Folks – we need a better political definition of Woke
As someone who likes to credit myself with the wide spread use of the word ‘woke’ as a derisive term aimed at identity politics activists in NZ, I feel we need an urgent redefinition of the term as the Right keep using it as a weapon to provoke culture war responses the Left can’t win.
As a class lefty, I see identity as an important personal journey that leads you to politics but feel Identity Politics becomes terribly limited in gaining the democratic 51% as its most shrill advocates in the cancel culture landscape manage to make progress as alienating as drinking a cup of cold sick.
Class solidarity can gain 51%, Identity Politics risks pure temple over broad-church and you get endless schisms and little to show for it.
For most ultra woke activists, their starting point is all white people are racist, every man is a rapist and anyone supporting free speech is a uniform wearing Nazi.
There’s not much intellectual wriggle room there.
That virtue-signalling-middle-class-micro-aggression-policing-identifiably-Green-Party-militant-bike-riding-vegan-condescending-supporting-pronoun-Spinoff-subscriber in your social media feed screaming endlessly at you in the ubiquitous world of social media certainly thinks they are shouting truth to power, unfortunately it all ends up as a cacophony of self righteous struggle sessions alienating the vast chunk of voters who just want to know how they are paying for the roof over their heads and the food on their tables.
So that’s ‘Woke’. Identity Politics activists suffering the narcism of petty difference and subjective triggering who put their identity above all else.
They engage in outrage olympics and cancel culture because it’s easier to shut down an idea because you have feelings than actually put together a cohesive intellectual argument.
It’s middle class and it’s very virtue signalling.
We get it wokies, your self created identity is more important than our shared humanity.
The problem is the Right keep using woke to provoke culture war over reaction that the Right points to and says, ‘I told you so’.
Now that feelings are the dominant currency over thinking and rational objectivity (because rational thinking and objectivity are a heteronormative white cis male privilege), peoples feels get hurt and they vote against their economic interests.
Wokeness wouldn’t be so toxic if the Woke hadn’t launched online cancel culture pogroms.
The Left needs to focus on the material well being rather than empty hashtag virtue signals.
The recent Ipsos survey highlighting the deepening cynicism of the NZ electorate should be seen for what it is.
Truth.
The study, conducted in February 2024, also shows a significant consensus among New Zealanders that the system is rigged in favour of the rich and powerful, with 65% agreeing to this statement.
That’s because it’s the fucking truth!
In 2010, the 388 richest individuals owned more wealth than half of the entire human population on Earth
By 2015, this number was reduced to only 62 individuals
In 2018, it was 42
In 2019, it was down to only 26 individuals who own more wealth than 3.8 billion people.
And in 2021, 20 people owned more than 50% of the entire planet.
We need a new taxation and regulation model to stop the neoliberal rot. We need to remove the yoke of taxation from the 90% and reset it to the 10% richest.
The Big Tech Tzars have manipulated our collective fear, ego, anger and insecurities through social media in a way that has led to the largest psychological civil war ever launched against one another.
Meanwhile, the planet burns and every aspect of our existence is monetarised for big data to sell us more stuff we can’t afford. We are alienated and anesthetized by a consumer culture that keeps us neurotic and disconnected. Our work, our existence, every move we make are all built to suck money to a minority class that sits above us while under neoliberalism, globalization, financialization, and automation, our existence as individuals has only become more disposable.
This isn’t progress.
Unfortunately the Left are culturally too busy micro aggression policing everyone under the rules of the new woke dogma while the Right are silently harvesting that alienation for more neoliberal exploitation.
The Political Left respond to rising extremism in NZ by leaning into the populism with Broadchurch Politics rather than alienating pure temple middle class Identity Politics woke dogma!
Rather than demanding to know why healthy, nutritious, job creating free school lunches aren’t be expanded to every school so all our kids benefit from the mutual coming together to eat, we are having bullshit debates about whether or not sushi is woke food!
Woke middle class activism has made our movement an alienating unfunny joke that the Right have weaponised.
