MEDIAWATCH: Let’s talk about THAT woke Stuff column

23
1953

Yes, yes, yes. I know, I read THAT woke Stuff column too.

It’s funny how I now get privately bombarded by people who read bullshit identity politics columns and alert me to them while begging me to respond.

So allow me to.

The first thing that pissed me off about this was that it wasn’t marked as a Stuff readers opinion, it was just placed in the opinion slot.

That’s deceptive. I barely tolerate woke Stuff Opinion writers as it is, deceiving me into reading a Stuff readers opinion is a crime against journalism.

If I don’t respect the paid opinion writers at Stuff, why the Zombie Jesus would I bother with a ‘readers’ opinion?

It’s like those God awful interactives Stuff put up, a digital Disneyland for lazy adults. I just want the words thanks, I’m not a 12 year old with ADHD. That happened to me last week when I clicked on a living with disability story and it was a bloody interactive. I immediately clicked off while the computer scrambled to load up all the wizzbangs and graphics because fuck that, I’m busy.

So this reader claims that the woke are just lovely and we are mistaking their passion.

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Bullshit.

The Identity Politics Left has lurched into ‘Social Justice’ territory which alienates more than it attracts. As a Class Left supporter, I believe the demarkation of power in society is between the 1% and their 9% enablers vs the 90% rest of us.

Economic Justice does more than banning Gay Conversion, criminalising speech or gerrymandering the legal system to ensure anyone accused is found guilty, it redistributes wealth and makes direct provision to the cost of every day living. Beneficiaries and working class people care less about pronouns and the correct pronunciation of te Reo than they do about how to pay next weeks rent and power bill!

Pure temple doctrine divides & alienates. Broadchurch universals build solidarity.

I’m not interested in social justice wokedom any more, it is a minefield of competing schisms throwing vitriol at one another.

Twitter outrage is woke righteousness porn for the middle classes. A puritanical razoring where the self elected morality police publicly shame and cancel anyone for not using the language protocols of the conclave.

I am interested in Economic Justice and the immediate welfare of the poorest amongst us while providing immediate life condition upgrades.

We need to be kinder to People and crueler to Corporates.

The woke however are more interested  in micro aggression policing trigger thresholds where the quickest to take offence wins in a never ending grim roulette of intersectionist grievance where a cacophony of wounds jockey for social hierarchy.

The political is the personal now means what hurts me personally becomes political.

Before social media activists could only face each other off at protests or through letters to the editor or talkback radio. There were constraints of interaction but with social media there are none and it turns out the freedom to insult and dehumanise others is more addictive than nicotine, alcohol and meth combined.

Wokeness has become a puritanical religion with none of the beauty – it’s not so much the personal virtue signal, we are all dicks at times, it’s the weaponization by algorithms that make it so dangerous and damaging.

The danger of identity politics is that it locks people intellectually into only defining the world through their skin colour, genitalia or sexual orientation – it also becomes toxically subjective and tribal where the only solidarity is with other people who share the skin colour or genitalia or sexual orientation- without shared truths and values, the 1% and their 9% enablers continue to divide the rest of us 90%.

Let’s remind you of the holy trinity of woke identity politics dogma.

In the name of the non-binary mother, non-binary daughter and the monthly ghost: All white people are irredeemable racists, all men are rapists and anyone defending free speech is a uniform wearing Nazi.

The woke threshold for hate is so low that saying ‘hello what a lovely day’ can be immediately construed as a hate crime because how can it be a lovely day when the heteronormative white cis male patriarchy are still in charge, you are gaslighting me’.

All this Stuff reader is trying to claim is that his tribes purge of all they hate by demanding trigger free safe spaces from ideas they don’t like while demanding Hate Speech laws so their cancellation lynch mobs have more power is all a big misunderstanding.

Maybe.

But let’s just give the woke the total lack of benefit of the doubt they give us and see how they like their medicine.

While the middle class Identity Politics clique continue to find ways to divide us with social justice, economic justice can be a populist working class antidote to the alienation of woke cancel culture.

