Another rabbit hole: constructed emotion theory and aesthetic experience.

I think it's fairly difficult to gainsay the Bishop on this point and claim that diversity, equity, or inclusion are absolute values. — Leontiskos

There is no gainsaying the Bishop on this point, and that’s half the point.

This inversion where one places secondary things into the first place is key to wokism.

Rather, the fixed hierarchy is key to power stratification that wokeness aims to reduce.

Really! What on Earth do they base that on? — I like sushi

Simply the order that the names for colors begin appearing in written language.

If you asked someone who didn’t yet have a name for blue what the color of the sky is they would likely say something like black. That doesn’t mean they can’t actually see blue.

White rabbit, blue dress, red queen…

I thought it interesting that it’s blue because according to the Berlin–Kay color term hierarchy theory blue is the latest primary color, or maybe to think of it differently, the least important primary.

According to the theory (or study?) colors were added in about the same order across languages. That order being:

Red
Green or yellow
Both green and yellow
Blue
Brown
Purple, pink, orange, gray, etc.

It may not indicate anything of course and be purely coincidental.

I wonder if that's the case of blue particularly or for most or all colors. I'll read more myself when I get time.

The idea that wokeness is heretical is intriguing, especially since, on the surface, both wokeness and religion share a common concern for supporting disadvantaged communities. I think the core of the issue lies in where their interests diverge: wokeness is fundamentally egalitarian, oriented horizontally in its social vision, while religion—particularly as articulated by figures like Bishop Robert Barron—is inherently hierarchical, oriented vertically.

In the video linked on the previous page, Bishop Barron refers to an 'objective hierarchy of value'—a structure he sees as embedded in the very fabric of reality. While that may be a compelling theological claim, it also implies a preference for maintaining a vertically structured society. And in any vertical structure, there is always a lower class.

We never just relate to things as things; they are also objects of projected meaning. — Tom Storm

In my experience, that projection can deepen the aesthetic. Whether or not that’s a vice or a virtue… I tend to think aesthetic experience is beneficial in nature.

Thank you for the clarification. I’ve read books and articles that are critical of trans activism, so I’m familiar with some of the negative aspects.

I understand how some people might feel that the negative impacts outweigh the positive gains made for the trans community, and therefore see resistance to trans activism as necessary. Personally, I don’t know enough to say that such resistance is essential, down to the last beer can anyway.

This leapfrogs the point — AmadeusD

Seriously, why not, as Fire put it, let Bud Light drinking be taken over?

But you could also see it (and I think you did) as a reaction to seeing wokism as the institution and the entrenched position, so entrenched it took over Bud Light drinking - on that case, it was activism and pushback. — Fire Ologist

Why not let Bud Light drinking be taken over? According to Anheuser-Busch most their market segment didn't care, and there are many other brands to choose from. Modelo Especial took the lead after the incident, if I remember correctly. It's good, at least compared to Bud Light.

The question for me then is if someone literally created a physical representation of a river that could be easily mistaken for a natural river then has that person produced Art? I guess for you you see no disparity other than in the creation (which does not fit into your definition of Art as an object). — I like sushi

I don't see a contradiction. I do a lot of painting and the activity is unquestionably aesthetic. Think of an art form like music, it can be an aesthetic experience for the performer and the audience simultaneously.

So, you literally call the appreciation of natural beauty that moves someone Art but the Art 'is in the eye of the beholder' rather than the beauty? — I like sushi

If art is a social construct then it's in the eye of beholder's, I suppose.

What I think is interesting is the idea that the recognition of art may trigger 'aesthetic mode' in a conditioned response/constructed emotion sort of way.

Is this to note an irrational position? — AmadeusD

It’s not irrational to reject another’s perspective, no.

What I am saying is, part of the woke methodology of reasoning seems to be avoiding anything on its face that appears anti-woke, and instead analyzing for sub-text, the dog-whistle, looking for virtue signaling or lack thereof. Maga types and conservatives and tradition-lovers, are objects of incredulity, whose behavior and speech can only be examined from the outside, not engaged with directly, (as we are engaged here so you are the exception).

See my conversation with Praxis - that is how it typically goes. — Fire Ologist

My aim, as I said, is to try avoiding useless bickering. My interest is something you brought up: looking into the character of the anti-woke.

