They’ve Corrupted The Term “Woke”, Let’s Use “Adult” Instead
The term “woke”, like every other useful term, has become bastardized. Conservatives called liberals “woke” and liberals accepted the term, but liberals are the furthest thing from woke as possible. Liberals may perhaps be even further lost in their own narrative than conservatives. They have both debased the term “woke” in the way advertisers have debased the word awesome, the way Democrats have abused the words “liberal” and “progressive”, like Republicans make meaningless the word “freedom”, like Christians twist the meaning of the word “Christian”.
The term woke, as originally intended, meant a transcendence of normal politics and even cultural norms. It was the same thing as described by Hindus in the Upanishads and by Plato in the Republic.
From a term that meant being able to see beyond the dominant narrative, the word then came to refer to those supportive of identity politics, and finally it now refers to those who embrace the cancel culture. Which is a shame, because Caitlin Johnstone’s book Woke is a profound look at the situation humanity faces in this, its most critical hour. If you want to know what the word “woke” is supposed to mean, check out Woke. Or at least read a little Plato.
Since the meaning of the term woke has been corrupted in the minds of so many, I suggest we use a different expression to take the same meaning: “being an adult”. Not only does it cover the same territory, as I shall show you, it perhaps might be a more difficult term to debase.
Like one who is woke, an adult is not amused or distracted by a puppet show. The child and the unwoke may see in the shadows cast upon a wall something of substance, but the woken adult knows such things have no substance of their own.
Liberals and conservatives as the terms are commonly understood are not adults. Conservatives believe they are adults if they are able to take care of themselves. That is not being an adult, it is being a teenager, at best. An adult looks out for others, as well. An adult not merely takes care of his own business, he contributes to the good and welfare of society, he understands that we are all both role models and neighbors to one another. An adult is giving. An adult, a fully grown adult (not just physically but emotionally and spiritually), feels a responsibility for more than just himself. An adult feels a love of humanity and perhaps a love for all that is, and that is not an idea that is currently associated with the word “conservative”.
Liberals are not adults but children. Liberals think they’re adults because they’ve been able to memorize what their professors have taught them. They have been able to regurgitate words like “revanchist” and “stochastic” online after reading the first few lines of an opinion piece from the New York Times or The Washington Post. An adult is more than someone who is able to echo what they have been told. An adult is not merely one who is able to disagree with their parents/teachers/masters, an adult is someone who is able to stand in opposition to authority when authority has overstepped its bounds. Find me a liberal capable of this.
Children are always demanding adults do for them what they should learn to do for themselves. A child will demand that an adult tell another child to stop saying something that is displeasing to them. An adult would work together with other adults to build acceptable rules of communication, would work through the difficult process of finding common ground and laying a firm foundation rather than inserting a third party to dictate terms. Why does anyone need Twitter or the FBI to determine what they or others read? The answer is that those who demand such intercession are children, children who think they have the right to set the rules for the rest. Children who expect their big brother to fight their fight for them.
Television has been called the electronic babysitter. I refer to the media as the third parent, the one that never ages and the one we never outgrow. It is with us in our homes from our earliest memories and it mollifies us in our old age. It is the parent we never differentiate ourselves from, the parent we are rarely able to form an adult relationship with.
An adult is one who is able to have a mature relationship with their parents, but it is impossible to have a mature relationship with the media because it will never treat you like an adult, will always talk to you as if you were a child. Like a dysfunctional parent, it will seek to manipulate you emotionally and push your buttons in order to control you.
An adult is capable of realizing when the household they grew up in was dysfunctional and is willing to distance themselves from parents who are incapable of or unwilling to develop a respectful relationship. How many people are capable of distancing themselves from an unhealthy relationship with the media? Precious few. Your relationship with the media is unhealthy and abusive. If you disagree, please give me just ONE indicator that the media is NOT trying to keep you distracted and misinformed. Show me how the media has helped put you in control of your own life.
We have no adults in government and precious few among voters. Voters tend not to view politicians as the very flawed people they are but as the kind of idealized protectors a child needs to believe in to feel safe. Oh, perhaps intellectually they are able to give a fair assessment of who the people they vote for are. But emotionally, when they feel threatened, they invest their political heroes with the morality of Jean Valjean and the wisdom of Solomon.
Our leaders? They are children following children following anonymous authority. Donald Trump was never an adult. Throughout his life he has chosen Barbie Dolls and Farrah Fawcett posters for wives. He imitates to the world the person his father wanted him to be. AOC LARPS being an adult politician by wearing a white designer dress with platitudes written on it. Kamala…Kamala best articulates her political positions by wearing Converse sneakers and skinny jeans. Biden managed to slide comfortably into a second childhood without ever graduating from his first. As for the rest, they take their marching orders from what passes for adults nowadays, the intelligence agencies and the monied interests.
Capitalists believe they’re the adults, because they play with the biggest toys. They think they’re the adults because there’s no one to tell them what they can or cannot do. They are merely the biggest and the most spoiled of children. Adults clean up after themselves, whereas spoiled children leave a mess and expect others to clean it up for them. No, not even that. They merely leave it and don’t care what happens to the mess they made. Capitalists leave abandoned factories in every city for the workers who no longer have work to deal with. They devastate landscapes, poison the water, clearcut the forests, and take what others have worked to create. They take without giving, like a babe at his mother’s breast. They may work like the devil to beat out others to get the milk, but their efforts are the efforts of the alpha-pup who takes from the runt of the litter.
In all these ways and more, the term “adult” can be used in place of “woke”. One is a psychological term, the other a metaphysical one, but both explain an evolved perspective. Buddha and Rumi and Jung and Fromm are all pointing to the same object from different perspectives.
Let’s see if those from a less advanced perspective are able to debase the word “adult” as they do every other good and noble word.
I’m sure they can, the bastards.