“Woke”

[bruto]

Did you read the rest of the article?

I would consider this "woke" in the pejorative sense, if the works in question were removed. But according to the article, they were not (e.t.a. had been removed but are being brought back). They were placed in a different context, which seems like a pretty good idea, actually.

 

[Blue Mountain]

Seemed pretty coherent to me. I didn't even notice the omission.

Interesting. It was the "you" that threw me:

He that you US should have ...

Even after adding a probably missing word such as "thinks," "prognosticates," or "farts" I couldn't really parse the sentence.

That's what the Preview Post button is for. I wish more people would use it. Not that my posts are always perfect; the odd grammatical error often creeps in, and often times even though the sentences are syntactically correct they can border on incoherent due to unusual structure or after lot of moving around of fragments.

 

[Suddenly]

He that you US should have an anti-racism board that would be composed of self selected anti-racist experts(not elected or appointed by elected officials) that would have the power to veto any law or regulation in enacted by any government in the US.

"How to say you don't understand judicial review without saying you don't understand judicial review"

I mean, it's a couple of tweaks in the Equal Protection/Due Process area of law and we are there. The principle is that laws should not treat people differently based on classification. Bring back a strong deference to disparate impact evidence, get back to the idea that a rights violation requires a effective remedy, and we are pretty much there.

 

[Stout]

General question, not directed at any specific person:

Do you agree that this is "woke"?

Nah, that's not woke, that's just low key virtue signaling. Woke would have had them destroying the paintings or locking them in some basement vault forever.

You want woke? I got woke.

The Royal British Columbia Museum got bitten by the decolonization bug and decided that their star permanent attraction hod to go and it had to go NOW! There were some vague mentions about consulting with stakeholder groups in the future and coming back with some exhibit(s) that were more representative of history. The consultation process was slated to take years.

Out came the chainsaws and the dumpsters and all that nasty white people history was instantly erased. Fast forward a few months and the government announces that they were going to rip the existing building down and build a whole new one...at a cost of $800 million.

Whoaaaaaa says the general public. We have a doctor shortage and a housing crisis going on stuff your $800 million vanity project up your collective asses. Oops says the government, it looks like we failed to read the room but we're going to lower the admission price on the museum because, well, because it's a laughingstock.

So there it sits, a mere shell of its former self with no plans to do much of anything but at least all that colonizer stuff is gone and the floor it occupied is vacant. But at least it woke now.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/art-and-architecture/article-royal-bc-museum-future/

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

General question, not directed at any specific person:

Do you agree that this is "woke"?

WA Art Gallery exhibition wrestles with ghosts of colonialism in an age of woke

My personal opinion is that the use of the word "woke" in the headline is entirely inappropriate, since it is only an anonymous TripAdviser review that calls it "woke".

Hard to say what someone meant by "woke" from just a sentence where they used that word. If they meant that a lot of pasty white anglo-saxon guys got offended on behalf of the natives, they might even be spot-on.


I have more of a problem with the whole "wake of colonialism" thing. Originally I thought it might be about stuff the colonial powers stole from the original owners (a la British Museum) or such. But no, apparently it's the "injustice" that some white dude painted a masterpiece in the 17'th century, and it's on display, while the natives didn't, so it's not on display.

Which strikes me as just representing history. And sure, history wasn't fair or nice. Occasionally it was downright gruesome. Quite routinely some group had an advantage at the expense of others. But it just IS. That's what happened. Good or (more often than not) bad. It's not something to change as fits one present day narrative.

I mean, equally from the ancient Greeks we have all sorts of statues and vases and richly decorated plates with historical scenes on them, and they're all from the ruling class. We have none from, say, the Helots. (The population enslaved by the Spartans.) That's just how it works.


And it also strikes me as not an art museum's function to make political statements. It's there to show some rare masterpieces. If you found one worth displaying, it shouldn't even matter if it's signed "Hitler". (Not likely in his case since he sucked, so just as a hypothetical.)

And removing those (although only for almost 2 years before putting them back) just to fit some political messaging strikes me as outright vandalism.

