What is the woke agenda?

[Taswama]

So, my lovely mum has heard this term on the news and ask me if I can explain what it means or send her some links that do.
My first thought is that 'woke' is the modern day equivalent of 'political correctness' and specifically the trans agenda of denying biology and focusing on people's identity rather than biological reality. (I think it was the attack on Jenni Murray a few years ago that first got me interested).
But I wonder if there is a better way to explain this?
I have discussed transwomen in sports with her previously and was looking for a mainstream article on the judicial review on women's prison to send her, but couldn't find one.
We are basically a leftie family but it's the right wing press that is honest about this and using terms such as woke.

Please help, oh wise women of FWR!

I don't think that what is currently going on is very related to the old school debates on political correctness, because a lot of that was made up.

I think that this is one of the problems those of us on the left face getting people to believe that the mad gender stuff is really happening- everyone remembers "baa baa green sheep" and assumes that it's made up like that was. But this is real.

I feel the agenda is division. The focus is on how we are different and can never be united rather than trying to find common ground.

Also there is a requirement to be unhappy, struggling, a victim, weak.

Resilience has become resistance.

This is a little unfair in terms of using an extreme case to make a point but here's an example of how those who would think of themselves as woke explaining how the means can justify the ends:

www.newstatesman.com/politics/media/2018/09/compassionate-non-violent-course-action-goldsmiths-university-students-defend

This website simply summarises a lot of the issues especially from the gender critical point of view:
sex-matters.org

Oh yes nauticant I remember when that kicked off on Twitter

I think lots of "woke" people sincerely believe their own agenda is for a better world, but they lack the courage or thought ability to see through the incoherence and lies of the current mainstream woke agenda. They claim to be anti racist and talk about structural oppression, yet are blind to the structural oppression of women. They claim to want to fight the patriarchy, whilst upholding it by pretending sex work is work and that women are oppressed on the basis of their gender ID not their sex. They claim to be intersectional but don't use intersectionality as it was intended, to show that black women are discriminated against on the grounds of both race and sex. Instead the theory is used to create a false heirarchy of oppression whereby women who are not trans hold some power (so called "cis privilege") over male born transwomen.

I think there is a nefarious agenda behind of all the corporate support, and that is capitalist greed. On the surface, by woke-washing in order to appeal to young consumers without actually having to change much (eg no need to spend £ on closing the sex pay gap, we've got rainbow posters up! ). Underneath, by sowing division as PP said. Division is helpful to capitalism - the most easy to understand example being pink and blue: now you need to buy two versions of the same toy because pink is for girls and blue is for boys. Division also helpfully keeps the patriarchy alive and well by ensuring younger women don't learn from the experience of older women. The patriarchy is useful to capitalism because women need to keep spending in order to look acceptable. A clever aspect of the woke agenda is that now even gender non conforming younger women can be fantastic consumers too if they adopt a trans identity that will require surgeries and hormones.

A clever aspect of the woke agenda is that now even gender non conforming younger women can be fantastic consumers too if they adopt a trans identity that will require surgeries and hormones

Personally feel that transgenderism is fed by, and feeds into, consumer culture. Post modernism too. Not only at the level of the big pharmaceuticals and the medical health industry, but also at the level of people feeling that 'identities' can be made to measure and self selected, or else bought 'off the peg' from a range of ready to wear possibilities ( how many possible gender identities are there now?).

@Firstbellini

Woke refers to people who are interested in identity politics of race, gender and sexuality but don’t care about class or sex.

It is also generally opposed to freedom of speech and sides with employers over workers.

That's an interesting and surprising distinction @Taswama

[quote nauticant]This is a little unfair in terms of using an extreme case to make a point but here's an example of how those who would think of themselves as woke explaining how the means can justify the ends:

www.newstatesman.com/politics/media/2018/09/compassionate-non-violent-course-action-goldsmiths-university-students-defend[/quote]

Wow. That was an eyeopener. Makes a gulag sound like a holiday camp. Can't help but link it to Holocaust denial.

Weird. I actually typed @Firstbellini and when I posted it had switched to @Taswama, even though I typed it out in full.

It's astonishing isn't it WarOnWomen? Just about any other political grouping finding itself justifying using gulags for "re-education" of those committing Thoughtcrimes would catch itself, come to its senses, and think "this is wrong, we need to change our views here".

Extreme authoritarians do not think like the rest of us. They are dangerous.

I think when you look at the reason it's become popular as a pejorative, it's not that it wasn't a good term in the first place. If you look how it was used originally in the civil rights movement, it really describes a kind of psychological experience many people have had in one area or another, where suddenly some pattern is seen and it's like you see things through new eyes.

But the identity politics progressive orthodoxy people, who I think began to use it in that same way, are just so ridiculous in terms of their inability to see anything clearly, that it was almost inevitable they would be mocked using that term. Which maybe should be a warning, because they honestly think they are seeing some sort of great truth here that now informs all of their thinking, but then they come out with deeply racist crap like "be less white" or want people to undergo pseudo-scientific unconscious bias training.

But I'd really place the basis for what gets called wokeness in Critical Theory. The gender stuff really grows out of that in various ways, as well as a lot of their analysis of things like race. Unfortunatly a lot of feminist commentary has been based in CT as well and it's I suspect teh main reason all the women's studies departments turned into gender studies departments.

CT can really only make arguments or analyse reality in terms of power structures. Every time the main thrust of an argument is "x is more oppressed than y" or "No, actually, y is more oppressed than x" that is CT rearing it's ugly head. And I would argue intersectionalism is just the way CT tries to deal with the fact that people often fall into more than one of it's hierarchies. But the underlying premise about how power works is just wrong - that's why it's analysis fails. Intersectionalism doesn't really solve the problem.

