The Woke Generation - Fighting Back

Post Reply New Topic

I read an interesting article by Bari Weiss about 10 steps a person can take to defend against the Woke Generation. He wrote:

I realize the faddish thing to say these days is that we live in the worst, most broken and backward country in the world and maybe in the history of civilization. It’s utter nonsense.

I have a few basic litmus tests in my own life: Can I wear a tank top in public? Can I walk down the street holding the hand of my partner, a (beautiful) woman, in many places in America without getting a second glance? Can I wear a Jewish star without fear?

I do not take those things for granted. I know very well that in many other places, the answers would be different, and my life wouldn’t be possible at all.

America is imperfect. (Does it even need to be said?) There is bigotry toward Blacks and gays and Jews and immigrants; there is intense polarization; political violence is becoming more regular; elected representatives believe conspiracy theories. All true here as in many other countries being torn apart by the dislocations of the 21st century.

But there is no gulag in America. There are no laws permitting honor killings. There is no formal social credit system of the kind that exists right now in China.

By any measure, we have achieved incredible progress and enjoy extraordinary freedoms. And yet people aren’t acting that way. They are acting, increasingly, like subjects in a totalitarian country.

These people write to me daily. They admit to regularly censoring themselves at work and with friends; succumbing to social pressure to tweet the right hashtag; to parroting slogans they do not believe to protect their livelihoods, like the greengrocer in Václav Havel’s famous essay "The Power of the Powerless."

These people aren’t crazy. They are scared for good reason.

How much does it cost me to log on to Twitter and accuse you, right now, of an -ism? America is fast developing its own informal social credit system, as the writer Rod Dreher has noted, in which people with the wrong politics or online persona are banned from social media sites and online financial networks.

When everything is recorded for eternity, when making mistakes and taking risks are transformed into capital offenses, when things that were common sense until two seconds ago become unsayable, people make the understandable decision to simply shut up.

Do not nod along when you hear the following: That Abraham Lincoln’s name on a public school or his likeness on a statue is white supremacy. (It is not; he is a hero.) That separating people into racial affinity groups is progressive. (It is a form of segregation.) That looting has no victims (untrue) and that small-business owners can cope anyway because they have insurance (nonsense). That any disparity of outcome is evidence of systemic oppression (false). That America is evil. (It is the last hope on Earth.)

This list could go on for a thousand pages. These may have become conventional wisdom in certain circles, but they are lies.

Yet too many good people are sacrificing the common good, and therefore their long-term security, for the sake of short-term comfort.

It’s time to stand up and fight back. That means you. Social conservatives. Never-Trump Republicans, and anti-anti-Trump Republicans, too. Lukewarm liberals and libertarians. Progressives who have a little curiosity still left. Exhausted parents who want nothing to do with politics. Joe Rogan stans. Reddit revolutionaries and the hedgies getting crushed. Facebookers and email chainers and Etsy-shop owners and Boomers who still use AOL accounts.

Bari Weiss then goes on to list 10 steps people can take:

Woke culture is dominating our lives -- here are 10 ways to fight back

It is a New York Post article, re-edited for Fox News.

The New York Post is a right-wing daily tabloid newspaper published in New York City.  In a survey conducted by Pace University, the Post was rated the least-credible major news outlet in New York.  The Post has been criticized since the beginning of Murdoch's ownership for sensationalism, blatant advocacy, and conservative bias.  The Post has been accused of contorting its news coverage to suit Murdoch's business needs, in particular avoiding subjects which could be unflattering to the government of the People's Republic of China, where Murdoch has invested heavily in satellite television.

Hence, the article cited in the OP is nothing more than an anti-left, pro-right, tabloid op-ed piece of no significance.

Dare I say that there is a lot less bigotry toward blacks than there is toward whites?

Think about it. Whose statues are being taken down, for instance? Martin Luther King, Jr.'s or Robert E. Lee's (who, by the way, was against slavery while the first slave owner in America was a black man. Read up on it.). This "woke" generation is being fed nothing but whitewashed history (ex. this "1619 Project". This thing is designed to do nothing but feed lies about how America was founded in order to make the younger generations hate the U.S.A. No, America isn't perfect. I'm not saying that at all. What I am saying is that you have all sorts of race hustlers out there keeping blacks down by perpetuating the victim status. They are trying to divide the races, and they're doing a pretty good job from what's been going on lately. Don't fall for it.

So once again, a member on WP attacks a link and makes an accusation of it being a "right-wing" this-or-that.
The article sounded pretty reasonable to me.

It is an opinion piece. But people have a right to opinions. It is strange that you attacked the article using an ad hominem argument. [An ad hominem argument is one that attempts to counter another's claims or conclusions by attacking the person [in this case the publisher] rather than by addressing the argument itself.]

There are certain media outlets that have little or no credibility outside their limited fanbase -- Fox News is one of them.  The New York Post is another.  Sky News Australia is a third.

Rather than post a wordwall of everything that is wrong with the original Op-Ed piece and ending the wordwall with a condemnatory summation, it is simply easier and more sensible to dismiss the Op-Ed piece entirely as just one more propaganda piece by just another right-wing journalist originating in just one more tabloid journal and then copied into another.

Yes, I gave the piece the reading it deserves; and that's 1 minute and 37 seconds of my life that I will never get back.

It isn't a new phenomenon. America has always had a social credit system based on ancestry, culture, religion, and economic class.

It is fair to point out that no one is asking for the OP to be banned, no one is asking that the link to the story be broken, no one is asking for any posts to be deleted, and no one is asking for this thread to be locked.

I would add these
if you are an atheist do not ignore what is said in point 7 in the column.

Many here thoroughly disagree with Weiss’s ardent Zionism, that is separate from from what is discussed in this column. Agree or disagree with what was said in the column.

Weiss like many has not always practiced what she preaches. She has tried to cancel the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement. That does make what is said in the column wrong.

I think she paints an overly rosy picture of what America was and is now which is seriously ill with a number of problems. That does not take away from the overall merit of the column.

My additions have one consistent theme, have an anti woke, anti cancel culture mindset which boils down to not ignoring flaws while not destroying the worthy.

Many preach being anti woke to excuse their bigotry, or just out of the sadism of owning the libs. You are pouring gasoline on the fire that may consume you one day. More importantly you are giving validation to a cause that does not deserve it. You are making fighting wokeness much more difficult if not impossible.

Last edited by ASPartOfMe on 02 Feb 2021, 10:41 am, edited 3 times in total.

Another thread on this topic was already started HERE, and my response remains the same: The article cited in the OP is nothing more than an anti-left, pro-right, tabloid op-ed piece of no significance.

More emphasis on teaching children how to think, rather than what to think.

I don't think America is evil but "last hope on Earth"?



I refuse?

A fully developed human with critical thinking capacities is statistical anomaly.

Just like with socialism, the fun of wokeness is imposing it on people who don't want it.

My apologies.

No worries.  Just sayin'.