१५ मार्च, २०२३

The conservative author trips up when asked to define that word she's using — "woke."

To define “woke”
by u/vectorix108 in therewasanattempt
ADDED: I suspect an honest answer would be something like: "Woke" is a word that people on the other side used to use, preeningly, to refer to themselves. Like a lot of people on my side, I thought it sounded ridiculous, so I adopted it as an insult, and it really worked, worked so well that the people who used to be proud to use it, stopped using it, and now it's supposed to be my job to say what it means? Okay: It means those people who used to say it are ridiculous. 

But maybe the people who started it ought to reclaim it and give it a good, clear meaning and stand by it instead of letting their antagonists steal it and use it as an insult.

१०४ टिप्पण्या:

Mike (MJB Wolf) म्हणाले...

Gee wonder why they never demand a definition from people pushing it only victims of it. Few even know who she is or what put her in a public role.

Aggie म्हणाले...

The very power of ideology over-consumption.

Amadeus 48 म्हणाले...

Now do Bernie Sanders going for equality of opportunity and rejecting equity on Bill Maher.

narciso म्हणाले...

Its a made up word that employs false consciousness paradigm

tim maguire म्हणाले...

It's the big new trick of the left--demand a definition of words that have no clear definition. So no matter what answer is given, the person can be ridiculed. Mandel's mistake was not in being unable to define woke, it was in playing the game at all.

Nancy म्हणाले...

My go-to definition of "woke" is "Four legs good! Two legs baa-aa-aad!"

n.n म्हणाले...

The woke sects are established under the Twilight faith, Pro-Choice ethical religion, and class-disordered ideologies.

David53 म्हणाले...

That’s a gotcha question talking heads have been using for a while. She wasn’t prepared.

Readering म्हणाले...

When she realized she would be going viral she should have gotten in the name of the co-authored biok she was there to promote--Stolen Youth: How Radicals Are Erasing Innocence and Indoctrinating a Generation.

Scotty, beam me up... म्हणाले...

The definition of “Woke”is ever changing as the left defines it what they want it to be at any specific time. Just when you think you know its “definition”, it changes. This is like Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown as he attempts to kick it after promising that she won’t pull it away.

Jamie म्हणाले...

So, like "gay" in days gone by. That does seem to be an effective approach.

tim maguire म्हणाले...

Prof, I think your response is perfect. And given that these people have been using the "define my terms" canard for a while, Mandel should have been better prepared.

Sebastian म्हणाले...

"instead of letting their antagonists steal it and use it as an insult"

Progs are fine with it. The use of woke just becomes a way to identify non-progs as ridiculously out of date. Plus progs can play gotcha. Plus they can counter by saying that anti-woke just means not-nice: anti-trans, anti-diversity, anti-gay, anti-green, anti-anti-racist, etc. No nice liberals would want to be associated with something so crude.

Ron DeSantis, take note.

Ampersand म्हणाले...

It's easy to throw sand in the gears of a political argument by demanding definitions, especially when the thing to be defined is a contentious, evolving neologism, used as a term of both approbation and disparagement. See https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/wokeis-a-political-term-with-a-long-and-complicated-history/2022/12/31/3b53193a-8914-11ed-b5ac-411280b122ef_story.html

So what?

Robert Cook म्हणाले...

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary online: "Woke" means "aware of and actively attentive to important societal facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice").

Very simple.

Except for those who insist on and persist in contorting themselves into Indian rubber men to deny racial discrimination (or discrimination based on other characteristics) remains prevalent, or that "men" and "whites" are the predominant victims of discrimination today.

West TX Intermediate Crude म्हणाले...

I was asked to define "woke" in a friendly conversation I had with a colleague several years ago. This was long enough ago that the term was fresh and new.
My old white male face looked at her young black female face and replied, "Woke means that all your problems are my fault."
We enjoyed a very friendly cordial professional relationship for several years after that, until I left the company (for unrelated reasons).

bagoh20 म्हणाले...

When Neo-Nazi's reclaim their word does that make it positive?

Che Dolf म्हणाले...

"Woke" means "striving to be at the vanguard of today's progressive beliefs, whatever those happen to be."
- Wesley Yang

Rory म्हणाले...

Woke is an expression of contempt in the public arena. Disagreement is a proof of inferiority.

bagoh20 म्हणाले...

Woke = post enlightenment.

Readering म्हणाले...

