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Comment by k8sToGo | Hacker News Reader

The whole "woke culture" is definitely not considered centrist.

For the last few years, the only people using the word "woke" are constantly outraged conservative commentators. It's impossible to take you seriously when you use terms like that.

Since I don't exist in that bubble, can you define "woke" & "woke culture"?

The term was popularized by Black Lives Matter, I don't see why it isn't fair game for outraged conservatives. If it is impossible to take people using the term seriously, I guess that tells us how you feel about Black Lives Matter.

Since I don't exist in that bubble, can you define "woke" & "woke culture"?

It was added to the Merriam-Webster dictionary in 2017:

chiefly US slang

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

But we will only succeed if we reject the growing pressure to retreat into cynicism and hopelessness. … We have a moral obligation to "stay woke," take a stand and be active; challenging injustices and racism in our communities and fighting hatred and discrimination wherever it rises.

— Barbara Lee

… argued that … Brad Pitt is not only woke, but the wokest man in Hollywood … because he uses his status—and his production company Plan B—to create space for artists of color, with such films as 12 Years a Slave, Selma, and the upcoming film Moonlight.

— Giselle Defares

So based on that definition, explain to me how being "aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice)" is bad...

And does "woke culture" just mean a culture of being "aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice)"?

Being aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues is not bad. Using language that implies that you, but not other people, are aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues is bad. And using language like "woke" which implies that other people are asleep or they would agree with you, is bad.

It's similar to using words like "sheeple" to describe people who you disagree with. As you said, it's impossible to take you seriously when you use terms like that. That's what the outraged conservative commentators are latching on to. They're telling their listeners, "They think they are woke and you are asleep". Things are tribal. It's a powerful message.

So you're saying there's more to the term "woke" than the definition you provided. In fact, the additional context you gave makes the definition almost completely meaningless.

But what if (and it's a big what if) there is a whole side of thought in America that believes issues of racial and social justice are not worthwhile and have already been settled? Would the term "woke" still be offensive then, based on what you just said?

I don't really know if the 2nd paragraph of your comment is supposed to be satire or serious, but that often happens when these undefinable words are thrown around as if they are cannon.

I think you mean canon rather than cannon. Either works I guess.

Wokeness displaces left wing politics. Wokeness and its counterparts are the results of various elite entities capitalizing on the crisis of neoliberalism by selling empty hope in exchange for marketable virtue. It’s a byproduct of neoliberal ideology that replaces politics with catharsis while everything sacred in public and private life is replaced with so-called free-market solutions. Wokeness doesn’t solve any of the problems it claims to solve, but that doesn’t matter to those who promote it; mostly individuals climbing institutional ladders and brands doing public relations. And, unsurprisingly, it’s less useful for politicians because most people outside liberal elite social circles see right through the farce.

It actually is. The far left are associated with Marxism, which is completely unrelated to "Woke Culture". In fact, Marxists completely denounce "Woke Culture" as well as any other difference between peoples except economic class.

You'll find most extreme leftists (by that I mean marxists, maoists, dedicated anarchists) don't care much about "woke culture", because they care much more about class divisions than racial or gender or sexuality or other divisions. "Woke culture" is primarily a center-left phenomenon.

Yes, but most center left is not woke. It's particularly American and Bay Area thing, weird to global central left.

Some of the founders of Black Lives Matter described themselves as Marxist, and it was that organization that popularized the term. And for them it would be a mistake to focus only on class. They would argue that there are multiple systems of oppression that interact with each other and need to be considered as a whole rather than individually, the critical race theory term for that is intersectionality. I don't consider critical race theory to be a center-left phenomenon. Right wing politicians would be overjoyed to find out that people on the center-left do.

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