“Woke”

[d4m10n]

In your opinion a single "privilege walk" exercise in a public middle school for which the school was punished would demonstrate that "Critical Social Justice" is "the dominant worldview" in k-12 education?

We definitely should not draw any conclusions from a single instance, but it is precisely the sort of thing I'd expect to see if CSJ was beginning to take root in primary schools.

 

[wareyin]

We definitely should not draw any conclusions from a single instance, but it is precisely the sort of thing I'd expect to see if CSJ was beginning to take root in primary schools.

"beginning to take root" =/= "the dominate culture"

And you would expect to see a school being punished over such a thing as an example of that thing being accepted?

 

[d4m10n]

"beginning to take root" =/= "the dominate culture"

Yeah, I'm not about to argue that CSJ is dominant anywhere outside of university ________ studies curricula and perhaps freethought blogs. Fairly niche, IMO.

And you would expect to see a school being punished over such a thing as an example of that thing being accepted?

If the punishment was originating from outside the schools (e.g. state legislature) it wouldn't tell us anything about the culture inside the schools.

 

[Darat]

Such as a privilege walk exercise in a public middle school in a Bible Belt suburb.

No idea what on earth that is.

 

[d4m10n]

No idea what on earth that is.

A privilege walk is an exercise designed to have students reveal their various racial/social/gender privileges (or lack thereof) to their classmates and then have them ruminate upon the results.

More details here:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=13870319&postcount=2929

 

[Elaedith]

What tenets of Critical Social Justice distinguish it from, say, mainstream liberalism?



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I agree with what jt512 said. Critical Social Justice is not just a niche variant of 'social justice'. It is fundamentally opposed to the core foundational principles of liberal social justice. It is underpinned by postmodernist denial of objective truth, and the ideas that free speech and science are ways of getting closer to the truth. Everything is a narrative, reality is constructed through language, all truth claims are attempts to control the narrative, and all knowledge is constructed as a means of preserving power.

More specifically, that even if objective truth does exist, the methods we use to uncover it such as reason, logic, debate and scientific methods are themselves just tools constructed to maintain power and privilege and are corrupted by positionality, therefore they cannot be said to be more likely to result in truth than any other methods.

Logically, therefore, there is no way of choosing between competing ideas or theories based on any of these methods. The only reason to prefer one idea or truth claim over another is ideological, and if you want your ideas to win, the only way is to make sure you control the narrative. In other words, make sure you are the ones with the power to construct reality, control language, write the narrative, and suppress the speech of and punish those who dissent.

Of course, there is a problem here in competing ideas and claims cannot be compared and evaluated for truth, and of course CSJ people do believe their ideas are superior. The answer is that dominant ideas reflect the interests of those with power, so it follows that if we construct a hierarchy of oppression and then claim that our idea is the narrative of the most marginalized, it must be true that this narrative has been unjustly 'drowned out', and therefore needs to be elevated. Therefore, by claiming to speak on behalf of the marginalized, you are morally righteous and don't have to produce any argument or evidence, engage in genuine debate, or tolerate criticism of your ideas or claims. Any criticism must necessarily reflect an attempt by the privileged to preserve their power and oppress others. Of course, you may pretend to use argument as a tactic if it will work to advance your narrative and to silence your opponent's, but these are not means to determine the correct conclusion. They are only useful if they serve to convince people to support the narrative that must be correct (and if you can't do this by easier means such as mocking, shaming ostracism, getting people fired, or inflicting other punitive 'consequences' on people for speaking into the wrong narrative).

Anyway, I'm sure you know all this. I'm a bit confused by your question, because all of these ideas predate people like Pluckrose, Lindsay etc. They are the foundation of every authoritarian, totalitarian and fundamentalist cult/political/social movement that ever existed, and they keep cropping up over and over again in new guises, they fit with the way the human mind tends to work, and they especially appeal to people with particular psychological characteristics. Liberalism is an explicit attempt to oppose these tendencies.

 

[Hercules56]

http://www.privilegewalk.org/

I have no problem recognizing that other folks face a lack of "privilege" or due respect from authorities, but I HATE the idea of white people or other folks literally hanging their head in shape simply due to their skin color and the possible atrocities of their ancestors.

We do NOT inherit guilt. Criminal or moral. Nobody should EVER be educated that they inherit the guilt of their ancestors. We ALL start with a clean, fresh slate and should be judged ONLY by our individual acts & deeds.

 

[jt512]

Charles Pincourt may well have accurately characterized "the knowledge, political, and subject principles" which undergird all the various woke subdisciplines. That said, he wasn't exactly quoting those principles from those who originally promulgated them or those who popularize them today.

I'm not sure what you'd quote, except maybe Kendi or that White Fragility author. As Pincourt said, the literature is deep(ity), broad, and opaque. What matters is whether the characterization is accurate.

 

[d4m10n]

I've even found you a definition from a pro-social justice book:

https://www.google.co.uk/books/edit...AQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA1&printsec=frontcover

Check the preface. They link it straight back to critical theory. Effectively it's applied critical theory.

This is a pretty good start.

Critical in this sense should be taken to mean operating from the perspective that knowledge is socially constructed and education is a political project embedded within a network of social institutions that reproduce inequality. I'm happy to take social justice^WP in the usual sense.

Can we agree that "woke" academia covers all the different academic disciplines which consciously take a critical stance, e.g. multicultural education, anti-racist education, postcolonialism, intersectionalism, gender studies, critical race theory, etc.?

Anyway, I'm sure you know all this. I'm a bit confused by your question, because all of these ideas predate people like Pluckrose, Lindsay etc.

