Why do people from privileged class backgrounds often misidentify their origins as working class?

[kabbes]

Yes, that’s a good thought piece. Part of the politics he refers to is its very attempt at normativity — the insistence that woke “doesn’t exist” is, in essence, a claim that its way of thinking is the default and that all the other ways of thinking are the ones that need marking and naming. The problem is that shouting people into silence doesn’t convince them they’re wrong. It just makes them hide their thoughts away from your sight, which means you get caught by surprise when they rear up again.

 

[Smokeandsteam]

I think deBoer is often annoyingly wrong and at least 15% more social democratic than he should be, and you can see him being a bit wrong about 2020 in that bit I quoted, but I think he does hit on something there. Much more in the full piece.

Good stuff.

I followed deBoer on Substack for a while, but he was too annoying and militantly wrong on too much. But, his writing on ‘woke’, the performative left and its consequences is worth reading. He’s right, people do, of course, know what ‘woke’ is…

 

[Humberto]

I genuinely don't recognise woke as a thing or spot it in people.

 

[Ax^]

aye woke as a thing in people .. it is just something for the right to complain about like not being able to call Christmas . Christmas for some reason

 

[Smokeandsteam]

aye woke as a thing in people .. it is just something for the right to complain about like not being able to call Christmas . Christmas for some reason

Do you disageee with deBoer then? What’s he got wrong?

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

I do recognise what he's talking about - it clearly is a thing isn't it.

It's only part of how woke is used though isn't it. Woke is that but it's also used quite flexibly to describe pretty much anything that isn't overtly racist, homophobic etc. I think anyone tempted to set themselves up as representing some sort of anti-woke left politics is probably going to end as either dismissed as woke anyway, going down a seriously unpleasant path, or getting tied up in knots trying to defend a line nobody else recognises. Or some combination of the three.

 

[ignatious]

If I have understood his piece correctly, he seems to be criticising the use of the term ‘woke’ and suggesting that the beliefs it encompasses would be more widely understood and better supported if the term was renamed. He suggests something like ‘social justice politics’, and seems to imply that would amount to ‘doing politics like everyone else’.

I’m not sure that the problem with wokeism is the brand name though; right wingers often use the term ‘Social Justice Warrior' as a pejorative to describe adherents of woke ideology so it would likely face similar issues following a rebranding along the lines he suggests.

It seems to me that the problem with ‘wokeism’ is that it encompasses so many different beliefs under its umbrella, and it is assumed that if you subscribe to one of them you are necessarily subscribed to them all. For (an extreme) example, if you believe the police are racist and should be held more accountable, you must therefore also believe that there should be gender neutral bathrooms in restaurants. This not only makes ‘wokeism’ an easy target because it broadens it to include so many issues, but it alienates many people who do not subscribe to or fully understand all the views therein. In some cases this will be because the discussion has been closed down and people are not properly exposed to the arguments for and against.

The ‘doing politics like everyone else’ should be about being able to discuss any issue without the burden of intersectionality, rather than a rebranding exercise that still encourages disparate issues to be clustered together. Having so many complex and controversial issues neatly packaged into a single ideology of ‘wokeism’ is an absolute wet dream for the right; the whole chain of ideas will only be as strong as its weakest link and, whether we like it or not, certain topics are easily weaponised as a means of undermining the whole.

The original use of ‘woke’ is well recognised, but it has been piggybacked to the point where civil rights are now subsumed within a number of other causes. Why? What is the point of doing that and who does it most benefit? How many people are lost to the overall ‘leftist’ cause as a result of the original issue being appropriated and watered down?

For whatever reason the left seems to live in a continual state of cognitive dissonance that the wider population seem to naturally overcome or ignore. So there’s an openly gay Tory and we think how the fuck can that happen, or there’s a bloke who’s concerned about immigration but he says he’s not a racist. This is the milieu we’re in; ‘feels not reals’ to coin a phrase, and it seems to me that the left’s inability to connect with many people at a time when the political landscape should be in their favour, is because they insist on a logical and consistent approach to politics at all costs, and it just ends up with them being tied up in knots due to the sheer number of positions they have to defend at once.

People are a mass of inconsistency and hypocrisy in their everyday lives yet somehow muddle through to mostly being decent people. This is intuitively understood and accepted by people. The theoretical left's apparent insistence that they behave differently when it comes to their political beliefs makes it very difficult to make any sort of connection with them, and the current ideology of 'wokeism' is largely to blame.

