized by a fourth Jew, Bari Weiss–does not represent Jews? Is it possible that Jews are represented disproportionately in every major social movement and that it’s a mistake to identify them as the “culprit” in ones we don’t like?
Bern,
Pointing out that there are some Jews who still cherish their free speech, or even identify as conservative, is immaterial. Next thing you’ll tell me is that neocon Paul Wolfowitz’s political ambitions have no connection to an interest in the security of his people here and in the middle east.
What about my people? Where you and I part is the importance of identity, because it matters, and especially so when it became open season on White Hetero Christian Males. If the Woke is going to ruthlessly attack my identity—either implicitly or explicitly in their endless grievances and new rules—then only the sorriest of milquetoasts would not fight back. In other words, attacking White identity is mainstream and chic, but defending White identity is akin to hate crimes.
America’s complex foundation of ideas that derived from Greece, Rome, the Renaissance, the Reformation, Enlightenment, and then of course culminating in the Founding Fathers whose ideas, values, and protocols we still cherish hundreds of years later, are the envy of the world—and Jewish intellectual movements have done their damndest to undermine them.
Bold, the solution to bad ideas is not more bad ideas IE
”
The Alt Left – White Hetero Males are the worst!
The Alt Right – White Hetero Males are the best!
”
No, rather, it’s good ideas. Enlightenment values are the best. Those who choose to follow them will thrive. Enlightenment values don’t care about your heritage. Stop violating them.
What a load of old bollocks you have typed.
Get a life.
I posted my first comment on this web site in response to the article without having read the comments. Now that I have read these comments, I’ve lost interest in this web site! The comments reduce it to just another boring teenage-mutant-ninja-turtle TwitTwat slapfest! Curly meet Larry. In a Tower of Babel, there is no HOPE! Too bad, since many of the articles here intelligently flesh out that endangered species and antidote to wokery, Common Sense. I give up!
don’t give up… different types of people come on here. Engage, be constructive, etc Otherwise you abandon the field to the crazies on both sides
I am 65 and have suffered the punishments of the Left on many fronts for over 20 years long before woke was named — cancelled long before it became a concept. I ran screaming from academia, left politics, community work, non-profit NGOs and “gay activism” turned queer Red Guards before the Gulag could get me. Now I live as a sheep in wolves’ clothing, camouflaged by my many past hipnesses amidst the Wokegeoisie in the urban madhouse where I was born, always lived and have no way to escape. Now I only seek the rare voices who can articulate this one Truth: that all of this was caused by all of us! All of us are culpable. Truth is bravely spoken on this site (and in your article), but this speck of truth is up against the vortex of a billion screaming voices that is the internet Commentariat. The “crazies” are a feature of virtual interaction not a bug. It is virtual media itself that is the problem because of the scale, ubiquity, and uniqueness in history of a mechanism that allows humans to mentally and emotionally excrete in public every single thought and emotion onto masses of strangers every moment of every day online. THIS is the created Hell. THIS is the source of the problem. Anyone under 45 has never known anything but virtual reality so you can’t see the forest for the trees. Old paper media reduced opinion cacophony to digestible and debatable daily discourses that were on paper thus limited in number of possible voices speaking at any one time and the resulting discussions happened in person thus were limited by the social realities of face to face. New virtual medias have no rules because they are inside people’s crazy heads (terrifying places) and amplify to deafness the shrieks and howls of this virtual Bedlam. One individual free-thinker’s totalitarian hell is another collectivist apparatchik’s Inquisitional heaven. All my urban smug-ass university/NGO leftist quisling Party-lackey neighbours think we’re in a golden age — and they are — as are all lackeys of the elitist ruling class/woke state who sell their mother to lick the Party’s ass and play the game not by believing it but by visibly forcing the belief in it onto the pleb heretics as self-righteous Torqumada/Nomenklatura “morality police” enforcers. It is THESE people, those who benefit as lackeys of the state (all university staff included), who ARE the problem because they will literally kill before giving up their status. Anal Remora. Break them and the woke game ends. Smash their class and the ruling elites lose their conformity by shame army. There it is. But all of this is just more words. We need less discourse, more solutions. Less talk, more action. That’s my senior citizen common sense advice. Good luck, younger men. This is your fight now to win — it’s your world to lose. For this old man, I thank God I had such a rich life for 35 years in the modern urban Western culture that existed before the new iron curtain of Political Correctness fell in 2005 with the invention of social media and spread PC’s fringe evil step-child, wokeness, to every human mind on the planet via their phones. I never owned a “smart” phone and never used social media because I’d memorized Koestler’s Darkness at Noon at age 16. And now in retirement I reap the the harvest of that decision: SILENCE.
