I think Jane Fonda hit a nail on the head last night when accepting a Lifetime Achievement award from the US Screen Actors Guild last night. She said:
And, by the way, woke just means you give a damn about other people.
Spot on, Jane Fonda. That is exactly what it means. It is about nothing more than caring. The sad fact is that far too many do not, and the world is very much worse as a result.
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Yup. And it’s time the world woke up.
They used to shoot people for sleeping on sentry duty.
What’s so terrible about being AWAKE?
Good old Jane Fonda – always fond of her.
During the Vietnam war Jane Fonda visited American prisoners of war. A story circulated that they gave her slips of paper to pass to their families and Fonda turned them all over to the guards.
It was untrue and on the web we can find one of the former P.O.W.s, in the 1990 saying he was one of those named in the story. The story said his sight been damaged yet he had flown for an airline after coming home and leaving the Air Force.
I was in a discussion with a group of Americans who repeated the story. So I found the video and presented it to them. Several refused to believe it claiming they knew men who had been in the same camp.
The anti-woke brigade don’t want to deal with evidence. They want to enforce their own fantasy on the rest of us. They don’t ‘give a damn’ about the truth.
The anti-woke brigade are aligned with the Neo-liberals in that as Mirowski pointed out, they make their own reality.
This is why we live (or should I say ‘exist’) in a neo-liberal, post BREXIT, post truth dreamworld.
Great isn’t it?
“Woke” = self-righteous virtue-signalling.
Very politely, you’re banned. If you think caring does not matter I do not want you here.
Undoubtedly Trump and the electoral success of Parties of the “right”across Europe, including Reform, is definitely a reaction to so called “woke” where “caring” has been extended to a level bordering on out right crazy. I think everyone would agree caring is a good thing. Wouldn’t we also agree that there are cases where “woke” has gone too far? I can think of a long list of “facepalm” examples which have nothing to do with most peoples definition of caring. Woke silliness has prompted a backlash and it is corrupting the more worthy and valuable ideas of the left and this is now being felt in electoral outcomes.
List them then.
When can you care too much?
We’re not talking about identity politics here. Real world stuff please.
I defy you to care too much.
Since the African-American origin of ‘Woke’ is to be aware or ‘Awake to racial and social injustice’, I have to assume that those who use Woke as a pejorative term must actively support racism and social injustice! For many, who are too ignorant to know the true meaning of this word, the warped perspective of our tabloid press does not help. Woke has now been weaponized by Trump, Farage, Badenock and other political leaders, who should know better, but perhaps who consciously choose to declare their racism and do not support ‘social justice’. I do not want to be in that camp.
What Does ‘Woke’ Mean?
Merriam-Webster: “Woke is now defined in this dictionary as “aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice),” and identified as U.S. slang. It originated in African American English and gained more widespread use beginning in 2014 as part of the Black Lives Matter movement. By the end of that same decade it was also being applied by some as a general pejorative for anyone who is or appears to be politically left-leaning”.
Thanks
Well done Richard.
He can troll elsewhere.
To paraphrase the erstwhile slave trader John Newton, who wrote Amazing Grace:
“I once was asleep,
But then I WOKE UP.”
I had a fight with my son about this last week. I argued for your definition, and he said the meaning had changed and it is now used along the lines suggested by Robert Pennington. Wikipedia has both definitions, I guess it may depend on the context and tone of voice. Perhaps it has outlived it’s usefulness and we need to think of a new word?
I don’t care if Robert Pennington thinks he’s right.
I am not tolerating that abuse here.
Why do we need a new word? There are plenty of perfectly good words already – caring, considerate, respectful ….
But they are not politically encompassing.
Time spent discussing “woke” is time not spent raising awareness about the destructiveness of our current leaders whose evil policies make effective caring for our neighbours both more necessary, and much more difficult.
I tend tio disagree
It is ceding space to the right
I don’t think we should cede them space either.
Your post wasn’t about “w**e” and I’m not saying you shouldn’t have posted it.
It was about caring.
You didn’t defend “w****y”, you defended caring.
