I’d expect some kind of Chinese to be the scientific language of choice 200 years from now. I just hope that the Chinese people of the future are sufficiently ‘woke’ to respect the other races of the world when that happens.
We have addressed all of these ideas and debunked them in this very thread. You want us to give you another breakdown? Why not just read the responses above?
I doubt it - despite my throwaway line about Mandarin above, I don’t think Chinese will be it. It’ll still be English.
Or whatever the robots use…
An English-Chinese hybrid, probably.
@DemonTree - apologies for my earlier response; it’s early and I’m grumpy. Assuming you’re serious -
Being ‘woke’ does mean realizing which parts of our society are ‘racist’. Note that something can be ‘racist’ without being malicious. Yes, our entire damn society IS systemically racist. No, that doesn’t mean anyone is asking for anything to be ‘torn down’. No one is saying ‘English as the Language of Science makes it harder for others to do science, so let’s draw and quarter all English speakers’. What they’re saying is ‘English as the Language of Science makes it harder for others to do science, so let’s recognize this and do what we can to counteract it, like offer better translations of papers into more languages, or ensure we aren’t missing out on results from foreign language journals; not doing this would both hurt science as a whole as well as individuals who don’t speak English, so it’s in everyone’s best interest that we do.’
The motives for bringing it up are:
a) So we can understand that when someone says “other countries are worthless! Most science comes from Anglo nations, this shows that English speaking peoples are superior!” we can understand that even if their claim about science coming from Anglo nations was true (and it isn’t, but not the point) that may stem from the way our science structures are built, not inherent superiority on our part or inferiority on everyone else’s.
b) So we can do something about it! ‘Do something’ doesn’t mean ‘destroy the English language’. It means doing a better job translating journals into more languages so people in those countries can learn what we have learned and contribute as well.
These are not true. I’m not sure how you want me to prove a negative, but neither of them is true.
For 3a, if you’re making the claim that wokeness considers debate and reason to be systemically racist and therefore invalid, you need to provide evidence if you think this is true. If you are just asking whether it is true – it isn’t; here we are, debating with you using reason.
For 3b, that’s also not true at all. I would say I’m not particularly interested in hearing from a white person about what the black experience is like, or hearing from a male what the female experience is like, but I wouldn’t be very interested in Gordon Ramsay’s political opinions even though I think he’s great at cooking, etc – it doesn’t have to do with them having the wrong skin color, it has to do with them talking about something they have no experience with. And if you’re white but have spent years studying black culture, or if you’re a man who has studied women, etc, that doesn’t really apply.
And anyone is allowed to EXPRESS AN OPINION. But anyone else is allowed to express their opinion of the original opinion; and just because you expressed an opinion doesn’t mean anyone is obligated to take you seriously.
Nobody is forced to agree with diversity training. If you want to go home and rant about all the ‘N-words’ at your company in private to your wife, no one will fire you.
If you start acting in a racist way that impacts minorities at your job, creating a hostile work environment, you can and should be fired for that.
Let me know if you want to discuss any of these further, but these are my thoughts on your questions.
I would also add that there is a certain ‘woke’ element that tends to weaponize outrage by finding things to be ‘woke’ about. So-called ‘virtue signaling’.
Like the other day at work at the company I hate, the company-wide Slack channel was abuzz with people bemoaning the election (prior to the outcome) and HR asking if anyone needed grief counselling or whatever. So someone posted that there was a lot of negativity and people should focus on something positive in their lives. Well one particularly woke individual replied to that person their comment was “tone-deaf and demonstrated entitlement”.
I think it’s that sort of thing that turns off conservatives (and moderates). The idea that the only that that matters is where you self-identify on the Wokeness Oppressed Minority Scale and that you can shut conversations down by screaming “racist”.
Plus IMHO it distracts from addressing actual racism.
Asshole Transcends Identity.
