The Fundamentals of Being “Woke”, Good or Bad, Why? (1 Viewer)

[Huntn]

To be "woke" politically in the Black community means that someone is informed, educated and conscious of social injustice and racial inequality, Merriam-Webster Dictionary states

What does 'woke' mean and why are some conservatives using it?

Conservatives are using ‘woke,’ a term coined by Black Americans, against progressive ideals of social justice during this midterm election cycle.

abcnews.go.com

Republicans are crusading against 'wokeness'

Yet lawmakers and operatives who spoke to NBC News varied in how they define the idea, while others said they didn't know much about "wokeness" at all.

www.nbcnews.com

By definition “Woke” means awareness, awareness of social injustice and racial inequality. More importantly in my mind as a fiscally moderate Caucasian who leans liberal on social issues, it is vital that we live up to the standards as put into place by our Founding Fathers, equality before the law, equal rights, and equal opportunity, in essence a level playing field for all, the right not to be discriminated against in the public market place or in public education. Btw, by standing by these principles, does this make me a conservative or a liberal?

So why are Conservatives at war against being woke And why ban it in the classroom? How can being educated about our past and social injustice be bad? Is it because:

• This stuff is all made up?
• Well it happened but don’t feel comfortable acknowledging it?
• It is still happening?
• I don’t want to be blamed for it?
• It will be used to take away personal advantages?
• Or it is going to cost me money?

Imo, the real issue here racial inequality and injustice is that not only is it not made up, it’s not in our past either. It is ongoing and we need face this responsibly.

 

[Dragon]

Nobody likes to admit we need marketing, but the discipline has always been necessary to match people with the products and services that fulfil their needs and desires.

It started simply enough, with us focusing primarily on brands’ features and tangible benefits. But as consumer society evolved, we moved on to symbolic benefits: identities, lifestyles. Finally, we began selling values: an ideology that hit its zenith between 2015 and 2022 in the era of “brand purpose”.

It’s here we started to lose the plot. Brands no longer sought to be loved – they demanded to be supported, treated as movements rather than commercial entities. Do you stand with Nike against racial injustice? Do you support Hellmann’s in the fight against food waste?


By making purchasing decisions moral declarations, we sold the idea that we could self-correct through consumption. And brands were our champions at the centre of it all: our profitable agents of social reform.

And yet a decade on from the start of this period, in every conceivable domain, from the environment, to LGBTQ+ protections, to women’s bodily autonomy, to immigration and multiculturalism, it seems we’re skirting closer and closer to the fascist ideology we claimed to have defeated in 1945.

Every week, we’re met with news of brands adjusting to that new order, either scaling back their DEI or environmental, social and governance (ESG) commitments or abandoning them all together.

How did it come to this?

It’s easy to blame the Trumps, the Tates, the podcasters, the broligarchy. Less easy is to examine the conditions that created them – and our own complicity within the professional class.…….

Marketing’s ‘woke’ rebrand has ultimately helped the far right | Eugene Healey

Our industry must reckon with how we’ve trivialised activism by turning it into comms strategy – only to abandon it, says brand strategy consultant Eugene Healey

www.theguardian.com

A lack of education and a growing sense of alienation are leaving many people feeling like strangers in their own lives. Meanwhile, the world is shrinking—news of every minor event reaches us in seconds rather than days, creating a constant stream of noise that's difficult to process.

Add to this the echo chambers of social media, where every conspiracy theory finds fuel and followers. I’m not exaggerating when I say this has become the new battleground. We are in the midst of an undeclared war. Troll farms in Russia, North Korea, and China are actively working to turn us against one another, and with AI blurring the line between truth and fiction, even well-informed individuals are struggling to tell the difference.

And then there are the oligarchs—regardless of nationality—who see this chaos as an opportunity to seize more power. They have no qualms about the methods they use, as long as it serves their agenda.

What we need now more than ever is to rediscover our shared humanity—to stop viewing each other as enemies and start recognizing that we're in this together. But I won’t sugarcoat it: I’m not optimistic. If we don’t get our act together and start cooperating to mitigate the effects of climate change, we’re headed for a disaster unlike anything we’ve seen before. The powerful will continue to thrive, while the rest of us are left to flounder—or worse.

 

[bird]

A lack of education and a growing sense of alienation are leaving many people feeling like strangers in their own lives. Meanwhile, the world is shrinking—news of every minor event reaches us in seconds rather than days, creating a constant stream of noise that's difficult to process.

Add to this the echo chambers of social media, where every conspiracy theory finds fuel and followers. I’m not exaggerating when I say this has become the new battleground. We are in the midst of an undeclared war. Troll farms in Russia, North Korea, and China are actively working to turn us against one another, and with AI blurring the line between truth and fiction, even well-informed individuals are struggling to tell the difference.

