Defining "woke"

[k9bfriender]

@Moonrise

He’s angry because the people who promised to help him let him down the very
second his voluntary change of heart didn’t fit their narrative anymore.

Without knowing who these people are, or what relationship he had with them, it’s hard to make a judgement. At least, it’s hard for me to make a judgement based on that little of information. There are others who may fill in any gaps with their preconceptions and leap to whatever judgement fits their narrative.

But, yeah, people can be jerks, and they can let you down. That’s pretty much all that can be taken from this anecdote.

@Moonrise

I don’t have an objection with peer reviewing new literary works before publishing them to ensure that they don’t offend 2023 sensibilities.

That’s exactly what sensitivity readers are. So, you do or don’t have an objection to sensitivity readers?

@Moonrise

I do object to people deciding they have the authority to rewrite dead authors’ works.

By that you mean, the people who hold the rights to those works? Or do you mean for works that have gone into public domain, where others make their own derivative works?

For example, do you object to West Side Story? It is a rewrite of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, except now it has minorities.

@Moonrise

Banning books and rewriting them is not exactly the same thing, I’ll grant you that.

But rewriting books is also not being done by the “woke” left. You are comparing apples to nothingburgers here.

@Moonrise

It proceeds however from the same desire to decide what can and what cannot be read, taught and ultimately thought.

And here is where we come full circle. You claim that is the thought process of the “woke left”, so you see everything from that perspective. However, those on the left do not have that desire.

Now, if you want to see those who do want to decide “what can and what cannot be read, taught and ultimately thought”, then I’d suggest looking into some of the bills in the Florida legislature, which are explicitly legislating what can be read, taught, and ultimately thought.

Do you put anywhere near the effort into fighting the actual government censorship coming from the right as you do about, since you have not given an example, say, the owners of Dr. Seuss copyrights changing a few words and pictures to reflect their more contemporary views?

@Moonrise

And why should my sensibilities be ignored* ?

No one is ignoring them. We are trying to find out what it is that is offending them. But you keep giving examples of things that didn’t happen, things that are taken out of context, and things that I don’t see why you have any reason or right to object to.

@Moonrise

Not being religious, Art is the closest thing I have to sacred.

So, if I were to make derivative work of the Mona Lisa, except in this one, she’s a dog, would that be sacrilege to you?

@Moonrise

Why ? Because students need to be revealed the One and Only Truth ? Give them the real text and teach them how to think critically ! That’s the hill I die on.

That’s a fine hill to die on. But, you’ve staked out a hill that isn’t actually under assault. You are just stomping around at the top of the hill, screaming down at those who have no interest in taking it.

[RickJay]

@Banquet_Bear

who either believe or propagate the idea that schools are encouraging children to identify as animals

Indeed, there was a rumor/lie going around last year that schools had to install litter boxes to accommodate children identifying as cats. The rubes ate this up by the millions and believed it.

Cat litter box myths are suddenly a culture war flashpoint. Here's how that...

@Love_Rhombus

It’s not a belly-itcher?

Not if you wanna make the postseason.

Dodgers' Playoff Hopes Dashed Following Acquisition Of Belly Itcher

[Miller]

@Sage_Rat

I wouldn’t limit it to that, but certainly that’s one factor. But, as @RickJay says, the real answer is to properly investigate. Are there real arguments by serious folk against being “woke”? In general, I suspect that you could find things under the following buckets:

This analogy fails on almost every level. I mean, right from the top, some kids have allergies! Really serious ones that can kill them. If little Timmy’s throat is closing up after he eats a peanut, you don’t lecture him about how he’s too young to understand what an allergy is. You get him medical treatment before he fucking dies.

You’re also treating all children as if they were infants. If you ask a four year old what he wants to be when he grows up, and he says, “A fire truck,” that means that you shouldn’t treat a fourteen year old who’s suicidal over their gender dysphoria? That’s not just terrible reasoning, it leads directly to inhumane outcomes.

It also demonstrates some pretty basic ignorance about how and when gender identity forms in humans. Hint: it’s way, way early than you think.

There’s also the double standard about “forcing” gender identity on kids, which apparently is only a problem if it involves being sympathetic to a kid who might be trans, because we spend a whole lot of time telling kids what gender they are right from birth, where their gender determines what color onesie they wear.

And this is the problem with your, “If half the country disagrees with you, maybe they have a point,” position, because when it comes to queer identities, half the population - yourself included - has no clue what they’re talking about.

