It drives me crazy that people keep taking about “woke” but nobody seems to be able to properly define it. More and more it seems like a tool to divide us.
What is “woke” anyway?
I touched upon this topic on my article “Today in America | 03 FEB 2023” – and it is worth repeating it today. Woke is a term that continues to be misled by whomever is trying to control a certain narrative. This of course gives a wide array of interpretations. Many of which are simply inaccurate at best, or vehicles for propaganda at worst. In either case I cannot stay idle seeing the reality of the situation and looking away. Mainly because I live in the real world, and this rhetoric will affect my life, and the lives of my family. Not a matter of “if” but “when” – and to me that elicits a call for action at whatever level is available to me. And this is it.
Before we go any further for context, I’ll add what I wrote in the article I cited. It will all be in the next seven paragraphs in italics. The words that were italics in the original article are underlined. I do this on purpose, because I don’t want anybody to use my words out of context. I was in the previously cited article citing a U.S. Representative who was misrepresenting a very real issue during a congressional hearing. I highly recommend you read the article cited for details. Meanwhile, I don’t ascertain that “woke” is a bad thing, if it goes under the term to be “awake” – and when you’re “awake” you can indeed realize what’s actually going on. However, the actual meaning has been misused, and I hope this article will get us in a common terminology.
I know this is an anecdotal example, but it illustrates my point that the terminology gets tergiversated based on the intrinsic biases of each person.
By the way, the origin of “woke” started in the 60’s. That’s why I said, re- insurgence. Some of the people qualified “woke” as a good thing, and others went to the opposite side of the spectrum. Most of them were somewhere in the middle, but there still was enough divergence to call it unequivocally consistent. This “woke” theme will be the subject of a future long-form article [this article], because there is plenty to talk about. Meanwhile let’s give you the dictionary definition, and then we’ll discuss it a bit.
Woke: Adjective. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary. It is chiefly a US slang. And there are two main definitions associated to it.
- Aware of a and actively attentive to important societal facts and issues (especial issues of social justice). Often used in context that suggest someone’s expressed beliefs about such matters are not backed with genuine concern or action. Also: reflecting the attitudes of woke
- Political liberal (as in matters of racial and social justice) especially in a way that is considered unreasonable or extreme.
Well, it won’t take a PHD to realize that there are a few key words in the definitions that will lend themselves for political division. Did you see them? If you identify them, good on you – because these will be likely used for or against propaganda points. Keep this in mind as we continue this article.
Also, woke is past tense for wake. But the term has been prostituted to the point that the actual significance its high-jacked on either side as an all-encompassing term whenever there are some specific levels of disagreement. And I am saying specific level of disagreement, because the outrage described seems to be very specific to a certain issue, even if the same issue could constitute talking themselves into a corner. And this talking-into-a-corner happens very often. It only takes a bit of paying pragmatic attention to both sides of the spectrum to realize this is happening. The math does not add up, and people are[being] taken up for a ride of falsely justified rage.
Reading this, some might realize the obvious. Woke is an inconvenient group of people to those who have a particular narrative. Is this good or bad? Well, I would argue that “woke” is not intrinsically bad… but it can definitely be misused, and even negate the point they want to make. And because of this lack of fail-safe, it can be highjacked by somebody who wants to demonize those deemed “woke.” It is a very simple concept if you stop for a minute to look at it pragmatically.
Making sense of “woke…”
When you see it pragmatically, then being “woke” is actually a good thing… it means that a person has common sense, and enough justified level of skepticism to analyze and distinct reality from falsehoods. In other words, this would be a person who is able to recognize if somebody is trying to con them or defraud them with a false or otherwise divisive narrative.
During the resurgence of “woke” in the recent years, this was actually attributed to people who seemed “awake” and who were “paying attention” to actual facts – rather than a manufactured narrative of convenience. Especially a narrative that became mainstream or has been normalized, sometimes for generations. And of course, this “woke” situation somehow was then more aligned with “leftist” points of view… and it created a distain from many “right-wing” pundits, and from there it became this political division that we all see today. However, in reality you could be “woke” and be from any part of the political spectrum – because it is a PERSON thing, not a political doctrine. Yet in USA it seems to be identified towards one particular group of people. For example, when it is the last time that you’ve heard a left-leaning person demonize “woke” as a bad personal attribute? What you’ve might heard is when somebody is turning “woke “into a meme of itself. However, either side tend to be “woke” against each other. But how it gets framed might be very camouflaged and even lost in the irony. And that is actually fascinating.
