I found this piece about resignation from the APA interesting. https://quillette.com/2021/12/31/my-apa-resignation/
The opening stuff about woke declarations is par for the course. We are very familiar with them.
The final paras are the heart of the article.
QuoteTo be explicit, I worry that capitulation to the kind of wokeness that has permeated left-leaning institutions is akin to a kind of virus and actually tokenizes and harms historically marginalized communities, increases polarization and racial discord and obstructs data-driven progress on critical issues such as criminal justice reform and income inequality. What strikes me about all this is that these types of turmoil, whether in psychology, academia, journalism, even role-playing games are happening largely in elite, progressive spaces. Scholars such as Michael Lind and Batya Ungar-Sargon suggest that much of the current narrative on race (whether neoracist identitarianism from the Left or the xenophobia of the Right) is a proxy for class struggles, with elites in politics, business and academia using this narrative to divide working-class people of all ethnicities. One need only look at the APA's decision, communicated via exchanges on a division leaders' listserve, in June 2020, to eliminate approximately 50 lower-level staff positions, but without reducing executive-level pay. Interestingly, comparing their executive salaries from 2019 tax documents to draft 2020 tax documents provided to me by the APA treasurer, APA executives received significant raises in the same calendar year they let multiple lower-level employees go. For instance, APA CEO Arthur Evans made $821,000 in total compensation in 2020.
I tend to favor more marxist class-based approaches to inequality. As I've suggested in other posts, I tend to find that a lot of focus on multicultural curricular and implicit bias in the classroom are not particularly productive. The real changes that universities could make to support struggling students don't get made. I'm quite sympathetic to the idea that organizations embrace woke posturing as a way of avoiding more fundamental changes. I'm willing to entertain Ferguson's suggestion that it is indeed a more conservative ploy, to further increase class divisions.
As George Orwell said:
Quote
The truth is that, to many people calling themselves Socialists, revolution does not mean a movement of the masses with which they hope to associate themselves; it means a set of reforms which 'we', the clever ones, are going to impose upon 'them', the Lower Orders. On the other hand, it would be a mistake to regard the book-trained Socialist as a bloodless creature entirely incapable of emotion. Though seldom giving much evidence of affection for the exploited, he is perfectly capable of displaying hatred — a sort of queer, theoretical, in vacua hatred — against the exploiters. Hence the grand old Socialist sport of denouncing the bourgeoisie. It is strange how easily almost any Socialist writer can lash himself into frenzies of rage against the class to which, by birth or by adoption, he himself invariably belongs.
His use of "socialists" pretty much sums up the woke.
Sounds like concern-trolling to me. The real threat--particularly in the US--is the right. Clearly. Obviously. The right is shutting down speech it doesn't like, actively promoting quack cures and cheering on hundreds of thousands of entirely preventable deaths, organizing coups, murdering protestors, etc.
QuoteIt remains in effect despite several meta-analyses subsequently finding CBT has little (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28541091/) benefit (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29451967/) over other therapies. More controversial (https://quillette.com/2019/02/04/psychologists-respond-to-the-apas-guidance-for-treating-men-and-boys/) were practice guidelines for men and boys which drew deeply from feminist theories, dwelled on topics of patriarchy, intersectionality, and privilege, and arguably disparaged men and families from traditional backgrounds. This guideline is actively harmful to the degree it both misguides therapy in favor of an ideological worldview and likely discourages men and families from more traditional backgrounds from seeking therapy.
Interestingly, after citing evidence for his claims about violence in video games and CBT, we've got no evidence for the feminazis-are-ruining-boys claim. We do have a link to another Quillette piece characterizing the issue.
Then there's a bunch of complaining about demands for racial justice and what-about-white-lives, citing some dodgy statistics, blah blah language police (please, I come from a province that actually
has language police), blah blah woke blah blah--I don't have the energy this morning.
As far as I can tell from the article, for all his talk of class being more important than race, his class-consciousness seems only to extend as far as skepticism about calls for gender and racial equality. In other words, I think he's full of shit. If you're so worried that the talk of race and gender is obscuring the real issue,
then take this opportunity to speak to the real issue, instead of going on and on about bow important traditional masculinity and white lives are.
