Why the GOP is obsessed with "woke" — but can't define it

[lpetrich]

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "The so-called “woke” policies Republicans so vehemently oppose include:
Remote work options for people with disabilities
Living wages for federal employees and interns
Dignified work conditions for wildland firefighters (vid link)" / Twitter
Then some video of her in a hearing going into detail about those policies.

She says that having interns work for free limits the possible interns to interns from upper-middle-class and upper-class families, families who can easily afford to subsidize their children's residence and food and the like.

 

[Elixir]

The US states have a high degree of self rule and have developed different civic cultures.

I believe that is FAR less true than you believe. I spent many years traveling among the States, and their “civic cultures” are more identical than different. If they were clearly different, separation from the Union would probably occur, and by mutual agreement.

Comparatively, USA is quite loosely held together.

That is one reason it is not, and has not become, an empire.

I'm convinced that's why it works. USA's central government have to do a good job or the states will leave. It's already happened once.

The Confederate secession was illegal under federal law. That law was imposed on the Confederate States after a bloody war. The mistake that was made was, no political penalty was levied. Their complete representation in government was restored. It should have been conditional and gradual, and we may have avoided the current clusterfuck.

Contrast it to Russia. It would be the equivalent of Biden holding Texas in abject poverty, bleeding it dry and using that oil revenue to pay for troops and secret police to keep it all together.

Ok. It was never that.

Sweden is one city, Stockholm, bleeding the rest of the country dry for the glory of Stockholm. That's how most countries work. Is it fair? No. It's not.

How would the rest of the Country fare without Stockholm, it’s people and it’s product? (I’m asking, don’t pretend to know)

 

[lpetrich]

Watch | Facebook -- Briahna Joy Gray discusses why she asked Bethany Mandel to define "woke" - 20-minute video

BJG said that she wanted to find out what BM meant by that word, so that the two could have a reasonable discussion.

She has criticized what she considers left-wing "overreach".

Like How Identity Became A Weapon Against The Left ❧ Current Affairs -- noting some defenders of Kamala Harris implying that left-wing critics of her are attacking her because of her race and sex, and also similar defenses of Hillary Clinton and attacks on "Bernie Bros" for supposedly being misogynist.

It’s disorienting to see white (and black) liberals calling leftists of color sellouts, Uncle Toms, “coons,” house-slaves, and well, white people, all in the name of anti-racism.

...
Failure to recognize that identity is, at best, a loose proxy for political commitment can turn us into a ‘firewall’ to lean on, rather than a constituency to be won.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Before the USA adopted the Constitution, the colonies were a confederation under The Articles Of Confederation. This was a loose organization with not much centralized government. It was not a great success. That is why we ended up with a Constitution. That learned from the earlier mistakes.

 

[lpetrich]

The Question of Cultural Appropriation | Current Affairs

What constituted “cultural appropriation” might once have been relatively clear: if you wore a ceremonial Native American headdress without actually being a Native American performing a ceremony, you were disrespectfully appropriating a culture that was not your own. But nowadays, the notion can be far more expansive in its scope. “Cultural appropriation” has been taken to mean that only blacks are entitled to create art about black historical figures ...

If the definition of “appropriation” had stayed narrow, it would be easy enough to defend. It’s obvious why it’s insulting and upsetting for a white person to casually sport a feathered headdress: they are items of deep symbolic meaning to the people who originated them, bestowed in recognition of great achievements. Treating them like party hats cheapens and dishonors them, and slights those people who have the same feelings about their tribal regalia that military members have about the sanctity of medals and uniforms.

She then noted the oodles of cultural borrowing that people have done over the millennia, cultural borrowing that has enriched all of our lives.

“Appropriation” also suffers from an inherent theoretical difficulty: it depends on having a clear notion of cultural “ownership.” The term tends to be defined as “the adoption or use of the elements of one culture by members of another culture” – often with the added proviso “without permission.”

... I think when we talk about appropriation, we’re really talking about two separate issues: first, an issue of cultural exploitation, and second, an issue of cultural disrespect.

 

[TomC]

If I may, I'd like to make two requests.

