Reversing the Woke Tide

[Laan Yaa Mo]

As the writer indicates, there is an indication that the days of woke and cancel culture are weakening, but it is another thing to try and rid society of its impact. It's a thoughtful article. One hopes that reversing the woke tide will not be an unsuccessful exercise. At this point, I am not at all confident that the woke silliness will be reversed anytime soon.

Turn of the woke tide will leave many stranded
Students may be starting to reject pronouns and BLM, but ideology is embedded in organisations
Kathleen Stock



It is a cliché that when the US sneezes, the world catches a cold. Thankfully, when it comes to the phenomenon of wokeness — loosely understood as a box set of holier-than-thou attitudes about race, gender identity and sexual minorities, with accompanying punishment beatings for dissenters — many now appear to be reaching for the antivirals.

A friend of mine who teaches in a famous North American liberal arts college, full of achingly cool rich kids, tells me her undergrads are “so over” pronoun rounds, eye-rolling whenever staff try to introduce them in the classroom. Taste-making East Coast broadsheets are dipping nervous toes in the water on subjects such as unfair male advantage in women’s sport and the experimental status of medicalised child transition, having avoided or spiked such stories for years. The once ubiquitous hashtag #BlackLivesMatter has fallen out of favour with many, after accusations that the founders of the namesake organisation misused donations and enriched themselves.

Meanwhile in Britain, football players taking the knee are an increasingly rare sight. Organisations such as Sports England and the Arts Council are quietly exiting Stonewall’s Diversity Champions scheme, and the once-ebullient charity no longer feels confident enough to advertise the list of members on its own website. Free speech societies are forming with renewed vitality in British universities; and last week even saw those bellwethers of middle-class humour, the blokes on Have I Got News For You, pluck up courage to make a tentative joke about gender identity flags in NHS hospitals.

So can the rest of us — the ones who knew all along that wokeness was a pseudo-progressive hobby for guilty rich people, role-playing as meaningful political action — relax? Unfortunately not yet. For I’m afraid the demise of woke won’t be like the end of toothbrush moustaches, indie folk music or any other temporary behaviour supercharged by the whims of the young and the hip, then dropped without consequence. Wokeness, in contrast, is a bit like a hulking great boulder launched into the middle of a calm lake: waves will be crashing on the shoreline long after the epicentre bears no trace.

The most obvious difference between wokeness and other passing fashions is that nobody working in HR ever decreed that moustache-wearers or indie folk-listeners be considered uniquely oppressed minority groups. In contrast, thanks to wild and unevidenced claims made at the height of wokemania by lobbying groups, thousands of organisations have been left with unfair, illiberal and sometimes even illegal policies that blatantly cater to the special interests of a few: rules about how social spaces can be accessed and by whom; what data can and cannot be collected; what conversations are allowed and which are not. Policies tend to dictate organisational behaviour long after those who first championed them move on ideologically; and especially when propped up by a raft of specially created career positions, whose occupants have a financial interest in maintaining the momentum.

And alongside such policies, superficially moralised gestures have become embedded in many workplaces, embraced by senior figures for no better reason than they think everyone else is doing it too and by junior figures because the boss is doing it. Students at liberal arts colleges may no longer be listing their pronouns but the head of MI6 currently has his in his Twitter/X bio. Activist-sanctioned holy weeks and days are carefully observed by blue-chip managers. Hospitals, construction sites, police stations, council buildings, banks and hotels are festooned with the visual monstrosity that is the Progress flag. None of this happened with the craze for platform shoes or Agas.

In effect, the storm-surge of wokeness throughout British institutions from 2020 onwards was what the political scientist Cass Sunstein has called a “reputational cascade”: a relatively small number of people started acting in a certain way, each for roughly independent reasons; then at a certain point, a wider group of people started observing the behaviour of the smaller group and copying them, each privately assuming their reputations would be damaged if they did not. Before long, this pattern expanded exponentially, helped by the odd bit of public witch-burning.

Here again is a difference with more benign aesthetic crazes: if you don’t keep up with the moral version, you risk losing your social circle or even your job. But the reputational cascade that was wokeness didn’t just deter dissent from those frightened to swim against the perceived tide. It also incentivised opportunists, who actively used the surging tide to swim further ahead than their competitors. Many organisations latched on to it as a positive marketing strategy, thereby creating workplace structures and habits that, from the inside, now seem very difficult to unpick.

