The Reality of Woke Ideology

[Mayan_Elephant]

whoa, whoah, or woah, or however the hell you spell it. Just wow and that.

Many people woke up on October 7 sympathetic to parts of woke ideology and went to bed that evening questioning how they had signed on to a worldview that had nothing to say about the mass rape and murder of innocent people by terrorists.

https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fw ... ntin-kisin

The reaction to the attacks—from outwardly pro-Hamas protests to the mealy-mouthed statements of college presidents, celebrities, and CEOs—has exploded the comforting stories many on the center-left have told themselves about progressive identity politics. For many years, they opted for the coping mechanism of pretending that the institutional capture of universities, corporations, and media organizations by the woke mind virus was no big deal. “Sure, students shutting down events they disagree with is annoying,” they would say, “but it’s just students doing what students do.”

October 8 was a wake-up call for those who didn’t appreciate that the ideology of the campus has spread to our cities, supercharged by social media

And it keeps getting worse.

Just as hope about the possibility of peace with jihadists seems suicidally naive, reconciliation with citizens seized by the woke mindset seems a long way off.

They have done this because the fundamental flaw in the unconstrained model of the world is a failure to understand Thomas Sowell’s greatest maxim: there are no solutions, only trade-offs. When you let your institutions be captured by an ideology of intolerance and illiberalism masquerading as progress, that has consequences. When you sow division at home and signal weakness abroad, that has consequences. When you debase the public’s faith in what they are told by the media and their government, that has consequences too.

and..... the knock-out....

As Sowell explained, “When you want to help people, you tell them the truth. When you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear.”

Information silos are just a means of surrounding oneself with what one wants to hear and repeating nonsense back to people who want to hear it. This has been my biggest issue with the exmormon community over the last decade or so. For the most part, information and dialogue that is organized around exiting mormonism or combatting the mormon institution has focused on a membership within a new ideology that holds itself up as the opposite of that.

I drove across the desert a few weeks ago and suffered three plus hours of Sam Harris going on, and on, and on, and on and on and on and on about assholes. Literally, he was going on metaphorically, about assholes. Mostly, he was going on and on and on and on about how one particular political personality is an asshole and that is dangerous. Then he proclaimed his victimization where the twitter silos hurt his feelings and now he is not part of that silo.

Less metaphorically, and more literally, an asshole who is selfish and shameless (Sam was correct about that, by the way) can't do much without a cast of characters who are submissive, conscientious, victimized, selfless, and basically accommodating (Sam REFUSES to acknowledge that part). You can't have a winner without a loser in this game of extremes. You can't play chess and checkers without the black and white pawns.

Sowell is correct. He is very correct. The danger of these self-absorbed and insulated hives of woke-ass ideology is as extreme as the danger of aggression. In many cases, it is worse. The danger of a rogue asshole Chief Financial Officer is bad. The danger of a submissive CFO that will tell the street, the CEO and whoever else "what they want to hear" is worse. The danger of a bulldog aggressive journalist is bad - the danger of journalism that is only what you want to hear is worse.

As it relates to mormonism and exmormonism and new order mormonism and families with some in and some out - trading ideologies and insulating oneself within a newer sexier ideology is just a new set of conditions for conflict. It is that damn simple, really. The benefit of trading mormonism for a woke ideology with a silo of affirmation is that the affirmation of that new woke ideology is endless and easy to find. It feels good to be right and the conflict is a buzz - until it ******* ain't.

[nibbler]

Information silos are just a means of surrounding oneself with what one wants to hear and repeating nonsense back to people who want to hear it.

Once I read a thread a person here created that was very close to what you describe. The only difference was that the nonsense was repeated back to people that didn't want to hear it.

[Mayan_Elephant]

Information silos are just a means of surrounding oneself with what one wants to hear and repeating nonsense back to people who want to hear it.

Once I read a thread a person here created that was very close to what you describe. The only difference was that the nonsense was repeated back to people that didn't want to hear it.

