That slippery word "woke"

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Agent provocateurs are a long-established, well-known and well-documented government tactic against extremist groups and, in some cases, against dissident groups more generally. They have been used in many countries, including the U.S.A. See the relevant Wikipedia article for some examples.

Here in the U.S.A., agent provocateurs have been used against both left-wing and extreme right-wing political movements. What Dox appears to be saying, if I understand correctly, is NOT that the entire U.S far right is sponsored by the federal government, but that he suspects that Patriot Front, in particular, may have been founded by federal agent provocateurs as a way to infiltrate the far right. (Dox, correct me if I'm wrong.)

"Lynched" was an overstatement on my part. It's more about losing the warmth and approval I've won here. I see that Trump voters in Sharp outnumber Bidenites by over 4 to 1.
My best Arkansas friend (apart from my wife) is an avid Trump supporter. He just sent me this meme (which I expect he sent to a lot of people):

Then there's religion, massive difference there too. He's a Pentecostal preacher who admires Andrew Wommack. It probably seems odd that I have anything to do with him, but we get on very well. It's an unlikely alliance, but Arkansans have been pretty friendly to me, I'm very tolerant about people's beliefs in real life as long as I don't see them doing any great harm, and religious and political differences are so thorny that they can even split families, hence my discretion. The question is, how tolerant are the locals? Judging by what I've found about their core beliefs, not very.

Still, asking them what they think this woke thing is about looks safe enough. I don't ask people enough questions. Excuse the rant.

I gather there are historical reasons. I can't remember many of them, but one was that they have a history of self-reliance, a key Conservative value. They're usually doing quite well economically, and don't want to share their wallets with the have-nots. They hate snobbery and Trump has convinced them that he's not a snob, that he's the only politician around who will look after "plain folks." They're not as mad and stupid as the educated class think they are, though I think they're being fooled of course. It's just the way conditions have led them to be. I don't think political leanings come about by logical thinking alone. It's more an emotional thing.

Just downloaded me a copy. Nice harsh vocal tone
I think the original phrase is biblical.
There's also a Nick Cave album of the same name, don't know what that's about.

Most Arkansas folks respect a difference of opinion.Had some good neighbors that were big MAGAS, we talked about other stuff like gardening and things we had in common.Sadly they split up and moved away and I miss them.Loaned me their truck so I could pick my dog up at vets when my ride was down.Good folks.

Nah, you're on the money with this one. What's infuriating to me is that I've spent a good chunk of my life hearing about COINTELPRO and similar programs every time a left wing protest turns violent or I comment on general leftist dysfunction, but get called a conspiracy theorist when I suggest that perhaps those programs have new targets, even when there's significant evidence that that's exactly what's happening, e.g. the Michigan governor plot where all the instigators seem to have been feds. Or, to put an even finer point on it, that post 9/11 period where the FBI would periodically dupe some loudmouth at a mosque into some far fetched scheme, and then claim credit for having "foiled" an imminent terror plot. Seems like something my critics in this thread should recall given their areas of interest.

Reading comprehension isn't your strong suit, is it? Or history? Critical thinking? Help me out here.

I was expecting you to read what I wrote, including he edits and corrections when I realized that I'd made a mistake as to whom you were referring. Apparently, my expectation were alas too high.

Bringing an off-topic digression in another thread back here where it belongs:

From where/whom do you derive this "technical meaning"? Who, besides you, uses "identitarian" in this sense?

I tried to look up the word "identitarian" on dictionary.com and it's not even there, at all. So, apparently it's too obscure a word to be found in most dictionaries.

When I Googled it, almost all of the first 20 results, including the one Wikipedia entry, pertained to white nationalists. The one exception among the first 10 entries was the Collins Dictionary site, which had the following definitions:


Definition #1 could apply, for example, to any LGBT person who has ever marched in an LGBT Pride parade. Nothing about "flattening" or anything similar.

I also found similar definitions on Wiktionary here and here. Again, looks like just general identity-related politics, nothing about "flattening."

The only usage I came across that seems at all similar to yours is in The politics of experience: Constructing a non-identitarian feminism for theory and practice by Renee J Heberle, University of Massachusetts Amherst, a Ph.D. dissertation written back in 1996. Even here, this author's usage seems a bit different from yours, although I would have to study this paper in more detail to know for sure.

Anyhow, even in the scholarly world, I get the impression that "identitarian" has subsequently come to refer primarily, if not exclusively, to white nationalists. See, for example, ‘The Greatness of Her Position’: Comparing Identitarian and Jihadi Discourses on Women by Ashley A. Mattheis and Charlie Winter, 2019.

So your "technical" meaning is hard-to-find at best, and appears to be obsolescent as far as I can tell. Could you please provide links to some examples of other people who define it your way currently? Or could you at least mention the names of some authors of relevant online articles, if you can't be bothered to dig up links?

Please don't respond with one of your usual accusations that I or other people here are being lazy. I did some Internet research just now and provided links. I'm asking you to provide some links (or at least some author names) too.