Dude, two things
1) Use paragraphs. Please.
2) You’re hilarious. Don’t leave. I really enjoyed that rant (outside the wall o’ text aspect).
I’m with Moetown.
Woke washing is already a thing. It’s when a business or org goes through some diversity training to pretend they are woke without making real change.
I hope you’ll keep reading and commenting, “65.” I’m 67 and right there with you.
Except, I view my work serving as rider on a lathered horse, leaning over his neck and galloping hell-bent for leather to the church steeple, crying “Havoc!” as my last, best work.
“we need a good name for this fear-acquiescence-”
How about “cucked” or old fashioned “cuckolded”, or perhaps”pegged” as in humiliated and shafted out of a lack of belief in the importance of your own dignity and self respect??
“I cannot believe anyone takes cultural appropriation seriously.”
If it’s good enough for Justin, it’s good enough for me.
“And like so much of wokery, it becomes established thinking in progressive circles because everyone who knows better is too afraid to challenge it (we need a good name for this fear-acquiescence-establishment dynamic).”
ANAL REMORA:
Quisling sycophantic forelock-tugging, ass-hoovering, silk-robed-sons-of-bitches-from-the palace-who-sneak-down-to-open-the-gates-to-enemies-of-their-own-people, aka “Human” Vomit, bottom feeding scum who snatch scraps of the anus-leavings of Woke Poobahs ensuring Anal Remora increased submission-status via self-degradation/aggrandizement utilizing uber brown-nosing, aka Get Down With The Brown, Klown. The Shit people. Failed “human” garbage. Gibbets fodder.
Will this name and definition suffice?
Moetown,
(I’m unable to see a “reply” button for each of your posts, so I have no idea where my responses to you are appearing.)
You raise fair points but I tend to think Occam’s Razor is the explanation here. Start from the present and move backwards. Somewhere mid-century WASPS/Nordics turned on themselves and aggressively started working against their own interests, and even grew ashamed of their own identities. (For a simple example, look at how overpopulation is discussed: ***always*** directed at Whites, who are rarely reproducing, but never mentioned about Indians, Chinese, Hispanics or Africans, where pop. “explosion” is an understatement.) This suicidal instinct is so fascinating to me because you see this almost nowhere else in the world. I believe the aforementioned Jewish intellectual/political movements encouraged and exacerbated the Anglo decline and the grievance culture from which we can’t ever escape.
I think the ’65 Immigration Act is the single most tragic piece of legislation in our country’s history because 1.) Americans didn’t get to vote on it, 2.) Ted Kennedy assured Americans it wouldn’t upset the European majority in this country (LIE), which was roughly 90/10 fifty-five years ago, and 3.) what’s resulted is an increasingly fractured and balkanized America where anytime POC fail to achieve the same outcomes as Whites it’s called systemic oppression/racism. In other words, the very essence of Wokeism. Serious question: Do you ever expect this to go away?
The founding population of a nation (majority) will always work for the betterment of the country. When the country becomes multicultural, the efforts become divided along lines of ethnic interests and representation….well, except for Whites. Think how dreary it was to hear endlessly about the Harvard Admissions Scandal. Variations of this brand of identity politics and quota porn haunt every facet of American life, and it’s all a result of Hart-Celler. Jewish influence was instrumental in getting that legislation passed.
“Jewish influence was instrumental in getting that legislation passed.”
