Is the Philosophy Forum "Woke" and Politically correct?
I believe that philosophy is originally defined as the love of knowledge.
So following from this, censorship or sentiment appears to have no place in philosophy, as well as personal bias.
Knowledge does not equate to preferences or sentiment.
Let's take an inflammatory/racist claim such as "Chinese people are inferior to Europeans"
Should this claim be discussed or censored? I feel that philosophy is the last place anywhere where claim should be censored or criticised politically.
I feel that philosophy has often been ruined by bias, personal prejudice, censorship among other things.
Philosophers are the people in the best position to criticise public discourses and not to become enmeshed in them.
So following from this, censorship or sentiment appears to have no place in philosophy, as well as personal bias.
Knowledge does not equate to preferences or sentiment.
Let's take an inflammatory/racist claim such as "Chinese people are inferior to Europeans"
Should this claim be discussed or censored? I feel that philosophy is the last place anywhere where claim should be censored or criticised politically.
I feel that philosophy has often been ruined by bias, personal prejudice, censorship among other things.
Philosophers are the people in the best position to criticise public discourses and not to become enmeshed in them.
Comments (142)
I'm sure there are good utilitarian/consequentalist arguments for why ""Chinese people are inferior to Europeans"" should be censored here.
So, "woke" and "PC" is probably not far of the mark.
This forum doesn't mod politically, you can make racist arguments here without being modded. Mods will actually call you and your comments racist and not mod you. I think this is a quality issue, if your thread is low-quality, inflammatory and hateful then it's not going to produce a good discussion anyway. How can "Chinese people are inferior to Europeans" produce a good discussion? Standards are good for producing the best environment for discussing philosophy, I'm not in favour of just allowing people to post garbage because "censorship is bad".
I didn't say it would create a good discussion. You could make a good discussion about notions of ethnicity, the history of certain nations progresses/achievements failures. Philosophy is not about "Good" discussion" but about examining claims.
The controversial book "The Bell curve" made claims endorsing racism. I just made up a random potential topic but race and ethnicity debates have a long history. The only way to counter these claims is intense discussion.
I think philosophy can lead to uncomfortable conclusions (for example I am an antinatalist who thinks it is unethical to have children).
Two issues on here I think are interfered with by some degree of conformity/ideology/censorship are transgender issues and The Middle East/Islam/Jews. Other issues which are less pronounced are religion/atheism/science. Outside of this forum there are many groups claiming that discussions about their claims is an assault. That by mere disagreement you are physically/mentally assaulting them.
I grew up spending the first seventeen years of my life being told I would got to hell if I wasn't a born again Christian and then being rejected for being Gay.
Why would a forum on the internet designed for debating reality need to defend people against other peoples opinions?
You can switch the computer off if you don't like what you are reading. I take offense, as a victim of unrelenting childhood abuse at people equating comments on the internet that they choose to read to genuine assaults on an individual by the people in their lived lives.
I am not saying this forum practices censorship but I feel that based on peoples statements they are in the throes of PC and Wokeness.
How could you discuss this if the topic was censored?
Also why should we be Utilitarian?
I am not claiming this forum censors people but I think people censor themselves to the latest public ideology. I would not start a thread like that if I wanted to, because I know how it would be received. So we are self censoring the quest for knowledge based on current social norms.
No. philosophy was originally defined as the love of wisdom, not love of knowledge. Wisdom and knowledge aren't the same.
The above is a bias.not substantiated by evidence.
If philosophers were unable to critique discourse what would be the point of them?
The whole point is not to accept any claim but dissect it. (Which apparently doesn't happen here?)
Say for example someone says "Women are inferior to men". Anyone anywhere can disagree to this with or without evidence. But the point of philosophy is to analyse the nature of the claim being made. Not to virtue signal or win an argument.
I would not be interested in Philosophy if I took ANY claim for granted.
My problem is not with The Philosophy Forum but with the general restriction of debate in society which also manifests here.
But in a general point I am concerned that all philosophy is undermined by social strictures and ideologies.
A critique should come with a reasoning. Like my previous critique showed what was lacking in your quoted post.
I haven't been here long enough to know what happens here, other than what i have personally witnessed. I hadn't said a word about this previously but now i will mention it as an example. My posts were moved to the lounge and one of them deleted in what clearly seemed like a retaliatory action or perhaps a controlling attempt. I contacted one of the mods and received a rather lame and silly answer, that he or she cannot back up by any evidence. Rather, the evidence of the posts in TPF provides contrary evidence to the explanation that was given to me. I did not say a word to anyone and since then i have not posted a single topic in the main page and have continued posting in the lounge.
Your latest response to me lists what should and could happen, but my previous post was based on what actually happens. That is, you posted a biased assertion unsubstantiated by evidence.
When I did my degree I knew Philosophers had incredible biases. It is puzzling because my study into philosophy (I feel) freed me of biases.
I can play devils advocate.
I think that paid Philosopher's nowadays get paid based on ideology/conformity.
Questions posed in my course books were like "Is reality a dream/ of course not" They mentioned philosophical scepticism and completely dismissed it with no good reason.
i.e "some people held this opinion but you'd be deranged to hold it."
NO. It is a definitional assertion that Philosophy cannot function under bias.
First of all, I believe that philosophy is originally defined as the love of wisdom, which is not identical to knowledge. Wisdom is inclusive of recognising and structuring a lack of knowledge, and so philosophical discussions would identify the context of personal bias and ignorance that motivates such a claim as “Chinese people are inferior to Europeans”, rather than admit it into philosophical discussion as it stands.
Censorship comes down to recognising this as a legitimate claim, and I think a claim like this has no place in philosophical discussion except as an example of bias or personal prejudice (as it is here). If anyone is making such a claim themselves within a philosophical discussion, then they can expect it to be criticised and summarily dismissed.
Wisdom does not equate to preferences or sentiment either, but is nevertheless conscious of them as structural conditions for both knowledge and its lack.
Ideally yes. So be careful of posting biased statements without evidence, was the point of my initial post.
If you didn't get it then it's ok, there is no point in creating a strawman, is there? I will let you carry on with others. Thanks.