 

[kabbes]

If I have understood his piece correctly, he seems to be criticising the use of the term ‘woke’ and suggesting that the beliefs it encompasses would be more widely understood and better supported if the term was renamed. He suggests something like ‘social justice politics’, and seems to imply that would amount to ‘doing politics like everyone else’.

I’m not sure that the problem with wokeism is the brand name though; right wingers often use the term ‘Social Justice Warrior' as a pejorative to describe adherents of woke ideology so it would likely face similar issues following a rebranding along the lines he suggests.

I don't think you've picked it up in the way he is intending, tbh. He's not per se criticising the term 'woke' (although he says that he's not a fan of it). He's criticising the stance maintained by many of the 'woke'/'social justice'/'identity' Left, that there is no such thing as 'woke'/'social justice'/'identity' politics. He's noting that such people don't just say that they don't like the word 'woke', but that that they insist they don't need a word at all because they're just sensible people stating the truth, and the truth doesn't need a name, that they're not even doing politics, let alone named politics. He's saying, 'for fuck's sake, of course you're doing politics, so pick a fucking name for the politics you're doing'. He's saying that the branding problems you mention occur because they allow the other side to brand them and to run with the brand.

 

[ignatious]

I don't think you've picked it up in the way he is intending, tbh. He's not per se criticising the term 'woke' (although he says that he's not a fan of it). He's criticising the stance maintained by many of the 'woke'/'social justice'/'identity' Left, that there is no such thing as 'woke'/'social justice'/'identity' politics. He's noting that such people don't just say that they don't like the word 'woke', but that that they insist they don't need a word at all because they're just sensible people stating the truth, and the truth doesn't need a name, that they're not even doing politics, let alone named politics. He's saying, 'for fuck's sake, of course you're doing politics, so pick a fucking name for the politics you're doing'. He's saying that the branding problems you mention occur because they allow the other side to brand them and to run with the brand.

Won't his rebranded version have the same problem though? It’s the same ideological package, just by another name.

 

[kabbes]

Won't his rebranded version have the same problem though? It’s the same ideological package, just by another name.

It might do. But the first step to controlling a brand is at the very least to own it. Allowing other people to brand you is just a disaster.

 

[Smokeandsteam]

He's noting that such people don't just say that they don't like the word 'woke', but that that they insist they don't need a word at all because they're just sensible people stating the truth, and the truth doesn't need a name, that they're not even doing politics, let alone named politics. He's saying, 'for fuck's sake, of course you're doing politics, so pick a fucking name for the politics you're doing'.

Yes. He is also arguing (correctly in my view) that in respect of the dominant narrative in liberal left discourse and praxis "something happened. Something changed" in the last 20 years and that to seek to deny what is so blindingly obvious is pureile. The other trick is to pick an argument with one aspect of the critique and then argue that this is proof that 'woke' or performative left liberal politics doesn't exist at all.

 

[kabbes]

Yes. He is also arguing (correctly in my view) that in respect of the dominant narrative in liberal left discourse and praxis "something happened. Something changed" in the last 20 years and that to seek to deny what is so blindingly obnvious is pureile. The other trick is to pick an argument with one aspect of the critique and then argue that this is proof that 'woke' or performative left liberal politics doesn't exist at all.

I think part of it is that so much of the active liberal left are under 30. Generally well under 30. The reason they don’t realise how much it has changed in 20 years is because 20 years ago they were 5 and cared more about Fireman Sam than the difference between equality and equity.

 

[Smokeandsteam]

I think part of it is that so much of the active liberal left are under 30. Generally well under 30. The reason they don’t realise how much it has changed in 20 years is because 20 years ago they were 5 and cared more about Fireman Sam than the difference between equality and equity.

Probably. But, to return to deBoer, he's right to highlight that one of the consequences of "their feeling that they shouldn’t have to do politics like everyone else" is that nothing changes. In fact, much of the evidence suggests that their praxis is producing the opposite effect to what they imagine it is.

 

[kabbes]

Probably. But, to return to deBoer, he's right to highlight that one of the consequences of "their feeling that they shouldn’t have to do politics like everyone else" is that nothing changes. In fact, much of the evidence suggests that their praxis is producing the opposite effect to what they imagine it is.

Of course. They’re practising individualism. They’re practising hierarchical relations. They’re practising division. What on earth do they think those practices constitute as a culture?