Dean Martinez's comments really connected with me because one thing I notice among my fellow left-of-center brethren is we've gotten pretty bad at debating. Early in college, I would get internally outraged when people argued against egalitarian economic policies. Basically in my head I was thinking, "Goddamnit, we are just trying to help people! Stop being so damn selfish!" As I got more exposed to different ideas (I went to a state school in purple Wisconsin) and got to know certain people better, it helped me become a better debater. Echo chambers hurt those in them more than anyone else. I just think that we have to try and figure out a way to reach woke people. While I agree with basic everything in Josh's article, this type of argument is only going to appeal to people that are already skeptical of wokeness. DeBoer has a similar problem where he just so clearly hates these people, that he's just not going to reach any wokesters. The approach to wokesters has to be the same as the approach to Trump supporters: acknowledging there is a human there capable of thought and persuasion. We aren't going to lessen woke influence by just constantly making fun of them. We have to listen to their concerns, calmly tell them that their rhetoric is alienating (actually we should try to educate! That is our job!), and patiently persuade. OK. I'll step off my earnest box!
Over the past several years - but undeniable now for three - way too many people have selfishly decided to borrow their employers’ microphones. It’s always about self-aggrandizement, even when rationalized as “we have an obligation to...”.
Next to zero regard for the customers of these institutions - unless you consider know-it-all parochialism “regard.”
The worst part is that now the Desantis crowd has decided that the solution is to do the same in reverse. Meanwhile, most of us are stuck in the middle of the food fight.
There's a peculiar dynamic in my profession where the professional staff at the research journals and the popular science writers (extreme example: Scientific American) have become way more woke than the median scientist. For example, there were a couple of "shut down STEM for racial equity" days a couple years ago and various journal staffs participated, including Nature, but I observed 0% participation among actual research scientists or even science undergraduates.
Journal editor wokeness has very little effect on the hard sciences (social sciences may be different) but it wouldn't surprise me if this behaviour by journals has an effect on how ordinary political conservatives view the reliability of science.
For the very first time, I feel like I finally have a working definition of what "woke" is--or a working definition that doesn't just signify trendy in-groupness or mean "things democrats do that I hate".
Anyway, the Nature editors are doing a bad job and they should feel bad.
I'm only very indirectly a member of the Nature-reading public - my father-in-law takes it, always has, along with Science, and passes them on to us, where they accumulate in piles at our house, as I do not want them to go into boxes. Every so often when he's got some down time, my husband will read or read at a few of them and discard. But he never catches up. He's like 8, nine years behind ....
Nature's no picnic - but Science is even more abstruse - taking one from the top, at random: "Changes in Seismic Anisotropy Shed Light on the Nature of the Gutenberg Discontinuity". (Let's just suppose that didn't replicate and move quickly past.)*
I don't think that the Nature-reading public, and certainly not that which overlaps with the Science-reading public, is likely to be anything other than vaguely annoyed/nonplussed that the magazine would believe its audience wishes or needs to be told how to vote.
The magazine should be embarrassed, sure, but not - I think - precisely for the reason you give.
*"Ligand-Controlled C(sp3)-H Arylation and Olefination in Synthesis of Unnatural Chiral α-Amino Acids" - yay, finally something I can sink my teeth into!
"It’s undermining the purpose for which Nature exists; it’s a mistake."
Lol no. Nature exists to 1) make a metric shit-ton of money off university library subscription fees, 2) provide an Everest of prestige for scientists to target their papers towards, and 3) to be a digest of the 'best' science for professional scientists. While the public might be a titular part of their mission, you're really arguing about whether or not a trade magazine should have an editorial policy, which is not really a very important debate.
So much of our modern politics is driven by one central fact: the vast majority of everyone's material needs are satisfied.
When you say, rightly, (and for example) that the rejection of phrases is the deliverable, while getting people out of cars is secondary, this is a reflection of what is actually important to people and what they actually value, and not just the people creating the deliverables. That is, the fact that the first predominates over the second is an indication that essentially everyone who wants a car can have a car. No one has true transportation needs that would actually be met by new bike lanes or transit projects. These might be better ways of getting around, with fewer emissions, faster, less traffic, fewer traffic deaths, and with less hassle etc., but no one really NEEDS it. There's no true constituency for getting people out of cars because why actually bother?
I recently read an immensely self-satisfied article in the Atlantic by an Israeli leftist about their own 'incipient civil war' over the concept of abolishing judicial review.
