Thought Police: Are we allowed to query 'woke'?

[Colin YNWA]

*It's OK for this to be a process. I struggled with the whole transgender thing for a long time, partly because it's something so unaligned with my own experiences that I found it difficult to relate, and partly because the first transgender person I had more than passing contact with was a childhood friend who I'd known as male for thirty-plus years… and it's really difficult to make that adjustment in your own head, but, eventually, I realised that just because it's difficult, doesn't mean you shouldn't try to do better. My problem, not theirs.

Wise words Jim and I really think this is the key, if everyone took this attitude then I suspect we'd be enduring a lot less negativity right now.

Yeah its a learning excerise and we will all make mistakes I don't doubt. The thing that seperates folks will be whether they are okay to except your mistakes, apologise and learn from them, or they are afraid to do so and bite back.

[TordelBack]

It is a process, and not an easy one. While us old farts hang around being important, we need to accept that our feelings are largely irrelevant: a lot of what is criticised as 'woke' is just others dealing better with change than us.

Anecdote: My eldest is 14, one of his friends since day one of primary school recently announced that they were a boy, and changed their name and pronouns accordingly. It's still weird for the missus and myself, having known him and his parents for a decade, since he was knee-high wearing party dresses and ribbons, but it took our kids about 10 minutes to adjust (helped greatly by the fact that the school just rolled in behind it). Our  confusion matters not one jot. In my own lifetime I went from thinking being called gay in the playground was the worst and most pitiable thing imaginable, to having a gay Best Man. Things change, thank feck, but it's seldom easy for ageing bastards to accept, and our geriatric poison can easily get passed on.

[Rately]

Seeing people get so worked up, and annoyed at someone else trying to be the best they can be, trying to make themselves happy is bizarre. Sometimes it is just downright puzzling that we have people in the world who always need to vent their spleens, regularly, and unproductively by trying to control other people.

Live and let live. If you are happy with your lot, you should be happy when someone else finds something that makes them feel like they have found their own place in an increasingly bizarre, fractious world.

[IndigoPrime]

I’m with team TordelBack and Cambell on this. Trans is not something I fully understand; I find it hard to wrap my head around because it’s so far from my experience and also so far from even my extended set of acquaintances. Except a couple of people I know have in recent years ‘come out’ as trans. It was surprising. It was also heartbreaking that one of them had the shittest possible time and lost almost everything.

My take on this is to be supportive, listen and learn. When I don’t understand Thing X or Thing Y, I ask. If I still feel a bit weird about it, that is—as Jim said—entirely my fucking problem, not theirs. And all the extremism we hear about is symptomatic of an increasingly intolerant society we would be good to push back against. Hell, we’re already seeing towns in Poland declare themselves LGBT-free zones. We cannot be complacent. We have long made the mistake that acceptance and liberalism were a one-way street. They are not. They are things we must continually fight for—now, more than any time in recent history.

Also, on the kids side of thing, it’s notable how much adults fuck them up and teach them to be intolerant. Stick a bunch of kids of random gender and ethnicity in a room and they’ll almost certainly just start playing together. There might be curiosity about things like different hair, but it’s unlikely there will be malice. That comes later when they’ve been screwed up by their guardians/friends/society.

[Mister Pops]

Generally, the older generations are all coralled in Facebook and twitter, the rest of the internet skews young. I tend to dismiss terms like woke out of hand. It's just online yoofspeak, not to be used by sensible adults and certainly not meant to be said out loud, unless ironically. However, much like its sjw and pc brigade ancestors, it's used by pricks to try to discredit and silence people who tell pricks to stop being pricks. The sentiment being "I have freedom of speech so you have to shut up!".

The whole transgender thing is just another item on the long list of things I don't really understand but just accept. Like quantum physics, or the Kardashians. It's not hurting anyone*, so why get worked up about it.

Live and let live.

^Basically this^

What find even harder to understand, is why the likes of Linehan and Rowling, whose audiences I would assume skew liberal/progressive, are willing to sacrifice their reputations and credibility to knock a minority down a peg?