The problem with the question is that the avtual definition of woke is benign, so if one is just using it as an insult giving the definition makes one look like an ass.

Barbara म्हणाले...

It’s easy to define “woke”: white people bad.

hombre म्हणाले...

Potter Stewart got it right when he said of a different kind of obscenity: "I know it when I see it." Otherwise you become submerged in lefty flux.

Rick67 म्हणाले...

I half agree with Tim and Scotty. It's an example of motte and bailey *rhetoric* rather than argument. I came across an article which argues it simply means "people who are sensitive to injustice and oppression" or something equally innocuous. I work in the Children's Room at our library and have seen a series of "Woke Reads" books which appear to reflect a distinct point of view. People who oppose "woke" absolutely need to be able to articulate a short, simple, consistent definition. Just as people need to be able to provide a short, simple, consistent definition of Critical Race Theory.

Now watch me fail to take my own advice. "Woke" is rooted in critical theory which is rooted in (neo-)Marxism. It means someone has critical consciousness, hence "woke", and recognizes the intersecting forms of oppression that are systemic (they are always present and baked into society). I don't think everyone who is "woke" is consciously aware of all this, is knowingly a Marxist, actively promotes the communist project (a phrase used by Sophie Lewis). Just as people who drink diet soda are not necessarily consciously and deliberately consuming all the various chemicals, nevertheless that's what they're doing, and those chemicals have an effect whether or not the person is aware. Sometimes (perhaps often) "woke" is a set of symptoms, patterns of thought/speech/action, rooted in critical theory.

walk don't run म्हणाले...

I think we have reached peak wokeness as two banks who embraced woke go under and the enemies of woke use the term as an insult! Mess with my money and you can be sure I dont want to have anything to do with your woke nonsense. Its the beginning of the end of woke and it cant end too soon!

Big Mike म्हणाले...

So Althouse is saying that exposure to daylight caused the cockroaches to scurry away the word, but maybe the roaches ought to embrace the daylight.

Nah, Professor, cockroaches don’t do well in the daylight — they get squished.

Enigma म्हणाले...

She stumbles and tries to avoid a "15 second soundbite," but seems to be slowly getting to her point.

Woke is not hard to define. It's a term used to set the boundaries of an in-group. It follows a very long history of changing language to set a new group apart from others. Examples include "politically correct," "people of color," "Christian" versus "heathen", "illegal alien" versus "undocumented resident" and many more.

When used internally by those who created 'woke,' it means those in alignment with a shared contemporary left agenda (i.e., green, abortion, equal outcomes, emphasis on central governments, preferences for rules and mandates). It especially means the process of gaining awareness to their own special "truth" -- several decades ago this was known on the left as "consciousness raising." It involved sit-ins, teach-ins, bed-ins, and other ways to show in-group lefty support. Before that it often involved baptisms and "getting saved" into some Christian group either left or right wing.

All in-group terms become sarcastic epithets when used by outsiders / political opponents. "Politically correct" suffered this fate in just a few years, as any deviation in ambiguous situations cause problems, and as it revealed failure if the users of "PC" ever changed their positions.

To a neutral outsider, "woke" means the awareness, adoption, and practice of contemporary left-wing agenda items. It has also taken on a naïve, absolutist, autocratic sense of morality with little or no tolerance for sincere differences of opinion and hypocritical standards that favor insiders and punish outsiders or those targeted on a hierarchy. To outsiders, this tone reveals blind loyalty to an agenda (e.g., environment, abortion) and little perspective on the functional realities of everyday needs and laws. As such, "woke" is a new dogma or new religion and little different than 100,000 traditional and nominally conservative religions. It's just a fresh name for the routine human 'self-enlightenment in my lifetime' process, and this is always a function of fads, fashions, and eras.

This 'conservative' speaker may have been going there or not.

JAORE म्हणाले...

"...give it a good, clear meaning and stand by it..."

Well, there's a first time for everything, I guess.

J Melcher म्हणाले...

I'm so old I remember when those who proclaimed themselves virtuously "woke" used to call themselves virtuously "brite". Paul Geisert, a biology teacher from Chicago after attending the "Godless Americans March" in Washington DC, promoted the word as a more positive euphemism to replace the word "godless". Giesert (quite rationally) worried that calling himself and fellow-travellers "godless" would gather more enemies than followers. He restricted his term "Brite" as a positive word for those who do not believe in supernatural powers.