And feminist influence wasn’t?
My above 12.23 comment is meant for all readers. I’m not singling out anyone.
David-
Treat everybody with respect and dignity
Mind your own business.
Don’t force people to be what you think they should be.
Treat others the way you want to be treated. Conversely, don’t do things to others you wouldn’t accept having done to you.
Yeah, I know this sounds crazy and nobody probably ever said the above things before (sarcasm for those who don’t have a functional sarcometer).
Why do you think it is nearly impossible to accomplish the above actions?
Cal, I’m actually not sure what you are suggestions. I agree with most of what you said. …
David-
I was truly asking you opinion as to the reason humans seem so unable to simply live a non-interventionist lifestyle. (Non-interventionism here is meant as it applies to human interaction. Additionally but unrelatedly, I think humans are better served if they practice non-interventionism in economics and foreign policy).
I know what I think about human qualities. I’m genuinely eager to hear others’ ideas about human nature, if you will. I look forward to learning what you think.
Cal, I am working on an article that will be in Areo on “memes.” Memes are ideaviruses that spread in society. In liberal societies these memes are rational i.e. subject to criticism and scientific inquiry etc. Illiberal societies are dominated by anti-rational memes–those that spread primarily by disabling criticism. Woke is an anti-rational meme that operates by shutting down criticism. To address the question (the best I can, which may not be that good), while liberal societies run more or less on a non-interventionist ideals, they are susceptible to anti-rational ideas. And we are rife with them now. I don’t know what this says about human nature other than we are not purely rational creatures and can be infected with irrational ideas that hurt us and society…
On a slight tangent, I was considering the other day how Gramsci’s notion of hegemony – which I believe underpins BLM/Critical Social Justice through a post-modern route – can be read as a variation on Descartes’ Evil Demon argument or the so-called ‘brain in a vat’ scenario.
Whether trapped in the internal ‘class logic’ of cultural hegemony, especially in a post-modern form where an anti-realist epistemology is formalised, or trapped in a vat as a brain, there seems to be no objective test able to verify or falsify, the truth of one’s situation.
I think the so-called ‘brain in a vat’ analogy is a good way to make the notion of cultural hegemony seem absurd.
Who should care why you’re here. Please tell… .
I’m at a loss as to the various critiques, especially those alluding to “click bait” which share a common trait; a touch of intellectual arrogance which, ironically, provides the rationalized foundations for the essentially neo-Marxist woke strategy. In my view the article was a success with the link to the ‘Social Justice Encyclopedia’ in the first paragraph i.e. the average individual, whatever the reason for the attraction to the article, now has a reference source to begin the deeper explorations needed to offset the woke strategy…soon to be supplemented and solidified by empirical evidence the ineffable intellect that chose the title ‘God’ is now presenting as pure intellect demanding humans defer to the oracle of reason rather than religion. His presence provides an entirely different perspective; the higher vantage.
Consider the issue of race in the context of a guiding intellect e.g. race as opposed to the human race is not and never has been a marker, but greater and lesser cultures and people has been a prime consideration from the beginning; the “prime directive” being greater peoples and cultures have an obligation to elevate, not rule, the lesser peoples and cultures…but never is the greater to become less by contact.
“we need a good name for this fear-acquiescence-establishment dynamic”
Wokewashing.
Woke washing is already a thing. It’s when a business or org goes through some diversity training to pretend they are woke without making real change.
If you haven’t read the rescinded Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule published by HUD in the Obama Administration you should. Biden says he’s going to bring it back.
It requires every jurisdiction to produce a plan that will increase fairness in housing. The most troubling aspect of the rule is that it doesn’t allow for success. There is no way, under the rule, that a jurisdiction can say, “we have achieved fairness.” Every jurisdiction is judged to be unfair in perpetuity.
People who support AFFH claim that it doesn’t require any particular course of action by a city, which is true, but they ignore the fact that the plans must be approved by DC bureaucrats. The people who wrote the rule will decide if your plan is acceptable or not.
