I believe the original meaning of the word was to describe being awake to injustice. Quite how anyone can have a problem with people being awake to injustice, I have no idea.
Being woke has, in many ways, become a pejorative term for empathy. Any attempt to identify or understand another person’s context or circumstances, and act on the basis of this, is woke.
Anti-woke is, at bottom, a rejection of all reflexivity
Any collective social good (especially when administered by the state) is now branded 'woke' by the Gammonistas, so things like vaccinations & health checks (indeed the whole NHS), school breakfast clubs, extending public transport, libraries, universities, charities, lifeboats, Sesame Street.
Just seen an advert for Boots doing blood pressure and weight checks for over 40s, and one of the first replies was 'Woke. Fuck off' so presumably not wanting to have a heart attack is woke now
As with most words flayed of their meaning, it can be helpful to substitute similar ones that appear to match the speaker's intent. I particularly like the woman who asked "are you saying that this plane crash was caused by failure to segregate the races?".
Yes, and so is somewhat ironic that the white bigots have to take a phrase from Black people, to use. Presumably not having any decent phrases themselves.
I've seen someone write "DEI countries"... anything that unambiguously good will be redefined by conservatives as a dog whistle to mean "not straight white men:
My definitions:
Basically "wokeness" means awareness of injustice and inequality.
Anti-wokeness means enjoying unfair privilege without having done anything to merit it, and insisting on its continuance.
Woke are forever moving goalposts. Empathy, critique on the supremacy of the straight white men, any form of environmentalism, critique of AI and LLMs, critique of capitalism but also enjoying dance or poetry or exotic food etc etc. Everything you want to rubbish basically
I know he is. It's still a point worth repeating at every opportunity. I'm sure Robin is well aware of the roots, but many well-meaning people still aren't.
It's irrelevant now, as it's all out in the open. There's no need to come up with excuses like wokery, diversity, activism, radical leftism, liberal ideology, or anything else.
There is no longer a pretence at "we disagree, let's debate this sensibly".
Speaking as a straight white man who is good at some stuff, and not good at other stuff, I feel it is a duty to stand up and point out that the "white supremacists" are in fact the least "supreme" of all the white people ... but they haven't noticed, despite being busy proving it daily.
In 90% of cases what is deemed "woke" is simply extending a courtesy to someone who's a bit different to the person to whom the courtesy is being extended.
The irony being those who demand the highest courtesy standards themselves are often the least courteous to anyone different to themselves.
I like to challenge anyone who uses "woke" to tell me what they mean by that and they cannot just dodge around it by saying "PC" or "liberal" instead. Make them use their words. They never want to, as they realise they have to admit to being racist, sexist, homophobic etc....
It's a catch-all pejorative term that can be used as a dog whistle, allowing bad people to project blame on to any group without needing to explain themselves.
It's also a reliable way to identify bad-faith actors.
Comments
Anti-woke is, at bottom, a rejection of all reflexivity
The wealth class hierarchy means we can never truly have equality. [INSERT ROUSSEAU QUOTE HERE]
https://takes.jamesomalley.co.uk/p/woke-is-a-new-ideology-and-its-proponents
Basically "wokeness" means awareness of injustice and inequality.
Anti-wokeness means enjoying unfair privilege without having done anything to merit it, and insisting on its continuance.
There is no longer a pretence at "we disagree, let's debate this sensibly".
It's now simply an overt attack, or coup.
The irony being those who demand the highest courtesy standards themselves are often the least courteous to anyone different to themselves.
It's also a reliable way to identify bad-faith actors.