In the midst of a perfect storm of language policing, grievance culture, puritan political correctness, intolerance, and borderline authoritarian behavior that demanded ideological compliance—a new type of warrior emerged...
I absolutely LOVE and appreciate this piece so much. I've been struggling at times to adhere to my own principles about humanizing discoure and this is a powerful reminder that disdaining factions of my own tribe is no better than disdaining the "other," no matter how misguided or annoying I might find them to be at times. Curiosity not judgment...yes!
Yes, I had to stop listening to Peter Boghossian because he looked to have mistaken an enemy of his enemy for a friend. Yes, hold your identity lightly, and when you look into yourself, see a positive force. For me, to be a scientific humanist, to be pro-human, means that I rely on abductive thinking (avoiding ideological thinking).
Sometimes I refer people who look to have equated a rejection of the authoritarian left as an acceptance of the authoritarian right to The Political Compass and the work of Bob Altemeyer and Leor Zmigrod.
Some interesting thoughts, and it is historically proven that every action has an equal and opposite reaction, but what exactly does that entail? Are we, as society at large, becoming right wing radicals, worse than the "enemy?" History also speaks to this and it says no. Tyranny threatened the world in a major way in 1939 and, sadly, the only feasible response was violence. Just a wild guess here, but Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo were not likely to come to reason by sending someone to talk sense into them. The end result of the war was peace, human rights, and democracy on a never before seen scale.
We are again facing the same enemy. It is no coincidence that wokeism is happening all across the globe at the same time. Movements of this size and scope do not just happen by coincidence. As Dr. Hicks has pointed out in his superb book Explaining Postmodernism, this has been going on for decades, if not going all the way back to Rousseau. As we learn from reading their own literature, marxists like Marcuse and Gramsci clearly lay the foundation for the infiltration and destruction of the West. China is now living proof of the imperialism of world communism, and wokeism is directly and wholly linked to marxism.
Yes, we are, sadly, in the fight of our lives once again. I hope that we can turn enough woke adherents around to common sense before it descends even further into chaos (not that far away) but the jury is out on that. I too have engaged with many woke folk, including family and friends. My success ratio has been dismal, though I admit I have to fight the urge to be virulently "anti-woke," it is not easy to stop the descent into me vs you. Nonetheless, the vast majority won't even consider another point of view. Socialism good, capitalism bad, full stop.
Our freedoms that we cherish under natural rights are at stake and if the fight involves being anti-woke to some degree, then so be it. Coffee house discussions aren't going to stop this.
Hi Katherine, A comment from Canada which I would submit has experienced “Woke” in a way different than the US and is still in the grasp.
From my perspective, this is not a positive because of the loss that it has occasioned, which is multi fold. The first is truth followed by civility and respect. Villainizing and demonizing were and are the truncheons employed by those engaged in the “politics of displacement”. All that brings me to the point that what has occurred and is still playing out is “politics”.
I think your approach to those who express the “Woke virtue” would be helpful when “there are eyes to see and ears to hear” involved. In my experience (which all told would be enough to buy a cup of coffee along with the 2 dollars or so) that is usually not going to work in Politics. There is no truth in that realm - only positions and sadly to the detriment of all, the only position that matters for those involved is the one on top.
The article calls for sympathy to those woke people, who did what they did "for their own, sometimes surprising, reasons". I think some degree of disapproval towards them should be expressed so that the lesson "do not be like that" is learned. Some of the woke behaviors were converted into carrier gains - for example via DEI practices (eg DEI statements were required in humanities' university positions, woke mobs destroyed careers of many non-woke scientists), and it would be nice to reverse those I'll effects.