There are people on the left who “weaponize” (I like that description) leftist ideas in order to be assholes. That’s been happening as long as I’ve been involved in politics. There are people who like to dominate meetings, and they’ll manipulate the concept of consensus in order to do so. There are people who like to say shitty things to people, and they’ll strike out at someone with a group-in-power identity (a white person, a man, a straight person) with nothing except that person’s identity in order to say something shitty. There are people who want to be right in all circumstances, and when you call them on their bullshit, they reach for some leftist idea and distort it–“You’re operating from a white-centered system of truth!”–to say, in so many words, “I’m not wrong,you’re racist!”
Asshole Transcends Identity.
But that doesn’t make leftist ideas the culprit. And when people on the right go search from some Random Asshole on Twitter, and say, “Look, I found a Tweet where someone says that Cis people should be dropped in the ocean, that means trans activists advocate genocide, and ‘cis’ is hate speech!” they’re being assholes themselves. That’s dishonest.
I can simultaneously support a lot of leftist ideas, and recognize that some people are using these ideas to prop up wanting to be an asshole. That happens with literally any set of ideas you can imagine, from Christianity to Libertarianism to proper fork placement at a banquet to opinions about the best Pokemon game.
So, sure: there are assholes who will “accuse anyone who disagrees with them of being racist.” That’s not an indictment of the idea of systemic racism, that’s an indictment of being an asshole.
Very well said.
You say this like the person telling people to “focus on something positive” wasn’t themselves trying to shut down conversation?
Right? If folks are expressing real grief and dread, telling them to focus on something positive is itself an asshole move. It implies that their grief and dread are trivially gained, and just as trivially eliminated. Is it fair to call that tone-deaf?
For some folks, politics have no real effect on their lives. It’s a team sport they pay vague attention to. Is it fair to call that a position of entitlement?
Or to put in in simpler words:
An asshole that agrees with me is still an asshole.
I agree with the past few posts. Assholes abound, and it is a shame because quite often even when they’re well-intentioned they actually set back the cause. Occupy Wall Street had this issue. They decided to go with a leaderless approach, but the result was every crazy asshole became the voice of the movement (any guesses as to which ones the media like to focus on? you get zero guesses because it is obvious ;P). If they had focused on a clear, articulated message, then maybe, just maybe, they could have accomplished something. It is no different with wokeness, or any other movement.
When I brought up the science example (which has unexpectedly become the focus of the thread), I made sure to point out that English being the dominant language in science is not (in the modern era) racist. Nor does it make me racist. Nor does it mean I should feel guilty or flog myself for it. It is only an example of systemic racism. A racism baked into the system that isn’t even necessarily obvious until you stop to think about it.
It is interesting seeing people suggest possible ways to address. It is interesting that people are talking about wokeness as being awareness and then the next step (anti-racist) to address it. It is with great sadness that I have to say that the opposite seems to be happening. There are a small (but growing) number of journals that are requiring a letter from a professional editor indicating they’ve reviewed the paper and converted it to proper English. Of course, such services are not always (even rarely) free. Scientists in Europe and North America, believe it or not, are not swimming in money, and internationally the situation is even worse, often much worse. It can be a significant part of a budget to pay for publication fees. So putting additional financial demands on primarily international non-English speaking scientists puts further obstacles in the way… not removing them as would be desirable. Now, is this racist? Well… I doubt it is intentional racism, and I doubt it is malicious. I suspect that journals are just “tired” of getting papers written in poor English that need a lot of work. But it is an extension of the issues surrounding the systemic racism baked into the system.
How do you fix it? I don’t know. If I had all the answers, then I’d deserve a Nobel peace prize. Maybe instead of putting higher financial strain, they could slightly raise the publication fees (or take part of their profits (don’t get me started on this)) and provide that service for non-English speaking authors.
