Great article in the Guardian about wokeism

Agreed. I think we need a new term for what modern day "wokeness" has become, because I don't really recognise the hardline progressive activists of today to be in line with that really. "Woke" was really more about consciousness raising. And modern day progressive activism is born of good intentions, it's just gone way too far in a rather Maoist sort of direction, book banning, public shaming and purity of thought type thinking.

I work in an industry where it's quite rife, and I have worked in places where it's been allowed to become very toxic. Bullying nd even disciplinary action towards people who didn't want to disclose their pronouns. I used to manage a team of therapists, and I remember someone sat in my office crying and yelling because they didn't want to work with a client who admitted to voting for a political party they didn't like (but very much a mainstream one, we're not talking extreme fringe here), and I insisted they needed to work through their issues with it in supervision, because it's not acceptable for a therapist to dictate to their employer they will only work with people whose personal or political beliefs they align with.

I'm politically left of centre, but see this as a very childish ideology based on almost fairytale like concepts of good/bad, heroes and villains, putting people in boxes. It doesn't reflect the reality of the world. And it's not just young people getting into it either, I've met plenty of middle aged activist types who are equally unpleasant.

I guess it's all about how you define 'woke' and there are so many variations we always get caught up in this sort of argument.

The things you list are good, of course, but a significant section the modern left has tied all that up with a bunch of other stuff that really isn't so good: the with us or against us narrative, the judgment, the individualism, the seeing as black and white when it's more complicated, labelling people as bad and pursuing them, some stuff around looking for offence. I consider myself soft left, but too often look at people who should be on my side and can't identify.

Strange how the Tories lost so many councils since they were so efficiently run.

That might be what it originally meant, but it's not what it means now.

Labour are losing traction in Wales too, where they are the party in power. Reform (and Plaid) are doing well in the polls.

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But then came April’s supreme court ruling that “woman” for the purposes of equality law meant “biological woman”, rolling back trans people’s access to sex-segregated spaces.

Rolling back the access they didn’t really have, surely?
And they do have access to sex-segregated spaces, just not the ones they want.

I think labour local councils are known for not managing at all well, they spend a lot and provide poor services for the residents.

I see, they weren't in power but still held considerable power such as asking questions and raising topics. I see what you mean.

They have been in control locally, but on a national level they can still advocate on issues, challenge policy, asking questions, raise topics for debate, submit amendments to bills, set out priorities in manifestos….

Labour haven't been in power for the majority of the last 30 years. How were they meant to deliver?

I think there is a growing fear of The Reform Party gaining traction and a massive amount of backing down is starting to happen to try to save face and regain trust from those that have created a space for Farage to seem like the solution.

It's a good article and clearly discusses the poor tactics being employed rather than the meat of the causes themselves.

People in general seem to be broadly supportive of tackling climate change although they may disagree on the methods.

People are generally liberal on cultural issues when they are not being personally encroached on although they may be less happy about perceived or actual loss of rights such as housing effects of migration or loss of single sex provision.

People really dislike being lectured and hectored. Activists can't expect people with varying levels of education to understand ever changing social justice academic jargon.

All seems very obvious but clearly it isn't otherwise the TRAs wouldn't be losing as badly as they are.

I think it’s just the same as many social groups or movements, where there are degrees of extremity to a belief system / values and in the resulting personal and social choices. Taking religion as an example, loads of people have a Christian faith, try to live by the values of that faith I.e love your neighbour, etc etc. and promote those values, turning away from ideas and groups that are opposed to those values. People believe and live by a faith to different degrees, and some are so vehement in their beliefs that anyone who doesn’t fall in line well enough (even if they’re a Christian but are okay with something that causes debate in the church like same sex relationships, for example) become a threat or something to correct.

I don’t think wokeism is that different. I think it’s complicated, because people take it to different places and there’s so much variety in how people use it but at it’s core, most people who align with trying to be woke are just doing their best to understand and be mindful of everyone’s experiences. It becomes difficult when someone perceives someone else as not being respectful / inclusionary / kind enough according to their view of what that should be, and polarisation and heated debate follows.

What popularly gets called "wokism" is typically a very racist and discriminatory ideology in itself - as evidenced by other posts in this thread already.

What's interesting about the article to me is that clearly a large group, a majority really, don't agree with many of the ideas it seems to push. And the people like spoonbill who are adherents seem to really believe everyone that doesn't is just completely awful.

Is "woke" just the modern day term for "PC gone mad"? If it's different then what's the difference between the two terms?

I dunno you tell me. It’s no better than the daily mail these days - it’s just a different rhetoric. I remember when it was a liberal paper, sad times now.

The very language that poster uses, tells me that I'm glad I'm not an advocate of wokeism.

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Are you saying that when a convicted violent criminal tells huge crowds that they should be punching gender critical women, that’s just disagreement?

also responding to @spoonbillstretford 's post but not sure if it's possible to 'quote' two posts:
"Woke just means not causing deliberate offence or unfairly discriminating against or being prejudiced about group of people. It's not authoritarian or progressive but just about being a basic decent human being."

The word 'woke' was first used by African-Americans, and the original meaning was closer to 'conscious' (as in conscious of how race and other oppressions affect us all, how colonialism and capitalism have functioned against most people etc), rather than simply not being prejudiced.

I think you're all getting confused with 'politically correct' (another phrase whose meaning was deliberately reframed and mischaracterised by racist/ sexist/ homophobic right-wing people) when you define it as adapting the language we use so as not to cause offence.

'Woke' in its original sense might well have included causing offence (to those who disagreed with that world view, who were opposed to things like defunding the police, opposed to groups like antifa etc) and I don't think that was necessarily a bad thing.

I thought the article was v thoughtful and worth reading.

Which newspaper is good on anything "vaguely political"?

Look forward to hearing which ones you think have neutral and balanced views.

The Guardian is terrible these days on anything vaguely political. ‘How you should put more effort into persuading people you are right about all things even though that is so unfair as they should know you are right about all the things already as you self identify as ‘progressive’.

Racist and ageist. Nice.