Thanks so much for putting much of what I've been feeling lately into words. I've been feeling, "hey... What happened?!?" Especially since the US election, the tides have turned, and we are again being asked (rather forcefully) to pick a side rather than question everything and search for a nuanced, pro-human point of view. I appreciate this warning to us all! Keep going!💓🌷💓
The "right" was always known to be authoritarian requiring conformity... it always is about concentrating power (tribalism, monarchy, theocracy, oligarchy, facism) and more or less literally exterminating "opponents"
The rightwing policies usually are not made to benefit the people ...but usually only to support the persons in power. And powerhungry usually dont want to share
Anti woke warriors are nothing more than a way for the powerful to gain free supporters by giving them trivial issues while stealing their votes to make meaningful detrimental changes
there never was something they wanted to improve... the whole idea of the right is to remain the same or preferably go back in time to the "good old days" that only the chosen few in power can define
The king will sleep peacefully surrounded by the "tourist mob" that is only paid in "own the libs" fees and thoughts&prayers. The plebs on the other hand? Who cares about them...let them go back to subsistence farming and having skirts that cover the ankles not to offend?
A must watch is this old TED talk from 2008 that is still relevant
After you have hopefully watched the TEDtalk and or looked at the data above, I simply cannot understand how someone would want to kill off social security or healthcare or flight safety or occupational hazard regulations since each of the actions will harm (and or kill) actual people just because someone ELSE paints their head pink or wishes to dress one way or the other (that will almost certainly not lead to deaths)?
How there can be moral equivalence of "crimes" or justification in a typical rightwingers view?
As i linked before, it apparently is an objective reality that clumping trivial things with actual right policies leads to bad outcomes for the citizens there, but apparently the ingrup/purity/authority dimensions of this crowd is so strong they can ignore this and keep finding some outgroup scapegoats?
There are no outgrup citizens in North Korea ...just saying...
Thank you for the TED video link, Jonathan Haidt is a superb thinker and highly respected. Respectfully, you may want to go back and watch the video again. Unless I'm reading wrong, and that is a possibility, your post does not mirror what Mr. Haidt is asking of us.
1 Exploring the moral roots of political choices reveals liberals value harm and fairness more, conservatives balance five moral values.
2 Cultural and psychological diversity in morals shape political ideologies, uniting or dividing us in complex, often misunderstood ways.
3 Embracing moral humility and stepping out of the 'moral matrix' can foster understanding across political divides, promoting unity.
My question was "How there can be moral equivalence of "crimes" or justification in a typical rightwingers view?"
Im asking you to look at the observable evidence (first link)..and try to justify your worldwiew in the context of those pillars from ted talk
From my liberal viewpoint i know i am stressing on the harm and fairness. I know that conservatives put increased importance to authority purity ..
But how can you make moral equivalence between crying out vs hair color (purity) and deporting a kid undergoing cancer treatment just because the great leader says so (authority) on the wishes of MAGA (ingroup loyalty)?
What is there behind the anti woke (more or less the major MAGA driving factor besides owning the libs) that makes it possible to justify the human suffering it directly causes? This is also diametrally oposite of the takeaway 3 which requires moral humility ... do you see MAGA as humble?
On the contrary...from my perspective MAGA thinks it is sitting on such a morraly high horse (of purity and authority and militant ingroup loyalty) that it doesnt have to see the reality of their policies that propagate death (lack of healthcare), poverty, crime, lack of education... (see heartman link).
Having seen the video i certainly understand the need for conservative values in some cases... but i strongly feel that all the anti movements should first look at the data and align positions based on facts...while conservatives tend to blankly accept "alternative facts" too easily ...and often based on the 3 pillars
The graph at 8:50 is especially problematic...since i feel that in MAGAs in paricular the trend of steep increase in those pillars would overshoot the droping the universal harm pillar
I base this on the fact that since 2008 politics became even more polarized and the right likely moved even further
I am honestly curious (since im not in USA) and am not particularly harmed (yet) by its fascist turnabout... but im actively trying to understand the reasoning behind this... how can you reconcile the blindly following authority/ingroup to justify harm and still consider yourself to be good/moral/in the right
Especially when both history and current data disagrees
Excellent piece as always! I think people who have allowed themselves to be defined by what they are against are failing the epitaph test. No one at the end of their life will want their tombstone to read: "Here lies John Q Public: He hated the libs"
(Professors Speak Out; The truth about campus investigations. (Nicholas H. Wolfinger, Ed.) Washington, D.C.: Academica Press.)
