The currently in-vogue meaning of the word 'woke' (which was, traditionally, just the past participle of the verb 'wake') is 'one who is keenly and actively attentive as well as empathetic to important societal facts and issues', such as racial- or gender-prejudice and injustice. Wikipedia tells me it is derived from African-American vernacular English. And the number of 'wokes' is rapidly proliferating not only in the Anglo-American world but also, apparently, among the urban, well-heeled, English-educated Indian elite under the age of forty.
Now I trust I have been more than commonly aware and empathetic about all kinds of social injustices, but I cannot help thinking that these people are overdoing things, and making laughing stocks of themselves at best, or making a lot of enemies at worst. Look at the way they insist these days, for instance, that you cannot say 'chairman' and 'chairwoman', because that is sexist, and not even 'chairperson' (what was wrong with that?) but merely 'chair': so these days someone is just Chair of the department of physics, chair of the inquiry commission, and I can never stop laughing when I wonder whether they say 'The Chair sat on his chair'! If only they could at least be consistent with their own usage! Even Americans go on saying 'Congresswoman' Jane Smith said so, not 'Congress' Jane Smith, mind you, which is what should be said if we follow the same rule... and, since we must bow to the sensitivities of a lot of unusual people these days, we must use the plural they for individuals when in saner days we would have said either 'he' or 'she'. What about the sensibilities of people like me, who wince every time they have to use a plural along with a singular? What is wrong with 'it', which our teachers long ago taught us was neutral gender? No no, that would be pejorative, even offensive.
Which brings me to another point: many of these 'wokes' insist, on the one hand, following Salman Rushdie I suppose, that 'nobody has a right to be offended', but, if my reading experience serves me well, it seems they themselves are among the most thin-skinned. They are capable of taking offence at virtually everything you do. Of late I see my newspaper is running a campaign exhorting people to be more thoughtful and careful about not unnecessarily hurting others' feelings by saying 'insensitive' things, like 'You know a lot of science for a commerce graduate', 'You are very punctual for a Bengali', or 'You are very strong for a girl'. For heaven's sake, doesn't it occur to these blockheads that one might be merely joking, or even paying a compliment, besides stating things which have long been known to be true (such as that Bengalis are notoriously unpunctual?). Has it occurred to them, moreover, that all normal conversation would grind to a halt if we have to monitor and filter every sentence we utter? In saner times, we sometimes laughed back, or grimaced, or came back with a biting rejoinder if we were clever enough - and then simply moved on!
More and more it seems to me that too few people have anything worthwhile to do with their time, besides having become incurably obtuse. I have heard that in some countries it is now perfectly alright for even pre-teen students to show the teacher the middle finger, but God help the wretched teacher who dares even to scold them for such gross misbehaviour - for the whole might of the woke-powered state would be commandeered to teach him a lesson in sensitivity towards the freedom and rights of children! In my time we should have been caned, then our parents told to chastise us further or else. And I am deeply thankful I grew up in such an era. Now, even in this country, teachers and schools and examination boards are falling over themselves to convince every schoolgoer that s/he is highly talented and absolutely brilliant, so everyone deserves to score 90%-plus in exams; the many thousand-year old and highly realistic way of grading them into 'Extraordinary-good-average-poor-hopeless' is going out of the window (the fact that most of them are going to end up being delivery boys, shop attendants, mechanics and clerks of various hues in ill-paid and dead end jobs after having been certified as brilliant all through school will not, of course, hurt their self-esteem). According to the latest 'science', children who have been reprimanded or given poor scores grow up severely maimed and warped mentally. I cannot see that I have been so harmed, nor can the closest of my friends. And that's one last thing: these days 'science' can apparently be harnessed to support any stupid idea that sounds avant garde. The way things are going on, it won't be long before the sacred name of 'science' is ruined beyond redemption and turned into a poor joke by too many people who don't understand it.
And then one turns around to face the other aspect of contemporary reality: authoritarian and orthodox-minded regimes all over the world are doubling down and reviving or reinforcing age-old, utterly stupid, highly unjust prejudices and superstitions, apparently with the support of large majorities: Newton's third law asserting itself in the social sphere? As a great author said, we only have a choice of nightmares.
6 comments:
Sir, the label of your post ie 'Humour' describes the situation best- the problem is so severe but at the same time we are so helpless that we can do nothing much except to hope it is cured by the passage of time, making the whole situation a source of helpless humor. The result is a lot of people are getting affected by either 'wokeism' ie unnecessary sensationalization or are just staying aloof ie complete disregard to and non participation in societal issues. We can only pray that neither us nor our loved ones get adversely affected by the situation.
Also, if you could highlight the role played by electronic, print and social media to cause such a strange and deep polarization in the society, it'll be extremely helpful.
Thanks.
Dear Sir,
Thank you for writing this. I would like to read it out to some of my students who, following the 'cool' culture are extremely intolerant and insensitive with their words and actions. With each passing day, I feel grateful for a sane upbringing which taught me to call a spade a spade, and to understand that not every thing is 'fluid'.
Regards,
Sunandini
Dear Suvroda
Thank you for writing this piece. It is worse than nightmare to be honest in every sphere of our lives.
All these are being done in the name of “correcting past mistakes” and evolution of society. To be honest it is scary how all the schools are taking part in some parts of the world. Those countries who have chosen to retain their own methods (which is perceived as being too strict and archaic), the boys/girls from those nations struggle to culturally fit-in in the nations who adopted “woke” culture. It is hard to explain but I will give an example – a lot of Asian boys are considered too “uptight” for the Western world. The “uptight” bit is nothing to do with their merit but with their personality of being “too strict” (e.g., usually not the ones who will show middle fingers to their teachers). Somehow discipline is considered “old-school” and meritocracy is taking a back-seat in an effort to “correcting past mistakes”.