While the five things identified in the article might be the most moronic woke ideas, the AFFH rule is a moronic woke policy that will potentially reach across the entire country within Joe Biden’s first 100 days.
I think advancing or attacking wokeism or any -ism is an intellectually futile exercise. Too many words that reflect other words like an infinite hall of mirrors.
Keep it simple. Use history, the actualities of life. Was Chief Justice Roger Taney correct in his majority opinion of Dred Scott or not?
Was the Indian Removal Act wise and moral, or not?
Are there extreme wealth inequalities are not? And if so should anything be done about and why?
There are but a few basic concepts regarding human nature. Scripture is succinct in that regard, so is some literature. Philosophy spawns endless rabbit holes. New Discourses from what I have read thus far unfortunately seems to be neither new nor a discourse but another far right polemic outlet, perhaps with the goal of getting a spot on OAN or NewsMax or selling books by being against a straw man -wokeism, which is actually an old idea. See the Buddha. So unproductive.
And the smell test results?
stinks to high heaven… but you have your own voting card
Wokeism is the result of disparate cultures and values trying to coexist with one another under one national flag. We call this ‘diversity,’ or otherwise known as the Greatest Gift to Mankind. Well, inevitably some of those cultures haven’t “stacked up” in the outcomes metric, so it’s natural that social scientists seeking tenure and something to publish will focus endlessly on those obvious disparities. (Btw, said disparities will regenerate themselves every week and year and generation, since immigration will be relaxed in ways like we’ve never seen.)
The problem is that it goes so beyond reasonable redress as to become sinister and comically meaningless. At a bus stop in a major city, I saw a poster put up by the US Census with the phrase “END RACISM!” printed across the top. (Clenched fists, too) I walked by one of the biggest catholic churches recently and there’s a 50 foot banner that says: “RACISM IS A SIN.” The first statement is impossible; the second is a flat out lie. The enemies to reason and reality are not just rogue professors: they now populate every arm of American culture, and they have ALL the answers to the problem of inequality.
Well guess what? I have a suspicion why this has become a problem in the first place:
“The more diverse American society is, the safer Jews are.” – Nacha Cattan, Jewish columnist for Forward Magazine
Oh look, someone using identity politics to argue against the Woke. That irony was so iron-y that it cured my anemia.
“Identity politics” is putting it quite gently, even charitably. Especially those parts that “racism is not a sin” and the Jews did it.
For forty years I too used to roll my eyes at the notion of Jewish bigwigs pursuing their own ethnic interests to the detriment of American harmony. Talk about nasty conspiracy theory yuckiness. Even such thoughts reek of antisemitism. Well, now I can’t turn on mainstream news or walk into a large bookseller without seeing the agenda pushed nearly everywhere.
I’ve countless examples, but just take something obvious like the SPLC and ADL. When James Lindsay appears on their hit list in due time–and he will–he will be effectively ruined anytime anyone Googles his name. Speaking engagements will cease and the Woke industry will lose one of its most formidable adversaries. Or what about Fox News hosts refusing to say anything when Gingrich brought up Soros back in November?
Criticizing Nazism isn’t anti-Whiteness. Criticizing crime in Black neighborhoods isn’t racist. Criticizing a church’s activist slogans isnt’ anti-Christian. And criticizing Jewish involvement in American social engineering and Wokeness isn’t antisemitic.
I never knew something blind could glare, but the logical fallacy within that statement taught me something new.
Every other “criticizing ____” is about things external to the race/religion. But the Jew one (oh, those jews) is literally saying it’s inherent to jews.
When the term anti-semitism was coined, it was a deflection from traditional anti-jewish bigotry. “i’m not anti-jewish, i’m merely anti-semitic”. Today, it’s full circle. “i’m not anti-semitic, i’m merely anti-jewish”.
Congrats, reasonableman
It’s funny that bold is anticipating in advance that the ADL will ban James. So he’s holding a organization responsible for what they haven’t done yet. Also splc is not a Jewish group.
