Arctish
Centimillionaire
Okay, everyone. It's time we figured out exactly what 'Woke' means because we now have at least 4 definitions being used.
1. aware of, and concerned about, social issues such as racism and social justice
2. smugly arrogant, fatuous, and overbearing, especially when expounding on the topic of social justice
3. people who call out people who are too lazy to even try to remember correct names and terms aka Miss Manners wannabes
4. white arrogance
Anyone want to submit another definition or refine one of the above?
None of these are mutually exclusive. You could just put these together into just one definition. They all fit nicely to the one idea Zizek puts forward.
edit: I feel this may need to be mentioned. But you can be aware of, and concerned about, social issues such as racism and social justice without being woke.
In my opinion woke is a power tactic among the priviliged to use a feigned concerned for marginalised groups as a tool with which to score points and gain status among progressives. The problem with the intersectional story is that, if you are privilged, in any way, you can't help but be an oppressive patriarchal racist. So the only way for the woke priviliged to gain status is by being the wokest.
It's an amazingly cynical power tactic. Because by trying to gain status, they are actively continuing to displace minorities from positions of influence and status. Ie doing exactly that which they say they're trying not to. It's like a party where supermodels have invited a regular girl and tries to convince her that what matters for being a model is what's on the inside. And all the other supermodel girls emphatically nod in agreement.
I think woke is fundamentally the wrong way to think about how to deal with mitigating privilige. I think it's important to acknowledge that nobody is going to willingly let go of privilege, if they can help it. The only priviliges we've ever manage to break is either privliges where it's a benefit to everybody by breaking them, or with the use of force.
Men getting higher salaries than women is not a privilige men are going to let go of. White owned properties being worth more than black properties is nothing whites are willingly going to collaborate in breaking if it'll mean they'll lose money. If enough women think it's icky to share bathrooms to transgendered they won't be welcome. Whites and men dominating the public discourse is not going to stand back to give room for blacks and women. We need to acknowledge that it's a free and unequal market of ideas that we all just need to do what we need to do and get ahead in life. Those priviliged are going to use their privilige to get ahead. That's always going to happen. Nothing will change that. And vocal wokes are just proving that.
To me wokes add nothing of value. They're just pure toxicity. They promote nothing but division and a world of fake smiles. They're not working towards for what they say they're working for. It's all just disingenuous. They may be sincere. But their actions give them away.
Yes, the world is unfair. That sucks. But wokes will never make the world more fair. They're project is just one huge tremendous waste of time and energy.
5. a cynical power tactic for gaining status.