SwiftQuill

I find it deeply frustrating that opposition to wokeness is often automatically associated with right-wing politics. As someone who identifies as center-left and supports equality for all, including women, ethnic minorities, and marginalized groups, I reject the toxic aspects of wokeness because I have experienced injustices stemming from it. For instance, I’ve been denied education, internships, and jobs simply because I am male. These experiences make me question a system that claims to fight inequality yet perpetuates discrimination under the guise of equity. It angers me that expressing valid concerns about wokeness often leads to being labeled as against equality or afraid of losing privilege. This oversimplified narrative ignores the complexities of real-life situations. While privilege exists in many contexts, wokeness often exaggerates its scope and application, disregarding individual struggles and nuances. I’m also concerned that communities like Actualized.org, including Leo himself, are uncritical of wokeness and unwilling to address its flaws. In this community, criticism of wokeness or the left is often dismissed as right-wing rhetoric, incel ideology, bigotry, or being stuck in a "stage orange" mindset, ignoring valid concerns about its negative impact. Leo and many forum users claim, "If you criticize stage green, it’s because you’re too comfortable in stage orange or not evolved enough," while simultaneously demonizing stage orange. By their logic, this community’s inability to handle criticism fairly would place it below stage orange. It feels like a large part of society doesn’t fully embrace radical leftist ideas yet remains intolerant of dissent. This stifles dialogue and forces people like me, who value fairness and genuine equality, to remain silent or risk being misunderstood. Ultimately, my frustration lies in the inability to critique the excesses of wokeness without being unfairly categorized. I want a world where discussions about justice and fairness are balanced, inclusive, and open to diverse perspectives—not dominated by a single, intolerant ideology.

I'm happy you think that those wokies mostly exist on Twitter. Personally I know many people like that irl, which is why I'm particularly pissed off at the ideology. As for green policies, those I find sad. I owned an electric vehicle for 2 years and unfortunately I think it's not the solution. Electric vehicles are pretty much a scam. Climate change and environment is a topic I fully care about and I often wonder what we can do as a collective to improve there. Meanwhile woke Hollywood celebrities who own jets like to say men are the privileged class and selfish for not taking in the wokeness ideology. It's a pet peeve of mine to see that hypocrisy.

Maybe, if instead of male I were female, I would have an easier time dating. Maybe, if I were homosexual instead of straight, I'd also have an easier time dating. Or in making friends. Maybe there are pros and cons. And being white male isn't all pros. And being female/whatever isn't all cons. Maybe if I were black, and rich, my life would be easier overall. Maybe if I were a lesbian black woman... who is a multi millionaire Hollywood celebrity, my life wouldn't be that horrible. This is the kind of relativism that stage Green rejects. (And no, I'm not saying that all "demographics" have the same number of pros and cons, I'm not saying they're equal in that way)

I explicitly said I don't know what it's like to be a woman and I have no clue how many problems they face in life. Not once did I say "Oh women don't have it that bad" or that about any other opressed class. All I did say is that the oppressed vs privileged dichotomy is too simplistic in the stage green worldview. I never dismiss personal experiences from: Women The disabled Ethnic minorities Immigrants LGBTQ And yet, because I'm male and white leftists feel very comfortable commenting on my life and how easy I have it. If people on this forum find what I'm saying that outrageous it shows they're just being biased. My lived experiences, conveniently, because of this ideology, are irrelevant, or "statistically rare", or "not as bad as this other group". Do you see my issue?

I only now noticed this was a sarcastic remark and not a legitimate attempt to engage in the topic. I think that's enough. One of the mods can close this thread or something. I'm done debating here. Happy new year, folks. Do make sure to protect your ideology with tooth and nail.

@Hardkill I'm not an american nor into US politics. What or who is AOC?

And by the way, just to clarify some points from earlier. I never said that "all men are oppressed in the tech market". I never said it's impossible for men to get a job in tech, or that I don't have one in tech. In fact I do. What I did say was that I've been rejected multiple times for jobs (both in tech and outside this one industry) due to DEI/Affirmative action quotas. I'd like to clarify this so that I'm not misconstrued. I appreciate when I say "I experienced [X] in various occasions" that people don't reply with "YOU THINK ALL MEN ARE OPPRESSED IN [X]??? HOW ABSURD!". What I said isn't some ideology or propaganda or a belief system. It's a communication of a fact, of a lived experience.