Our opponents can talk about “w****y” in the perjorative nasty dishonest way they do, but we can revert the discussion back to one about caring, about racial justice, and treating one another fairly.
Any time they want to talk about “w****y”, we can take back the space, but without accepting their fake dishonest insincere destructive language, by substituting our own real life agenda and putting THEM on the defensive, trying to justify their racism, their discrimination, their unfairness, their genuine hatred. Never let them forget their own public expressions of hate.
One example:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PX9reO3QnUA
If Truskage want to talk about “w****y”, I won’t concede the space, I’ll fill it instead with a discussion of that video, and call them to account for it, and ask them how they justify their support for giving executive authority to a man as evil and vicious as that.
KUTGW!
The word itself describes a state that is to be aspired to… since when did being aware of and moved by injustice become something to be ashamed of?
However, I think it’s becoming a casualty of the propaganda machine. It’s been used in a sneering way by utterly horrible people for long enough that it’s beginning to take on the unfortunate definition offered by Robert Pennington. His delivery of that definition was clearly representative of someone who had fallen for the horrible people’s sneering, hook, line and sinker.
Words can change their meaning. “The Youth” have used the word “Literally” so often as a filler that it is now listed in dictionaries as meaning “figuratively”. Infuriating, but that’s what happens when the majority of people use a word or phrase in a certain way.
I think those who did not want to be shifted from their comfort zones (a requirement of accepting most types of social injustice) have successfully hijacked this word to mean what they want it to mean… and it’s adoption by the masses is securing a permanent change in meaning, or at least an alternative.
Remember, the swastika was originally a symbol of well-being and hope. It too was perverted.
I shall keep using the word Woke to mean what I believe it means… but I fear it’s a losing battle, unfortunately.
Thanks
‘Woke’ is often accused when someone points out that a phrasing has negative or dismissive connotations.
If being Woke includes caring enough to consciously prefer terminology that doesn’t cause accidental offence, then I’m happy to be considered so
Woke means being empathetic and caring, the qualities that make us human.
Neo-liberals have hijacked the term, like they have always done.
“Woke”, (let’s go with Jane Fonda’s definition), seems to be quite effective as a word to rally people around uncaring policies. If only we could come up with a single word that had the same political traction in supporting caring policies. Answers on a postcard…
We did
It’s woke
Indeed – the right is ‘anti-woke’. Too few of them realise they’re basically declaring themselves anti-decency. Also anti-racist, anti-misogynist, ableist… correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t ‘anti-woke’ essentially ‘ableist white supremacist’ by another name?
It is, yes.
Ok. Sure. But if woke had any political traction as a word to support caring policies it wouldn’t be such an effective word in the hands of people who want to undermine caring policies and instead promote uncaring policies.
Possibly it’s impossible to come up with any words to redress the balance in favour of a caring agenda because the actors who promote uncaring policies have a propaganda reach too powerful for the rest of us to resist.
It’s effective. That’s why they hate it. It’s a name up by those impacted by policies of hate. Of course they hate it.
Alex – “But if woke had any political traction as a word to support caring policies it wouldn’t be such an effective word in the hands of people who want to undermine caring policies and instead promote uncaring policies.”
But it’s precisely because the word DOES have that political traction that those bad actors DID target it for redefinition. If it was just another word and didn’t have the impact you describe, they wouldn’t have bothered with it… but those who were afraid that a recognition of social injustice might highlight their own political shortcomings – or worse, force them to DO something to address the injustice (which might involve spending precious money) – so they embarked on a campaign of ridicule. Many people such as Mr Pennington appear to have embraced that laziness of thinking, possibly to avoid having their own comfort or morality held under a spotlight.
It’s evil.
Yes Geearkay – good point.
And of course I have heard some U.K. politicians explicitly demeaning caring roles/ functions without recourse to a distorted use of the word “woke”. That is to say they used plain English.
Anyway thanks to Richard Murphy for his post and to you for your comment.
But why? What happened to change the attitude of mind seen in the Beveridge report and the policies of the Attlee government which survived for many decades? Is it simply ‘’loadsamoney’?
Indoctrination