Quote from: downer on January 02, 2022, 12:14:04 AM
I tend to favor more marxist class-based approaches to inequality. As I've suggested in other posts, I tend to find that a lot of focus on multicultural curricular and implicit bias in the classroom are not particularly productive. The real changes that universities could make to support struggling students don't get made. I'm quite sympathetic to the idea that organizations embrace woke posturing as a way of avoiding more fundamental changes. I'm willing to entertain Ferguson's suggestion that it is indeed a more conservative ploy, to further increase class divisions.
The real reason for diversity staff and the noise from them that we welcome is not to fix problems, but to be able to say we're working hard on them.
QuoteI tend to favor more marxist class-based approaches ... .
Let me put my best marxist foot forward:
Wokeness is
neo-marxist. It substitutes a race war for a class war. As such, if they knew, the guy with the Chaplin mustache would love it, but Charly himself would turn over in his grave.
More specifically, wokeness is indeed the ideology of the aristocracy of the black class, and does nothing for or indeed hurts the black underclass.
I would not go so far as to say that woke whites form part of a woke class. Rather, I see woke whites as useful idiots in the revolution.
Wokeness is what results when a society decides to give itself cooties. Here's an eyeful of the problem the democrats have,
and are to the USA, and still deny:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/happy-woke-2022-democrats-with-democracy-in-the-balance-time-to-reclaim-your-brand/ar-AASnzYI
QuoteThere's still far more to be done to correct economic inequality and other injustices.
Economic inequality is by-product of free market capitalism, which we have intentionally chosen.
Quote from: mahagonny on January 03, 2022, 03:14:07 PM
Wokeness is what results when a society decides to give itself cooties. Here's an eyeful of the problem the democrats have, and are to the USA, and still deny:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/happy-woke-2022-democrats-with-democracy-in-the-balance-time-to-reclaim-your-brand/ar-AASnzYI
QuoteThere's still far more to be done to correct economic inequality and other injustices.
Economic inequality is by-product of free market capitalism, which we have intentionally chosen.
Societies don't decide anything. Societies evolve. Free-market capitalism no one ever chose. It, too evolved, and we don't have as much now as once upon a time, for better and for worse.
Inequality is near meaningless when contemplating the hardly fathomable decrease in poverty over the last 100 years or so. In 1820 roughly 90% of the
world population lived on under the contemporary equivalent of $1 per day. Nowadays, that's under 10%.
If the rich got richer along the way, so what? That is not
ipso facto an injustice. System is working.
Wokism is nothing special, just the ideology of another group trying to become bosses. Our founders, later Lenin & Co, now BLM, just wanna be bosses. Economic history tells us that it matters to our individual well-being what the bosses believe!
In the US it is still difficult to institute a tyranny, even of the majority. Thus, wokism, BLM, whatever, will fail in the end, as Lenin & Co have failed.
Quote from: dismalist on January 03, 2022, 04:07:02 PM
Quote from: mahagonny on January 03, 2022, 03:14:07 PM
Wokeness is what results when a society decides to give itself cooties. Here's an eyeful of the problem the democrats have, and are to the USA, and still deny:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/happy-woke-2022-democrats-with-democracy-in-the-balance-time-to-reclaim-your-brand/ar-AASnzYI
QuoteThere's still far more to be done to correct economic inequality and other injustices.
Economic inequality is by-product of free market capitalism, which we have intentionally chosen.
Societies don't decide anything. Societies evolve. Free-market capitalism no one ever chose. It, too evolved, and we don't have as much now as once upon a time, for better and for worse.
Inequality is near meaningless when contemplating the hardly fathomable decrease in poverty over the last 100 years or so. In 1820 roughly 90% of the world population lived on under the contemporary equivalent of $1 per day. Nowadays, that's under 10%.
If the rich got richer along the way, so what? That is not ipso facto an injustice. System is working.
Wokism is nothing special, just the ideology of another group trying to become bosses. Our founders, later Lenin & Co, now BLM, just wanna be bosses. Economic history tells us that it matters to our individual well-being what the bosses believe!
