What is woke?

[Consept]

Here's the thing in any culture group, there will always be the extreme 1 or 2% who treat the ideology as a religion. What happens in modern day is the the one side will often try and paint the whole opposing side as that 1 or 2% extreme. Conservatives are particularly good at this, which is why a lot of their focus and policies are based on 'battling wokisim', they're portraying a threat that even if it is there is no where near as extreme as they're making out. 

Someone said before in the thread that the 90s were a good balance and we were more free, this is completely misguided. You could not talk about gay issues or trans issues or even racial issues freely, you would get shut down by conservatives. Hip-hop music was constantly battling censorship, there were protests all the time to silence NWA, 2 Live Crew etc where members were literally arrested because of sexually explicit lyrics. The whole reason there is 'explicit content' sticker on physical media is because of this censorship. 

People tend to paint the 90s as some ideal time when everyone could say what they want, it's just not true. The only difference was the right ideals were more prominent, as in more of the population had a conservative mindset. Now the window has moved to the liberal mindset starting to be more dominant. Which of course the right is scared of and so they have to strawman the left and over exaggerate the threat so that you vote for them and they can save you from big bad wokism. All the republicans running for office have used wokism to campaign, they're not stupid, they know their potential voters are scared about it, there's probably market research companies who can would've worked out that most potential voters see wokism as the biggest threat to America. So the candidates play it up as if they can 'solve' this exaggerated problem, they would've saved america. Its nonsense, but they are good at it. 

 

[mindfulstepz]

Seems everyone here is taking sd as gospel without taking into consideration one crucial element… many of the extremes within current wokeism (sterilization of mentally unstable children, near compete capture of msm, legislation to compel & limit free speech, social sciences infiiltrating hard sciences) veer towards authoritarian totalitarianism…  which is not an ideal state for society - no matter what sd color you identify with. 

communism & fascism are two sides of the same shitty coin - authoritarian totalitarianism.  With corporate capitalism acting as the osscilsting mechanism.  
 

I would just caution anyone to make sure you are being objective & looking at things with your own two eyes  - people throughout history have been very quick to give up their rights & sovereignty because they wanted their “team” to win   
 

there are higher objectives at play, ones based deeply in esoteric religion, but they have been bastardized and used to play society against each other.  Anyone falling too far to one extreme or the other, without objective observation,  are playing themselves   It’s a tale old as time  

 

Edited March 1 by mindfulstepz

[Yimpa]

1 minute ago, mindfulstepz said:

I would just caution anyone to make sure you are being objective & looking at things with your own two eyes  - people throughout history have been very quick to give up their rights & sovereignty because they wanted their “team” to win   

More importantly is to be able to imagine yourself outside of “your own two eyes”, which requires being nuanced and radically open-minded.

[mindfulstepz]

Just now, Yimpa said:

More importantly is to be able to imagine yourself outside of “your own two eyes”, which requires being nuanced and radically open-minded.

Absolutely. 

[mindfulstepz]

Doing that effectively requires a very difficult paradigm shift - we have to be humble enough to admit that we were possibly misguided about certain elements of our ideology or belief system, and that the other side may have been “right”.  
 

most people on either side of current political & social climate are not capable of that -  due to ego, fear, and refusal to step outside of themselves ( like the thought exercise you just mentioned) 

it is the perfect breeding grounds for authoritarian totalitarianism to arise, from either side of political spectrum,  and powers that be are well aware of this. 

Edited March 1 by mindfulstepz

[martins name]

Many great replies, non have satisfied me completely. 

Let's make a distinction between what something is and it's behavior. What something is is the parts it consists of. For example, a car is four wheels, an engine, a shell, etc. It's behavior is how it interacts with other things. A car can go fast on roads and fit people, etc.

Understanding what something is without understanding how it behaves means you don't understand its purpose or the purpose of the parts. Behavior gives things and their parts meaning.

Likewise understanding a behavior without understanding what caused the behavior is also disfunctional. For example, hearing a new sound without knowing what made the sound is quite meaningless.

Things give meaning to actions.

Most replies have described the behavior of woke without explaining what woke is. The behaviour of woke can however tell us a lot about what woke is by looking for what causes the behavior. 

After some thinking my conclusion is that woke is green social ideology. Green social ideology is a subsection of green ideology as a whole. Green economic ideology is not woke for example. Bernie Sanders's campaign was not woke. Tho it touches and interacts with woke.