Interesting. Also, the nonsense was repeated and nobody heard it.

[Hagoth]

This is all about false dichotomies. We are told over and over again that we must fall into one of two camps that have been created by politicians, commenters, entertainers and pundits seem content to gloss over the subtleties and complexities of real human lives, needs, and feelings.

Personally, I give little credence to anyone throwing the word "woke" around. It's a pretty useless word, if for no other reason than it actually has no definition. Worse, the person speaking often has a very different internal definition than many of the people listening. I hear people like DeSantis tossing it out as a blanket term for everyone and everything he doesn't like, and as a dogwhistle to mark people as targets of hatred. Not everyone who uses the word is a bigot, of course, but it does seem to be a favorite term for a bigotish slice of Americans to discredit people, some of whom are simply trying to be compassionate. The problem is that the word doesn't really mean anything specific. It's a classic example of turning someone's self description into an insult, often by opinion-makers telling us how we should feel about people who don't buy the same products.

The TV tells me that I have to either be pro-abortion, pro-LGBTQ, pro-immigration, anti-guns, and supportive of anything anyone wants to put in gradeshool libraries, OR I must be anti-abortion, anti-gay rights, anti-immigration, opposed to any gun laws, and eager to ban everything from libraries that talks about gay people or slavery.

Bullsh*t.

I have my own opinions on each of those things, and none of them are simple black/white, good/bad issues. They are complicated. It's not about "wokeness" or whatever is the opposite of wokeness (intentionally asleep?) And, even though we are born with different brains that might predispose us to certain perspectives, people don't simply fall 100% into one of those two categories. The categories are defined by people who are rallying political and financial support.

That said, ME, I totally agree with what you said about the Mormon/ex-Mormon dynamic. Not for everyone, but for people who feel they need to align themselves with a community that has already been defined by someone else. Fundamentally it's the old in-group out-group thing, which is human nature. BUT we have to realize the reason there are such strong lines between the insiders and the outsiders is that the freakin' church has hammered that mindset into its members since they were old enough to sit in a tiny plastic chair and color pictures of Korihor. The church demands that that you be all in or all out, fully obedient or a dupe of Satan. Mormons often continue to act like Mormons even when they stop being Mormon. They just become mirror images of their old insider selves, and continue playing the role that has been assigned to them by the church. Fortunately people often go through their angry phase and often grow out of it faster than their still-in loved ones.

Similarly, people who want laws that are tough on immigration, or who don't approve of abortion, can also become "woke" to the marginalization of transgender people, if they can realize they are grown-ups who can make their own choices.

Actually, I love watching this happen. It forces people to make their world bigger and more inclusive. When an LDS family has a child come out to them as gay or trans they must choose to either stick to the party line and marginalize/despise/disown their child or to relax their grip a little and expand their consciousness enough to allow more love and acceptance than their in-group dictates. Similarly, I see people who have left the church go to great lengths to patiently rebuild relationships with TBM loved ones.

[Mayan_Elephant]

Mormons often continue to act like Mormons even when they stop being Mormon. They just become mirror images of their old insider selves, and continue playing the role that has been assigned to them by the church. Fortunately people often go through their angry phase and often grow out of it faster than their still-in loved ones.

Yep. That^^^^^. That's it, my friend.

I also agree with you on just about all that but I particularly see and acknowledge your point about "woke", and accept it. If I had to define woke, which I won't successfully, I would call it an ideology of dickish victimization. It is a brand of victimization with talking and bitchandmoan points. Some of the topics are valid but most all of them are lost in the drama.

That said - bitchinandmoanin and victimization are not unique to the left or to the right, neither to a political party. It is a way, not a place.

[Cnsl1]

This reminds me of the out group homogeneity effect, or the tendency to view members of the "other" group as more similar than they really are.

Our political climate has also become extremely polemic--more so than I've ever seen--and the out group homogeneity effect is alive and thriving in both camps.

The church presses this ideological effect as well, and getting out of the church tends to help folks expand their thinking a bit, but not always. If they were strong categorical thinkers before, that mindset may continue.

