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How to Talk to a Wokester
American Greatness ^ | 15 Sep, 2022 | Mark Bauerlein

Posted on 09/16/2022 5:13:09 AM PDT by MtnClimber

Conservatives reply to woke objections with a modest offering of facts that undo the woke narrative—and get nowhere. Here’s a better way.

If you’re invited to a friend’s house for Thanksgiving Dinner, and his daughter shows up and starts talking about America’s genocide of Native Americans, what do you say? Or if you’re in a discussion of classical education with other parents from your neighborhood and someone comments that classical education has a curriculum that lacks diversity and flirts with white privilege, how do you respond?

These are standard woke gestures, commonplace and unsurprising. The language is always the same, the charges familiar. People voice them with a set script in their heads, one they have heard a thousand times in classrooms, on talk shows, and in social media. That hasn’t made them less difficult to answer, though. Our woke interlocutor has a point to make, an objection to raise, and more than that. She has indignation in her delivery, too, maybe a little outrage. Occasionally, she verges on a tantrum. The historical contention is one thing, the moral fervor another. It intensifies the exchange. What was a conversation has become a trial. She has put your conscience in the dock. Are you a bad person who perpetuates injustice? Or are you a good person out to end it?

It sounds like a trivial occasion, but it’s really not. It happens too often not to be important. Woke attitudes have spread too widely for conservatives to avoid it. Not long ago, talk of “privilege,” “patriarchy,” and “transphobia” would have puzzled most Americans. Now, it echoes everywhere, in public and private and professional life. The choice a conservative faces on those occasions doesn’t depend on the truth of things. It’s a social matter, a crossroads. “Do I speak my mind and annoy the present company? Or just nod and move on?”

The affect of wokesters pushes you toward the second option. They speak forcefully, haughtily. They may not know much about the founding, but they know the founders owned slaves, and that’s enough. They can’t name the U.S. presidents in order, but they know that none of them was a woman. They haven’t read news reports on the current chaos at the border, but all Americans are immigrants, they insist. These convictions put them on moral high ground. They also please the holder of them. Indignation can feel awfully good, especially when wokesters can fire it as an adversary and watch him squirm.

People conscious of others’ feelings or raised with bourgeois manners find the affect hard to overcome. They don’t want to offend. I’ve seen conservatives reply to woke objections with a modest offering of facts that undo the woke narrative—and get nowhere. They don’t match the indignation of the wokester with a defensiveness of similar intensity, and so their facts lack authority.

To say that in 1800 slavery existed all over the world, so we should stop treating the American practice as an unusual abomination, does nothing to lessen the blameworthiness of the American South. Noting that the absence of female leaders in ancient times may have something to do with the duties of a king back then to command an army in the field at any time has no persuasive power. Appeals to nature are hollow.

It’s a losing game. Save your breath—don’t try to argue, don’t defend. The wokester is strong on belief and weak on knowledge, no matter how much she thinks she knows the real history of things. To be woke is precisely this claim of superior knowledge, a keener awareness than that of those still un-woke, asleep in their illusions of, say, American greatness. Knowing they possess the truth, wokesters have the blessing of moral courage, the dedication to speak truth to power. It gives them a noble role to play in the correction of the historical record.

And there lies the weak spot of the woke brigade: the pretension to moral superiority through better knowledge. They believe they have better hearts because they have better minds, and that’s an assumption that easily collapses. It points the way to a different response than argument.

Instead of challenging the wokester’s knowledge, let’s go with the wokester’s knowledge and draw it out. Let her school us, let her show us her certainty and let’s accept her duty to instruct the ignorant. She wants to be a pedagogue; we shall accept the position of pupil.

The model is Socrates, who comes to many dialogues as one who knows nothing and desires enlightenment. He asks simple questions and listens closely to the answers. The other participants believe they grasp the truth firmly, but as his queries continue, their confidence begins to wane. They speak at first as ordinary folk who nonetheless possess common sense, or as experts in a subject, such as Ion the rhapsode on the topic of Homer. They are complacent until the dialectic leads them to acknowledge their error.

Take the same approach with the wokester. If she brings up the Native American issue, ask her in all innocence why those cavalry officers were often flanked by native scouts helping them track down other tribes.

If she berates the founders as hypocrites, ask why Thomas Jefferson penned a document that became a rallying cry for civil rights forever after. Why would he do that?

If she brings up the absence of female rulers in the old days, ask what would happen to a kingdom if it were threatened by a neighbor and the ruler were eight months pregnant?

If she objects to Western Civilization as white supremacy, ask her to describe the whiteness of Beethoven’s Ninth, or ask her if she wants her children to read Hamlet, tour the National Gallery, and study the architecture of the Acropolis and the Pantheon.

If America is shot through with systemic racism, you can say, why do so many people of color keep scrambling to come? Really, why?

Ask those questions in a spirit of education. The wokester has taken the podium. She can’t not answer. Her shtick is to catechize and berate, so give her the chance to amplify her contentions. The spread of woke knowledge should satisfy her, as should your willingness to be awokened. What could be better than a willing student, an open mind?

What you will uncover, of course, displeases her more than your expected resistance. The knowledge she presumes will soon appear to come in small packages, biased and uncontextualized. She hasn’t listened to Beethoven’s Ninth or read Hamlet, can’t distinguish a Renaissance work of art from one created in the Romantic Period, and goes blank at the mention of the Acropolis and the Pantheon. In truth, wokeness doesn’t appeal to her intelligence and never did. It flattered her ego. Now, faced with questions directly related to what she has just stated, the certitude crumbles and the ego collapses. You have asked her for knowledge, and she hasn’t replied. She can’t.

