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cyb3rd4ndy OP wrote (edited )

There are multiple jumbled thoughts in this, but I don’t think “woke people” failed or something. If you look at developments in social psychology, psychology of human sexuality, cultural studies, and other related fields over the past few decades there really are advances in how all sorts of stuff is modeled. And a lot of that agrees with what gets called “woke”. But that is all specialized knowledge. It develops for application in contexts that most people don’t find themselves in. So how is that specialized knowledge getting into popular discourse?

Here’s some options:

  1. That isn’t where that knowledge is coming from, it’s just coincidentally similar conclusions.

  2. Students

  3. Think Tanks and other politicians sifting through academic shit and looking for inflammatory material.

I think it’s a combo of 2 and 3. I think it’s 2 because I have seen and sometimes been 2, annoyingly loud enthusiast of new models. I think it is also 3 because the right wing has a history of doing that kind of thing, especially during red scares.

So it’s not like anyone is inventing a woke straw man out of thin air. But some fairly normal adolescent behavior, especially at colleges, is being used to scare people or make them feel like college elites are all judging them or their way of thinking that works for them is wrong. And it seems to me what primarily motivates this are policy proposals, not more general cultural clashes. I think there are definitely cultural clashes but they’re not focused so sharply on specific stuff the way that the woke/anti-woke discourse is focused on stuff.

So there is a lot going on there, but what I am sick of is leftists distancing themselves from more complex models of social life because they’re embarrassed about what the right has been shitting bricks about. Like… no, we do need better models of personality, culture, social institutions, history, etc. We do nothing good by coddling right wingers or boomer leftists that don’t want to deal with more complex models for various reasons.

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ArmyOfNone wrote (edited )

So what do you mean by more complex models? Or how are they so important to adopt?

I'm living by a rather simple, illegalist "hunter-gatherer" model within industrial society. If I had a better choice I'd be living out of literal hunting-gathering full year, but I just don't want deers and ducks to suffer and die because of my desire for better meat.

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cyb3rd4ndy OP wrote (edited )

I'm not sure how you're relating the part of living a hunger-gatherer lifestyle to any of this, but anyway...

Biological Sex

anti-Woke folk: There are two biological sexes, Male and Female.

Contemporary human biology: There are more than two sexes. There are the standard Male and Female sexes which refers to XX and XY chromosomes; however, there are also more categories. For more info, here is an article found with a quick google search - https://scienceline.org/2020/10/beyond-x-y-chromosomes-and-sex-organs/

Gender

anti-Woke folk: There are two genders, Man and Woman. Those two genders correspond with biological sex, Male and Female.

Contemporary gender studies: Gender is constructed socially and changes depending on time, place, and group of people considered. By socially, that means gender requires more than two people. Gender is constructed by society thinking about itself collectively and forming ideal roles to be fulfilled. Usually, the notions of "masculine" and "feminine" are used to describe gender roles. Both "masculine" and "feminine" are notions composed of various descriptions of character traits, attitudes, aesthetic preferences, and social functions ...among other things. Aggression usually plays a role in descriptions of "masculine," while nurturing plays a role in descriptions of "feminine". Gender in some cultures are more-or-less of a mix of masculine and feminine than in other cultures. Some cultures have only two genders, while others have more. At the end of the day, we can't predict very accurately any of the character traits, attitudes, aesthetic preferences, or social functions someone will wind up with based on their biological sex.

I'm not going to give examples for how contemporary social science is more complex than what "anti-woke folks" tend to think for other issues, like race and ethnicity, nationality, homelessness, crime, etc.

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cyb3rd4ndy OP wrote

why the fuck would this be downvoted? Some real petty shit going on.

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ArmyOfNone wrote

Was wondering the same. Voting shouldn't be a thing on this site in the first place, as just like in the electoral system any coward can just use it as channel for their resentment.

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cyb3rd4ndy OP wrote

Does the voting even impact how a post is displayed?

I'm not really against the voting mechanic itself, but I'd hope that there would be some commentary that indicates why something is getting the votes it is getting.

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