Also, it's much easier to criticize and garner support when you can minimize the complexities within an opponent's view with a pejorative blanket word or phrase, such as woke, liberals, exmos, TBMs, trumpers, or evangelicals.

We all do it. Some of us just do it way more often.

[Cnsl1]

And I totally agree with Hagoth. It's about creating false dichotomies.

Politicians and religious leaders seem to be pretty good at it.

[Hagoth]

Some go looking for "wokeness," and others have it thrust upon them. Let me give you a personal example.

My daughter was raised as a boy in the Mormon church and came out to us as transgender in her late 20s. Anyone who thinks transgender people are simply making a choice, or rebelling, or going along with a fad need to consider people like this who were sincerely believing and obedient to a high-demand religion while painfully hiding and denying their identity in secret. They would have to be insane to choose to be transgender in a world where everyone in their environment is indoctrinated to think of them as the most perverse, unacceptable thing imaginable, willfully rebelling against God's plan, knowing they will be excluded from God's kingdom. Who would choose to bring that upon themselves? I'm not talking about the boogeyman in-your-face drag queens that are held up for display in media, I'm talking about one of the most kind, unassuming, loving and giving people you can imagine.

My daughter is a brilliant software engineer who was well paid and in high demand UNTIL she came out as transgender. Now, for some reason, she just can't get a second interview in Utah once they see that she is transgender. So, while I may not give much of a damn about a lot of issues that I hear politicians rampaging about, yeah, I'm woke as hell to all of the anger and hatred I see piled on this tiny minority whose scary agenda is to be treated like humans.

There are people who would happy label me woke because of that so they can write off anything I say or think about anything else.

[Mayan_Elephant]

Some go looking for "wokeness," and others have it thrust upon them. Let me give you a personal example.

My daughter was raised as a boy in the Mormon church and came out to us as transgender in her late 20s. Anyone who thinks transgender people are simply making a choice, or rebelling, or going along with a fad need to consider people like this who were sincerely believing and obedient to a high-demand religion while painfully hiding and denying their identity in secret. They would have to be insane to choose to be transgender in a world where everyone in their environment is indoctrinated to think of them as the most perverse, unacceptable thing imaginable, willfully rebelling against God's plan, knowing they will be excluded from God's kingdom. Who would choose to bring that upon themselves? I'm not talking about the boogeyman in-your-face drag queens that are held up for display in media, I'm talking about one of the most kind, unassuming, loving and giving people you can imagine.

My daughter is a brilliant software engineer who was well paid and in high demand UNTIL she came out as transgender. Now, for some reason, she just can't get a second interview in Utah once they see that she is transgender. So, while I may not give much of a damn about a lot of issues that I hear politicians rampaging about, yeah, I'm woke as hell to all of the anger and hatred I see piled on this tiny minority whose scary agenda is to be treated like humans.

There are people who would happy label me woke because of that so they can write off anything I say or think about anything else.

That is some bold and vulnerable writing.

I saw a post or some damn thing where a leading figure in BLM came out in support of the Proud Boys, J6 inmates, and Trump. Do I believe it? Not really. Do I believe that it is inevitable that it will happen soon? Yes. Do i think this is relevant to your post? Yeah sorta.

I was never conditioned as a youth in the church to think about trans stuff at all. The only thing I knew about trans things was from seeing a Oui or Hustler magazine on occasion. However, I was conditioned to think that some damn God whose favorite son took nails, a spear and some thorns for the team told his dead son who came back to life, another guy, and a ghost to tell me what to think. And I was conditioned to only think that the thinking had already been done. My conditioning was obviously unhealthy. No question about it.

It’s that dichotomy that we are breaking down. It takes time and it takes work. Not everyone lives in the black and white or right and left fringes. If those fringes were less noisy, i think the pain level would go down and the joy level would go up. Just as we were conditioned as obedient Mormons to believe in a one true Church and a black/white ideology, the powers that be want us to believe in a newer but better, call it woke for the sake of argument, black and white ideology.

