When two worldviews collide.

[Paidiske]

Woke becomes very relevant because that seems to be the best way to encapulate secular beliefs and ideas about morality and reality. That conflict with Christian views.

This is really too broad. Some woke ideas (assuming I uncritically accept the category "woke," for the sake of the argument) resonate very nicely with some Christian views.

I would have thought you were all ready familiar with ideas like CRT, Queer theory especially being a Feminist.

Some more and some less. But your list, for example, included social justice, which I certainly don't see an unremittingly bad thing, or as unrelated to Christian mission, either.

You don't think Feminism has had an influence to todays thinking. Certainly most ideas today have been influenced by Postmodern thinking as its an overarching intellectual period just like saying theories during Enlightenment were not influenced by Enlightened thinking.

Oh, I do think feminism has had an influence, but largely a positive one. But post-modernism is more recent than (for example) feminism.

I think I have made some points like the influence of Critical theories on todays thinking. No one has given their view on this but rather just dismissed it.

Your point about this hasn't been very clear to me. What exactly do you mean by "critical theories"? Is critiquing and challenging power structures always bad?

Thats a stretch to link that verse with Marxism.

I wasn't linking that verse to Marxism (although others certainly have done so). I was linking that verse to deconstructing existing powers and elites, and pointing out that the reign of God is very much about that.

I am starting to wonder how much of this worldview collision is really just about discomfort with challenging existing loci of power.

People lose their individuality under identity politics by surrendering their mind body and soul to the group identity. But under God and in Christ we are individuals right down to every hair on our heads.

We are individuals, but we participate in community and social life, and our relative position then still matters in various ways. I think, for example, of Paul's comments in 1 Corinthians 11:20 and onwards; each person might have individual financial means (and therefore ability to participate in the shared meal to a greater or lesser extent), but eating and drinking as individuals was not appropriate; those who had more were not to eat as if oblivious to the poverty and empty plates of those who had less.

You could decry the "identity politics" of Paul telling the rich to wait and share, but part of what he was trying to do was get the Corinthian Christians to see that they were, together, something more than just a collection of individuals, but one body. The body of believers sometimes takes precedence over the individual, particularly in matters of justice.

 

[stevevw]

But not to Christians.

Not sure what you mean.

 

[Bradskii]

Not sure what you mean.

Oh, c'mon. Don't be naive. Some of you guys do NOT treat people equally.

 

[stevevw]

Gosh, you think so?

But sarcasm aside (and apologies for that), you are on the losing side. The side that is losing support. There is absolutely no denying that. And so, as I said, you start squeezing something smaller and smaller and the heat increases. Which is exactly what we see. And there is no reasonable discussion to be had. Well, to be honest, it can still be there, but it's an endangered species.

You are struggling to keep it ticking over. And failing, I'm afraid.

How can the Truth, Fact and Reality be squeezed into something smaller or even out of existence in the end. It never can be. Society doesn't do well living without reality. Its not just about Christianity but also reality, the Nature of things which have existed in more or less the same form for millenia.

So has religion and Christianity has survived much worse and still came out the other side and continued even getting stronger.

I actually think in some ways its not the Christian/Conservative/Traditionalist position that is being squeezed out though I admit Christianity specifically is being pushed to the fringes and is deminishing. But we are beginning to see some resembelence of sanity coming back in some areas. Like with the NHS getting rid of unscientific Trans care Model as its go to treatment and instead advocating Psychotherapy. Other Organisations are placing less emphasis on ideology ande more on fact based approaches.

We have seen Woke being rejected by Big Corps customers and losing millions. The rejection of Woke Hollywood and the Royals virtue signalling. Parents and not necessarily religion parents are making stands against schools pushing unscientific ideologies and politics on their kids. Some say we may be turning the corner on Woke and coming to our senses.

But I don't think thats the case. I think we haven't seen the worst of it yet. It will manifest itself in other ways as it has done with its other forms like PC, Identity Politics and Cancel Culture. Its too deeply entrenched in our Insituations. It would take a generation or two to change things.

Poll: Overwhelming majority say cancel culture has gone too far

Poll: Overwhelming majority say cancel culture has gone too far

An overwhelming majority of voters said cancel culture has gone too far, a new Hill-HarrisX poll finds.Seventy-one percent of registered voters said they strongly or somewhat believe that cancel cu…

thehill.com

Is Wokeism on the way out?

Is Wokeism on the way out?

This is a perennial topic among those of us who consider wokeism a serious threat to the Left, to science, and to rationality. Is the present tsumani of wokeness inundating politics, businesses, un…

whyevolutionistrue.com

 

[stevevw]

Oh, c'mon. Don't be naive. Some of you guys do NOT treat people equally.

It was a genuine question. It sort of implied all Christians. Sure there are so called Christians who are what we might call fundementalists. But I think there are many who are good people and actually lend a hand to minorities aned disadvantaged people.