I’d argue that the Frankfurt School was by definition *the* classic Jewish intellectual movement of the 20th century. Here were German Jews exiled into America and all their philosophies and writings are essentially denouncements of American capital, nuclear family, entertainment, and culture more broadly. (Have you read Adorno?!) Anyone can see why they’d want to “soften” American culture for change, given their recent experiences in WW2. It’s their brainchilds in ‘critical theory’ that essentially gave rise to New Discourses and the critique of Wokeism. Then there’s the anthropological work of Franz Boas, which helped push Darwinism to the margins. This was essential in mainstreaming ‘cultural relativism’ and de-emphasizing heredity, which ultimately led to the American catastrophe of Hart-Cellar.
Ok, the Frankfurt school of thought does have some ideas that are used by the Woke. But the Woke are not neo-marxist ideologues. Nor are they Postmodernists; although Pluckrose and Lindsay both have espoused that the Woke draw more heavily from the latter than the former (aside from their book, watch their interview with Thaddeus Russel).
The Frankfurters (heh) themselves were Modernists; they were rational, believed in objective reality, and you could debate with them. I strongly disagree with their notions of power driving everything, but as liberal democracy (in Europe) was an extremely new thing when they started and the competing ideas of how to emancipate the citizenry in the optimal manner…. yeah. Regardless, their doctrine as to how societies are structured and how they should be structured are SERIOUSLY violated by the Woke. So if the Jews are trying to socially engineer society, the ones who were are dead and their doctrine isn’t being followed.
Additionally, the Jewish rationalists of the late 19th/early 20th century (especially in Germany) were extremely secular. They were Jews who were tired of being persecuted and other-ed and jumped at the chance to be welcomed into polite society. They disavowed themselves of the whole religion and culture, assimilating themselves as much as possible (“I’m a German first and a Jew second”). Granted, that didn’t do them much good when the ’30s rolled around so you can imagine the cognitive dissonance that led to the thinking of the Frankfurters in the 30s and beyond. They were trying to shape society, but NOT to empower themselves and, whatever their goals were, they failed.
As a result, Cultural-Marxism is academic nowadays. Woke-ism is not. Cultural-Marxism is one small piece of the Woke pie, with Postmodernism likely being a much larger chunk (if this website is to be believed).
There were other Jewish thinkers too. Ayn Rand, for one. Is Objectivism a power grab for the jews?
Jews are people. They have good and bad ideas, like everyone else. You’re claiming there’s something suspiciously “jew-y” going on. Well, what is it? Or are you being Woke yourself, claiming that Critical Social Justice has “systemic jew” throughout it?
Also, you’ll have to educate me on Hart-Celler. I read it a bit on Wikipedia but I don’t trust them (I generally use it to find out enough that I can then do my own research).
What is the problem with it? According to Wikipedia “The act removed de facto discrimination against Southern and Eastern Europeans, Asians, and other non-Northwestern European ethnic groups from American immigration policy.”
Do you disagree with this (so-called “Browning of America”), or are there other parts of the bill that were destructive to the country?
Fox News hosts didn’t refuse to say anything, when Gingrich brought up Soros, they cut him off altogether.
Late, Faulkner “apologized”, but didn’t invite him back onto the show, to finish the thoughts which they’d stopped.
What Moetown wrote below, about how “none of the French Postmodernists were jewish, nor were the “applied postmodernists” really made up of jews” really matters, seeing as these folks have been The Rage on the Left, since the mid-70s.
Once the Energy Crisis hit, the utopian-ism of Marcuse etc. became outright passé, if not outré.
Thus, most of those making a stink about the Frankfurt School are grasping at straws.
“What made them turn against themselves?”
How about the spike in influence of Professional women, who deluged workplaces in the decades after WWII?
For insight into the mentality of this demographic, see blogger Whiskey, e.g..