@Leo Gura yes I've seen those 2 videos. This thread was supposed to be a sort of part 3 in a way, but more focused on communication. I feel you did an ok job handling the topic of those videos but you kind of skimmed over some points I thought were important. Like in part 2 you mentioned "Yeah DEI/affirmative action is good but it can go a bit too far sometimes" you didn't deconstruct it with as much depth I hoped. Great set of videos though. My intention with this thread was specifically to focus on communication. As you noticed from the reaction to your own videos, many people commented saying they find you to be right wing for daring to criticise some of those points (preposterous). There is an inherent kneejerk reaction in left wing communities such that any criticism toward the left is taken in a very hostile manner. And phrased as us vs the right/the alt right/the incels/the whatever. Here's a more succint list of my main points: Opposition to wokeness is õften unfairly labeled as right-wing, ignoring center and center-left critiques. There's a distinction between criticizing the goals of equity policies and critiquing their implementation; while the goals may be admirable, some measures can be overly simplistic and unfair. Wokeness oversimplifies issues, exaggerates privilege, and dismisses individual struggles. Communities like Actualized.org dismiss valid criticisms as ideological immaturity or bigotry. Society's intolerance for dissent stifles dialogue and discourages balanced discussions on justice and fairness.

"Whiny dude whines" "Andrew Tate" "Red pill, alt right" "White male thinks white males are oppressed in tech" "You're giving criticism from below" "I've never experienced the things you're describing therefore you're wrong" "Tell me about your experiences, I'll debunk every single one of them" This is what it comes down to this thread, unfortunately. I genuinely wanted it to have been more productive than this. All of this, because in my initial post I said "We should be able to discuss the negative aspects of wokeness more". We essentially didn't get to step 1 without everyone hopping in to try dismiss my points.

I'm not interested in giving examples and describing these experiences if you just want to rationalize them and "debunk" my points in this thread. I'm well past done dealing with "debunkers". I actually regret mentioning these experiences because that seemingly took the focus of this thread, which wasn't my intention.

THANK YOU that is one of my points yes.

@hoodrow trillson My opinion is that people should be more open minded and tolerant to different opinions. But really it's a matter of healthy communication. This thread is a good example of terrible communication. Everyone here thinks I'm a whiny dude who feels "men are marginalized" when that's not what I said. Here are some of my suggestions for everyone (not just the right or just the left or any particular group): 1 - Avoiding thought terminating clichés. Every time you feel tempted to use one of the following words: incel, racist, fascist, right wing, alt right, bigot, transphobe, woke mind virus, communist/marxist (in the pejorative), radical (as prefix), etc. Just think for like 5 seconds, and see if you have sufficient data to determine they are those things. But as a general rule of thumb, avoid them. 2 - Try to understand, not just debunk. "I'm going to debunk this red pill idiot". Maybe don't. Maybe try to actually understand what he's saying. This doesn't mean to agree with it. Genuinely try to understand. Don't get into "debunk mode" straight away. 3 - Avoid "us vs them" attitudes. This goes back to the thought terminating clichés, but essentially I feel people should try to see individuals mostly as individuals, just another human who is confused or suffering in life, as opposed to "the enemy" (like the white men, or the patriarchs, or the incels, or the whoever is your enemy). 4 - Don't be loyal. Like if I make a post criticising one particular feminist individual, or one left wing content creator, like Vaush or Destiny or whatever, don't immediately jump to defend them. Try to be impartial and listen to the criticism, and afterward reply. Don't just think OH THIS GUY HATES FEMINISTS THEREFORE HE'S A SEXIST (because I criticize one particular feminist celebrity, for instance) just don't. This goes beyond the "left vs right" battle. It's a problem of communication and tribalism overall. It's something I feel we should address more often. Both online and in person, I feel communication is very polluted whenever it has anything to do with ideologies.

My biggest point in this thread wasn't to get into specifics like that. And you are portraying my points as "a whiny dude whines". My biggest point initially was I feel we need to add more nuance to discussing left wing ideas without resorting to thought terminating clichés like redpill or incel to dismiss other opinions. I'm not saying that "men are marginalized". I am saying I've had many encounters with leftists that lacked nuance and had this overcorrection attitude. My biggest argument, truly, is that we should accept more individual life experiences. As opposed to seeing everything through a marxist good vs evil, privileged vs oppressor perspective, which is reductive. That is my main point.