1) Split the derail about U.S. government, democracy and empire into another thread.
2) Posters are more careful about the long strings of nested posts which make it difficult to know what a poster is actually replying to, sometimes even who the poster is.

Thanks in advance.
Tom

 

[Politesse]

If they defined "Woke", they would be confined in their political activity to hunting down those specific things, rather than ascribing it freely to new phenomena as they appear. Their standing political prerogative at any given time is to attack any potential source of danger to the entrenched oligarchy that rules the country. But as quite a lot of people are mad at them, for various reasons, they need a multi-tool, not a precision instrument.

The political Left does have similarly vague-but-useful terms: capitalism, fascism, etc. I think it's an inevitable component of politics in any empire that the state needs strong central narratives to confront or deflect a very diverse set of criticisms and rebellions as they form over time.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

But I do defend the rights of conservatives to be conservative. I think they should be allowed to express all their bigotted and narrow minded opinions freely. Its a hill I am willing to die on.

They have whole TV networks dedicated to their messages, and radio shows, and newspapers, and social media companies. It doesn’t seem that they are being prevented from expressing their opinions freely in the open market.


Edited to add: not to mention a lot of freely and duly elected government representatives espousing and enacting into law conservative values.

They should be permitted to express their vile crap. And we should be free to label it vile crap.

 

[bilby]

I don't think the people who stormed the capitol were against democracy. I think they thought they were fighting for democracy. When they said that the election was stolen. That's an indicator that they think elections are the tits.

Look into the history of the Three Percenters and the Proud Boys. They weren’t formed after Trump and Fox News started lying to the American public about the election. Surely some reasonably innocent and ignorant folks got wrapped up in the push but If you think the main instigators were fighting for democracy you don’t really understand what happened that day.

Both of those groups are militant fanatics fighting FOR democracy

No, they're militant fanatics who have taken "government does what we militant fanatics tell them to do" and slapped the label "democracy" on it, so they can claim to be fighting for something other than a dictatorship by militant fanatics (which turns out to have become fairly unpopular since 1945).

It's rather sad that you're being bamboozled by such a blatant lie.

 

[Politesse]

And this is well off topic.

It’s not off topic. The inexplicable inability to define “woman” is a signal for Woke. All religions oblige adherents to affirm belief in absurdities.

Your "definition" was the equivalent of defining justice as "when good things happen".

 

[Oleg]

And this is well off topic.

It’s not off topic. The inexplicable inability to define “woman” is a signal for Woke. All religions oblige adherents to affirm belief in absurdities.

Your "definition" was the equivalent of defining justice as "when good things happen".

Woke Farms: Where we milk the bull.

 

[laughing dog]

Woke Farms: Where we milk the bull.

Seems to me you’ve been milking the bull, but I wouldn’t call you “woke”.

 

[Tigers!]

And this is well off topic.

It’s not off topic. The inexplicable inability to define “woman” is a signal for Woke. All religions oblige adherents to affirm belief in absurdities.

Your "definition" was the equivalent of defining justice as "when good things happen".

That sounds a quite reasonable definition of justice.

 

[Politesse]

And this is well off topic.

It’s not off topic. The inexplicable inability to define “woman” is a signal for Woke. All religions oblige adherents to affirm belief in absurdities.

Your "definition" was the equivalent of defining justice as "when good things happen".

That sounds a quite reasonable definition of justice.

Not particularly useful, though, is it? Let alone "objective".

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

So pornhub is justice?

 

[Tigers!]

And this is well off topic.

It’s not off topic. The inexplicable inability to define “woman” is a signal for Woke. All religions oblige adherents to affirm belief in absurdities.

Your "definition" was the equivalent of defining justice as "when good things happen".

That sounds a quite reasonable definition of justice.

Not particularly useful, though, is it? Let alone "objective".

It is hard to get an objective definition as "good" is such a broad and flexible term. One man's junk is another man's treasure and all that.

 

[DrZoidberg]

The US states have a high degree of self rule and have developed different civic cultures.

I believe that is FAR less true than you believe. I spent many years traveling among the States, and their “civic cultures” are more identical than different. If they were clearly different, separation from the Union would probably occur, and by mutual agreement.

