I don't know what you want. Most of the article is spent elaborating on what that means and providing examples of it.
> Instead of going out into the world and quietly helping members of marginalized groups, the politically correct focused on getting people in trouble for using the wrong words to talk about them.
> The problem with political correctness was not that it focused on marginalized groups, but the shallow, aggressive way in which it did so.
If someone makes a racist or homophobic statement and is confronted about it, there is a good chance that he will perceive it as aggressive. Even if the confrontation is controlled.
And if you can't quickly find a racist comment to confront but you still really want the confrontation? That's when we get debates about blacklist or master vs mainline.
> Most of the article is spent elaborating on what that means and providing examples of it.
More like starting with existing conclusions and working backwards from them. Even in the example you quote, Graham begs the question of "woke" and "politically correct" being equivalent and works backwards from that assumption - in the process incorrectly pinning the origins of political correctness on university social science / humanities programs and the hippie kids being hired into them in the 70's (never mind the multiple-centuries-long history of the political right policing speech and expression in service of the exact opposite of the intellectual pursuits universities foster; apparently that doesn't count as "political correctness" because reasons).
Why does he want it to be done quietly? The only way democracy can work is that you convince others of your ideas. Seems like he doesn't want certain ideas to be advocated for at all, go work on them if you want but shut up about it.
I think any definition of a contested term is going to end up having a longer explanation (See this whole discussion as a proof-by-example).
It seems like a reasonably concise definition to me. It's reasonable to disagree with the definition of course, but to merely dismiss it as not concise is both incorrect and not useful because it lacks specific criticisms.
You understand as well as anyone that something is either a definition of a term, or it isn't. I'm simply pointing to someone who says "This is a concise definition," and then pointing out that, no, if the definition isn't complete, it isn't a concise definition. And that's fine, we just need to acknowledge that the way people use "woke" is a shorthand for something else, in this case I'd characterize it as the pseudointellectual wet fish flopping of a billionaire struggling to blame someone, anyone, for the world being bad, when he's had outsized control and influence over it for the entirety of his career.
Uh, pg elaborated on his concise definition. "Racism" or "bigotry" also have concise definitions that have a lot of literature written around them supporting the concise definition.
It either has a concise definition that actually defines the term or it doesn't. I leave it to the anti-woke to tell me which it is, and I'm still waiting.
"It has a concise definition!"
moments later
"It took a whole article to explain!!!"
Also entertaining - the idea that racism has an uncontested definition.
"aggressively" and "performative" already contain a judgement. The actual meaning of "wokeness" is an "awareness of the existence of social injustice".
The whole article is an opinion piece that is judging a group of people. I don't think most people would agree with your definition.
And besides, the definition of "woke" is a secondary issue anyway, the article's purpose isn't to propose a definition of woke, it's to judge and criticize people who behave a certain way, and he's done an adequate job IMO of describing the behaviors he's criticizing.
"Wokeness" itself implies taking some form of (performative) action. You can be aware of social injustice existing and not be "woke", in my opinion at least.
> The actual meaning of "wokeness" is an "awareness of the existence of social injustice".
The actual meaning of "wokeness" is that it has several different meanings. For instancee, the first could be what you outlined:
1. an "awareness of the existence of social injustice"
And another, equally valid one (that comes about from the reaction to people who embraced the first meaning and proceeded to behave obnoxiously and gain lots of attention) is:
2. the obnoxious and doctrinaire enforcement of the values of the "social justice" subculture on the wider population through bullying tactics (e.g. social media pile ons)
etc.
Taking one as the "one true meaning" is almost always just a tactic to delegitimize an opponent (usually by the left, as they have more access prestigious institutions, but language is language and no authority can suppress new words and new senses of existing words).
> Taking one as the "one true meaning" is almost always just a tactic to delegitimize an opponent
I think the thought process is that there was a word and it had a positive meaning. It was then used in a negative way to delegitimize an opponent. So I think some people feel like the word is stolen or still being purposely miss used. For better or worse that is not how language works, in general new meanings can be attached to words and at least in my experience the majority of people using woke negatively are not trying to miss use the word.
what does "performative" mean in this context? I honestly can't tell. It would really help if pg provided an example so we could evaluate for ourselves.
Meanwhile, basically all national politics is performative bullshit. Why are we not calling both parties woke?
Well, I wonder what he thinks non-performative social justice looks like. The civil rights movement was certainly performative (as is all protest) and that's basically the only narrative we were offered growing up for how to affect social change.
While we're on the subject: I'm having difficulty squaring this part of his essay with history as I understand it.
> "The reason the student protests of the 1960s didn't lead to political correctness was precisely that — they were student movements. They didn't have any real power."
That's both literally incorrect (we shouldn't consider the Black Panthers or the ACLU "student movements") and seems ignorant of the real power those organizations had (their agitation led directly to the passage of the Civil Rights Act).
> Instead of going out into the world and quietly helping members of marginalized groups, the politically correct focused on getting people in trouble for using the wrong words to talk about them.
I also think there's a pretty big difference between keyboard jockeying / speech policing, and putting yourself in physical danger by physically confronting racists who'd lynch you if there weren't cameras around.
> Well, I wonder what he thinks non-performative social justice looks like.
It looks like the boring job of actually writing policy. Here in Australia, I've run into several people who work for the government helping to draft policy and things. Eg, one friend works for my state's government helping draft energy policy to fight climate change.
Its tedious and boring, and entirely thankless. But its incredibly important. Its well and good for protesters to send a clear message to the government that the people want change. Its another thing entirely to actually negotiate how those changes will happen on the ground.
How do you improve mental health services? How do you balance the needs of the economy today with the needs of future generations? Its difficult stuff.
>what does "performative" mean in this context? I honestly can't tell. It would really help if pg provided an example so we could evaluate for ourselves.
>In other words, it's people being prigs about social justice. And that's the real problem — the performativeness, not the social justice.
>Racism, for example, is a genuine problem. Not a problem on the scale that the woke believe it to be, but a genuine one. I don't think any reasonable person would deny that. The problem with political correctness was not that it focused on marginalized groups, but the shallow, aggressive way in which it did so. Instead of going out into the world and quietly helping members of marginalized groups, the politically correct focused on getting people in trouble for using the wrong words to talk about them.
>Meanwhile, basically all national politics is performative bullshit. Why are we not calling both parties woke?
He doesn't even point fingers on this matter, but the social justice angle is the evident answer to that.