Meanwhile the Planet is burning and the poor can’t get housing.

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23 COMMENTS

  1. Amene.
    Right then! Start a campaign to have an early election as soon as to clean these fuckers out of parliament!
    Form a political party or movement or both based on the 7 Deadly Crisises that need addressing and if you’re a Wokester Politician You’re Out!

    Hehehe!

  2. The Woke consider themselves the superior people, with superior values and educations.

    They don’t expect the rest of us to understand or agree with what they do because we don’t have their superior values, but we should just shut up and get out of the way of our betters.

  3. NZ is dysfunctional. OK so we get that we want migrant skills, right?

    We have a rural doctor shortage and have a doctor trying to gain NZ permanent residency.

    Sadly with the identity politics, 3 criminals (10 convictions) get in before this doctor to become NZ PR/citizens and apparently 3696 residency applications were granted in the Skilled Migrant category in the 2020/21 year so we can’t blame Covid.

    OK, so not doctors, who are these skilled people? Farm workers on $20p/h working 80 hours for a 40 hr week, support nurse aids, construction labourers, fruit pickers, who knows, if we had a normal media it would be easy to find out…

    Lordy, we are in the middle of a pandemic, and government propose to freeze nurse salaries and not putting doctors applications to the front of the queue! Completely F-up.

    I know a few migrant doctors trying to gain NZ residency and working as doctors here, and my suggestion is that they quit medicine and go to work as a bus driver, so they can get their application through faster! That is the state of NZ’s version of ‘skills’.

    Being a doctor is now just so elitist.

    • How does identity politics effect immigration? Mass immigration for cheap labour has been around for decades and Neo Liberal economics is the reason for that. How is this a woke/identity issue?

      • @ Greenbus, The woke/neoliberals seem obsessed with immigration from countries which are outside of pension agreements and free health care for a start. https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1110/S00572/grey-power-warns-of-impact-of-high-immigration-rates.htm

        AKA someone from the UK can go back to the UK if it doesn’t work out and still access free health care, welfare and pensions. The woke and neoliberals want to ensure that we get people from countries where they do not have any or free welfare, thus those migrants never leave NZ easily, or if they do, they come back (Covid is a wake up call) when there is a reason to gain. AKA we have 70 years olds coming to NZ with Covid from India and getting MIQ places because they can easily gain NZ PR and citizenship.

        In addition the identity politic brigade are fundamentally racist themselves, for example, when immigration try to process the higher income jobs first (aka doctors) the woke say it’s racist. Well it isn’t racist, because I have a friend who is a doctor, from India, trained in the UK…. will be on a high income, but like all the other doctors who are not the woke favourite causes, aka celebrities, high needs migrants or criminally minded. Thus doctors like many others on high salaries as befitting their skills, are languishing while as seen by the article, 3 criminals were being pushed up first.

        The business braying the most gets the workers. Such as aged care support workers not doctors for the retirement industry, construction labourers, chefs and fruit pickers for the lucrative NZ visa trafficking. Thus we now have an overstayer, illegal worker and cash worker problem in NZ. Quality is suffering, it now full of thousands of unqualified people to build a house (at great cost) with one person signing it and then the councils pay when it fails.

        Each full time cash worker and employer operating in NZ, is eroding our welfare, ACC, and trust systems and creating massive infrastructure problems.

    • Fruit Pickers more in demand than Doctor’s obviously the Immigration Department is not up with the play, probably being processed in New Delhi or Manila ?

  4. Great words Martyn to throw round like mud pies. And what else can one do to wokeists It is necessary to take action but whatever you do they turn out to be victims. Perhaps along with captions that are satirical we could have a victim of the day column.
    I think this rant contains 95% truths.
    I am interested in Economic Justice and the immediate welfare of the poorest amongst us while providing immediate life condition upgrades.
    We need to be kinder to People and crueler to Corporates.