It's all relative. USA has the weakest leader (president), comparatively, than any other democraticaly elected leader of a country. The US president has to respect lots of laws, traditions and state specific stuff other democratically elected leaders don't need to care a hoot about. Who an American elects as a governor in their state, actually matters.

By comparisson, local Swedish leadership is largely ceremonial.

Comparatively, USA is quite loosely held together.

That is one reason it is not, and has not become, an empire.

I think you're working with a very specific definition of empire. "Empire" is a pretty vague term. All it means is a political unit made of of religously, ethnically, culturally, etc distinct peoples that are geographically separated. The opposite is a monocultural nation. A country where all the people have the same ethnic, cultural and religious background.

"Empire" isn't just colonialism. Yes, that's a form of empire. England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland is also an empire, on just the British isles. It would be an empire even without the "British empire".

I'm convinced that's why it works. USA's central government have to do a good job or the states will leave. It's already happened once.

The Confederate secession was illegal under federal law. That law was imposed on the Confederate States after a bloody war. The mistake that was made was, no political penalty was levied. Their complete representation in government was restored. It should have been conditional and gradual, and we may have avoided the current clusterfuck.

The point is that it happened. Laws isn't a country. Laws and money is the lube that makes countries run more smoothly. But they aren't the reason countries function. Countries are a collection of interdependent and self regulating civic systems. More or less offically acknowledged or defined. Systems with enough equilbrium to stay stable. But unstable enough to allow for growth.

The Confederate secession happened because the civic glue holding USA together was weak. If that glue is weak, laws won't save it. As it didn't.

If you don't understand what I mean, consider the war on drugs. Drugs are illegal. Yet can be found anywhere. The civic systems that brings drugs into an economy and keeps it going is much stronger than any of the civic systems, including the law, intended to keep it out.

If you ban something that is normal in a culture, you won't remove that thing from the culture. All you've done is make it normal (and therefore more socially acceptable) to be a criminal.

Contrast it to Russia. It would be the equivalent of Biden holding Texas in abject poverty, bleeding it dry and using that oil revenue to pay for troops and secret police to keep it all together.

Ok. It was never that.

Sweden is one city, Stockholm, bleeding the rest of the country dry for the glory of Stockholm. That's how most countries work. Is it fair? No. It's not.

How would the rest of the Country fare without Stockholm, it’s people and it’s product? (I’m asking, don’t pretend to know)

Alright. I doubt you're really interested. But here it goes. Long post!

Short term, it would collapse. Stockholm administers the entire country. Regional leaders go to Stockholm in order to run their home regions. Sweden is very Stockholm-centric. Traditionally very authoritarian. The reason for this is Swedish Viking culture. Vikings and Viking culture is not authoritarian and have historically been very misbheaving, and are indipendently minded. The Swedish royal project has the last 500 years been to crush this rebellious spirit.

Long term the rest of Sweden would do better. Sweden is very rich in natural resources. As well as underpopulated. The north of Sweden, which is anything north of Stockholm, ie half of the entire country, sits on most of the natural resources. But only about a million people live here. On a piece of land the same size as all of Italy. Or to Americans, the same size as California.

Apart from natural resource extraction, or making the movie Kung Fury, there's little economic activity going on up there. All economic
activity is centered around Stockholm, Gothemburg/Göteborg and Malmö. Why, Malmö? Because it's a suburb of Copenhagen, and a part of that economic zone/centre.

The South of Sweden, Skåne (where Malmö is) is technically occupied land. It used to be a part of Denmark. Without Stockholm, they'd most likely happily rejoin Denmark. Many people in Skåne identify as more Danish than Swedish.

Gothemburg would probably do alright. They've always been very UK-facing. It's a port city well connected to the continent. A fun fact is that London is Swedens fourth biggest city. What is meant by that is that by population there's more Swedes living in London than the fourth biggest city on within the Swedish borders (Uppsala with 160 000). Swedes are a pretty mobile and flexible people.

