Tag Archives: Woke

A Linguist Talks About “Woke”

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Columbia University associate professor of linguistics in the Slavic Department John McWhorter was interviewed August 18, 2021, about the evolution of the word “woke.” It is found on a substack podcast called “Banished” by Amna Khalid with a written transcript. Below is a short reply by McWhorter on the history of “woke.”

JOHN McWHORTER: Well, woke actually goes back further than many people would think. It’s actually first documented in the early 60s and it was a Black slang. What it meant was politically aware of certain realities that operate largely below the surface, but have a determinative effect on, for example, the Black American condition. And so you might think, if you were you or me, that woke is about 10 years old. But actually people were saying it on the Black street long before that. It did not leave the Black street. Then, in roughly the 2000-teens, it jumped the rails and started being used by a certain kind of politically aware white person on the left. And what it meant at first in the general culture was somebody who understands certain basic leftist analysises [sic] of the world. What it really was, was a substitute for a term that had worn out. It replaced politically correct, which, if you’re just old enough now, you can remember was used without irony back in the late 70s and early 80s. And what it meant was that you have a basic understanding of liberal/leftist realities. Then it became PC. PCstarted being used as a slur to ridicule the kind of person who used that kind of ideology as a bludgeon in a smug kind of way. And so you couldn’t say politically correct without making somebody laugh by, say, 2010. 

Source: https://banished.substack.com/p/banished-the-evolution-of-woke#details

Before there was woke, there was “politically correct,” or PC, which was a pejorative used to disparage the liberal’s idea of social equality. PC was used as an occasion to flash sarcastic air quotes to telegraph the senders disdain for liberals. Right wingers love to suggest that liberals are candy-ass in their views. Turns out that liberals value kindness more than some which may actually be candy-assed now and then. But what of it?

On Being Woke

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I’ve found that when things look wildly complex, stepping back and rebuilding from basic principles sometimes helps. We live in a noisy and troubled time. Electronic media has amplified everyone’s voice and connectivity. People are naturally attracted to negativity and many are happy to stir the pot for the wrong reasons.

At present it is popular in conservative circles to publicly accuse liberals of being “woke”. The public figures who hurl this “accusation” do so with the vote-seeking intent of demeaning individuals and groups by highlighting a contrast. Wokeness is conflated with excessive permissiveness, moral fragility, feeble mindedness, wasted money and ill-informed generosity with those who are purportedly undeserving. It is a rhetorical device that paints a picture of “us vs them”. Woke is taken to be counter to the longstanding ideal of meritocracy.

The definition and background of “woke” can be found in Wikipedia. Broadly speaking it refers to being aware of social inequalities. Lately it has been transmogrified into an epithet. But is it really a recent phenomenon? I would say “no”. It is in part a recent variant of long-standing conservative doctrine. That would be the libertarian notion that government should not commit resources to the poor and disadvantaged. To take resources from people already outraged by federal governance and taxation and then redistribute it to the needy is regarded as theft and a violation of our freedom and liberty and is, ultimately, un-American.

To be woke is to be aware of social inequity- past, present and future. Reading, talking to people, empathizing and thinking can and will make a person woke. The study of history reveals, among other things, the human brutality that was common in the past. The history of mankind reveals repeated episodes of conquest, persecution, slavery and mass slaughter. We humans have devised a wide variety of brutal and hideous ways of killing each other- from stabbing, hanging, shooting, clubbing, drowning, electrocuting, poisoning and starving. Our clever species is good at inventing and using weaponry to help fulfill the urge to dominate.

Others may view history and current affairs differently. They may see social Darwinism at work where the unfit are destined to fall to the wayside and die out. Holding a predilection to dominate may be seen as simply survival of the fittest. It is only natural they’ll say. And that is true, it is natural. But there is an avoidable dark side. The current example is in Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. He wants to Russify the former Soviet states. His public rationale is to recover what he believes was once a “Great” Russian empire. In exchange for the government staying out of their lives, Russian citizens have agreed to stay out of politics. Look at what’s happened. Putin has constructed a power base and is building an empire the old-fashioned way- by a scorched earth invasion. This is a kind of social Darwinism at play, but at a terrible cost. Social equity is not in the equation.

To be against social equity is quite easy. Simple ignorance of facts or the shape of one’s belief structure is all it takes. But the lack of civility and compassion in people is far more than a simple shortage of facts. It is one thing to be merely ignorant of facts. It is quite another thing to remain ignorant in the presence of fact. The idea of social equity stands on the merits of being kind to fellow beings.

I’m not able to come up with a mathematically concise rationale on the merits of being kind based on just the laws of physics. The inanimate universe has no empathy or consciousness. Numerous religions present kindness as an expression of the divine. But religion can venture into the idea that we should be kind because the Deity says so. Being kind to one’s fellow man because the Deity says so and backs it with the threat of eternal punishment rings of insincerity and action under duress. It more resembles the Deity in the image of man by way of a theological Stockholm Syndrome. What underpinnings are there for the existence of a secular kindness for its own sake without the threat of supernatural punishment?

This is a topic for another day. Today I do not have an answer for a secular basis for kindness. I’m sure someone has already cracked this nut. That said, good ideas are where you find them and for that we can look to the past.