The History of Philosophy has been rife with racism, sexism, misogyny, nationalism , pro slavery sentiment, elitism xenophobia etc. So you seem to have just delegitimized all of philosophy.
I am sorry a thread of yours ended up in the lounge. I am not a mod here.
Philosophy’s history may be rife with bias and limited thinking, but that doesn’t mean that this is what philosophy is. I see it as a work in progress to develop awareness of the lack of knowledge that limits our capacity for wisdom, and to continually restructure our methodologies to at least account for our limitations, if not strive beyond them.
So I don’t believe I’m delegitimising all of philosophy at all, just placing all claims within the context of wisdom - which is what I believe ‘doing philosophy’ is.
I love that quote, but I also believe there must be education such that observers might understand the grapple. Without that ability, there is a danger that brings to mind another consideration: While the United States does not have clean hands, and I know that, we have nevertheless shed a lot of blood in what I believe are righteous causes. For a country that talks a good game about honoring her dead, this Memorial Day has me thinking that I have little patience to listen to shit from fascists or racists. And it's not simply a matter of me tuning them out or changing the channel. I want to see them shunned, banned, marginalized, pushed back under the fridge and into the darkness where they belong. They will always be with us, but we don't have to give them time or a platform.
Imagine science found a cure for cancers that involved using the remains of aborted foetuses with the eggs of near extinct bird.
Is this a cure for cancer? Yes. Is it ethically problematic? Yes? Science doesn't cater to or rely on feelings.
Facts are not eradicated by feelings. I think censorship increases prejudice by making censored ideas seem more tantalizing.
As far as I am aware I have never tried to censor anyone ever in my life and have always been willing to interact with people with beliefs I may hold abhorrent.
In the UK where I live giving increased coverage to the BNP (The British National Party) completely undermined them and lead to their rapid decline.
I expect almost no one here has ever lived under such a regime and are using censorship in a comparatively shallow egregious manner.
Free speech regimes allow ideas and claims to be freely debated the law only stepping in when threats to persons are made.
Censorship is the suppression of ideas before they can be disseminated. The ideas that are supposedly being censored by the "left wing woke pc brigade" are widely circulated and have a lot of, often fervent, adherents. There is simply no comparison to a totalitarian regime. "Canceled" people get hours of airtime on media dedicated to their creed, or at least the creed that's opposed to whoever canceled them.
There is a problem with "cancel culture", but the problem is not it's suppression of ideas. The ideas are all out there. The problem is that our societies are splitting up into narrowly defined camps who are increasingly less able to reach common ground, leaving exile the only option to deal with opposing voices.
This is a wider social issue that's not limited to "the left" though.
I am a British gay left wing, mixed race pro-Israeli antinatalist agnostic who thinks property is theft. please direct me to my "right wing comments"
I have never voted for The conservatives here or any right wing party.
How have you managed to sink to this level?
Any thread with that as its subject should probably be deleted. Not just because it is offensive but because it is ludicrous. If there were some kind of credible scientific study or something which said something interesting along these lines (which presumably there isn't), that might be worth a discussion. But even then it's not really philosophy and would be better on a social science or biology forum or something. If a post is philosophically uninteresting AND inflammatory/offensive why on earth would we want it on here? We don't have threads seriously arguing about the flatness of the earth, or geocentrism, or other obvious nonsense. If people want to post something offensive, it needs to at the very least be interesting in some way, and well argued.
For me one of the main problems of philosophy is the way it is communicated to common people. That elite-ish shirt that can't rid of it. Even philosophers the way they express themselves seems to care more to remain philosophy that way. They see it maybe as a privilege of their own and a reason to feel superior than common people. Philosophy should be more active imo in things that can be done actually from the society and people themselves. Have more practical value and not so much theoretical. The goals must be closer to what people can actually reach and not so many idealistic promises that can never be fulfilled.At the end its 2021 how much more philosophical theory? For all these centuries people have almost said everything! There is always something new to say of course but for me it would be better if we could look back to everything that has been said through all these great philosophical minds and try to compose something that is actually doable! To care more about transmitting the Message to common people and how this would be to everyone (even those who aren't educated at all) and stop caring about how to make that message as fancy to satisfy our philosophical ego. At the end of the day we care more about the Message or for our Ego?
No, it’s more about the kind of people who are so self righteous they can only view people with different views to be “dicks”.
You appear to believe that the striving for absence of bias is the ‘correct’ role of philosophy. Others will suggest that this view is just one among competing notions of what philosophy is about. A substantial community of philosophers today rejects the idea that there could be such a thing as an unbiased perspective , or that such a goal was even desirable. From their vantage your aim is what they call a god’s eye view, or a view from nowhere. It seems to me that you’re taking notice of these truth relativists now that ‘wokism’ is spreading such ideas to the general public like never before. ‘Wokism’ is a big category, including on it’s conservative flank believers in moral absolutes and on its liberal fringe those who completely abandon notions of absolute moral and empirical truth. What all points on the wokism spectrum have in common is the belief that implicit bias can never be eliminated, which likely conflicts with your view. Not only does it likely conflict , but the ‘wokists’ will push hard to expose your view as ‘oppressive’.
It's not self-righteous if they're right. If they're right then the people who believe otherwise are wrong, and so therefore dicks (given that this term "wokeness" seems to refer to views on ethical matters).
You misunderstand. If someone thinks “wokeness” is the “right” view as implied by other views being the views of “dicks” then that person is dangerously self righteous.
Like this:
People who disagree with woke ideology are terrible humans, dicks. Not only should we look down on them but we shouldn’t listen to them either, and we shouldn’t let other people listen to them so let’s make sure they suffer as a consequence of their free speech, hopefully job loss but for sure canceling an event other people wanted to have. You know what? Let’s just call him a racist, or a Nazi, then we scarcely have to justify anything we do any more. We are fighting evil racist nazis after all. Then let’s scour the texting history of everyone we don’t like to see if we can find something we can cancel them over. While we are it, let’s make sure we frame everything in the most severe way possible so that anyone who isn’t woke is a monster...let’s make insults a form of violence...hmmm, not enough let’s make it so it’s violence if you just don’t like what you hear. Perfect. Just remember, only a racist or bigot or nazi doesn’t share our view and rejects our social engineering and language control.
