Mr.Carrow

Nothing to see here. Move on. https://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/ex-ny-times-writer-bari-weiss-rails-against-woke-culture-in-ny-post-op-ed/ar-BB1di6HE

It's safe for you guys to read this one as it's pretty pro-Woke so you won't have to fight your cognitive dissonance. https://blavity.com/what-does-it-mean-to-be-woke/what-does-it-mean-to-be-woke?category1=opinion

Many of the contributors on this thread could do with taking this article on board https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/30/anti-woke-backlash-liberalism-laurence-fox

What do you think Obama and the NYT mean when they use the term "Woke", and what do they mean by it?

Grrrrr, those right wingers at the NYT at it again! https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/09/world/europe/france-threat-american-universities.html

So you will be able to provide a step by step analysis of his points then?

And this from those far right propagandists at Psychology Today https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/tech-happy-life/202006/the-promise-and-problems-being-woke

Damn, even Obama is making things up. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-50239261

So do you think Andrew Sullivan is making things up in the article above (you seem to be a bit of an expert on that subject).?

"Afterall, the core truth of our condition, this theory argues, is that we live in a system of interlocking oppressions that penalize various identity groups in a society. And all power is zero-sum: you either have power over others or they have power over you. To the extent that men exercise power, for example, women don’t; in so far as straight people wield power, gays don’t; and so on. There is no mutually beneficial, non-zero-sum advancement in this worldview. All power is gained only through some other group’s loss. And so the point became not simply to interpret the world, but to change it, to coin a phrase, an imperative which explains why some critics call this theory a form of neo-Marxism." If people cannot see the totalitarian nature of this movement have simply stopped thinking.

So why, in your opinion, would a very well respected gay liberal journalist write this? Funnily enough, it's been completely ignored on this thread. It's almost as if people are stuck in their comfortable bubbles and don't want to engage in new information.....https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/p/the-roots-of-wokeness

Given that you constantly attribute things to me that I haven't written, it seems you misremember quite a lot. There is a big difference between saying there are racists within institutions and that institutions are fundamentally racist or "the system is racist" as you put it. There are also very good reasons why ideological groups would want to frame the world in this way and there are many people explaining the workings behind it, a few of which I've shared on different threads. You've ignored all of them. You are not informed.

When your girlfriend only exists because when the ideologically possessed mob came for her father, he only survived because he tried to shoot himself in the heart by pulling the trigger of a rifle with his toe and missed. He was rushed to hospital and the doctors pulled him through and hid his identity. His crime? Being a very accomplished and popular teacher in Cambodia during Pol Pot's reign of evil. To the day he died he was receiving thank you letters from ex-students doing very well for themselves all around the world. I know ideological possession when I see it, and I very definitely see it on the Woke Left. If you don't see it I would think you probably only engage in media which refuses to cover it. So yes, when you see sheltered, know nothing know alls angling for history to repeat itself you could say that is coming from a dark place. I'm currently living in a hostel in Buenos Aires full of immigrant workers from around South America. Many have lost their income due to the pandemic but everybody tries to help each other and there is a jovial, egalitarian if very earthy and very politically incorrect atmosphere. According to your definition they are all racists but have far more respect for these honest people than some of the contributors to this thread.

I do and have written as such. I just don't accept the totalising framing and language employed by the Woke left nor do I like and trust the movement and philosophy behind it (applied post modern critical theory). Given that I've posted loads of links,none of which you've engaged with, I think it's clear you simply don't want to actually understand what I'm getting at and would rather constantly throw out falsehoods.

By YF's own definition my girlfriend,her family and many of the people I have met traveling are racists. I have a more kind, charitable outlook in that I think their bias is natural (if unfortunate) and based on tribal reactions and ignorance. You then have a choice as to whether to vilify and condemn (as Woke does to the "deplorable" working classes) or to gently educate and show there is a better way. I choose positive; I choose the latter.

I have argued in good faith throughout and I genuinely have no idea what point you are trying to make (and I don't think you do). If you want I can do what I had to do on other threads and provide direct quotes from my posts proving that you were lying. I have said time and again that racism still (pretty f*ckng obviously) exists. We have been disagreeing about the extent and the language used to describe it, and what the motivations are behind such language. Also a good faith "exchange of ideas" doesn't generally include accusing people of believing and posting stuff when they have actually posted the opposite and then gaslighting them when they point it out. So, provide a quote in which I denied that racism exists in individuals (I can provide plenty of quotes from me stating the opposite) or apologise and I will chalk it down as a mistake. Don't worry, I won't try and cancel you for it....

