Define woke in a way that does not apply to you or your favored political group.

@robini123

"Woke," is one of those words which can have very different meanings, depending on who is using the term. It can be compared to the word, "liberal," which once referred to someone who was open to considering, and so had a wide background of understanding drawn from, diverse sources, giving one a well rounded perspective. Then Republicans added the prefix "bleeding heart," and turned the once complimentary term "liberal," into something of a slur.

Likewise, the word "woke," went from being a positive, self- description, to a defamatory designation, assigned by those outside of the "woke," fold. The article I am linking & snipping, though, explains how the person who coined it's usage, had meant it differently than it is used today, by either adherents, or detractors, from wokism.

https://thedispatch.com/article/the...fXQ0WjEuvnRi5Sx_MZ54y4BD5XDj0q3saAnirEALw_wcB

<Snip>
When in 2017 the editors of the Oxford English Dictionary added “woke” to their list of new words, they defined it as “alert to racial or social discrimination and injustice.” The earliest modern citation of “woke,” according to the OED, was a 1962 article, “If You’re Woke You Dig It,” written for the New York Times by the African American novelist William Melvin Kelley. Coincidentally, Kelley passed away the same year “woke” was recognized by the OED. In a 2018 profile of the late author, The New Yorker’s Kathryn Schulz drew her readers’ attention to the same Times article.

What neither the editors of the Oxford English Dictionary nor Schulz did, however, was provide a close reading of Kelley’s important essay, and as a result they lost an opportunity to dampen the culture wars now being waged in public and in private in the name of “woke.” “If You’re Woke You Dig It” is an essay that deserves rescue from the obscurity into which it fell for many years. But above all, it deserves to be seen for what it is—a work of cultural description rather than a battle cry..

...“If You’re Woke You Dig It” is not designed to set readers on edge. It’s an expository essay about the richness of black idiom that comes with a series of whimsical drawings that illustrate Kelley’s text. Written a year before the 1963 March on Washington, “If You’re Woke You Dig It” reflects its time (to the point where he uses the term “Negro”).

The essay begins with Kelley commenting on a New York City subway poster that advises train riders to keep the cars clean in 21 different “languages.” Among them is a variation telling train riders, “Hey cats this is your swinging-wheels, so dig it and keep it clean.” Kelly has no quarrel with the message. What he objects to is how the poster labels the message as “Beatnik.” Kelley’s point is that the language the New York Transit authority is calling Beatnik is really black idiom.

What follows is an account of the role in American life played by black idiom. “It is not only a language of vocabulary, but of context and inflection,” Kelley writes. Black idiom takes its meaning from those using it as well as those to whom they are speaking, Kelley argues. The language is constantly changing. The men and women using it take “pride in something that belongs completely to the Negro.” Whites who try to use black idiom, Kelley adds, are invariably going to be behind the learning curve, and for blacks that situation is, he acknowledges, often a source of pleasure. “The Negro’s pride in this idiom is that of a man who watches someone else do ineptly what he can do well.”

Kelley’s contention is not that the black idiom he describes can’t be widely appreciated. It translates well, he believes. “The American Negro feels he can, on the spur of the moment, create the most exciting language that exists in any English-speaking country today,” Kelley writes. Kelley even provides his non-black readers with an alphabetized lexicon that starts with “ace” and ends with “woof.” The entry for woke defines it as an adjective meaning “well-informed, up-to-date.” Nothing in the definition Kelley supplied suggests a code word for identity politics.

Kelley, who was just 24 when “If You’re Woke You Dig It” was published, saw himself taking the role of a friendly cultural guide in his essay, and he assumed goodwill on the part of his readers. He was not asking them to take an ideological stance but to attune themselves to a language filled with a complexity and wit they might not have fully grasped on their own.

Today, it is increasingly rare to see “woke” being used in a way that doesn’t reflect our racial divisions. Even the term’s defenders concede as much. In an op-ed headline “In Defense of Woke,” Damon Young, the author of What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker, notes that “woke” can no longer be said unironically. “What was a compliment just a few years ago has become, at best, an eye roll,” Young observes.

It’s worth revisiting “If You’re Woke You Dig It” to understand that for Kelley analyzing black culture also meant celebrating it. His essay doesn’t deserve to be burdened with our current cultural battles. The last thing Kelley imagined when he used “woke” in the title of his essay was that the word would be weaponized. If he can be faulted all these years later, it is for being too optimistic.
<End>

 

Does anyone read these long winded copy/paste quotes. Just quoting a dem supporter isn’t going to make your opinions noon right.

 

I agree with your definition, I just see it used against liberals in a much different context. Seems to me that some use the dictionary definition while others use their own prejudicial definitions.

As for we are all woke, it depends upon how one defines woke. To use the dictionary definition I would say not all are woke, but not all use the dictionary definition. I do and you do but many others do not. The definition used in the OP is simply how I rightly or wrongly perceive conservatives using it against the left.

