Philosophy Now Forum

My concern here is with, what's next?

I think we need to, yet again, define 'WOKE''

WOKE: awaking to the possibilities of an idea, event,
thought, or people, or even an ideology....

let us give some examples..... when Kant read Hume, and as he himself says,

''It was the objection of David Hume that first, many years ago, interrupted
my dogmatic slumber''

Kant became aware there were possibilities within Hume that ''WOKE''
him up.....allowing him to escape his ''dogmatic slumber''....
Kant was awakened by his reading of Hume..... that is a classic
definition of being '''WOKE''......The escaping of prior dogma, beliefs,
values or ideas.... Change is the nature state of human beings.....
the early example of change is, when as a child, one beliefs in Santa Clause.....
but with age, or in my case, an older sister, who told me the ''truth''.....
I was awakened or escaped from the old beliefs... that is another
example of being ''WOKE'', changing from one set of values or beliefs
to another, because of new information.....
and the fact is we do this all the time..... with new information,
we change our values, beliefs, dogma, ideas, with new information
or a new understanding of ''reality''... that is what ''WOKE'' means....
to change our values or beliefs based on new information that allows
us to break free of old values or beliefs or isms....

That is in its entirety what ''WOKE'' means... another
word for ''WOKE'' is becoming Enlightened........
the entire Enlightenment period is just another word for becoming
''WOKE''..... to break free of the dogma of religion, that is ''WOKE''...
becoming aware of the harmful effects of religions.... that is ''WOKE''...

Every single time we break free from an old idea or value or ism,
that is becoming ''WOKE''....... the becoming from faith in
an old value or belief into a new value or understanding, that is
''WOKE''..... it is not a random, rare event, it happens all the time.....

The beliefs and values we hold at age 3 are not the values or beliefs
we hold at 13 and those values and beliefs are vastly different at age
23 and 33 and 53 and my own values and beliefs have changed in the
last 10 years... I am now 65..... with each change in values and beliefs
comes new ''faiths''..... and even today, my own values and beliefs
have changed.... I am forever becoming ''WOKE'' because my values
and beliefs and ideas are changing.... and with luck, will continue
to change... for that is the one aspect of life we can be relatively
sure of, that our values, beliefs, hopes and ideas and isms, change...

a person who still holds the same values and beliefs that they held
from age 13... is one who hasn't grown or adapted to being an adult....
and every age, we must change and adapt our values and beliefs to
the ever changing environment we live in......and that is why we change....
that our environment has and is changing....... I was single at age 30
and I held to one set of values and beliefs.... I was married at age 40,
and because of that one changing fact, my entire belief system changed,
as it must and should change...... with every new environment,
our values and beliefs, ideas must change to meet this new environment......

''WOKE'' is just another word for the very changing belief and value system
we hold due to the ever-changing environment we live in..... if the environment
doesn't change, if the situation of our lives doesn't change, there is no
reason to adapt, change, be ''WOKE''.... but frankly, if there is so little
happening in your life that you aren't always changing your values and beliefs,
that you are stuck in life, and THEN you have some real problems, not just
being ''WOKE''....

Kropotkin

let us do a bit deeper dive into being ''WOKE''

I have always been a fan of democracies.... I believe in democracies....
I think democracy is the best system of government ever invented....
. period......

my turn to anarchism when I was 21, was in part due the democratic
aspect of anarchism.....

but of late, I have turned against democracies... not because I think they
are wrong, but because of the current form of democracies have
been corrupted by money and influence into being a base form of
dictatorship.... the money being brought into democracies have
dramatically changed the nature of democracies..... they no longer
work for the people, but for those who have baught and paid for the
democracies....... and that is wrong........

so, how can we return to the form of government, democracy,
while not totally destroying the entire governmental system at work
today? Can we change the current system into an honest system of
democracy as was intended, implied by our founding fathers....
where the voice of the people dictates the rules, laws, format
and power of the government.....

and that is the modern question facing us today, how do we return
to democracy as it is intended, not as it has been bought and sold today.....

that is one of the political questions facing us today......