Green social ideology is a body/container of beliefs that change over time by the people who have the beliefs.

A key to understanding woke are the people who create the woke ideas that go into the woke ideological body of beliefs. These people have changed over time.

Woke started out with socially courageous people with a nuanced understanding of race relations. These people were sophisticated and operated from healthy green. Woke, for you who don’t know started out way different than what it is today. Originally it was only about racial social justice.

Today the people who shape the woke body of beliefs are lazy, dumb and dogmatic. They are running green values on a blue operating system, and sometimes it regresses even further to tribalism. The blue good vs evil is what creates cancel culture.

Woke is not a static set of ideas but changes with the people who hold them. Woke as a body of beliefs can become healthier again.

[bebotalk]

5 hours ago, Consept said:

Here's the thing in any culture group, there will always be the extreme 1 or 2% who treat the ideology as a religion. What happens in modern day is the the one side will often try and paint the whole opposing side as that 1 or 2% extreme. Conservatives are particularly good at this, which is why a lot of their focus and policies are based on 'battling wokisim', they're portraying a threat that even if it is there is no where near as extreme as they're making out. 

Someone said before in the thread that the 90s were a good balance and we were more free, this is completely misguided. You could not talk about gay issues or trans issues or even racial issues freely, you would get shut down by conservatives. Hip-hop music was constantly battling censorship, there were protests all the time to silence NWA, 2 Live Crew etc where members were literally arrested because of sexually explicit lyrics. The whole reason there is 'explicit content' sticker on physical media is because of this censorship. 

People tend to paint the 90s as some ideal time when everyone could say what they want, it's just not true. The only difference was the right ideals were more prominent, as in more of the population had a conservative mindset. Now the window has moved to the liberal mindset starting to be more dominant. Which of course the right is scared of and so they have to strawman the left and over exaggerate the threat so that you vote for them and they can save you from big bad wokism. All the republicans running for office have used wokism to campaign, they're not stupid, they know their potential voters are scared about it, there's probably market research companies who can would've worked out that most potential voters see wokism as the biggest threat to America. So the candidates play it up as if they can 'solve' this exaggerated problem, they would've saved america. Its nonsense, but they are good at it. 

 

Yes, the 1990s overall had a better zeitgeist. It was a time where the extreme woke ideologies hadn't entered the mainstream. It was also a time where feminism and anti-racism were strong. People could make edgy jokes or even say mishaps in public (without truly egregious things) without being cancelled to fuck because some sensitive wokeists cannot handle human failings and misspeak. 

Few people, bar medical professionals, knew what trans was. this is why in part there were people like Jerry Springer mocking trans people. Yes, he didn't openly in his shows, but it's clear that's what the intent was. As for censorship, there still is such today. It's not an inherent wrong. It's why films are still classified in terms of gore, sex, etc. Is that bad also? Should four-year-old kids see horror films? 

Confliating wokeism with old-school egalitariansim isn't on, since they're distinct. It's a dishonest reading to conflate them. I don't see how saying "women should have the right to vote and do any job a man can" or "people who aren't white shouldn't be denied the same access to property" is the same as "people who don't support xenogenders are evil!!!" or "we need university safe spaces because we're SCARED of the Jewish anti-abortion advocate giving a short talk on our campus!!!" 

This perversion of egalitarianism isn't overblown. It's disingenuous US liberals who say it is, or are deliberately blind to it, or refuse to make any real differentiation. 

[Consept]

@bebotalk

You're stuck on the demonisation of the left. What I'm directing you towards is that when the right was where cultural norms were more aligned with there was still a severe problem with censorship to the point where people were literally getting arrested for saying things that went against Conservative ideologies. Remember it was literally illegal to be gay in the western world up until the 60s and is still illegal in many countries in the world, so to dmsay that there wasn't censorship is far from the truth. 

What is happening is because the left is becoming more powerful, they have more power to censor those that don't align with them but don't fool yourself into thinking the right wouldn't do the same. You are more aligned with the right which is why you can't see this 

[Rafael Thundercat]

 

 

[Kid A]

3 hours ago, mindfulstepz said:

Seems everyone here is taking sd as gospel without taking into consideration one crucial element… many of the extremes within current wokeism (sterilization of mentally unstable children, near compete capture of msm, legislation to compel & limit free speech, social sciences infiiltrating hard sciences) veer towards authoritarian totalitarianism…  which is not an ideal state for society - no matter what sd color you identify with. 

communism & fascism are two sides of the same shitty coin - authoritarian totalitarianism.  With corporate capitalism acting as the osscilsting mechanism.