There are of course some sticking points. World Rugby recently banned trans-women from competing in Woman's rugby.  Can there be a balance between inclusivity and safety of competitors? Like I said, I don't understand it well enough to comment.

*Quantum physics is probably a bad example, it hurts my brain. Also there's a trend of new age hacks slapping the word "quantum" on their snake oil, but I'll find somewhere else to grind that axe.

[judgeurko]

Like all of those comedy shows and films that are now being withdrawn from circulation as the ideas they played with are now considered inapprorpriate (and yes, may well be so ...).

What comedy shows & films have been withdrawn from circulation? I have noticed that some streaming services temporarily withdrew some films & shows then reinstated them with content warnings, e.g. Fawlty Towers & Gone With the Wind. & even if there are examples of some shows being withdrawn from certain streaming services they are still available to purchase as physical media. If people really want to watch Love Thy Neighbour for example they can buy the dvd.

I think the term 'woke' has replaced the term 'PC' & is equally nonsensical. It appears to be used mainly by those who hold strong racial &/gender prejudices as an attack for having minority groups & issues represented in what have been thought of as traditionally white male domains, sci-fi & superhero media/entertainment for example. To be honest I cannot take seriously anyone who uses the term 'woke' or 'SJW' as a critique of a tv show or film.

[Rately]

To be honest I cannot take seriously anyone who uses the term 'woke' or 'SJW' as a critique of a tv show or film.

Amen, Brother.

Also, i find it strange that the biggest "snowflakes", a word i detest, are generally those people who use it as an insult.

[JayzusB.Christ]

To be honest I cannot take seriously anyone who uses the term 'woke' or 'SJW' as a critique of a tv show or film.

Amen, Brother.

Also, i find it strange that the biggest "snowflakes", a word i detest, are generally those people who use it as an insult.

Case in point - Self-proclaimed 'street fighter' Steve Bannon leaving the LBC studios on the verge of tears after some uncomfortable questions.

It is hard to adapt - It really doesn't come naturally to me to refer to one person as 'they' (apart from in the sense of a random stranger whose identity I don't know), but my friend's partner is a 'they' as is one of my neighbours who I chat to regularly.  Also, I haven't worked out if I'm allowed to use the word 'queer', or is it, like the n-word, only inoffensive when used by the people it was traditionally used to insult?  Honestly, I don't know - if you can put me straight (no pun intended) on it I'll be grateful.

It's my problem, not theirs, though, is the point - I've lived too long in a conservative Catholic country, and always longed for change. Now that it's here, I'm not quite used to it.  I hope these things come way more naturally to the younger folks. 

I did find it a little bit odd that my bisexual colleauge found it offensive that the marriage equality referendum was reductively referred to as the 'gay marriage referendum' -  I mean, it was voted through in a landslide, so clearly most people are accepting of the lifestyle, and I think that using terms like 'gay' that most people understand helped those people to, well, understand it. 

[wedgeski]

Anecdote: My eldest is 14, one of his friends since day one of primary school recently announced that they were a boy, and changed their name and pronouns accordingly. It's still weird for the missus and myself, having known him and his parents for a decade, since he was knee-high wearing party dresses and ribbons, but it took our kids about 10 minutes to adjust (helped greatly by the fact that the school just rolled in behind it). Our  confusion matters not one jot. In my own lifetime I went from thinking being called gay in the playground was the worst and most pitiable thing imaginable, to having a gay Best Man. Things change, thank feck, but it's seldom easy for ageing bastards to accept, and our geriatric poison can easily get passed on.

Thanks for this, it improved my day greatly.

[judgeurko]

An interesting article on tensions in the feminist movement over trans rights.

https://www.newstatesman.com/international/2020/09/judith-butler-culture-wars-jk-rowling-and-living-anti-intellectual-times

[judgeurko]

To be honest I cannot take seriously anyone who uses the term 'woke' or 'SJW' as a critique of a tv show or film.

Amen, Brother.

Also, i find it strange that the biggest "snowflakes", a word i detest, are generally those people who use it as an insult.

