steeler wrote:
You make some great points.

DEI awareness is legitimate, but it is reverse discrimination against white candidates.  When metrics are created to measure increases in discrete populations, it by design requires reductions in others.

CRT is abused by both sides.  It's a real issue that has oppressed blacks for centuries, but it's not meant to harm or blame the white population.

Kurt talks a LOT about virtue signaling, and what upsets many is that the signals have become policy... and opposing the policy brings with it the potential for grave danger... so most stay silent.  An example: thanking the indigenous tribes for the land everything in America, Australia, and theoretically the entire planet happens upon.  It's pure performance, and is another example that reinforces the negativity that the Right has against "woke".

As for the "Happy Holidays" issue... who cares? Obviously, Kurt does, but as the majority of America leaves organized religion, is it really harmful to cover more bases than just Christmas?  Awareness beyond your own beliefs and traditions isn't a bad thing.  Again...someone receiving that message needs to have the awareness and accept the person wasn't attempting to convert them, marginalize them, or minimize their traditions.  Common sense, and an assumption of innocence. 

The MAGA movement has a ton of insanity, but their "woke" focus hits home for a lot of people as based in fact and policy.

 steeler wrote: 
I guess that you missed this.

kurtster wrote: 
It's past my bedtime.  I'll check back in this afternoon and see what awaits.

 rgio wrote:
This, more or less, is my point. I do not necessarily disagree with other points you have made. Wokeism is an umbrella term and disparate issues are swept under it.The implementation of DEI  policies is a legitimate issue, for the reasons you have set forth. Is that wokeism? What else falls under that rubric? CRT? The “war on Christmas?” What else? And as we talk about what  issues fall under that term, let’s also talk about how — and if —these issues logically are related, and whether they should be considered to be part of an agenda.

 steeler wrote:
I think there is a fair amount of agreement as you continue to spar over language.

Kurt's point is valid.  The inequities that existed decades ago were addressed by political correctness, which has spun into the Republican's leveraging "woke" as some sort of criminal activity.  It's overused and ignores that there are still millions of systemically disadvantaged people, but the abuses Kurt addresses are real.  For all of the common sense that the left suggests is missing from the MAGA supports, the refusal by many to accept innocent errors and historical norms is self-defeating and wrong.  It's a gift to Trump, who rallies all of those who don't quite understand or like the "new norms" with a single word.

If someone wants to be referred to as "they", fine.  If someone innocently makes a mistake, the "potentially offended"needs to appreciate the scale of the change they're expecting, and not use every "offense" as a means to punish others.  Leadership needs to be reasonable, and accept that every instance of someone being "marginalized" or "oppressed" isn't the fault of the accused.  It feels like the historically oppressed are NEVER challenged on their current claims of oppression, and that's a problem.  The feelings and concerns of those historically advantaged (see middle and upper-class white people as a generalization) appear to be irrelevant.  The pendulum needed to swing, but it's gone too far to the other side now.  It's beginning to swing back to rational, but it's got a long way to go.

Sure...Kurt maneuvers around answers and exacerbates the excessive use of the term, but it's the left who's provided the ammunition. 

 kurtster wrote:
Why do you keep disregarding everything in my post except the reference to wokeism? The context is in the first three sentences.

 steeler wrote: 
And I thought that I addressed what "wokeism" is in my first response.

Since you don't know what something means that makes it imaginary and unreal ?

Is "wokeism" to you an example of something not real then ?  An example of something made up purely to stir people up into becoming emotional and to stop thinking ?

FWIW, here is what I would call an example of "wokeism" in action.  I was going to include it in a response to Beaker's comment about how to find common ground.  That got waylaid by last weekend and a browser update that deleted a response under construction.

Are you already aware of this incident or is this something new to you ?

Elderly volunteer, 90, claims she was forced out of MS Society job for asking about pronoun usage

People are losing their jobs and positions over this stuff.  You still think this is just some imaginary thing or trivial thing ?

 kurtster wrote:
The reason I brought it up was as an example of how issues are aggregated to fall under an overriding agenda. This is what I wrote in my initial post:


Unfortunately, talking through issues, much less debating them, is mostly equivalent to a lost art. Too often, a position on an issue is considered a puzzle piece, seen as part of an all-encompassing agenda. The necessity of constructing — and maintaining — these monoliths undermines not only reasoned discussion on issues, but democracy itself. We now see presidential candidates campaigning against “wokeism.” I don’t even know what that means, but it draws applause and stirs emotions. None of this bodes well.

 steeler wrote: 
Then why did you bring it up ?  I'm confused at what your point was.

Just saw this hot take on Twitter and thought it resonated: 

Trump: "What Biden is doing to me is illegal!" 

Also Trump: "Nothing a President does is illegal!" 

Sorta feels like that junior high school joke—a piece of paper with "How do you keep an id iot occupied? Flip over to see answer"  written on both sides

 kurtster wrote:
I do not attach any significance to the “happy holidays thing.” I do not believe there is any deep meaning to be ascribed to it. Frankly, I think it is a silly “issue.” What it shows, if anything, is the depth of the cultural polarization that afflicts our society, a divide so deep that it leads people to assert that Starbucks engaged in a “war on Christmas” because it changed the design and imagery of its holiday cups. The phrase “spoiling for a fight” comes to mind.

 steeler wrote: 
Ok.  The first part then.

The happy holidays thing.  Having worked retail forever, this is real and not just thin air.

The take away is there is pressure to self censor so as not to risk offending someone else.  It prevents meaningful interactions from happening the longer and deeper the affects of self censoring proceed.  Not only does communication break down but people think like everyone is walking on eggshells and become even more hesitant to interact.  This is beyond common sense filters.