Who wants communism? I hate to admit it, but I think most people would consider me pretty woke, and I'm basically as little tempted by communism as by Nazism... Like me, pretty much all woke people are democratic. The only way to introduce a system that almost nobody wants is through authoritarian totalitarianism. That's why "communism & fascism are two sides of the same shitty coin."

Edited March 1 by Kid A

[Bobby_2021]

8 hours ago, Consept said:

extreme 1 or 2% who treat the

That 1-2% of wokies are fabulously wealthy. They exert overwhelming control over the populace via the media. 

They inject woke agenda just everywhere. Just look at Hollywood. 

Imagine if Leo lectured you on feminism, gays & trans rights in every video 3 times. The viewers will be fed up with this. And there will be a huge push back. And imagine if he labelled everyone a racists for a push back while offering no explanation whatsoever. 

Which is the puch back that wokeism is receiving right now and it's totally fair. Honest green people take it as an insult that green values are shunned on by society. It's not the case. It's just that you are hypocritical about the way you deliver your message. 

The wokes should take the message and reorient themselves. 

Edited March 1 by Bobby_2021

[Consept]

29 minutes ago, Bobby_2021 said:

They inject woke agenda just everywhere. Just look at Hollywood. 

Agendas have always been injected through media, it is what it is. How many war films, action films with patriotic Americans defeating foreign terrorists, family films pushing nuclear families, this has been injected into media for years. There was even early media normalising slavery or black people in roles of servitude. Lots of right wing Conservative values have been injected into media as long there's been media, often to the detriment of the marginalised. If you want to be consistent you'd have to also accept this. Also keep in mind the right is still trying to do this, it's just that they don't have the pull that they once did and are losing the culture war. You only have to look at fox news or any right leaning media to see this. 

That doesn't mean that the left can't go to far, I can agree that there are some woke ideas that are just not really viable and even dumb but to say that this is just a thing the left is doing is very far from the truth. Keep in mind the extreme version of the right qanon, literally believes that the left are harvesting the blood of young people so that they can ingest it and gain youth, so crazy ideas are everywhere. 

14 minutes ago, Bobby_2021 said:

Imagine if Leo lectured you on feminism, gays & trans rights in every video 3 times. The viewers will be fed up with this. And there will be a huge push back. And imagine if he labelled everyone a racists for a push back while offering no explanation whatsoever. 

Which is the puch back that wokeism is receiving right now and it's totally fair. Honest green people take it as an insult that green values are shunned on by society. It's not the case. It's just that you are hypocritical about the way you deliver your message. 

In the age we're in no one has to be force fed anything, there a multiple options for the media you consume. So if Leo did do that then people would just stop watching him. But again this is no different from when the right gets criticised, if you went against abortion, gun rights, religion you would be shut down by the right. As I said there were rappers literally arrested because their lyrics were too sexual in the 90s and that era Conservative ideals were at the forefront. 

So my point is the exact same thing happens on both sides and its usually an excuse not to engage I'm real, good faith discussion with the 'opposition'. 

The right as you know it will die out probably in 20 years or so, they will not get into power, the new battle will be between center left and progressive left

[Bobby_2021]

4 hours ago, Consept said:

Agendas have always been injected through media, it is what it is

And all those agendas also had their own backlash. You are right. The problem is when you think wokeism agenda should be above any backlash. Which is clearly not the case. The more ideological you are, the more backlash you have to face from society. 

It should be a reminder to you to look into your own ideological dogma instead of blaming and labelling the cultural phenomena as a flimsy right wing cultural backlash. No sane person will nor should put up with this bullshit.

If you display racism or sexism on media, you will have backlash. Blade Runner 2049 got plenty of backlash for sexist portrayal of Ana De Armas. Same with racism or any sort of insensitivity or immorality.

4 hours ago, Consept said:

How many war films, action films with patriotic Americans defeating foreign terrorists, family films pushing nuclear families, this has been injected into media for years. There was even early media normalising slavery or black people in roles of servitude. Lots of right wing Conservative values have been injected into media as long there's been media, often to the detriment of the marginalised. If you want to be consistent you'd have to also accept this.

I have accepted all that. No one is denying the backlash for racist portrayal of blacks. If you did propagate racism, you will be subjected to severe backlash and even cancellation. All those backlashes were totally valid. 