ETA: All that said - some shit is wrong and some is right. Bigotry is wrong. Discrimination is wrong. Spending beyond our means is wrong. Warring for profit is wrong. Dumping radioactive waste into the drinking water source is wrong. Creating sovereign factions is wrong. Mailing out unsolicited ballots is wrong. Counting ballots in the dark is wrong. Blocking election audits is wrong. Kangaroo courts are wrong. The 20 year war in Iraq and Afghanistan was wrong. Being a milquetoast and mealy-mouthed uniparty clown when leadership is expected is wrong. I, for myself, can admit that I am not always right.

[alas]

Some go looking for "wokeness," and others have it thrust upon them. Let me give you a personal example.

My daughter was raised as a boy in the Mormon church and came out to us as transgender in her late 20s. Anyone who thinks transgender people are simply making a choice, or rebelling, or going along with a fad need to consider people like this who were sincerely believing and obedient to a high-demand religion while painfully hiding and denying their identity in secret. They would have to be insane to choose to be transgender in a world where everyone in their environment is indoctrinated to think of them as the most perverse, unacceptable thing imaginable, willfully rebelling against God's plan, knowing they will be excluded from God's kingdom. Who would choose to bring that upon themselves? I'm not talking about the boogeyman in-your-face drag queens that are held up for display in media, I'm talking about one of the most kind, unassuming, loving and giving people you can imagine.

My daughter is a brilliant software engineer who was well paid and in high demand UNTIL she came out as transgender. Now, for some reason, she just can't get a second interview in Utah once they see that she is transgender. So, while I may not give much of a damn about a lot of issues that I hear politicians rampaging about, yeah, I'm woke as hell to all of the anger and hatred I see piled on this tiny minority whose scary agenda is to be treated like humans.

There are people who would happy label me woke because of that so they can write off anything I say or think about anything else.

Your last sentence here says it all. People label each other so they don’t have to listen to them as a fellow human being. “Oh, you’re one of THEM.” And that label allows them to put the other person in a box and stop treating them as a fellow human.

Part of the original idea of being “woke” was that you were awake to and *aware* of reality. Boy have some people lost that. When they try to defend Palestinian rights, they may be “woke” but when they choose to ignore Palestinian terrorism, they are most certainly not “woke” to the reality that even their precious homeland taken away Palestinians can be evil bastards. The world is not made up of victims and aggressors, and if you are a victim, you can never be an aggressor.

Even here on NOM I have had discussions with people who think binary like this. Black people are victims, always and only. They can NEVER be guilty of hatred, let alone racial hatred. So, a white kid beating up a black kid is racial hatred, but ten black kids beating up a white kid is them defending themselves from racial hatred. Ummmmm, no. The white kid beaten up by ten black kids is just as much a victim of racial hatred as the black kid beaten up by a white kid is. And it is just as wrong. The fact that there are more white kids, so the white kid beating up the black kid is more common doesn’t change the injuries to that white kid.

The DeSantis type who use “woke” as an insult are certainly not awake and aware that they themselves are being whiny babies crying about their own victimization. “Oh, the big bad LGBT are out to get us.”