 

[Lplus]

Hard to say what someone meant by "woke" from just a sentence where they used that word. If they meant that a lot of pasty white anglo-saxon guys got offended on behalf of the natives, they might even be spot-on.


I have more of a problem with the whole "wake of colonialism" thing. Originally I thought it might be about stuff the colonial powers stole from the original owners (a la British Museum) or such. But no, apparently it's the "injustice" that some white dude painted a masterpiece in the 17'th century, and it's on display, while the natives didn't, so it's not on display.

Which strikes me as just representing history. And sure, history wasn't fair or nice. Occasionally it was downright gruesome. Quite routinely some group had an advantage at the expense of others. But it just IS. That's what happened. Good or (more often than not) bad. It's not something to change as fits one present day narrative.

I mean, equally from the ancient Greeks we have all sorts of statues and vases and richly decorated plates with historical scenes on them, and they're all from the ruling class. We have none from, say, the Helots. (The population enslaved by the Spartans.) That's just how it works.


And it also strikes me as not an art museum's function to make political statements. It's there to show some rare masterpieces. If you found one worth displaying, it shouldn't even matter if it's signed "Hitler". (Not likely in his case since he sucked, so just as a hypothetical.)

And removing those (although only for almost 2 years before putting them back) just to fit some political messaging strikes me as outright vandalism.

t
A classic case of virue signalling?

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Motivated by virtue signalling, sure. But it's still vandalism IMHO. There's a difference between some benign virtue signalling like, "yay, I'm totally anti-racist and feminist too because I watched The Woman King," and actually demanding that some art pieces be removed from museums. The last time someone removed art pieces or banned plays because of the author's race or not fitting some ideology, shall we say, was during WWII. And it's generally agreed that it was NOT something good, shall we say.

 

[d4m10n]

A "unifying theory of wokeness" (sort of)

https://twitter.com/sullydish/status/1421906023216992258

https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/p/wesley-yang-on-the-successor-ideology

 

[Checkmite]

General question, not directed at any specific person:

Do you agree that this is "woke"?

I would agree that simply removing a few historical pieces by white artists in order to make room for putting up some native-made art in a national art museum is exactly what angry old white men would, angrily, refer to as "woke", yes.

 

[d4m10n]

Some wokeness from my alma mater:

Sent from my SM-G996U using Tapatalk

 

[theprestige]

I would agree that simply removing a few historical pieces by white artists in order to make room for putting up some native-made art in a national art museum is exactly what angry old white men would, angrily, refer to as "woke", yes.

Clearly you have been awakened to the true nature of white people and men, and are displaying your waking state for our review.

 

[TragicMonkey]

Some wokeness from my alma mater:
[qimg]https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20220925/2c29beae4a949ec4c04dadb4503b2511.jpg[/qimg]

Ah. Thanks for posting this, now I know what my mom was shrieking with rage about on the phone this Thursday. She told me "the Air Force won't allow people to say 'Mom' or 'Dad' any more!" and when I doubted the accuracy of her retelling of something she heard, she flew into a fury at me and my sister (who was not on the call, not in this conversation, and not aware of it) for doubting her.

 

[d4m10n]

Ah. Thanks for posting this, now I know what my mom was shrieking with rage about on the phone this Thursday. She told me "the Air Force won't allow people to say 'Mom' or 'Dad' any more!" and when I doubted the accuracy of her retelling of something she heard, she flew into a fury at me and my sister (who was not on the call, not in this conversation, and not aware of it) for doubting her.

Honestly the most scandalous thing about that slide is plagiarism.

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[TragicMonkey]

Honestly the most scandalous thing about that slide is plagiarism.

The formatting seems pretty dreadful, too. Too much text in too little space, different sizes, unnecessary sublevel bulletpointing, that header is way too big, and the photos add nothing. It hits five or six "do not do this" lessons of PointPoint 101 design. I wouldn't be the least surprised if it had an annoying transition in and out as well.