    The woke however are more interested in micro aggression policing trigger thresholds where the quickest to take offence wins in a never ending grim roulette of intersectionist grievance where a cacophony of wounds jockey for social hierarchy.

    The political is the personal now means what hurts me personally becomes political.
    Before social media activists could only face each other off at protests or through letters to the editor or talkback radio. There were constraints of interaction but with social media there are none and it turns out the freedom to insult and dehumanise others is more addictive than nicotine, alcohol and meth combined.
    Wokeness has become a puritanical religion with none of the beauty – it’s not so much the personal virtue signal, we are all dicks at times, it’s the weaponization by algorithms that make it so dangerous and damaging.

    • Hey I love your idea of a satirical victim of the day column (thumbs up). Martyn can we have that? Maybe add some agree disagree dunno don’t care buttons so we can vote our opinion whether we think they are a real victim or otherwise? Just for fun and light relief from the urgent real problems we face. Above article was a great read btw. Such a pleasure reading thoughtful articulate truthful pieces. I don’t think you even swore once either

  5. Too much use of the word woke for my liking Bomber. Your use of it is inconsistent and undefined. It seems to have multiple meanings for you.

    • If your understanding of wokeness is so clear to you Rodney please explain your views so we can get clarity too.

      • Woke or *Critical* Social justice (CSJ) comes out of various schools of Critical Theory (such as CRT and Queer Theory). It is a mis-application of Critical Theory, little to do with critical thinking and not a scientific theory. It largely ignore class politics and is not the Social Justice of MLK, 2nd wave feminism, 80s/90s gay rights etc which grew out of traditional liberalism.

        It is a narrative that society is spilt into oppressor/oppressed identity groups, along intrinsic dividing lines of race, indigeneity, gender, sex, sexuality. Every interaction across these lines is an oppressive power dynamic from the macro to the interpersonal. Every policy that does not result in equity (equal outcomes between identity groups) is oppressive.

        If Social justice asks did racism occur?, Critical Social Justice *knows* racism occurred and conjures a rationale supporting the narrative. The logic is circular.
        https://youtu.be/Ey04EWAuBhA?t=337

        This leads to the woke mission, that battling power differentials and achieving equity should be the core (or only) objective of all intellectual, artistic and cultural activity. Anyone not agreeing with this worldview is in some way misguided or immoral. It also reintroduces the idea that certain identity groups are tainted or exalted, a kind of neo-racism and neo-sexism.

        Like any ideology or religion there are some who are fair minded and not deeply indoctrinated and there are some who are intensely inquisitional. However, Woke or Critical Social Justice justice is a cuckoo in the nest of Social Justice and will throw the other eggs out one by one, starting with free speech.

        If you want a deeper dive Colman Hughes, John McWhorter and Wesley Yang are good places to start.
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12LAXsiDRPU
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-IU0zRiS-U

    • Thanks for that link. a clip: “Criticising “woke culture” has become a way of claiming victim status for yourself rather than acknowledging that more deserving others hold that status. It has gone from a virtue signal to a dog whistle” Jmo here, but how is that a negative thing? The urgent issues of today are not about social justice as such, but housing, productivity, wages, mental health, inter generational wealth inequalities not to mention health system, immigration madness, corruption and finally pandemic. I think Martyns use of woke is reasonable. It’s all relative of course to one’s situation and experience and values. There’s room for woke opinions, it’s just that there are more urgently pressing cluster fucks to address now that are having a devastating affect on NZ right now. Perhaps the stuff writer/reader was locked down and having a slow day so he voiced his opinion, who knows. It should have been clearly labelled as such, but then it’s not really that important, so long as the 90% keep the 9% in check while we work on the 1%

      • Isn’t that what Social Justice is about? That is, addressing inequality with respect to “Housing, productivity, wages, mental health, inter generational wealth inequalities not to mention health system, immigration madness”.

    • I appreciate this article. Thanks. It affirms what I have always thought. When people use Woke as a derogatory term it is confusing. It would be better if people talked about the actual things they object to and why instead of using blanket labels.