@LSLGuy

Without putting words in @Sage_Rat’s mouth, I beleive the animals and allergies thing was a well-written metaphor for asking kids about sexual orientation before they’re old enough to fully understand what “sexual orientation” even is, much less the consequences of choosing any given path.

An eight year boy decides he likes other boys. What’s the “consequence” of that decision?

@LSLGuy

And if they do so in the sexual orientation department, especially if pre-pubescent or nearly so, and any sort of medical or psychological treatment follows…

What sort of medical or psychiatric treatment do you think woke parents are giving their gay kids?

[Moonrise]

@JohnT

I may suggest that your problem be better solved with a lawyer because the right to produce derivative works falls to the copyright holder(s):

@k9bfriender

For example, do you object to West Side Story? It is a rewrite of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, except now it has minorities.

@k9bfriender

So, you do or don’t have an objection to sensitivity readers?

@k9bfriender

So, if I were to make derivative work of the Mona Lisa, except in this one, she’s a dog, would that be sacrilege to you?

Fine with me, unless you claim it’s Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa (and even less so if you try to sell it to me). If you present it as k9bfriender’s Mina Losa, I’ll probably roll my eyes at its childish but totally harmless vacuity and move on.

I have no problem with artists deriving new art from older art. It’s been done for millenia and it’s perfectly all right. I draw the line at rewriting dead author’s texts to make them fit the current Zeitgeist while blurring the line between the original text and the edulcorated version, for example by using their name and keeping the title.

@k9bfriender

But rewriting books is also not being done by the “woke” left.

True and… I never claimed otherwise.

@k9bfriender

And here is where we come full circle. You claim that is the thought process of the “woke left”, so you see everything from that perspective. However, those on the left do not have that desire.

Are you the official spokeperson for The Left ? Are you absolutely, 100% sure that none of the persons who describe themselves as left-wing have that desire ?

@k9bfriender

Do you put anywhere near the effort into fighting the actual government censorship coming from the right as you do about, since you have not given an example, say, the owners of Dr. Seuss copyrights changing a few words and pictures to reflect their more contemporary views?

I resist any attempt to censor Art, whether it comes from the right or the left, and no matter how hard (banning, burning) or soft (rewriting) the censorship is.

@Pleonast

Because teachers have the expertise to decide what pedagogy works best for their own students.

Being a part-time teacher myself, I see this statement as wildly optimistic. Most of us do our best, with an awful lot of trial and error. Some don’t give a s****.

@k9bfriender

But, yeah, people can be jerks, and they can let you down. That’s pretty much all that can be taken from this anecdote.

Make that “But, yeah, people can be jerks, and they can let you down especially when you contradict their idea of what is sacred”.

[RitterSport]

@Moonrise

I draw the line at rewriting dead author’s texts to make them fit the current Zeitgeist…

I assume this is about the Roald Dahl books? The current copyright holders (his children, I think?) are the ones who authorized the minor re-writes.

Anyway, is your definition of “woke” somewhere in your various posts? Is it “copyright holders making changes to works that they own in order to sell more books”?

ETA: so far, the definition I’m getting from your posts is something like [waves hand] “that stuff, the stuff I don’t like. Plus one trans-man’s jerkish friends.”

[Moonrise]

@RitterSport

I assume this is about the Roald Dahl books? The current copyright holders (his children, I think?) are the ones who authorized the minor re-writes.

In other words, not the - very much dead - author.

@RitterSport

Anyway, is your definition of “woke” somewhere in your various posts?

It’s not, I admit. But then, unlike the moron mentioned in the OP, I haven’t written a book about it. OK, I’ve taken part in this thread. So, sue me.

[Miller]

@Moonrise

I was having a talk with a guy about a month ago. In the course of our conversation, he mentioned the fact that he had transitioned from female to male 5 years ago, in his late 20s. Although he didn’t look like a stereotypical alpha male, I’d never have guessed.

I’m confused by this story, because it sounds like this person was still identifying and presenting as male. What was he supposed to be a “traitor” over, exactly?

It’s certainly possible that this person’s friends were jerks, who dropped them when they detransitioned. There’s assholes in every demographic. But you’re also just getting this one person’s side of the story. Maybe their friends dropped them because they’re the asshole, and “They cut me out because I detransitioned,” is their bullshit justification for why they don’t have friends any more.