In any case, the overwhelmingly preponderant usage of the word "identitarian" seems to be in connection with white nationalist groups. That being the case, referring to leftist groups as "identitarian," at the present time at least, is highly offensive.

Well, for one those notorious right wingers at New York magazine:

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/05 ... iples.html



More rightoids at Crooked Timber:

https://crookedtimber.org/2022/12/14/is ... -ideology/



How about The Atlantic?

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/ar ... me/672775/



Hmm, it's starting to look like I'm not the odd man out here when it comes to the use and meaning of that word and its variations.



And yet I was able to instantly find multiple examples of it being used precisely as I use it, and even cherry pick out those from left leaning publications to further twist the knife.



Apparently you suck at google.



Done and done

We know, lol, every now and then some plainclothes officer will put on a black mask and try to start trouble at one of our gatherings, and you know what happens? Someone in the crowd will yell "Hi officer" and then we get to watch Barney Fife run back to his cop buddies red with embarrassment. What's stopping right-leaning orgs from doing this? (not a rhetorical question, I'm honestly curious to hear what you think our side has that the other side doesn't)

Or, to put it another way, if Patriot Front (or Patriot Prayer, Proudboys, etc.) are a secret federal agent honeypot then why have I never heard anyone on the right formally disavow them? On the contrary, all these peeps seem to get along just fine.

Lol, in actual right wing spaces, if Patriot Front ever comes up, the conversation is always about whether they're probably feds or definitely feds, nobody knows who they are. How do you "disavow" people you don't know and have no connection to?

As to the Proud Boys and Patriot Prayer, nobody claimed they were fake, they're mostly just right wing fight club, they like to brawl with the black bloc types, I think the ideology is secondary to the fighting.

If you're asking how you can make Patriot Front (or their sponsors)'s lives harder, you can start by carrying stickers and using em to cover up PF stickers when you see them. Or carry a blade and cut em up so they're unreadable. Don't try to remove fash propaganda with your bare hands as fascists sometimes like to line the edges with razorblades.

If you feel comfortable walking past fash propaganda without doing anything about it, then you have that right but I'll say it reveals a lot about your character.

I've literally never seen a poster for any of these groups in my life, and I don't expect to either. Ironically enough, I've drank with black bloc types as recently as 2020, but I don't think I personally know anyone in a far right group IRL, they seem to mostly keep a low profile around here.

Thanks for bringing these articles to my attention. (It would have been nice if you had done so without the personal attacks in the remainder of your post.)


No, most of these authors did not use the word "precisely" as you use it. (See my comments further down.)


I'm sure it helped that you were already familiar with the term and the various people who use it, and thus knew what keywords to use besides "identitarian" itself.


I didn't use any search terms other than "identitarianism" itself. I wasn't sure what other terms would be appropriate to use, and in any case what I wanted to see was the most common uses.


See above.

Anyhow, I haven't yet read the articles you've shown me in detail, but they do look interesting and I will read them more carefully later. Here are my impressions so far:

You are correct that a variety of people, including some left-leaning people, have used that term to describe at least some leftists.

However, unlike you, the authors of at least some (possibly most?) of those articles acknowledge that both "identitarian" and "woke", especially the latter, are very loose terms with a variety of meanings. I did not get the impression that any of these writers were using "identitarian" as a precise technical term with a single standard canonical meaning. As far as I can tell, at least some (possibly most?) of these writers regard leftist "identitarianism" not as a specific ideology but as a broad spectrum of views, ranging from (a) any focus at all on the rights of one's own group, or of marginalized groups generally, to (b) extremely reductionistic, totalizing approaches to same. At least some of these writers regard "identitarianism"/"wokeism" as a tendency that's good up to a point, but counterproductive if carried too far.

Another impression I have (although I could be wrong; I haven't yet read the articles carefully enough to be sure of this one) is that none of these authors are calling themselves "identitarian," which further confirms my impression that no one on the left uses that term to describe themselves. "Identitarian left," as far as I can tell, seems to be a solely a label applied to (at least some) leftists by others. If so, then my impression that the only people who call themselves "identitarian" are white nationalists is unchanged.


So, you feel that anyone who feels insulted by your choice of terminology, or who disagrees with your belief that your terminology is clearer and more precise than it actually is, at least to people who don't share your frame of reference, is just wasting your time and complaining about it in bad faith?

Apologies if this link has already been posted, but I've not noticed it here. The source is slightly left-leaning according to some, mostly it confines itself to a fairly sober description of what seems to have been going on, with lots of statements by politicians. It makes sense, to me at any rate, so for now I'm giving it my tentative approval and am considering adopting it as the best description of what's going on with this woke thing:

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congre ... e-n1264811

If anybody can comment on it sensibly in without falling into the trap of using rhetorical tricks and adding put-downs, I for one would be interested in hearing what they have to say.

I met up with my Trump supporting friend today, but we got so absorbed in jamming together and catching up with each other's experiences that I forgot to ask him what he thinks woke is. I'll try again next time.