Thats what woke is about. That’s textbook behaviour of the biggest dicks in history. The self righteousness is in the act of viewing “woke” as a moral high ground over other views. That’s the direct implication of saying opposing views to wokeness are the views of dicks.
You can not be woke and still not be a dick and there are plenty of woke dicks out there so no woke isn’t just not being a dick. It’s as often the opposite of not being a dick as any other person with any other view is a dick...pretty often.
I asked what it means to be woke. You said that to be woke is to be self-righteous and believe that those with different views are dicks. But unless you want to argue for some form of moral relativism or subjectivism or whatever then there aren't two valid sides to an issue. One side is in the right and one side is in the wrong. We don't "agree to disagree" about ethical matters. If you mistreat others then you're a dick, plain and simple. That doesn't make me self-righteous; that just makes me right.
Quoting DingoJones
What is "woke ideology"?
I agree with philosophy being ruined by bias and such as my philosophy is based in a similar with with fallacies included.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
This kind of claim is prone to fault because you have the obvious stereotyping or hasty generalization fallacy which is built on the assumption that everyone is consistently equal in identity or status.
The claim itself is socially biased overall and not really constructive.
:up:
Quoting James Riley
:cheer:
Quoting Andrew4Handel
We don't faciliatate debate on issues we consider unworthy of debate. We consider that a poor use of our space. There are plenty of other forums less concerned about quality who do. Just go there. That's to emphasize, this is a popular philosophy forum with an academic bias. That's what we do here. It's our niche. Any subject that has zero chance of being considered worthy of academic debate probably has zero chance of being accepted here. It's not even really a question of what should or should not be debated. It's like going into an Italian restaraunt and wondering why they don't serve hamburgers. Just go to a McDonald's, man. That's not what we do here. Simple.
I think a lot hinges upon the words "correctly understood" and "theft." If we are to limit our consideration to law or other norms, then it is easy to argue that property is not necessarily theft. However, if "property" is anything held, or withheld then we must ask "held by whom" and "withheld from whom"? (Not too sure about my use of the word "whom" but you get the idea.)
In answering the first question, we should ask, how did they come into ownership of it? And how did their predecessor in interest come into possession of it, and the person before that? In answering the second question, we should ask what claim does that party have to it? And is that claim reasonable?
And then there is the nature of the "property" itself. If it is free and abundant, there is no need for the consideration of property. Those from which it is withheld would lay not claim, because they have "their" own. But if it is limited and expensive, then work must be undertaken to gain ownership of it. If the work involves taking, with only might as a justification, then a claimant might reasonably argue it was "theft."
The law and other norms like to provide a limitation on actions and other fictions in order to avoid the messy process of tracing an origination of ownership back to a point of "harmless" obtaining of possession, and the consequent "ownership." But if we don't run from that business and take on the challenge, I think it is reasonable to argue that all property is theft. It all was originally taken from someone or something that would otherwise have shared in it's use. That would include non-human entities. Their weakness and inability to resist our work cannot reasonably be distinguished from a certain person's weakness or inability to resist. Does weakness or inability to resist grant good title?
That brings my mind back to legal fictions, like "first in time, first in right" and "possession is 9/10ths of the law" and adverse possession, condemnation, etc. All variables on the notion of "might makes right." In the end, theft successfully executed results in property. Some criminals have succeeded to the point of going respectable. But it was still theft. Even their "innocent" heirs stand on theft.
Just thinking out loud.
That's pretty much the argument used whenever speech is censored by those in power. Facism and racism - or communism, Marxism, socialism, sexism, transphobia, homophobia, and on and on - are often in the eye of the beholder. That's certainly the case here on the forum.
The fact that evil can use a gun does not mean that goodness should forgo the use.
P.S. Unless and until we educate to the point where falsehood becomes a point of humor, entertainment, or parable, we'd do well to license and prohibit.
Your post makes a good case against the kind of self-righteous suppression of speech we sometimes see here on the forum. I appreciate that.
If you're saying that because others restrict speech we think is valid, we should do the same, I disagree.
It isn't necessary for valid speech to be actively censored in order for it to be attacked. Threats, intimidation, insults, dismissal, and bullying can be effectively used to get you to just shut up. Cases in point:
Quoting Benkei
Quoting Baden
Quoting Michael
Quoting Michael
Quoting Benkei
It is noteworthy that these quotes are all from moderators.
I don't think we should restrict speech we think is valid. I think we should restrict speech we think is invalid, regardless of what they think. I'm saying you don't want to bring a flower to a gun fight.
And really, my gun analogy is too early and too late. The opposition we currently fear, and the champions of their right to speak (you?) should thank their lucky stars I'm just talking about shunning, banning, marginalizing, pushing back under the fridge and into the darkness, and de-platforming. It's a shame they were not all slaughtered during the Civil War and WWII when the guns were out. Now we dishonor the memory of those who did all the hard work by allowing these people to crawl back out from under the fridge. That's what flowers will get us.
So, you think those wars for freedom were fought to protect your liberty and not those you disagree with.
I don't think you and I are going to get anywhere with this discussion.
Yes. I think those wars were fought to free slaves and slaughter racists and fascists murders. I don't want them to have liberty.
P.S. I'm not a big fan of monarchs, religious states, dictators, et al, either.
Quoting T Clark
Could be.
Ya, that’s the “consequences” of free speech that isn’t protected. A nice little sidestep the woke brigade uses to maintain the illusion of moral high ground.
Quoting T Clark
I still think your anger is clouding things for you. Baden made excellent points in that exchange you had.
That being said some enforcement is inevitable should one want to present a modicum of respectability.
The general argument concerning free speech of course has nothing to do with the argument concerning moderation on any particular forum any more than an argument for free food choices obliges an Italian restaurant to serve hamburgers. And yet posters consistently conflate these debates. There’s no inconsistency whatsoever between supporting free speech and running a moderated forum.
Because it is claiming something that isn't yours. It doesn't belong to anyone.