In the US it is still difficult to institute a tyranny, even of the majority. Thus, wokism, BLM, whatever, will fail in the end, as Lenin & Co have failed.
Thank you. But, not to quarrel with any of this, one hopes wokeness will fail before one's life and culture suffer too much because of it. Those of us who're inclined to react to current events in ways that don't blend with wokeness already feel the need to stifle ourselves. I speak for myself and at least three colleagues at college 'A.' It seems from my casual observing that the more visible the diversity staff are, the more likely this climate results.
Thus far I have had two African American students who came to class very late, routinely, and when I politely (I thought) confronted them over it (the habitual extreme tardiness, not their skin color), became indignant. This has never happened with students of any other demographic. And we are being told that things like getting the answer right in mathematics, promptness, and other positive habits are noxious 'white supremacy' impositions. When a student thinks being late should be OK and I'm trying to avoid giving low grades to people who can't afford to miss class time, we are at cross purposes.
Well, I hope this isn't a hijack, but it looked like the thread was sinking like a stone anyway.
If the "...proxy for class struggle" discussion resumes I'll get out of the way.
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on January 02, 2022, 08:19:18 AM
Sounds like concern-trolling to me. The real threat--particularly in the US--is the right. Clearly. Obviously. The right is shutting down speech it doesn't like, actively promoting quack cures and cheering on hundreds of thousands of entirely preventable deaths, organizing coups, murdering protestors, etc.
QuoteIt remains in effect despite several meta-analyses subsequently finding CBT has little (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28541091/) benefit (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29451967/) over other therapies. More controversial (https://quillette.com/2019/02/04/psychologists-respond-to-the-apas-guidance-for-treating-men-and-boys/) were practice guidelines for men and boys which drew deeply from feminist theories, dwelled on topics of patriarchy, intersectionality, and privilege, and arguably disparaged men and families from traditional backgrounds. This guideline is actively harmful to the degree it both misguides therapy in favor of an ideological worldview and likely discourages men and families from more traditional backgrounds from seeking therapy.
Interestingly, after citing evidence for his claims about violence in video games and CBT, we've got no evidence for the feminazis-are-ruining-boys claim. We do have a link to another Quillette piece characterizing the issue.
Then there's a bunch of complaining about demands for racial justice and what-about-white-lives, citing some dodgy statistics, blah blah language police (please, I come from a province that actually has language police), blah blah woke blah blah--I don't have the energy this morning.
As far as I can tell from the article, for all his talk of class being more important than race, his class-consciousness seems only to extend as far as skepticism about calls for gender and racial equality. In other words, I think he's full of shit. If you're so worried that the talk of race and gender is obscuring the real issue, then take this opportunity to speak to the real issue, instead of going on and on about bow important traditional masculinity and white lives are.
I don't know what the author does in other work. Maybe you are right. Or maybe he works for the socialist revolution. Academics are generally more focused on critique and analysis than solid action, especially since class action seems so difficult in the US.
That doesn't much speak to the truth of his analysis. The evidence for it is spotty. The socialism vs identity theory debate goes back a long way, at least to the 1980s, when I remember it being significant in the UK. Socialists said that the move to identity theory would undermine socialist gains. Certainly it hasn't done the Labour Party much good. But then the old Trotskyite Jeremy Corbyn also didn't get a whole lot of popular support either.
It's not surprising that universities embrace identity theory to an extent -- rarely enough to make real changes, but in their press releases. It is easier to monetize. Universities are not going to do much to undermine class divisions because they serve the middle and upper classes, and private universities want to charge as much as they can.
I have found more class consciousness in my students in the last few years. Occupy Wall Street and the the growing media focus on the power of billionaires, the 1% richest or the 0.1% richest, and Bernie and AOC have had some effect in the US.