As mentioned, CT is also very presecriptive about what people are supposed to believe and doesn't care much about free speech or even free thought. It sees freedom of human beings as its goal, but it doesn't mean freedom to think or believe. It means freedom from oppressive ideas and social structures. Securing that freedom can easily mean preventing people from saying or thinking bad thoughts.

That's really interesting too Smokedduck .
I'm really glad I started this thread.

"I think that this is one of the problems those of us on the left face getting people to believe that the mad gender stuff is really happening- everyone remembers "baa baa green sheep" and assumes that it's made up like that was. But this is real."

The lyrics are indeed sometimes changed...

You could still argue that many of the stories were fake I guess.

But I'd really place the basis for what gets called wokeness in Critical Theory. The gender stuff really grows out of that in various ways, as well as a lot of their analysis of things like race.

Have you read much Gramsci then? Or is your entire knowledge of critical theory what the alt-right have told you it is?

Critical Theory is a Marxist influenced philiosophy that sought to criticise and change society rather than just describe it and which recognised the power of ideology in maintaining capitalist societies. By criticising and exposing that ideology and the class (and other) conflicts that underpin it then revolutionary change becomes possible.

Well, that's the idea. Unfortunately it's pretty toxic, and I think has been causatively followed by a significant upsurge in actual essentialist racism. It's bad Marxism anyway.

I think there is a nefarious agenda behind of all the corporate support, and that is capitalist greed. On the surface, by woke-washing in order to appeal to young consumers without actually having to change much

How come none of these woke corporations ever tweet "Trade unions exist and are valid" ?

@BlackForestCake

I think there is a nefarious agenda behind of all the corporate support, and that is capitalist greed. On the surface, by woke-washing in order to appeal to young consumers without actually having to change much

How come none of these woke corporations ever tweet "Trade unions exist and are valid" ?

Well, yes.

Or, "Living wages = Justice".

Oh, maybe it's because you can affirm whatever id politics agenda you like and it will cost you very little, just some advertising you'd be spending on anyway.

The ironic thing is that many marginalised groups would gain more from a living wage, both immediately and in terms of improving systematic issues.

Helen Pluckrose’s book Cynical Theories, on critical theory is what has popularised the idea that contemporary wokeness emerged from critical theory. She makes a clear distinction between the Frankfurt school and critical theory that has emerged from post modernism.

She’s liberal, not altright.

You can listen to her talking about it here:

m.soundcloud.com/twoforteapodcast/65-helen-pluckrose-cynical-theories-and-their-liberal-opponents

Could you give an example of how Lawrence Fox is a racist? I think he is a highly annoying person, but I have never heard him say anything racist.

Laurence insisted that the disparaging treatment Meghan Markle receives (such as 57 negative remarks from Piers Morgan in one week) isn't and has no basis on racism (even though the exact same things she does are not an issue when Kate Middleton does it), and in defense of it stated he knows what racism is because Black people were racist towards him. Rachel Boyle is a racist for pointing out he's a white man with privilege when it comes to racism, Richard Ayoade doesn't know what he's talking about when he states Laurence never experienced racism.

He states Black actors 'don't complain about racism until they have five million quid in the bank'.

He's commented that it's 'racist' to put a Sikh in the movie 1917 because 'it's forcing diversity on others' (even though Sikh soldiers took part in the first World War in that setting).

TL;DR: Laurence Fox faced racism and people who aren't white (or maybe just people who aren't Laurence Fox) don't know what they're talking about.

"Rachel Boyle is a racist for pointing out he's a white man with privilege when it comes to racism"

That sounds like a racist remark to me. If you point out a person's skin colour when criticising them, that is racist.

@Evarish

Could you give an example of how Lawrence Fox is a racist? I think he is a highly annoying person, but I have never heard him say anything racist.

Laurence insisted that the disparaging treatment Meghan Markle receives (such as 57 negative remarks from Piers Morgan in one week) isn't and has no basis on racism (even though the exact same things she does are not an issue when Kate Middleton does it), and in defense of it stated he knows what racism is because Black people were racist towards him. Rachel Boyle is a racist for pointing out he's a white man with privilege when it comes to racism, Richard Ayoade doesn't know what he's talking about when he states Laurence never experienced racism.

He states Black actors 'don't complain about racism until they have five million quid in the bank'.

He's commented that it's 'racist' to put a Sikh in the movie 1917 because 'it's forcing diversity on others' (even though Sikh soldiers took part in the first World War in that setting).

TL;DR: Laurence Fox faced racism and people who aren't white (or maybe just people who aren't Laurence Fox) don't know what they're talking about.

Fox is a bit of a twat, and he's become increasingly strange, but most of what you've said here is really objecting to identity politics approaches to racism. Which is basically the same as identity politics approaches to gender.

Lots of people would simply disagree with you about Markle - after all the press was quite happy to treat Diana and Fergie alternately like crap with no particular consistency about why, and the question of the Sikh soldier was more of a factual error which he, IIRC, accepted - although in fact the way that character was included was rather tokenistic and not particularly historically plausible.

I am still not quite sure his hasn't developed a kind of racism, though if so I also suspect it's largely a reaction to crap like White Fragility, but these sorts of examples are why many people tend to dismiss more and more claims of racism without even being too worried about it.

@andyoldlabour

‘Could you give an example of how Lawrence Fox is a racist? I think he is a highly annoying person, but I have never heard him say anything racist.
Is this a bit like saying JKR is "transphobic" when she is no such thing?’

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