@Moonrise

This gives me pause. It certainly echoes the unease I’ve felt recently with some of the woke agenda. I feel that absolutely legitimate calls for justice and equality are being drowned in an ocean of hatred and extremism that is no better than that of right-wing nutjobs.

Right wing nutjobs tried to overthrow the government and have been cited by the FBI as the highest group of concern for domestic terrorist activity.

One trans person who may (or may not) have been friends with jerks is as bad as that?

[Moonrise]

@Miller

What was he supposed to be a “traitor” over, exactly?

He still presented as male, indeed. He said he was treated as a traitor because he betrayed the Cause by detransitioning. I don’t know anything more.

@Miller

Right wing nutjobs tried to overthrow the government and have been cited by the FBI as the highest group of concern for domestic terrorist activity.

One trans person who may (or may not) have been friends with jerks is as bad as that?

It’s not.

Just bear in mind than the whole world doesn’t revovle around the US, though.

[Miller]

@Moonrise

He still presented as male, indeed. He said he was treated as a traitor because he betrayed the Cause by detransitioning. I don’t know anything more.

Except… he hadn’t detransitioned, because he was still presenting as male?

This story really doesn’t make any sense. I’m not doubting your memory of it, I’m just curious why you were so deeply struck by such an incoherent narrative.

@Moonrise

It’s not.

Just bear in mind than the whole world doesn’t revovle around the US, though.

I guess I am guilty of assuming this discussion was happening in an American political context. In which countries do you think your observations are more relevant?

[k9bfriender]

@Moonrise

I draw the line at rewriting dead author’s texts to make them fit the current Zeitgeist while blurring the line between the original text and the edulcorated version, for example by using their name and keeping the title.

So you are for censoring copyright holders. They cannot use their intellectual property in a way you don’t approve of.

@Moonrise

True and… I never claimed otherwise.

You certainly implied otherwise. What was your point in bringing it up, if you were not trying to say it was being done?

@Moonrise

Are you the official spokeperson for The Left ? Are you absolutely, 100% sure that none of the persons who describe themselves as left-wing have that desire ?

Am I the spokesperson? No, I am not. However, I am not the one making claims as to what the left wants. I am assuming that you also are not the spokesperson of the Left, and yet you are in fact claiming to be speaking on their behalf.

I’m sure with some nutpicking, you could find someone who has said something along those lines. Of course, are you willing to defend everything that your side has said?

To make the claim that you have, it would say that a substantial portion of the left want these things. Now that you have altered the goal posts to absolutely anyone, your criteria have become pretty meaningless.

Can you articulate what it is that makes you think that is a desire of the left?

@Moonrise

I resist any attempt to censor Art, whether it comes from the right or the left, and no matter how hard (banning, burning) or soft (rewriting) the censorship is.

Okay, so you are fighting against the actions of the right in their attempts at censorship, that’s good of you. I can name dozens of examples.

OTOH, you have yet to have named a single example of censorship coming from the left. Not even nutpicking have you managed to come up with one.

@Moonrise

Make that “But, yeah, people can be jerks, and they can let you down especially when you contradict their idea of what is sacred”.

Yeah, but everytime I hear a story like this, I find that it actually has two sides. That’s why such an anecdote is useless, especially given the hearsay nature of it. Guy was angry and vented, and for some reason, people who claim to want to investigate claims take an angry diatribe as the whole story. Did you actually ask any follow up questions? Did you investigate his story, talk to any of the other people involved?

Yeah, I thought not.

[Great_Antibob]

Other countries? What does that matter in a discussion about the definition of “woke”, which is almost purely (entirely?) used in an American context.

[Czarcasm]

What “Cause”?
By the way, what is your definition of “woke”?

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@Moonrise

He still presented as male, indeed. He said he was treated as a traitor because he betrayed the Cause by detransitioning. I don’t know anything more.

What does “treated like a traitor” mean? Does it mean people who were helping him because they were on a similar life journey to his stopped helping him because they were no longer on a similar life journey to his? Does it mean that he started saying that maybe gender was immutable and people got pissed? Does it mean that some trans people denied the possibility of detransitioning in something vaguely akin to how some gay people deny the possibility of bisexuality, and acted like real assholes to him? Does it mean that he started talking shit about his trans friends and caused a huge social shitstorm and they dropped him over it but he couldn’t admit that so he made up excuses?

There are a lot of possibilities. But the worst one–that they denied the possibility of detransitioning–is as bad as that handful of lesbians who deny the reality of transwomen. If I decided that lesbians were messed up as a group, that’d be shitty and bigoted of me.