Perhaps, though, we shouldn’t be too gloomy. For of course, the existence of a reputational cascade doesn’t require sincere belief in the rectitude or wisdom of whatever behaviours you are copying, only the sincere belief that nearly everybody else thinks such behaviours are good ones. And, while no doubt depressing as a fact about human nature, this also has an upside: it only takes widespread realisation that other people don’t actually believe what you thought they believed for a reputational cascade to collapse. As organisations start to cotton on properly to the fact the tides of fashion are turning, it will be interesting to see what happens next.

Kathleen Stock is a contributing writer at UnHerd

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/turn ... -3xh5kwm6x

[tamada]

^ Nice, thanks.

[noosard]

Wont have to swim
was getting tired

[glalt]

For many years I thought higher education was just that. It appears that I was wrong. Kids go to expensive schools using government loans to party for several years, They never had any intention of paying back those loans or getting an education. Biden is supporting the no pay back loans by writing them off. How does that make the students that worked their way through school feel. Just keep the printing presses running full speed printing funny money to fund the government follies.

It should be a requirement for politicians to be able to balance a check book. Obviously that is not the way it currently is.

[Whistler]

Glalt, are you implying 100% of all students come from.wealthy parents, party hard and are thus automatically woke? Ya think there is a portion of these loans maybe be from hard working kids that despite a college degree, cannot get a well paying job.

I would suggest that anyone with concerns about the scheme, look at the facts covered by the scheme and the limitations it has initiated. I have, and it looks a sensible approach to deal with student loans given the fallout from the covid 19 pandemic, it is not forgiving many loans at all it is designed to postpone payments until people's incomes are restored and some interest relief for low and medium income families.

By labelling the laws Woke, the facts get hidden by that pejorative term

[FrazeeDK]

student loan statistics.. Average owed: $28,950.. less than a new car these days... Here's a detailed breakdown from Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/advisor/student- ... tatistics/

and additional note: about 37% of those holding student loan debt failed to finish their degree within 6 years..

The media likes to focus on those people who owe mind boggling amounts of money, well up over $100,000 to $300,000.

[jackspratt]

Let's hope the "woke" tide is never reversed, so we see ourselves again in a society where racism, sexism, antisemitism, and just about any similar "ism" you care to name was accepted, and in many ways, embraced in society.

Like in any social movement, dampen down the excesses that the article focuses chooses to focus on, but don't ignore the successes and revert to a meaner, and less caring society.

[Laan Yaa Mo]

Let's hope the "woke" tide is never reversed, so we see ourselves again in a society where racism, sexism, antisemitism, and just about any similar "ism" you care to name was accepted, and in many ways, embraced in society.

Like in any social movement, dampen down the excesses that the article focuses chooses to focus on, but don't ignore the successes and revert to a meaner, and less caring society.

Sadly, the woke/cancel culture brigade are racist, anti-semitic, holier than thou, pronoun conscious, and often plain silly such as promoting the idea that Asians are associate white people and no longer to be labelled people of colour.

[tamada]

Let's hope the "woke" tide is never reversed, so we see ourselves again in a society where racism, sexism, antisemitism, and just about any similar "ism" you care to name was accepted, and in many ways, embraced in society.

Like in any social movement, dampen down the excesses that the article focuses chooses to focus on, but don't ignore the successes and revert to a meaner, and less caring society.

Sadly, the woke/cancel culture brigade are racist, anti-semitic, holier than thou, pronoun conscious, and often plain silly such as promoting the idea that Asians are associate white people and no longer to be labelled people of colour.

Is this some new Canadian wokery? Never heard of it before but I'm very unwoke so may have missed it.

[rick]

student loan statistics.. Average owed: $28,950.. less than a new car these days... Here's a detailed breakdown from Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/advisor/student- ... tatistics/

and additional note: about 37% of those holding student loan debt failed to finish their degree within 6 years..

The media likes to focus on those people who owe mind boggling amounts of money, well up over $100,000 to $300,000.

That sounds pretty low. In the UK, the average student now leaves University after a 3 year course with about 50,000 GBP of debt. Due to high interest rates, many will never manage to repay it before they retire. A trainee doctor can have up to 100,000 GBP of debt by the time he qualifies - which would take decades to repay.

The knock-on effect of student debt is that with high house prices, very few can afford mortgages until they are in their 30's, this also means that most couples cannot afford to have children until late in life. On the other hand, single teenage mums can get a flat and benefits because they cannot work with a young child. University is a ball and chain for our brightest. Back in the 70's, students got modest grants, sufficient to allow you to finish University debt free if you were sensible - I actually had a couple of hundred saved! Without the millstone of student debt, and with jobs being much easier to find back then, and lower house prices, meant that we could buy houses and start families in our twenties. Life was so much better in those days.