Side note: as if judicial review were a core democratic value and institution; the UK only started experimenting with judicial review in 2009, and to this day their 'supreme court' is neither supreme nor really even a court. Parliamentary supremacy has its issues, but it's well within the bounds of democracy! Judicial supremacy (which is almost what we have in the USA) is probable worse! Just yesterday (and probably tomorrow too, over things like Dobbs, ISL, and affirmative action) the left will be screaming its damn head off about how judicial review in the USA is unconstitutional, undemocratic, and was invented by a slave owning colonialist, John Marshall to advance the cause of white supremacy. The difference is our Supreme Court is right-wing and Israel's is left-wing, while the voting public are the opposite (to an extent). That's it, that's all.
Anyway, the point was made in the article that, just a few years ago, Israel had a right-wing supermajority and was displaying its well-earned arrogance and invincibility in security matters by ignoring Palestinians and making deals with the Saudis and Egyptians and so on (the Israelis won all the wars, and given the quiescence of the issue, even the Palestinians seem to be starting to catch on). But now, we're told, Israel is on the brink of civil war, while panic, desperation, and fear are the order of the day. It's worse than Rabin's assassination this midwit says!
This is both true and not true. Israel's security situation is unchanged or even stronger since then; maybe the many scandals relating to Netanyahu have damaged the right-wing supermajority, which partially set up this fight over their supreme court; if there actually is a civil war I will eat my hat. The fact that Israel has so completely overcome the once-existential threats posed by its Arab neighbors and destroyed the solidarity of the Arab League with the Palestinians IS WHAT HAS PROVIDED the space for the Jewish factions to have such an acrimonious falling out over such a stupid non-issue. They have no real problems, and, having solved them, they invent things because they're bored or want likes.
The author says that his people, the true Israelis (lol), want their country to be a normal country and live in peace with its neighbors. Well guess what fucker, this is EXACTLY what being a normal country looks like. Look at January 6, or Macron's forcing through of a retirement age increase (from 62 to 64, lol), or Brexit. This is normality.
You're gonna have a lot of self-interested peacocks (like the author himself) proclaiming the imminent dissolution of the nation and descent into fratricide over judicial review or "fascism" (meaning politics Harry Truman would have endorsed) or "communism" (also meaning politics Harry Truman would have endorsed) or drag queen story hour or whatever the current thing on twitter is.
Why, oh fucking please god why, can we not simply be satisfied with peace and prosperity? I sure am.
The blame for LA Metro’s problems isn’t really with LA Metro though. The agency is completely hamstrung by local policies around removing homeless people, decriminalization of drug possession, what police are and aren’t allowed to do. Believe me, Metro is well aware of what a disaster the service is. It’s sad.
I don’t think we can conclude that the editors were just performing wokeness. Scientists often prioritize rigorous evidence and analysis over concerns about blowback when publishing scientific work. The goal of these endorsements, however, should be to persuade the public to support institutional interests. While the editors of Nature included complaints about non-scientific issues (such as judicial independence), most centered on legitimate scientific prerogatives. Despite this, it is hard to see how their endorsement advanced any scientific interests, and it definitely undermined the institution of science. The editors may have confused the goals of academic publications with political endorsements, however, rather than virtue-signaling.
I'm sorry any discussion about the word "woke" and it's meaning needs to take into account the fact that people on the Right seem have openly admitted they have no actual definition of what they mean when they say it.
I think you're right (and Freddie's right) to say that one problem on the Left is that there is a performative aspect that actually gets in the way of actually addressing the world's problems. It's more important to say the right words even at the cost of harming the cause you supposedly support. You're example about transit in Europe vs. America is a good example (as far as I can tell, this person is making the argument that public transit should be made worse in the name of racial justice...which is wild). I'd say climate left blocking permitting reform might be the more immediate (and harmful) example in the current moment.
How am I supposed to take right wing criticisms of "woke" seriously? Yes I know there are right of center or centrist writes like yourself who make well reasoned arguments like the one you made in this post. But in the "real world"? It's just this word to be used to basically say "I don't like this vaguely lefty thing".
