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[–]hfxB0oyA 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Think of those annoying kids in high school, who were continuously attending marches and made-up committees to try and save the world. Back when I was that age (in the eighties), we had jock bullies to keep them in line. They'd stick to their thing and stay in their echo chamber with their insular crowd, not really affecting the rest of the world. If they tried to impose their shit on someone outside their group, they'd get a wedgie, and balance was maintained.

Then, a concerted push to end school bullying happened in the early 2000's, and it was largely successful. But the bullying didn't really go away. It just shifted from being a physical consequence, largely doled out by boys, to a social one, where the girls had the upper hand. Not only that, but the ones with this power ended up being the world-saving people I referred to at the start of my post.

The combination of their righteous fight to save the world and their newfound bullying power (that wasn't allowed to be called bullying) was amplified by anonymous social media and they targeted anyone who wasn't on-message with their crusade. And then they grew up, but they never grew out of this high school mean-girl mentality because they never faced any consequences for their overbearing behavior.

And then they got degrees. And then they went out into the work force, taking their activist zeal to the HR departments of large companies. Some of them got advanced degrees and ended up teaching classes of 50, 100, and more, still motivated by the same fight against the system that drove them in high school.

But now, they're the system. And when you try to fight the system that is you, you eventually end up eating yourself. You seek out smaller and smaller niches of people who can pass your rigid ideological purity test, and your former allies become problematic because, although they are with you on 99% of things, you can't abide that 1% where you disagree.

And so, people build their fiefdoms, but now they're based on this weird pseudo-religion instead of groups of people who self organize because they know they can get things done together.

And this is why you cant find items at the supermarket anymore. The gears of commerce are gummed up by people who are far more concerned that you're addressing everyone by their proper pronouns, rather than filling out the paperwork that they were employed to do, that's going to allow that container ship to dock at your city's port to unload those supermarket goods.

And all this could have been avoided if they'd just been on the receiving end of a good wedgie in grade eleven.

[–]RichardsonDavis[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

It just shifted from being a physical consequence, largely doled out by boys, to a social one, where the girls had the upper hand.

I see. So this is where those mean girls came from.

Okay, just to reiterate, to see if I understood it.

Imagine it's those people who ask you to sign some things and expecting just signatures and people holding up signs is going to change the state of the world, in other words, people who are in way over their heads.

I have never experienced said people but I had a run-in with some religious people asking for donations. They're not too bad but a tad bit annoying.

Then they got kept in check by the jock bullies. Which, forgive me, you seem to view favorably. I do take offence at the idea that jock bullies are a "force for good". I will concede to the possibility that they kept those goody two shoes in check. There is a saying by someone that says that they'd rather be ruled by some jock bully than a goody two-shoes. A jock bully would just be mean for a while but a goody-two shoes would be unintentionally mean, forever.

But I wholly disagree with the reasoning that jock bullies are an entire force for good.

Maybe, just maybe one of them was an Arthur Fleck and that doing their goody two-shoes thing gave them purpose.

Okay, I believe I may be straying off topic.

I can't address anything about this post anymore. I get the parts where those goody two-shoes got the power and the power to bully and those goody two-shoes aided by the system have become the system that's the cause of the decline of America.

I will admit though that the last part sounded very conspiratorial.

And this is why you cant find items at the supermarket anymore. The gears of commerce are gummed up by people who are far more concerned that you're addressing everyone by their proper pronouns, rather than filling out the paperwork that they were employed to do, that's going to allow that container ship to dock at your city's port to unload those supermarket goods.

This part.

And all this could have been avoided if they'd just been on the receiving end of a good wedgie in grade eleven.

Although I do get what this means, I'd still like a much more thorough explanation on how this would be so. If it's not a bother too much.

Overall, fantastic answer.

[–]hfxB0oyA 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

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.

[–]RichardsonDavis[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I love the deer analogy. Yes, I agree. If things are left unchecked they become over the top.

Thanks for the clarification. I appreciate it. This was a wonderful answer. You have a nice day now.