Philosophy Now Forum

Or Enola LGB+every perversion and narcissistic, attention-seeking label you can come up with.

The Danger of the Woke Right
Roger Berkowitz
arendt@bard.edu

Of all the problems with left-wing wokeness that insisted on the power to force people to speak in certain ways, one was always that it could so easily be co-opted by the right.

The "woke wars" in other words. Whether in regard to race or gender or sexuality or any other issue in which liberals and conservatives [and their radical ilk] have dramatically conflicting assessments and solutions.

After all, look at all the liberal programs/policies that Elon Trump has "cancelled".

Instead, what's crucial, in my view, is the extent to which these policies are enforced either by way of "might makes right", "right makes might" or "democracy and the rule of law". As long as one or another rendition of moderation, negotiation and compromise prevails no one gets it all. In other words, the moral and political objectivists among us [left and right] insist it's "all or...else"

The rise of a right-wing and white grievance culture is unsurprising. And Donald Trump, in spite of his promises to free us from woke and ideological neologisms, has instead embraced woke fully, demanding the elimination of certain words from our vocabulary alongside the word-purity of the Gulf of American.

See how it works? When liberals "cancel" something, it's woke. When conservatives "cancel" something, it's principled and entirely justified.

And most objectivists [left and right] are so blinded by the light, they can't even acknowledge their own hypocrisy.

The stupidity and utter cluelessness of people is always depressing, no matter how expected it is

The Danger of the Woke Right
Roger Berkowitz
arendt@bard.edu

Thomas Chatterton Williams, Senior Fellow at the Arendt Center, argues that right-wing wokeness will simply further the wokeness wars instead of finally pushing us past them.

Of course. As long as there are political objectivists on both sides of any particular moral conflagration, there will be wokeness. The only real distinction here, in my view, is between those who either do or do not emphasize "my way or the highway", "one of us vs. one of them", and/or "or else".

Williams writes:

"Donald Trump promised that his election would free Americans from ever having to worry about saying the wrong thing again. He even signed an executive order titled “Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship.”

Right. And, of course, Donald Musk and their ilk are completely tolerant of those who speak out against them. So tolerant that, in fact, they just "cancelled" the use of hundreds of words used by those in the federal government. They are cancelling entire programs and policies and departments. Why? To bring the government more in line with their own "wake up, America" dogmas.

But that's never "woke" from their frame of mind. Liberals do woke, not them.

Or, perhaps, for those like Elon Trump, we should just "follow the money"?

Thus...

"But a few weeks into his administration, we hardly find ourselves enjoying a culture of free speech and tolerance for opposing views. Almost immediately, the president did the opposite of what he’d promised and put together his own linguistic proscriptions. Most of the banned words related to gender and diversity, and this time the rules had the force of the government behind them.

In other words, they are...frauds? They insist it's all about social, political and economic justice when it's really all about bringing crony capitalism more in line with state capitalism. "Just us", in other words. Of course Trump, Inc. embraces dictators around the globe. After all, when Trump becomes one of them...?

It's really only a question for some of whether or not that's been "the plan" all along. Make it all about DEI instead of Wall Street.

This part...

“Fear that other words could run afoul of the new edicts led anxious agency officials to come up with lists of potentially problematic words on their own,” wrote Shawn McCreesh in The New York Times. These included: “Equity. Gender. Transgender. Nonbinary. Pregnant people. Assigned male at birth. Antiracist. Trauma. Hate speech. Intersectional. Multicultural. Oppression. Such words were scrubbed from federal websites.”

...which, I suspect, some here would like to scrub from PN as well.

The Danger of the Woke Right
Roger Berkowitz
arendt@bard.edu

“Fear that other words could run afoul of the new edicts led anxious agency officials to come up with lists of potentially problematic words on their own,” wrote Shawn McCreesh in The New York Times. These included: “Equity. Gender. Transgender. Nonbinary. Pregnant people. Assigned male at birth. Antiracist. Trauma. Hate speech. Intersectional. Multicultural. Oppression. Such words were scrubbed from federal websites.”