I think theres a misconception, perhaps stereotype of Christians. You have to remember that part of the core creed is to treat others as Christ did and help the needy. They are reminded of this just about everyday so it has to rub off. There will always be extremeists in all areas of life.

But I also think some if not most of what people percieve as not treating people equal is because of their beliefs. Because Christians may have beliefs that oppose certain beliefs of some minorities. But this is not being intolerant or exclusive. people can still have their beliefs and still support the very minorities they disagree with. That is exactly what Christianity is.

The churches I know around my area and the Christians that I have worked with all hold the same beliefs about SSM, LGBTIQ+ people, abortion, sex, ect but are at the forefront in helping those very people more than most as society doesn't provide proper funding. I am sure there is a lot the Salvos disagree with but they are up to their arm pits in cleaning up societies mess. Thank God for the Salvos.

 

[stevevw]

This is really too broad. Some woke ideas (assuming I uncritically accept the category "woke," for the sake of the argument) resonate very nicely with some Christian views.

Yes Woke in its original form is the awareness of injustice. But like most noble ideas they get politicized. Woke went from doing to being. It became something to measure virtue with. If you used Woke language and and admitted your White Fragility and unconscious racism you became a little more Woke. It wasn't about being moral but being seen to be moral and that is what people edisliked the most. As Christ did with the Pharisees.

Some more and some less. But your list, for example, included social justice, which I certainly don't see an unremittingly bad thing, or as unrelated to Christian mission, either.

Actually it was Critical Social Justice which is different though I think today what is known as Social Justice contains much of Critical theory. For example its not equality but equity as seen by how DEI underpins policy and law. Its more about equality of outcomes rather than opportunity which is a big part of Critical Theory like CRT and Critical Social Justice and therefore Identity Politics.

Many sources, both scholarly and popular, within the Critical Social Justice canon identify themselves as “unapologetically” committed to identity politics. Of particular note and central importance, the identity politics typically referred to within Critical Social Justice is distinct from and even “calls into question” “traditional civil rights discourse”

Critical Social Justice with regard to identity politics attempt to situate its own efforts (which forward equity as justice) as though they are in the same vein as the liberal equality movements that they simultaneously criticize as a way dominant groups have maintained control over subordinated ones.

Identity Politics

This entry in 'Translations from the Wokish' is an explanation of the term "Identity Politics."

newdiscourses.com

What sets Critical Social Justice apart is that it relies upon a critical theoretical approach. This is, in fact, the belly of the beast. It also makes clear why there’s so much weight to the wide-ranging attempts to brand this enemy with terms like Neo-Marxism, New Left (liberationism), and Cultural Marxism. Put simply, they’re not wrong. Critical Social Justice is critical theory. Moreover, this status is precisely what sets it apart from “mainstream standpoints” on social justice—the ones that represent its “true commitments.”

Critical Social Justice roots itself in a worldview that denies that anything is real (as opposed to being socially constructed), that objective truth isn’t possible (in the general sense, not the philosophically technical one), but that the subjective experience of injustice or oppression isn’t just valid or important but objectively real in how our societies are structured. Critical Social Justice is a kind of religious worldview that seeks to enforce Critical Social Justice and produce more activists for Critical Social Justice.

Naming the Enemy: Critical Social Justice

Over the last few years, it has become apparent that, for whatever nobility and moral worth lies in the project called “social justice,” something has gone badly wrong with the ideological movement on the far left that repeatedly calls for—or, more accurately, demands—it.

newdiscourses.com

This is an important destinction and only one of many behind the differences that underpins Left and Right positions on policy and law has changed compareed to how we use to do things. Remembering that traditionally equality was built equal opportunity for all and worked. Its only when you dig into this understand the philosophy behind it and trace its roots will you understand how important these difference are in achieving equality and a stable society.

Oh, I do think feminism has had an influence, but largely a positive one. But post-modernism is more recent than (for example) feminism.

Yest but Feminism like other ideas has been given a Postmodernist twist. Many of the ideas from the civil Rights, sex and gender movements fit well with Postmodernism the idea there is no Objective reality, Binaries and moral truth but rather self-referential subjective truth is real and trumps all. As these ideas are about subjective beliefs, feelings and ideas about sex, race and gender which never use to be the case they have been Postmodernized.

But more relevant is how Queer theory naturally flows from Feminism. The idea that gender is a social construction dominated by males except in Queer theory its about society being Heteronormative aned oppressing those who are gender non conforming. Much of Queer theory was built off the back of Feminist theory.

Your point about this hasn't been very clear to me. What exactly do you mean by "critical theories"? Is critiquing and challenging power structures always bad?

Critical thinking is different. Thats based on all availble measures especially rationality. The Critical Theories came about in academia after the 60s and 70s Civil Rights, Sexual and Womens Revolutions. Critical Theory is the basis for CRT, Queer Theory, Socail Justic Theory and some others. In fact today just about everything in Humanities has a Critical Theory application. I think one of the articles I linked went into this.