@Nilsi what? So from this thread you immediately assume I'm "alt right", "red pill" and all that stuff about "preaching masculinity"? You know this is actually a great example of my points being dismissed. Care to add "incel", "blackpill", "cringe", and other thought terminating clichés to your list?

@Leo Gura Can you paraphrase the main points I've said in this thread? In an accurate manner? And don't get into the content details of the tech industry or this or that example. I mean the overall point I'm making.

So according to you, because for a thousand years men dominated everything and everyone, today, the average Joe working 60 hour weeks at Mcdonald's, he is part of the privileged class. It shocks me that you fail to see so many problems in the leftist ideology. There are serious flaws in this worldview. And I could go on listing many of them, but if you're going to enter "let's debunk everything you say" mode, I don't see much of a point. I'm a huge fan of Actualized.org, the channel has taught me a lot of valuable things in life. But I do see this loyalty to the left bias, unfortunately. And finally, this is where I should have started this thread: My definition of "wokeness" isn't "the monolithic of left wing ideas". By my definition of "wokeness" I mean the excesses, the misapplications, the reductive perspective of left wing ideas and narratives, which yes, many leftists hold. You shouldn't assume most leftists and stage green individuals are as nuanced as you, Leo.

I say the pendulum swings too far when my opinion is rejected merely for being male and white. I say the pendulum swings too far when I join a community anywhere online, reddit, this community, any other media, and I seek help about men's issues like mental health, dating and masculinity, and people like you call that a "manosphere". I say the pendulum swings far when they create affirmative action for my career industry and create jobs just for women for instance, to fix the "dominance of men" in the industry. Has anyone ever pondered that some industries like tech are just boring for women? Therefore few women take those degrees, few women apply to jobs in the industry, and that's why there's a gap? Why on earth do people insist there has to be a perfect 50/50 ratio in every industry? Are you going to deny asymmetries exist? The reason there are more men than industry x or y isn't necessary "because of the patriarchy". Conveniently, no one worries if females dominate the hr or psych industries. And lastly, it's not fox news propaganda to say people often dismiss the things I say for being male and white. That has happened to me many times in my previous job (and in contexts that had nothing to do with politics). It has happened to me many times online and in person. And it has made me feel ostracized. I developed anger issues because of this. People gaslight me by saying that I have it easy in life when I don't. I study my ass off, I work my ass off, I do self help, I have a psychologist, I do the best to improve myself. Sure I've never been sexually harassed or imprisoned unfairly. But life isn't "easy". It's a grind. It's not easy being in my shoes. Especially not when people want to make life harder for me by employing affirmative action and all that BS, and I'm not even allowed to express dissent. It's not a fox news fear monger thing. This is reality. People are indeed dismissive of men's issues. I'm saying from experience, not out of some incel shit or men's rights thing.

My individual experience is enough to debunk the notion that all males are privileged overall in life. And again, for the nth time, I'm not dismissing that women and other demographics have issues. I'm not the one gaslighting others. This attitude of let's brush men with a broad brush as though they have it easy in life in 90% of cases is what I am against. We live in a society where a white woman who is a project manager at a tech company, makes good money, has a husband and children, is seen as part of the "oppressed" class. Whereas you can have a guy with a Master's degree in civil engineering, and because of the bad job market he's working at a supermarket or fast food to survive. Let's say he has autism or some other hidden issue he's facing like and addiction or family situation. Doesn't matter. He's a cis white male and that alone dismisses all of his perspective because he's "protected by the patriarchy". Yes I do understand there is racism in the world. Yes I do understand women suffer from a lot of things I can't even begin to imagine. Immigrants have it rough. I'm not here downplaying the notion that classes exist and many people are oppressed. But there is such a thing as swinging the pendulum in the other direction. And there's this BS attitude of "let's pretend the world has 0 sympathy for those oppressed people". We live in a world where DEI and Affirmative action policies exist, many of which go way too far in fighting racism with racism and sexism with sexism. But who am I to say? I'm probably just a privileged bigot who just has it *way too easy in life* so I am not allowed to express criticism toward any single left wing ideology. That's how privileged I am, to the extent that everything and anything I say is dismissed as ignorance and bigotry.