You asked me if resistance is essential and I said that I wasn’t sure how to answer. I think it’s a good question, if extremely broad in scope. I tried to narrow the focus to the Bud Light fiasco and asked, if you regard it as a form of resistance, whether or not pushing back on that was essential. I didn’t think that I needed to say that the gesture was inessential.

Do you think the pushback was essential?

I looked for a possible outline (rather than a puzzle piece) on the Amazon sample and was disappointed. To my surprise I did find this nugget of wisdom in your preface though:

“If one cannot state a matter clearly enough so that even an intelligent twelve-year-old can understand it, one should remain within the cloistered walls of the university and laboratory until one gets a better grasp of one's subject matter.”

I wouldn’t say “even wokeness” - I would say clearly wokeness is a money maker. It is highly funded, lobbied, commercialized, packaged, tee-shirted, gas-masked, etc etc…. — Fire Ologist

I forgot to include anti-woke, which is also quite influential.

Interesting you said wokeness is resistance. Can you elaborate - is resistance essential, like awareness is? — Fire Ologist

If Bud Light’s gesture didn’t feel like a push there wouldn’t have been pushback.

Awareness is essential when navigating from a weak position. I understand the origins of “woke” was from an old song with a cautionary theme.

I’m not sure how to answer if resistance is essential. I think awareness is essential because it can be a matter of life or death, or some form of ruination, for those in a weak position.

If the Bud Light gesture is a form of resistance, is it essential to push back?

Enjoy yourself and your woke jokes! — Fire Ologist

Credit where credit is due–that's a real product. I photoshoped this however:



It illustrates a protest against political messages appearing on commercial products. Shoot'n up half woke and half anti-woke equally. Powerful message, right?

Anyway, another CT insight is that even resistance (wokeness or anti-wokeness) can be turned into a commodity in late stage capitalism.

I think that is not as meaningful as what Kid Rock said with a gun and a case of beer - which had more to do with people not wanting to make every single thing a political statement. — Fire Ologist

It was hard to decide on a product. This was the funniest:



And I mean no disrespect by not engaging more. I don’t want to trash the topic further with useless bickering.

Gee, I wonder why the political class loved woke-ism so much. — Tzeentch

The same reason the political class loves anti-wokeism.

I wrongly, according to you, brought in ‘homophobia’ — Fire Ologist

I said that I almost included it myself but didn't think it necessary to make the point. That's not saying you were wrong.

From the moment I heard about "woke" I thought about the way that Buddhists use the same metaphor of awakening. Yet with time the gulf between a Buddhist approach and a woke approach has proved remarkably wide, and I think the Buddhists leverage the metaphor much more consistently. The repudiatory nature of wokeness is inconsistent with the metaphor of waking from slumber. — Leontiskos

Awareness is the precondition for both rejection and liberation. You can’t reject what you don’t know exists, just like you can’t escape a cage you don’t realize you’re in.

I went to college too long ago I guess. — Fire Ologist

Rather, your unwillingness to to employ CT expresses your anti-wokeness.

Through the lens of wokeness - probably exactly like you did. Maybe add homophobia to the analysis. I don’t know if bud light is sold at Disneyworld, but if so, it was probably all part of a planned conspiratorial attack… — Fire Ologist

I almost added homonormativity but thought it superfluous to the point. Anyway, wokeness critiques visible social structures. You’re employing culture war rhetoric, not CT.

I don’t think it was unconscious what happened there, nor about any cultural/ideological status quo. That’s university-speak, or secular church speak. — Fire Ologist

I was attempting to adopt woke-speak or what the anti-woke decidedly don't speak. I thought that was clear.

How would you view the incident through the lens of wokeness or critical theory?

I don’t know how best to characterize the anti-woke. — Fire Ologist

Most concisely would simply be what the term implies: asleep or unaware.

Take the controversy surrounding Bud Light and transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney for example. The anti-woke reacted unconsciously to reassert cisnormativity and the status quo. They didn't concsiously realize that their status or power was being challenged and yet reacted with shows of power, perhaps most famously with Kid Rock blasting cases of Bud Light with a semi-automatic assault rifle. Of course it could be that Rock was also acting in bad faith (like Bud Light) and capitalizing on the culture war, but either way the anti-woke drank it up heartily, the video having been viewed over 11 million times.

