(May 18, 2021 at 6:25 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: I think it's the latter. The anti-wokeness brigade spinning fanciful nightmares about the neverending progression of how people express themselves. Ever was it thus. The wokeness brigade...doing what people have always done, doing what the current occupants of the antiwokeness brigade already have done, themselves, in living memory.
There are other positions aside from "wokeness" and "anti-wokeness."
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Story time:
University... psychology of adjustment class. My absolute favorite psych professor had the class split into 5 or so groups of 5 or so students. One student from each group was asked to leave the room and stand in the hall. The rest of us were instructed to communicate to the student (when they returned to the room) to stand on their chair-- BUT! We were only allowed to use the words "yes" and "no" to communicate this. Gestures, even looking or pointing were forbidden. We had to communicate solely through the words "yes" and "no."
So the students in the hall were summoned back into the room, and they (naturally) took their seats. Each of those students was greeted with everyone in their group looking at them and chanting "No! No! No! No!"
I mean the students who stood in the hall had no idea what the fuck was going on. They were told nothing about the purpose of the exercise. Eventually, one student stood up. Of course the response was "Yes! Yes! Yes!" from their group, and then the others stood up.
Eventually, and it took a long damn time, one of the students stood up on her chair. Then the exercise was over and we were asked to reflect on what transpired.
The exercise was meant to demonstrate what children feel like when they are being taught mores and cultural norms. As Socrates points out, even those who obey these norms have no idea why they obey them. They couldn't explain them to another adult, let alone a child. But all children face a barrage of "No! No! No!" that they need to adjust to.
Case and point: "No! No! No!" can do some work. But it is immensely aided if you also say, "Yes! Yes! Yes!" when it is warranted. And (being the idealist that I am) I feel that some day we can simply communicate things with a plethora of words. Because "No! No! No!" only gets us so far. It does do some work. But it can't do all the work. And if all you're saying is "No! No! No!" you'll never convince anyone to do the right thing.
