Thursday, November 07, 2024

Wokeism and profound disconnect

 

I value words therefore with deep sense of anguish I use this word: woke. I refused to give in as the word was being appropriated and vandalized. Woke is a beautiful word that traces to 1930s black American call for staying politically and culturally awake “stay woke, keep eyes open”. Essentially it means to be alert to racial or social discrimination and injustice, along with being aware of what's going on. It was widely used during BlackLifeMatter movement and quickly broaden to include other issues, seeping into frivolous posturers hence lost intend, very soon the backlash saw it being used as sarcasm for ‘performative activism’ and mocked as ‘overrighteous liberalism’. Now the word is used as a sort of abuse in social media. ‘Woke culture’ ‘woke mind virus’ is free for all space for all kinds of slur. It is a study on valued word being reduced to insult. So I too will go along with it since it appropriately abstracts the contemporary context that is becoming too common. We are therefore living in woke world where everyone is performing for attention, righteousness has clientele in West and fits in narration of angst. Western angst is a feeling that arise when you know you are compromised and want to cover it up with overindulgence of righteousness that is essentially at the expense of others. This angst is carefully packed to showcase themselves as benign arbitrators, the civilized presence. It doesn’t ask for systems change nor critical scrutiny since it will negate their significance and expose their complicity. Woke is fake indulgence that severely degrades society. Woke’s performative activism takes matter to extreme to show its hold over common people as also a challenge to its competitors in the game of righteousness. It also cleverly morphs their role in systems that perpetuates the same. Historical injustices must be studied and understood to the context of time, and when you understand you realize that there are systems which controls and nurture individual actions essentially to perpetuate the system. A primitive society nurture such institutions and unevolved humans in different stages of barbarity will thoughtlessly indulge in these atrocities. Hence, it’s important to remove systems that nurtures injustices and discriminations. Systems that undermine democratic ideals, equality and liberty. Performative activism is carefully orchestrated to avoid questioning the system. Wokeism is here and now without any complexities or difficult questions.    

Horrors of slavery and untold trauma committed on blacks as they were dislocated from Africa and transported to Europe and US has no parallels in history. Hence no one should attempt to play surrogates for blacks. It must be understood clearly that racism against blacks is not same as racism against Asians or anyone else, it is also woke travesty to conflate racism with religion. Which also means any institution and system that nurture racism against blacks have no place in contemporary world and must be dismantled. Any racism against black must be dealt severely with all the understanding and significance of historical injustice. Which also means the humans living now are not to be treated as extension of past instead every attempt be made to remove any injustice in the present. Dismantling systems that continue injustice of past must be priority with quality education and nutritional security for children. Woke performative justice creates dissension and is meant to keep the infighting going for benefits. They rarely question anything that doesn’t benefit them. Clearly, performance is orchestrated for benefits. They uniquely lack compassion (except as posturing in front of audience) and are mostly obnoxious people with serious attention seeking needs. They cunningly use people to score points among their ilk. They stampede for power, awards, extract benefits from those whom they are purportedly fighting, they grab as they playact their woke concerns that is increasingly disjointed from realities of people they are vying to save. Comfortably placed, and rarely affected by vicissitudes of life that engulf most people, they actively vitiate the situation to gain attention as savior. They are clever status quoist conniving to replace and not change anything. Their beliefs are tailored to the need, a ruse to exact price for effort and a tool to compete for status. Hence the effort is always symbolic, lacking any motivation to improve the system, positioning themselves as actively involved representation. Their self-obsession is matched by stampede for self-aggrandizing relevance that will keep attention on them. The one on the left side of wokeism seek puritanical idealism that is further disjointed from common people, and is meant for scoring high moral grounds and intellectual bearing. They manipulate egalitarian intents and democratic institutions to their specific needs and narrow interests, not surprisingly against the interest of people whom they seek to represent. Beleaguered people also face backlash that is directed against woke making situation worst for them.  