"Brite" still tended to arrogate intelligence to the left leaning comrades and ignorance to the general run of moderate and right-leaning voters and really never caught on.

I like the term used by some US-based psychologists. An acronym for "Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democrats" -- the WEIRD.

YoungHegelian म्हणाले...

It's easy to define "Woke".

"Woke" is the common parlance term to refer to someone who adheres to one or more of the ideologies that constitute post-Marxist Leftism.

Notice that "classical" Marxists are rarely if ever referred to as "woke" because they have little sympathy with many of the causes of the "Woke" Left. For example, the World Socialist Website ran a series of interviews from various noted historians debunking the 1619 Project's historical assertions.

Bart Hall (Kansas, USA) म्हणाले...

On the contrary, I believe "woke" is easy to define.

It is an attempt at cultural domination exploiting the most extremely deviant of society, specifically their numerous triggers, psychoses, and grievances, to impose intentionally destructive and artificial standards of speech, behaviour, and beliefs upon society as a whole, thereby establishing themselves in a position of unassailable power and control.

gilbar म्हणाले...

"she" seemed to nail it down pretty good in 15 seconds. Creating Hierarchies of Oppression

Rob C म्हणाले...

Woke means you can't define woman.

n.n म्हणाले...

woke... false consciousness paradigm

Yes, a deceptive mental state that is internally, externally, and mutually inconsistent.

Michael K म्हणाले...

In business, it could be defined as ignoring your job while playing house with people who hate you.

Fred Drinkwater म्हणाले...

Althouse is over the target with that explanation. Now, mixing the metaphor a bit, time to fire for effect.

Fred Drinkwater म्हणाले...

Anywho, these days asking for, or giving, definitions is a mug's game. Just look at the quagmire that "racism" has turned into.

Lurker21 म्हणाले...

In a politically polarized environment, don't the "halo words" of one side inevitably become pejoratives to the other side? If that looks like a theft, it may be because the word or the thing it represents wasn't defended or defensible. You can blame conservatives for making "liberal" a pejorative term, but surely liberals bear some responsibility for their own failures. Perhaps the current popularity of "progressive" in place of "liberal" is an admission that.

If a word becomes an insult maybe it's because the thing it represents is worthy of insult. "Politically correct" became an "insult" because it resulted in behavior that ought to be criticized, so the PC people moved on to "woke." Now that the word has lost its innocence and become identified with questionable results the woke people are probably moving on to a new word.

gahrie म्हणाले...

But maybe the people who started it ought to reclaim it and give it a good, clear meaning and stand by it instead of letting their antagonists steal it and use it as an insult.

They can't. They're unable to enter into civil discourse about their ideas because they are unable to defend them. They're mostly irrational. They're usually incompetent in debate. That's the whole point of silencing speech, it's easier than responding to it.

Also, "woke" is now like "retard" forever consigned to be an insult. They need to adopt a new term to refer to themselves, like the 20th century Progressives did when they started calling themselves Liberals. The problem is... human behavior. People forget that "retard" was adopted as a scientific term to replace the terms "moron" and "imbecile" to describe certain people because those terms had become insults. Whatever term is now adopted to replace "retard" (looks like "special needs" is winning out, the kids already call each other special ed as an insult.) Will eventually become an insult. Whatever term is chosen to replace "woke" will eventually be seen as an insult.

gahrie म्हणाले...

My go-to definition of "woke" is "Four legs good! Two legs baa-aa-aad!"

Actually, it is "Four legs good! Two legs better!".

Milo Minderbinder म्हणाले...

Define "woke"? Simple. Insanely naive and wholly manipulable.

Mr. D म्हणाले...

It means “I win, you lose.”

Ann Althouse म्हणाले...

A person claiming to be woke is inherently insulting others, who must be asleep.

So to appropriate woke for use as an insult is tit for tat.

Michael म्हणाले...

Originally, "woke" meant being conscious of ("awakened to") the extent to which oppression and victimization were responsible for many of today's problems. Like a lot of things, all well and good up to a point. But when this perspective becomes the only heuristic through which people view history and society, not good at all.

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves म्हणाले...

Bagoh - yes - post enlightenment.

Woke was defined as "hey - we are virtuous & above it all. Enlightened... and you're not."

What it really means is: Antifa Nazi concrete milkshake, Media inspired rioting, and sexed-up story time for little kids at the local library ... AND shut up.

gahrie म्हणाले...