 

[Venom]

I find it a bit amusing when people are accused of "going woke" for the smallest shows of empathy or decency, the predictable consequence of a malicious effort to downplay and dismiss any grievance as trivial whining. I trust most critical thinkers can keep their eyes on the ball in this case, including the ones on the side of the A-holes but hide among the crowd.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Empathy and decency is one thing, but being supposed to no longer say "girlfriend" or "wife" or "mom" about your own is a whole new level of stupid. (And yes, there are instances of people saying "she's my wife" and someone helpfully correcting them to "partner.") Empathy only goes so far. You want to marry same sex? I'm not keeping you. You want to adopt? Fine by me. You want me to change random words because, boo-hoo, someone else has a "wife" or a "mom"? Well, cry me a river and then go grow up. You want to change the name of a medical condition like "colorblind"? Same deal.

That's no longer got anything to do with empathy. Empathy doesn't mean you need to bend over backwards to any and every request. See, "incel", for an example of just because someone is distressed, nobody else has to give him what he wants.

Besides, where the <bleep> is the empathy in the other direction? What if a wife actually wants to be called a "wife", not "partner"? You know, on account of the latter also including a girlfriend or even friend with benefits? Where's the empathy in that direction? Seems to me like one group is supposed to get all the empathy, and give none in return. Well, society doesn't work that way. It's a two-way street. Anyone who thinks it should only be a one-way street is a man baby who needs to grow up.

 

[Matthew Best]

These days you get arrested and thrown in jail if you say you're English, don't you?

 

[Darat]

Empathy and decency is one thing, but being supposed to no longer say "girlfriend" or "wife" or "mom" about your own is a whole new level of stupid. (And yes, there are instances of people saying "she's my wife" and someone helpfully correcting them to "partner.") Empathy only goes so far. You want to marry same sex? I'm not keeping you. You want to adopt? Fine by me. You want me to change random words because, boo-hoo, someone else has a "wife" or a "mom"? Well, cry me a river and then go grow up. You want to change the name of a medical condition like "colorblind"? Same deal.

That's no longer got anything to do with empathy. Empathy doesn't mean you need to bend over backwards to any and every request. See, "incel", for an example of just because someone is distressed, nobody else has to give him what he wants.

Besides, where the <bleep> is the empathy in the other direction? What if a wife actually wants to be called a "wife", not "partner"? You know, on account of the latter also including a girlfriend or even friend with benefits? Where's the empathy in that direction? Seems to me like one group is supposed to get all the empathy, and give none in return. Well, society doesn't work that way. It's a two-way street. Anyone who thinks it should only be a one-way street is a man baby who needs to grow up.

Evidence this has happened and/or is happening? Sounds very like the old “political correctness gone mad” rants such as “can’t call it a blackboard”, “can’t sing baa baa black sheep” i.e. didn’t happen.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/li...ecting-me-to-say-partner-20181212-p50lsg.html

Edit: besides, it's right on that picture a wee bit upwards in the thread. Someone at the air force academy actually made a powerpoint slide about it. Plus, you have TragicMonkey as a witness about the use of "mom" and "dad". So I'm not sure exactly how much more room for denial there is.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

But even without that, I can tell you from first hand experience that for example HR has wasted my (and everyone else's) time in meetings around here on the topic of whether the PC correct terminology is "autistic" or "people with autism" or "on the spectrum". You know, on account that one way of saying it might sound like a disease, and we wouldn't want to sound offensive.

I am autistic. As in, I actually have the diagnosis. I don't give a flip which term you use. You can call me "that asocial bellend in the corner" if it makes you feel any better. As far as I'm concerned, I'm just me anyway. Which the doctor said it's actually a very typical attitude for autism.

The ones bringing it up are not, never claimed to be one, never even claim to have consulted an actual psychiatrist about it, or anything.

But they're not even remotely interested in how _I_ feel about it. Or how anyone else who is actually on the spectrum actually feels about. You know, if empathy were the actual issue. THEY are telling ME how I should feel and speak about it. And it's clear that they'd get very non-empathic very fast if I used whatever term isn't the preferred one this month. That's not empathy, that's paternalism at best. Or, more likely, just virtue signalling. As long as it's the right signal, who gives a flip about how the actual people with autism feel about it.

It's like in that quote from a transsexual: we're not even one of the teams in that game. We're the ball.

Edit: you know, in case you wonder why it bothers me when people get offended on behalf of someone else, for whatever they unilaterally decided should bother that other fellow.