“Angelo Codevilla argues in the American Spectator, that the Ruling Class of America, Republican and Democrat, all go to the same national schools, share the same interests, intermarry, and form the same social class…. the entire Elite political system is dependent on sustained good times for everyone, to smooth over the massive TRANSFER of wealth and opportunities, from average WHITE people to non-Whites (and elites)…
There is a word for people who hold such views. The natural basis for the Super Zips. The Ruling Class. The New Elites. We call them … women.
Specifically, White professional women….”
My judgement is, that these folks’ power outright dwarfs that of The Joos.
Gently? Nope. This is where identity politics always leads.
The civil rights of the 60s were primarily about abolishing identity in the legal sphere.* It was about “if you draw a circle to exclude me, i will draw a bigger circle that holds both of us”. Putting identity (primarily immutable identity but not always) as the reason to push down or lift up a given group, especially when blessed by law, will reliably lead toward instability, scapegoating, and hatemongering. Just dont.
*which is why i’m not 100% on board with anti-discrimination laws; i havent mulled over enough a better way to do it so i’m more pro than anti, but i have serious misgivings about identity being legislated in any way.
You know what’s external to the Jewish religion and race? Aid to Israel, WASP bashing, and endless ME wars. You know who the biggest protected group in the world is, and off limits to any justified criticism? Mmhm.
(notice how you’re already throwing out “anti” just like every faculty activist in the Rutgers or Evergreen St English Dept.?)
Who in the media actively advocates for the interests of my WASP grandparents in the Iowa plains, and whose ancestors arrived here in the 1630s? For now they are a demographic majority, yet oddly the Woke establishment is gradually negating them any celebration of their ancestry or identity. Not so with Jewish and POC. When and why did the people of my stock become so self-loathing? I could’ve sworn my Anglo forebears were instrumental in building the country and establishing our laws.
I am genuinely interested in an answer to that question. What made them turn against themselves?
Even in an open-minded haven like New Discourses are contributors terrified of even mentioning Jewish influence in our increasingly dystopian culture.
Bold, what jewish influence? You mean there’s a jewish hivemind that has some crappy mouthpieces like Forward or the SPLC (btw, i never heard of the jewish foundation of that organization)? There is a secret jewish agenda that is trying to exploit the american people in order to better their own interests? That’s neo-Marxist conspiracy right there.
Actually, the Woke progressives are anti-jewish. It’s pernicious enough that Lindsay wrote a whole article on it on this website. And they are very anti-israel (as israel are the oppressors of the palestinians as the narrative goes). The endless wars are due to the swamp which is influenced by the military industrial context. And what does any of that garbage have to do with Critical Social Justice?
Btw, i have nothing against your ancestors. In fact, assuming they were pro enlightenment values and pro American values, i hold them in great esteem as they were part of forwarding the American experiment; iow, we broadly share the same values. But when you start peddling “group guilt”, that’s where you go off the deep end.
One last thing, Bold. You know who consistently praises the “salt of the earth” types like your grandparents?
Ben Shapiro.
Hivemind? That’s something of a cartoonish image, Moetown. My goal is to inquire (hence my name) about the ideas and movements that have led to this point. You are aware that Wokeism derives mainly from the ideas propagated by the Frankfurt School? Imagine if Italian Catholics, for example, moved in great numbers to Iran and Roman intellectual thought and values started taking hold in almost all facets of Iranian life. Would it be fair for traditional Iranians to identify the major reason for the cultural shift? Or would they too be accused of conspiracy-theorizing about an Italian hivemind?
There were a of jews in the Frankfurt school, sure. But so what? Their ideas werent jewish. Herbert Marcuso (sp?) is arguably the most influential of those concerning today’s woke culture, what with his influence on Angela Davis. And none of the French Postmodernists were jewish, nor were the “applied postmodernists” really made up of jews. Finally, the Frankfurt School would be disgusted by the Woke.
A more relevant comparison would be “imagine those Italians brought it to Iran and a bunch of Iranians took some of those ideas, melded it with some other d3structive ideology, and produced some toxic cultural movement. Would it be fair to blame the Italians?”
The point is, you’re saying that jews have some uniform plot to swing the direction of policy and culture. Or what else are you saying?
