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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   3549 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 2, 2024

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Can anyone help me recall/locate an essay written around 2018-2020 which had as its thesis the idea that when the ideas circulating around the Social Justice movement developed a name that could identify the ideology readily to the general public (and one more value neutral than Social Justice / SJW), then the Social Justice ideology could be effectively counteracted? I remember this circulating prior to Woke becoming the common term for the ideology.

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EDIT: The essay in question is here

That's terribly vague, but now it's nagging at me too. let me know if you find it?

Here it is. it's an essay from February 2020 by James Lindsay in which he is suggesting terming the phenomenon Critical Social Justice. It's interesting that in the essay he uses the word 'Woke' once, and in the comments a user suggests referring to the ideology as 'Wokeness' only to do be dismissed.

I thought it might be him, but dismissed it because of "2018"

Incredible that wokeness is such a new term. The language treadmill is running in overdrive now.

As a noun, or as a widely known word it might be new, but I'm sure that "woke" existed already as pejorative appropriated from the congratulatory self-identification around the period of GamerGate to Trump's campaign.

I distinctly remember "woke" being used as a positive self-description among campus lefties at least as early as ~2010.

Earlier than your stated timeframe but Scott's "Can It Be Wrong to Crystallize Patterns?" might be relevant.

Sounds similar to Freddie Deboer's Please Just Fucking Tell Me What Term I Am Allowed to Use for the Sweeping Social and Political Changes You Demand

Thanks for the suggestion, but it wasn't Freddie. I remember it being by someone further to the right (not necessarily a conservative or someone further right, either).

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