As I said, it takes finesse to understand what is real from manufactured falsehoods – and it can be very easy to talk oneself into a corner if the context is missed. Sometimes good intentions do not necessarily mean good decisions. There is a process to everything, and most things do not fit a simple black & white binary decision process. Of course, that those who want to divide the population would push binary points, especially if those are missing key context and marginalize a throve of actual facts. Why? Because they cannot fight their narrative in the merits alone, that’s why facts get disguised in opinions and “what about-isms.” This has been going since the beginning of civilization. And it works well to control masses of people. If a narrative can hold itself on the merits, then there is no need to hide or misrepresent any dissenting views.
What is the best way to control people? Convincing them that their actions are their own idea, and that they doing whatever is it that they do on their own accord. And this can be very easy to execute if a person already has a bias that is in-fact exploitable. These biases can become vehicles to turn a narrative or rhetoric into subsequent action. In other words, blind obedience – even if disguised as loyalty for something they consider is “correct” – yes, even if that “something” is in fact erroneous. And I know I am being a bit vague on these details – there is a reason for that. Because there are literally millions of ways to enact these doctrines. For that reason, I prefer to show you the mechanism and then you can prefect your analytical and pragmatic skills.
Think of it like learning to play a musical instrument. At first you might be able to learn a song or two… and then gain your proficiency from there. But if you take a bit more time learning musical theory, then you will be able to expand your repertoire much easily and be able to expand your actual understanding of the musical piece components. And you’ll gain the benefit of instead of learning songs, you can start making music of your own inspiration. Let’s use this example as far as understanding the “woke” concept, and why it is so demonized by certain segments of the political spectrum.
People who want to push a narrative are akin to teaching a segment of the population to sing or interpret a particular song. Even if they give said song their own “flavor” and adjust the genre to appeal to a particular audience, there is some basic chord progression, structure, and specially the content of the lyrics. Changes here and there will be merely cosmetic, but the underlining tenor and feeling of the song will remain at least somewhat consistent. This makes it very convenient, because the narrative will find fertile ground, and expand the number of “like-minded” individuals in a genre that best identifies with the targeted group. Creating this familiar identity on the song… it does not matter if it is sung in English, or Spanish, or any other language you can imagine… the sentiment will be similar… although it will resonate more with one segment of the population than another. That’s normal and expected.
After this song gets popularized to each segment of the larger group, the message gets expanded – it becomes part of the group’s identity. Anybody who dares talking crap about this song will be ostracized, or at the very least ignored outright. In either case, the propagandists succeed, because there are divisions and people are getting intrinsically assigned “sides” of like-minded and dissenting opinions. And yes, people are more likely to pay attention to controversial issues than non-controversial issues. That’s why a lot of very provocative and polarizing figures tend to go viral at lighting speed.
In this example, the “non-woke” people are those who learned and repeated the song over and over again… even if they interpret the song with their own arrangements and genre. And you know what? It is not even their fault if they are repeating erroneous messages. And no, they are not “stupid” or “less intelligent” for believing a certain narrative. They are in many cases enacting a decision given the scope of information that has been afforded to them. Are some of the people in this segment bad people? Sure… there are good and bad people in any group… but generally every-day people don’t try to be nefarious for the sake of being nefarious. However, we all have a capacity of going to extreme if the situation seems justifiable enough.
For example, even the most gregarious and gentle person can potentially become extremely violent if the circumstances push that person to that level of out-of-character situation. For this example, let’s say this gentle person feels their loved one is under certain peril, and they are the only ones who can save their loved one from said peril with use of force. What do you think might happen? Well, it depends on how long and how desperate the situation seems to be. If the person has other options, he/she might take a less violent option. However, if a person has been conditioned long enough, then the probability of this gentle person to turn violent will increase accordingly.