If it's argued that they should be able to express themselves in the manner they choose, no matter how crude, stupid, pre-judgmental or offensive, then the response to that is this: Consequences. Others have the same right to shit on you. Don't like it? Tough. Quit being a fucking snowflake.
But here's an idea: Sit down, pencil and paper in hand. Think, strategize, formulate, and then write down honest questions from a sincere seat of curiosity. Then ask those questions. No body here, or anywhere else, is going to make you, or ask you to drink hemlock, simply because you asked honest questions. And make no mistake, asking questions will get across any point you have to make much better and more persuasively than simply blathering about things like racial superiority, the benefits of slavery, "the final solution" or whatever "philosophy" you think you hold. It will work better than trying to shift a burden of proof to those who think you are a POS, and who don't have the burden of making your case for you.
But yeah, can't figure out how to stay in the game? Consequences. It's evolution, taking out the trash.
You and your damned reasonableness. Would you please stop it!!!
I've been in quite a few exchanges like this one, both as a participant and a bystander. In those situations, censorship by bullying is a common tactic. Moderators sometimes are part of that, although others certainly participate too. When a moderator does it it can be a lot more intimidating.
https://quizly.co/how-woke-are-you/
:cry:
The test tells me I qualify as woke, but apparently we're so inclusive a group that includes people who answered that "it's okay to wear blackface on casual Fridays" on the appropriate question.
I’m beginning to doubt its scientific credentials. :lol:
Well, as Stephen Colbert said, ". . .reality has a well-known liberal bias."
Could it be these accusations of mass wokeness are but figments of feeble-minded fascist fantasists?? :chin:
I don't know; the whole "War on Christmas" thing seems pretty convincing to me. Maybe we are out to get them. :wink:
Some turds float and others sink: it's just the way of things.
What is being claimed is an exclusive right to something. This claim means none else can share the thing with you. You can share land and use it in a sustainable way.
An idea I like to play with is air. I personally think that while I don't own all the air, I own that which I inhale; at least until I exhale it. So, if an individual, a corporation, a state or a state-sanctioned entity pumps poison into the air, and I can't breath without getting some of that poison, has there been a theft of clean air to breathe? Or am I only entitled to my last breath, and not the next one?
I may have started this thread well under the influence..
But I believe philosophy could benefit from taking nothing for granted.
I don't have a problem with disagreement. As long as it is not based on emotions or ideology.
Quoting Joshs
My view is more a kin to nihilism than the God's eye viewpoint. I don't invent axioms to start a debate but critique the axioms (Some of which have become PC and woke). I am not denying bias. I think PC and woke ideas are new or rehashed biases.
So much so that I feel uncomfortable, out of sorts, when someone agrees with me. It must be a trick, right? Or sarcasm? What am I to do if I can't take offense, or if I have not offended?
It may seem foreign to the well adjusted, but I must work on accepting peace, a compliment, good will.
Give me an example of a position or feature of philosophy that is not a bias of some sort or other.
I’m clearly a dinosaur. Though it would be disingenuous of me to pretend I didn’t know what the woke answers were or when such an orientation is appropriate to enforce.
Quoting Baden
To me it just depends on the rules of the forum. Free speech isn’t always conducive to good philosophical discussion and good discussion is the highest priority here. That’s why we’re here.
Questions have two sides.
Is reality a dream? Side 1 Yes Side 2 No.
A bias is to already favour one side of an argument explicitly or implicitly or to start an argument with unjustified premises and axioms. The dubious initial example I gave was just to show that certain ideas or arguments or already dismissed prior to any kind of investigation based maybe on "triggering " people.
The owner can demand total control of the property or some one can make a claim on behalf of other people about their inalienable right to something. Or the owner can allow general access to the property
In the Israeli/Palestine debate I tried to get the topic of property/ownership off the ground and someone started a thread about it elsewhere but that thread was full of hyperbole. "War Crimes" "Genocide" "Ethnic cleansing" "Apartheid" "Theft of Land"
I said I think the conflict will become intractable under this approach.
I can’t help it lol
To me that’s just part of the battle of ideas. Don’t let people bully you into silence.
You're probably right.
I am surprised you would say this because that is often the main contention that someone took land from someone else. You stole the land from them, by evicting them from it or preventing them for returning to it.
It is possible to own almost anything now, from radio waves, stars, ideas, inventions, names, ever smaller slices of land selling for massive sums of money.
The idea that you can own something has cascaded to contention over ever smaller bits of matter.
The internet actually contrasts with that thanks to Sir Tim Berners-Lee. He allowed it to be a free for all. Which is why at a low cost or even no cost we can disseminate ideas from four corners of the earth to challenge the capitalist idea that you have to pay for everything and earn your opinions.
I think our freedom comes from people who offer free stuff and don't make you have to earn your right to dissent. Woke and PC ideals appear to be an off shoot of capitalism.
Quoting Baden
Ah, oh no, test said I'm totally woke, this whole time I didn't realise. :sweat:
Well, December 25th is actually the birth of Sol Invictus. The early Christian bigwigs pretty much acknowledged that they had no idea when Jesus was born, and were using the date to celebrate his birth disingenuously because of its well-established popularity as a pagan holiday. So, Christ was never there to begin with, I'm afraid.
It's possible to own whatever law says can be owned, in fact.
I just love irony. But if they were Conservative values, I question whether Conservative values exist anymore here in God's Favorite Country.
Cicero said, quite rightly, that there's nothing so absurd but some philosopher has already said it. But absurdity and stupidity don't seem, to me, to be worthy goals of philosophy.
:100:
Even if they did, they are now inextricably married to the company they keep. They had a chance to divorce, but alas, Liz Cheney was thrown under the bus and the marriage with racism and fascism was consummated. I suppose she could have rescued the values with an inappropriate objection, but she failed.
I can see her calling a press conference, or going on Faux News, walking out and saying "Donald John Trump is a dishonorable coward and a liar." Then she grabs her crotch and says "I've got bigger balls than any of the little bitches that vote for him. Fuck off!" Then dropping the mic and walking away.
