War on Woke: Conservative Cultural Campaigning

[two sheds]

Perfectly good pronouns tbf.

and in his case the only ones of importance

 

[killer b]

I honestly don't think most of the culture war stuff is really about trying to challenge the social changes they claim they aim to challenge - fairly sure most of those things are changing whatever. It's about stirring up and creating/reinforcing a political/commercial bloc out of the segments of society most threatened by those changes. And to keep people on the left busy elsewhere.

There's an interesting article by Will Davies in the LRB this week which touches on the culture war in higher education (it's an invaluable and bleak look into the contemporary higher education scene, though mostly probably for another thread)

This passage is relevant here though:

since 2019, with the Treasury increasingly unhappy about the amount of student debt still sitting on the government’s balance sheet and the government resorting to ‘culture war’ at every opportunity, there has been an effort to single out degree programmes that represent ‘poor value for money’, measured in terms of graduate earnings. (For reasons best known to itself, the usually independent Institute for Fiscal Studies has been leading the way in finding correlations between degree programmes and future earnings.) Many of these programmes are in the arts and humanities, and are now habitually referred to by Tory politicians and their supporters in the media as ‘low-value degrees’.

But if the agenda is to reduce the number of young people studying humanities subjects, and to steer them instead towards STEM subjects, finance and business studies, the rhetoric is superfluous: the tuition fee hike, combined with the growing profile of league tables, had already worked its magic. The number of students studying English and modern languages at university fell by a third over the decade starting in 2011, and the number studying history by a fifth. In 2012, English was the most popular A level subject, with ninety thousand students taking the exam that summer; by 2021, that figure had fallen to 57,000. The number studying French and German at A level fell by around half over a similar period. Academic jobs – even whole departments – in these areas have been threatened by a combination of brute market forces and university managers beholden to ‘enterprise’ and ‘impact’.

Here as elsewhere, the culture was is about keeping people focused on one thing, while they run away with another. It doesn't matter to them that some people have reacted to right wing attacks on instutions by vocally and financially supporting those institutions: in fact it's a good thing as it keeps the war lively, keeps their base angry, keeps us distracted. Not sure what the answer is though, as not playing doesn't seem to be much of an option either.

 

[Cloo]

Things that I have seen being called 'woke' lately:

Being interested in history
Talking about feelings
Eating healthily
Dinosaurs with feathers

 

[8ball]

Dinosaurs with feathers

“Eating healthily” is an interesting one too. I saw “going to the gym” listed as a right-wing thing a while back, but fashions change very fast, maybe it is woke now.

Or maybe it’s politically neutral so long as you don’t go near the heavier weights.

 

[Cloo]

Partly in response to this:

 

[8ball]

Partly in response to this:

View attachment 328099

I bet half of them had feathers too.

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

So woke is now. . .
Healthy living
Agreeing with science
Being aware you yours and other peoples feelings.
Any attempt to educate yourself
Doing the right thing
Not being selfish
Not being sexist
Not being racist
Being concerned about the environment
Just generally trying to be a better person

How can it be spun that these are 'bad' things to roll your eyes at?
So weird.

 

[srb7677]

Partly in response to this:

View attachment 328099

I suppose if they started calling each other nancy boys for looking a bit down, lived on massive fry ups, and hung posters on their canteen walls of bare breasted page 3 stunnas, the Mail would think "thank god for some sanity at last." Lol

 

[Raheem]

Things that I have seen being called 'woke' lately:

Being interested in history
Talking about feelings
Eating healthily
Dinosaurs with feathers

I recently saw using the @ symbol in place of the word 'at' cited as woke. I guess, by a process of extension, it's anything that didn't used to happen.

 

[8ball]

I recently saw using the @ symbol in place of the word 'at' cited as woke. I guess, by a process of extension, it's anything that didn't used to happen.

<shakes fist at this new-fangled email thing>

 

[8ball]

Double-posts - also woke.

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

You wonder what sort of demented psychopath is left in the definitely not woke camp now. Vladimir Putin exercises and has an interest in (a certain sort of history.) A handful of serial killers perhaps.

 

[Cloo]

I guess, by a process of extension, it's anything that didn't used to happen.

Yes, that's more or less what I was thinking. It's now 'anything daily mail readers don't like because it's not like how things ought to be done' - totally divorced from the concept of social justice. And of course it's a fine blunt weapon as far as reactionary right wing governments like our own are concerned.

