This another superbly written and well-reasoned, relevant essay.
There was a time when my students called me “woke” and I considered it a compliment – that was a decade ago. Since then, the term seems to have been turned inside-out. On the Left, those who claim the term assert an elevated awareness (and moral superiority that is refuted by both evidence and reason.
Recently, Representative Jasmine Crockett asserted that “only mediocre white boys” need be concerned with the cancel culture that has emerged as an extension of wokeness and its more formal manifestation, DEl.
For more than a score of well-documented counter examples, please see Nick Wolfinger's Professors Speak Out; The Truth about Campus lnvestigations.
I agree with all your conclusions and reasoning here! I also mostly avoid using it because the term has become too laden with meaning and it is causes any genuine discourse that may be occurring to stop. It’s almost like if you call someone a racist (whether they’re being one or not): the conversation is over as soon as you do this. Same with “woke” at this point.
I prefer “identitarian illiberals” or some such similar term that is descriptive of the real issue with wokeness, and I think descriptions like this encompass both those on the left and the right who do this.
Our language evolves incredibly fast now, and terms like “woke” get co-opted quickly. Same thing happened with “fake news” very quickly such that by like 2018 it was unhelpful to use that term anymore.
Using variants on the lexeme “wake” has a long history in politics and it’s both good and bad. The “Wide Awakes” supported Abraham Lincoln in the 1860 presidential election (sorry, another Lincoln reference). In Nazi Germany, signs that said “Deutschland Erwache!” (Germany Wake Up!) Were very common at earlier Nazi rallies. In my US state a group called “Awake Illinois” sprang up in 2020 to protest lockdowns. And of course there’s “woke” in the sense you mention here. And many other cases.
This another superbly written and well-reasoned, relevant essay.
There was a time when my students called me “woke” and I considered it a compliment – that was a decade ago. Since then, the term seems to have been turned inside-out. On the Left, those who claim the term assert an elevated awareness (and moral superiority that is refuted by both evidence and reason.
Recently, Representative Jasmine Crockett asserted that “only mediocre white boys” need be concerned with the cancel culture that has emerged as an extension of wokeness and its more formal manifestation, DEl.
For more than a score of well-documented counter examples, please see Nick Wolfinger's Professors Speak Out; The Truth about Campus lnvestigations.
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=nicholas+wolfinger&crid=2UMVFN6MQT1FS&sprefix=Nicholas+Wolf%2Caps%2C102&ref=nb_sb_ss_fb_1_13_mvt-t3-ranker
I didn't realize it's been in use since the forties
I agree with all your conclusions and reasoning here! I also mostly avoid using it because the term has become too laden with meaning and it is causes any genuine discourse that may be occurring to stop. It’s almost like if you call someone a racist (whether they’re being one or not): the conversation is over as soon as you do this. Same with “woke” at this point.
I prefer “identitarian illiberals” or some such similar term that is descriptive of the real issue with wokeness, and I think descriptions like this encompass both those on the left and the right who do this.
Our language evolves incredibly fast now, and terms like “woke” get co-opted quickly. Same thing happened with “fake news” very quickly such that by like 2018 it was unhelpful to use that term anymore.
Using variants on the lexeme “wake” has a long history in politics and it’s both good and bad. The “Wide Awakes” supported Abraham Lincoln in the 1860 presidential election (sorry, another Lincoln reference). In Nazi Germany, signs that said “Deutschland Erwache!” (Germany Wake Up!) Were very common at earlier Nazi rallies. In my US state a group called “Awake Illinois” sprang up in 2020 to protest lockdowns. And of course there’s “woke” in the sense you mention here. And many other cases.