Art is a social construct grounded in aesthetic experience, which is characterized by heightened perceptual awareness, emotional engagement, a non-utilitarian or nonjudgmental stance, a diminished sense of self, and often a sense of emerging meaning or form. While this experience is commonly triggered by objects that are culturally recognized as art—such as paintings—it can also arise from many other sources and may vary in depth or intensity.

Depending on the individual and the context, an object barely recognizable as art may evoke a profound aesthetic experience, while a Rembrandt masterpiece might, for some reason, be dismissed outright. The experience is what has value and counts as art.

When such people are morally charged, and morally charged in the particular direction of identity politics, you get... — Leontiskos

I wouldn't suggest that support for their grievances is unwarranted.

I have confidence in my work but it needs to be stress-tested. That is why I am looking for an "astute reader" that could help me find a possible "fatal flaw" in my reasoning. The statement that I posted in my introduction is only part of my problem statement, in an effort to solicit some stress-testing of my work. — Pieter R van Wyk

Frankly, it appears that you're looking for an 'obtuse buyer' of your book and that's why you avoid openly discussing its contents.

Good luck with that endeavor.

In principle, you are correct. However, the 2018 Kavanaugh hearing is a paradigmatic example of a triumphant woke spectacle. — Number2018

A succesful woke spectacle but triumphant? Due process prevailed over woke mob justice. And I think it could be argued that the long-term backlash resulted in strengthening the perception that social justice activism had become censorious, reckless, and morally absolutist.

All in all, the Kavanaugh hearings exemplify the extent to which public life is structured by affective discursive formations of contemporary woke culture. — Number2018

Curious that you only look at one side of the spectacle. The testimony of both Ford and Kavanaugh was emotional and lacked the explicit language or rhetorical style that typically marks woke or anti-woke discourse. Ford was adopted by the woke and Kavanaugh by the anti-woke, and the anti-woke won.

My point is simply that religions are inherently exclusive and fail the excluded. Your example illustrates this well. In Orthodox Brahmanical Hinduism the untouchables were denied even spiritual mobility—were excluded within their own culture and religious tradition by no fault of their own.

Your example also shows how religions change as untouchability and caste discrimination has been banned for many years.

By the way, Zaroastrianism (the first monotheistic religion) argued 3 postulates: Good thought. Good word. Good deed. Little has changed in religions since then. — Astorre

Obviously a lot has changed in religion since then.

Though I didn't watch the video my interpretation is that Are48 is essentially pointing out that religions fail because they are human inventions–no religion can be all-inclusive because no people can be all-inclusive.

I assume that your particular distillation of wokeism helps you to better deal with the concrete complexities and diversity of life.

The purpose of the allegations is obviously distraction.

I’m notably no closer to understanding this foundation from which solutions to humanity’s problems might be found.

Don’t you believe that it would be good if I did understand it?

Is it that only an elite class of people are capable of understand it?

Also, you say that solutions might be found from this foundation. Aren’t humanity’s problems important enough to present a foundation that you have more confidence in?

Please consider an alternative foundation from which solutions to humanity's problems might be solved. A foundation that is not based on philosophy, religion, politics or science. A foundation based on a fundamental understanding of systems, a definition of a system from first principles. A definition that provides for a classifications of systems that provides a theory of evolution without any tautologies and which solve the demarcation problem. An understanding that clearly shows that the emergence of wealth preceded the evolution of modern Homo sapiens. — Pieter R van Wyk

You claim to offer a foundation from which solutions to humanity's problems might be solved and then proceed to describe this foundation in an obfuscating manner.

Snake oil salesmen have always been part and parcel of humanity's problems.

The only real value that religion has is the potential to make the imperfect perfect and imperfect and neither imperfect nor perfect.

Doesn’t this handover more executive power to any administration and is that what you really want?

Damn, I liked her a lot.

You want Orwellian, this poster is being shared on social media by The White House and Homeland security.

Man, the organizers and all their acolytes in the press tried really hard to get people to notice the No Kings protest, and everyone has already forgotten about it. It’s performative and cathartic stunts like these that have rendered protesting largely ineffectual. What a shame. — NOS4A2

You haven't forgotten about it and it seems to have had an impact. :up:

I went to the one in my county and it was by far the biggest protest that I've ever seen at the government center here.