For an example close to home, let’s say that somebody is threatening your child with physical violence, and you’re the only person in the area to defend your child. What would your reaction be? There is likely going to be a visceral response and trigger a fight or flight emotion. Each person will be different, but as I said – it depends on the level of conditioning somebody might encounter to go against their very nature if the circumstances seem inevitable.
For the “non-woke” people – they are actually generally being presented with a manufactured foe. This perceived “enemy” becomes exacerbated in the narrative and hence becomes a symbol of which will in fact become a catalyst to project a false reality onto themselves. Read that again.
So, under that metric you figure out the obvious. Those controlling a certain narrative will be “against the woke” – why? As I said before, because these “woke” people are inconvenient to their narrative.
Using the same musical example, the “woke” person is really more like a musician who understands the musical theory and sees many additional possibilities than merely changing a genre or making some arrangements… they can also compose more original songs or take from all genres and figure out if there are any technical or musical discrepancies in the music score. If the musical piece in any version provided is within the proper rules of harmony, then they will be able to ascertain if that song (narrative) is correct, but if there are discrepancies in the chord progression or there are things that are just not up to par, or that would be dissonant – then they can identify those immediately, even if it spans different genres. Why is this? Because they are approaching the same situation from a more holistic perspective. And that is an advantage. But it is inconvenient to those who do not want this actual expert review to be conducted.
Propagandists know this, so what will they do? Well, they will try to poison the well and discredit their expertise and demote the facts to the level of opinions or even conjecture. This will be true, ESPECIALLY if there is actual merit to the technical expertise feedback provided to this song. Maybe the mentioned that the tempo was dragging or rushing, or that that the down beat was off beat in a measure or the other, or perhaps the mix was drowning certain musical frequencies and making the overall execution muddy… or perhaps there was additional noise on the signal flow and that’s creating an audible flaw that could otherwise be easily remedied. These are only examples, but I wanted to illustrate that there is always something additional to what meets the eye.
Woke being discredited.
Propagandists will of course discredit the “woke” person – or even call somebody who’s not buying their bullshit as “woke” in a derogatory manner. We see that all the time in political strata and the media. Especially if it goes against a certain narrative. They will portrait otherwise intelligent or articulated people as “woke” and try to equate that as “misinformed” – which is funny, because those are actually antithesis of one another.
In fact, I would not be surprised if somebody who does not particularly like me would come out and label me woke in an attempt to insult me. If that happens, I don’t care – because the way I define “woke” is being pragmatic with actual common sense and intellectual honesty, and not prone to buy bullshit from somebody’s mouth without actual empirical evidence and context.
But with that said, let’s illustrate some of the current things that people are demonizing as “woke” — when in reality are actually part of living in a civilized society in the 21st century.
- Critical Race Theory. This does not exist as it is being depicted in some political and media circles. Nobody is trying to make white Americans second class citizens. There are, however, a lot of instances in our American history that people did horrible things to other human beings. Teaching facts do not demonize a group of people, we cannot be responsible for what our ancestors and previous generations did. However, we are very much responsible for our own actions in our generation. Learning history AS IT HAPPENED is important, because it will ensure we don’t make the same mistakes again. Censoring the unpleasant side of history is not only dishonest, but also actual propaganda.
- Fighting Homophobia. This unfortunately does exist, and homophobia is also a lot of times sanctioned from many pulpits. Not all, but plenty spanning many different religious doctrines. Homophobia is intrinsically discriminatory, and it is counter to the rights of being a free individual. don’t choose to be LGBT, much like you don’t choose to be straight… you don’t get that choice, much like you don’t get to choose if you’re born with white or brown skin. Or if you’ll be tall or short.
- Warning about the “us against them.” This has happened from the beginning of time. We can even see that in the international geopolitical situation. A country or a segment of the population will be deemed “enemy” – and from there demonize that entire group – even though, the adversary might very well be a small group of people who are put in charge of that country (yes, long sentence). For example, a regime (government) in power for a particular nation. However, this can also be very small in scope. Family rivalries are an example – for example on organized crime families. The case is that it will pin people against each other. However, SOMEBODY is interpreting this narrative on behalf of the rest of the group. And this SOMEBODY is controlling what the rest of the people can learn and what the group don’t get to learn. This of course will elicit a specific response, normally a manufactured outrage.
