Quo Vadis GOP?

[garbon]

I'll turn the lights off. Too much of my identity is tied to this place for me to leave it permanently.

I've been here more than half my life. Who came before is dead.

[HVC]

I'll turn the lights off. Too much of my identity is tied to this place for me to leave it permanently.

I've been here more than half my life. Who came before is dead.

GF and I aren't far behind you

[Grey Fox]

I'll turn the lights off. Too much of my identity is tied to this place for me to leave it permanently.

I've been here more than half my life. Who came before is dead.

  

[Josquius]

Worth a poll on who will be last here? :p

[HVC]

Worth a poll on who will be last here? :p

Mongers. With a poll about whose left

[Admiral Yi]

There's always a question of degree and kind to this stuff, which is what makes defining "wokeism" challenging.

Take, for example, a customer-facing employee who keeps calling customers the n-word to their face in a derogatory fashion, and is subsequently fired.  And (from a real world example) a NYT reporter in a private discussion on whether it's okay to use the n-word, says the n-word, and is then subsequently fired.

I mean both are examples of someone being fired for using the n-word - but I think most rational people think the first example is fine, and the second ridiculous.

I agree the first is fair and the second ridiculous, and I think a great deal of ambiguity is removed by defining racism (or transphobia or any other ism or phobia) as based in ill-will, animosity, hatred toward the entire group.

[Valmy]

One would think simply using a term as an illustrative or quoting somebody else for some reason (like reading a historic document in the delightful history of the United States) would logically be interpreted as different than directing them towards a people or person out of ill-will.

[Sheilbh]

There's always a question of degree and kind to this stuff, which is what makes defining "wokeism" challenging.

Take, for example, a customer-facing employee who keeps calling customers the n-word to their face in a derogatory fashion, and is subsequently fired.  And (from a real world example) a NYT reporter in a private discussion on whether it's okay to use the n-word, says the n-word, and is then subsequently fired.

I mean both are examples of someone being fired for using the n-word - but I think most rational people think the first example is fine, and the second ridiculous.

I saw someone put it in the way which I found quite helpful that it's about the form of politics or style that "wokeism" presents.

Content, form and style all matter - and there is a side to "wokeism" of HR bureaucracy or academic critique that I just think most people don't respond well to, not least because it's something very alien to most people's lives. It's why I think there is something to the idea of capital "woke-washing" but also that I think it appeals and makes sense to people from a certain educational background/in certain sectors but not others.

And I think criticism of the form isn't the same as criticism of content - and defnece of content doesn't necessarily excuse form. My own view is I'm not convinced this form of anti-racism, anti-misogyny etc is effective at persuading or effectively censuring people who aren't already in the camp (I think it's why, for example, older, less educated minority voters when polled tend to be fairly hostile to a lot of it). And I just would like people to think what are they trying to do - in my view it should (as should all politics on the left) be about trying to inspire more solidarity, more common feeling and empathy and I'm not sure it's working.

[Admiral Yi]

The corporate HR perspective I feel I understand perfectly.  They are set up to minimize legal liability to the greatest extent possible.  So they make people watch inclusion videos once a year and document every complaint seriously, no matter how ridiculous.  That's a perfectly rational response of homo economicus to an external factor.

I am actually sympathetic to wokeism in other places.  What's more altruistic than advocating for oppressed groups that you are not a member of?  Outrage at perceived social injustice is a perfectly understandable human response.  Condemnation of people people perpetrating the injustice is fair and noble.

What is not built into that system is internal audit.  Wokeism doesn't have room for well intentioned people to critique or question claims of social injustice and the ensuing outrage and condemnation.

Now I fully admit that I have never taken any class in women's studies, or black studies, etc., or read a single text, but it does seem to me that would have been an ideal place for people to apply academic rigor to this question, but alas no.

[Jacob]

What is not built into that system is internal audit.  Wokeism doesn't have room for well intentioned people to critique or question claims of social injustice and the ensuing outrage and condemnation.

I think this is fair and fairly apt too.

The problem unfortunately is that for a period people hostile to the idea of any kind of social justice used the pose of the internal audit to undermine any attempt at action. "Just asking questions" and "isn't it funny that..." was used as a deliberate sabotage technique.

It turns out it's quite difficult to distinguish between Nazi shitheads trying to disingenuously stir up shit and people asking difficult questions in good faith. I mean, individually we're all sure we're pretty good at it... but collectively it turns out to be hard to execute on consistently.

[Admiral Yi]

I think this is fair and fairly apt too.

The problem unfortunately is that for a period people hostile to the idea of any kind of social justice used the pose of the internal audit to undermine any attempt at action. "Just asking questions" and "isn't it funny that..." was used as a deliberate sabotage technique.

It turns out it's quite difficult to distinguish between Nazi shitheads trying to disingenuously stir up shit and people asking difficult questions in good faith. I mean, individually we're all sure we're pretty good at it... but collectively it turns out to be hard to execute on consistently.