My reply would be:

"Woke was originally used by the Left to mean that one has woken up to the truths of our world. The Right would say that they took the red pill."

What is interesting is that "woke" has been turned into an insult, but "red-pilled" hasn't.

alanc709 म्हणाले...

Woke is a synonym for fascist.

Roger Sweeny म्हणाले...

@ West TX Intermediate Crude - Love the story, and the definition.

Sebastian म्हणाले...

"to appropriate woke for use as an insult"

It's used as an insult, but is it received as one? My sense is progs just regard righty use of the term as silly posturing and vacuous red meat.

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves म्हणाले...

10:27
Bart Hall..Bravo - nailed it.

Lloyd W. Robertson म्हणाले...

I believe a woke person claims to have become aware that what are apparently rules of politeness, fair play, academic achievement, work performance and law-abidingness are rigged in favor of the powerful and privileged. When it comes to race, sexual orientation and gender, this apparently means heteronormal white cismales. Rich vs. Poor apparently doesn't matter nearly as much. The woke are actually quite willing to screw the poor--and the environment, for that matter. Marcuse taught his students that there is no proletariat in the classic sense. To wipe those smug expressions off the faces of the winners, you need a coalition of the losers--a combination of the pissed off, whether victims or not, and the victims who may need to be persuaded to be pissed off.

iowan2 म्हणाले...

woke replaces PC

Stuff you say to aviod being cancelled.

This is nothing but the word games leftist play to avoid have debates.

n.n म्हणाले...

"tit for tat"

empathy... tick tock. This is grade school stuff that usually ends with one party saying: I know you are, but what am I. I'm rubber, you're glue. etc. So, what's at stake? Marbles?

Mike (MJB Wolf) म्हणाले...

It can truly only be answered with another question: Do you mean today's definition or a prior one?

Readering म्हणाले...

I've never embraced woke, but never felt insulted by others doing so. And when folks here accuse me of being woke I shrug it off like the rest of it. I use it myself in conversation as a synonym for progressive, which itself is now used as an insult, but not by me. Still define myself as liberal, another insult here. Woke seems like a contrast to MAGA. I seem to recall someone in Congress responding to being called MAGA with, Ultra MAGA, please.

Lucien म्हणाले...

The response could be: “I’m exhausted from trying to educate people on this subject, so you should do the reading and the Work yourself, because I refuse to perform emotional labor for you. In fact, just your asking that question makes me feel unsafe.”

Jupiter म्हणाले...

"But maybe the people who started it ought to reclaim it and give it a good, clear meaning and stand by it instead of letting their antagonists steal it and use it as an insult."

The whole idea of "woke" is that it claims to define a state, but that state is the endpoint of a process. Which means that the signaled virtue is attached to the process, not the state. "Woke" today is "hopelessly somnolent" tomorrow. But that is a feature, not a bug. Having a clear meaning would interfere with the daily ritual of moving the goalposts. Just think, Althouse, if you were still stuck with a definition of "feminism" that you had concocted in, oh, 2000. Ick! That was before we discovered that the best women are the ones with penises! How hopelessly bigoted you would be! A Vagina Supremacist!

Steve म्हणाले...

Woke used to be used by black folks to show that they understood and identified with the struggle. Then white folks started using the term and sent it into self parody.

It is hard to recover from self parody. I don't know a black person that continues to use the term woke because they are embarrassed by how self aggrandizing white people took all meaning out.

And I am playing pickleball tomorrow with my black friend, so you know I have my finger on the pulse of the African American community.

Jamie म्हणाले...

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary online: "Woke" means "aware of and actively attentive to important societal facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice").

Very simple.


The assumptions in that definition include "actively," "important," "societal," "facts," and "racial and social justice."

Further, this definition doesn't indicate a point of view. I mean, I'm definitely aware of these supposed "facts" (though I don't believe they're facts) and issues, and in my own opinion I'm actively attentive to them too - by commenting here and acting in my real life to stand against the idea that they're "facts" and require the kind of action that we all understand woke activists demand.

Still so simple?

Randomizer म्हणाले...

She should have seen that coming. Her definition holds up, but she was too tentative in her delivery.

Joe Smith म्हणाले...

Auto-plays for me...annoying but probably can't be fixed : (

Elliott A. म्हणाले...

Woke=evil

Darkisland म्हणाले...

Blogger tim maguire said...

