Comment by vannevar
6 days ago
I don't think anyone reading this article would conclude that PG believes racism is a bigger problem than wokism. Which wildly diminishes the actual real-world impact of racism and wildly exaggerates the actual real world impact of wokism.
The actual real world impact of wokism is that the left-leaning part of the elite is distracted into performative games outdoing one another in verbal righteousness, instead of actually doing something for the people, which should be the defining part of being left.
Woke is all rituals, no substance. If anyone profits off it, it is highly educated individuals that belong to the visible minorities = precisely the people that don't need so much support.
Woke is deeply uninterested in actual problems of the poor non-academic population. High cost of living? Food deserts? Meh. That doesn't register on the high-brow radars.
>The actual real world impact of wokism is that the left-leaning part of the elite is distracted into performative games outdoing one another in verbal righteousness...
Is that really the only real-world impact? Is there no value in examining the link between how we refer to people and how we treat them? What about the affirmative action aspects of wokism---is there some impact there?
If you define woke as only the people performing meaningless rituals, then of course you're going to dismiss wokeness. But not all of it is meaningless ritual, affirmative action has created real change. And I would argue that efforts to take pejorative terms out of language are worthwhile, even if some people get overly academic about it.
I concluded that PG thinks we as a society should stop wasting an enormous amount of resources on performative activities solely designed to appease (and in some cases enrich) a very small, fickle, and vocal portion of the population.
That's very achievable and beneficial to society overall imo.
Which performative activities, though, for which very small, fickle, and vocal portion of the population? Have you seen Musk's or Zuck's antics lately? Condemning the lesser offender(s) can gain favor with the greater, but it's useless for making any real point. Who's being performative now?
> designed to appease (and in some cases enrich) a very small, fickle, and vocal portion of the population.
Note that the people enriched here aren't the poor minorities, it are the self proclaimed leaders of these movements that gets high positions in governments and companies and thus enrich themselves.
There is no value in making those grifters richer, even though there is value in helping poor people.
Is it an "enormous amount of resources"? How do you think it compares to the amount of resources historically put into racism, including all the waste and lost opportunity costs?
In my experience, most people complaining about wokism are projecting their own annoyance at language policing into some kind of massive social problem. But I'm open-minded, and if you have a good argument that the resources put into wokism far outweigh the losses from racism, I'm happy to listen. PG's essay makes no effort to present that argument.
It is used against you. Occupy wallstreet was dead instantaneously when people suggested skin color to be relevant for speakers. This follows a text book example of toxic middle management. That supposedly affluent students, especially those in antropology related studies don't understand these political dynamics is a problem itself.
Some people in higher positions in many companies quickly understood it. And there it will also be used against you. If you aren't in on it that is.
Of course the impact is massive, it is a source of the success of many populist political leaders because people believe the intellectual left has abandoned them. And I am not sure if that is incorrect in the first place.
This isn't wokeism vs. racism, that is a wrong axiom in the first place.
> Is it an "enormous amount of resources"?
Compared to the value provided, I would say so.
> How do you think it compares to the amount of resources historically put into racism, including all the waste and lost opportunity costs?
Over all of human history? Obviously less. No idea why that's relevant. Wasting resources on performative activities or worse isn't going to correct a wrong that occured 200 years ago, or 50 years ago.
> In my experience, most people complaining about wokism are projecting their own annoyance at language policing into some kind of massive social problem. But I'm open-minded, and if you have a good argument that the resources put into wokism far outweigh the losses from racism, I'm happy to listen. PG's essay makes no effort to present that argument.
It was the entire point of his essay imo. We're being distracted from important matters and actual improvements by people who want to play oppression Olympics to the benefit of no one other than them.
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Your interpretation is the exact problem. How many times do people need to say it? Racism is bad, what else there to say? Because he did not say it multiple times throughout the essay we are going to label him though and suggest and at the same time conclude that the thinks wokism is worse than racism. Sheesh that’s a great imagination.
He spends 4500+ words talking about how bad wokism is (mostly complaining about how some people are complaining about language), and all of maybe 100 words acknowledging racism, and even then uses some of those to say it isn't as bad as the woke think. If you were writing an essay opposing a solution to a problem you really believed to be a terrible problem, wouldn't you take a little more time on why the solution was counter-productive, and maybe offer some alternatives?
Was the title The Origins of Racism? You are manufacturing an issue.
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