Dean Martinez's comments really connected with me because one thing I notice among my fellow left-of-center brethren is we've gotten pretty bad at debating. Early in college, I would get internally outraged when people argued against egalitarian economic policies. Basically in my head I was thinking, "Goddamnit, we are just trying to help people! Stop being so damn selfish!" As I got more exposed to different ideas (I went to a state school in purple Wisconsin) and got to know certain people better, it helped me become a better debater. Echo chambers hurt those in them more than anyone else. I just think that we have to try and figure out a way to reach woke people. While I agree with basic everything in Josh's article, this type of argument is only going to appeal to people that are already skeptical of wokeness. DeBoer has a similar problem where he just so clearly hates these people, that he's just not going to reach any wokesters. The approach to wokesters has to be the same as the approach to Trump supporters: acknowledging there is a human there capable of thought and persuasion. We aren't going to lessen woke influence by just constantly making fun of them. We have to listen to their concerns, calmly tell them that their rhetoric is alienating (actually we should try to educate! That is our job!), and patiently persuade. OK. I'll step off my earnest box!
Over the past several years - but undeniable now for three - way too many people have selfishly decided to borrow their employers’ microphones. It’s always about self-aggrandizement, even when rationalized as “we have an obligation to...”.
Next to zero regard for the customers of these institutions - unless you consider know-it-all parochialism “regard.”
The worst part is that now the Desantis crowd has decided that the solution is to do the same in reverse. Meanwhile, most of us are stuck in the middle of the food fight.
There's a peculiar dynamic in my profession where the professional staff at the research journals and the popular science writers (extreme example: Scientific American) have become way more woke than the median scientist. For example, there were a couple of "shut down STEM for racial equity" days a couple years ago and various journal staffs participated, including Nature, but I observed 0% participation among actual research scientists or even science undergraduates.
Journal editor wokeness has very little effect on the hard sciences (social sciences may be different) but it wouldn't surprise me if this behaviour by journals has an effect on how ordinary political conservatives view the reliability of science.
For the very first time, I feel like I finally have a working definition of what "woke" is--or a working definition that doesn't just signify trendy in-groupness or mean "things democrats do that I hate".
Anyway, the Nature editors are doing a bad job and they should feel bad.
In short, understanding does not have to mean agreement.
If you can't repeat back to me what I said, you weren't listening.
Happening way too often on both sides.
I'm only very indirectly a member of the Nature-reading public - my father-in-law takes it, always has, along with Science, and passes them on to us, where they accumulate in piles at our house, as I do not want them to go into boxes. Every so often when he's got some down time, my husband will read or read at a few of them and discard. But he never catches up. He's like 8, nine years behind ....
Nature's no picnic - but Science is even more abstruse - taking one from the top, at random: "Changes in Seismic Anisotropy Shed Light on the Nature of the Gutenberg Discontinuity". (Let's just suppose that didn't replicate and move quickly past.)*
I don't think that the Nature-reading public, and certainly not that which overlaps with the Science-reading public, is likely to be anything other than vaguely annoyed/nonplussed that the magazine would believe its audience wishes or needs to be told how to vote.
The magazine should be embarrassed, sure, but not - I think - precisely for the reason you give.
*"Ligand-Controlled C(sp3)-H Arylation and Olefination in Synthesis of Unnatural Chiral α-Amino Acids" - yay, finally something I can sink my teeth into!
"It’s undermining the purpose for which Nature exists; it’s a mistake."
Lol no. Nature exists to 1) make a metric shit-ton of money off university library subscription fees, 2) provide an Everest of prestige for scientists to target their papers towards, and 3) to be a digest of the 'best' science for professional scientists. While the public might be a titular part of their mission, you're really arguing about whether or not a trade magazine should have an editorial policy, which is not really a very important debate.
I follow the science. That's why I distrust the scientific establishment.
So much of our modern politics is driven by one central fact: the vast majority of everyone's material needs are satisfied.
When you say, rightly, (and for example) that the rejection of phrases is the deliverable, while getting people out of cars is secondary, this is a reflection of what is actually important to people and what they actually value, and not just the people creating the deliverables. That is, the fact that the first predominates over the second is an indication that essentially everyone who wants a car can have a car. No one has true transportation needs that would actually be met by new bike lanes or transit projects. These might be better ways of getting around, with fewer emissions, faster, less traffic, fewer traffic deaths, and with less hassle etc., but no one really NEEDS it. There's no true constituency for getting people out of cars because why actually bother?
I recently read an immensely self-satisfied article in the Atlantic by an Israeli leftist about their own 'incipient civil war' over the concept of abolishing judicial review.