And then there are the oligarchs—regardless of nationality—who see this chaos as an opportunity to seize more power. They have no qualms about the methods they use, as long as it serves their agenda.

What we need now more than ever is to rediscover our shared humanity—to stop viewing each other as enemies and start recognizing that we're in this together. But I won’t sugarcoat it: I’m not optimistic. If we don’t get our act together and start cooperating to mitigate the effects of climate change, we’re headed for a disaster unlike anything we’ve seen before. The powerful will continue to thrive, while the rest of us are left to flounder—or worse.

So, a caveat…I am not a psychologist nor a mental health professional or a scientist. I am merely an old man who occasionally has some thoughts.

I believe I said this before. Humans are, imo, by genetics built to be social animals. We start with the concept of family which can come to include trusted people not related by blood. The flip side of this is “the other” meaning outsiders about which little is known by the group. They are to be feared, irrationally. In the dim past they were to be conquered and either destroyed or absorbed into the group via sex/rape as weapon. Symbols, customs, beliefs of the other were destroyed and forbidden.

The rise of larger groups deemed “nations” which were merely large tribes claiming territory and waging war cemented the concept of “the other”. War was waged for territory, for resources or just because the intended victims were different. When the Treaty of Westphalia occurred it created the concept of the nation-state. This did not stop war and oppression but simply organized it a little better. Perhaps even made war more likely as some land that “belonged” to one group and now belonged to an opponent.

The critical things that occurred and that have driven us to where we are now are the following:

Mass communication starting with the printing press all the way through to the internet
Mass transportation that changed the movement of people occurring over long time to very short time
The Industrial Revolution which created the concept of “job” and employment which allowed wealth to more easily control labor

The expansion of technology at ever increasing pace has resulted in our current condition has been due to, imo, the arithmetic evolution of the brain, mind and emotion in opposition to the geometric progression of technological advance and the resulting socio-psychological political economic morass. The brain and mind have not evolved, in the aggregate, to deal with the changes. Many can, of course, but many cannot. This means that a large portion of the population will suffer from cognitive dissonance and a lack of critical reasoning which combined with emotional instability/insecurity results in susceptibility to charlatans.

The slippage of democracy around the world underscores this. The hope that things can be righted is necessary but it may be in vain. I believe it isn’t but much damage will be done and much time and treasure and, likely, lives will be lost before it is.

 

[Dragon]

So, a caveat…I am not a psychologist nor a mental health professional or a scientist. I am merely an old man who occasionally has some thoughts.

I believe I said this before. Humans are, imo, by genetics built to be social animals. We start with the concept of family which can come to include trusted people not related by blood. The flip side of this is “the other” meaning outsiders about which little is known by the group. They are to be feared, irrationally. In the dim past they were to be conquered and either destroyed or absorbed into the group via sex/rape as weapon. Symbols, customs, beliefs of the other were destroyed and forbidden.

The rise of larger groups deemed “nations” which were merely large tribes claiming territory and waging war cemented the concept of “the other”. War was waged for territory, for resources or just because the intended victims were different. When the Treaty of Westphalia occurred it created the concept of the nation-state. This did not stop war and oppression but simply organized it a little better. Perhaps even made war more likely as some land that “belonged” to one group and now belonged to an opponent.

The critical things that occurred and that have driven us to where we are now are the following:

Mass communication starting with the printing press all the way through to the internet
Mass transportation that changed the movement of people occurring over long time to very short time
The Industrial Revolution which created the concept of “job” and employment which allowed wealth to more easily control labor

The expansion of technology at ever increasing pace has resulted in our current condition has been due to, imo, the arithmetic evolution of the brain, mind and emotion in opposition to the geometric progression of technological advance and the resulting socio-psychological political economic morass. The brain and mind have not evolved, in the aggregate, to deal with the changes. Many can, of course, but many cannot. This means that a large portion of the population will suffer from cognitive dissonance and a lack of critical reasoning which combined with emotional instability/insecurity results in susceptibility to charlatans.

The slippage of democracy around the world underscores this. The hope that things can be righted is necessary but it may be in vain. I believe it isn’t but much damage will be done and much time and treasure and, likely, lives will be lost before it is.

Given your theory with you explain very well, the only thing that really would unite us would be the extremely microscopic chance of an alien contact. Then the "tribe" will become "humans" rather than Americans or Russians.

 

[bird]

Given your theory with you explain very well, the only thing that really would unite us would be the extremely microscopic chance of an alien contact. Then the "tribe" will become "humans" rather than Americans or Russians.

I hope it doesn’t take that. I think that the U.S. needs enormous access to mental healthcare. I also think that we need to detoxify society.