And, yes, there are LGBT that like to play victim and whine about their mistreatment while they pound poor straight/cis people to death for not “defending them”. Wait, who am I needing protection from right now, you aggressive, in my face demanding that I sacrifice myself to fight an unnecessary battle for you, dude? I got into a “discussion” on line with a gay dude who thought anyone who didn’t display a pride flag was “the enemy”. Well, where I live, people would just label me as the enemy just exactly like this gay dude was doing. The label would be the end of any chance of teaching them that “normal” people can have gay children. I would not be able to have any relationships with them if I announced myself as “woke”. I would rather take a “don’t ask, don’t tell” approach with my neighbors and establish some kind of human to human relationship before I announce that my lesbian daughter and her wife are coming for a visit, oh and by the by, they are bringing the trans sister and another lesbian. I couldn’t get it through this dude’s thick aggressive skull that you don’t go looking for fights. That is not defending gay rights, that is putting gay rights ahead of getting people to ACCEPT gay people as human. First, let’s get people to allow that LGBT people ARE people, just like them people and not some *other* that is out to get them. The best way to convince these Trump supporters in my area that they are correct in thinking that the gays are out to get their children is to treat the Trump supporters as “stupid idiots” who are just bigots and not worth my respect or friendship and put up a flag that announces to them that I am “the enemy.” I mean, not only do my neighbors put up Trump flags, they put up political signs for Ammon Bundy for governor. I could treat them as “enemies” or as humans that I disagree with but still respect their humanity. This gay dude was demanding that I treat them as my enmities, just because they are his enemies. Well, my sweet lesbian daughter would be the first to take down a pride flag that I tried to hang from my deck. The trans sister is not even out to her own parents because they want a relationship more than they want a fight. My daughter just wants to live her life and leave others alone. They don’t even fly a pride flag because they want to put relationships with people above their political ideology.




But to defend the exMos who become “us” who have left, and “them” idiots who are still indoctrinated, often it is a stage and if allowed to vent their anger, they get over it and start to see that people are just people doing the best they can with what they know. If they get beaten up by those still in, they sometimes harden into the black and white thinking as a permanent life style. They need to redefine themselves and often do that by outlining what they are NOT before they can clearly define what they *are* now. It takes time and if the process is not allowed to run its course, they get stuck yelling and screaming about what they are NOT instead of being able to move on to what they ARE.

So, to get them over this stage, you accept them as NOT mormon and get them to see more of who they are besides that one small part. I am not Mormon and I am sort of a Christian pantheist pagan agnostic, but mostly religiously confused, which is fine because nobody knows more than I do, so if they say they do they just lie to themselves. See, I have an identity beyond not Mormon even if it is “confused like everybody else.” This is Why Mormons who join another church move on but those who reject all religion and can only define themselves as what they aren’t often get stuck hating on Mormons.

Normal psychology of human development. Sometimes one has to define what they are *not* before they get a clear sense of what they are. You see it with men who are raised with a strong but loving mother and absent or weak father, who get stuck defining themselves as a man. Their only role model is their mother who is female and who they are NOT, so to try to define who they ARE, they start hating women because as a man that is who they are NOT and they don’t know who the hell they are as a man. They just know they are the opposite of female, so they become the *extreme* opposite of female because that is their definition of “man”. They reject the feminine in themselves and become a misogynist. Even stupid Freud saw that.

So, same way, a former Mormon has to accept that they are still kind of Mormon because you cannot just kill what you are to move on. So, we are all still influenced by having been Mormon and we have to come to terms with what that means and change the parts we don’t like and keep the parts we do like. The black and white thinking is one thing we have to tackle and change.

[Mayan_Elephant]

Some go looking for "wokeness," and others have it thrust upon them. Let me give you a personal example.

My daughter was raised as a boy in the Mormon church and came out to us as transgender in her late 20s. Anyone who thinks transgender people are simply making a choice, or rebelling, or going along with a fad need to consider people like this who were sincerely believing and obedient to a high-demand religion while painfully hiding and denying their identity in secret. They would have to be insane to choose to be transgender in a world where everyone in their environment is indoctrinated to think of them as the most perverse, unacceptable thing imaginable, willfully rebelling against God's plan, knowing they will be excluded from God's kingdom. Who would choose to bring that upon themselves? I'm not talking about the boogeyman in-your-face drag queens that are held up for display in media, I'm talking about one of the most kind, unassuming, loving and giving people you can imagine.

My daughter is a brilliant software engineer who was well paid and in high demand UNTIL she came out as transgender. Now, for some reason, she just can't get a second interview in Utah once they see that she is transgender. So, while I may not give much of a damn about a lot of issues that I hear politicians rampaging about, yeah, I'm woke as hell to all of the anger and hatred I see piled on this tiny minority whose scary agenda is to be treated like humans.

