The anti woke "centrists" are reaching ridiculous levels of cope. Instead of acknowledging how wrong they've been for years about what the actual threats to freedom were... They're going to spend years contorting themselves to justify their bullshit. - ThreadSky

nicemangos.bsky.social • 40 days ago

The anti woke "centrists" are reaching ridiculous levels of cope. Instead of acknowledging how wrong they've been for years about what the actual threats to freedom were... They're going to spend years contorting themselves to justify their bullshit.

Reposted from Thomas Chatterton Williams

Very strange this idea that what Trump et al are doing now means that people who criticized the “wokeness” that preceded him should now apologize for getting things wrong. It seems far more likely they got many things right and the prior moment paved the way for this one.

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irecarol.bsky.social•40 days ago

The major threat to "western civilization" and "democracy" is the growth of imperialist far right movements in the Westernized world (including Russia). But hey, wokeness is the problem. Poor far right extremists, they have to deal with marginalized groups calling out capitalism and its oppressions.

fnix.link•39 days ago

I think if ‘woke’ can be criticized it is rather from the left for not really living up to its stated goals, being at times more about ways people in elite positions can burnish their self-image while not doing the necessary systemic, political work that would require these people to sacrifice.

fnix.link•39 days ago

One can see something very similar with Israel/Palestine in more ‘centrist’ circles, where people who’ve sounded the alarm over authoritarianism and Russian imperialism for years are completely mum when the West is underwriting the same in Gaza. Ppl like Snyder, Applebaum etc.

nicemangos.bsky.social•39 days ago

Applebaum has even in the past called for the killing of Palestinian journalists, said they are valid targets. Quite nuts coming from someone who is a well regarded authoritarianism expert. And it's almost never brought up.

fnix.link•39 days ago

Musa al-Gharbi has written about it quite well I think.
https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-culture-war-stuff-just-rots-the-brain

fnix.link•39 days ago

Strength of conviction can elicit respect even from ideological opponents, while hypocrisy is something that’s easy to attack from all angles, especially by bad-faith conservative actors. I don’t want to feed any more college panics, but I thought this example is illustrative of a certain narcissism

fnix.link•39 days ago

Again, the point isn’t about colleges specifically, but something that describes the class basis of many superficially “woke” people who in their daily lives don’t live up to their lofty claims. It’s not to criticize the aims of ‘woke’, but its existing forms, which open it up to attacks of all sort

nicemangos.bsky.social•39 days ago

I totally understand and agree with critique of superficial wokeness, but I'm wary of things that say 'idpolitics is bad', 'culture wars are just a distraction' because those things are very much connected to everything that's happening. These aren't distractions, they are the story as well.

fnix.link•39 days ago

I think the shockingly easy acquiescence & accommodation with Trump II by many bastions of American liberalism is illuminated by this thesis. The only active resistance seems to be coming from the solid left, like Sanders and AOC, who clearly hold genuine convictions and aren’t above organizing.

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