It's the big new trick of the left--demand a definition of words that have no clear definition.

Not just the left, Tim. I like to ask people to give me a definition of "hispanic" as the word is commonly used. Does it include 5 generation Italians who still speak Italian in Argentina? Germans? Are Filipinos hispanic?

Or even more amusing "latino" Does it include Romanians? French?

Other words the left used to like were fascism (in the 20s) National Socialism, Political correctness

John Henry

dbp म्हणाले...

Liberal, progressive, PC, social justice and woke all started out as positive words these people applied to themselves. Thanks to their policies and how disastrously everything they run, works, the terms have all been on the euphemism treadmill.

Maybe they should look at, why the things they like to call themselves always trend toward slurs? Conservatives don't control the media, but reality still controls the language.

Butkus51 म्हणाले...

oh hell no, we need to define women before we just move on to woke

Butkus51 म्हणाले...

oh hell no, we need to define women before we just move on to woke

Butkus51 म्हणाले...

oh hell no, we need to define women before we just move on to woke

bagoh20 म्हणाले...

"Woke" is rabid progressivism. It means constantly moving the goal posts, with that itself as the main tactic for acquiring power. Knowing where the goal posts are makes you superior, even if you just made it up. It's something that goes back over a century now: being aware of the latest, being "in the know", "cool", "hip", and now "woke", but woke now includes an angry righteous flavor, rather than the former less judgmental forms. It's no longer sufficient to just be modern, you have to openly despise and attack those not aware of todays new password.

Patrick Henry was right! म्हणाले...

Woke is the rejection of the values of the Enlightenment and the return of tribalism, plus the rejection of reasoning and accountability. See, A Man for All Seasons, as their goal.

West TX Intermediate Crude म्हणाले...

According to the post cited below, Wellesley College identifies as a "Women's College."
It admits biological men who identify as women, but does not admit biological women who identify as men.
If that makes sense to you, you are woke.

https://pjmedia.com/culture/matt-margolis/2023/03/15/its-the-end-of-womens-colleges-as-we-know-it-and-you-know-why-n1678424

Hey Skipper म्हणाले...

@Robert Cook: According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary online: "Woke" means "aware of and actively attentive to important societal facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice").

Very simple.


And very incomplete. Wokeness is also a thoroughgoing, question begging, Kafka Trap.

Except for those who insist on and persist in contorting themselves into Indian rubber men to deny racial discrimination (or discrimination based on other characteristics) remains prevalent, or that "men" and "whites" are the predominant victims of discrimination today.

Please identify who the those about whom you speak. And, while you are at it, provide examples of institutional discrimination directed at women and BIPOC.

I'm betting you can do neither.

A person claiming to be woke is inherently insulting others, who must be asleep.

Anthony म्हणाले...

"Politically correct Marxist fascism"?

Rollo म्हणाले...

She may not have wanted to say the M-word (Marxist).

The best answer may be that "woke" means "politically correct," but the she'd be asked what "politically correct" means.

MadisonMan म्हणाले...

Althouse, I like your definition of woke -- especially the use of the word 'preening'

traditionalguy म्हणाले...

Spot on answer, Professor. Did you read my mind?

bobby म्हणाले...

I get a kick out of the people claiming it's a cute substitute for the N word. When I picture "woke", it's a 20-something white woman with pink hair and an "I stand with trannies" button.

NorthOfTheOneOhOne म्हणाले...

But maybe the people who started it ought to reclaim it and give it a good, clear meaning and stand by it instead of letting their antagonists steal it and use it as an insult.

But wouldn't that make for a target rich environment? Why not keep it ambiguous so you can constantly shift and make it hard for your opponents to target you? That way you can keep the grift running as long as possible.

I suspect Saul Alinsky would agree.

James K म्हणाले...

"Woke" is pretty similar to what used to be called "politically correct." That also started off as a positive self-description, and then also became a term of ridicule. I think of "woke" as a subset, specifically about championing the causes of self-proclaimed victims of discrimination, and thereby fostering division along group lines and denigrating individual responsibility. Mandel's definition wasn't too bad, though, just delivered awkwardly.

JaimeRoberto म्हणाले...

I think of it as an amalgam of stated beliefs including but not limited to diversity uber alles, Western culture and America especially bad, and white man evil.

Inga म्हणाले...

“It's used as an insult, but is it received as one? My sense is progs just regard righty use of the term as silly posturing and vacuous red meat.”