Baiscally it sees society aned the world as power relations and systemic oppression of minorities by the dominant powers be they the elites, males, heterosexuals, intellectual and even science being oppressive. This may be good to help unederstand some of the root causes of inequality and injustice but what the Critical lens does is make the world all about power relations and excludes the many other factors like individual ability, family structure, environment and happenstance.

This makes it a very restrictive view of the world and in fact a deivisive one as it implies most people are basically evil and racist or out to exploit others when they are not. Thats is why we are hearing about White Priveledge and Fragility, Toxic mascullinity and Heterocentric, the West is bad, reverse descrimination, Quotas and all that through DEI policies. It also makes minorities victims we have to give special treatment to which only creates resentment of inequality rather than equality and undermines merit which is a long standing principle of Western work ethic.

A critical theory is any approach to social philosophy that focuses on society and culture to attempt to reveal, critique, and challenge power structures.[1. Critical Theory (capitalized) is a school of thought practiced by the Frankfurt School theoreticians. Focusing on language, symbolism, communication, and social construction, critical theory has been applied in the social sciences as a critique of social construction and postmodern society.[8]

Critical theory - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I wasn't linking that verse to Marxism (although others certainly have done so). I was linking that verse to deconstructing existing powers and elites, and pointing out that the reign of God is very much about that.

I don't think Christ is about deconstructing anything. Its more about transformation. Deconstructing seems so mechanical and rigid and more about socially engineering society by force because to actively reconstruct something you have to set about undermining and destroying the existing system basede not on anything scientific or factual but on an assumption aned belief about how society and the world is ordered its nature. That is dangerous I think and how Totalitarianism is cultivated.

I am starting to wonder how much of this worldview collision is really just about discomfort with challenging existing loci of power.

I have no issues with that. I work in Social Welfare so I am always challenging the system to get funding, to get more for the disadvantaged. I see the system is rigged. But its not rigged like ideologues say it is where its all about power relations of oppressers and victims. Its rigged in many ways especially economically, materially, psychologically. Theres growing mental illness and disadvantage which doesn't have race or gender lines.

I find it ironic and even perverse that some think a white male who is struggling on the bread line perhaps with addiction and/or mental health and homeless is somehow priviledged, toxic and racist. Its the wrong message whichever way you look at it and Christ wouledn't be supporting that.

We are individuals, but we participate in community and social life, and our relative position then still matters in various ways. I think, for example, of Paul's comments in 1 Corinthians 11:20 and onwards; each person might have individual financial means (and therefore ability to participate in the shared meal to a greater or lesser extent), but eating and drinking as individuals was not appropriate; those who had more were not to eat as if oblivious to the poverty and empty plates of those who had less.

Yes but that was based on each individual regardless of race, sex or gender or any identity. It was about individual worth to the point that no one is greater or less than any other. He wasn't about ientity politics like we have today where society is split into every which way group all pitted against each other for who is most worthy and who is unworthy according to their identity group alinement.

You could decry the "identity politics" of Paul telling the rich to wait and share, but part of what he was trying to do was get the Corinthian Christians to see that they were, together, something more than just a collection of individuals, but one body. The body of believers sometimes takes precedence over the individual, particularly in matters of justice.

Yes together as one body and not as identity groups. They were united as one with a common worldview and belief. That is aprt of the problem today is trying to unite society when there is so much division. Partly because there are different beliefs and views trying to live together without any common belief, morals and identity that is transcendent of human ideologies about equality, divsersity and inclusion.

Its being under a common collective that we uphold the individual because gone are the divisions and all we are left with is the individuals within the group all with the same status if you could call it that. Like the Good Sheppard who loses one sheep and leaves the many to find it. Everyone is precious.

 

[Ana the Ist]

We can trace this back to after the 60s and 70s revolutions of Black minorities and Feminism. From this in the following years came CRT and Queer Theory. Gradually this narrative has infiltrated academia and into our Insitutions. Academics are mostly Left and now the majority females who by research are more sympothetic to these ideas. Those acaemics infiltrated into society dominating positions of influence on law and policy especially in legal studies. These theories have only hardened in a Postmodernist society where Truth and reality is self referential.

In some ways for many its a paradigm shift almost turning what was considered reality for millenia on its head and thats why people are reacting. But i think its also dangerous as it divides, creates resentment, envy and pride in self rather than any genuine nobel outcome for everyone.

I think social media has played as massive part as its changed the way we see the world from outside to inside. The focus is on self and not something outside of self. Social media has become a vehicle for venting persoanl views and along with this the growing shaming and codemning peoples behaviour as its easier to do behind closeed doors. But its effective and can influence society in many ways.

Imagine if we replayed the early 2000s and late 90s today. Imagine if the atheists who swarmed online to discuss, argue and debate Christians was something Christians responded to with "I'll dox this person and get them fired for what they said online".

People would think Christians were intolerant pieces of....