Case in point - Self-proclaimed 'street fighter' Steve Bannon leaving the LBC studios on the verge of tears after some uncomfortable questions.

It is hard to adapt - It really doesn't come naturally to me to refer to one person as 'they' (apart from in the sense of a random stranger whose identity I don't know), but my friend's partner is a 'they' as is one of my neighbours who I chat to regularly.  Also, I haven't worked out if I'm allowed to use the word 'queer', or is it, like the n-word, only inoffensive when used by the people it was traditionally used to insult?  Honestly, I don't know - if you can put me straight (no pun intended) on it I'll be grateful.

It's my problem, not theirs, though, is the point - I've lived too long in a conservative Catholic country, and always longed for change. Now that it's here, I'm not quite used to it.  I hope these things come way more naturally to the younger folks. 

I did find it a little bit odd that my bisexual colleauge found it offensive that the marriage equality referendum was reductively referred to as the 'gay marriage referendum' -  I mean, it was voted through in a landslide, so clearly most people are accepting of the lifestyle, and I think that using terms like 'gay' that most people understand helped those people to, well, understand it.

I think those who identify as Bi are often sidelined. When some women who have dated men then date another women it is often seen by some gay women as them 'coming out'. When men identify as Bi is can be seen as just a phase or a way to say that they are gay that is maybe more acceptable to their straight family members & friends.

[JayzusB.Christ]

Yeah, fair enough. Just thinking of the marriage referendum though, 'gay' is what most people understand in that context - it didn't really affect bi people who settled down with a member of the opposite sex. And I've known quite a few bi people like that.

[Professor Bear]

I'm pretty sure the term itself originated in the US

I always assumed it was a reference to The Matrix and "waking up" to see the way the world really is by taking the red pill.

A bit like the term 'SJW' I'm appalled that a deroagtory term exists for someone who'd express what I consider to be decent opions like a desire for equality. Who on earth thinks that being pro-social justice is a bad thing? That's basically setting yourself up as saying "I hate social justice and love inequality". It reminds me of a picture I saw of a person with a sign saying 'I'm Anti-Antifa'. There's a quicker way to make that statement...

I fear you have made the classic error of taking a far-right talking point in good faith.  It doesn't actually make any objective sense to you, a person on the left, because you aren't the intended target.
You know how years ago, 'pwn' was in use online after someone mis-spelled 'own' and it just sort of stuck as a slang term?  Now imagine the same scenario with 'SJW' but assume the original word was 'JEW' and you'll understand why there are so many complaints from the far and alt-right about how "SJWs run the media" and want to undermine traditional norms by imposing political correctness on everyone.
SJW is an antisemitic dog-whistle and it's meant to cause confusion among non-fascists.  While we argue about how social justice is good actually, the alt-right are continuing their conversation about what intellectual elites funded by George Soros are doing to traditional values.

So too with Antifa, which has been retooled solely as a name rather than a statement of intent.  They aren't "anti-fascists", they're just "Antifa", the barbarians at the gates of civilised society who want to destroy it.

[Mister Pops]

I just remembered a bit in Jon Ronson’s fabulous book, ‘Them’. He meets with David Icke’s PA, who was in the midst of negotiations to get Icke into Canada. The Canadians were reluctant to grant Icke a visa on the grounds that the “space lizards” Icke claimed were running the world, was a dog whistle code for The Jewish Illuminati* Conspiracy. The Canucks considered Icke’s whole schtick to be antisemitic hate speech and didn’t want him spreading such throughout the great white north.

David Icke’s long suffering PA had to try to convince the Canadian officials that David Icke genuinely believed in Space Lizards.

*Illuminati came up in predictive text. Spooky

[Jim_Campbell]

David Icke’s long suffering PA had to try to convince the Canadian officials that David Icke genuinely believed in Space Lizards.

I had this argument with someone recently — "No, no… he's not antisemitic, he really does believe they're Space Lizards."

Yes, Space Lizards who also happen to overlay directly onto antisemitic tropes of a Jewish world-controlling conspiracy. The Nazis claimed that the Jews weren't human, too.