It is creating a big issue in a globalised world where there is tremendous push in embracing diversity but at the same time contradicting the same philosophy in practice.
I was told I should not be bothered if my juniors swear loudly in office in expressing their frustration as that is considered as “de-stressing”.
Given I have been unlucky to see the evolution of “woke” culture, I can talk at lengths on this and my frustrations, but this comment box will become insufficient for that. I am sorry if my comment is all jumbled up thoughts but you have poked a raw nerve.
You take care.
Regards
Tanmoy
Delighted to see three intelligent comments within the day. I shall wait for a few more before I respond. And Tanmoy, you can send a long comment broken up into two or three parts: the best comment writers do.
Dear sir,
I have been following some of the things you have brought up in news and people's views in the English-speaking countries, especially the US (and, to a lesser extent, in the UK). In both these countries this woke-ness has become quite partisan and part of the culture war between the mainstream Left and Right. There are some of the logical Left-leaning commentators who are critical of it (or at least some of the issues pertaining to woke-ness). I also feel that it has got to do with people seeking attention: now that it's much easier to do so, thanks to social media. In addition, in the absence of real, existential problems (more true of people who are economically comfortable), they want to create causes they can fight for, again, from the comfort of their arm-chairs.
There's this whole Social Justice movement which has been going on the US for a while. There are these so-called SJW's (Social Justice Warriors), who signal virtue at every opportunity. Loads of regular people are also buying in to the stuff either because they want to feel special or fit in or virtue-signal to their tribe.
One of the battle grounds is related to gender and sexuality. They keep adding letters to LGBTQA+..., as if they all (even if we give all the letters the benefit of the doubt) necessarily fall into the same block. Apparently, gender is a social construct, there are tens of them, one can “identify” as a certain gender for a while before switching to something different, and it is not uncommon for children who have not even reached puberty yet to assert that they do not fit the gender they were assigned at birth and so need to transition by taking puberty blockers and such. I can imagine that there might be a small number, the tails of the Normal distribution who do fall into that category. But the reported numbers aren't consistent with this. It's quite likely that a large proportion of such children are making such claims to gain attention and sympathy. There might also be those who are simply homosexual but after being bombarded with all these theories on sixty-four genders, its fluidity and non-binary nature and what not are completely confused. They aren't allowed to drink or vote; but a life-altering change to their very being, that's perfectly fine.
When Trump was running for office the first time, the Left was talking about trans-gender bathrooms while the orange man ranted on about how the Washington elites have failed working-class people (while also spewing venom about illegal immigrants being rapists and about building walls to keep them out). The people who were hurting from joblessness and poor economy decided that they'd rather vote for someone who cared about them than about toilets.
The worst part is one can never be woke enough. Certain stand-up comics, who are Left-leaning but are still rational enough to call out nonsense when they see it, say that the “Left cannibalises itself”. Bill Maher joked on the same issue that “Gay is the new straight now.” J.K. Rowling was “cancelled” for saying a fundamental fact about being a woman! Even the founding fathers of the US of A must be rebuked because they owned slaves. Like you had mentioned in an earlier post, people nowadays seem incapable of making nuanced arguments or realising that people contain multitudes.
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There was a time when people started talking about mental health and well-being and it seemed to be a welcome change from issues like depression being taboo to talk about. But I sometimes feel that it's swinging too far to the other side now. Every little thing is a full-blown mental health crisis; a child of five, whose only problem might be that it is brimming with energy, has ADD or ADHD or some other combination of letters signifying a “special need.” There are participation trophies now, instead of prizes for winners. Richard Dawkins had once mentioned that Natural Selection is how we got here, but a society based on “survival of the fittest” is not one we would like to live in. And once again, we see that we might be swinging well over to the other side.
There's a Canadian professor you might have heard of, Jordan Peterson, who's gained a large following in the last few years, perhaps more amongst the (conventional-, Alt- and Libertarian-) Right. Some of the things he says seem logical to me, whereas some other arguments he pulls out of thin air. One thing he did mention was that the Left seems to believe more and more in equality of outcome rather than of opportunity. They refuse to acknowledge that there can be differences in people because of Nature and not just nurture. He also mentioned that in truly egalitarian societies, such as in the Scandinavian countries, men and women do tend to gravitate towards professions which have conventionally been associated with the respective gender.
Then there's the matter of “cultural appropriation”, and it seems to work only in one direction. A white person wearing a bindi or sporting an afro can be deemed as such, whereas everyone else wearing jeans is not a problem. The “N-word” is acceptable only when certain people say it. Helen Mirren, who is an actress (well, actor, going by the current standards of language), played a Jewish character in some film based during WWII and, apparently, that was not okay because she's not Jewish! Remaking classics such as James Bond or Sherlock Holmes with a woman as a lead character (even better if she's a woman of colour and one of the alphabets representing sexual orientation) often gains accolades on social media even if the end result, judging purely on acting, plot and so on, is nothing short of a disaster. For the sake of diversity and inclusion, they also introduce characters which were not present in the original work (or even in history).
As you mentioned in the end, all of this actually plays into the hands of the Right who always cry hoarse about the Left trampling over their culture and tradition and rewriting history or re-interpreting it, never mind they they have been doing this last bit for ages. For instance, the Right keeps building statues, while the Left defaces existing ones or pulls them down.
A large part of it seems like people creating pointless or trivial problems or causes so that they can become activists and find meaning in their lives. Which leads me to think how much worse this will become when (if) AI truly takes over many of the jobs that humans do at present and/or Universal Basic Income becomes a reality. There will be a whole lot of disgruntled people with no jobs, trying to justify their existence tweeting away to oblivion!
Sorry, somewhat bleak again.
Sincerely
Nishant.
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