Selling stuff requires you to walk up to perfect strangers and initiate conversations to help someone get what they want or think they want.  All the time.  I have experienced the changes in real time over many decades.  Discovering and dealing with a customers expectations and needs requires at least a base level of interpersonal human interaction without off putting or offending the customer.  It becomes safer to stay in the lane than to risk offense and possibly losing a sale. And even your job.  And that lane gets narrower and narrower every day.  The interactions becomes extremely literal and pedantic.  Joe Friday like.  You always wonder how to greet people and begin. It is ok for the customer to offend you but you cannot offend the customer.   And it's these interactions that people take home with them and base future behaviour on.

I guess if this resultant behaviour of the public is intended then one must ask who are the ones doing the steering and why.  Or is society just evolving this way on its own ?  Me, I'm with the former.

I don't know if any of this makes sense to anyone.  These are just observations over a very long time span.

ymwv

 kurtster wrote:

You have passed over the first half of my post, which conveyed my point, to focus instead on a reference to wokeism in the second half. Your prerogative, but it is my prerogative to point out that you have not addressed the point of my post. I would suggest that your post tends to prove my point as you seemingly prefer to address issues on the margins.

The manipulation of language can have an impact. Great oratory and propaganda (not always mutually exclusive) have proven that throughout history. That said, debates about whether there is a devious agenda lurking when someone or some entity wishes a person “happy holidays” instead of “merry Christmas” demonstrate how issues can be manufactured out of thin air.

Discussion about the use of language pertaining to an issue is more often than not skirting discussion of the issue itself. It typically assumes an agenda, much as you and others in the GOP have done in expressing anger at the White House for its use in a statement of the word “newcomers” instead of “migrants” or “illegal aliens.” Clearly, the current problems at the border are not going to be solved by referring to those crossing it as “illegal aliens.” (An aside: The reality is that those who illegally cross the border are not here illegally once they ask for asylum, which is what the overwhelming majority of those crossing the southern border do. At that point, under current law, their legal status is to be determined. If their petition for asylum is granted, they are here legally.)

The use of “wokeism” and “political correctness” are umbrella terms used as pejoratives to aggregate disparate issues as being part of one overarching agenda to which those using the terms are opposed. As I stated in my post, this creates a monolith, one to which sinister motives can be ascribed, like a bogeyman. One who starts with the assumption that the person expressing an opposing viewpoint is part of, or supportive of, an evil cabal is unlikely to see any point in engaging in a reasoned and civil debate on an issue.

Hearing talk of “alternative facts” and declarations that “truth is not truth” should stand as warnings that we (the greater “we,” not you and I) are descending down this rabbit hole of disingenuous debate.

 R_P wrote:

Biden Physician Mistakenly Performs Autopsy For First 10 Minutes Of Physical

 kcar wrote:

Actually we live in a country immersed in the political and social quagmire afforded by some cosmic Peter Principle leadership.. Just my opinion. But, what do I know? Experience is only a spectrum.

 kurtster wrote:
George Orwell might raise an eyebrow at your line of logic, but we are far ways away from 
"1984's" Newspeak. 

Most of us here are concerned with the destruction of democracy by a man desperate to avoid jail and a party that will throw away principle to gain power. 

You are worried about a maybesomeday fantasy scenario that falls apart when faced with the slightest pushback or obstacle. 

AFAICT you are so hostile to change—political, economic, social, cultural—that you're reflexively phobic. And you would throw away democracy in exchange for security and stasis. Unfortunately you live in a country where change in all these fields is a constant.

 steeler wrote: 
Just passing thru right now.

Consider wokeism the 21st Century version of political correctness.  That is how I am taking it.  Language manipulation in order to control and stifle debates.

Just yesterday the Biden team introduced the term "Newcomers" to replace the term "migrants" which replaced lord knows what before all the names that replaced the codified term  "illegal aliens".

Just by producing this new term of "Newcomers" indicates to me that Biden has no intentions of actually changing anything regarding the border and security.

All those migrant shelters popping up in Sanctuary Cities will now be called Newcomer Centers.  A far less objectionable and intentionally misleading name to use in discussions when residents where these entities are being established object to them.  Who could be against a Newcomer Center ?  Only racists, bigots and xenophobes ...

Language manipulation, the means to the ends.

imho, I find it hard to believe that someone who splits hairs and deals in semantics for a living would not have figured this out by now.  that or you're just another frog in that proverbial pot ...

 NoEnzLefttoSplit wrote:
Indeed.

Unfortunately, talking through issues, much less debating them, is mostly equivalent to a lost art. Too often, a position on an issue is considered a puzzle piece, seen as part of an all-encompassing agenda. The necessity of constructing — and maintaining — these monoliths undermines not only reasoned discussion on issues, but democracy itself. We now see presidential candidates campaigning against “wokeism.” I don’t even know what that means, but it draws applause and stirs emotions. None of this bodes well.

 VV wrote:

A disingenuous debater will release a herd of rabbits for you to chase when they have nothing solid to put out.

 NoEnzLefttoSplit wrote:
When you (barely) win the popular vote once in the last 36 years there isn't a lot left to maintain control. Fortunately, the left so far has been unwilling to go full McConnell in their responses to that fuckwit, but if they do the right will come unglued. I'm not sure what the outcome will be when only one party shows restraint. And I really don't like that what looked like a strong system has been shown to really rely on everyone simply operating in good faith when one side really isn't operating in good faith.