J.D. Vance now believes culture wars "are easy" now (I think to 'message' )that he views them as class warfare:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/01/04/jd-vance-hillbilly-elegy-radicalization/
Quote from: jimbogumbo on January 04, 2022, 11:47:21 AM
J.D. Vance now believes culture wars "are easy" now (I think to 'message' )that he views them as class warfare:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/01/04/jd-vance-hillbilly-elegy-radicalization/
And he's working hard to be a
manly man.
QuoteSounds like concern-trolling to me. The real threat--particularly in the US--is the right. Clearly. Obviously. The right is shutting down speech it doesn't like, actively promoting quack cures and cheering on hundreds of thousands of entirely preventable deaths, organizing coups, murdering protestors, etc.
That is like saying the democratic party actively promoted and encouraged sexual exploitation of women of subordinate position in the workplace because they successfully ran Bill Clinton for POTUS. The democrats preferred Bill Clinton's policies to those of any republican and they accepted a known predator in the bargain. Out of all the millions who voted for Donald Trump, a relative small handful trespassed and rioted on government property in protest to the vote certifications. Some of them are now prosecuted for breaking the law which the republicans (and others) who voted for Trump are not trying to prevent. Except maybe a hapless few.
I really have no idea what anyone means when they talk about "wokeness." The term started as slang among young people, went mainstream, and very quickly became used almost exclusively as a negative term. In the process, it has lost all clear meaning. As far as I can tell, most people who use the term have just substituted it for political correctness, another phrase that came to just mean "something I don't like."
Quote from: Caracal on January 06, 2022, 05:24:12 AM
I really have no idea what anyone means when they talk about "wokeness." The term started as slang among young people, went mainstream, and very quickly became used almost exclusively as a negative term. In the process, it has lost all clear meaning. As far as I can tell, most people who use the term have just substituted it for political correctness, another phrase that came to just mean "something I don't like."
If that were the case then it would also be used by people on the left to complain about ideas from the right. It isn't. It refers to ideas from the left such as
- critical theory (race, gender, etc.)
- "the patriarchy"
- "-phobia"s and "-ism"s applied to any ideas or actions that are undesireable
- oppression Olympics (part of critical theory, but it is assumed regardless of whether critical theory is invoked or not)
This is by no means exhaustive, but ti gets the main points. And it is all from the "progressive" left.
(This is not to sat that things like identity politics cannot come from the right, but when they do, NO-ONE calls that "woke". They call it Fascist, white supremacist, etc.)
Quote from: marshwiggle on January 06, 2022, 06:01:19 AM
Quote from: Caracal on January 06, 2022, 05:24:12 AM
I really have no idea what anyone means when they talk about "wokeness." The term started as slang among young people, went mainstream, and very quickly became used almost exclusively as a negative term. In the process, it has lost all clear meaning. As far as I can tell, most people who use the term have just substituted it for political correctness, another phrase that came to just mean "something I don't like."
If that were the case then it would also be used by people on the left to complain about ideas from the right. It isn't. It refers to ideas from the left such as
- critical theory (race, gender, etc.)
- "the patriarchy"
- "-phobia"s and "-ism"s applied to any ideas or actions that are undesireable
- oppression Olympics (part of critical theory, but it is assumed regardless of whether critical theory is invoked or not)
This is by no means exhaustive, but ti gets the main points. And it is all from the "progressive" left.
(This is not to sat that things like identity politics cannot come from the right, but when they do, NO-ONE calls that "woke". They call it Fascist, white supremacist, etc.)
That's my point. Those descriptions are so vague as to be meaningless. Wokeness apparently means any discussion or criticisms of race and gender hierarchies? Isms? Nobody seems to actually agree on what critical theory is.
At this point, it's just a term used by people on the political right to sneer at a vague set of things they don't like.
Quote from: Caracal on January 06, 2022, 07:25:13 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on January 06, 2022, 06:01:19 AM
Quote from: Caracal on January 06, 2022, 05:24:12 AM
I really have no idea what anyone means when they talk about "wokeness." The term started as slang among young people, went mainstream, and very quickly became used almost exclusively as a negative term. In the process, it has lost all clear meaning. As far as I can tell, most people who use the term have just substituted it for political correctness, another phrase that came to just mean "something I don't like."