See here is the problem. 

When someone like Will Smith who is a black actor who should be against racism in real life promotes places like Dubai which were literally built using slavery from the third world. This is wokeism and peak hypocrisy.

They preach equality, feminism, women's rights, climate change and in real life, they live on yachts fly in private jets and promote slavery.  It is so easy to see through all this facade. IF you think people are dumb, you are sadly mistaken. They notice everything you do since the advent of social media. The hollowness of the woke message is too damn clear to ignore. 

I can give you 20 examples off the top of my head, and I do not even pay enough attention to this bullshit. 
Imagine the sheer wokeism the average person is exposed to. It will drive them mad. Hence the backlash.

4 hours ago, Consept said:

That doesn't mean that the left can't go to far, I can agree that there are some woke ideas that are just not really viable and even dumb but to say that this is just a thing the left is doing is very far from the truth. Keep in mind the extreme version of the right qanon, literally believes that the left are harvesting the blood of young people so that they can ingest it and gain youth, so crazy ideas are everywhere

It is up to them how far they want to go. It's fine man. The further you go the more backlash you have to face. If you do not want backlash do not go too far. Simple.

4 hours ago, Consept said:

In the age we're in no one has to be force fed anything, there a multiple options for the media you consume.

This is false. There is literally no one on the internet who produces the same content as Leo. Sometimes there are no multiple options. If James Cameroon spewed a bunch of liberal dogma in your face while you are watching Avatar, you simply do not have anywhere else to go watch Avatar. 

You will be destroying the brand, which is what Hollywood is doing with these big budget releases.  The high budget woke bullshit is destroying their own fan base. 

4 hours ago, Consept said:

So if Leo did do that then people would just stop watching him

Absolutely. Earnest viewers of the channel would also despise him. You do realize this is what happened to actors like Lily Singh who lost her entire fan base to sheer nothingness because she decided to go woke. She went from being relatable to insufferable and irrelevant. 

Wokeism teaches you that women should be accepted for who they are and if they are not, they are subjected to sexism. This is pure victim mentality. Which would make her unable to produce authentic content and gain viewership because her victim mentality is insufferable.

This is how wokeism destroyed a true artist. I can name many more cases like this. 

4 hours ago, Consept said:

n the age we're in no one has to be force fed anything, there a multiple options for the media you consume. So if Leo did do that then people would just stop watching him. But again this is no different from when the right gets criticised, if you went against abortion, gun rights, religion you would be shut down by the right. As I said there were rappers literally arrested because their lyrics were too sexual in the 90s and that era Conservative ideals were at the forefront. 

So my point is the exact same thing happens on both sides and its usually an excuse not to engage I'm real, good faith discussion with the 'opposition'. 

The right as you know it will die out probably in 20 years or so, they will not get into power, the new battle will be between center left and progressive left

Man, it is not that difficult, just do not be ideological. OR is it?

Christianity is still the biggest religion in the world. It is far from dying out. It survived by being less ideological. Wokes have to turn down their ideological dogma similarly. This is why they need to look at themselves and be less ideological.

Edited March 1 by Bobby_2021

[Bobby_2021]

Society will not criticize wokeism for nothing. 

The wokies are insufferable, naggy, intolerant, insensitive, hypocrites and bigoted. Stop being all of that and society will not humiliate you. These people act like they are the top of the world and needs to lecture everyone on how to live and govern themselves. No thanks.

[Consept]

 

@Bobby_2021

What you're describing and what you dont like is the exreme of this ideology, which I completely get. What im trying to show you is that the extreme of any ideology comes across exactly the same. The extreme of the far right, qanon for example, comes across as completely insane. If you look at it from an overall perspective this will always be the case no matter what ideology were talking about, veganism, Christianity etc. 

As you brought up Christianity, there are also extreme versions of Christianity and they also wield a lot of power, they have banned books from school and many other acts of censorship. 

With woke ideology it wouldnt surprise me if the reporting on it heavily outweighed the impact and the people that subscribe to it. A perfect example is trans people, who are less than 1% of the population yet Conservative media talks about them an insane amount. This gives the perception to those caught up in the Conservative ideology, that trans people having rights is a massive threat to the country, in reality its barely relevant. Conservative media has worked out that if they talk about certain issues people will watch and so they give the more of what they want. 

