But I wholly disagree with the reasoning that jock bullies are an entire force for good. I agree. And though it does sound like I'm sympathetic to the jock bully types, that's not the case per se.

To delve a bit deeper, the examples I used above are a vast oversimplification of where we are today. I was using the high school analogies of activist "weirdos" vs jock bullies to make my point ("Hollywood-style", if you'll permit), so as to head off writing a novel about this.

To inform my reply a bit more, my explanation comes from the perspective of having been one of those "annoying (activist) kids" myself when I was young. I truly felt that I needed to do my bit in trying to correct the deeply felt injustices of the world around me. I still actually feel that way, but where I've fallen out with the "woke" crowd relates to something I was concerned about even back in my days of youth - the sense that any group that mandates lockstep adherence to their cause cannot at the same time be on the right side of history. Even if it is in quest for a noble goal like people being good to one another, forcing others to pay lip service to your ideology on pain of social ostracism or the loss of one's job is not worth the supposed reward of a society free from 'problematic behaviour'.

So the point of today's "woke" trend that I take issue with is that when left unchecked, any belief system, be it religion, government, 'might makes right', or 'social justice', will veer in the direction of dictatorial coercion. This isn't because these systems are inherently bad or good. Rather, it is because it is human nature for individuals to want to feel that they have the right answer for a problem. And when you find others who agree with you (which has been made massively easier with the internet and social media), it is easy to create a false feedback loop where you grow more and more confident (to the point of arrogance) about your truth being the truth. Add to that an intentional blocking of any opposing viewpoints and a lack of real-world consequences (because you can hide behind your avatar or harass someone from the other side of the country), and here we are.

It occurred to me this morning that a good analogy might be found in wildlife. When there's a die-off of wolves in the forest, we see a resulting bumper crop of deer. However, with higher numbers, this also leads to more deer affected with disease such as chronic wasting, tick borne illnesses, etc which would usually be culled by the wolves. Such things can then spread to other populations more easily, such as Lyme disease being spread as a result of more deer ticks. Also, the wolves' ability to kill off the weak deer results in the strongest, healthiest, best adapted deer being the ones to pass their genes on to the next generation.

And so it goes, in my belief, with this current wokeness. Absent the willingness to openly and vigorously debate the flaws in their ideology, the proponents get lazy and start proposing more and more bizarre rules, such as saying that trans women are the exact same thing as biological women (it's not difficult to find examples of people stating that trans are, in scientific fact, biological women). Without ridicule, shame, or consequences for such insanity, our society is held hostage by the unreality of these statements. As in the tale of the Emperor's New Clothes, I find this corrosive to society as a whole.

As a final comment, the supermarket analogy is definitely my weakest statement in the above screed. There are thousands of factors involved in the supply chain issue, and most aren't related to wokeness. However, I have experienced woke employees injecting their belief systems into corporate environments where people are just trying to do their jobs. In the same way that an employee insisting a cross be hung in the lunch room of a company with non-religious employees could be uncomfortable to them, another employee insisting that a 'progress pride' flag being hung during Pride Month might also make some employees similarly uncomfortable. In my case, that wouldn't be because I have negative opinions about gay people, but because it feels like I'm being challenged to show enthusiastic support for this cause 'or else'. This stuff ends up getting in the way of a functioning, secular work environment, and I feel that having to look over your shoulder all the time can lead to distractions from getting the job done.