Yet when the woke do it....they give every excuse under the sun from "it's not happening" to "these are just consequences".

Which is why I've maintained that if we're trying to figure out who is the intolerant bigot in the room....and the choice is between....

1. A brainwashed woke college kid who can't debate anything and wants you fired.

2. A Christian who simply disagrees and is willing to discuss the issue.

Obviously, it's #1 all day every day. The irony is that they have turned Popper's Paradox of Intolerance into a meme to justify going after people's jobs and silencing them. They apparently don't know that Popper actually identified the "intolerant" as a group that's....

1. Unwilling to debate or compete in the marketplace of ideas.

2. Attempts to silence or punish those who disagree.

Which makes the woke the intolerant group we should remove from society.

 

[Whyayeman]

Which makes the woke the intolerant group we should remove from society.

And that shows how spurious the argument has been. 'Woke' still means anything the right wants it to mean. As Humpty Dumpty put it -

“When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’​

Lewis Carroll: Through the Looking Glass

 

[Bradskii]

How can the Truth, Fact and Reality be squeezed into something smaller or even out of existence in the end. It never can be. Society doesn't do well living without reality. Its not just about Christianity but also reality, the Nature of things which have existed in more or less the same form for millenia.

So has religion and Christianity has survived much worse and still came out the other side and continued even getting stronger.

I actually think in some ways its not the Christian/Conservative/Traditionalist position that is being squeezed out though I admit Christianity specifically is being pushed to the fringes and is deminishing. But we are beginning to see some resembelence of sanity coming back in some areas. Like with the NHS getting rid of unscientific Trans care Model as its go to treatment and instead advocating Psychotherapy. Other Organisations are placing less emphasis on ideology ande more on fact based approaches.

We have seen Woke being rejected by Big Corps customers and losing millions. The rejection of Woke Hollywood and the Royals virtue signalling. Parents and not necessarily religion parents are making stands against schools pushing unscientific ideologies and politics on their kids. Some say we may be turning the corner on Woke and coming to our senses.

But I don't think thats the case. I think we haven't seen the worst of it yet. It will manifest itself in other ways as it has done with its other forms like PC, Identity Politics and Cancel Culture. Its too deeply entrenched in our Insituations. It would take a generation or two to change things.

Poll: Overwhelming majority say cancel culture has gone too far

Poll: Overwhelming majority say cancel culture has gone too far

An overwhelming majority of voters said cancel culture has gone too far, a new Hill-HarrisX poll finds.Seventy-one percent of registered voters said they strongly or somewhat believe that cancel cu…

thehill.com

Is Wokeism on the way out?

Is Wokeism on the way out?

This is a perennial topic among those of us who consider wokeism a serious threat to the Left, to science, and to rationality. Is the present tsumani of wokeness inundating politics, businesses, un…

whyevolutionistrue.com

You said yourself upstream that you're losing count of all the subjects you can cram into that woke sack. Again, it's simply everything you don't like. That's the only commonality. It's a bumper sticker. It's a banner. It's click bait. It's a call to arms for those who like to capitalise truth, fact and reality. It's the bogey man under the rightwing bed. It's an excuse to avoid sensible discussion. It's a reason not to engage in thoughtful debate. It's a lazy substitution for considered opinion.

And you seem to use it quite a lot.

 

[rjs330]

I've seen this claim thrown around, but I don't particularly buy it. Allowing a very small proportion of the population to be accepted as members of the group aligned with their gender identity doesn't erode my rights.

Yes it does. Just cause you have not personally experienced it yet does mean it doesn't erode women's rights. If a man takes a job from a woman because he is a man, but you weren't affected by it, doesn't mean womens rights are not affected.

 

[rjs330]

Well, firstly, something meaning whatever you want, is not the same as something being meaningless. Meanings can shift and as long as the shift in meaning is agreed by the people engaged in conversation, that's not particularly an issue. Part of the reason this is difficult is that we're still in the process of discussing whether and how a shift in meaning can be agreed in our society.

Not true at all. If something has no.meaning outside of you and your definition, which by the way can change day to day, then in effect it is meaningless. If gender is whatever you want it to be then it's a meaningless concept. If I made up a word like fhithsts and gave it a definition, but that definition could be changed at any moment or any of us decided to make up our own meaning then the word is meaningless.

Gender as used today is a meaningless concept because no one can really define it outside the binary. Yet the claim is it means more than the binary. But when asked to define it outside the binary no one can. And we are met with any person can just define it for themselves. That's a meaningless word. And in this case a meaningless concept. It's shifting sand or trying to hold water in your hand in itaiquid form.

 

[Paidiske]

I don't think Christ is about deconstructing anything. Its more about transformation.

Sometimes transformation requires a measure of deconstruction. To put it in more Biblical language, the old has to die, to allow the new life to be born.

Deconstructing seems so mechanical and rigid and more about socially engineering society by force because to actively reconstruct something you have to set about undermining and destroying the existing system basede not on anything scientific or factual but on an assumption aned belief about how society and the world is ordered its nature.