What period are your referring to?

The way I see it things started out benignly.  A while back someone posted a letter that MLK wrote to white supporters who advised him to go slow.  He didn't respond to them as the enemy.  He responded to them as allies to be reasoned with. 

Then things went to shit in the 70s with the rise of black militancy and feminist militancy.  Discourse with well intentioned allies disappeared and got replaced with catch phrases like sexist male pig and Uncle Tom and don't trust whitey.

[Valmy]

In the 1970s? Well that is ancient history by now. Most of those people are dead.

It is hard for me to look at the social dynamics of the 1960s and 1950s and see how that was this great era of thoughtful engagement. It looks like a ton of violence and irrational behavior that was more, not less, scary than today.

I have certainly seen tons of thoughtful discussions by high minded people like MLK recently as well. But as with MLK himself that kind of thing is not necessarily the rule, and I think it would be a mistake to assume it wasn't the exception in the 1960s as well.

[garbon]

What period are your referring to?

The way I see it things started out benignly.  A while back someone posted a letter that MLK wrote to white supporters who advised him to go slow.  He didn't respond to them as the enemy.  He responded to them as allies to be reasoned with. 

Then things went to shit in the 70s with the rise of black militancy and feminist militancy.  Discourse with well intentioned allies disappeared and got replaced with catch phrases like sexist male pig and Uncle Tom and don't trust whitey.

I don't think that's an accurate portrayal of MLK. I think his letter is highly critical of white moderates and is trying to shame people them into support by highlighting their hypocrisy. His comparison of them being worse than the clan feels like he is calling out an enemy.

Here's what the Washington Post had to say of his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail":

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2018/01/15/martin-luther-king-jr-s-scathing-critique-of-white-moderates-from-the-birmingham-jail/

The day after his arrest, eight prominent white clergy members placed an ad in the Birmingham News, accusing King of being an outside agitator whose demonstrations were "unwise and untimely." Infuriated by their words, King unleashed his literary wrath on the clergymen. Writing with the light from the sun that fell through the cell's bars, King quoted from memory biblical passages and quotes from Socrates, Martin Luther, Thomas Jefferson, T.S. Eliot, Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine to bolster his argument. He wrote:

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was "well timed" in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."
We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jet-like speed toward gaining political independence, but we still creep at horse and buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"; when you take a cross county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name becomes "nigger," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and mother are never given the respected title "Mrs."; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness" — then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait.

...

In "Letter From a Birmingham Jail," King offered a scathing critique of "white moderates" unwilling to do the right thing that still resonates today:

First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

His letter he goes on to tell clergymen they'll be irrelevant if they don't heed his words.

https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html

But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today's church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century. Every day I meet young people whose disappointment with the church has turned into outright disgust.

In a similar vein the NY Times highlighted that his methods were not viewed as particulary moderate or the right way to behave by American society at the time.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/01/opinion/civil-rights-protest-resistance.html

Thanks to the sanitized images of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement that dominate our nation's classrooms and our national discourse, many Americans imagine that protests organized by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and countless local organizations fighting for justice did not fall victim to violent outbreaks. That's a myth. In spite of extensive training in nonviolent protest and civil disobedience, individuals and factions within the larger movement engaged in violent skirmishes, and many insisted on their right to physically defend themselves even while they proclaimed nonviolence as an ideal (examples include leaders of the SNCC and the Deacons for Defense and Justice in Mississippi).

The reality — which is underdiscussed but essential to an understanding of our current situation — is that the civil rights work of Dr. King and other leaders was loudly opposed by overt racists and quietly sabotaged by cautious moderates. We believe that current moderates sincerely want to condemn racism and to see an end to its effects. The problem is that this desire is outweighed by the comfort of their current circumstances and a perception of themselves as above some of the messy implications of fighting for liberation. This is nothing new. In fact, Dr. King's 1963 "Letter From Birmingham Jail" is as relevant today as it was then.

...

National polling from the 1960s shows that even during that celebrated "golden age" of nonviolent protest, most Americans were against marches and demonstrations. A 1961 Gallup poll revealed that 57 percent of the public thought that lunch counter sit-ins and other demonstrations would hurt integration efforts. A 1963 poll showed that 60 percent had an unfavorable feeling toward the planned March on Washington, where Dr. King gave his "I Have a Dream" speech. A year later, 74 percent said that since black people had made some progress, they should stop their demonstrations; and by 1969, 74 percent said that marching, picketing and demonstrations were hurting the civil rights cause. As for Dr. King personally, the figure who current moderates most readily point to as a model, 50 percent of people polled in 1966 thought that he was hurting the civil rights movement; only 36 percent believed he was helping.

[Admiral Yi]

I withdraw my comment.  I was clearly wrong.

[mongers]

Worth a poll on who will be last here? :p

Mongers. With a poll about whose left

Penciled into my diary for March 2039.