There are people who would happy label me woke because of that so they can write off anything I say or think about anything else.

Your last sentence here says it all. People label each other so they don’t have to listen to them as a fellow human being. “Oh, you’re one of THEM.” And that label allows them to put the other person in a box and stop treating them as a fellow human.

Part of the original idea of being “woke” was that you were awake to and *aware* of reality. Boy have some people lost that. When they try to defend Palestinian rights, they may be “woke” but when they choose to ignore Palestinian terrorism, they are most certainly not “woke” to the reality that even their precious homeland taken away Palestinians can be evil bastards. The world is not made up of victims and aggressors, and if you are a victim, you can never be an aggressor.

Even here on NOM I have had discussions with people who think binary like this. Black people are victims, always and only. They can NEVER be guilty of hatred, let alone racial hatred. So, a white kid beating up a black kid is racial hatred, but ten black kids beating up a white kid is them defending themselves from racial hatred. Ummmmm, no. The white kid beaten up by ten black kids is just as much a victim of racial hatred as the black kid beaten up by a white kid is. And it is just as wrong. The fact that there are more white kids, so the white kid beating up the black kid is more common doesn’t change the injuries to that white kid.

The DeSantis type who use “woke” as an insult are certainly not awake and aware that they themselves are being whiny babies crying about their own victimization. “Oh, the big bad LGBT are out to get us.”

And, yes, there are LGBT that like to play victim and whine about their mistreatment while they pound poor straight/cis people to death for not “defending them”. Wait, who am I needing protection from right now, you aggressive, in my face demanding that I sacrifice myself to fight an unnecessary battle for you, dude? I got into a “discussion” on line with a gay dude who thought anyone who didn’t display a pride flag was “the enemy”. Well, where I live, people would just label me as the enemy just exactly like this gay dude was doing. The label would be the end of any chance of teaching them that “normal” people can have gay children. I would not be able to have any relationships with them if I announced myself as “woke”. I would rather take a “don’t ask, don’t tell” approach with my neighbors and establish some kind of human to human relationship before I announce that my lesbian daughter and her wife are coming for a visit, oh and by the by, they are bringing the trans sister and another lesbian. I couldn’t get it through this dude’s thick aggressive skull that you don’t go looking for fights. That is not defending gay rights, that is putting gay rights ahead of getting people to ACCEPT gay people as human. First, let’s get people to allow that LGBT people ARE people, just like them people and not some *other* that is out to get them. The best way to convince these Trump supporters in my area that they are correct in thinking that the gays are out to get their children is to treat the Trump supporters as “stupid idiots” who are just bigots and not worth my respect or friendship and put up a flag that announces to them that I am “the enemy.” I mean, not only do my neighbors put up Trump flags, they put up political signs for Ammon Bundy for governor. I could treat them as “enemies” or as humans that I disagree with but still respect their humanity. This gay dude was demanding that I treat them as my enmities, just because they are his enemies. Well, my sweet lesbian daughter would be the first to take down a pride flag that I tried to hang from my deck. The trans sister is not even out to her own parents because they want a relationship more than they want a fight. My daughter just wants to live her life and leave others alone. They don’t even fly a pride flag because they want to put relationships with people above their political ideology.




But to defend the exMos who become “us” who have left, and “them” idiots who are still indoctrinated, often it is a stage and if allowed to vent their anger, they get over it and start to see that people are just people doing the best they can with what they know. If they get beaten up by those still in, they sometimes harden into the black and white thinking as a permanent life style. They need to redefine themselves and often do that by outlining what they are NOT before they can clearly define what they *are* now. It takes time and if the process is not allowed to run its course, they get stuck yelling and screaming about what they are NOT instead of being able to move on to what they ARE.