Extremism on either the Left or Right is a problem. When people become so convinced of their own opinions and perspectives, that they justify denying those with differing views the opportunity to speak or even participate, Fascism looms. Professors Speak Out (ref above) contains accounts from a score of academics who became targets of Woke extremists over the last decade. Most of them seem to have continued to rely on principle rather than power and suffered the consequences. These are not the "mediocre white boys" Rep Crockett claims are the only ones who need fear DEl. One should never get in a pissing contest with skunks...
Thank you Catherine for your observations with which I almost totally agree. As a person who left the Democratic Party for the obvious reasons, and headed a bit to the Maga crowd. I was very very happy to have finally a place to rest my political head. However, I am of the Mind that addictive cult like Behavior never leaves and what I am seeing now is simply a transfer of Biden hatred into Trump loving but it is practically the same. Trump can do no wrong and if you should suggest that maybe he is overreaching a little you get slammed just as you did from the Democrats if you disliked biden. I have stopped pretty much reading my usual go to podcasts because the comment section which is now totally anti-woke and unequivocally pro-trump
has become as vicious and name calling as any I read on the other side. I thought I had finally found a sane and thoughtful group of people where I could rest but I fear I'm running into very much the same thing as I did during the Biden years.
I appreciate your thoughts. When I first became disillusioned with certain things on the left, I started encountering conservatives and right wingers that seemed to be more open and more keen on classic liberal values, but what I've witnessed over the past while has turned me pretty sour. I just try to look at individuals as such and not just immediate judge them by their MAGA association, but overall, the trend has been...unpleasant, to say the least.
I believe there's an important semantic meaning behind the word "woke" which goes unnoticed like other things in language nowadays. Language is currently used to express not mere opinions but politics and marketing rather than fresh and raw ideas, in that process they lose their meaning amidst the fast communication we need to engage with and the cultural disconnection that society is living due to the excess of information that is available.
Language was once used in Ancient Greece to discuss and build global concepts, like the one of an ideal state by minds who acknowledged there was still much to discover about existence. Today it is used to just secure our spot in the globe rather than help actively build it.
When we think about the literal meaning behind the noun "Awakening", we refer to the act of waking up from sleep or unconsciousness which implies a previous state of dormancy or idleness. In the most literal sense (which still matters although the inflationary use of words strips them out of their meaning), does that mean that being "anti-woke" is being against the act of acknowledging consciousness? And if so, what does it mean to be human and also unconscious at the same time? Is it even truly possible?
Consciousness, the same thing we sacredly protect with spiritual ideas and incessantly investigate with scientific rigor is the one thing that keeps us still connected with nature even if being connected to nature is not the aspiration of all. It is the one enigma that keep us tethered to the material reality while also keeping us afloat in the possibility of an ethereal reality. Consciousness, thus, is the magic that humanity possess but that can't yet be turned into a blueprint and built in scale because it is not yet understood nor replicable.
It is also the one thing that differs us from machines and AI, which in turn can be programmed to be "anti-woke" or "woke" but can't be awoke for lacking consciousness. Under that lens, if being human and unconscious is tangibly possible, is being a human and a machine at the same time also possible?
If numbers and math dictate our current reality and the system we live in, whether through economy which holds a conservative nature of growth and scale or through scientific materialism which holds a conservative nature of tradition and rigor - would that mean that being "awakaned" is to try to oppose the system by being human and being "unawakened" is to comply with the system by being non-human?
My cultural investigations about the current "zeitgest" we live in (purely observational like science was once done) points that we are currently living a uncomfortable cultural merging with technology which shall prove valuable to the progress of humanity as a whole but that might come at the cost of the personal humanity of many people who gives up not empathy but rather consciousness in the pursue of more and more power - it is also a tale that has been already told in many languages of many different cultures, it is in pages of many history books of many different civilizations and no matter how many times it is told with different words, I don't think there can ever be a plot twist because creativity is truly an endeavour which pertains to magic, which in turn, pertains to humanity, not machines nor science.
https://stanleyabner1951gmailcom.substack.com/p/the-battle-of-woke-hill
I absolutely LOVE and appreciate this piece so much. I've been struggling at times to adhere to my own principles about humanizing discoure and this is a powerful reminder that disdaining factions of my own tribe is no better than disdaining the "other," no matter how misguided or annoying I might find them to be at times. Curiosity not judgment...yes!