    • ‘Being aware’ is the shop front window dressing and for people who don’t go any further than that it is reasonably benign. Although I find it’s common that most woke-lite friends have some degree of belief that objective truth does not exist and to take the issue of race, that race neutral meritocracies or colourblind standards are not possible or desirable.

      However woke/critical social justice often advances by Motte and Bailey argumentation where a reasonable argument (Motte) is conflated with an unreasonable one (Bailey). Pushback on the Bailey is framed as a bad faith attack on the Motte and often a sign immorality.

      And example would be something like
      The Motte – Being aware that non-whites face challenges and discrimination in society that whites never/rarely have to deal with.
      The Bailey
      – Individuals can be reduced to a racial category which can then be loaded with connotations (eg the supposed privilege, negative traits and characteristics of ‘whiteness’).
      – Individuals are to be viewed as complicit for historic crimes of people who shared common identity markers.
      – State sanctioned racial discrimination and segregation is desirable to achieve equity (equality of outcome between identity groups). Incidentally is not the same things as targeted affirmative action. As I mentioned above, Critical Social Justice and MLK-style Social Justice are not the same and even opposing worldviews.

      Under this doctrine, it is reasonable for black students from multi-millionaire families at an elite university to berate a white professor from a working class background over her white privilege or for San Francisco Medical school to introduce racial quotas to support black and hispanic students, while cutting the number of asian students in half, I could go on. Objecting to this is to deny that racism exists or a sign of racism itself.

    • Here’s an interesting take on this “awareness”, it’s not what you think.
      “Despite its innocuous and feel-good appearance, the word awareness is a politically loaded one. To be aware is to be informed. But it also signifies being watchful, vigilant, on one’s guard. In its most neutral form, raising awareness can mean enhancing people’s consciousness of a problem. But in practice, it means demanding others adopt the awareness-raiser’s outlook and values.

      The practice of awareness-raising is often devoted to gaining support for attitudes that as yet lack significant support in society. Awareness-raising is not a response to a public demand for a new way of life. On the contrary, its aim is to create a demand for social and cultural practices that a relatively small coterie of self-ascribed awareness-raisers believe are good.”
      https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/09/17/100-years-of-the-culture-war/

  6. https://youtu.be/9liFXzxuuSM?t=53
    ;-). Turn’s out he’s right once in a while!

    Also they’re going after Nicki Manaj now in full force because she effectively said “my body, my choice” when it comes to the vax. Twitter has just locked her out of her account. First they came for Alex Jones. Then they came for Donald trump. Now they’ve come for Nicki Manaj(!). They’re eating their own. They will come for you.

    • Here she is on Instagram explaining what happened: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VU_F1-cTOTM
      “You can’t speak, for the fear of the mob attacking you”.
      “you will be isolated for simply questioning”.
      “we’re no longer allowed to voice our opinions”.
      Manaj is being hit with what can only be described as an Orwellian attack (she has 10’s of millions of subs btw). Cancelled.

    • The problem is that people who refuse to be guided by science cannot be reasoned with. It goes with the territory. We find this out the hard when we put screeds of evidence in front of them they won’t don’t can’t alter their stance. The default response has become to not respond to them or give them air.

      • So please don’t rant about your freedom of speech being curbed. Demonstrate that you are truly capable of open and informed debate before crying persecution.

      • All
        Almost all of “the science” surrounding both the virus itself (it’s origins, how it’s spread, what it does) and the vaccine has been changing every month. There is no “settled science” surrounding Covid. e.g. here is the director of the CDC (Rochelle Walensky) categorically saying saying something that turned out to be an utter falsehood (ti.e. hat those vaccinated do NOT carry the virus):
        https://youtu.be/Ngv07ekWS4w?t=78
        A few months later:
        https://www.cdc.gov/library/covid19/08132021_covidupdate.html
        “Trust the science”. Okay, but what, exactly is “the science”?

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