Exactly.

Inga म्हणाले...
ही टिप्पणी लेखकाना हलविली आहे.
Inga म्हणाले...

“I've never embraced woke, but never felt insulted by others doing so. And when folks here accuse me of being woke I shrug it off like the rest of it. I use it myself in conversation as a synonym for progressive, which itself is now used as an insult, but not by me. Still define myself as liberal, another insult here. Woke seems like a contrast to MAGA. I seem to recall someone in Congress responding to being called MAGA with, Ultra MAGA, please.”

Well said Readering! Every time I hear some rightist use “woke” as an insult or the boogeyman, I find myself regarding that person as somewhat pathetic. I never even said “woke” in a sentence until a couple of days ago.

wendybar म्हणाले...

And yet they voted for delusional Joe, who rambles on quite incoherently all the time....

wendybar म्हणाले...

Define white supremacy, when people like Larry Elders or any other black conservative is getting called that by the same WOKE idiots.

Birches म्हणाले...

She tweeted her on viral flub. Good for her. She also mentions that her interviewer disparaged people who have a lot of kids on the hot mic before the interview started. Bethany just had her sixth child.

https://mobile.twitter.com/bethanyshondark/status/1636023822158635010

n.n म्हणाले...

Define white supremacy

Ravid diversity (i.e. color judgment, class-based bigotry).

n.n म्हणाले...

Define white supremacy

Rabid diversity (i.e. color judgment, class-based bigotry). For example, Mandela's Xhosa vs Zulu competitors and native collateral damage under a Progressive Constitution with redistributive "benefits".

GRW3 म्हणाले...

If the Woke can't define a woman, why should the unwoke have to define woke.

Chuck म्हणाले...

This is Althouse at her cleverest!

It's a rhetorically beautiful defense, of the offensive turnaround of "woke." I cannot imagine any thoughtful person in the far right wing advancing this rationalization of their use of "woke" any better than what Althouse has done for them. (Not for a minute do I think Althouse is part of the "far right"; she's speaking in the hypothetical voice of the far right in this post.)

But Althouse's formulation has its limits, right? I mean, it is one thing to de-fang "woke" from any further use by the left. It's another thing when a really ignorant cracker like Rep. Jamie Comer claims that Silicon Valley Bank had to close because it had been too "woke." All the cleverness has by then departed. Or when other House Republicans aimed to balance the federal budget by eliminating all of the "wokeness" in the defense budget. Or when Ron DeSantis prepares an entire presidential campaign around a 'War Against Woke.'

For all of those folks, this lovely little blog post by Althouse does them no favors. Althouse has just explained what the far right should say about "woke," better than any of them ever could, and yet that is pretty much the end of it. After we get to the point of, "It means those people who used to say it are ridiculous...", what's left? At this point, it's Jamie Comer, and MTG, and Ron DeSantis, and Sean Hannity who have all gone into deep ridiculousness as they wear "woke" down to nothingness.

I also want to add this; there is a very nasty racial element to the far right's cartoonizing "woke." The currently-popular usage of the word "woke" is freighted with racial meaning. Anyone who would like to declaim, that of course they aren't being racist when they ridicule and reverse the usage of "woke" is perfectly welcome to do so. Be my guest. But usually, when you are trying hard to explain how you aren't racist in a long essay, in answer to a long essay articulating how racist it really is, you aren't exactly succeeding in retail politics.

Chuck म्हणाले...

Lake Superior State University is known nationally for two things: ice hockey, and the University's annual BANISHED WORDS LIST.

It's been a brilliant promotional item since the mid-1970's. They compile the list all year long, and at the end of December, when the news has slowed down and Washington DC and Wall Street and everybody else is shutting down for the holidays and LSSU basically has the news cycle to itself, it releases its list, and everybody talks about it on cable tv and talk radio and at holiday cocktail parties.

This year, I am making it my personal mission to make "Woke" the Banished Word of the Year. I'd like to think that LSSU's 2024 list will come at the precise time that GOP presidential candidacies are heating up, and the country will be at peak "Woke" sickness. A kick in the balls to Ron DeSantis? A guy can hope. I expect to win the Banished Word nominations.

Robert Cook म्हणाले...