If that were the case then it would also be used by people on the left to complain about ideas from the right. It isn't. It refers to ideas from the left such as
- critical theory (race, gender, etc.)
- "the patriarchy"
- "-phobia"s and "-ism"s applied to any ideas or actions that are undesireable
- oppression Olympics (part of critical theory, but it is assumed regardless of whether critical theory is invoked or not)
This is by no means exhaustive, but ti gets the main points. And it is all from the "progressive" left.
(This is not to sat that things like identity politics cannot come from the right, but when they do, NO-ONE calls that "woke". They call it Fascist, white supremacist, etc.)
That's my point. Those descriptions are so vague as to be meaningless. Wokeness apparently means any discussion or criticisms of race and gender hierarchies? Isms? Nobody seems to actually agree on what critical theory is.
Wokeness is the
unquestioned assumption that those hierarchies exist in some universal sense. For instance, the idea of "the patriarchy" suggests that women are fundamentally devalued by society, despite things like the higher rates of death due to dangerous occupations, military service, etc. of men. The "non-woke" view is that many issues of "privilege" are, in fact, situation-dependent, so there is no universal heirarchy of value, either by design or coincidence.
Quote from: marshwiggle on January 06, 2022, 06:01:19 AM
Quote from: Caracal on January 06, 2022, 05:24:12 AM
I really have no idea what anyone means when they talk about "wokeness." The term started as slang among young people, went mainstream, and very quickly became used almost exclusively as a negative term. In the process, it has lost all clear meaning. As far as I can tell, most people who use the term have just substituted it for political correctness, another phrase that came to just mean "something I don't like."
If that were the case then it would also be used by people on the left to complain about ideas from the right. It isn't. It refers to ideas from the left such as
- critical theory (race, gender, etc.)
- "the patriarchy"
- "-phobia"s and "-ism"s applied to any ideas or actions that are undesireable
- oppression Olympics (part of critical theory, but it is assumed regardless of whether critical theory is invoked or not)
This is by no means exhaustive, but ti gets the main points. And it is all from the "progressive" left.
(This is not to sat that things like identity politics cannot come from the right, but when they do, NO-ONE calls that "woke". They call it Fascist, white supremacist, etc.)
Add, it is hyper-concerned with being up-to-date in one's worldview, which progressives accept is by necessity being transformed constantly. So to not be woke is to not be up-to-date is to be against progress. And since the past, by the unshakeable view, is filled with mostly injustice, lack of sensitivity, cruelty, etc, they believe that the effects of these sins are only now beginning to be exposed. It's a cult. There's desperation and mania in it.
ETA:
QuoteWokeness is the unquestioned assumption that those hierarchies exist in some universal sense. For instance, the idea of "the patriarchy" suggests that women are fundamentally devalued by society, despite things like the higher rates of death due to dangerous occupations, military service, etc. of men. The "non-woke" view is that many issues of "privilege" are, in fact, situation-dependent, so there is no universal heirarchy of value, either by design or coincidence.
Wokeness amounts to an ultimatum. You're either trying to get woke, or you want the hierarchy and the oppression.
Quote from: marshwiggle on January 06, 2022, 07:32:43 AM
Wokeness is the unquestioned assumption that those hierarchies exist in some universal sense. For instance, the idea of "the patriarchy" suggests that women are fundamentally devalued by society, despite things like the higher rates of death due to dangerous occupations, military service, etc. of men. The "non-woke" view is that many issues of "privilege" are, in fact, situation-dependent, so there is no universal heirarchy of value, either by design or coincidence.
Again, this is precisely what I mean. It's just a container category you can populate with any ideas or imagined ideas you want to be against. It isn't a way to think about the world, its a way to avoid thinking.
Quote from: marshwiggle on January 06, 2022, 07:32:43 AM
Wokeness is the unquestioned assumption that those hierarchies exist in some universal sense. For instance, the idea of "the patriarchy" suggests that women are fundamentally devalued by society, despite things like the higher rates of death due to dangerous occupations, military service, etc. of men. The "non-woke" view is that many issues of "privilege" are, in fact, situation-dependent, so there is no universal heirarchy of value, either by design or coincidence.
