Poll: Is Woke a new religion?

[Estro Felino]

You never had Dame Edna Everage read fairy tales to your kids?
How sheltered you guys must be!
Poor possums!!

(I’m mostly joking. But “drag performance” is actually an entertainment tradition in the West that technically goes back centuries.
Lols I guess Ancient Greek theatre was woke all along, eh?)

My kindergarten teacher used to read fairy tales to us, but she was a cisgender woman.

 

[Left Coast]

I have trans women who are friends of mine. They are not interested in reading fairy tales to kindergarten or first grade kids because that's not their job. They are neither teachers nor entertainers.
And they are not interested in working with kids.
They and I gossip about men, that's what we are into.

But if they wanted to be teachers or entertainers or work with kids, you'd find that..."woke?"

And by the way....
I have remarked something that I find really weird. Here trans women are into men, except very rare cases.
I am not understanding why so many trans women are into cisgender women, in the United States. I find it really weird, honestly.

Work on judging less, perhaps?

 

[Estro Felino]

But if they wanted to be teachers or entertainers or work with kids, you'd find that..."woke?"

Absolutely. Because kids get confused. If it deals with drag queens, we are speaking of people looking like fairies or mermaids, but sounding like a male.
It's better women do that job.

 

[SomeRandom]

My kindergarten teacher used to read fairy tales to us, but she was a cisgender woman.

I swear my teacher showed us a clip of the comedy show Aunty Jack during a class once
(Australian comedy series from the 70s about a butch moustachioed woman)
But it’s been too long I can’t say for sure lol
For reference this is how the show on the channel ABC here (free to air public channel) introduced colour tv to Australians back in the day
Yes we’re weird lol

 

[SomeRandom]

Absolutely. Because kids get confused. If it deals with drag queens, we are speaking of people looking like fairies or mermaids, but sounding like a male.
It's better women do that job.

Ehh, my country has had drag children’s entertainers literally for generations at this point. I’m not even kidding. Edna Everage, performed by the comedian Barry Humphries, has been around since the freaking 50s ffs
Appearing in everything from tv shows to movies to even advertisements!
And I’m sure many a kid secretly hid behind their parents sofa to watch the 1970s comedy show Aunty Jack. Actually it might have been a kids show, idk it was before my time honestly lol
I have yet to notice any considerable confusion from the youth
I see nothing wrong with a masculine sounding mermaid. I mean it’s just a fictional character. You shouldn’t be basing life decisions on it lol
And tbh there are some women who just have deep voices. Like come on.
(Full disclosure I worked with the public for literally decades. You tend to find quite a variety just by default.)

 

[Mock Turtle]

Absolutely. Because kids get confused. If it deals with drag queens, we are speaking of people looking like fairies or mermaids, but sounding like a male.
It's better women do that job.

Not into children's pantomime much then - where the kids usually are utterly delighted and engaged in the performances, and where males commonly dress as females and females often do the opposite. I very much doubt the kids are confused with this.

 

[SomeRandom]

Not into children's pantomime much then - where the kids usually are utterly delighted and engaged in the performances, and where males commonly dress as females and females often do the opposite. I very much doubt the kids are confused with this.

Isn’t the character of Peter Pan traditionally played by a female?
Like was JM Barrie an author from the 1900s woke now? Lmao!!!!

I swear the cross over with anti woke folks and people who hate art in general must be massive
Jesus Christ

(I’m kidding guys. Though seriously it is a little alarming ngl)

 

[exchemist]

So its about race/racial?

Of course. That was the origin of the phrase. And it seemed to take off tremendously in popular use in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd. I suspect this was from those anxious to trivialise and dismiss the civil rights concerns that were kindled across the country by that murder. You know, it's all just Leftie bulls***, so forget it.

 

[Mock Turtle]

Isn’t the character of Peter Pan traditionally played by a female?
Like was JM Barrie an author from the 1900s woke now? Lmao!!!!

I swear the cross over with anti woke folks and people who hate art in general must be massive
Jesus Christ

(I’m kidding guys. Though seriously it is a little alarming ng)

Yep, I think so, and probably many more.

 

[SomeRandom]

Yep, I think so, and probably many more.

Exactly! Juliette was traditionally played by a male until the 1600s at least. Cross dressing is technically the tradition in theatre, if you really want to get down to the nitty gritty

 

[Hermit Philosopher]

Radicalism and the urge to immediately force your views on others at any and all costs. That's essentially "woke".

Interesting.
Some would say that it is instead an emphasis on the need to make oneself aware of and socially respect other people’s predicaments and not just one’s very own.

Humbly,
Hermit

 

[Mock Turtle]

Still, there do appear to be differences of opinion as to this, as in this article:

Oh yes it is! Oh no it isn’t! Is the panto dame still a suitable cause for mirth?

 

[Estro Felino]

Isn’t the character of Peter Pan traditionally played by a female?
Like was JM Barrie an author from the 1900s woke now? Lmao!!!!

I swear the cross over with anti woke folks and people who hate art in general must be massive
Jesus Christ

(I’m kidding guys. Though seriously it is a little alarming ngl)

The context was different.
I guess it is these drag queens who want to work with little children.

 

[SomeRandom]

The context was different.
I guess it is these drag queens who want to work with little children.

Again I come from a generation who literally grew up watching an actual drag Queen all my life. I’m a 90s kid for reference
(Dame Edna Everage. An icon)
I fail to see any detriments
Also Peter Pan is literally a family friendly theatre show. And has been for literally a century
Wtf bro? You against introducing the arts to kids or something??
Gonna ban theatre for kids now? The hell?