 

Seeing truth as subjective does not mean one does not believe in a truth. They just understand that there are many different truths and everyone believes theirs is THE truth as opposed to one of many truths. In science there can be absolute truths aka facts, testable and return the same result no matter how many times you run the test. In non tangible and scientifically undetectable truths all truths become permissible as they are impossible to disprove.

I argue that if you and I were to sit down over a drink and shared our truths that we would agree much more than we disagreed. The source of my truth is science. Perhaps your truth stems from a theistic belief system. I place my trust in science in an effort to minimize the need to fill in the gaps of our knowledge with assumptions that tend towards bias. I see great danger in belief that carries the weight of fact as belief has no limits.

 

Impossible? Are you saying that woke is impossible to define or impossible that it is not limited to the left? If woke is possible to define can you expound upon what woke is?

 

I find it interesting, and please correct me if I am wrong, that you see your faith as providing you an absolute truth. I defer to science which is what I rely upon for my truth. That which science has yet to or cannot prove remains a mystery to me. I can have opinions about that which is outside the purview of science, yet I try not to give said opinions too much weight. I also have a strong sense of right and wrong that I will defend tenaciously. I chalk this up to an innate aspect of my nature serving some evolutionary advantage while a theist may credit god for it… and for all I know they may be right… but they may also be wrong.

 

No I said it cannot be defined without political ideology. You can define it for yourself.

 

Everyone is "woke". Your definition is that they must focus on your definitions, be in favor of your values and beliefs instead of those they arrive at on their own. That means it's not at all about a clear reality, because it's about perception of issues. The question for others starts with doe those issues even exist with any validity and if so, why it should matter to them. Woke says you must buy this or be "shunned", publicly ridiculed. Blackmailed, in a sense, to force compliance with a perception. After all- it' about "justice". For who?

IF everybody did what I think they should do, if nobody did anything that offended me, I would be happy.
That formula is hardly new or ingenious, it's old as time, and only the dishonorable, those who feel the world owes them above all else believe it's valid.
They seek justice for the injustice they have suffered, the injustices of those who they think are in the same position they are and would support their views, the injustices they have been groomed into believing- and think that by doing so... they will somehow bring righteousness and therefore satisfaction and happiness to themselves. It's closer to bathing in a cesspool than righteous enlightenment.

Yes, injustices occur and have occurred throughout history. They occur to individuals as well as categories of people like religions, races, etc. We have progressively worked to balance real wrongs and improve our societies. But these do not include the individual emotional perceptions or reactions, because the only person who really controls that is you. When you become sensitive to a narrow band of what you think are abuses and demand they be corrected to your perception of justice..... YOU create a new injustice and over-ride the rights and choices of those whose ideas you don't like. The perpetuation of injustice... changing form, but never ceasing. After this, someone will come up with something else. Hitler blamed the jews, because he blamed them for his own early failures and emotional pain. "Woke" then was realizing how evil it was to be jewish. It will happen again.

Woke... is the latest form of injustice; little more than the justification, the means of anointing a particular set of views, claiming them to be righteous to the level of being sacred, and therefore above the rules of legitimate justice and the respect for individual identity.... which justifies punishment for failing to conform to your belief.

Such things are the shields of those who can't cut it and don't "get it" in life.
It is, unfortunately- an indication of the human condition- weakening rather than growing in strength.

 

To me, there is a difference between a pejorative that one side invents to insult the other side, such as Trumpist or TDS, versus a term that one side calls themself while the other side uses it disparagingly. Nobody calls themself a TDS sufferer or a Trumpist, rather those are simply insults hurled toward the other side. People do however call themself "woke", or even "communist", and they do so proudly. In my mind, I do not consider those to automatically be pejoratives. It depends entirely upon the context. You could say the same thing about MAGA, it is both an insult hurled at Trump supporters, and a descriptor they use to describe themselves.

To me, yes, I could use "woke" as an insult if Im speaking with another Conservative because to us that is a negative thing, but in another context I use it descriptively to describe another's legitimate views. Regardless of the context in which I use it, the definition is the same every time. While I cannot speak to the usage for every single person in the world, I am not so sure that I agree that generally speaking that conservatives using it against the left are employing a different definition than I have presented.

 

I would say neither the left or right is “woke”. They are just jockeying for votes and power, and are both thoroughly asleep.

I think being “woke” would mean you begin to realize that we are all a single being, experiencing existence from billions of perspectives. When this is realized, you begin to care about all others as much as you care about yourself. You stop trying to “get ahead” and focus more on the well being of all. As we are all one, only by taking care of everyone can we truly take care of ourself.

 

The pseudo-con crusade against promoters of social justice aka 'woke' has made them more 'woke' than anyone has ever been. At this point they see themselves as perpetual victims who have to get the government involved in defending them from all kinds of 'unfairness', and I wonder.......what happened to these people?