 

[8ball]

You wonder what sort of demented psychopath is left in the definitely not woke camp now. Vladimir Putin exercises and has an interest in (a certain sort of history.) A handful of serial killers perhaps.

The error in your line of thinking lies in the assumption that something that is woke cannot be non-woke and/or anti-woke at the same time.

See ‘Glastonbury’ if you need an example of the non mutual exclusivity of the categories.

 

[krtek a houby]

Posted this example of anti-woke ugliness on another thread recently; it's the kind of shit that is fucking everywhere now.




Basically, Disney has been under fire from bigots pretending to be concerned over their kids. Anyone who is pro-LGBT, pro-LGBT rights and for representation etc is now a "groomer".

The kind of language is worrying and it's not concern, it's back to the horrible dark days of making LGBT negative and equating us with paedophiles. It's spreading & it's dangerous.

 

[two sheds]

while it's actually the republicans who are forcing women to have the children of rapists, and good christians protecting priest and pastor abusers from the consequences of their actions

 

[RD2003]

So woke is now. . .
Healthy living
Agreeing with science
Being aware you yours and other peoples feelings.
Any attempt to educate yourself
Doing the right thing
Not being selfish
Not being sexist
Not being racist
Being concerned about the environment
Just generally trying to be a better person

How can it be spun that these are 'bad' things to roll your eyes at?
So weird.

Quite easily. By sticking the middle finger up at more or less all of it, and just for the sake of it.*

A hell of a lot of people (possibly a majority) don't think along rational lines. Many just want to fuck off everybody, It's just the way it is.


*Note to people like Krtek: this isn't me.

 

[tim]

I recently saw using the @ symbol in place of the word 'at' cited as woke. I guess, by a process of extension, it's anything that didn't used to happen.

Wheels are woke!

 

[Storm Fox]

Partly in response to this:

View attachment 328099

So male mental health issues are a huge problem, the building trade is a largely male dominated area (This a discussion for a different day) and the stereotypical workplace of the tough mail. After a lot of effort by the mental health sector in de-stigmatising mental health issues and saying it's OK to talk about it to help people. The mail comes out with this

 

[existentialist]

So male mental health issues are a huge problem, the building trade is a largely male dominated area (This a discussion for a different day) and the stereotypical workplace of the tough mail. After a lot of effort by the mental health sector in de-stigmatising mental health issues and saying it's OK to talk about it to help people. The mail comes out with this

Worrying about mental health is woke. We all managed just fine when we just told people to pull themselves together and snap out of it. See also: DWP PIP policy on mental health disorders.

 

[Cloo]

So male mental health issues are a huge problem, the building trade is a largely male dominated area (This a discussion for a different day) and the stereotypical workplace of the tough mail. After a lot of effort by the mental health sector in de-stigmatising mental health issues and saying it's OK to talk about it to help people. The mail comes out with this

Indeed - God forbid anyone tackle the terrible suicide rate in the construction industry. How woke of people to discourage people from killing themselves.

 

[pinkmonkey]

Things that I have seen being called 'woke' lately:

Being interested in history
Talking about feelings
Eating healthily
Dinosaurs with feathers

my all time fave (seen on Facebook, posted by a commenter on the Canal and River Trust page)
Litterpicking! WTF?

 

[Serge Forward]

my all time fave (seen on Facebook, posted by a commenter on the Canal and River Trust page)
Litterpicking! WTF?

Well, "there is no society" dontcha know!

 

[Storm Fox]

my all time fave (seen on Facebook, posted by a commenter on the Canal and River Trust page)
Litterpicking! WTF?

I'm guessing it's also Woke not throwing your little everywhere in the first place.

 

[Cloo]

My predictions on what will soon be declared 'woke':

Holidaying abroad
Fresh fruit and vegetables
Heating your home

 

[brogdale]

My productions on what will soon be declared 'woke':

Holidaying abroad
Fresh fruit and vegetables
Heating your home

Expecting to be paid for work?

 

[pinkmonkey]

Attempting to cook a meal for 30p

 

[isvicthere?]

Attempting to cook a meal for 30p

No, it's "woke" to suggest you CAN'T cook a meal for 30p.

 

[pinkmonkey]

No, it's "woke" to suggest you CAN'T cook a meal for 39p.

Ah yes of course!

 

[pinkmonkey]

I'm listening to a YT about Compost toilets - I have one on my boat. Someone commented that they're virtue signally idiocy. Close enough?