See where that leads? Stupid, no?

 

[PureX]

Apart from not enumerating a "god" (afaik), do other characteristics of "woke" align with religions?

I can't imagine why answering this question would matter. Is the idea of equal freedom, justice, and opportunity for all a religious ideal? For some it is. For most it's not. And so what, now?

 

[lewisnotmiller]

How often does public "canceling" happen, though? From what I have seen, it's usually that a private entity or platform refuses to host someone or their speech, and they or someone else considers this "cancellation" and complains about it while the "canceled" person gets a massive amount of publicity and support from other groups.

An example of this is Dave Chappelle: his content is still on Netflix, he has a lot of fans, and he's still speaking his mind publicly... yet some will say he was "canceled" and treat him as a martyr. And even if Netflix had dropped his content, that wouldn't have canceled him because 1) it's a private platform, and 2) he could have marketed himself elsewhere.

The same goes for the subject of history: a lot of the controversies I have seen in that regard seem to me overblown at best. Saying that Mount Rushmore may be problematic or that it is inappropriate to celebrate Columbus despite his crimes doesn't seem to me an example of "canceling" any history in the slightest, because it doesn't remove any facts from history classes and books or change anything about written history. But there are people who may passionately argue that these are examples of "canceling" history.

There are some instances of overreaction and excessive groupthink, sure, but overall, I think most canceling and demonization of people or even entire groups, distortion of history, and vilification of items associated with "evil groups" (e.g., Pagans) come from the groups who most often use "woke" as a term of denigration toward others.

Grrr...I wrote half a response, went to a party, and seem to have lost it.
However, whilst basically a progressive, I think of myself in centrist terms. A key rationale in doing so is to encourage myself NOT to be reactionary. I'm strongly against the sort of hypocritical views that yell freedom when it suits, then remove abortion rights, for example. I get that they have justifications...I don't find them compelling. But despite being mostly against 'the right' (if I can use some clumsy shorthand) I have an intense dislike of reactionism. If Side B tries to tell me that something is metaphorically black, my response is not to argue that it's white. Rather, my response is to ignore them entirely and try to work out what shade of grey it is. Because everything is grey.

So, when you say that 'overall, I think most canceling and demonization of people or even entire groups, distortion of history, and vilification of items associated with "evil groups" (e.g., Pagans) come from the groups who most often use "woke" as a term of denigration toward others' my immediate thought is 'so what'? My next thought is to wonder why progressives would be so keen to become that which they hate, if via the employment of different means.

At the end of the day, I agree that conservative views are often intertwined with what I see as biased messaging, an ability to ignore inconvenient truths, and a deep-rooted belief that things were better in the 1950s...which seems entirely dependent on what group of people out belong to.

But in terms of cancel culture, seeing the left pushing harder to use social stigma to punish non-conformers doesn't give me comfort. It just makes me wonder how few are left actually prioritising natural justice, assumptions of innocence, concepts of free speech (and I am faaaaar from a zealot in terms of free speech) and more.

That's all a little ramble-ey, as I'm still mad I lost my original post, so sorry.
This article is a decent representation of my views, I would say. And hey, it's The Atlantic, so I should maintain some level of progressive cred...lol.

The Real Reason Cancel Culture Is So Contentious

 

[lewisnotmiller]

More of an outlook, from what I gather.

No-one I know calls themselves woke, and I don't really ever hear of it beyond a few, terminally online, exasperated dopes fretting that the wokes are coming to take away free speech, cancel the West and trans all the children.

*sighs*

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

According to Wikipedia, Woke (/ˈwoʊk/ WOHK) is an adjective derived from African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) meaning "alert to racial prejudice and discrimination".[1][2] Beginning in the 2010s, it came to encompass a broader awareness of social inequalities such as sexism, and has also been used as shorthand for American Left ideas involving identity politics and social justice, such as the notion of white privilege and slavery reparations for African Americans.

Well, I mean, who wouldn't hate all that. Why bother being alert to racial prejudice and discrimination? It only makes one uncomfortable when they are prejudiced and want to discriminate on the basis of race, and who wants to feel uncomfortable doing what you love, right?

Same thing with sexism (why can't we keep women chained to the house and abuse trannies -- that's so unfair?).

And who wants to answer questions like "is there white privilege?" I mean, if a white man and a black woman with the same qualifications apply for a job, or an apartment, or a loan -- which is more likely to win? Well, in America, the white man, of course -- just as it should be!

And just because white America stole the labour and property of black slaves, why should anybody pay them back? That would be unjust to the poor children of the white thieves, who inherited all that lovely lucre.

 

[Father Heathen]

Not really. Sure, they're the loudest, but I have issues with some of the current habit of publically cancelling people, history, or other items.

I ain't conservative.

Just maybe not loud and obnoxious enough to be noticed.

Well there certainly are those petty, vindictive, hypocritical, sanctimonious "SJW"s/PC thought police who could be considered the left's version of religious fundamentalists.

 

[We Never Know]

Of course. That was the origin of the phrase. And it seemed to take off tremendously in popular use in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd. I suspect this was from those anxious to trivialise and dismiss the civil rights concerns that were kindled across the country by that murder. You know, it's all just Leftie bulls***, so forget it.

I thought it was about injustice/treatment of people no matter their race, sex, gender, etc.