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At least as far back as this newspaper clipping from Mississippi in 1860, "Wide Awakes" was used as a euphemism and pejorative for abolitionists. Lincoln supporters described as being ''Wide Awakes,'' since many Lincolnites were card carrying members of the Wide Awake Club. Apparently, they were ''woke'' long before now.
My take is that currently "woke" means "on the right side of history."
My theory is that wokeism is Ronald Reagan's fault because he let a bunch of lunatics out of mental hospitals, who subsequently procreated and produced the current batch of bat crap insane woke idiots.
A recent philosophy that came out of Anglo Saxon academia system has now become a dominant philosophy. It's not only the right that dislikes woke ideology, but also many on the center and the left due to woke ideology being critical agaisnt liberalism and Enlightenment values. Two videos on YouTube explained by experts look to find the origins of woke ideology. One academic states that woke ideology comes from Anglo Saxon protestant ideology like puritanism, while another states that woke ideology has Marxist origins. Me on the other hand. I can see that woke ideology has origins in Marxism and anglo Saxon protestantism. Anglo Saxon protestantism is one of the foundations of the United States btw. Btw im catholic and I don't see eye to with Marxism and at times don't see eye to eye with Anglo Saxon protestantism. Watch the videos below.
At least as far back as this newspaper clipping from Mississippi in 1860, "Wide Awakes" was used as a euphemism and pejorative for abolitionists. Lincoln supporters described as being ''Wide Awakes,'' since many Lincolnites were card carrying members of the Wide Awake Club. Apparently, they were ''woke'' long before now.
My take is that currently "woke" means "on the right side of history."
Being woke is about victimhood and avoiding discussions since that would out the woke as frauds who try to bully people.
Do you have a link to any sort of studies supporting that? The clipping i posted is 162 years old, and "woke" at that time was about the underdogs and the people who supported them in their struggles. I would like to know when the meaning of the term shifted.
My theory is that wokeism is Ronald Reagan's fault because he let a bunch of lunatics out of mental hospitals, who subsequently procreated and produced the current batch of bat crap insane woke idiots.
He was very puritanical. Also in America we have plenty of moral panics that we hunt innocent people done for wrong thing. Not much difference between Salem witch hunt, religious great awakening who hunted down people who did not agree with them on positions of abolitionism, suffergism and prohibition of sale of liqour, moral panic agaisnt immigrants, moral panic communist and nazis, moral panic agaisnt catholics, moral panic against Satanist, moral panic agaisnt racism and white supremacy which is what is happening now. In America, those in power are always looking for an unforseen bogey man under the bed. Government hunted down nazis and communists, clergy hunted down devil worshippers, and now academia hunts down racists, sexists and homophobes. Thank you puritans.
Do you have a link to any sort of studies supporting that? The clipping i posted is 162 years old, and "woke" at that time was about the underdogs and the people who supported them in their struggles. I would like to know when the meaning of the term shifted.
It changed when its sole purpose became getting away with acting like a passive-aggressive dick.
At least as far back as this newspaper clipping from Mississippi in 1860, "Wide Awakes" was used as a euphemism and pejorative for abolitionists. Lincoln supporters described as being ''Wide Awakes,'' since many Lincolnites were card carrying members of the Wide Awake Club. Apparently, they were ''woke'' long before now.
My take is that currently "woke" means "on the right side of history."
Woke people would certainly think *they* are on the right side of history. So did the Marxists. And the Fascists. And the you know what in Germany (avoiding Godwin's law here). So did Mao. And even the Confederates in 1860. So did... well, you get the point.
History is history. There is no right side of history. There is no long arc towards whatever. There is just history. And people. And people have a history of going through episodic purification phases in quest of some golden ideal, and in all such episodes, a great deal was destroyed. Progress, if we call it such, always exacts a price.
I will agree much of modern wokery is driven by the persistent and complicated role of African American in American history and the failures surrounding their complex relationship with American society. But the overall woke movement has expanded to take in other topics. Pronouns. Dubious gender ideology. Ukraine. Any movement that has a flag associated with it.
A recent philosophy that came out of Anglo Saxon academia system has now become a dominant philosophy. It's not only the right that dislikes woke ideology, but also many on the center and the left due to woke ideology being critical agaisnt liberalism and Enlightenment values. Two videos on YouTube explained by experts look to find the origins of woke ideology. One academic states that woke ideology comes from Anglo Saxon protestant ideology like puritanism, while another states that woke ideology has Marxist origins. Me on the other hand. I can see that woke ideology has origins in Marxism and anglo Saxon protestantism. Anglo Saxon protestantism is one of the foundations of the United States btw. Btw im catholic and I don't see eye to with Marxism and at times don't see eye to eye with Anglo Saxon protestantism. Watch the videos below.
Like many ( if not all ) political ideologies , tracing the roots of wokeism could very well be the subject of several lengthy tomes , and is thus not well suited for the confines of a forum post .
That said one of its little mentioned ideological forefathers is ( IMO ) cultural relativism as expressed by the Boasian school of anthropology , a topic that Dinesh D'Souza did a rather decent write up of in his book entitled " The End of Racism " .
As for woke ideology stemming from WASP culture , IMHO it's not so much that it stems from it , but that certain aspects of said culture ( such as its emphasis on politeness ) inadvertently provide a rather fertile ground for woke ideology to grow .
Take for instance the still observable American cultural custom of being nice to other people , which while definitely an admirable tendency in many ways , has been twisted by woke activists to spread the false idea that ( f.ex ) not using specific terms said activists demand one use constitutes disrespect towards certain demographic groups they claim to champion , a fallacy which many Americans have unfortunately swallowed wholesale due in part to the ingrained cultural practice of wanting to be nice to other people .
This contrasts sharply with say East Central Europe , where ( very paradoxically ) in spite of the existence of more restrictive freedom of speech laws , the similarly deeply ingrained cultural practice of being blunt to the point of out and out rudeness results in a much less woke environment , due to the enormous obstacle aforementioned cultural practice puts in the way of being politically correct .
Another deeply ingrained " Anglo " cultural practice that greatly aids the influence of woke ideology in the States is the tendency towards trusting the media ( obviously a major institution of wokeness ) , which probably ties in somewhere to the general Protestant cultural tendency towards deferring to the authority of the written word .
Then again it probably bears repeating that Protestantism in East Central Europe has traditionally had a much more rebellious character to it than in Anglo countries , as evidenced by the activities of Hussite rebels or Calvinist kuruc revolutionaries , resulting in a sort of inversion of the " Rum , Romanism and Rebellion " slogan that was applied to Catholics in the USA .
In short Anglo culture tends to favor " ordered " as opposed to " anarchic " liberty , many aspects of which ( unfortunately ) provide fecund soil for the influence of woke ideology to spread , but I'll leave it at that for now lest I overreach the range of this issue at hand .
Last edited by William Blakeley; 08-12-2022 at 08:25 PM..
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