The Real problem with cancel culture

[grumbler]

Viper is incorrect in any case to say that the votes on Southern secession were carried out on the same rules as the Presidential election.  Only three states had such votes (Virginia, Texas, and Tennessee - which did it twice after the pro-secession folks disliked the first result).  The remaining states did it as a mere piece of legislation.

[Sheilbh]

Re the latest wide use of "woke" over here - one is that civil servants have apparently stopped a comms campaign about getting a booster shot to save Christmas. They were described as the "woke 'blob'".

Secondly there's a history podcast with Dominic Sandbrook and Tom Holland called the Rest is History, which is very fun. They've recently been doing a World Cup of English Monarchs and the eventual winner v Elizabeth I was, very surprisingly, Aethelstan. Dominic Sandbrook - who writes for the Daily Mail occasionally - quoted some of the best irate Daily Mail commenter comments about this:

Woke nonsense again. Lefty historians trying to erase the history and undermine the authority of Queen Elizabeth in favour of some bloke nobody's heard of just to appease the anti-monarchist rabble.

Just shows how out of touch these academics are. Never heard of him. What woke tosh.

More woke crap.

So we can now add 10th century Anglo-Saxon monarchs to the list of things accused of being "woke" in the UK

Edit: Incidentally I absolutely love the guy who's worried about the authority of Elizabeth I

[Admiral Yi]

Did You Kay miss out on politically correct?  Seems that's what they're using woke to mean.

[Sheilbh]

Did You Kay miss out on politically correct?  Seems that's what they're using woke to mean.

Yeah - it's replaced "political correctness gone mad" plus "hipster-ish" things like avocadoes or saying that you're not really a fan of good Queen Bess and actually you like the English monarchy's early work.

[Josquius]

That's amazing.

[Eddie Teach]

PC has also been used inconsistently.

[DGuller]

Whatever the term for something, two things are going to be a constant.  If the term is applied to something that is legitimately dumb, then the term is going to become pejorative almost by definition.  It's hard for a term to be positive when it's associated with something legitimately non-positive.  The second thing is that if a term becomes pejorative, it will also be abused by those who want to tar non-stupid things with it.

If we are to have effective discussion, hopefully so that we can address the legitimately dumb things, we can't be sidetracked by these two things happening. They're always going to happen.  We'll never get to have an effective discussion if we can't get past "oh, no, you used the same term that some Nazi used".  Whatever term is going to come after "PC" or "woke" is going to live through exactly the same dynamic, so let's just get over it.

[Josquius]

Well yeah. But there's no discussion to be had there though really.
Some pink deadlocked weirdo is standing on a street corner insisting santa being a man is wrong, that santa being a woman would also be bad, non-binary doesn't suit santa..no. We must refer to santa as Pjem.
Obviously fucking ridiculous.
Everyone would agree on that. The only discussion is on their right to free speech or whether they're disturbing the children or some such. Pretty minor nit picky stuff.

But... It's not with the ridiculous people that the term most gets used and is being weaponised for political purposes. It is being used as a general purpose rallying cry by the stupid right to oppose anyrhing they fancy. It is part of the radicalisation tool kit that is a major problem in our schools.
We all agree the weird fringe left wing crazies are... Well crazy. But they're not a danger.
The anti woke squad however are the current number one threat to democracy.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Pretty weird about Athelstan; the first king of England and the obvious choice if one wants to go down an England first we are Anglo-Saxon Folke!! route; my impression that the right has many ignorant plonkers in its ranks has been strengthened 

[Admiral Yi]

We all agree the weird fringe left wing crazies are... Well crazy. But they're not a danger.

I am certain you and I would not agree on who is a weird fringe left wing crazy and who is not.

[Josquius]

We all agree the weird fringe left wing crazies are... Well crazy. But they're not a danger.

I am certain you and I would not agree on who is a weird fringe left wing crazy and who is not.

There we come to the problem being people on the right calling anything they don't like woke. :p

Disagree with socialised health care if you like. But it's clearly not crazy. Same too for me and privatised health care - backwards and wrong. But not lunacy in the league of George Soros is funding cultural Marxism in our classrooms to turn the kids all communist.

[Admiral Yi]

There we come to the problem being people on the right calling anything they don't like woke. :p

Disagree with socialised health care if you like. But it's clearly not crazy. Same too for me and privatised health care - backwards and wrong. But not lunacy in the league of George Soros is funding cultural Marxism in our classrooms to turn the kids all communist.

*We* haven't come there.  You've come there because that's where you always come when this issue comes up.

You said "there's no discussion" and "we would agree on that."  I'm saying there is plenty we would not agree about.

[Sheilbh]

Pretty weird about Athelstan; the first king of England and the obvious choice if one wants to go down an England first we are Anglo-Saxon Folke!! route; my impression that the right has many ignorant plonkers in its ranks has been strengthened 

I love it - I am, of course, a big fan of the Anglo-Saxons so very happy to see Aethelstan finally get some recognition.

But as I say I think this is part of the way "woke" in the UK has slightly expanded to just mean "trendy" or "new". It does make me wonder how much is just a reaction against the "new" and the risk of having to learn something new and the thinking that will cause. Moving from the story everyone knows about Elizabeth I to have to learn about some distant almost Dark Ages figure who is not on any school curriculum - at least that I've known. And that might shift cause a shift in thinking about other bits of English history - but it does take effort when it's easy to learn about the established narrative that you've known since you were a kid.

Just like learning to deal with vegans in the family wanting different options or, say, learning about the other view of Captain Cook. Old verities and the bed of received knowledge/wisdom you could rely on have been thrown out.

[The Larch]

Pretty weird about Athelstan; the first king of England and the obvious choice if one wants to go down an England first we are Anglo-Saxon Folke!! route; my impression that the right has many ignorant plonkers in its ranks has been strengthened 

I love it - I am, of course, a big fan of the Anglo-Saxons so very happy to see Aethelstan finally get some recognition.

But as I say I think this is part of the way "woke" in the UK has slightly expanded to just mean "trendy" or "new". It does make me wonder how much is just a reaction against the "new" and the risk of having to learn something new and the thinking that will cause. Moving from the story everyone knows about Elizabeth I to have to learn about some distant almost Dark Ages figure who is not on any school curriculum - at least that I've known. And that might shift cause a shift in thinking about other bits of English history - but it does take effort when it's easy to learn about the established narrative that you've known since you were a kid.

Just like learning to deal with vegans in the family wanting different options or, say, learning about the other view of Captain Cook. Old verities and the bed of received knowledge/wisdom you could rely on have been thrown out.

So, anything that makes people have to consider anything outside their intellectual comfort zone, then?

[Berkut]

We all agree the weird fringe left wing crazies are... Well crazy. But they're not a danger.

I am certain you and I would not agree on who is a weird fringe left wing crazy and who is not.

And I sure as hell do not agree that they are just some fringe nuts.

They are changing our discourse, and silencing actual speech about important topics.