Or better yet, challenge Trump to a cage match. Tell him "If it weren't for the laws against it, I'd challenge you to a duel, kill you on Fifth Avenue, and no one would give a shit, you little pussy."
Those are the kind of theatrics that the new conservative loves. Pop corn and all that. But alas:
Quoting Ciceronianus the White
But that is not what it means now.
Wokeness now means taking offence at what anyone else says and claiming that your sense of offense is your enlightenment.
Becoming aware of the prejudice you faced or faced is not the same as taking offense on behalf of other people that you are mischaracterising.
This why the left is eating itself. It has extended its reign of taking offense to the point that anyone even in the thick of the ranks can be cancelled and ostracised for a misstep.
Damn, starting to feel us non-woke folk are an endangered minority here... :monkey:
So, bad wokeness is bad and good wokeness is good. Thanks for your contribution.
Because the right is so adept at what it does. See flag. See "liberal". See "American". See "patriot."
That and the fact that the left does not stand up on it's hind legs. They eat themselves instead.
It's a sad thing, I believe. A once legitimate (if sometimes misguided) intellectual/political tradition has been suborned and replaced with a movement the representatives of which resemble, in character, knowledge and in intellect, the loudest know-it-all at the nearest bar for the most part, and the balance of which is made up of mere shills for various corporate interests which take advantage of them.
I consider myself broadly left wing. Do you think that I cancel and ostracise people?
I don't know you to comment on this.
But I know what happens of mainstream forums like Twitter, Facebook. It is the Left wing people/Woke/PC cancelling people.
Sure, I was just wondering who you are talking about, and that helps. No doubt you are right that it happens. How many times doesn't it happen, though? How many times is there a left wing person on one of these platforms who doesn't engage in the kind of rabid overreactions that concern you? Do you notice them? How many left wing people who don't go on these platforms are there? And do they engage in the practices you dislike? Do you think that the people you notice are a representative sample of 'the left'?
The Wokeness of today is the enemy of mixed race autistic gay people like myself because it champions the opposite of diversity by seeking to categorise and vilify people based on their identity.
Based on answering questionnaires I am classed as extreme left and woke. But I know that it is people claiming to be these thing who are advocating censorship. It is not inevitable to have left wing sympathies and then to descend into woke political correctness. It is not a religion.
But the dichotomies have taken over.
That's interesting. Do you have a link to such a questionnaire? I'd be interested to have a go myself and see what I come out as.
Succinct article that hits the nail on the head when people haphazardly use terms like "woke", "politically correct", and "cancel culture".
I would go a step further and say that those who often do this in fact are not bothered by such uncomfortable topics
Yet this is the typical, standard line from woke people like Hamilton Nolan who actually cannot even see their own wokeness: How dare anybody even talk about there existing "cancel culture" when there is the corona-pandemic, climate change, wars and conflicts, poverty, INJUSTICE!
And it's great that you did pick a perfect stereotypical example like Hamilton Nolan, Maw. Because let's just take look what Hamilton Nolan writes.
So Hamilton Nolan also writes in that article you refer to:
Hmm... how about the definition being closer to the cancel culture that Hamilton Nolan personally advocates? The one he explains in an another article:
See article: Remember What They Did - Do not allow the enablers of the Trump administration to rejoin polite society, ever.
I guess that above is a perfect example of cancel culture and just why it's called cancel culture. But of course, there are more important issues, yet sometimes lesser issues can be discussed too. :nerd:
(The awarded labour columnist Hamilton Nolan...)
Cancel culture is an ancient, time-tested, conservative value, used in tribal communities in lieu of physical or verbal punishment. It's called "ostracization." It is also called "consequences." Conservatives like to talk about consequences, they just don't like to suffer them. They act like snowflakes when they have to suffer consequences. When we moved to larger communities, beyond the simple tribal affair, a new moniker was ginned up: "Cancel culture."
Cancel culture is a good thing. Everyone agrees, including conservatives who use it all the time. They just hate it when the shoe is on the other foot. In essence, if individual members of society think you are someone or something who should not be entitled to their company, they turn their back on you and walk away. They will also encourage others to do the same. But you are still left alone, free to be an asshole if that is what you like.
So, if you are a filthy POS like Trump, you might be able to find a safe space where you can continue to thrive, compound your beliefs in a confirmation-bias echo chamber and, if enough people like you, then you can find a following there. In that case, you've essentially started your own tribe. Which is fine. If you have enough support you might be able to replace the society, the spot light, the business, you so desire. You will no longer be relegated to simply looking through the knot holes in the fence, watching, with jealousy, the other other kids playing ball together. But unless and until you quit hurting about the fact that no one wants to play with you, and no one but losers like you, then you will always be a loser.
Ostracization, consequences, cancel culture are all the same thing and they are what is referred to as "social engineering." It's how people make other people social, tolerable, permissible to have around. Look around at the company you keep, if any. If you love and respect those people, great. But if you look down up them as useful idiots who you would not hang out with in your leisure time then, well, you can either try to change your ways, or you can be an asshole that goes nowhere. That's cool too.
After all, imagine what could be done, besides a simple, voluntary, peaceful, non-physical, non-verbal punishment. That could be so much worse. So, why little bitches whine about "Cancel Culture", I'll never understand. I mean, if they don't like or respect those people who are cancelling them, then what's the big deal? No one should mind being cancelled by a culture for which they have no respect or desire to be a part of.
The term is affected, though, by one’s relative position to the idea. If this thinking appears to include awareness of one’s perspective or experience where others don’t, then such ‘wokeness’ has a positive valence. If it appears to challenge one’s attitude as ignorant or inconsiderate, then this ‘wokeness’ has a negative valence.
The term has since been applied more narrowly in reference to evidence only of those particular sympathies effecting change - championed by those actively seeking change, and perceived as a threat by those uncomfortable with the changes sought.
So those who employ a broader awareness in thinking without aggressively attacking the attitudes of others are now (understandably) distancing themselves from the term ‘woke’.
