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This weekly thread will focus on the word “Woke” and its meaning, use, and misuse.
Some Starters (and don’t feel you have to speak on all or any of them if you don’t care to):
- What does the word mean to you?
- Is it applied correctly or incorrectly?
- Is it even applicable any longer?
- Do you feel that Conservative media misapplies it, and is “everything I don’t like is woke” an appropriate sentiment or simply uncharitable?
It’s odd. I’ve seen much in left-wing communities stating that the right-wing can’t define “woke” and that it simply means “I don’t like X thing therefore it’s woke.”
The meaning has been pretty plain to me, but it meant different things depending on what side of the political spectrum you’re on.
The Left-Wing definition seems to be: “Awareness of negative things that one group in power does to other groups who have less power. Right-wingers are also stupid if they use this word as they totally don’t get this.”
The Right-Wing definition seems to be: “A largely preformative outrage from the left-wing focused on discussing issues that they complain about to make themselves feel better about doing nothing. It is now a slur for ineffectual and whiny.”
I feel that both definitions coexist and do not rule each other out, however I won’t deny that I’ve seen it misused.
I don’t feel I see the North American left use the word any longer as it has basically become a pejorative against them.
Interesting. I don’t feel that I have any inherent dislike of the work (especially knowing it’s origins), but I can see how it would muddy a conversation, especially when it’s an easy reverse dog whistle, usually meaning the the person who used it will refuse to think critically.
Now that I think about it, any situation where using the word “woke” or a similar sentiment of “awake” or “aware” would be appropriate usually requires some amount of nuance or is about a particular topic, so I’d usually just dive into the nuance. Saying I’m aware of something is less useful than being aware and sharing that awareness.
For example, instead of just saying “I try to be aware of the situation” or “I try to be woke”, I might say: “I’m aware of rising housing costs, growing political extremism, corporate ignirance of climate change, and systemic racism and sexism, and I’m unsure of how such-and-such project might help with any of those, or if it might make them worse.”
Such a simple and non-specific term might lend itself to perjoritive thinking, a simple way to lable people without having to think about their positions. I know many conservatives already use it as a thought stopping technique, demonizing the term so they can discard whatever argument is before them without thinking about it. This is kinda why I try to avoid labels in general.
I wonder how much use there is in using the term anyway? There’s describing a change in thinking across time, like The Enlightenment, but if someone calls themselves an “Enlightened Thinker”, it sounds like a red flag eh?
Woke started out as conspiracy theorists seeing through the lies.