[Laan Yaa Mo]

Let's hope the "woke" tide is never reversed, so we see ourselves again in a society where racism, sexism, antisemitism, and just about any similar "ism" you care to name was accepted, and in many ways, embraced in society.

Like in any social movement, dampen down the excesses that the article focuses chooses to focus on, but don't ignore the successes and revert to a meaner, and less caring society.

Sadly, the woke/cancel culture brigade are racist, anti-semitic, holier than thou, pronoun conscious, and often plain silly such as promoting the idea that Asians are associate white people and no longer to be labelled people of colour.

Is this some new Canadian wokery? Never heard of it before but I'm very unwoke so may have missed it.

[Whistler]

JATH

(Just Another Talking Head)

[Laan Yaa Mo]

JATH

(Just Another Talking Head)

Just as we both are, no.

[Whistler]

Yep, but I don't big note the fact by doing a YouTube video and expect anybody to take notice

[Laan Yaa Mo]

Yep, but I don't big note the fact by doing a YouTube video and expect anybody to take notice

Perhaps because you have other options, such as cartoons, insults et al, in your bag of tricks to seek attention.

However, thanks for taking notice of the you tube video which I had no hand in making or doing.

Tamada, as you may have noted, wondered where a certain term originated, and asked if it was a Canadian thing. The video answers his question, no.

[tamada]

Let's hope the "woke" tide is never reversed, so we see ourselves again in a society where racism, sexism, antisemitism, and just about any similar "ism" you care to name was accepted, and in many ways, embraced in society.

Like in any social movement, dampen down the excesses that the article focuses chooses to focus on, but don't ignore the successes and revert to a meaner, and less caring society.

Sadly, the woke/cancel culture brigade are racist, anti-semitic, holier than thou, pronoun conscious, and often plain silly such as promoting the idea that Asians are associate white people and no longer to be labelled people of colour.

Is this some new Canadian wokery? Never heard of it before but I'm very unwoke so may have missed it.

Gold!

[Whistler]

Yep, but I don't big note the fact by doing a YouTube video and expect anybody to take notice

Perhaps because you have other options, such as cartoons, insults et al, in your bag of tricks to seek attention.

I saw this video weeks ago, all far too smug. If I break forum rules, press the report icon on the post. I don't need to seek attenttion, but have a few different methods to get a point across.

I certainly don't mind ridiculing those that think labelling progressive viewpoints using the hackneyed term 'Woke'. The Right Wing has taken name calling, demonisation and fabricated memes to heart. Look at the Baltimore Bridge thread to see classic examples of this approach. So LYM, I did not hear you rage against that, but what makes that any different to my posts that express a viewpoint, or is that the exclusive province of right wingers?

[tamada]

I believe Britain's revered and much maligned NHS has just taken a step back from the woke precipice.

[Laan Yaa Mo]

Yep, but I don't big note the fact by doing a YouTube video and expect anybody to take notice

Perhaps because you have other options, such as cartoons, insults et al, in your bag of tricks to seek attention.

I saw this video weeks ago, all far too smug. If I break forum rules, press the report icon on the post. I don't need to seek attenttion, but have a few different methods to get a point across.

I certainly don't mind ridiculing those that think labelling progressive viewpoints using the hackneyed term 'Woke'. The Right Wing has taken name calling, demonisation and fabricated memes to heart. Look at the Baltimore Bridge thread to see classic examples of this approach. So LYM, I did not hear you rage against that, but what makes that any different to my posts that express a viewpoint, or is that the exclusive province of right wingers?

You are missing the point and not even addressing your error.

The fact is I was not grandstanding by using that video. I was using it to answer a question posed by tamada. Can you not understand that? You got yourself all worked up over nothing because you failed to understand why I posted the video.

What has the Baltimore Bridge thread got to do with your failure to understand why I posted the video on this thread? Admit your error and move on. Jeez.

[Laan Yaa Mo]

I believe Britain's revered and much maligned NHS has just taken a step back from the woke precipice.

This is good. The attached article gives an explanation,

Tuesday brought two reasons to be cheerful that have been in short supply of late: a burst of spring sunshine for most of the country, and some good news about the NHS. The government is putting the lid on some of the gender-related daftness that has been emerging in bits of the health service over the past few years.

You might think that, of all the public services, the NHS would be the one in which biology trumped ideology, but that has not always been the case. Some NHS trusts use terms such as “chestfeeding” alongside “breastfeeding” and have renamed “maternity” services “perinatal” services. Victoria Atkins, the health secretary, has announced that the NHS’s constitution, which sets out patients’ rights, will in future ban the use of such terms as “people who have ovaries” as a substitute for “women”.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the- ... -f67bzm27s