Anyway, I would argue that "woke" does not begin with civil rights law, but rather that both are the result of the same intellectual tradition. "Woke" attitudes are basically analogous to what was called "cultural Marxism" decades ago (see e.g. Weiner's (1981) "Cultural Marxism and Political Sociology"), but since "Cultural Marxism" has been retconned as an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory, people needed a different name for it. The linguistic treadmill is merciless, especially when dealing with political movements attempting to escape accountability for their past failures (or successes).
> The linguistic treadmill is merciless, especially when dealing with political movements attempting to escape accountability for their past failures (or successes).
> no end in site.
...is this a typo, or a pun?
Anyway, I would argue that "woke" does not begin with civil rights law, but rather that both are the result of the same intellectual tradition. "Woke" attitudes are basically analogous to what was called "cultural Marxism" decades ago (see e.g. Weiner's (1981) "Cultural Marxism and Political Sociology"), but since "Cultural Marxism" has been retconned as an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory, people needed a different name for it. The linguistic treadmill is merciless, especially when dealing with political movements attempting to escape accountability for their past failures (or successes).
> The linguistic treadmill is merciless, especially when dealing with political movements attempting to escape accountability for their past failures (or successes).
Very true! I wrote an article about this last year: https://robertfrank.substack.com/p/whats-in-a-name