If you were to google "Critical Social Justice" as a phrase, you'd mostly get hits from anti-woke people in the Pluckrose camp. Seems to me the phrase is more often used to characterize one's opposition than one's allies.

What matters is whether the characterization is accurate.

Another reason to find characterizations from the original sources rather than their critics.

 

[wareyin]

Yeah, I'm not about to argue that CSJ is dominant anywhere outside of university ________ studies curricula and perhaps freethought blogs. Fairly niche, IMO.

So the thing you brought up as an example wouldn't actually fit the claim, then? Oh, right, it's a day that ends in "y".

If the punishment was originating from outside the schools (e.g. state legislature) it wouldn't tell us anything about the culture inside the schools.

If, eh? If this is the example you previously brought up then the punishment wasn't enacted by the state legislature (which actually doesn't even have the power to punish a specific school, afaik) but rather by the Board of Education which...isn't exactly outside the school system. So, your "if" is doing quite a bit of misdirection, isn't it?

 

[wareyin]

http://www.privilegewalk.org/

I have no problem recognizing that other folks face a lack of "privilege" or due respect from authorities, but I HATE the idea of white people or other folks literally hanging their head in shape simply due to their skin color and the possible atrocities of their ancestors.

We do NOT inherit guilt. Criminal or moral. Nobody should EVER be educated that they inherit the guilt of their ancestors. We ALL start with a clean, fresh slate and should be judged ONLY by our individual acts & deeds.

Dude, turn off Fox News. Nobody is being taught to hang their head in shame. Nobody is being taught that they inherit guilt.

Being taught that US history includes warts and misdeeds rather than that the US was always fair and perfect and benevolent is teaching what really happened. If you won't allow history to be accurately taught, if you won't allow the more privileged kids to ever consider the advantages in life that they simply take for granted that other kids don't have, then you're simply perpetuating the problem.

 

[d4m10n]

So the thing you brought up as an example wouldn't actually fit the claim, then?

Of course it would fit! If CSJ was indeed the dominant ideology in secondary schools, it's precisely the sort of thing we'd expect teachers to do.

So, your "if" is doing quite a bit of misdirection, isn't it?

You clearly haven't done your homework on this one.

 

[jt512]

That should be easy to show that is happening. For example with changes in physics textbooks used in university courses.

It's already affecting funding of fundamental physics research in the US. The DoE, the largest funder of fundamental physics in the US (and I would guess, therefore, the world) now requires scientists applying for grants to promote equity and inclusion in their work:

Starting in fiscal 2023, which began Oct. 1, every proposal responding to a solicitation from the [DoE] Office of Science is required to include a PIER plan, which stands for Promoting Inclusive and Equitable Research, to “describe the activities and strategies of the applicant to promote equity and inclusion as an intrinsic element to advancing scientific excellence.”

Source, with links to the relevant DoE documents.

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

It's already affecting funding of fundamental physics research in the US. The DoE, the largest funder of fundamental physics in the US (and I would guess, therefore, the world) now requires scientists applying for grants to promote equity and inclusion in their work:

"Including" is not the same thing as "dominating" or "bad".

 

[jt512]

It's already affecting funding of fundamental physics research in the US. The DoE, the largest funder of fundamental physics in the US (and I would guess, therefore, the world) now requires scientists applying for grants to promote equity and inclusion in their work:

"Including" is not the same thing as "dominating" or "bad".

You've misinterpreted the sentence. What it says is that as a condition of funding, scientists must now promote "equity and inclusion," which is a concept from critical social justice. To put it a different way, as a condition of DoE funding, scientists must commit to further the goals of the critical social justice movement.

 

[wareyin]

Of course it would fit! If CSJ was indeed the dominant ideology in secondary schools, it's precisely the sort of thing we'd expect teachers to do.

If CSJ was indeed the dominant ideology in secondary schools, it's precisely the sort of thing that you wouldn't only have one solitary example of, and of a school punished for having done so.

So your lone example which includes a punishment imposed by the school board is actually evidence against CSJ being the dominant ideology in secondary schools. Well done.

You clearly haven't done your homework on this one.

Oh my, you really don't know the difference between the Oklahoma State Legislature(your claim) and the Oklahoma Board of Education?

 

[jt512]

This is a pretty good start.
Another reason to find characterizations from the original sources rather than their critics.

If the proponents were honest actors that would be true, but they are not. They know that to succeed that can't be honest about their goals. They have to pass themselves off as liberals. That's why they lie and say things like "woke" just means being aware of social injustice; why they call themselves "progressives," instead of "leftist authoritarians"; and why they cloak their goals in liberal sounding terms like "social justice," "inclusiveness," and "equity."

 

[d4m10n]

Oh my, you really don't know the difference between the Oklahoma State Legislature(your claim) and the Oklahoma Board of Education?

Oh my, you really think the OBE is authorized to defy laws passed by the legislature and signed by the governor?

So your lone example which includes a punishment imposed by the school board is actually evidence against CSJ being the dominant ideology in secondary schools.

I don't have any idea how many examples actually exist. This one only came to light because it was legally banned by HB1775.

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

You've misinterpreted the sentence. What it says is that as a condition of funding, scientists must now promote "equity and inclusion," which is a concept from critical social justice. To put it a different way, as a condition of DoE funding, scientists must commit to further the goals of the critical social justice movement.

Which is still not the same thing as "dominating" or "bad".

 

[d4m10n]

If the proponents were honest actors that would be true, but they are not. They know that to succeed that can't be honest about their goals. They have to pass themselves off as liberals. That's why they lie and say things like "woke" just means being aware of social injustice; why they call themselves "progressives," instead of "leftist authoritarians"; and why they cloak their goals in liberal sounding terms like "social justice," "inclusiveness," and "equity."

I have in my hand a list of known communists.