Condemning Nazism isnt condemning whites.
-correct, because most whites abhor nazism
Condemning crime in certain neighborhoods isnt condemning blacks.
-correct. Crime is bad and most blacks dont commit crimes. Additionally, crime is committed by all races.
Criticizing church for politics is not all christians.
-correct, because christians have crazy diverse views.
Criticizing jewish involvement on american social engineering and wokeness isnt anti-semitic
– ok, but american social engineering? Like, the other stuff is all very localized and small scale. Socially engineering America is a grand conspiracy, supervillain level stuff.
Tell me how that isnt classical antisemitism. Seriously, i am asking you in good faith, not being snarky.
So you’re saying that the Jews diversified society and brought in the woke problem? Sounds less like a suspicion and more like an assertion.
One half of notions that comprise Critical Theory are pulled right out of psych and other social scientists. Freud’s ideas were important to the Frankfurt school.
See below the citation taken from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/critical-theory/
…”Once reason was thoroughly socialized and made historical, historicist skepticism emerged at the same time, attempting to relativize philosophical claims about norms and reason to historically and culturally variable forms of life. Critical Theory developed a nonskeptical version of this conception, linking philosophy closely to the human and social sciences. In so doing, it can link empirical and interpretive social science to normative claims of truth, morality and justice, traditionally the purview of philosophy.”…
Abolitionism. You dismiss the entire proposal out of hand for being “woke” but fail to provide any reasoning, logic or citations to back up your argument.
Have you been incarcerated? Do you believe those with first-hand experience should perhaps have a voice in this discussion?
Have you considered the Netherlands, where no-one is ever put behind bars?
Have you even considered the social failings that cause people to turn to crime? Perhaps in the USA it simply IS the modern form of slavery? It allows rich corporations to access cheap labour, and prison populations are dominated by lower economic and social standing, including systemic racism.
I haven’t been incarcerated but I have been quite politically active in advocating for major criminal justice reform. That said, I don’t need to be a formerly incarcerated person in order to have an opinion on this and if I was I would be biased in a different way. We are not the Netherlands. The crime rates, particularly violent crimes rates, are much higher. That system would be a disaster here. And I think the idea that the US is running a form of slavery is BS.
The Netherlands has prisons. It has a much lower prison population, proportionately, than the US, because it has a much lower rate of serious crime. For example: the homicide rate per 100k people (2020 figures) is 0.55 for the Netherlands, 5.35 for the US.
Shane-
Are you aware that the Netherlands (often called Holland) is more ethnically homogenous than the US? “Old World” populations tend to be more alike each other relative to “New World” ones.
There is a lot more to understanding trends than just comparing two items.
I could correlated the color of underwear I had on when I last lost my keys and conclude that wearing white underwear causes me to lost my keys.
By the way, if you don’t like certain laws, don’t reelect the same people who voted for them.
“Measuring changes in prison capacity alone is an insufficient measure of punitiveness in the Netherlands because these numbers do not accurately represent the incarceration needs of the Dutch.”
The statement that in the Netherlands, no one is ever put behind bars is, of course,factually incorrect and lacking nuance. As is the suggestion that the U.S. penal system is merely an extension of the concept of slavery, or that “social failings” are primarily responsible for criminal activity. While there are ALWAYS opportunities to refine something as complex as a nation’s entire criminal justice system, and serious minded, fact-based conversations about ways to improve are certainly an on going necessity, I hardly think that statements like yours or,even more egregious, Abolish the Police, qualify. And are obviously unhelpful.
I think one of the biggest social failings being committed today is convincing an entire section of the population that they are victims of a society that has failed them. This only spawns a victimhood mentality which, once internalized, is an insidious burden for any individual, including actual victims.
Hi There, Doing lists like these are a great idea for people who are not well versed in the language of academia. Many can spot that something is wrong with an article or idea but they can’t quite articulate it. This articulates and defines some of the common themes without being too verbose. It also helps to validate what I was sensing when see these terms “equity” and “research justice” mentioned in the media and academic literature. It really helps to have an understanding of the language to take a stand and say NO to some of the insane ideas out there.