Just out of curiosity, for those here who support Trump, which additional words ought to be included. Dasein for sure, right?

But that's often how censorship works, isn't it? Just to be on the safe side, many will begin to censor themselves.

Perhaps asking themselves, "what would Trump think, say and do?" Just as, historically, countless others asked, "what would Hitler think, say and do?" or "what would Stalin think, say and do."?

Then this part...

Plus ça change. The government itself determining the limits of acceptable speech is undeniably far more chilling and pernicious—and potentially unconstitutional—than private actors attempting to do so.

And that's the crucial distinction some suggest. Reconfiguring democracy and the rule of law into one or another rendition of right makes might. God or No God.

Again, just try to imagine the reaction of MAGA had Biden created a similar list of words that liberals take issue with. Banned them from all federal government communications. It's the hypocrisy that is often on display from those at both ends of the political spectrum. Then the part where both Democrats and Republicans embody the Deep State in regard to political economy and foreign policy. When has that ever not been the case?

But what is most striking about this dismal back-and-forth is how well it demonstrates that the illiberal impulse to dictate what can and cannot be said is always fundamentally the same, whether it appears on the right or the left.

And, as often as not, this is a reflection of moral and political objectivism. The sacrosanct ends rationalizing and then justifying any and all means. Still, for those who own and operate Wall Street and K Street, it's always the bottom line. They keep their cronies in Washington well supplied with campaign cash, and, by and large, money here doesn't talk, it screams.

An extraordinary number of conservatives have ignored and even delighted in their side’s astonishing hypocrisy. But a few consistent defenders of free speech have not gone along with what they see as the new “woke right.”

And that's what it is, of course: hypocrisy. But the hypocrisy revolves almost entirely around political economy. Whereas in regard to any number of value voter issues, liberals and conservatives often do have moral convictions considerably more sacrosanct.

Maia wrote: ↑Sun Mar 09, 2025 10:22 am

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Sun Mar 09, 2025 10:12 am

Maia wrote: ↑Sun Mar 09, 2025 9:47 am

I don't know. Some of those words are fine, in my opinion, and others are ridiculous. As a general rule, though, I'm not in favour of banning.

What do you think about his banning of all these words then? Do you think he's acting reasonable? Do you think it shows signs of anything politically...undesirable, that he would ban words like "bias", "disability", "equality", "mental health", "status" and more?

I don't agree with his banning of those words, if that's what he's really done. And those words you highlighted, in particular, are all perfectly reasonable words.

As for what I think about Trump, I think he's acting quite erratically, actually. I think he's right to try and seek peace in Ukraine, but I'm not sure that he's going about it in the best way.

"donald trump" is really not trying to seek peace in "ukraine", it is trying different ways to get what it wants. "donald trump" is just pretending to seek peace in "ukraine" in order to just have another way of getting its hands on more money.

Obviously "donald trump" ordering the bombing of human beings in other parts of the world is clear proof that "donald trump" really does not seek peace, in the world.

"donald trump" is good at manipulation and deception, in order to get 'a deal' done. While some people are very easily fooled, and deceived. 'That one' seeks money and resources, it certainly is not seeking peace, nor harmony, in the world, as is blatantly obvious.

The Danger of the Woke Right
Roger Berkowitz
arendt@bard.edu

The pervasive and nitpicky control of language is a crucial, but far from the sole, component of the woke-right movement. Like its antithesis on the left, the woke right places identity grievance, ethnic consciousness, and tribal striving at the center of its behavior and thought.

Thus, those here like AJ who seek to divide up the world between all Anglo-Saxon, Northern European straight men and...all the rest of us? The part where intellectually they are the Übermensch here and now and the rest of us are...the sheep? Some fit perhaps for another "final solution"?

One of the best descriptions I can find of it comes from Kevin DeYoung, a pastor and seminary professor, in a 2022 article called “The Rise of Right-Wing Wokeism.” DeYoung, reviewing a book on Christian nationalism in The Gospel Coalition, argues that the book’s “apocalyptic vision—for all of its vitriol toward the secular elites—borrows liberally from the playbook of the left.”