The wokeness phenomenon is interesting to me in that while it has been having a dramatic effect, no one seems to want to own up to promoting the movement. You can tell often tell you're talking to a wokie because they object to the term 'woke.'
ETA: The wokie seeks to uphold and circulate the tenets of wokeism but simultaneously deflect having been nailed (called out) on his supercilious moralizing. Thus
he rejects the term.
Quote from: Caracal on January 06, 2022, 09:21:31 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on January 06, 2022, 07:32:43 AM
Wokeness is the unquestioned assumption that those hierarchies exist in some universal sense. For instance, the idea of "the patriarchy" suggests that women are fundamentally devalued by society, despite things like the higher rates of death due to dangerous occupations, military service, etc. of men. The "non-woke" view is that many issues of "privilege" are, in fact, situation-dependent, so there is no universal heirarchy of value, either by design or coincidence.
Again, this is precisely what I mean. It's just a container category you can populate with any ideas or imagined ideas you want to be against. It isn't a way to think about the world, its a way to avoid thinking.
You mean the way "transphobic", "homophobic", "racist", "misogynistic" are all used as "container categories" for ideas or imagined ideas that other people want to be against? Those are also ways to avoid thinking.
(One example is the "all roads lead to racism" example given by John McWhorter. If a white person is asked whether they would date a black person:
- if the person says "no", then that's racist.
- If the person says "yes", then it means they fetishize black people, and that's racist.
QED)
QuoteThe wokie seeks to uphold and circulate the tenets of wokeism but simultaneously deflect having been nailed (called out) on his supercilious moralizing. Thus he rejects the term.
Yeah, claiming a lack of precise definition for a term is merely one method of getting rid of a word which is no longer useful to a cause.
Here is an article in the Guardian trying to kill the word. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/09/woke-word-meaning-definition-progressive (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/09/woke-word-meaning-definition-progressive)
Few parts of the article are coherent.
The OED says "woke" means alert to racial or social discrimination and injustice. Perfectly clear, and that's how it's used. "Woke" was once a red badge of courage, but has become a clear identifier of ideas that are downright wrong to many, many people, a pejorative term.
The process is not new by any means. The word "liberal" was purposefully metamorphosed into "progressive". I prognosticate that "progressive" will soon disappear!
When words lose their meaning, people lose their freedom.
Quote from: dismalist on January 06, 2022, 10:40:57 AM
QuoteThe wokie seeks to uphold and circulate the tenets of wokeism but simultaneously deflect having been nailed (called out) on his supercilious moralizing. Thus he rejects the term.
Yeah, claiming a lack of precise definition for a term is merely one method of getting rid of a word which is no longer useful to a cause.
Here is an article in the Guardian trying to kill the word. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/09/woke-word-meaning-definition-progressive (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/09/woke-word-meaning-definition-progressive)
Few parts of the article are coherent.
The OED says "woke" means alert to racial or social discrimination and injustice. Perfectly clear, and that's how it's used. "Woke" was once a red badge of courage, but has become a clear identifier of ideas that are downright wrong to many, many people, a pejorative term.
The process is not new by any means. The word "liberal" was purposefully metamorphosed into "progressive". I prognosticate that "progressive" will soon disappear!
When words lose their meaning, people lose their freedom.
Aha, one of the dictionary definitions of 'liberal' is 'tolerant.' 'White silence is violence' disavows tolerance.
Quote from: dismalist on January 06, 2022, 10:40:57 AM
The OED says "woke" means alert to racial or social discrimination and injustice. Perfectly clear, and that's how it's used. "Woke" was once a red badge of courage, but has become a clear identifier of ideas that are downright wrong to many, many people, a pejorative term.
This is what happened to "politically correct", as Caracal noted, and for the same reason. The stupid ideas that get embraced as a movement gains momentum inevitably result in the eventual demise of the popularity of the term as something with which people wish to be associated.
See "feminist" as an example. (https://www.statista.com/statistics/693896/canadians-identify-feminist-gender/)
In 2017, in Canada,
- 19% of women "very strongly" agreed with being identified as feminist.