So, to get them over this stage, you accept them as NOT mormon and get them to see more of who they are besides that one small part. I am not Mormon and I am sort of a Christian pantheist pagan agnostic, but mostly religiously confused, which is fine because nobody knows more than I do, so if they say they do they just lie to themselves. See, I have an identity beyond not Mormon even if it is “confused like everybody else.” This is Why Mormons who join another church move on but those who reject all religion and can only define themselves as what they aren’t often get stuck hating on Mormons.

Normal psychology of human development. Sometimes one has to define what they are *not* before they get a clear sense of what they are. You see it with men who are raised with a strong but loving mother and absent or weak father, who get stuck defining themselves as a man. Their only role model is their mother who is female and who they are NOT, so to try to define who they ARE, they start hating women because as a man that is who they are NOT and they don’t know who the hell they are as a man. They just know they are the opposite of female, so they become the *extreme* opposite of female because that is their definition of “man”. They reject the feminine in themselves and become a misogynist. Even stupid Freud saw that.

So, same way, a former Mormon has to accept that they are still kind of Mormon because you cannot just kill what you are to move on. So, we are all still influenced by having been Mormon and we have to come to terms with what that means and change the parts we don’t like and keep the parts we do like. The black and white thinking is one thing we have to tackle and change.

EXCELLENT post, writing, and thoughts.

[Mayan_Elephant]

The DeSantis type who use “woke” as an insult are certainly not awake and aware that they themselves are being whiny babies crying about their own victimization. “Oh, the big bad LGBT are out to get us.”

Clearly, the victimization contest is big and not very original. In the extreme, all sides use their so-called victimization to actually and literally victimize people. Isn't that the actual definition of gaslighting?

[moksha]

Being woke is a useful Buddhist concept that got appropriated by others and now has become an attack phrase used by political hacks on the right. If there was only some way that Buddhists could come out with a new brand of toilet paper called Sola Scriptura. People could use it when they needed to take a dump. Karmic revenge for making the sacred profane with the concept of woke.

[Angel]

The idea behind "woke", is to see people for who they are, and not their skin color, nationality, but each as an individual.

I have both Jewish and Palestinian students in class. One of my Jewish students was out for a week - their grandmother's home is now gone.

One of my Muslim students comes from a very progressive family - their mother refuses to wear the Hijab (they joke about not wearing the "ninja outfit"). One of the family members is held by our government for refusing to do some... sketchy stuff.

Another Jewish student - he has PTSD, you can see scars on his legs from past wars. I see him look at his phone and start shaking. He sits by the classroom door so he can take a walk if needed.

My husband recently returned from a trip to the middle east, came home right before war started.

These are not groups, or news articles to me - they are people I know, and see each day. People - not groups. I feel for those on all sides of it.

[Mayan_Elephant]

The idea behind "woke", is to see people for who they are, and not their skin color, nationality, but each as an individual.

I have both Jewish and Palestinian students in class. One of my Jewish students was out for a week - their grandmother's home is now gone.

One of my Muslim students comes from a very progressive family - their mother refuses to wear the Hijab (they joke about not wearing the "ninja outfit"). One of the family members is held by our government for refusing to do some... sketchy stuff.

Another Jewish student - he has PTSD, you can see scars on his legs from past wars. I see him look at his phone and start shaking. He sits by the classroom door so he can take a walk if needed.

My husband recently returned from a trip to the middle east, came home right before war started.

These are not groups, or news articles to me - they are people I know, and see each day. People - not groups. I feel for those on all sides of it.

Thank you, Angel.

You refer to this as a war. You refer to a start. Specifically, you say "before the war started." With so much connection to the area, I am curious what day or moment you, your husband, your students, and friends would consider to be the start. Would the answers all be the same?

[Mayan_Elephant]

The idea behind "woke", is to see people for who they are, and not their skin color, nationality, but each as an individual.

I do not doubt that the intention of "woke" had merit. Have you ever read anything by Jed McKenna? Spiritual Warfare? Way back in the way back days this was a book that got recommended a lot on NOM. It takes the sleeping/awake metaphor to a whole nuther level.

I also agree that the woke concept has been twisted and exploited. It seems that victimization raises more money and gets more attention than seeing authenticity.