Of course, here the potential for autocracy is linked directly to attempts to connect the dots historically between evangelical Christianity, capitalism, prosperity gospel, populism and racism. As for these folks and the Jews in Israel, sure, they back Zionism here and now because "in their heads" it's all linked to the Second Coming of Christ, to Armagedón and the Book of Revelations.

On the other hand, if these Jews don't come around to accepting Jesus Christ as their personal savior on Judgment Day?

I wonder if, perhaps, Donald Trump has run that past Benjamin Netanyahu...?

It “redefines the nature of oppression as psychological oppression” and tells white and male right-wing Americans that they are the country’s real victims.

The millions upon millions of Archie Bunkers out there struggling to survive from paycheck to paycheck while the fat-cat billionaires on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley just get richer and more powerful.

Back to all of the various renditions of this: https://youtu.be/8X0UmfBwA_U?si=5EBAC_dspmdxrxYy

But “the world is out to get you, and people out there hate you,” DeYoung warns, “is not a message that will ultimately help white men or any other group that considers themselves oppressed.”

Tell that to those in the Deep State who specialize above all in dividing and conquering the pawns...one EO at a time.

GOP attacks on woke America are ‘hypocrisy of the highest order’
by Brad Bannon
at The Hill

The Republican attacks on LGBTQ+ Americans are a sad reminder that Republicans campaign on hating diversity in any shape or form.

Clearly, all of us draw the line here in different places. For example, those who would like to see America return to the 1950s, as opposed to those who yearn instead for a return to the 1960s.

How diverse in other words.

Me? The Sixties. Only I have no illusions here. This merely reflects my own political prejudices derived existentially given the life I have lived. In other words, in my view, there does not appear to be a way [philosophically or otherwise] to "think this through" in order to determine which decade actually does reflect the most rational -- virtuous? -- assessment of human interactions.

Former Vice President Mike Pence’s recent attack on Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg reads as hateful and homophobic. Such ridicule from Republicans and their attempts to oppress via legislation suggests a tawdry vendetta against gays, not to mention other minority groups and women.

Of course, with those like Pence, it's all about moral commandments derived from the Christian Bible.

And, surely, woke doesn't get much more consequential than this. Hell, for example.

Still, to the extent that he genuinely believes what he does, who is to say that he is wrong? After all, with religion all you have to do is to believe what you do.

[Senate Republican Nathan Ryan] Dahm has sponsored bills that would loosen gun restrictions in Oklahoma. He has also introduced legislation that would ban drag performances with children in attendance. His position, as Stewart points out, indicates he believes the government has a responsibility to protect kids from drag queens but doesn’t have the responsibility or right to save them from school shooters or other forms of gun violence.

See, I told you. Woke basically revolves existentially -- historically, culturally -- around dasein. Whereas for objectivists, it revolves instead around God or ideology or deontology or biological imperatives. In other words, one or another rendition of the One True Path.

GOP attacks on woke America are ‘hypocrisy of the highest order’
by Brad Bannon
at The Hill

Like any good interviewer, Stewart let his guest hang himself with his own words. He branded Dahm’s support for a ban on drag performances and opposition to steps to reduce gun violence “hypocrisy of the highest order.” Stewart pointed out that there were lots of children who died from gun violence — in fact, it’s the leading cause of child mortality in the United States — yet, no documented cases of kids dying from exposure to drag queens.

On the other hand, for any number of truly hardcore moral and political zealots, the only people who ever get hung -- "my way or else!" -- are those who refuse to join the clique. For example: https://knowthyself.forumotion.net/f6-agora

Those who insist that only liberals can be "woke" because historically it's linked to the civil rights movement. As though it is simply ludicrous to ascribe it to conservatives who insist that others are obligated to "wake up" and parrot their One True Path to enlightenment. Or those who go even further and include immortality and salvation in the "wager".

Which is why my own frame of mind here revolves around the assumption -- the political prejudice -- that democracy and the rule of law reflect "the best of all possible worlds" in a No God world.

