Dialogues on a Wake-Up Call: The Epiphany Letters

Photo by Raphael Schaller on Unsplash

By Dave S., Mark Mamerow, Dennis Curley, and Geoff Carter

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To Mark, Dennis, and Geoff

Remember that Sunday times column by William Safire? Well, the link below is all about the word woke…. thought for sure the author would indict Aaron Rodgers for his recent vacuous deployment of it. 

The New York Times: The War on Wokeness by Charles Blow

I must say I’m amazed at the power of a twist of a word.  It used to be—check me on this–that having an “epiphany”, broadening one’s world view, becoming of age…enlightened…was something to be celebrated.  That Ahh…moment…I finally understand what everyone is talking about…laughing about…crying about…whatever about….   Not necessarily man’s ascent of knowledge, rather just the Dennis, Mark, Geoff, and Dave’s finding their way in the world…finally getting a clue…understanding what the caste system is in India, (institutionalized slavery), or more mundane lessons…like how to pronounce homage or Hermes…

But now suddenly, becoming aware of something is not that…rather a campaign to brainwash….  Folks put a sticker on something and suddenly all coherent thinking/assessment of an important topic goes out the window.   Noam Chomsky needs to step in and clarify this for both AOC and Aaron Rodger’s camps. 

Dave S.

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Dave,

G-mail helpfully offered three canned responses to your email:   “Interesting!”  “Very Interesting!” and “Love it!”. But I’ve decided to take the high road & actually respond.

“Woke” was turned into a pejorative in record time. Seems that I had barely learned its meaning before it was turned into a cudgel to bash its users as unpatriotic snowflakes.   Another word that comes to mind for a similar fate is “liberal”.  Conservatives managed to destroy that one so thoroughly that anybody who even considers climate change or inequality as issues must self-identify as “progressive”.

Some pejoratives, especially those detected at marginal subgroups, are adopted as a badge of honor, turning the negative connotation on its head. Examples that come to mind are “dope” and “queer”. I don’t see that happening with “woke”.

US politics and cultural history boil down to a series of forward waves, followed by backlash.  The entire conservative movement is animated by a backlash to the permissive 1960s and 70s. The Obama presidency was followed by Trump. Civil and voting rights reform and feminism have led the Republican Party to circle the revanchist wagons and coalesce around a fascist who wants to “Make America Great Again”. This is a repeating pattern.

I see the “woke” wave & backlash as follows. The introduction of smartphone technology directly led to a wave of videos of white police officers abusing and killing blacks. This energized and motivated the Black Lives Matter movement, the first effective follow up to the civil rights movement of the ’60s.  BLM brought energy and attention to the intellectuals who pushed the woke narrative — the concept of systemic, ingrained racism.  Woke attitudes made some headway in the culture at large but have sparked a furious backlash. In the long run, I assert, the lessons of the woke scholars will endure.  For better or worse, liberals always win these culture wars.  Environmental laws are on solid ground, and minority, women’s, and gay rights advances are permanent, and won’t be rolled back, but in the short term, the backlash creates a lot of pain and confusion.

(Interestingly, there’s one liberal advance that has seemingly NOT triggered a backlash.  That’s the sudden acceptance of gay marriage. It really seems to be a dead issue. Conservatives have seemingly abandoned any attempt to roll it back. Political groups and individuals that actively oppose gay marriage are relegated to way out on the fringe.  I would attribute the widespread acceptance of gay marriage to the recognition, by a large proportion of the populace, that the gays are friggin’ everywhere. And guess what, they’re not all that scary. Virtually everybody knows a gay person, and within far fewer degrees than those that separate from Kevin Bacon.There just isn’t all that fertile of soil for an anti-gay marriage movement to grow. We’re all too woke to the gays, you might say.)

Bret Stephens, an NYT columnist on the conservative side, recently wrote that wokeness is doomed because it’s essentially a negative force. He asserts that it tears down and destroys community.  He points to liberal witch hunts over incorrect word usage, and overreach in the K-12 social sciences curriculum.  But if wokeness only destroys, how does he explain the success of the civil rights movement?  They were decried as outside agitators and destroyers of the rights of non-minority citizens, but they have prevailed.  I think that the real misunderstanding is the time frame of the cultural movement.  You can’t judge the success of the movement by the backlash and confusion.  History can’t really be written until a few decades have passed.

Take care,

Mark 

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Mark, 

Whoa. Interesting insights. No, that’s not a canned comment. I would add critical race theory to the new conservative canon of smear. A pollster called the other day and asked if I objected to critical race theory being taught in public schools. When I tried to tell her it is not being taught in public schools, she only replied, “I’m sorry, sir, that’s not an answer option.”

And so it must be real. 

Geoff

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Fellas,

I resonate with your enlightened thoughts on wokeness and wish to express my gratitude that we are enabled to share our feelings within the safe container of this forum… 

Ah…sorry. Got carried away with woke-speak there in a feeble effort to signal that I am indeed woke without actually saying it. I mean, directly saying “I am woke” is a bit cringe-worthy — sort of akin to saying, “I am an enlightened being (and you’re probably not”), or maybe nicknaming myself “Wizard”.   