Spelling looks good to me.👍
Funny. I can’t find my spelling mistakes!!
Malaysia…
‘This corrupted approach to science would over time make America and other Western countries uncompetitive on the world stage. ‘
I don’t necessarily agree it would make Western Civ countries uncompetitive, since most of the rest of the world parasitizes Western Civ research; they would equally lose out if the quality of science performed suffered. Wokeism will however definitely degrade the quality of research, perhaps ruinously. We are already seeing birds being renamed for the sins of their discoverers or who they named for; a full-throated assault on the evils of binomial nomenclature (Linnaeus being a white straight male) is almost certainly pending. ‘Different ways of knowing’ might be an interesting area of research especially on sociological and cultural grounds, and might even prove useful to research, but it ain’t science.
‘A (well-written) list about the stupidities of the last year is not why I visit here!’
The misspellings and punctuation problems detracted from the piece and made it seem as if it was written in a hurry.
I would like to see a piece about the largest, full-scale experiment in social conformity and authority compliance in my lifetime-the government mandated covid lockdowns and deliberate manipulation of Americans’ fear of covid. Covid, of course and as CT experts have noted, is an infectious entity to singles out poor, BIPOC. That’s what government in the tri-state (PA, NJ, and NY) say anyway. They’re so smart. (Hope your sacomometer is working).
While I dont disagree with the content of this article, I think publishing a list-based article might start a slide towards clickbait article. Maybe i am reading too much about Theory and am internalizing it too much by nitpicking, but what i love about the newdiscourses publications are its academic and evidence-based knowledge surrounding Critical Social Justice.
I can listen to brilliant minds like Ben Shapiro or Douglas Murray tell me about all the sins of the far-left, but i come here (and buy the books!) to really grasp it. A (well-written) list about the stupidities of the last year is not why I visit here!
The purpose of this site, as I understand it, is to equip ourselves and our community with the intellectual tools to challenge woke ideology in the public square. We need to be able to recognize woke thought in its various forms, understand its appeal, see its weaknesses, and articulate arguments against it. This article is meant to do that, even if it uses a familiar gimmick in making a list.
I in no way meant to say your article was trashy and I fully agree with you. My point was more to not let things slide into easily-written pseudo-journalistic clickbait. “Top 5 of 2020” certainly has the title for it, even though it does do a good job of fulfilling the 4 criteria you mention.
But it is a subjective list. It’s a good read but…… if I was in charge of curating the site, i’d ask you to submit a list that reasonably covers all the major woke-influenced happenings in the last year that have furthered the “wokening” of the West agenda (from what you’ve gleaned). The fact that you chose a top 5 is what turns it from academic to pop, IMO, and that can lead down a slippery slope for the future tone of these “new discourses” 😀
But again, i’m just voicing my thoughts. I’m in charge of nothing to do with this and am just a voice, so i’m using it.
Keep writing, i’ve enjoyed your stuff….. And i’ve contributed nothing to the site so i obviously defer to you!
Not sure about the criticisms. It’s a short list of some major problems. So what? If Mr. Bern wants to expand it to include more points, he could put it in book form, and judging by this entry, he’d probably do a good job. Good work.
Fair enough, I can speak lots of words that just circle my real point rather than actually put it forh.
My criticism is more of a nudge to keep the overall tone of this website on the straight-and-narrow, not a real criticism of this article. It’s actually more of a concern directed at James Lindsay than towards David Bern. It’s the kind of criticism I would want to receive if i was something more than a mental leech on the topic.
I want this website to be authoritative rather than anything that can (rightly or wrongly) be criticised as anecdotal. I’m trying to steel-man this website, if anything.
To clarify, it’s the kind of criticism i would want James to give me if I had written and submitted this article.
And don’t be fooled, if I wrote this exact article, I’d be really proud of myself. It’s got solid points. However, I feel there are too many gaps in it to really be a standalone piece.
No worries. I don’t mind a little criticism.