You don't think maybe God knows what God's doing, in the ordering of society and the world?

I find it ironic and even perverse that some think a white male who is struggling on the bread line perhaps with addiction and/or mental health and homeless is somehow priviledged, toxic and racist.

He may well be privileged compared to the white woman in the same circumstances. But let me pick up on the "toxic" bit. Toxic masculinity doesn't mean men are toxic. It means there is an ideology of masculinity (which many people buy into) which is toxic. And it is toxic and harmful first and foremost in its impact on men. That white male may well have his mental health issues compounded by a measure of toxic masculinity; a concept which was defined because of the harm done to men by harmful ideologies of masculinity. It's not bad to recognise this!

Its the wrong message whichever way you look at it and Christ wouledn't be supporting that.

I'm not so sue that Christ wouldn't be accepting of ways of describing our society's besetting sins.

Yes together as one body and not as identity groups.

I think you missed my point. In Corinth, the rich had to recognise their relative wealth, and adjust their behaviour accordingly, in order to enable the body to be what it should.

I agree with @Bradskii that the way you use "woke" is not helpful for this kind of conversation, because it's very difficult to pin down exactly what you mean when you use it, and the paragraphs of stuff, for example, in your previous post are polemical, unclear and very difficult to engage with in any precise sense.

 

[Paidiske]

Yes it does. Just cause you have not personally experienced it yet does mean it doesn't erode women's rights. If a man takes a job from a woman because he is a man, but you weren't affected by it, doesn't mean womens rights are not affected.

There's some burning irony. Men taking jobs that a woman might have had, because they are men, is a far more endemic problem than anything to do with transgendered people. Get back to me when you're concerned about women's access to workforce participation across the board, and not just when there's a transwoman in the picture.

Not true at all. If something has no.meaning outside of you and your definition, which by the way can change day to day, then in effect it is meaningless. If gender is whatever you want it to be then it's a meaningless concept.

A word means whatever the people using it agree that it means. The issue at the moment is that the meaning of some words is being contested. I expect that'll work itself out over time.

 

[Bradskii]

But I also think some if not most of what people percieve as not treating people equal is because of their beliefs. Because Christians may have beliefs that oppose certain beliefs of some minorities. But this is not being intolerant or exclusive. people can still have their beliefs and still support the very minorities they disagree with. That is exactly what Christianity is.

You should get around in the forum a little more. I've just been quoted a passage from Romans elsewhere where it says that gays deserve to die. There's some furious backtracking on that (hey, I left that bit out!) but still a definite agreement that they are, quote, an abomination. Can't you just feel the love..?

Maybe you can join in and tell them what you just told me.

 

[Ana the Ist]

I think you'd have to deal with specific examples here, since different disciplines would require different approaches. I'm not sure it's really necessary for this thread, since this particular part of the conversation only came up because you suggested my approach would get me labelled a TERF (as if whether or not someone thought me a TERF was relevant).

Ok....can you prove Butlers conception of gender as it relates to trans people true? Probably not, right?

The relevance of Butler's work to this thread is that it's helpful background for understanding some of the ideas being discussed.

Remember back when I said yours was the "faith based dogmatic position"?

Butler would be the dogmatic authority you've accepted as true on faith.

When it's "on" in a binary system.

You mean as a binary language?

That doesn't refer to the concept of the number 1.

In a binary language 1 is just a symbol meaning "on" and 0 is just a symbol meaning "off". We may use the same Arabic numerals for the language....but we aren't talking about the numerical concept of 1.

Try again.

Or, more relevantly, perhaps, here's an example of a situation where 1+1 doesn't equal 2. I don't pretend to understand that level of maths, but if you do, have fun with it.

If you don't understand it there's no real point in me refuting it is there?

Never having been involved with the CWA myself, I don't know whether they allow men to be guests, but their membership is only open to women.

So you say....and I could be wrong....

But I pulled this image from their website and guy in Grey and black striped shirt looks a lot like a guy to me.

Again, I could be wrong but perhaps you're mistaken about it being sex segregated. Perhaps he isn't a member and he's just a supporter. I can't say for certain, I doubt you can either, so maybe you should find another example.

You can't have it both ways, though, Ana.

I'm not trying to.....there's no "social definition" of female that's coherent. It's a biological definition. The trans activists try to come up with a "social definition" whenever someone asks them "what is a woman?" and they fail every time. "Someone who identifies as a woman" is a circular definition....we don't know what it is they are identifying as.

This is why they keep struggling with that question and make no mistake, they are struggling. Here's an example....

Now, I know you said you don't watch videos because anyone can put anything in a video...but I couldn't find the specific clip used in this segment. I'm going to hold you to your own claims of "science isn't the only way of knowing the truth" and ask you to watch these people struggle with how to respond to what they call a "gotcha" question of "what is a woman?"

