On the Perils of Wokesplaining

 

This past week, Phillipa Soo, who played Eliza in “Hamilton,” tweeted:

Cancel culture: If you are ‘cancelled’ but do not wish to be, you must WORK to EARN back people’s respect by owning up to the thing that cancelled you in the first place, LISTENING to others, EDUCATING yourself, and ADVOCATING on behalf of the people that you have offended/harmed.
[The CAPITAL LETTERS FOR EMPHASIS are all hers.]

This is what I’ll call “wokesplaining.” But the term “woke” is a misnomer, because the people who engage in wokesplaining are actually quite unconscious concerning its inherent dangers. Ms. Soo, for example, apparently presumes that she will always be absolutely correct in whatever she says, and that the slightest criticism, or deviation from the accepted script, requires not only apology but penitence. This is hubris of the highest degree.

I obviously don’t know her, and I assume that her heart is in the right place, and she truly believes that she’s trying her best to right a wrong. The trouble with wokesplaining, however, is that critical thinking is discouraged, or, as her tweet suggests, possibly punished by banishment. In order to be acceptably woke, you must accept, without analysis, everything that BLM advocates dictate. I believe in the essential message of BLM, but I am unwilling to give blanket pre-approval to everything that any group says, and I do not intend to grovel to anyone because I said something that was deemed “offensive” by the powers that be.

When Ms. Soo talks about LISTENING and EDUCATING yourself, she doesn’t appear to mean listening and educating yourself at all. She means to shut off your brain, shut your mouth, and do what I say, the way I say. I cannot understand why young people and those in academia do not comprehend the dangers of this type of mob rule.

As Gen. Patton once famously said, “If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.” And as Professor John Henry Wigmore once famously said, cross-examination is “beyond any doubt the greatest legal engine ever invented for the discovery of truth.”

If you are unwilling to expose your argument to critical dissection because you might be “offended/harmed,” then why should I LISTEN to you?

And lastly, the conflation of “offended/harmed” is disturbing. They are two different things. Sometimes criticism may sting your pride, but it helps you to grow up.

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  1. philo Member
    philo
    @philo

    Gene Killian: I believe in the essential message of BLM…

    Where does the “essential” stop and totalitarianism begin?

    • #1
  2. Richard Fulmer Inactive
    Richard Fulmer
    @RichardFulmer

    Gene Killian: If you are ‘cancelled’ but do not wish to be, you must WORK to EARN back people’s respect by owning up to the thing that cancelled you in the first place,

    Oh, dear.  Ms Soo used the word “owning,” implying a respect for private property and harkening back to a time when some Americans owned other Americans.

    • #2
  3. Gene Killian Coolidge
    Gene Killian
    @GeneKillian

    philo (View Comment):

    Gene Killian: I believe in the essential message of BLM…

    Where does the “essential” stop and totalitarianism begin?

    I should have better defined “essential,” I suppose. I mean that black lives matter too, and I have no sympathy for cops who become bullies.

    • #3
  4. Franco Member
    Franco
    @Franco

    Gene Killian: If you are unwilling to expose your argument to critical dissection because you might be “offended/harmed,” then why should I LISTEN to you?

    Yes, and the tables could be turned the other way. Why not claim that you are offended by their language and assumptions? ( aside from the fact you’d lose your job) but Alinsky tactics make your enemy live up to their own standards applies here too.

    • #4
  5. philo Member
    philo
    @philo

    Franco (View Comment):

    Gene Killian: If you are unwilling to expose your argument to critical dissection because you might be “offended/harmed,” then why should I LISTEN to you?

    Yes, and the tables could be turned the other way. Why not claim that you are offended by their language and assumptions? ( aside from the fact you’d lose your job) but Alinsky tactics make your enemy live up to their own standards applies here too.

    But wokism is a one way street.

    • #5
  6. Richard Fulmer Inactive
    Richard Fulmer
    @RichardFulmer

    philo (View Comment):

    Franco (View Comment):

    Gene Killian: If you are unwilling to expose your argument to critical dissection because you might be “offended/harmed,” then why should I LISTEN to you?

    Yes, and the tables could be turned the other way. Why not claim that you are offended by their language and assumptions? ( aside from the fact you’d lose your job) but Alinsky tactics make your enemy live up to their own standards applies here too.

    But wokism is a one way street.

    So, outwoke them.  See #2.

    • #6
  7. Jim McConnell Member
    Jim McConnell
    @JimMcConnell

    Richard Fulmer (View Comment):

    Gene Killian: If you are ‘cancelled’ but do not wish to be, you must WORK to EARN back people’s respect by owning up to the thing that cancelled you in the first place,

    Oh, dear. Ms Soo used the word “owning,” implying a respect for private property and harkening back to a time when some Americans owned other Americans.

    Yes, it seems that many times the Woke’s words come back to bit them. With all the proscriptions, the accepted vocabulary continues to shrink.

    • #7
  8. RightAngles Member
    RightAngles
    @RightAngles

    “Shut up,” she explained.

    • #8
  9. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    RightAngles (View Comment):

    “Shut up,” she explained.

    Yes, you put it better than I would have.  But here goes:

    Whites can’t argue against the cancel culture because they are the oppressors.  Non-whites can’t argue against it because they’re race traitors.  Logic can’t be used against it because logic is a tactic of whites supremacy.  And apologies can’t cut it because there is no forgiveness.

    There is only kneeling in acquiescence and obeisance.  It’s quite a fool-proof ideology.

    • #9
  10. Gene Killian Coolidge
    Gene Killian
    @GeneKillian

    Flicker (View Comment):
    Whites can’t argue against the cancel culture because they are the oppressors. Non-whites can’t argue against it because they’re race traitors. Logic can’t be used against it because logic is a tactic of whites supremacy. And apologies can’t cut it because there is no forgiveness.