"Further, this definition doesn't indicate a point of view. I mean, I'm definitely aware of these supposed "facts" (though I don't believe they're facts) and issues, and in my own opinion I'm actively attentive to them too - by commenting here and acting in my real life to stand against the idea that they're 'facts' and require the kind of action that we all understand woke activists demand.

"Still so simple?"


Yes, still simple. You're just one of those Indian rubber men I mentioned.

Readering म्हणाले...

Birches, thanks for the link to Mandel twitter. I was in her corner when she flubbed on camera. Human. Her considered, written definition puts her with the asses. Sad.

TeaBagHag म्हणाले...

This feels like A.A wants to throw a bone to her bread and butter, mouth-breathing, reactionary commentators. The logic is f*cked. Shouldn’t an auto be able to define a word that is in the title of their book?

Hey Skipper म्हणाले...

@Chuck: I also want to add this; there is a very nasty racial element to the far right's cartoonizing "woke." The currently-popular usage of the word "woke" is freighted with racial meaning. Anyone who would like to declaim, that of course they aren't being racist when they ridicule and reverse the usage of "woke" is perfectly welcome to do so. Be my guest.

You clearly did not read your own cite.

Let me help. Scroll down to the section entitled "Racial Reckoning and Racial Backlash". It's a fair ways down, so superficial readers prone to confirmation bias undoubtedly stopped well short.

And well-meaning progressives who took on the “woke” label with gusto perhaps weren’t fully embodying its true meaning in their casual embrace of the word.

“It’s a very surface-level descriptor of trying to claim that you’re progressive,” says Watson. “It’s much more complex than just saying, ‘I’m a liberal.’ If you’re not trying to envision and make a better world for people, you’re not as woke as you think you are.”


I ridicule and reverse the usage of woke.

And that makes me a racist how?

Hey Skipper म्हणाले...

@Robert Cook: "Still so simple?"

Yes, still simple. You're just one of those Indian rubber men I mentioned.


That's a pretty serious charge. The kind that needs substantiation.

Robert Cook म्हणाले...

I'm amused & bemused that no one has spotted that I was flagrantly un-Woke in my comments about the meaning of "Woke." Twice! I guess that means everyone here really is un-Woke enough not to have noticed my transgression.

Just my little personal joke.

Rocco म्हणाले...

Robert Cook said...
"[Jamie] is just one of those Indian rubber men I mentioned."

A rubber [wo]man? Sooo, whatever you say bounces off her and sticks to you?

Tom म्हणाले...

Woke is the practice of utilizing propaganda to prey on our natural preferences for equality and human decency and weaponize those concepts to create class divisions and conflict. It cries about the lack of progress and then is critical of the very people who are working hard to make progress.

Mike (MJB Wolf) म्हणाले...

Leave it to the lefty kooks to finally deal their favorite card and claim that conservatives laughing at mostly pasty white lefties who claim to be woke is deeply suffused with racism. The first thing baby conservatives learn is that whatever a lefty accuses you of doing is what that same lefty is undoubtedly doing. Me thinks you cry racism way too easily. Probably because you’re a fucking racist. Which is another good reason to laugh at lefties.

Bob म्हणाले...

The late Rush Limbaugh was so successful at turning "liberal" into an epithet that liberals began calling themselves "progressives" again. Leftists were less successful at turning "conservative" into an epithet until the idiotic George W. Bush came along, who unilaterally surrendered to them by referring to himself as a "compassionate conservative."

Brian McKim and/or Traci Skene म्हणाले...

Too late.

Th original owners of "woke" _are_ ridiculous. By the time it becomes an insult it's far too late.

It's an insult for a reason.

Chuck म्हणाले...

Hey Skipper said...
...
...

And that makes me a racist how?


I'll let you work it out. Have fun.

Robert Cook म्हणाले...

"A rubber [wo]man? Sooo, whatever you say bounces off her and sticks to you?"

You've never heard the term India rubberman? It's probably archaic today. I remember hearing it fairly commonly when I was a kid, probably in old movies or cartoons on tv. It has a couple of meanings. India is (or was?) known as a source of rubber, and it also refers to Indian yogis, in particular by B.K.S. Iyengar, who helped popularize yoga to the world. A yogi would have been referred to as "an India rubberman." Hence, the meaning in my use of the term. An alternative to saying "tie themselves into pretzels."

typingtalker म्हणाले...

This is creepy -- I opened a new Edge Browser tab and typed "what does" and before I could type another letter the browser completed it with "woke stand for".

Creepy but useful.