You'll note that not only do they fail to come up with any answer....they don't even have a suggestion for getting around it. That's because there's no "social definition"....only a definition that refers to the objective biological reality.

You were trying to argue that when someone claims "transwomen are women," that they were claiming to be, literally, biologically and reproductively female.

I don't know why you throw the word "reproductively" in there (actually I know exactly why you throw the word reproductively in there) because I've acknowledged that a woman who had had a hysterectomy or has reached menopause is still biologically a woman.

Yes, when I say that trans women are demanding changes of language and access to sex segregated spaces....that's because they're seeking to remove any acknowledgement of biological reality. There's no "socially constructed penis" let alone a socially constructed woman's penis.

That's why you don't have any examples of a demand for social inclusion. If men and women's restrooms and locker rooms were socially segregated and not biologically segregated.....then the argument would be....

Men should be able to use the women's restrooms, locker rooms, showers, etc....because these are mere social norms unrelated to biology.

Nobody is arguing that though. Instead they are arguing that men can become women if they feel like a woman and enter these biologically segregated spaces for women only. The fact that you can't find any examples of the italicized argument above is telling.

I demonstrated that (in at least the case of this author) that is not what is being said, and here you concede that it's "wordplay," (or as I described it, an attempt to shift the boundaries of a social category).

It is wordplay. It's a political tactic of postmodernism. There's no social definition of woman though....it's a biological distinction.

I'm not saying that there's no places or societies where a social construct of woman exists. In places like Afghanistan, women aren't allowed outside of the home (with a narrow range of exceptions). These places have a biological definition of a woman....but they also have a range of socially constructed norms and behaviors which apply to women arbitrarily. The Taliban doesn't believe women need an education. In Saudi Arabia, the testimony of 1 man is equal to the testimony of 2 women. There's no lack of examples of what you're talking about in these places....

Yet somehow, you can't seem to find any here in the US or Australia that trans women are demanding access to. That's because we've done away with them. The few that remain only remain because they aren't socially constructed but instead relate to biological differences.

This is what I have been describing as sexed brain development incongruent with the reproductive development of the body. So very much related to biology.

Exactly. This is the "Wrong Body Model" as explained by the short paper you cited. It doesn't use the term "gender" describe the problem at all.

Isn't this obvious? Isn't things like, allowing transwomen to join (for example) the ladies' fellowship, or transmen to join the Men's Shed, an example of shifting the social category (of "people eligible to join our group") away from being totally based on reproductive biology, to having a little more flexibility and nuance?

Are these real demands made by trans people somewhere?

Here in the US, the demands are all related to biology. They want access to women's restrooms, they want access to women's prisons, they want access to women's sports, they want to eliminate biological distinction from language, they want to teach children that boys can become girls and women can have a penis.

If being able to join the women's knitting club of Dover, Connecticut is a real issue...I haven't heard of it.

Dysphoria.

A condition that is neither fatal nor permanent in the majority of cases doesn't justify experimenting on children with permanent damage as a result.

You don't think that's behind any of the cultural discourse which gave rise to the OP?

No. I think the OP is trying to understand why a dogmatic faith based view has come to entrench itself in the political left.

You don't find everyday life gendered in all sorts of ways?

I see girls wearing dresses and boys playing football but those are choices....not forced by law. See Afghanistan example above.

From what range of dress is considered appropriate (or is even readily available to buy that fits your body), to what is considered "professional" self-presentation, to expectations and norms in the workplace (just for starters)?

See above.

I found that post to be more of a rhetorical flourish than a helpful contribution to the discussion,

Consider it as a serious, if brief, explanation of how this came to happen. My "expertise" is in political science and theory after all.

but I was hoping to encourage a bit more constructive engagement with @stevevw.

I think you prefer the safety of an argument that you can frame as one of your morally righteous fight against bigotry.

Perhaps, but the problem there wasn't about "deconstructing existing powers;" as I was pointing out to @stevevw, the reign of God is very much about deconstructing existing powers.

Doesn't your god insist upon rendering unto Caesar what is his?

Where we locate ourselves in existing power structures might well colour how we receive the Kingdom.

If your new dogma is about destroying existing power structures.....then should we not consider your politics inherently destructive to society?

That would make sense, wouldn't it?

Does your new set of political values view the current order fundamentally rotten and therefore in need of being destroyed?

 

[Ana the Ist]

And that shows how spurious the argument has been. 'Woke' still means anything the right wants it to mean. As Humpty Dumpty put it -

“When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’​

Lewis Carroll: Through the Looking Glass

I'm not on the right (though it may appear so to the extreme left).

I've given both a broad definition of the woke that anyone but the woke seem capable of understanding... and I've outlined the core beliefs of the woke more specifically which the woke seem to deny (yet confirm inadvertently throughout the thread).

Yet that actually isn't a problem with Popper's Paradox of Intolerance.