Wokies as you say are annoying, so are qanon, so are Muslim extremists, so are fundamentalist Christian, so are scientologists, so are hard-core vegans, most of which considerable power and influence, question is why are wokist at the top of the agenda?

 

[Nivsch]

58 minutes ago, Bobby_2021 said:

Society will not criticize wokeism for nothing. 

The wokies are insufferable, naggy, intolerant, insensitive, hypocrites and bigoted. Stop being all of that and society will not humiliate you. These people act like they are the top of the world and needs to lecture everyone on how to live and govern themselves. No thanks.

Totally agree.

They remind me the extreme relativism problem of the post modernism, when everything goes and there are no healthy principles, compass or guidlines anymore.

Edited March 1 by Nivsch

[bebotalk]

On 01/03/2024 at 11:51 AM, Consept said:

@bebotalk

You're stuck on the demonisation of the left. What I'm directing you towards is that when the right was where cultural norms were more aligned with there was still a severe problem with censorship to the point where people were literally getting arrested for saying things that went against Conservative ideologies. Remember it was literally illegal to be gay in the western world up until the 60s and is still illegal in many countries in the world, so to dmsay that there wasn't censorship is far from the truth. 

What is happening is because the left is becoming more powerful, they have more power to censor those that don't align with them but don't fool yourself into thinking the right wouldn't do the same. You are more aligned with the right which is why you can't see this 

I am demonising wokeism, which as I stated by my reckoning is a perversion of egalitarianism. 

its wrong to conflate the two. 

I don't get your point on censorship, since it's confused. Censorship still exists. Even today, people believe swearing isn't right in given contexts. I don't see the connection between censorship and wokeism. Who says I'm aligned with the right? I have even said my political views here. Linking things to rap or explicit lyrics statements is tangential. People across the political spectrum believe in censor explicit lyrics, and it has never been an exclusive right or left thing.

Maybe state why wokeism isn't distcint from egalitarianism, which was my central point. 

 

 

[Danioover9000]

@martins name

On 2024-03-01 at 11:06 AM, martins name said:

Many great replies, non have satisfied me completely. 

Let's make a distinction between what something is and it's behavior. What something is is the parts it consists of. For example, a car is four wheels, an engine, a shell, etc. It's behavior is how it interacts with other things. A car can go fast on roads and fit people, etc.

Understanding what something is without understanding how it behaves means you don't understand its purpose or the purpose of the parts. Behavior gives things and their parts meaning.

Likewise understanding a behavior without understanding what caused the behavior is also disfunctional. For example, hearing a new sound without knowing what made the sound is quite meaningless.

Things give meaning to actions.

Most replies have described the behavior of woke without explaining what woke is. The behaviour of woke can however tell us a lot about what woke is by looking for what causes the behavior. 

After some thinking my conclusion is that woke is green social ideology. Green social ideology is a subsection of green ideology as a whole. Green economic ideology is not woke for example. Bernie Sanders's campaign was not woke. Tho it touches and interacts with woke.

Green social ideology is a body/container of beliefs that change over time by the people who have the beliefs.

A key to understanding woke are the people who create the woke ideas that go into the woke ideological body of beliefs. These people have changed over time.

Woke started out with socially courageous people with a nuanced understanding of race relations. These people were sophisticated and operated from healthy green. Woke, for you who don’t know started out way different than what it is today. Originally it was only about racial social justice.

Today the people who shape the woke body of beliefs are lazy, dumb and dogmatic. They are running green values on a blue operating system, and sometimes it regresses even further to tribalism. The blue good vs evil is what creates cancel culture.

Woke is not a static set of ideas but changes with the people who hold them. Woke as a body of beliefs can become healthier again.

   Thanks for that. IDC if I'm getting shadow banned in this forum, but what I've said so far has truths to it that it's hard to argue against. How can anyone defend immature excess stage green, when they are also deluded and too triggered by capitalism to even do conscious business?

[martins name]

On 3/5/2024 at 5:28 PM, Danioover9000 said:

 Thanks for that. IDC if I'm getting shadow banned in this forum, but what I've said so far has truths to it that it's hard to argue against. How can anyone defend immature excess stage green, when they are also deluded and too triggered by capitalism to even do conscious business?

I don't think shadow-banning is a thing on this forum. I read and value all your replies to my posts. I have a sense that a lot of your replies add minor points that would get short replies in a real conversation in the form of "good point, agree" but not on a forum where people have a threshold for replying to not clutter. That's just my sense idk.