Under what form of government should we have?
and why that form of government and not another?

I believe in the model of human beings that say that
human beings function best when allowed to govern
their own lives, not when others control who we are
and what is possible for us...... a democratic form of
government allows us the best possibilities for us to become
who we are.....

but that is one way we can use a model or a understanding of
what it means to be human to guide our own vision of reality.....
our model of being human creates the answers we need to
work out our political, social, economic and philosophical
systems......

the question, what does it mean to be human, is
used to create our various systems, as defined above.....

we begin with the question, what does it mean to be human,
and we create our political, social, economic and philosophical
systems around our answers.....

we don't create the various systems and then force people to match those
systems.......we use our model of human beings and create the various
systems around that model.....

what a concept....

Kropotkin

Peter Kropotkin wrote: ↑Wed Jun 12, 2024 5:09 pm I think we need to, yet again, define 'WOKE''

Definition:

Woke: calling everything racist until you control it.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Jun 12, 2024 5:44 pm

Peter Kropotkin wrote: ↑Wed Jun 12, 2024 5:09 pm I think we need to, yet again, define 'WOKE''

Definition:

Woke: calling everything racist until you control it.

Wonder of wonders, I agree with you.

Harbal wrote: ↑Wed Jun 12, 2024 6:04 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Jun 12, 2024 5:44 pm

Peter Kropotkin wrote: ↑Wed Jun 12, 2024 5:09 pm I think we need to, yet again, define 'WOKE''

Definition:

Woke: calling everything racist until you control it.

Wonder of wonders, I agree with you.

Hey...celebration!

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Jun 12, 2024 5:44 pm

Peter Kropotkin wrote: ↑Wed Jun 12, 2024 5:09 pm I think we need to, yet again, define 'WOKE''

Definition:

Woke: calling everything racist until you control it.

K: wrong as usual....... but hay, I expect nothing less from you...

(''WOKE'' literarily has nothing to do with racism)....

Upon reflection, I am going to change this statement.....
the basic origins of American ''WOKE'' does come from
its understanding of the principle that America was
founded and its documents from the beginning, were/
are racial.... that racism is baked into both the constitution
and the Declaration of Independence cannot be denied....
and CRT is simply an understanding of the way racism is
baked into our laws and constitution.... but that understanding
doesn't changed what is today the meaning of what I call ''WOKE'''
which has everything to do with our own journey as we move from one
understanding to another.... When I become aware of my own,
new possibilities, I am becoming... and that becoming is ''WOKE''....
When I grow from understanding that there is no such thing
as Santa Claus, that is ''WOKE'' to become aware.... the journey
that comes from that awareness, is the journey of theology....
where we think everything is magically, where some mystical
force in the universe, dominates us... in the case of Santa Clause,
gives us toys and gifts if we are ''good''...

the awareness of the next step, there is no Santa Claus...
allows us to begin to grow and understand that the magical
force that is Santa Claus and god, don't exists..... and the question
becomes, if there is no Santa Claus, why should we be good?
for many children, that is the beginning of the question,
of ethics/morality.....a question that has been the dominant
philosophical question of the 20th century....

You have your superficial and glib answers but they
don't begin to approach what being ''WOKE'' is and those
questions of that arise from waking up and becoming aware
of the failures of the current ism's, faiths, values and ideas......

to wake up and realize, everything one has been taught is lie...
capitalism, nationalism, white is right, there is a god,
religion.... the lies that transcends the theological, political, economic,
social and philosophical notions one has, that have been indoctrinated
into us..... to be enlighten, as I have suggested, being ''WOKE'' is to
overcome the indoctrinations we are educated with, by family,
the state, the media, socially, culturally and philosophically.......

your own failure to grow and change, means you are stagnating...
you have no growth and thus no future..... it is only by change,
being ''WOKE'' can we become the future... the future possibilities
that we can make if, if we only become aware of.... being ''WOKE''....