If you're willing to debate your ideas (and Popper even explains the basics for that) and can accept the results (for example, failing to convince anyone) then you have nothing to worry about....you are perfectly entitled to share our society and it's human rights to free speech.

If however, you cannot do this, and seek to silence or punish those who disagree because they make you sound foolish...or are more convincing....or even because their views offend you....

You are the intolerant that Popper (and the philosophers he borrowed like Plato) sees as a threat to a free society and a force of authoritarianism and totalitarianism that should be removed.

We aren't obligated tolerate the intolerant.

 

[Paidiske]

Ok....can you prove Butlers conception of gender as it relates to trans people true? Probably not, right?

Honestly, I don't know that I understand Butler's conception of gender well enough to be able to mount a fair and robust argument either way.

Butler would be the dogmatic authority you've accepted as true on faith.

I didn't say I agreed with Butler about everything (or anything, in particular). Just that hers was a voice to be reckoned with in this discussion.

You mean as a binary language?

That doesn't refer to the concept of the number 1.

My point exactly. Even something apparently simple and straightforward can carry multiplicity of meaning.

If you don't understand it there's no real point in me refuting it is there?

If you can explain it well enough to refute the claim that it's an instance where apparently simple arithmetic doesn't hold, go for it.

So you say....and I could be wrong....

But I pulled this image from their website and guy in Grey and black striped shirt looks a lot like a guy to me.

Again, I could be wrong but perhaps you're mistaken about it being sex segregated. Perhaps he isn't a member and he's just a supporter. I can't say for certain, I doubt you can either, so maybe you should find another example.

I can find the part of the website that says "membership is open to all women."

That's because there's no "social definition"....only a definition that refers to the objective biological reality.

Here's a real life example, albeit a relatively frivolous one. The local churches around here host a monthly men's breakfast. When I arrived to take on this parish, I was informed that as the priest, I was welcome at the men's breakfast despite being a woman; I would be considered an "honorary man." That is an example of a social definition; this group is open to men, and select "honorary men" whom the group wants involved for particular purposes.

Yes, when I say that trans women are demanding changes of language and access to sex segregated spaces....that's because they're seeking to remove any acknowledgement of biological reality.

Or more to the point, downplaying biological reality as the only determinant of social involvement.

Instead they are arguing that men can become women if they feel like a woman and enter these biologically segregated spaces for women only.

I have literally found sources demonstrating that this is not the argument. That someone doesn't become biologically a person of the opposite sex, but that "womanhood" (or "manhood") shouldn't rest on biological sex.

Are these real demands made by trans people somewhere?

Demands might be too strong a word, but certainly requests.

I see girls wearing dresses and boys playing football but those are choices....not forced by law.

Some are enforced by policy (eg. in schools and workplaces). But more are underpinned by significant social pressure.

Consider it as a serious, if brief, explanation of how this came to happen. My "expertise" is in political science and theory after all.

And I appreciate that you are making, at least, informed and intelligent contributions to the thread. But I didn't find much of substance in that post that I could even frame a response to.

I think you prefer the safety of an argument that you can frame as one of your morally righteous fight against bigotry.

I'd prefer specifics that can be examined, rather than broad-brush-stroke claims like saying none of these causes any longer have any worthwhile goals. As if there's no harm done in the world any more by racism, or sexism, or homophobia, when this is demonstrably false. It just seeks to belittle whole areas of worthwhile endeavour and sweep them away (rhetorically) as irrelevant.

Doesn't your god insist upon rendering unto Caesar what is his?

And the underlying question is, what is properly Caesar's, and what is God's?

If your new dogma is about destroying existing power structures.....then should we not consider your politics inherently destructive to society?

It's not a new dogma. After all, they didn't crucify Christ because he was nice to people. They crucified him because he was a threat to the powers that be.

So; unjust powers are challenged. Through a particular lens, I guess that could be seen as "inherently destructive," but I think the question is, what are we seeking to put in place, and is that any better?

Does your new set of political values view the current order fundamentally rotten and therefore in need of being destroyed?

To some degree, yes. That is, after all, part of the Christian message. That in the end all that is evil and unjust will be destroyed, and the reign of God will be complete. As in 1 Corinthians 15:24: "Then comes the end, when [Christ] hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every ruler and every authority and power."

 

[stevevw]

You should get around in the forum a little more. I've just been quoted a passage from Romans elsewhere where it says that gays deserve to die. There's some furious backtracking on that (hey, I left that bit out!) but still a definite agreement that they are, quote, an abomination. Can't you just feel the love..?

Maybe you can join in and tell them what you just told me.

I am sure there are Christians there who would say that. The bible names the sins that will lead to people being judged and seperated from God. But just expressing that belief is not hateful anymore than someone saying that anyone stealing a car or descriminating against someone will be judged and punished by secular law.