There is an assumption (particularly in US culture) that the landscape here is binary: that ‘woke’ refers to those opposing ‘non-woke’, or vice versa. This grossly oversimplified landscape appeals to those who prefer to speak or act without spending too much time, effort or attention self-consciously thinking. Cancel culture is an effort to simplify our interactions, to save ourselves the effort and attention required to include alternative perspectives or experiences in our thinking when they’re ‘obviously’ ignorant. But it’s a hypocritical approach that renders one side of the binary just as ignorant as the other - and is not what it means to be ‘woke’ in the original sense of the word.
The fact is that most of us are ‘woke’ (broadly and inclusively aware) in some aspects, but not all. It’s a work in progress, and we don’t always have the patience for a broader awareness in thinking all the time.
What is also often overlooked here is the other aspect of affect: arousal. Discomfort with potential change has to do with the time, effort and attention required to adjust our thinking in relation to what we have available. Those who resist changes in thinking are not necessarily opposing them, but aren’t ready to commit sufficient time, effort or attention to the change. How they justify this is often interpreted as opposition, but I think it’s far more complex than a binary such as ‘woke/non-woke’ allows.
Quoting Possibility
I think that is pretty much correct, the extent to which the term is affected by one's political persuasions is absurd. Just like many political terms, they are vehicles to galvanise people politically. This approach has a Nazi-style feel to it, where groups are continually demonised for political purposes. "Wokeism" can be a monster that needs to be slain if that's what motivates people to get involved politically to vote for or give money to the other side. The news media profit from such political outrage and so they're perfectly happy to add fuel to the fire. This goes both ways, it's just the state of political discourse at the moment.
That's not to say either side of the "woke" debate don't have substantial and fairly articulated disagreements but that terms like "woke" are characterised and defined in politically and culturally useful ways to discredit the opposition and portray the other side in a better light. It's impossible to define these terms in a neutral way anymore, you'll be jumped by every side, or what should be a neutral description ends up being characterised as partisan.
Quoting Possibility
I define the political dispute as being about how we interpret discrimination, oppression, prejudice, equity and what should be done about a variety of social issues related to these interpretations. There's also a dispute in approach, to be "woke" I would characterise as being highly intolerant (of intolerance) as they define it. It can be quite aggressive, both in how it's done and how ambitious it can be.
Quoting Possibility
The issue is that all sides of the current political discourse condemn stereotyping, prejudice, discrimination and so on but they do so in a way that is abhorrent to others. Disagreements on definitions, pervasiveness, priorities, solutions etc, constitute the larger political disagreement. We will have to see how things develop, I think others are too comfortable with their predictions, we don't have the tools to predict exactly how things will end up.
Speaking of... As far as I know, "cancel culture" and "wokeness" are primarily concerns of the somewhat unhinged right-wing US media that idolised Trump, a man who fired, attacked, and tried to rise the people against any person or institution that dared disagree with him (except Fauci). They worshipped cancel culture as it was practised by the most important person in the country while bemoaning it if ever it were seen as in service of somewhat more considerate ideal than Trump could ever think of. It doesn't seem like a legitimate issue (admittedly from safely far away in the UK).
Also pretty weird to write his name out 6 times, not sure what that's about
Cancel culture might have been around before, but the internet has given it the ability to amplify its signal and spread out of control.
Take for example the Jeopardy! incident, which showed an audience of highly educated leftists going into almost Q Anon level rabbit hole over "secret Nazi hand gestures."
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/16/business/media/jeopardy-hand-gesture-maga-conspiracy.html
Defining "Wokeness," is a project in itself. However, one negative aspect of the Culture Wars on American intellectual life that ties in is the argument that "if people feel they are being oppressed/mistreated, then whoever is responsible for that feeling has a duty to act to alleviate that feeling."
This is simply nonsense. A group feeling threatened or offended should not be, in and of itself, evidence that such feelings are warranted.
Before the first Q posts and the conspiracy that Democrats were child abducting Moloch worshipers, liberals went down a similar rabbit hole. Black and brown girls were going missing in DC since Trump was elected. Trump and his ilk, powerful white racists, were abducting girls and no one was doing anything to stop them.
Was there a surge in abductions? No. Activists on social media had started reposting a Twitter feed of missing persons alerts. They continued to plaster the internet with pictures of run away girls who had long returned home, implying that there was a surge in abductions, and that it was tied to the new crowd in Washington. It was based on nothing. I recall the New York Times covering it with "well, abductions do happen some places, and are bad, so the feelings are warranted," which is completely beside the point. The point is that it was a fake conspiracy crisis.
A similar trend happened after Dylan Roof's massacre. People set up news reports for incidents at Black churches. Next thing you knew, media outlets were reporting on an epidemic of Black churches burning down. Later reporting would show no change in the rates at which churches caught fire and no greater likelyhood of a Black church burning versus any other. However, this revelation didn't lead to the dismissal of the issue. Charles Blow released an op-ed to the effect of "well, some people were worried about a wave of attacks on churches, and the fact that they were worried shows there is an issue, and the fear itself is evidence of oppression." In the worst cases it amounts to "I tried to get my side riled up, and they are riled up, which is evidence that I am right." The Left can add to the argument "denying I am right is denying the lived experience of marginalized groups, which is racist."
Well, of course people are scared of a wave of attacks, media outlets just spent a month telling people they were under attack and implying a cover up. The logic of "people are scared/offended, so that is evidence of wrong doing," cuts both ways. This is the argument for Trump's "Big Lie." "See, 71% of Republicans think the election was stolen, that shows there is a lack of faith in the electoral system we need to address!" It's an unsound argument.
The peak of this absurdity was when a story about a Black second grader in Philadelphia having their hair cut by White classmates became national news for a week. All sorts of racial dynamics were read into the actions of 7 year olds. Then it turned out the girl had actually cut her own hair and had used the classmates as an excuse. The media response was to still publish op-eds on the issue, seeing it as still a "teachable moment." This is to my mind, insanity. You don't need to drag a seven year old and their family into the national news over the not uncommon instance of kids cutting their own hair, not to mention making them into pawns in the culture war.
It's an epistemological nightmare. The sciences can't be trusted because they are influenced by power relations. This is a fair critique, and indeed something every field needs to take more seriously. However, the follow up, "peoples feelings on policy issues should be taken at face value," does not follow. Bias and the threats of manipulation occur in the court of public opinion, and it indeed far more susceptible to those threats than discourse in the sciences.