Yes, I had to stop listening to Peter Boghossian because he looked to have mistaken an enemy of his enemy for a friend. Yes, hold your identity lightly, and when you look into yourself, see a positive force. For me, to be a scientific humanist, to be pro-human, means that I rely on abductive thinking (avoiding ideological thinking).
Sometimes I refer people who look to have equated a rejection of the authoritarian left as an acceptance of the authoritarian right to The Political Compass and the work of Bob Altemeyer and Leor Zmigrod.
Some interesting thoughts, and it is historically proven that every action has an equal and opposite reaction, but what exactly does that entail? Are we, as society at large, becoming right wing radicals, worse than the "enemy?" History also speaks to this and it says no. Tyranny threatened the world in a major way in 1939 and, sadly, the only feasible response was violence. Just a wild guess here, but Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo were not likely to come to reason by sending someone to talk sense into them. The end result of the war was peace, human rights, and democracy on a never before seen scale.
We are again facing the same enemy. It is no coincidence that wokeism is happening all across the globe at the same time. Movements of this size and scope do not just happen by coincidence. As Dr. Hicks has pointed out in his superb book Explaining Postmodernism, this has been going on for decades, if not going all the way back to Rousseau. As we learn from reading their own literature, marxists like Marcuse and Gramsci clearly lay the foundation for the infiltration and destruction of the West. China is now living proof of the imperialism of world communism, and wokeism is directly and wholly linked to marxism.
Yes, we are, sadly, in the fight of our lives once again. I hope that we can turn enough woke adherents around to common sense before it descends even further into chaos (not that far away) but the jury is out on that. I too have engaged with many woke folk, including family and friends. My success ratio has been dismal, though I admit I have to fight the urge to be virulently "anti-woke," it is not easy to stop the descent into me vs you. Nonetheless, the vast majority won't even consider another point of view. Socialism good, capitalism bad, full stop.
Our freedoms that we cherish under natural rights are at stake and if the fight involves being anti-woke to some degree, then so be it. Coffee house discussions aren't going to stop this.
Hi Katherine, A comment from Canada which I would submit has experienced “Woke” in a way different than the US and is still in the grasp.
From my perspective, this is not a positive because of the loss that it has occasioned, which is multi fold. The first is truth followed by civility and respect. Villainizing and demonizing were and are the truncheons employed by those engaged in the “politics of displacement”. All that brings me to the point that what has occurred and is still playing out is “politics”.
I think your approach to those who express the “Woke virtue” would be helpful when “there are eyes to see and ears to hear” involved. In my experience (which all told would be enough to buy a cup of coffee along with the 2 dollars or so) that is usually not going to work in Politics. There is no truth in that realm - only positions and sadly to the detriment of all, the only position that matters for those involved is the one on top.
The article calls for sympathy to those woke people, who did what they did "for their own, sometimes surprising, reasons". I think some degree of disapproval towards them should be expressed so that the lesson "do not be like that" is learned. Some of the woke behaviors were converted into carrier gains - for example via DEI practices (eg DEI statements were required in humanities' university positions, woke mobs destroyed careers of many non-woke scientists), and it would be nice to reverse those I'll effects.
We have turned power and authority into an idol, in the Biblical sense.
Thanks
FYI.
When I read your articles through the email link it doesn't show up as read here ?
Must be a glitch!
I was one. It hardly seems necessary anymore.
I'm one.
Thanks so much for putting much of what I've been feeling lately into words. I've been feeling, "hey... What happened?!?" Especially since the US election, the tides have turned, and we are again being asked (rather forcefully) to pick a side rather than question everything and search for a nuanced, pro-human point of view. I appreciate this warning to us all! Keep going!💓🌷💓
Hmm... i dont know why the surprise?