Increasingly having independent opinion in a mainstream media environment which mostly echo one another has become more important than ever, so if you value having an independent voice – please donate here.
If you can’t contribute but want to help, please always feel free to share our blogs on social media
Cut the menu at Bellamy’s to Hospital Food Mondays, School Lunch Tuesday, Prison Food Wednesday, and so on.
See who cracks first.
Great idea, that would suit the “do unto others…” admonition so Luxon should be keen on the idea? I suspect the Tui billboard ad might apply since he has not shown the ability to care for anyone apart from his donors.
Bet you cant get a peanut butter white bread sandwich there
Outrage olympics and suppression is hardly unique to some middle class supposedly left group. Look at the situation with Israel. There is lots of outrage and suppression of voices that are against Israels actions in Gaza. Don’t tell me that middle class woke.
Stop trying label everything or put people in boxes . It’s tiresome.
Wheel. “ Stop trying to label everything or put people in boxes.” Agree. It’s sloppy thinking, generalising, and counterproductive. Better to drop the term altogether and address people or issues on their own merits, or lack thereof.
Yes, find a new word Bradbury to describe what cha wanna describe that wot you hate. ‘Woke’ ‘PC’ ….whatever ….you are tipping over the line with those right leaning expressions of derision or is it just your slip showing?
Lots of people are politically homeless. They have lost their political homes. So much information is available now people are no longer grouped together on the same side of the political narratives served up by msm.
People are confronted with more truth than ever before and more lies than ever before.
I call it social engineering if it is something that I am not in favour of. I can handle people being different but when people are forced to accept changes they are not comfortable with there is a problem. When civilised free speech is called hate speech it is wrong, usually the judgmental religious types should be censored as what they say is mostly wrong according to scripture although sometimes they mix some good thoughts in with their bile.
What a stupid meaning less word WOKE is .Why not just say what you mean ? If you think sushi is shit just say so dont use that stupid word stupid .Woke is becoming just like BRO or Fuck just a joining word or a word to use to get attention because you are talking shit again .
Spot on Gordon.
I can remember when I was woke. It was my dad telling me to get out of bed to hi milk the cows. He WOKE me up.
Said every woke “progressive” ever.
Cheers for putting your hand up GW.
Woke – A word the right wing use to describe anything that doesn’t sit with the farmer meat head base.
If the left had a catchy term for those who live for money, beer, rugby and 6 minute roots they should use it.
I’ll still go with brain dead fucks or beta squad 6
hehehe
Sushi is so mainstream these days, you can get it in the provinces and most small towns as well as urban centres if you like the stuff. Bizarre for Atlas Dave to call Sushi woke. It would be interesting to hear from Sushi purveyors in Epsom what they think about their MPs little tanty.
One of the contractors that produces school meals said on RNZ yesterday that one of his most popular snacks is carrot sticks and Hummus. Marmite sandwiches will not “cut” it after kids have experienced quality food.
The argument that people should feed their own kids or not have them does not wash with me. So does this mean all farmers should look after their own cows (M Bovis cost us millions to fix and is ongoing) and who let the disease in that wiped out millions of dollars of kiwi fruit crop and who helped pay for this. And when cyclone Gabrielle hit, how many growers, farmers and homeowners got help using our taxes. And when the earthquake hit Christchurch how much did our government pay out to bail out homeowners with many being uninsured? To say people should look after their own kids is selfish and plain dumb given, we have an aging population and very low birth rates. And does this mean only the rich should have kids. To give money to millionaire landlords is not fair as rents are rising no matter what (due to being market driven) as is food and many other living costs. We pay taxes but are going to getting less with run-down health services and poorly serving social insurance ACC making cuts when they already aren’t delivering. As for this woke bullshit does that mean our politicians won’t be eating sushi or couscous and what about all their perks shall we get rid of them too while we are at it.
Cut the menu at Bellamy’s let them eat luncheon sandwiches, cut all their perks they get like free Air NZ flights for them and their partners.