Side note: as if judicial review were a core democratic value and institution; the UK only started experimenting with judicial review in 2009, and to this day their 'supreme court' is neither supreme nor really even a court. Parliamentary supremacy has its issues, but it's well within the bounds of democracy! Judicial supremacy (which is almost what we have in the USA) is probable worse! Just yesterday (and probably tomorrow too, over things like Dobbs, ISL, and affirmative action) the left will be screaming its damn head off about how judicial review in the USA is unconstitutional, undemocratic, and was invented by a slave owning colonialist, John Marshall to advance the cause of white supremacy. The difference is our Supreme Court is right-wing and Israel's is left-wing, while the voting public are the opposite (to an extent). That's it, that's all.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/03/israel-benjamin-netanyahu-democracy-rule-of-law/673469/
Anyway, the point was made in the article that, just a few years ago, Israel had a right-wing supermajority and was displaying its well-earned arrogance and invincibility in security matters by ignoring Palestinians and making deals with the Saudis and Egyptians and so on (the Israelis won all the wars, and given the quiescence of the issue, even the Palestinians seem to be starting to catch on). But now, we're told, Israel is on the brink of civil war, while panic, desperation, and fear are the order of the day. It's worse than Rabin's assassination this midwit says!
This is both true and not true. Israel's security situation is unchanged or even stronger since then; maybe the many scandals relating to Netanyahu have damaged the right-wing supermajority, which partially set up this fight over their supreme court; if there actually is a civil war I will eat my hat. The fact that Israel has so completely overcome the once-existential threats posed by its Arab neighbors and destroyed the solidarity of the Arab League with the Palestinians IS WHAT HAS PROVIDED the space for the Jewish factions to have such an acrimonious falling out over such a stupid non-issue. They have no real problems, and, having solved them, they invent things because they're bored or want likes.
The author says that his people, the true Israelis (lol), want their country to be a normal country and live in peace with its neighbors. Well guess what fucker, this is EXACTLY what being a normal country looks like. Look at January 6, or Macron's forcing through of a retirement age increase (from 62 to 64, lol), or Brexit. This is normality.
You're gonna have a lot of self-interested peacocks (like the author himself) proclaiming the imminent dissolution of the nation and descent into fratricide over judicial review or "fascism" (meaning politics Harry Truman would have endorsed) or "communism" (also meaning politics Harry Truman would have endorsed) or drag queen story hour or whatever the current thing on twitter is.
Why, oh fucking please god why, can we not simply be satisfied with peace and prosperity? I sure am.
The blame for LA Metro’s problems isn’t really with LA Metro though. The agency is completely hamstrung by local policies around removing homeless people, decriminalization of drug possession, what police are and aren’t allowed to do. Believe me, Metro is well aware of what a disaster the service is. It’s sad.
I don’t think we can conclude that the editors were just performing wokeness. Scientists often prioritize rigorous evidence and analysis over concerns about blowback when publishing scientific work. The goal of these endorsements, however, should be to persuade the public to support institutional interests. While the editors of Nature included complaints about non-scientific issues (such as judicial independence), most centered on legitimate scientific prerogatives. Despite this, it is hard to see how their endorsement advanced any scientific interests, and it definitely undermined the institution of science. The editors may have confused the goals of academic publications with political endorsements, however, rather than virtue-signaling.
I'm sorry any discussion about the word "woke" and it's meaning needs to take into account the fact that people on the Right seem have openly admitted they have no actual definition of what they mean when they say it.
I think you're right (and Freddie's right) to say that one problem on the Left is that there is a performative aspect that actually gets in the way of actually addressing the world's problems. It's more important to say the right words even at the cost of harming the cause you supposedly support. You're example about transit in Europe vs. America is a good example (as far as I can tell, this person is making the argument that public transit should be made worse in the name of racial justice...which is wild). I'd say climate left blocking permitting reform might be the more immediate (and harmful) example in the current moment.
But man, you really can't let the right off the hook here as far as making the word "woke" essentially meaningless. I mean look at this https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/fox-news-mocked-saying-woke-174531827.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAADb1mrsb9s6_aqIOqb7JJE3t3sQdRzqObtYPEtYsDllqqFmIlZalVHerN8b8Qc-9ey2E_ULJCGw99xHLRGKBK1Gj40PQMrVNzjAk8Vf2_w_JBsWSj02MlmcFkrBIfyG4IRj2SGfbmhNt1vginJwe24ElZwD37emogLwItGhM-t_g
How am I supposed to take right wing criticisms of "woke" seriously? Yes I know there are right of center or centrist writes like yourself who make well reasoned arguments like the one you made in this post. But in the "real world"? It's just this word to be used to basically say "I don't like this vaguely lefty thing".