- 43% of women "somewhat" agreed with being identified as feminist.
- 22% of women "somewhat" disagreed with being identified as feminist.
- 16% of women "very strongly" disagreed with being identified as feminist.
Unless you really believe 38% of Canadian women have "internalized misogyny", then you have to assume that many women are put off by some of the positions that are considered mandatory for "feminists".
For instance, the "feminist" position is to be pro-choice, even though the issue is much more nuanced for most people.
(https://nationalpost.com/news/as-abortion-debate-becomes-increasingly-polarized-poll-shows-the-views-of-many-canadians-are-more-complicated)
Quote
Almost unanimously (93 per cent) Canadians believe doctors should be required by law to inform women about potential risks of surgical abortion before performing the procedure, which, while rare, include infection and hemorrhage. More than three quarters favour a law requiring doctors to inform women about alternatives to abortion, such as adoption. Two-thirds would back a law requiring women seeking abortion to wait 24 hours between counselling and having the procedure done. Half believe there should be a law requiring women under 18 to get parental consent for an abortion. Seven in 10 say abortion should be generally illegal in the last three months of pregnancy. Only 57 per cent believe abortion should be generally legal in the second trimester.
Only a minority are unequivocally "pro-choice".
Quote
The process is not new by any means. The word "liberal" was purposefully metamorphosed into "progressive". I prognosticate that "progressive" will soon disappear!
Certainly. Probably within 5 years it will be superseded by something else.
Quote from: mahagonny on January 06, 2022, 09:54:22 AM
The wokeness phenomenon is interesting to me in that while it has been having a dramatic effect, no one seems to want to own up to promoting the movement. You can tell often tell you're talking to a wokie because they object to the term 'woke.'
\
I think we've reached the point of self parody.
Quote from: Caracal on January 06, 2022, 11:39:32 AM
Quote from: mahagonny on January 06, 2022, 09:54:22 AM
The wokeness phenomenon is interesting to me in that while it has been having a dramatic effect, no one seems to want to own up to promoting the movement. You can tell often tell you're talking to a wokie because they object to the term 'woke.'
\
I think we've reached the point of self parody.
Don't listen to James Carville. Red wave in November.
QuoteThis is what happened to "politically correct"... .
But these words, such as liberal, politically correct, feminist, or woke, have
not lost their meaning. They have
not become vague. They are still highly specific, but have become pejorative. That's why there is movement afoot to get rid of the words and substitute new ones.
The faster our communications specialists move the vocab, the more work they'll have to do!
The term hasn't lost all meaning, but if the definition is indeed highly specific then a lot of people seem unaware of what that highly specific definition is. Not everyone produces the same definition when asked, and not everyone applies the term to the same viewpoints or actions.
A given individual may have a specific meaning in mind, but the next person I talk to may operating with a different specific meaning. In that sense, it is vague.
There are people who use the term to dismiss any discussion related to things like race or gender. It's no different than people who use "That's racist" or "That's sexist" as their entire rebuttal as a way to wriggle away from engaging in an actual discussion.
With some people, just thinking certain issues related to discrimination are worth discussing puts you in the "woke" cult. So, you must also be in favor of ruining the lives of anyone who doesn't conform to your way of thinking. The fact that you deny it just proves I'm right.
Some of the anecdotes presented as evidence of the insidiousness of wokeism boil down to: I said something. Some people didn't like what I said. And then they told me they didn't like what I said. What ever happened to freedom of speech?
I've read and encountered this enough with lots of different terms to feel the need to ask "what do you mean by...?" at the start of a new discussion, because even if a precise definition exists that doesn't mean a term never gets misused or that nobody will ever try to stretch the definition past the point of sense.
QuoteSome of the anecdotes presented as evidence of the insidiousness of wokeism ... .
"Wokeism" is
not insidious. Words are not insidious. Just lot's 'a people think wokeism is misguided.
A maneuver to make the definition of a word seem unintelligible is merely a method of destroying discussion of a concept.