Sweden, and specifically Stockholm is incredibly easy to start companies in. Swedes have a high degree of technical education. Swedes are anxious and boring. The perfect employees. The extreme degree of dynamism of Stockholm makes it a magnet for all Swedes. So, not only do Stockholm bleed the rest of the country dry. The rest of Sweden goes to Stockholm to get a part of it's fruits.

 

[Jarhyn]

In many ways I see the ceding of cultural ground to cultures that live on the same ground as us to be thought of as "woke", though it is really just cultural openness, having a "heart" that is not hardened and dead.

It is saying it doesn't always need to be about my culture, and sometimes I can adopt rather than appropriate culture when I like it.

Some people try to falsely advertise themselves, and end up embarrassingly off-mark as a result. It is cringeworthy sometimes to watch how obviously fake people are when they do this.

And this is well off topic.

It’s not off topic. The inexplicable inability to define “woman” is a signal for Woke. All religions oblige adherents to affirm belief in absurdities.

Woke or aware?

My grandmother became a smitten teenager after an accident. Still a woman, but a much much much younger one, regardless how she looked. I guess that didn't happen because it conflicts with your insufficient understanding of neurology.

Your suffer from the delusion that self is selected.

And there it is. Christians are stupid for believing that a guy died and rose again to forgive their sins. But a guy can tap his heels three times chanting “I’m a woman” and *poof* he is. Two different religions but the same absurdities.

No, you only make of yourself a fool when you assert a not-even-wrong.

Your arbitrary declaration that there really ARE such things as "women" not just as a made-up label-for-now on something that can't actually be captured that way despite our suspension of disbelief is... Well... A puff of nothing but pure imagination.

It only works that way in your head.

If I take a value in a bit field I can name that token, and it has meaning and value: that token now points to an actual bit, something that ostensibly is involved in a vital behavior.

Now let's say I take all the bits in that value and generate a new term from them, maybe converting the bit field to a simple boolean: boolean = bitfield > 5;

Assuming this term doesn't correspond to any functional task, what mea ing or value does it have... Anywhere? You can't ascertain the value of any given bit in the field based on whether it is greater than 5! The very concept of a variable created in this way is clearly silliness! It may seem in some situations to have value.

Let's imagine that almost every time the bug happens, the bit field's integer value is greater than 5.

Suddenly watching the bug and associating it with a "value greater than 5" rather than reading the actual value and determining the source of the error, you find yourself looking at in irrelevant rabbit hole.

The depths of wrongness attainable from such (fairly clearly intentionally) sloppy thinking applied to hard social issues is exactly what gets us to these conflicts.

People are what they are. Transition is more about ceasing to hide that than anything else. It doesn't change "men" into "women", it changes "people who hide who they are and are plied with drugs that make them miserable" to "people who do not hide who they are and take drugs that do not make them miserable."

 

[DrZoidberg]

In many ways I see the ceding of cultural ground to cultures that live on the same ground as us to be thought of as "woke", though it is really just cultural openness, having a "heart" that is not hardened and dead.

That's not at all how I see it at all. Woke is having a hardened heart. It's having a hardline progressive attitude and anyone who doesn't agree on the current politically agreed upon set of values, must be destroyed.

Woke is intolerant. It's not cultural openness. I think it's very much a dead heart.

I'm not saying conservatives are any better. The woke vs conservative conflict are groups of intolerants fighting each other.

It is saying it doesn't always need to be about my culture, and sometimes I can adopt rather than appropriate culture when I like it.

Woke IS a culture. Woke says that you have to accept my culture. Or else. I think you're confusing their virtue signalling nonsense for what's actually happening.

Some people try to falsely advertise themselves, and end up embarrassingly off-mark as a result. It is cringeworthy sometimes to watch how obviously fake people are when they do this.

A perfect description of Woke IMHO.

 

[Elixir]

Empire:
“.., a political unit made of of religously, ethnically, culturally, etc distinct peoples that are geographically separated.”

I can’t find anyone other than Z who defines empire that way. And don’t see the reason for advancing that definition.
Not important - I do know what he means.
@DrZoidberg , I appreciate your response to my question about Stockholm; it explains your previous comment, right or wrong.