Pleas for kindness have been made early on, notably in religious writings such as in the Book of Matthew, 5:3-12. These are the Beatitudes-

3Blessed are the poor in spirit,
    for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.
4Blessed are those who mourn,
    for they will be comforted.
5Blessed are the meek,
    for they will inherit the Earth.
6Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
    for they will be satisfied.
7Blessed are the merciful,
    for they will be shown mercy.
8Blessed are the pure in heart,
    for they will see God.
9Blessed are the peacemakers,
    for they will be called the Sons of God.
10Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
    for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.
11Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.
12Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Whether you believe in a Deity or not, aligning with the gentleness suggested by the Beatitudes is at the center of what wokeness means. What in the hell is wrong with this?? Even if you are a secular bugger like me, there is tremendous sensibility here. If this is woke, then I’m woke.

If you have the chance sometime, ask a fan of Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis or Lauren Boebert what precisely is wrong with the kindness inherent in being woke? What sort of hold do these public figures have on us that leads us to be against something as humane as wokeness? Are we such a simpletons that these people can lead us around by the nose by cynically rousing anger and hatred in us.

It is true that wokeness can have extreme elements that may be difficult or impossible to attain. Progressives have been known to have a utopian bent just like libertarians have had, only in the opposite direction. We should realize that wokeness is a direction, not a place. It’s a big challenge for some folks. Just remember, it is possible to eat an elephant, but with one bite at a time. Let’s start lunch with basic kindness and build from there.

The Woke! O.M.G.

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Full disclosure. I’ll define wokism as a state having a kind of asymptote- no final end-state has been identified. One can always increase their wokism in this description. With this in mind, I’ll confess to being partially woke according to the Merriam-Webster definition–

“aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice)“

Wokism has become a very popular straw man in conservative circles. In contemporary rhetorical usage, to be woke is to have an allegiance to left-leaning ideals. As usual, words relating to the left are pejorative and meant to suggest a character or moral flaw. This is to aid in rendering a philosophical or policy stance null and void, often with a twist of humiliation. It is meant to delegitimize and cancel a left-leaning group or individual. Wikipedia defines cancel culture as-

“Cancel culture or call-out culture is a phrase contemporary to the late 2010s and early 2020s used to refer to a form of ostracism in which someone is thrust out of social or professional circles – whether it be online, on social media, or in person. Those subject to this ostracism are said to have been “cancelled”. The expression “cancel culture” has mostly negative connotations and is used in debates on free speech and censorship”.

It is interesting how those who make accusations of wokism are themselves guilty of the kind of cancel culture that they whine about so strenuously. Is the irony lost on them? I do believe it is.

Most of the public accusations of wokeness I’ve seen are in the context of a speaker desperately trying to be captured on video as having made the accusation in the most emphatic way possible as a sign of loyalty to doctrine.

A common big boogie man of wokeness are those aligning with the loosely organized groups like Antifa. Naturally, Antifa activists and everyone else left of center are smeared into one large group. Remember this if you ever decide to become a fascist dictator, you must have a maligned group at home to pile on blame for the woes of society. Hitler had the Jews and Lenin had the capitalists. In the USA, the boogie man today are those who may be liberal on immigration, enthused with the good that can be done with government, feel sympathy for the plight racial minorities and of LGBTQ+, concerned about the erosion of women’s rights and those who generally want to help the disadvantaged. All of these things can be heaped into a pile called “kindness”.

From PC to Woke-ness

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Linked here is an earlier essay on the evolution of political correctness (PC) as I have witnessed it. Before the epithet of “woke-ness” came along there was PC. In the early 2000’s rancid and cynical criticism of PC was trotted out and displayed as some kind of analysis by ultraconservative broadcasters and Christian evangelicals. PC as an epithet was useful for casting fuzzy accusations and to infer a kind of pathetic naivety to the mindset of progressive people. The accusation was difficult to counter and it gained wide spread use.

To counter the accusation of PC as a negative, one had to convince the accuser that fair treatment for all was a good thing and that the use of racial and ethnic slurs was a bad thing, not an unconstitutional imposition on free speech or an implied slur on white people. Defending PC in practice meant holding the accuser’s attention long enough to step through the morals and logic of PC- a tough exercise in listening for some people. It is another example of how it is easier to destroy than to build.

Woke-ism

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Well, cut off my legs and call me short. I finally looked up the definition of “woke”. Google defines it as “alert to injustice in society, especially racism“. How puzzling. It doesn’t seem obvious why the word has become a foul accusation. Maybe it is because it has been associated with the dreaded affliction of socialism. Woke is a condition that strikes me as morally virtuous. I guess if that dapper lad, Tucker Carlson, or if that malignant showboat #45 misuse a word long enough and frequently enough, many followers will latch on to their deceptive vocabulary. Regular folks who polish their political acumen by watching Fox will often pick up the vocabulary of Republican talking points. Listen for it. Goebbels would have been impressed by this applied art of persuasion.

What philosophical swamp fever is it that afflicts Florida Republicans? Rep Matt Gaetz (R-Fla) recently accused the US SecDef Austin and the pentagon leadership of being under the grip of “woke-ism” during a recent House Armed Services Committee hearing. Gaetz had to be reminded that it wasn’t the US that invaded Ukraine. Casting the false aspersion of “woke” is very much like accusing someone of believing in diversity, equity and inclusion. I would take it as a compliment.