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[return to "The Origins of Wokeness"]
1. Ukv+rD[view] [source] 2025-01-13 15:49:49
>>crbela+(OP)
> Imagine having to explain to a well-meaning visitor from another planet why using the phrase "people of color" is considered particularly enlightened, but saying "colored people" gets you fired. [...] There are no underlying principles.

To understand much of our language, Gnorts would have to already be aware that our words and symbols gain meaning from how they're used, and you couldn't, for instance, determine that a swastika is offensive (in the west) by its shape alone.

In this case, the term "colored people" gained racist connotations from its history of being used for discrimination and segregation - and avoiding it for that reason is the primary principle at play. There's also the secondary/less universal principle of preferring "person-first language".

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2. smikha+ye1[view] [source] 2025-01-13 18:50:19
>>Ukv+rD
I can't for the life of me comprehend how PG manages to write in a style that sounds so lucid, so readable and compelling, and so authoritative, but on a substance that's so factually incorrect that it won't stand to any bit of critique.

Like the paragraph quoted above: it's just so blatantly obvious what's wrong with turns like "considered particularly enlightened", or "there are no underlying principles" that I find it hard to believe that the text as a whole sounds so friendly and convincing, unless you stop and think for a second.

I wish I could write like this about whatever mush is in my head.

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3. snotro+On1[view] [source] 2025-01-13 19:26:41
>>smikha+ye1
I think it's called "from first principles", which is the laundered term for "disregarding context and previous work, because I don't feel other people's work is worth anything".
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4. nomel+ul2[view] [source] 2025-01-13 23:59:54
>>snotro+On1
These are my favorite to read since it contains a full, traceable, logical path to get to a conclusion. It's much easier to understand why they think something.

On this flip side, my least favorite are when someone name drops thinkers as a way to reference an ideology. It's very hard to actually know if someone understands the ideas behind that name, so it's usually impossible to understand why they think something.

And, the names they drop often were the types to present their thoughts as the first, rarely, if ever, dropping names themselves, which I always find an amusing "they were allowed be free thinkers, but you can't!"

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