Kropotkin

one of the things that the ''ANTI-WOKE'' crowd cannot understand is that
the very word ''WOKE'' can mean more than one thing... it can have,
as many words do have, multiple meanings.... that this particular word
''WOKE'' can have one, two, three or even more meanings....

and those who are unable to change, adapt, have a definition of ''WOKE''
that is not in line with those who can change and adapt......
''WOKE'' for me is about the overcoming of our indoctrinations
of childhood and state...... that ''WOKE' for me is another word
for Enlightenment...... to be enlightened, is to become aware of......
and that boys and girls is ''WOKE''

Kropotkin

Peter Kropotkin wrote: ↑Wed Jun 12, 2024 7:07 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Jun 12, 2024 5:44 pm

Peter Kropotkin wrote: ↑Wed Jun 12, 2024 5:09 pm I think we need to, yet again, define 'WOKE''

Definition:

Woke: calling everything racist until you control it.

K: wrong as usual.......

Well, no...a little concise, maybe, but generally accurate.

Immanuel Can: Woke: calling everything racist until you control it.


K: wrong as usual.......

IC: Well, no...a little concise, maybe, but generally accurate.

K: and no..... you are just stating opinions... nothing more...
nothing that is even vaguely close to a fact or even a philosophical
statement...

and the fact you can't even tell the difference between a fact
and an opinion, tells us a great deal about you.....

I have been here, what a couple of years now and at no point, have
I seen you change an ''opinion'' ... your answers today are exactly the
same answers you gave a couple of years ago.....
there has been no change, no development, in your faiths, your beliefs....
and that also tell us that you have not had a ''reevaluation of values''...
my guess is that your current values and beliefs are the same today,
as they were decades ago.... no change even though your environment
has changed.... are you even capable of changing your values/your beliefs?

I doubt it...... and that is too bad... for growth is an essential part
of being human.....

Kropotkin

Peter Kropotkin wrote: ↑Wed Jun 12, 2024 8:46 pm Immanuel Can: Woke: calling everything racist until you control it.


K: wrong as usual.......

IC: Well, no...a little concise, maybe, but generally accurate.

K: and no..... you are just stating opinions... nothing more...

Read Lindsay. You don't have enough information, obviously. You could use more.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Jun 12, 2024 8:59 pm

Peter Kropotkin wrote: ↑Wed Jun 12, 2024 8:46 pm Immanuel Can: Woke: calling everything racist until you control it.


K: wrong as usual.......

IC: Well, no...a little concise, maybe, but generally accurate.

K: and no..... you are just stating opinions... nothing more...

Read Lindsay. You don't have enough information, obviously. You could use more.

I've been around people who used the term "Woke" to describe themselves or others. It was a kind of slang word doing its rounds about 10 years or more ago and it seemed to generally refer to someone who was "aware" of something, in the case of the people who used the word "woke" that I refer to above, they believed they were "aware" of injustices that existed in society with respect to races and other people who seemed to be treated unfairly. Woke is not the embodiment of all that is evil in the world. They have some fair points also.

Peter Kropotkin wrote: ↑Wed Jun 12, 2024 5:09 pm My concern here is with, what's next?

I think we need to, yet again, define 'WOKE''

WOKE: awaking to the possibilities of an idea, event,
thought, or people, or even an ideology....

Of course we can all define words in our own way. We can try to get others to use the words in that way. But you have now defined woke in a way that is not at all like how others define it, both those who label themselves Woke and those who don't like Wokeness.

It would mean, for example, that someone who was a liberal or lefty and who changed their minds and now is right-wing or some or many issues is Woke.

Every single time we break free from an old idea or value or ism,
that is becoming ''WOKE''....... the becoming from faith in
an old value or belief into a new value or understanding, that is
''WOKE''..... it is not a random, rare event, it happens all the time.....

Or if someone decided that human life itself was bad, in and of itself, and thought everyone should die. That'd be moving beyond old ideas held by both the Left and the Right. They'd be really Woke.