No worries -- new words to describe "alert to racial or social discrimination and injustice" will pop up! And the same will happen to them if lots of people don't like the concept.
Like, soon. :-)
One of the interesting things about the 'woke' label is that some people apply it to themselves. It has a slightly religious connotation, which detractors emphasize. But it's also an aspect that it's defenders draw on. It's a bit like being 'saved.' Some people have woken from their ignorant slumbers and are active. And it also is a label which implies there is no middle ground. You are either with them or against them.
Of course, it's not a very useful label, and if you are going to get into detailed discussion, you need to specify the particular phenonmenon you are focusing on. The author of the piece I refered to at the top of the thread was talking about mostly statements about race and racial inequality made by the APA. He argued that they are not empirically supported and are also divisive in ways that work against class solidarity.
I'm particularly interested in identity theory and identity politics. They certainly have a big place in our world, and are important. We can't just ignore them. But it often feels like a focus on identity issues drains energy and attention. In higher ed, the pronouncements of administrators and the initiatives they make rarely seem like more than posturing. Indeed, some of the policies seem counterproductive, if anything. Indeed, right now I can't think of one action by any university I know of that has made an impressive improvement in the educational experience of Black students.
Quote from: downer on January 07, 2022, 04:17:31 AM
In higher ed, the pronouncements of administrators and the initiatives they make rarely seem like more than posturing. Indeed, some of the policies seem counterproductive, if anything. Indeed, right now I can't think of one action by any university I know of that has made an impressive improvement in the educational experience of Black students.
Here's a question: What action could be taken that would make an "impressive improvement in the educational experience of Black students" that would not be good for students in general?
In other words, given the emphasis for decades on the importance of
universal design, with the idea that
everyone benefits from features that make things easier for people with specific challenges, why shouldn't the measures that will be most helpful be those that are
not specifically directed to certain groups, but which will potentially benefit
lots of struggling students?
TL;DR Why isn't it likely to be more effective to address these as issues of class than of race?
As I said at the start, I'm very sympathetic to the idea that class is more fundamentally important than race and ethnicity for identifying ways to improve higher ed. But I'm ready to consider evidence pointing in other directions.
The word "class" suffers from precisely those characteristics that are attributed to "wokeness".
"Class" means something very specific to original Marxists. A class is a group of people with the same interests. History has shown that individuals have sufficiently diverse interests to make the concept of class quite useless. Thus, neo-marxists, recognizing this, have largely abandoned the concept of class and substituted individual differences [in everything]. Hence, "inequality" [in everything] is all the rage.
BLM recognizes all this. The people who have lots in common are blacks, according to them. The black aristocracy is what they are thinking of, according to me.
No amount of consciousness raising can put the toothpaste back into the tube.
Social analysis is a blunt tool at the best of times. No division of groups will be very accurate -- people defy discrete classificaiton. Some are more promising than others as ways to find improvements to make.
Looking at the past, I was thinking about how higher ed was improved by the feminist movement in the 60s-80s. Old fashioned sexism was largely quashed. There was some curriculum reform that made things better. Maybe there are still problems with campus life for women -- issues with safety and sexual assault persist -- but still the changes made have worked. I'm far less confident that similar reforms aimed at other student populations will make much difference.
Quote from: downer on January 08, 2022, 05:59:49 AM
Social analysis is a blunt tool at the best of times. No division of groups will be very accurate -- people defy discrete classificaiton. Some are more promising than others as ways to find improvements to make.
Looking at the past, I was thinking about how higher ed was improved by the feminist movement in the 60s-80s. Old fashioned sexism was largely quashed. There was some curriculum reform that made things better. Maybe there are still problems with campus life for women -- issues with safety and sexual assault persist -- but still the changes made have worked. I'm far less confident that similar reforms aimed at other student populations will make much difference.
Sounds kind of optimistic to me. Since that time we've had a splintering of the workforce. More than half of us are now temp workers. The term for us is itself a boldface lie; 'adjunct' meaning something added to the main thing but not part of it. More than half of adjuncts are women, and rather than overhaul the system it continues, with occasional flareups of finger pointing, but for the most part, silence.