This is a good point. But we shouldn’t enable assholes, and IME some common beliefs on the left do. The whole ‘punch up, punch down’ thing, where you’re only allowed to criticise people who are lower than you on the Wokeness Oppressed Minority Scale™, and ‘call-out culture’, where instead of trying to help others to grow and improve, people try to increase their own status by pointing out failings. I’d say @msmith537’s example fits right into that.
Does that actually happen with considerable frequency or is the anti-woke narrative on wokeness? Take, for example, the Elle article you posted. The author wonders whether teens these days are held to this impossible 100% wokeness standard. She argues that we shouldn’t expect 100% wokeness, and should celebrate any personal progress (I agree). She then shows examples of activists that are doing exactly this. The author doesn’t really show any examples of the behaviors she thinks should not exist. And of course that isn’t to say that they do not exist, but one has to wonder which is truly more frequent.
Does it? If people are legitimately upset by something that may personally effect them, having someone who may not be personally effected tell them they are being too negative is tone deaf and demonstrates entitlement. Being called on it in a comment is not wokeness or PC run amok. Nobody was threatened with firing or anything.
Why is the first person calling others too negative fine, but objecting to it not?
Just like most of these things it is all about protecting the comfort of the advantaged. Criticizing snowflakes for being too sensitive is telling it like is. Counter criticizing that is cancel culture and destroying free speech.
It’s kind of the same thing, isn’t it? “Snowflakes” shouldn’t have the right to shut down things just because they find them “hurtful”, “offensive”, or “politically incorrect”. That’s why we have the 1st Amendment.
The other day, someone used the term “Chinese Wall” and it set off someone else’s Woke-O-Meter. It was used in the context of “compartmentalizing” something. Is “Chinese Wall” offensive? Is it less offensive to say “A Great Wall of China”? Is it the “Chinese” part that’s offensive? Like saying a “Berlin Wall” or “Hadrian’s Wall” or some other famous wall reference would be better?
This is self contradictory on its face, as well as factually incorrect.
The example given is of non-“snowflakes” shutting down “snowflakes” by telling them not to be so negative. But, you make the point that the “snowflakes” shouldn’t have the right to respond because we have the 1st Amendment. I’m not sure I follow your logic.
Is this a personal anecdote, or do actually have some sort of cite that we could see how exactly this played out? Given the above, I’m not sure that your judgement on someone else’s Woke-O-Meter is well calibrated.
In any case, while common, using “Chinese Wall”, or even “Great Wall of China” are pretty terrible terms simply from the aspect that they were actually pretty ineffective and diverted resources that could have been better used elsewhere. That’s always been my objection to using that turn of phrase.
This is a personal a personal anecdote. And what I mean is that someone used the term and then it started a discussion on whether it was appropriate.
And the point isn’t it’s a bad term because the Great Wall was historically ineffective at it’s job. The context is clear.
I am, so thanks for the serious reply.
How far does that go, though? Is the American dream racist? Is the idea of meritocracy racist? What about the stuff from that 'Aspects and assumptions of whiteness’ poster? To me (and I think most people) saying something is racist implies it should be changed.
I don’t think anyone is saying that, and anyway it’s not true. But while I agree with looking for bias as a possible explanation, I don’t think it should be assumed to be true with no further evidence. And I do see that happening.
That’s fair enough, proving a negative is hard. I will say though that the Dope is mostly full of not-so-young people, so I don’t think it means much that posters here still believe in reason.
Sure. The question is whether the response will be “here’s why you’re wrong” or “your opinion is invalid because you’re white/male/cis/het/whatever”.
I found this article which exemplifies some of the problems I see:
I’ll try and write more later if I get time…
Oh, so it didn’t make anyone mad or cancel anyone, just started a discussion. I think that’s a good thing, don’t you?
I have no feelings one way or other of the appropriateness of using it as a term, but I would be more than happy to listen to those who do. Is that such a bad thing?
Sure, I was just pointing out why I find it problematic, as I indicated when I said “That’s always been my objection”