Great article in the Guardian about wokeism

I bet you're ecstatic at the circus finally coming to town.

Not really, I'm saddened that we're going to potentially lose all the gains made over decades because a group of people just pushed and pushed at things that most people just don't want.
But honestly, the howls of outrage from rude, sneering professional scolds will be a silver lining at least. Don't say people didn't warn you.

Or you could just keep calling everyone stupid and insulting them and see how that goes.

Just when I'd all but given up on the guardian, finally someone dares to print what so many of us have thought For years. I was as left as they come until the liberal elite came along and hijacked the space (and the party). I can't be defined as a leftie anymore apparently, because I don't believe in unfettered mass immigration and I unfashionably, champion the cause of poor, working class communities who've been left to carry the can as they've seen their home towns rot from within. We didn't leave the left, the left left us.

Fair enough.

No, I wasn't aiming my post at you, in particular.

I took it personally because you responded to a pp who wrote "exhibit A" referencing my post. Therefore I understood your post as a common on mine. If it wasn't then fair enough.

Why are you taking my post personally? I've seen countless threads insulting the Tories and Reform and their voters, yet heaven forbid somebody does the same. Its all just politics at the end of the day.

The term "woke" is meaningless. I don't even understand the grammar of it. It looks like a verb to me, but people use it as an adjective.

I initially saw it being used in a lighthearted way to make people aware of certain issues in the work. At least that is how I understood it.

But now I see it only used to insult people and to shut down discussion. But I guess the term "TERF" has a similar purpose.

Ultimately, it's women ending up stuck between a rock and a hard place, whether or not they support either of this nonsense.

Angry? Because I expressed my opinion too directly? I wasn't angry, just honest.

Patronising and sneery? Childish? Did you read the OP?

"I hope some of the keyboard warriors/bullies roaming this board and the blue-haired, nose-pierced authoritarians will have a read, and at last, a think on how they do more harm than good".

Yet I am the one who is patronising, sneery and childish?

And yet all I did was point out that OP's sentiments are a) unpalatable, b) hardly original.

It's not me that a. Doesn't understand the article and b. Making unfounded accusations that people didn't believe victims of sexual assault. No apology, obviously.

The irony of the left getting worked up about insults, when they are the worst culprits.

That's a complaint about people seeking a right to advance positions in ways that Lostcat disagrees with. It's a right I support and that you are opposing.

Absolutely not. This is a total failure to engage with the substance of what I wrote. You are absolutely free to hold and express your opinions, of course, including those I disagree with. As I am free to do the same.

The point I was making was that people wish to hold entirely hypocritical positions, without having their hypocrisy exposed, or called out for exactly what it is.
People want the right to express transphobic attitudes. Yet when I call those attitudes transphobic, they call me "intolerant" and insist I am encroaching their "rights to free speech". Which, in fact, is quite simply further hypocrisy.

You then describe as "entitled" the idea that if others want them to change their mind they should seek to persuade them.
You instead think it's "their own responsibility" to desist from these positions you disagree with.

Of course it is "entitled" to make it my problem that you think the things that you do (I use "you" here in a general not a personal sense).

Your opinions are your own responsibility - not mine, which is quite the opposite of an authoritarian perspective.

You, on the other hand, demand that if I am to disagree with you, I must only express my disagreement in a way that you find palatable. Otherwise you mock me for failing to being persuasive to you. And this is not to be called an entitled form of engagement? Or arrogant or self-centred perhaps?

That is not a liberal outlook. A liberal is someone who sees value in a pluralistic society where issues are settled in debate, and prizes the right to hold and advance a wide range of views. Including (or especially) views the person disagrees with.

Well firstly, I think there's a difference between liberalism (especially in the neo sense) and anti-authoritarianism. But in any case,

• in terms of seeing value in a pluralistic society, absolutely I do. Which is why, for example, I'm neither transphobic, nor anti-immigration, and speak out against these views where I see them expressed.
• And in terms of debate - I support free speech - and enjoy engaging in debate. That means when someone says something hypocritical and offensive - I will express my opinions of their opinions - without calling that person names like "woke warrior" or accusing them of having blue hair or nose piercings.

Ok I’m jumping in on p6 HNRTFT but judgemental language aside, I feel the article is pointing out some things which are true, and which directly lead to hostility towards the campaigner. Overreach and dismissing legitimate concerns as bigoted, as in the case of TRAs, is one. The Just Stop Oil protests involving soup on paintings, or blocking roads are another. People need the persuasion, the space to ask questions, and they need to see the connection or the evidence.

It’s also true that there is much greater ideological purity now: I’ve got dear friends who publicly stated they would prefer to see the Tories continue in government last summer than see Labour in power under Keir Starmer. I don’t understand that mindset at all. As there is a spectrum of political opinions in the UK it’s really important to be able to compromise and take the wins- like Stonewall taking the win when they reduced the age of consent for gay men to 18 (from 21). It wasn’t equality but it was better than 21, and it opened the door to equality. Surely Keir Starmer is better than a Conservative PM even if he isn’t Jeremy Corbyn?

You really aren't understanding it are you? Pointless.

I agree wholeheartedly. It’s so pathetic and small minded. I until recently was guilty of both ‘offences’ in question and I’m a responsible clinical professional. Stupid stereotypes, which reflects badly on OP.

I'm not interested in your desperate spin. She didn't say that women were assaulted because of phones. She didn't blame the women in any way or make excuses for the perpetrators.

Read between the lines when she is quibbling about some victims not having had the valuables stolen, therefore arguing against those assaults being purely sexually motivated. Is this the same Hinsliff, who has written this latest balanced article, that has got lefties spinning?

Exactly. I've got purple hair and a nose piercing. I'm not interested in engaging with people who use the sort of language and tone adopted by the OP. It's perfectly possible to have a debate without using a term like "wokeism" and without stereotyping and insulting people.

This article is interesting and I broadly agree with the premise. Ultimately the absolutism of the woke left has alienated the majority of the population. As we live in a democracy then this is a big problem for them.

I feel like social media has played a huge role in all of this. So many people essentially live in an echo chamber where they are served up content that matches their ideological views. They begin to believe that almost everyone thinks like them apart from some evil people that are morally to reprehensible. They have no idea that the masses actually don't agree with them and often for good reason. The world isn't black and white but all kinds of shades of grey. The population at large knows this but I think the woke left really struggle to comprehend this.

I bet you're ecstatic at the circus finally coming to town.

I know the author, having read the Guardian for years. She wouldn't say something so bloody ridiculous.

I find the insults amusing, they really do make their own point. But what's going to be even funnier is the next general election.

Does the author have to have said those exact words? Your first reaction was to have believed excuses weren't made for the perpetrators. Now why is that, if you reckon you like to be objective?

Yes, I said it was highly unlikely the author said that women were sexually assaulted for having mobile phones. I was correct, the author didn't say that.

How is that:

believing a poster was lying about the treatment of the women in Cologne.

Was this you @miloMinderbinder925 or not? You made an assumption before you had even read the piece.

Yup. Always the same signs: get angry, be patronising and sneery, throw the lazy labels out, be childish. Got the whole lot on this thread. It's as though Gaby Hinsliff had these posters all in mind.