Think of those here like henry quirk. His view regarding guns is, in my opinion, woke on steroids. Then the part where it's all linked to a God, the God, his God.

As for drag queens and kids, my own particular prejudice "here and now" revolves around the assumption, i.e. a political prejudice rooted existentially in dasein, that this is not something which seems reasonable. Only for others it is entirely reasonable, They merely start with a different set of assumptions regarding the human condition.

The state senator came back at Stewart with a lame response that suggested gun owners somehow enjoyed more significant constitutional rights under the Second Amendment than cross dressers had under the First Amendment.

Okay, how would the deontologists among us resolve this? Guns, transgenders and...the optimal assessment?

GOP attacks on woke America are ‘hypocrisy of the highest order’
by Brad Bannon
at The Hill

Republicans have blamed progressive woke policies for everything from the tragic train crash in East Palestine, Ohio to the failure of the Silicon Valley Bank. GOP politicians criticize “woke” morning, noon and night. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a prospective Republican presidential candidate, seems to invoke “woke” anytime someone turns on a microphone and points a camera at him.

Here, however, things can get tricky. There are, after all, any number of politicians who practice "the politics of convenience". They tell the voters what they think they want to hear. Especially on the campaign trail. Everything revolves around the election cycles, which can often revolve around "show me the money"...the part that sustains the deep state embedded in crony capitalism.

It might be liberal dogmas or conservative dogmas. But to the extent those in power demand -- command -- particular
moral and political prescriptions/proscriptions, it often comes down to their capacity to enforce sets of assumptions: warnings, fines, arrests, imprisonments, executions, internment camps, gulags, gas chambers...?

When pressed, Republicans have a hard time defining “woke,” so the folks at USA Today did it for them. Most Americans thought the word “woke” meant “to be informed, educated on and aware of social injustice.” Only one-third of the public thought it meant “to be overtly politically correct and police others’ thoughts.” Republicans like to rail against drag queens — but woke really means respect for all Americans regardless of race and sexual preference.

That sound you hear is all of this going in one ear and out the other. And in regard to radicals at both ends of the ideological/deontological spectrum.

Not that any of this will put even a dent in the dogmas of most objectivists. And, in my view, that is because their convictions revolve more around what they believe, and what they believe comforts and consoles them.

It's more about human psychological defense mechanisms and how consciously or otherwise they create the objectivist frame of mind.

How Woke Went From "Black" to "Bad"
By Ishena Robinson

“We must fight ‘the woke’ in our schools. We must fight ‘the woke’ in our businesses. We must fight ‘the woke’ in government agencies,” Florida Governor Ron DeSantis recently declared from the stage at a campaign event. “We can never, ever surrender to woke ideology. And I’ll tell you this, the state of Florida is where woke goes to die.”

Same hypocrisy, in my view. Only liberals can be woke. Though, of course, all of what DeSantis embraces ideologically in terms of conservative dogma is entirely principled.

His boast about Florida isn’t an empty threat. From his powerful pulpit as the state’s governor, DeSantis engineered and recently signed into law the “Stop W.O.K.E.” Act, a title that precisely captures what the bill’s architects aimed to do: stop people in Florida from speaking out in ways that challenge racism and other kinds of discrimination.

That's really what it comes down to for many. Stop saying and doing things that piss off conservatives. Wake up instead to what they subscribe to...or else. Then it just comes down to how far the reactionaries in power today are able to take this. Not all the way to the reeducation camps, the gulags, or the gas chambers perhaps but who really knows with those like Trump and Musk.

The measure leverages severe penalties, including firing educators and pulling state funding from educational institutions, for violations of its intentionally vague, yet broad, speech and viewpoint limitations — all to brutally chill conversations about racism, gender inequality, and LGBTQ+ people. It also prohibits promoting specific phrases and concepts, like “systemic racism,” that are critical to explaining how discrimination is perpetuated and to understanding the impact of inequality on people’s everyday lives.

Intentionally vague but broad. At least until it all becomes less and less vague as, one policy shift at a time, it becomes increasingly clearer that people are being targeted based solely on the political prejudices of those in power. Just don't call it woke.