    I do wonder what people like Dorie Miller, Benjamin O. Davis, the members of the Tuskegee Airmen, or, for that matter, the soldiers in the 54th Massachusetts would have to say about exiling people because they “offended” you.

    • #10
  11. tigerlily Member
    tigerlily
    @tigerlily

    Gene Killian:

    I obviously don’t know her, and I assume that her heart is in the right place, and she truly believes that she’s trying her best to right a wrong.

    I think it’s wrong to credit these totalitarians with good intentions. It’s all about power over others and she is obviously fine with flexing this power as she sees fit.

    • #11
  12. Dotorimuk Coolidge
    Dotorimuk
    @Dotorimuk

    philo (View Comment):

    Franco (View Comment):

    Gene Killian: If you are unwilling to expose your argument to critical dissection because you might be “offended/harmed,” then why should I LISTEN to you?

    Yes, and the tables could be turned the other way. Why not claim that you are offended by their language and assumptions? ( aside from the fact you’d lose your job) but Alinsky tactics make your enemy live up to their own standards applies here too.

    But wokism is a one way street.

    That’s why white historical figures are portrayed by black actors without a peep, but my screenplay of Richard Kind portraying Malcolm X, with songs by Hank Williams, will NEVER be produced.

    • #12
  13. Giulietta Inactive
    Giulietta
    @giuliettachicago

    What gets me about the endless parade of Phillipa Soos isn’t in the words they write. It’s in the grotesque sense of moral authority they feel they wield over the rest of us. They will never believe the link that their opponents make between what they are doing and the Soviet apparatchiks who knocked on Osip Mandelstam’s door in the middle of the night because he wrote a silly poem about Stalin. They genuinely believe that they are on the right side of history because they can write a post about protecting the disenfranchised and about how to “rehabilitate” your reputation once it’s been shattered- when in reality it’s their own people who have done the shattering. It’s left up to their followers to feel a nagging in their gut that something feels wrong to quietly abandon the cause. The whole thing is poison. 

    • #13
  14. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    Gene Killian (View Comment):
    Benjamin O. Davis

    Oo.  That hurts to think about.

    • #14
  15. Nohaaj Coolidge
    Nohaaj
    @Nohaaj

    Gene Killian (View Comment):
    I should have better defined “essential,” I suppose. I mean that black lives matter too, and I have no sympathy for cops who become bullies.

    I have been struggling with this concept for a bit.  The struggle primarily lies in the contradictions of the BLM politic, and the real struggles associated with growing up Black. The BLM politic is an anarchist, Marxist, anti-family, intersectionality group.  It truly has nothing to do with making Black Lives Better, much less Matter.  I believe in the MLK Mantra of judging people by the content of their character, not by their skin color, and continuing the growth of our country to the ideals of every man being equal.  That is the essential part. That however is not the same as supporting the BLM political movement.  Re: police abuses: Of course! Police abuse can and does occur, and we need to vigorously address that, regardless of, and particularly when it involves racism.  

    • #15
  16. Architectus Coolidge
    Architectus
    @Architectus

    Gene Killian (View Comment):
    the soldiers in the 54th Massachusetts

    But wait!  They cannot speak up either, as will be clear when I reveal the white supremacy at the heart of that group:  Massachusetts begins with “Massa”, which is a colloquial form of “Master”, which we have learned is verboten.  Waiting for the state to initiate the name change…  

    • #16
  17. Joshua Bissey Inactive
    Joshua Bissey
    @TheSockMonkey

    Gene Killian (View Comment):

    philo (View Comment):

    Gene Killian: I believe in the essential message of BLM…

    Where does the “essential” stop and totalitarianism begin?

    I should have better defined “essential,” I suppose. I mean that black lives matter too, and I have no sympathy for cops who become bullies.

    That is not the essential message of “black lives matter.” Sure, there are people who believe that, and get sucked in because of the rhetoric, but the movement is about everything other than protecting life.

    • #17
  18. philo Member
    philo
    @philo

    Joshua Bissey (View Comment):

    Gene Killian (View Comment):

    philo (View Comment):

    Gene Killian: I believe in the essential message of BLM…

    Where does the “essential” stop and totalitarianism begin?

    I should have better defined “essential,” I suppose. I mean that black lives matter too, and I have no sympathy for cops who become bullies.

    That is not the essential message of “black lives matter.” Sure, there are people who believe that, and get sucked in because of the rhetoric, but the movement is about everything other than protecting life.

    Where does the potemkin message stop and the operative agenda begin?

    • #18
  19. Sisyphus (hears Xi laughing) Member
    Sisyphus (hears Xi laughing)
    @Sisyphus

    philo (View Comment):

    Joshua Bissey (View Comment):

    Gene Killian (View Comment):

    philo (View Comment):

    Gene Killian: I believe in the essential message of BLM…

    Where does the “essential” stop and totalitarianism begin?

    I should have better defined “essential,” I suppose. I mean that black lives matter too, and I have no sympathy for cops who become bullies.

    That is not the essential message of “black lives matter.” Sure, there are people who believe that, and get sucked in because of the rhetoric, but the movement is about everything other than protecting life.

    Where does the potemkin message stop and the operative agenda begin?

    Their webpage, which advocates the dissolution of the family and the defunding of the police, and their tactics in the field which involve the orchestrated violence and destruction.

    • #19
  20. Gene Killian Coolidge
    Gene Killian
    @GeneKillian

    tigerlily (View Comment):
    I think it’s wrong to credit these totalitarians with good intentions. It’s all about power over others and she is obviously fine with flexing this power as she sees fit.

    This is a fair point.

    • #20
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