Minority rights matters in a democratic society, but to reduce diversity into extremism of narrow religious identity, and to fixate humans into this primitive conception, is woke. Also, not to question transgression of religion into democracy is woke. Not to question how it segregates and dehumanizes gender (and race in US) is woke. To tolerate intolerance is not liberal, nor democratic. Issue of migrants is having serious ramification all across Europe and consolidating rightist response. Migrants are important contributors in any society but migrants don’t have divine right to enter any nation-state. Illegal migrants are a threat anywhere in the world. The state in its wisdom and compassion will take its call understanding the consequences and impact on its society, importantly citizenship to migrant has to go through stringent process. Invoking history doesn’t help, nobody is interested. Speak the contemporary reality. Even recent migrants to US (now citizens) don’t want new immigrants to the country and seek stricter control of migrants. They voted for Trump. This is what happens when elitism loose contact with reality of common people. They will vote for any plain-speaking charlatan to protect what they estimate as threat to their livelihood and security. 

LGBTQ rights are important, they are vulnerable minority who are prosecuted in most part of the world. Compassion to their plight is what defines humane society and to institutionalize their rights is democratic. But this cannot be taken to extreme. They cannot start asserting (“identifying with”) all kinds of nonsense and create nuisance in public space. Nor can it be allowed to diminish and override women’s right. Individual right is valued and must be protected but not over others. Woke is arrogant estimation of one’s special place in people life and complacency of this self-assuredness. A compassionate leader would easily understand the problem common people perceive and actively involve to assuage. If Trump speaks of children coming back from school with gender change it is not about facts but putting the centrality of issue into people’s daily discourse. Whether you criticize or not you end up discussing it, and once you discuss you bring in your bias. So even though it has nothing to do with you or your reality you have fallen for the divisive agenda. Woke inflated for righteous indulgence and presented to charlatans to play savior. It is easy choice for common people. A logical compassionate leader would have clearly asserted that children cannot decide hence there will be law for no sex change until they are adult nor any violations on their body until they reach age of consent. Period. Since woke values did not allow this, charlatans worked overtime to exploit this minor matter into major threat posed to idea of family and really worked into common people's fear. If Trump talked nonsense about Haitian immigrants eating pets. It is not about pets. It is about migrants. It is a devious strategy to trigger and inflate the issue in people’s mind. Fantastical the claims the better. And if it has even a sliver of experience to their life or what they have understood from media as a threat they will latch on. It is not difficult to present pattern of migrant violence in Europe, it may be biased or minor incidents in spiraling violence but that inconsequential sliver of truth creates a narration and is inflated into their reality and conflated to their problem. Issues related to transgender is too insignificant matter but they are exaggerated with general threat to way of life.  They didn’t vote for stuttering old wind bag, they voted for a man who took vulgar potshot against insular elites. He himself is the rich elite was lost since woke was worked to represent elitist threat.

Views must be engaged and responded with skills of argumentation and critical thinking faculties and not cancelled if it doesn’t fit in one's narration. Nor should it be classified into silos of binary and dismissed. Those in public space as leaders and opinion influencers have arduous task and immense responsibility. Not to fall into cliché or totalizing ideologies, and actively pursue to create narration that address challenges of contemporary world. Unfortunately, very few people understand gravity of Nazi association and horror, they have no time nor caliber to contemplate on history. They go by easy narrations that synch with their world and challenges they face or made to perceive -we live in world of perception primed by neoliberal system. If responsible compassionate people don’t get actively involved in deciphering complexities into simple terms for common people, then opportunist charlatans will provide the simplistic versions to occupy the mind and vandalize. One shouldn’t undermine the misogynistic framework that is nurtured by patriarchal values of religion. That ‘cheap grace’ estimate women as second grade citizen who cannot even have control over their body is easily extended to resistance to women in leadership position. Kamala Harris was way better than Trump on every parameter but she lost has also to do with toxic masculinity fostered by religion in its sickening patriarchal moral euphemisms that comes alive in modern institutions and crucial discourses. Even a man of the stature of Pope -a moral authority for millions of followers, couldn’t locate the evil in simplest of binary choice is indicative of predicament of common people.