zlacker

A big swing and a miss by Paul Graham for a season-losing strikeout. Above all, he begs the question in the original sense of "beg the question" - he defines the terms "woke" and "wokeness" by themselves. He uses the secondary and willful redefinitions of those who would permanently corrupt the terms. Further, he excludes the original and true meanings of "woke" and "wokeness" by denying that they are still in play or still in use merely on his say-so, perhaps because that conveniently fits his narrative. Excluding contradicting data is how you corrupt an analysis to match the thesis statement. Additionally, matching the terms to anything to do with "political correctness" is the same: borrowing the right's redefinitions in a circular question-begging fashion. It's also all rather unoriginal and tired. We've had many decades of this anti-political correctness sophistry if not so well-written. It's cud pre-chewed by a thousand dull-eyed ruminants. What is accomplished here? I think we've only learned about Paul Graham and it isn't flattering.

>>gumbos+(OP)
Eh, it’s par for the course for a blog post—some good, some inchoate, a little wrong.

I appreciate having the word “prig” to replace criticism of both wokeness and the new right Silicon Valley’s Musk-Trump worship.

>>JumpCr+U
I agree, but I think in the context of pre-twentyfirst-century religiosity, "prig" had the connotation of a person who was, yes, a huffy moral scold, but essentially harmless. In the context of current wokeness, there is a very real intent and ability to destroy lives. (As for the new right tech bros, I'm not sure if any prigs really have the power to hurt them seriously, though certainly Elon's investment in Twitter has taken quite a hit.)

>>pmdula+68
> As for the new right tech bros, I'm not sure if any prigs really have the power to hurt them seriously

The new right tech bros are doing their own cancellations. Silicon Valley traffics in old tweets critical of Musk or Trump like the Victorian courtesans Graham ironically criticises.