Yes I sure lost you. Do you want me statistics on this topic? Do you want a double blind peer reviewed study saying that I have been rejected multiple times for job because I'm male? Because according to society living experience doesn't matter, only statistics and books written by feminists and sociologists apparently. At some point this is beyond debating. I'm speaking from direct experience in my life. There have been times when I was desperately looking for a job and applied to a shit ton of places. Supermarkets, fast food, restaurants, stores, etc. I can't give you a number but there was a significant number of rejections I got because of being male. I can give examples of specific restaurants and stores in my city which say explicitly they prefer hiring females. These aren't beauty saloons or anything like that, I mean normal restaurants and shit like a Lego store in the mall. Yes I have been indeed fucked by society for being male and my ability to survive in the job market has been harmed from it. Education? I see shit ton of free degrees of software engineering on LinkedIn, like AI, aimed at females. So while I'm middle or lower middle class and I need to study and work at the same time to pay for my degree, if I were female I'd have free tuition. These examples are just tip of the iceberg and the fact you are unwilling to receive criticism on this topic shows how it's very much taboo to discuss the negative aspects of wokeness. @aurum go fuck yourself honestly

What I find interesting is how the first 2 traits are seemingly "contradictory". Superiority Complex (entitlement?) and Massive Insecurity. I have not done research on this, but I assume they aren't mutually exclusive. We can almost reword this as Superiority Complex = having a big vision for oneself, and the insecurity as "fear of failure", which is associated with the possibility of not achieving that vision, because the fear is associated with our vision and our identity. In my opinion there is 1 trait that is the most important, without necessarily forcing us to feel insecure or neurotic about failure, which is just focus. The mere act of focusing on a goal for long enough is a lot more powerful than people realize. Focus, focus, focus. Reduce distractions in life, focus on what you want. This simple lesson has helped me a lot in my life.

I recently came across a hidden strength within me. I have tapped into it a few times in my life, but it never lasted long, not longer than a few seconds. But I need to provide some context first. For most of my life I suffered from crippling loneliness and depression due to my lack of friendships. Recently I was diagnosed with asperger's, things started making a lot more sense. In the past I would beat myself so hard for being a "social loser" and I would be a people pleaser (being a people pleaser doesn't work at all btw, on one will like you if you act like one). So after so much suffering, a lot of suffering and periods of low self esteem, for the first time I forgave myself. I no longer see myself as a social loser, I see myself as just a human being, neurodivergent. I discovered that I am not AT ALL playing the same game as everyone around me. For me, the fact that I have a stable job and I get along with people relatively well, I should consider it a success. But anyway enough of that. I watched Leo's video "The Root Solution To People Pleasing & Loneliness", I've watched it a couple of times. The first time I watched it, it didn't hit me hard, it made sense in theory but in practice I thought it was difficult, impractical. How wrong I was. I've been doing a lot of mindfulness lately, I've been questioning my suffering and my frustrations with people, and I became aware that they have no power over me. That sentence Leo said "Take back the sovereignty" is so true. We are so foolish in life, we spend so much time deluded, looking for external validations, we look for compliments, we look for people to "love" us. It's all a delusion. All of it. It's not just my opinion, at this point I consider it a fact. I can't say I never feel lonely now. Of course I do, but nowadays I don't suffer nearly as much. I don't throw pity parties, I don't waste much time and energy being frustrated. I look at social situations with more awareness. I wish I could put it into words. I feel quite powerful when I look into my delusions and say "No, I don't need this. I don't need this person to like me. F*ck this person, f*ck validations. I do what I want, this is my life dammit!" If you struggle with loneliness and people pleasing. Don't "try" to overcome it. Don't resist it. I recommend just observe it. Observe your own reactions, observe your inner desires. Eventually you will reach an epiphany and transcend your problem. Here is a warning though, this power is stronger than you imagine. Sometimes, nowadays, I contemplate becoming a hermit. Because I genuinely feel I don't need other people, at all. So once you find this hidden strength, don't go crazy with it, don't let it make you deluded into believing that you HAVE to become a hermit to be happy. I am trying to be happy living in society, I am still working on my social skills, I still plan on meeting new people. But now I feel a lot more in control over my emotions. You look for love in other people, but you already contain a lot of love within yourself. I know it sounds cheesy and BS, but it's true.