So what lesson do we draw from your friend and his story?

[k9bfriender]

@Left_Hand_of_Dorkness

So what lesson do we draw from your friend and his story?

That some stories tell you more about the storyteller than the story.

[LSLGuy]

@Miller

@LSLGuy

Without putting words in @Sage_Rat’s mouth, I beleive the animals and allergies thing was a well-written metaphor for asking kids about sexual orientation before they’re old enough to fully understand what “sexual orientation” even is, much less the consequences of choosing any given path.

An eight year boy decides he likes other boys. What’s the “consequence” of that decision?

@LSLGuy

And if they do so in the sexual orientation department, especially if pre-pubescent or nearly so, and any sort of medical or psychological treatment follows…

What sort of medical or psychiatric treatment do you think woke parents are giving their gay kids?

Just to be clear. I don’t have any objection to what’s starting to happen out in the world with sensible enlightened parents trying to proactively help their kids with gender dysphoria in the fashion the kid wants to be helped or treated as soon as it becomes evident to the kid that this issue exists.

I was attempting to outline what I saw as the other poster’s actual reactionary nonsense. Which that poster chose to expose only via vague metaphors about kids identifying with animals and being persuaded they have allergies. I was trying to see through his smokescreen to whatever he really was trying to express to the rest of us.

Sorry that was insufficiently clear.

[Czarcasm]

I really don’t think the poster was using any metaphors that need to analyzed. Those are actual bullshit “news” stories put out by right wing bullshitters.

[Moonrise]

@Miller

Except… he hadn’t detransitioned, because he was still presenting as male?

It doesn’t make sense to you because I used the words incorrectly.

He identified as male, dressed as a man, and had taken hormones, which had had an effect on his voice. But he became hesitant when the prospect of surgery came up, and didn’t go through with it. He was also attracted to men only, prompting me to joke that he sure had not made things easy for himself.

@Miller

I guess I am guilty of assuming this discussion was happening in an American political context. In which countries do you think your observations are more relevant?

I’m based in Europe where our right-wing nutjobs may be just as despicable as yours, but less violent (for now).

@k9bfriender

So you are for censoring copyright holders. They cannot use their intellectual property in a way you don’t approve of.

The law says they can, so they can from a legal point of view. I just don’t think that they can make that call from an artistic point of view.

@k9bfriender

You certainly implied otherwise.

That’s 100% on you.

@k9bfriender

OTOH, you have yet to have named a single example of censorship coming from the left. Not even nutpicking have you managed to come up with one.

Roald Dahl and Ian Fleming’s books have recently been republished in alternate versions.

@k9bfriender

Yeah, but everytime I hear a story like this, I find that it actually has two sides. That’s why such an anecdote is useless, especially given the hearsay nature of it. Guy was angry and vented, and for some reason, people who claim to want to investigate claims take an angry diatribe as the whole story. Did you actually ask any follow up questions? Did you investigate his story, talk to any of the other people involved?

Yeah, I thought not.

No, I didn’t.

Sorry, I noticed that you replied in my name, something that seems to be a habit of yours, but I still wanted to confirm this myself. And for the record, we also talked about my more mundane relationship issues.

@Left_Hand_of_Dorkness

Does it mean that some trans people denied the possibility of detransitioning in something vaguely akin to how some gay people deny the possibility of bisexuality, and acted like real assholes to him?

This was his version.

@Left_Hand_of_Dorkness

So what lesson do we draw from your friend and his story?

That bigotery has many self-righteous faces, perhaps ?

[Czarcasm]

And you took that particular version at face value. Could it be because it matched up with what you already believe?

[Great_Antibob]

@Moonrise

Roald Dahl and Ian Fleming’s books have recently been republished in alternate versions.

Which have little to do with being ‘woke’ or feeling pressured to appear that way and more to do with attracting new audiences. Sales of those books have been falling for years.

Ultimately, money talks.

[carrps]

@Miller

Except… he hadn’t detransitioned, because he was still presenting as male?

This story really doesn’t make any sense. I’m not doubting your memory of it, I’m just curious why you were so deeply struck by such an incoherent narrative.

I was confused, too. I thought (correct me if I’m wrong) that if were transgender you needed to continue to take hormones to maintain the gender status you want. If this person wanted to detransition and no longer felt his allies were allies, why didn’t he just stop taking male hormones? If he was still menstruating, he must still have female hormones in his system, right?

Yeah, confusing.