The "right" was always known to be authoritarian requiring conformity... it always is about concentrating power (tribalism, monarchy, theocracy, oligarchy, facism) and more or less literally exterminating "opponents"
The rightwing policies usually are not made to benefit the people ...but usually only to support the persons in power. And powerhungry usually dont want to share
Anti woke warriors are nothing more than a way for the powerful to gain free supporters by giving them trivial issues while stealing their votes to make meaningful detrimental changes
https://hartmannreport.com/p/why-are-red-state-citizens-poorer-2ef
there never was something they wanted to improve... the whole idea of the right is to remain the same or preferably go back in time to the "good old days" that only the chosen few in power can define
The king will sleep peacefully surrounded by the "tourist mob" that is only paid in "own the libs" fees and thoughts&prayers. The plebs on the other hand? Who cares about them...let them go back to subsistence farming and having skirts that cover the ankles not to offend?
A must watch is this old TED talk from 2008 that is still relevant
https://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_haidt_the_moral_roots_of_liberals_and_conservatives
After you have hopefully watched the TEDtalk and or looked at the data above, I simply cannot understand how someone would want to kill off social security or healthcare or flight safety or occupational hazard regulations since each of the actions will harm (and or kill) actual people just because someone ELSE paints their head pink or wishes to dress one way or the other (that will almost certainly not lead to deaths)?
How there can be moral equivalence of "crimes" or justification in a typical rightwingers view?
As i linked before, it apparently is an objective reality that clumping trivial things with actual right policies leads to bad outcomes for the citizens there, but apparently the ingrup/purity/authority dimensions of this crowd is so strong they can ignore this and keep finding some outgroup scapegoats?
There are no outgrup citizens in North Korea ...just saying...
Thank you for the TED video link, Jonathan Haidt is a superb thinker and highly respected. Respectfully, you may want to go back and watch the video again. Unless I'm reading wrong, and that is a possibility, your post does not mirror what Mr. Haidt is asking of us.
So ..the literal takeaways are
1 Exploring the moral roots of political choices reveals liberals value harm and fairness more, conservatives balance five moral values.
2 Cultural and psychological diversity in morals shape political ideologies, uniting or dividing us in complex, often misunderstood ways.
3 Embracing moral humility and stepping out of the 'moral matrix' can foster understanding across political divides, promoting unity.
My question was "How there can be moral equivalence of "crimes" or justification in a typical rightwingers view?"
Im asking you to look at the observable evidence (first link)..and try to justify your worldwiew in the context of those pillars from ted talk
From my liberal viewpoint i know i am stressing on the harm and fairness. I know that conservatives put increased importance to authority purity ..
But how can you make moral equivalence between crying out vs hair color (purity) and deporting a kid undergoing cancer treatment just because the great leader says so (authority) on the wishes of MAGA (ingroup loyalty)?
www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna196049
How is this being pro human?
What is there behind the anti woke (more or less the major MAGA driving factor besides owning the libs) that makes it possible to justify the human suffering it directly causes? This is also diametrally oposite of the takeaway 3 which requires moral humility ... do you see MAGA as humble?
On the contrary...from my perspective MAGA thinks it is sitting on such a morraly high horse (of purity and authority and militant ingroup loyalty) that it doesnt have to see the reality of their policies that propagate death (lack of healthcare), poverty, crime, lack of education... (see heartman link).
Having seen the video i certainly understand the need for conservative values in some cases... but i strongly feel that all the anti movements should first look at the data and align positions based on facts...while conservatives tend to blankly accept "alternative facts" too easily ...and often based on the 3 pillars
The graph at 8:50 is especially problematic...since i feel that in MAGAs in paricular the trend of steep increase in those pillars would overshoot the droping the universal harm pillar
I base this on the fact that since 2008 politics became even more polarized and the right likely moved even further
I am honestly curious (since im not in USA) and am not particularly harmed (yet) by its fascist turnabout... but im actively trying to understand the reasoning behind this... how can you reconcile the blindly following authority/ingroup to justify harm and still consider yourself to be good/moral/in the right
Especially when both history and current data disagrees
Excellent piece as always! I think people who have allowed themselves to be defined by what they are against are failing the epitaph test. No one at the end of their life will want their tombstone to read: "Here lies John Q Public: He hated the libs"
Haha, yes, that seems like it would be a terrible tombstone.
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=nicholas+wolfinger&crid=WSQKM437E4Q6&sprefix=%2Caps%2C78&ref=nb_sb_ss_recent_1_0_recent
(Professors Speak Out; The truth about campus investigations. (Nicholas H. Wolfinger, Ed.) Washington, D.C.: Academica Press.)