The easiness and the outreach of it is crucial.
When you think that earlier one had to get something published in the opinion section of any newspaper, the process and the input that people made then is something totally different to a tweet, that may or may not come viral. The opinion pages were so limited that any paper had to be quite strict in what would get published. Tweeting and social media does have changed the landscape.
Historians are eager to not that political discourse has been many times as vile as it's today, yet things do change. Many things in the end just create noise and the actual issues get lost in it.
Do you have any examples that aren't behind a paywall?
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Correct, but yours. Wokeness is about awareness of issues, not a schema for solving them. You say that defining it is a project, but it's not. Definitions centre around usage, not vice versa. Wokeness is used and defined as, e.g.
etc. Pretty consistent, and easily Googlable :)
:100: Sometimes they do it as they complain about it and don't even see themselves doing it. Crazy.
I must be out of the loop. I do know that I often hear "the right" complaining that the "lame stream media" never reports news of the left acting like idiots. Since I don't recall hearing the stories about Nazi hand signals, black girl abductions, church burnings and etc. maybe they are right. The news doesn't make a big deal out of the left lying because, well, it's lies. Then again, maybe my own bias has me blind to these stories.
Either way, cancel culture is a good thing. The winner will tell us which way our society leans: Liberal/Radical Democratic Theory, or Fascists.
This comes from the difference between the meaning and definition of an idea. We define ‘woke’ not as an idea, but as a way of being - by how we perceive one’s intentions, politically, culturally or emotionally. There are many different ways to BE ‘woke’, and while it can appear intolerant and quite aggressively enacted, it can also be so subtle as to be unattributable (wu-wei). A person who might recognise themselves as ‘woke’ is referring to their awareness of social issues from an inclusive perspective, and their intention to effect change. But when we refer to another person as ‘woke’, we’re referring only to words and behaviour we can attribute to them, not to their thoughts or any other ways one can intend without being attributed with action.
So, a person who wants to appear as ‘woke’ will focus on aggressive, loud and vocal intention to effect change that is easily attributable. It isn’t about their awareness of another’s perspective, but about another’s perspective of their awareness. And it isn’t about them effecting a solution to social issues but about appearing to be aware by highlighting the conflict.
I think this comes down to how awareness of social issues have been taught and modelled. Media and literature portrayals highlight the conflict, and people are rewarded for words or behaviour that demonstrate awareness as well as political or emotional intent towards change. This is all we have asked from them for several generations now: appearance.
‘Wokeism’ refers to valuing the quality of awareness and intent in itself. What we’re starting to realise is that there’s more to ‘doing something about social issues’ than demonstrations and raising awareness. The fact is that effecting real and positive change in relation to social issues often looks very much like selling out or doing nothing.
As an example, much of the effect Lincoln had in relation to abolition cannot be attributed to him as actions or words demonstrating his intent towards change. In many ways he appears to have been hindering the ‘cause’. Yet it’s almost impossible to imagine abolition happening at the time without his collaboration. He certainly wasn’t an embodiment of abolitionist awareness or intent, but that’s not what creates lasting change. Lincoln understood that you need to recognise (without judgement) the broad reality of how things ARE (and how things CAN change) before you can effect change.
On the other hand, can the notion of ‘wokeism’ be applied in a narrow sense to Hitler’s effect on Germany, or even Trump’s effect on the US? Highlighting the conflict demonstrated awareness of a social issue and intent towards change, but why was this not ‘woke’? Is it because the focus was on effecting a particular change, and not on the quality of awareness or intent? Is it because the change intended had value only in ignorance of how the conflict fits within a broader awareness of reality?
Wokeism is not the problem, it’s just a symptom. We conceptualise our relation to ideas into affected structures such as language, and then reify these concepts as if the emotional, political or cultural significance we attribute is inherent in its meaning. The quality of awareness and intent has variable significance according to our perspective. Valuing this quality as an appearance, isolated from either actual effective change or awareness of a broader reality, is where I think the issue lies.
I take your point, by the definition of woke you've explained, there are a wide array of interpretations and behaviours within the "woke" population and no single one of these represents the whole population. I also see your point that some may want to appear to be woke because performing this role can be beneficial, it's a practical consideration. While when doing what needs to be done. the aesthetic may be worse than when one prioritises aesthetics, therefore it isn't as impressive to on-lookers at the time. Society at large is concerned with the aesthetic rather than actual change, this is a problem we're facing currently. Is that more-or-less correct?
I do agree with what you're saying as a general criticism of virtue signalling as a kind of political or capitalistic or personal advertisement that only seeks practical compensation. This behaviour promotes cynicism about the entire movement. Media and social media impose a kind of aesthetic through things like cancel culture, even if the aesthetic is just that, meaningless words.
I think it is likely you would be misunderstood and misrepresented if you used the word "woke" or "wokeism" without first defining what you take these terms to mean. Though that's probably true of anyone who doesn't use the term as just a generic insult. But perhaps I'll start using your definitions anyway, my interpretation of the terms aren't productive, I need another term to describe minority positions within what it means to be woke. I don't know if the aggression I spoke of can be blamed entirely on virtue signalling or aesthetic compliance but that aggression in an ideal world would belong to a different term that doesn't represent something entirely different.
Quoting Possibility
Yes, I think you have summed up and explained this phenomenon well, good job. I will remember this.
Quoting Possibility
I think you are right that this is a significant problem but there's a lot of disagreement about how these problems we're aware of should be addressed, by this definition of woke, I am woke but I disagree substantially with many others who are woke. I believe the culture war is in a large part, a result of these differing arranging of interpretations, facts, characterisations, narratives and solutions surrounding the issues that one who is woke is woke about.
I’d agree with this. Most people don’t really want changes they haven’t already accepted, and most of those who push for ‘change’ aren’t really aware of what will change or how it will affect them. I think this played out with both Obama and Trump, and even with Brexit. The appearance of intention towards change is sufficient - it has all of the righteousness and none of the responsibility. And it gives us the freedom to complain about the actual road to change when we’re expected to make adjustments and sacrifices.