 

[Lukaris]

You said yourself upstream that you're losing count of all the subjects you can cram into that woke sack. Again, it's simply everything you don't like. That's the only commonality. It's a bumper sticker. It's a banner. It's click bait. It's a call to arms for those who like to capitalise truth, fact and reality. It's the bogey man under the rightwing bed. It's an excuse to avoid sensible discussion. It's a reason not to engage in thoughtful debate. It's a lazy substitution for considered opinion.

And you seem to use it quite a lot.

You should get around in the forum a little more. I've just been quoted a passage from Romans elsewhere where it says that gays deserve to die. There's some furious backtracking on that (hey, I left that bit out!) but still a definite agreement that they are, quote, an abomination. Can't you just feel the love..?

Maybe you can join in and tell them what you just told me.

The passages you refer to are probably Romans 1:18-32 and that is the judgment of God regarding His moral law. This is the same moral law that was given to Moses. If you read Leviticus 18, 19, 20 ( for ex.) much of the sin Paul summarizes is in Romans 1 is detailed there. In the sermon on the Mount, Christ preached forgiveness so no human could exploit the moral laws to put another human to death ( among other things). He didn’t change the moral law and this is what Paul means when he later says that all have sinned ( Romans 3:23) & ultimately the wages of sin is death ( Romans 6:23).

This is standard Christianity but the world hates to hear this. I highly doubt most worldly secularists & certain “Christians” actually want to “discuss” any of this.

 

[stevevw]

Sometimes transformation requires a measure of deconstruction. To put it in more Biblical language, the old has to die, to allow the new life to be born.

But the old self dying and someone being reborn is a transformation within the same structure and besides if there is any reconstructing it is by God and not some ideologue based on human ideas about how society should be deconstructed and reconstructed. Thats why I say any effort to socially engineer society should be viewed with suspicion as it is more about an agenda.

You don't think maybe God knows what God's doing, in the ordering of society and the world?

Are you saying the Ideologues who push social deconstruction and reconstruction are doing Gods work.

He may well be privileged compared to the white woman in the same circumstances.

Man this is what I dislike about this thinking. People still have to find that the poor guy is wrong in some way so that the minority groups given special victim status are still elevated. Its very divisive and pits people against each other. Its the fact that this view of the world has to be applied as the fundemental way we should see all differences in society and ignores the many other contributing factors like personality, effort, merit, environment.

It could be that the the white women comes from a rich family and gets a to education or a coloured person recieved a scholar and on their way to a good job and still the poor white guy is viewed as being priviledged, toxic and unconsciously racist.

But let me pick up on the "toxic" bit. Toxic masculinity doesn't mean men are toxic. It means there is an ideology of masculinity (which many people buy into) which is toxic. And it is toxic and harmful first and foremost in its impact on men. That white male may well have his mental health issues compounded by a measure of toxic masculinity; a concept which was defined because of the harm done to men by harmful ideologies of masculinity. It's not bad to recognise this!

I wish I didn't mention toxic now as I know you are a Feminist. We have gone through this before. Yes men behave badly but its the word Toxic that is offensive like men are poisonous or something. But using such a word like that shows the thinking it denegrates people and pits people against each other. Maybe they should get some PR as the message and approach is not working. But that is to be expected when people politicize things and ideologies become the dominant beliefs.

The same mentality is behind CRT and Queer theory. Thats why now we don't just have sex and race wars but now gender wars even among the LGBTIQ+ community. The ideological thinking is dangerous and deividing society. It all comes from the same mold.

I'm not so sue that Christ wouldn't be accepting of ways of describing our society's besetting sins.

Do you honestly think ideologues that support these ideas are representing God. Most don't vene believe in God, they hate God because His Truth convicts them. But you are sort of right that the ideologues think Westerners are sinners against the new Woke religion and want to destroy their systems. But if they are not for Goed then who are they for.

I think you missed my point. In Corinth, the rich had to recognise their relative wealth, and adjust their behaviour accordingly, in order to enable the body to be what it should.

Humm and yet it was still ok for them to be relatively rich for the rest of the time. Sounds more Woke to me in the sense that people want to seen as being moral in the presence of others but then are just the same as everyone else for the rest of the time.

I agree with @Bradskii that the way you use "woke" is not helpful for this kind of conversation, because it's very difficult to pin down exactly what you mean when you use it, and the paragraphs of stuff, for example, in your previous post are polemical, unclear and very difficult to engage with in any precise sense.

That is why I said that the fact you are unfamiliar with these theories and ideas about the world doesn't help because then I have to educate you before we can even have a coherent discussion. It also doesn't help that when I do try to do this its ignored. From my educated position Woke seems to be the best capture of what is happening. Like I said it use to be Identity Politics and also Political Correctness which we all know is a problem and people were happy to use those words.

But we can call it something else that goes by many names or we can call it nothing. It doesn't change the fact that its happening. The problem I see is that ideologues have overused the word and given it life with another meaning. All I and others are doing is using their own language. Google Woke and you will get 100s of links that talk about the modern day meaning. Its not rocket science to see what is meant by Woke today.