Extremism on either the Left or Right is a problem. When people become so convinced of their own opinions and perspectives, that they justify denying those with differing views the opportunity to speak or even participate, Fascism looms. Professors Speak Out (ref above) contains accounts from a score of academics who became targets of Woke extremists over the last decade. Most of them seem to have continued to rely on principle rather than power and suffered the consequences. These are not the "mediocre white boys" Rep Crockett claims are the only ones who need fear DEl. One should never get in a pissing contest with skunks...
Thank you Catherine for your observations with which I almost totally agree. As a person who left the Democratic Party for the obvious reasons, and headed a bit to the Maga crowd. I was very very happy to have finally a place to rest my political head. However, I am of the Mind that addictive cult like Behavior never leaves and what I am seeing now is simply a transfer of Biden hatred into Trump loving but it is practically the same. Trump can do no wrong and if you should suggest that maybe he is overreaching a little you get slammed just as you did from the Democrats if you disliked biden. I have stopped pretty much reading my usual go to podcasts because the comment section which is now totally anti-woke and unequivocally pro-trump
has become as vicious and name calling as any I read on the other side. I thought I had finally found a sane and thoughtful group of people where I could rest but I fear I'm running into very much the same thing as I did during the Biden years.
I appreciate your thoughts. When I first became disillusioned with certain things on the left, I started encountering conservatives and right wingers that seemed to be more open and more keen on classic liberal values, but what I've witnessed over the past while has turned me pretty sour. I just try to look at individuals as such and not just immediate judge them by their MAGA association, but overall, the trend has been...unpleasant, to say the least.
Hi Katherine!
Thank you for these insights.
I believe there's an important semantic meaning behind the word "woke" which goes unnoticed like other things in language nowadays. Language is currently used to express not mere opinions but politics and marketing rather than fresh and raw ideas, in that process they lose their meaning amidst the fast communication we need to engage with and the cultural disconnection that society is living due to the excess of information that is available.
Language was once used in Ancient Greece to discuss and build global concepts, like the one of an ideal state by minds who acknowledged there was still much to discover about existence. Today it is used to just secure our spot in the globe rather than help actively build it.
When we think about the literal meaning behind the noun "Awakening", we refer to the act of waking up from sleep or unconsciousness which implies a previous state of dormancy or idleness. In the most literal sense (which still matters although the inflationary use of words strips them out of their meaning), does that mean that being "anti-woke" is being against the act of acknowledging consciousness? And if so, what does it mean to be human and also unconscious at the same time? Is it even truly possible?
Consciousness, the same thing we sacredly protect with spiritual ideas and incessantly investigate with scientific rigor is the one thing that keeps us still connected with nature even if being connected to nature is not the aspiration of all. It is the one enigma that keep us tethered to the material reality while also keeping us afloat in the possibility of an ethereal reality. Consciousness, thus, is the magic that humanity possess but that can't yet be turned into a blueprint and built in scale because it is not yet understood nor replicable.
It is also the one thing that differs us from machines and AI, which in turn can be programmed to be "anti-woke" or "woke" but can't be awoke for lacking consciousness. Under that lens, if being human and unconscious is tangibly possible, is being a human and a machine at the same time also possible?
If numbers and math dictate our current reality and the system we live in, whether through economy which holds a conservative nature of growth and scale or through scientific materialism which holds a conservative nature of tradition and rigor - would that mean that being "awakaned" is to try to oppose the system by being human and being "unawakened" is to comply with the system by being non-human?
My cultural investigations about the current "zeitgest" we live in (purely observational like science was once done) points that we are currently living a uncomfortable cultural merging with technology which shall prove valuable to the progress of humanity as a whole but that might come at the cost of the personal humanity of many people who gives up not empathy but rather consciousness in the pursue of more and more power - it is also a tale that has been already told in many languages of many different cultures, it is in pages of many history books of many different civilizations and no matter how many times it is told with different words, I don't think there can ever be a plot twist because creativity is truly an endeavour which pertains to magic, which in turn, pertains to humanity, not machines nor science.
Thank you so much for this additional insight!