 

I would simply describe it as the difference between the dream world and reality. The question seems to be how does one know if their "wokism" isn't part of their dream world. Or as Neo was told: The Matrix has you!

 

The major problem you guys have is thinking people are Marxists when they aren't.

Then talk about "those things they said about themselves"--what they actually say instead of simply your interpretation of their words--and then we have something to talk about.

 

They have come to appreciate the destructive nature of progressive policies.

What the heck is a psuedo con?

 

I am a little confused by this first stanza. What makes you think that I am claiming that people must favor my values and beliefs? If you are thinking that I am a Social Justice Warrior that is calling myself woke, I am not. Quite the opposite in fact.

I think perhaps a little of the confusion surrounding this term is the practical usage versus literal meaning of the term "woke". In practical usage, "woke" refers to a political ideology and belief system that focuses specifically upon racial and social justice as defined by adherents of that belief system. If you want to get into a literal discussion about the concept of woke, then I suppose that one could conclude that everyone has a different version of what constitutes social justice and therefore everyone is woke, albeit with differing values.

I would submit with political terms such as this, that using the literal meaning instead of the practical meaning will typically lead to confusion. From a literal perspective, feminism is about promoting the interests of women, but in the practical sense, it really only supports the interests of leftist women. If one tries to define feminism by its literal meaning, they are going to be way off from the reality of feminism. In the literal sense, a proponent of democracy could be called democratic, but in the practical sense, we all know that refers to a political party, etc., etc.

 

A pseudo-conservative is someone who pretends to be conservative, but it reality is pretty much the opposite. They might promote some conservative ideals like being 'pro-life', but if you listen to them, they typically support anti-conservative views on most other issues. Look at DeSantis for example. He pretends to be conservative, but he insists on getting the government involved in everything he can think of, and his supporters support it because they are pseudo-cons themselves.

 

One thing they say is that all white people are racist., e.g.

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/elena-guthrie/racism-white-privilege_b_18147778.html

Another is that we must discriminate against white people to achieve racial justice;

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/...ing-managers-discriminating-against-white-men

 

I see, psuedo-cons use the power of government to promote conservative values. What is wrong with that?

Should conservatives abandon the public square to woke progressives?

 

They promote authoritarian big government values, and there is a lot wrong with it, but your answer reveals you support authoritarian values as well, which probably means you are a pseudo-con yourself.

My guess is that next GOP president or presidential nominee will be a pseudo-con, because that is the direction the entire GOP is moving.

 

"Woke" is predominately predicated on an equality of outcome ideology, rooted in Marxism.

It's tribalism gone mad.

 

My response is more general in nature, not specific to you. However, you view of the "Social Justice Warrior" seems to be one of endorsement. The difference that is important here is that what you believe is totally your own business- but a woke "Social justice warrior" is acting much like the people who pressed the christian crusades of a thousand years ago, feeling righteous about making everyone's beliefs surrender to their beliefs. Regardless of what that belief is- I see such a person as out of bounds; trying to de-stabilize the core values that are holding society together, and potentially dangerous.

We are all "woke" to our own beliefs and values. I've been "spiritgide" for more than 40 years- I used to teach people how to find themselves and succeed- but never requiring they become someone else. I still do that, just not in a professional format anymore. I found that the biggest problem for most people comes from letting others tell them what to believe and who they must be they must be to be acceptable. .. and that's garbage in, which is directly behind the result garbage out. If we stop messing with people's heads and give them a chance, they will figure it all out. We need to teach people how to think, not tell them what to think.

The most successful societies that have ever existed use that principle.

 

So only progressives are allowed to promote authoritarian values?

Authoritarianism is a strategy, not a value. If progressives set out to destroy our nations values, authoritarianism may be required to stop them.

 

Very few people call themselves Marxists in comparison to claims by aggressive rightwingers that someone is one. I don't know how many times I've heard a stupido claim Bernie Sanders is Marxist. The stupidos identify something Sanders says as "socialist" and then go on to interpret his comment as him saying he's a Marxist.

Very often the extreme are quite good at identifying elements of other extremes. That Stalin identified Hitler as a pal of anti-worker capitalists made Stalin no less of a menace himself. The 1930s NYTimes used Stalin to say what they wanted said about Hitler is no surprise.

 

FWIW, I literally despise the Social Justice/BLM/Woke movement. I believe at its very heart that it is designed to keep society in a perpetual state of racial strife and discord for the express purpose of increasing African American voter turnout in order to maximize the 90% plus advantage that Democrats hold with that voting block. I do not believe that your average "wokester" has that goal ( they are true believers and dupes), but the powers that be on the left are pulling all of those strings and they know exactly what they are trying to accomplish. I believe that this movement in concert with cancel culture is perhaps one of the most dangerous and divisive long-term trends that exists in modern politics.

 

An odd comparison for a religious traditionalist. Today's social progressive is tired of religious traditionalists using the legal system to impose their views on society.

They no doubt see you as dangerous or perhaps potentially so.