I think the best argument to this is that what is required to implement these policies when coming up against human nature leads to the horrific outcomes of those regimes. The evidence seems to suggest this. The question is do we want to try it all again to find out?

I have lived and worked in the working classes all my life, whereas you have admitted that you are middle class. You have no idea how badly identity politics goes down in the 57% of the UK who describe themselves as working class. Your rabid condescending lectures from the privileged leafy suburbs are irrelevant. You do not understand how the world works. Keep losing our side votes dude, Boris is applauding you all the way.

Given that is exactly what you have done on multiple threads and have just done again, that takes the levels of hypocrisy into the stratosphere. The very definition of bad faith.

You accused me of "denying that racism exists in our individuals and institutions". I spent a lot of time on another thread having to pull up my quotes to prove your lies wrong. So again, I ask for a quote in which I said anything of the sort. But to be clear,in order to overcome humanities natural biases I do not believe that tarring everything we find uncomfortable between different groups with the most pejorative,loaded and judgemental terms (racism,sexism etc) we can muster is in any way constructive. It's the exact opposite and if that isn't clear by now I'm not sure that I'm debating with people connected to the real world. And of course the irony is that the psychology behind the desire to judge and condemn the "other" is exactly the same as the atavistic tribalism that drives real racism. Same demonisation, different tribes.

In that case my girlfriend and her family are vile n*zi racists. Ok, but I have a cunning plan. When I go back I'll start a political movement telling them such in no uncertain terms. I'll call them deplorables and state that flying their countries flag makes them irredeemable. I'll set up online mobs ever vigilant for the slightest anachronistic joke or ambiguous comment from 20 years ago and campaign to get those people sacked or worse (all from the comfort of my leafy suburbs, obviously...). Then I'll demand that those people vote for me and double down on just how evil they are when they don't want to. Alternatively I could encourage following the lead of western liberal democracies to gently educate, help where necessary and include, in order to gradually overcome our natural instincts without resorting to demonisation, hate and blame, which has led to the most inclusive, tolerant and open minded societies on the planet. Hmmm, which to choose...?

What?! I have never said anything of the sort. I have said that I don't believe that your assertion (repeated on the Woke Left) that our "system is racist" is accurate or fair. I'm also aware of the propagandistic reasons why this description is being aggressively pushed and that it stems from the same mindset that led to the horrors of Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot.

I have spent about 8 of the last 20 years traveling/living in non-white countries and I have had many conversations with fellow travelers about how experiencing the nuts and bolts of other peoples and cultures makes you more pragmatic and realistic about humanity and less idealistic. People are tribal and have a deep subconscious wariness of the "other". Where I am now they refer to the neighboring countries as burros (donkeys), in turn the denizens of that country refer to this as monos (monkeys). In my girlfriend's country I don't have a name, I am simply referred to as "foreigner" or "foreign horse" which is the locals jokey nickname for all foreign guys. The worst racism I ever witnessed was an actual punch-up at my old workplace between North and South Indians. I could go on.... The identity politics Left with its utopian, puritan zeal seems utterly divorced from the messy, confusing, complex reality of human nature and relationships and pointing out that most evidence points to the fact that in evolutionary terms, humans seem to find it easy to be cooperative and empathetic below the Dunbar number, but the opposite once split into different tribes- particularly when those tribes look and behave differently- is generally met with abuse and the usual boring and lazy cop out that you must be a right wing N*zi for introducing inconvenient ideas into the conversation. The other predictable tactic is accuse you of being a "biological determinist" for pointing out that people's natural subconscious biases are not likely to be overcome with hectoring, lecturing or accusations of bigotry etc.

Incidentally whilst we're comparing political ideologies, which one does a dogma which divides people into victim/privilege oppressed/oppressor groups based on immutable characteristics have most in common with?

The ideologically blinkered right react with much the same obfuscation, sophistry and intellectual dishonesty when presented with these very logical points, as the ideologically blinkered Left does when presented with the fact that far Left ideas have ended in carnage pretty much whenever they've been tried and that very large and powerful sections of the modern Left desire to put us through the same rinser again.