Cut the menu at Bellamy’s let them eat luncheon sandwiches, cut all their perks they get like free Air NZ flights for them and their partners.
Exactly, luncheon sandwiches on white–with no tomato sauce–would bring some of them back to earth. The entitled barely seem to realise they exist in a world of privilege and air conditioned spaces if Mr Luxury Luxon is anything to go by.
Martyn correctly diagnoses the problem, but I disagree about the proposed solution. We really DON’T need a better definition of woke. That’s just a doomed cul-de-sac leading to even more draining culture wars. “Woke” as a term is already lost, tarnished beyond any usefulness. Abandon it with no sentimentality, just walk away.
What progressives also need to do is stop _DOING_ wokeness, at least the toxic, performative, unauthentic version we’ve foolishly held us as “good politics for doing good” for the last 10 years.
Instead….
Big tent, build on common ground, non-violent, stop the snark, the name calling, the obsessive control over vocabulary, decisions made as close to the people most affected, socially responsible distribution of resources, and above all, build towards a government that governs as if the planet is finite !!!
If this all sounds fanciful, it’s been done before. There was once a little band of outsiders who built a movement like this, in NZ, widely regarded at the world first in what has become a global political brand. Lead with grace, wisdom and poise by R Donald and J Fitzsimmons.
I wonder…. whatever happened to it?
and what bank account has Willis put all these billions of savings into .I have not seen any evidence of a single cent being banked by any department into any government account at west pac .No its just creative accounting and paper shuffling.The physical savings have never existed because the money has never been paid to anyone .
Just more woke bull shit by a bull shit government
What about Lobster? Will they give that up?
Ha ha. I recall that there used to be lobster to waste around Kiwiland and people found it as common as anything and boring. Does anyone else remember whether that was true – back in the early colonial days that was.
True. In Kaikoura ( meaning ‘crayfish food’ ) in the 1950’s and 60’s and probably beyond, the processing plant by the wharf chopped off the tails for export and the remaining bodies were available for free to all comers.
Yeah nah, like it or not the word ‘woke’ perfectly describes an attitude and a set of actions which is why it has taken off the way it has. Might as well try to stop the tide coming in.
Woke is about unchangeable parameters.
Age, sex, colour, disability, ethnicity, sexual orientationThe wrong groups can only be sinners with no possibility of redemption.
Wierd way to run a religion, how do you get converts!
The reason why we are running out of electricity generation, is because the profit motive is embedded in our power system. Take the power motice out, we will have abundant generation. Genesis doesnt want to turn Huntly on because it eats into their profit margin.
Woke just means “anything that triggers the right” at this point
And the Tank with his right wing rant is back and no this is not a better outcome as the main players, the schools have indicated. Last time Seymour was a school teacher, nutritionist or principal was, well, never.
The pig and chook might have something to say about your sandwich choice. The power supply problem is because the generators don’t do preventive maintenance (it would reduce profits) and it only the consumer who suffers in a power cut.
It would be good to know what the savings are mostly generated from. I don’t think dumping more on teachers makes sense at all. Is it really all about ingredients? Seymour is an absolute tosser for not just getting on with it. No he has to act like a smarmy little bastard. He and Simeon Brown were separated at birth it would seem.
As far as the word “woke” goes, I see it as a cop out term that has long since passed its use by date. It has an appeal among the lazy who failed English SC, because they use it to describe any behaviour they disagree with. It certainly has mutated to well beyond its original definition. Now we move to the realms of vocabulary. In order to better define what we mean by “woke”. to foil the RWNJ who misuse the term, I suggest we on the left, start by adding prefixes to the word. For example, anything to do with food can be relabeled “culinary woke”, and anything to do with gender – “gender woke”, and so on. Just because RWNJ misuse our definitions for the “sake of brevity”, doesn’t mean we have to follow suit. We can prove our superiority to them by being specific about our labels, simply by adding clarifying prefixes.