Perhaps that’s why the “Woke” word has become such a juicy target; why, as Mark says, “It’s become a pejorative in record time.”  Could it be that it’s not so much a culture-war thing as it is the air of smug self-aggrandizement behind calling oneself woke?  Kind of like calling oneself a hero. Real heroes do not talk about how heroic they are.   

As Dave suggests, we need Noam Chomsky’s linguistic perspective on “woke”.  Or maybe Neil Young… singing “Words, words, between the lines of age.” Uh- yeah. Whatever that means. For the moment, I’m “getting a download” (that’s woke-speak, man) that it’s a message on how language and word meanings shift, evolve, evoke, signal “tribal” alliances…  Yeah. “woke” is all that now—a charged-up word. So many new layers and nuances to it—all squished-up between terms like “cancel culture”, “critical race theory”, “higher vibration level”….  

“Word.”  Remember when “word” replaced “right on” as a hip affirmation-type word? And another word, “partner”, popped into my brain when I read Mark’s observation about gay marriage so quickly becoming a non-issue. My next-door neighbors are a married gay couple who introduce each other as their “husband”. It’s pretty awesome that this nary raises an eyebrow in this suburban (albeit somewhat liberal, er, I mean progressive) neighborhood in Glendale, WI, but it got me pondering the evolving nuances behind the word “partner”—a word that is now much cooler to say than “husband” or “wife” in the liberal (ok, progressive) circles I sometimes run in.   

BTW. Do you guys introduce your spouses as your “wife” or your “partner”? Which term “resonates” more with you?  I admit I’m far less likely to say, “My partner and I really resonate with that” than “My girlfriend and I can relate to that, ” Does that signal that I’m not woke? Dang it. I’m trying to wake up and be all woke and what not.  Thanks, guys, for helping me to catch up.

Dennis

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Guys,

Noting that Mark took the topic—quite skillfully–to a slightly different one: basically, the sinusoidal shift from right to left every few years. He did tie it to consciousness—yet another term for woke, expanding one’s world view, enlightenment, epiphany, “daylighting” (an issue) is another one I feel apropos and will toss in here.  I’ll further it re language and how powerful and menacing it has suddenly become, basically due to the internet and the lack of proper vetting by time and journalism—that is the thread I find important to discuss…make everyone increasing ‘woke’ about.  Many trace the lack of proper discourse, basically adolescent name calling and putting a sticker on things to Newt Gingrich….and then Rush and then Fox…and to be fair also Rachel M. and others that slung it the other way.  But somewhere in there the internet arrived, newsrooms became ghost towns and Voldemort defeated Hillary, unleashing the full power of the Death Star (twitter) upon the minds of the SEC.

I find it ironic that we as a society have recently become aware of bullying—overdue in my mind…such a cheap way to get what you want…starts on the playground and evolves into corporate life. Pet peeve of mind as I’ve seen many leaders espouse, “the pc way” only to not practice what they preach, rather revert to bullying from their, well, bully pulpit. Huge chip on shoulder for me, 2 sets of rules (aka double standard.

Back to Mark’s take which was awesome.  I’ll pick it apart by words—keeping with the Safire theme:

Pejorative:  Great application here. Absolutely perfect.  In fact, you often hear people use it merely for clarification: “not in the pejorative sense” perhaps suddenly necessary to clarify that becoming aware of systemic racism (or #me too), does not make ‘woke’ a negative word. 

Liberal:  Is a much longer topic. Many could use an education on this and its “arc”.  My wife (and Mark) understand this, but most people like me have only a foggy idea of it.  Libertarian fortunately is crystal clear as it clearly means: “whacko” and is applied to both reds and blues 

Revanchist:  Another tailored suit fit—though I had to look that one up.  Interesting French territorial etymology. Ahh…the good ‘ol days of hard work, comfort food and bigotry.

As far as liberals eventually prevailing, I prefer good over evil—as noted, liberal is a foggy word for me. Back to the cycle of backlash and ultimate changing of a culture, ascent of man.  It occurs to me that this is an issue of patience. In strong societies, we get all the cats herded, get them through K-12…keep availing them to facts…let them decide. This is suddenly a big problem for an advanced society right now….it takes decades even when the toxic temptations were not so readily available…now…whole crap…everyone is exposed to the oath keepers…proud boys…Voldemort’s tweets, as well as skewed reporting, even from NPR—e.g.:  their current coverage of the Kenosha Kyle Rittenhouse trial is blatantly slanted…I can’t figure out what is going on…  And in dictator societies it is centuries.   

Maybe there’s a silver lining.  I’ll make a prediction in line with the “eventually good wins” theory: Eventually, FB and its tech kin will hire big teams of journalists—with balance—to properly vet information…they will become a fast but at least filtered, trusted news source. I know, I know…but think of it from the logic of “society always figures things out”…and (the sad part), happening after we’ve moved on. When I’ve shared this idea with others, they point to what a revolution of info dissemination the printing press was…not that they agree with me, but it does come up

Dave