I saw something somewhere where a critic of right-wing complaints about wokeness demanded a definition.
Yeah.
I’m sympathetic, but I also realize that is a left-brain obsession that doesn’t work in the real world.
On the one hand, we have Lewis Carroll’s caterpillar, who claims that words mean exactly what he chooses them to mean at any moment, and on the other hand, we have legal contracts, where there are pages of definitions.
But even at that, not every term is defined. Because it can’t be.
“Before you can use a word, you need to define it.”
I’ll consider your proposal if you start by defining every word in that sentence.
The idea is nonsense. While I appreciate and endorse the desire to be precise, you can’t define every word. Words are flexible and squishy.
Also, we can know a thing without being able to articulate it precisely.
Man: “I love you.”
Woman: “Define love.”
That’s not going to work out well.
But … “wokeness” is a relatively new term, and it does us good to try to narrow down what we mean by it.
At first, it meant “alert to racial prejudice and discrimination.” E.g., young blacks were “woke” when they realized how many things in society were slanted against them. A young black being pulled over by a cop had to be extra careful to stay out of trouble.
[Whether that’s true or not is irrelevant.]
In order to get to its more modern meaning, you need to reflect on the underlying attitude behind that earlier definition. That would include …
- There are classes of people who have legitimate grievances against “the man” / the system.
- Appreciating the extent of those grievances requires a change of perspective. An englightenment.
- Blacks getting pulled over by racist cops is just one example of how the system disriminates against … against what?
- The “what” that causes this discrimination is the hegemony of white, heterosexual men, who are steeped in “western” values (mostly Christianity), including capitalism and the validity of past conquests (colonialism).
- True freedom requires a release from all the assumptions of this white, heterosexual, Christian, western value system.
That’s my attempt to spell it out. Can you think of a common use of “wokeness” that isn’t adequately encompassed in that description?
QUOTE: At first, it meant “alert to racial prejudice and discrimination.” E.g., young blacks were “woke” when they realized how many things in society were slanted against them. A young black being pulled over by a cop had to be extra careful to stay out of trouble.
When enough of this type of thing happens, no wonder such a perception develops. For instance, a driver attempts to comply with an officer’s order and is immediately shot. https://youtu.be/-XFYTtgZAlE.
This is just one of a number of interactions of this ilk. So, it’s not surprising that language/definitions were developed to describe this type of dynamic.
In view of the widespread and highly inflammatory polemics in which the term “woke” has gained currency, I suspect that it is primarily little more than a tool of manipulation. We do not have to have a definition of this word in order to make this observation. The meaning of words is their use. (See Wittgenstein.) At present the word in question serves the purpose of generating very extensive noise to distract people from the real issues of our time, e.g. the criminality of the previous POTUS.