[Mayan_Elephant]

Well, along these lines. There is a new speaker of the House - and he has been a populist. Nobody can perfectly predict what a person with a hammer is going to do, but indications are that Johnson will lean into populism.

I do not recall ever seeing a greater example of democracy working than what we just saw in the House removal and re-selection of a speaker. I hope that this not only ditched McCarthy but also set the stage for transparent selections.

For what it is worth, I have no skin in the game on this one. I did not vote in the last election and do not foresee my state ever hosting elections that will include my participation.

[Angel]

Thank you, Angel.

You refer to this as a war. You refer to a start. Specifically, you say "before the war started." With so much connection to the area, I am curious what day or moment you, your husband, your students, and friends would consider to be the start. Would the answers all be the same?

Oct 7th, 2023.
Oct 7th 1973.
May 14, 1948.
September 1, 1939...
... November 1917, the British government issued the Balfour Declaration, announcing its intention to facilitate the "establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people." In 1922, the League of Nations granted Britain a mandate over Palestine ...

Interesting to see the population changes in the area pre-WW2.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/je ... 17-present

[Mayan_Elephant]

Thank you, Angel.

You refer to this as a war. You refer to a start. Specifically, you say "before the war started." With so much connection to the area, I am curious what day or moment you, your husband, your students, and friends would consider to be the start. Would the answers all be the same?

Oct 7th, 2023.
Oct 7th 1973.
May 14, 1948.
September 1, 1939...
... November 1917, the British government issued the Balfour Declaration, announcing its intention to facilitate the "establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people." In 1922, the League of Nations granted Britain a mandate over Palestine ...

Interesting to see the population changes in the area pre-WW2.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/je ... 17-present

Thanks. Interesting. For some people, the war probably has a start date based on something written on a cave wall.

I live in Utah. At one point, this land was not part of the United States neither was it part of one nation under god. And yet, I feel like it has been long enough and this is my home. Some people live in Atlanta where the Muskogee and Cherokee lived. I am in no position to say when the boundaries were right and when they weren't. Nor am I able to say they were drawn incorrectly. I will never have all the information. I am empathetic to people caught up in this. I am not empathetic to sympathizers of terrorist crimes against women and children. That includes terrorism that gets women and children killed, not just the killing of women and children.

For what it worth, I have no empathy for neocons in my country either. This whole thing sucks.

[alas]

Thank you, Angel.

You refer to this as a war. You refer to a start. Specifically, you say "before the war started." With so much connection to the area, I am curious what day or moment you, your husband, your students, and friends would consider to be the start. Would the answers all be the same?

Oct 7th, 2023.
Oct 7th 1973.
May 14, 1948.
September 1, 1939...
... November 1917, the British government issued the Balfour Declaration, announcing its intention to facilitate the "establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people." In 1922, the League of Nations granted Britain a mandate over Palestine ...

Interesting to see the population changes in the area pre-WW2.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/je ... 17-present

Thanks. Interesting. For some people, the war probably has a start date based on something written on a cave wall.

I live in Utah. At one point, this land was not part of the United States neither was it part of one nation under god. And yet, I feel like it has been long enough and this is my home. Some people live in Atlanta where the Muskogee and Cherokee lived. I am in no position to say when the boundaries were right and when they weren't. Nor am I able to say they were drawn incorrectly. I will never have all the information. I am empathetic to people caught up in this. I am not empathetic to sympathizers of terrorist crimes against women and children. That includes terrorism that gets women and children killed, not just the killing of women and children.

For what it worth, I have no empathy for neocons in my country either. This whole thing sucks.

When did this war start? When Abraham decided it was a good idea to have sex with his wife’s slave. Then, he kicked Hagar out into the desert with a jug of water and a loaf of bread and her young son. He was a rich man, and surely his son deserved more than what his mother could carry on her back in such a harsh desert. He kicked her out, knowing the likely result was for both of them to die. So, when did this war start? Abuse of a slave woman.