Quoting Judaka
I don’t like to use these terms - I tend to always place them in quotation marks - for me this indicates that its meaning is not identical to the concept. I think language consists of word/grammar/sentence structures, the quality of the idea to which it refers, and its affected context. This aggression you refer to is affected context - it’s about the position of the experiencing subject in relation to the quality of the idea, particularly their distribution of attention and effort. So yes, in an ideal use of language, the notion of aggression would not be assumed in relation to this term.
Quoting Judaka
Sure. I don’t think it’s about agreeing with each other, though, but about intending to be aware of, connected to and collaborating with each other’s perspectives as much as possible. To BE ‘woke’ is to relate to this idea to some limited extent, and ideally, to recognise the diversity of limitations in others - including those who we might think of as ‘not woke’. Because to be ‘not woke’ is simply to lack awareness and intent, which is all of us to some extent, anyway.
It's a big country, so there is a constant crop of lefty wacko events to find, but when the other side is refusing to admit defeat in elections they lost, or claiming the other side is Moloch worshiping pedos, I feel like there is a warranted shift in focus.
There is, of course, a third option from a culture war of annihilation between radicals, some sort of boring centrist reforms along the line of Solon. I'd never thought I'd say this, but rule by neoliberal technocrats seems preferable at this point. Maybe Plato was right.
Whole volumes can, and have been filled with the details of the mismanagement and hubris of the Bush Administration as regards their wars. There was no need to reach out into conspiracy theories and make them cartoon villains, dispersing death to give their shares a bump in value, and yet this impulse certainly got the better of the Left wing of politics for at least half a decade, right down to opening the door on Congress challenging election outcomes.
“There is not a truth existing which I fear, or would wish unknown to the whole world.” — Thomas Jefferson
Sally Hemmings?
Whatdabout the truth of who fathered Sally Hemings's children? :joke:
He could have said that, but he did not. Instead, he opened himself up to questions that he damn well could have put to bed (pun intended) back in his day. Apparently he did not.
I wonder if that failure had something to do with his knowing slavery was fundamentally wrong and against everything he said he stood for, but he was unwilling to walk the walk? That has jack shit to do with bathroom habits, bedroom activities, the combination to his safe or personal details of his life. It has everything to do with a founding father and a signatory of the Declaration of Independence.
Hey, like America, I love Tommy. He's a hero of mine. But as a gladiator of truth, I'm not afraid of it, and if he's a hypocrite, let the truth be known.
I agree. In fact, I know of no place on the Internet that permits free speech (as commonly defined) because many people fear the truth if it threatens to topple their long-held beliefs. And this is true with both the Left and the Right, as well as all who lie in between.
What is the standard which is being used to evaluate inferiority vs. superiority? Inferior in regards to what?
As example, the evidence suggests that on average, generally speaking, black men are superior to other races when it comes to playing professional basketball. This is a claim about some specific activity.
[b]"Hate speech" is a designation widely used as a means to silence someone whose views you do not like.
Example: Someone says that Mexico has dangerous criminal cartels and the immediate response is, "Well, you obviously hate Mexicans," as a means to invalidate the fact that Mexico does indeed have dangerous cartels.
Now, granted, such a person may well "hate Mexicans" but dismissing the fact that there are dangerous cartels in Mexico based on that is akin to dismissing 2 + 2 = 4 as being true simply because the person who says it hates you. In other words, "hate speech" has become the go-to "accusation" of many people today as a means to "win" an argument. Therefore, I'm not sure what you mean by "hate speech". [/b]
So is bolding.
Nothing exists in a vacuum, although many seem to believe that. In other words, anything can be objectively evaluated in regard to another thing. The old saying, "Oh, you're just trying to compare apples to oranges!" But stop and ask yourself: "Can apples and oranges be objectively compared?" The answer is yes. Here's one example of such a comparison: "Which has more Vitamin C?" Answer: the orange. Thus, an objective comparison was made and within that context the orange was superior. Here's another one: "I need to type a term paper. Which is superior, the orange or my desktop computer?" Answer: the desktop computer. So your question, "Inferior in regards to what?" means you understand that without context no proper evaluation can be made.
Yes, agreed, if we define the context, the goal, then we can measure something against that goal.
You should be able to do that in your browser. I do that myself. Sometimes a site's layout will get destroyed by larger fonts, but it seems to work here pretty much.
Please don't do that. It won't help you to read other's posts anyway. So, it's pointless as well as ugly. Just use your browser as suggested.
I mean speech specifically designed to promote hatred and subsequent violent response, for example "all french Canadians are less than human and so should have no rights or property and are less worthy than cattle." That, to me, qualifies as hate speech. I am French Canadian, so hopefully no one gets pissy about my example.
“(young people) who are choking on sanctimony and lacking in compassion”, who she says are part of a generation “so terrified of having the wrong opinions that they have robbed themselves of the opportunity to think and to learn and to grow”.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/jun/16/chimamanda-ngozi-adichie-social-media-sanctimony
The way words like "woke" and "politically correct" - not to mention "racist" are thrown around, they are undistinguishable from "grrr me no like."
When someone says something like "Bob is racist" or "Sergio is a woke snowflake" the only thing that this tells me is that the speaker doesn't like Bob, or Sergio, respectively. These are words almost entirely devoid of meaning.
On a mac, hold down cmd and press +.
On a PC, hold down ctrl and press +.
The site takes care of formatting, your zoom in is preserved during site navigation (eg clicking onto new threads).
Yes, the vast majority of sites that have anything to do with ideas are tribal sites. People of like mind gather to validate their own perspective. It's an incredibly popular activity.
Philosophy forums are somewhat unique because, at least in theory, everything is supposed to be challenged.
I am a little unsure of your topic. I can see that it can appear that we are in a culture of seeing the point of view of minorities. Also, looking at prejudice and discrimination it probably is so much deeper. I am sure that many people, including philosophers had prejudices, and it is extremely complex, because these are probably deep rooted. I am aware that wokism is seen as a problem, but, how do we find the right balance between wokism and tolerance of all prejudices?