- Speaking against Cults of Personality. This happens more often than you think. Can be a politician, clergy, cult-leader, “coach,” influencer, media personality, family member, etc. It is normally a person – even if the person died, that would have other followers. These cults of personalities act like some sort of “mentors” even though he/she (the figure of devotion) might have several flaws. But this person is able to capitalize on particular biases form the followers. And this message will resonate with many followers no matter what. Some others will at some point “fall out of love” with this personality and “wake up” and realize that there was a lot more than the façade that was presented to them. For example, have you ever been in a relationship and broke up? In some instances that person who meant the world to you is no longer as appealing. Same thing can happen to those we admire for their cult of personality.
I could go on, but the point is that every time I see people being demonized for being “woke” – it makes me cringe. Could it be reflection? Maybe… but you read my definition about it. With that said, being “too woke” could also be counterproductive. But at that point I would not call it “woke” – but rather point the obvious. People who go overboard then are actually being victims of their own narrative or biases, even though they don’t realize they have said biases.
In other words, it is good to approach the world in a way that we can recognize if somebody is trying to defraud us. However, being an extreme skeptical it’s not good either. For example, Flat Earthers… under this metric, they are not “woke,” they are misinformed. Their theories are so demonstrably erroneous that it is actually comical for those who know what the reality of the world is. I’ll give you an example. Satellites… they have orbits, and we know their orbits and we can predict their orbits and they need a lot of engineering to ensure they stay in orbit and not fall down. You can’t do that in a flat Earth… Another one? Sure… navigation time/distance for air transportation or freight forwarding shipping. In a flat Earth you cannot perform certain routes in the model they demonstrate… the ship would run out of fuel. Want another one? There is no big wall of ice surrounding the “disk” of their perceived Flat Earth. Antarctica is not a place where we have U.S. or other military servicemembers stationed and keeping secret their assignment to shoot anybody who comes near. However, this entire society seems to think this is plausible or will try to do mental gymnastics to try to disprove what I just said in this paragraph. But guess what? For anything I mention there is plenty of other facts we could talk and cite for hours and those cannot be refuted either. In fact, I probably should do an article just on this, because it is just so amusing to me.
Another example is the theory of evolution. Some people are very skeptical about it, because it contradicts their deep respected doctrines. However, we have to understand that we don’t “believe” in evolution… either you “understand” evolution, or you don’t. You can believe anything you want and still be wrong. And anybody who does not understand it, they just not qualified enough to have that conversation, yet. The fact is that there is plenty of actual empirical sciences that independently reach the conclusions that support evolution. There are however a lot of people who will refute these facts without actually understanding the scientific process behind it. And of course, there are many who are anti science…. Because it contradicts a particular doctrine. Surprise!
So, for the last two examples I gave… Flat Earth Society and Skeptical of Evolutions, which one is “woke?” They are both going against the stablished scientific status quo which has demonstrable amounts of evidence… and we know about it, because we use that evidence on our everyday lives. In fact, that’s how we have been able to advance our technology and our medical fields among many other industries that improve our very lives.
Well, none of the later ones are so called “woke.” They are both narratives that actually fall under the same logical fallacy of the “non-woke” group. They are repeating talking points given by a perceived authority figure. One thing is for certain, there are no actual evolutionary scientists who don’t understand evolution, and there are no flat-Earth society folks designing or running actual satellites… especially because understanding that there are so many different orbits and types of satellites would negate their limited scope of understanding outright.
I think I’ll finish this article here for today, but let’s continue the conversation. Do you find “woke” to be an insult? Or is it a virtue? Does it make sense that somebody might want to portrait woke as a bad thing because it actually means that they don’t buy bullshit that is inconvenient for them? Or is it something different. Let me know your assessment (not opinion), I gave you my assessment, and it is logical measurable and demonstrable. In order to have a valid conversation the assessment needs to meet the same metric. Thank you for reading this far! HLC