You’ve won. It’s time to hum a few bars of Beethoven, mouth some words of Polonius, praise the dimensions of Greek columns, and detail what the Comanches did to their neighbors, and see if she’s ready to listen.


TOPICS: Society
KEYWORDS: communism; wokeism
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To: MtnClimber

I met with an old college friend this summer for dinner in Maine, and she has always been a far left liberal. In our conversation, she noted that she always hated history class, but now she might like it more if she learned about how women, gay, and trans people lived in the Middle Ages.

As an art history professor, I countered that I appreciated the tales told through the history of art and architecture, the changes in style and why that occurred. Intellect and art is what I wanted to study.

The subject was then changed.

I also tried to do an email exchange with her a few years ago to analyze why we held such opposite political views. I really wanted to continue a real debate. But she just hated Trump and yet could not answer my questions about when he exactly he lied, what was so offensive, how he was a “traitor” etc. That exchange died as well.

I’m tempted to write her to have to defend what Biden is doing to our country. But I don’t think that would go well either.


41 posted on 09/16/2022 6:45:12 AM PDT by Republicanprofessor
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To: RinaseaofDs

Wrong. Long experience shows that the only way to deal with these swine is to confront them and humiliate them. It doesn’t change them, but it does intimidate them, and it gives a least a few in the audience courage to confront other woketard totalitarians.


42 posted on 09/16/2022 6:48:37 AM PDT by achilles2000 ("I'll agree to save the whales as long as we can deport the liberals")
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To: MtnClimber
I don’t know about this

Me either. My experience with my liberal brother tells me that it is impossible to converse with them. They are very hostile people who rarely allow the opponent a word in edgewise. They speak rabidly, spitting as the rage. I no longer communicate with him in any fashion, let alone invite him to Thanksgiving dinner.

43 posted on 09/16/2022 6:49:10 AM PDT by GingisK
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To: achilles2000

So the only approach in your arsenal is confrontation?


44 posted on 09/16/2022 6:50:32 AM PDT by RinaseaofDs
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Comment #45 Removed by Moderator

To: Eleutheria5

I ignore their prattle, and ask them if they know the thrust of a single F-1 engine from the Saturn. I describe the inertial guidance system. I ask them if they know the second stage engines are the same ones used on the SLS, with a few updates of course. They usually go away.


46 posted on 09/16/2022 6:54:20 AM PDT by GingisK
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To: RinaseaofDs

Confrontation is the only way this will be solved. Besides, it is fun to take their blood pressure off scale.


47 posted on 09/16/2022 6:55:51 AM PDT by GingisK
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To: MtnClimber

I don’t think any sort of dialogue is possible with wokeazoids.
Facts, reason and reality are so far out of their realm of understanding that even the most rational discourse is met with a blank stare and a “rebuttal” of bumper sticker slogans.


48 posted on 09/16/2022 6:58:19 AM PDT by Skooz (Gabba Gabba accept you we accept you one of us Gabba Gabba we accept you we accept you one of us )
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To: Vaquero

Matt Walsh had a great podcast on this and focused on the black hills and mt Rushmore and how it had changed hands many times and alway violently well before the European invaders arrived. It that doesn’t matter to woke and leftists but I repeat myself and the reason is what I call “recentism”
It is a cute trick the left and elitists use which goes
Something like this. You only go far enough back in history to justify your position on an issue.
Native americans(which are not really native the “science” says they came from Asia and therefore were the first invaders was there really no one here when they came? But I digress
The left likes to talk about how Europeans came here and took the land from the peaceful Indians who have lived together in harmony for centuries but we know that is false they were murdering invading warring and enslaving each other long before “we” ever got here we just did it better
Return southwest to Mexico because they owned it before we took it from them…. But ask them how did Mexico come to “own” this land before we took it did they own this land since the beginning of time? Of course not they got it when they won independence from Spain so I guess we give the land back to
Mexico who has to give it back to Spain since Spain owned this land since the beginning of time right? Of course not so Spain must give that land back to all the tribes and nations they took it from because they occupied this land from the beginning of time again of course not . Just like the “American Indians”. These same people had been warring conquering enslaving murdering performing human sacrifices since the beginning of time…
Slavery. America bad for having slavery forget the fact that only 3% of slaves came to America forget that it was African tribes that were capturing the Africans to sell to the slave trade and the traders were mostly Muslim and forget that slavery was abolished by the west and wars were fought to end it and also forget that slavery is still practiced in Africa and Middle East


49 posted on 09/16/2022 6:58:31 AM PDT by blitz128
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To: MtnClimber

Even briefer, simply observe to them that their new church does not appear to offer forgiveness, grace, love or mercy.


50 posted on 09/16/2022 7:01:04 AM PDT by lurk (u)
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To: glorgau
Using Socratic dialog doesn’t work well with narcissists.

Not much works with narcissists, and even less works well.

51 posted on 09/16/2022 7:06:41 AM PDT by Ahithophel (Communication is an art form susceptible to sudden technical failure)
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To: GingisK

Good luck.


52 posted on 09/16/2022 7:13:31 AM PDT by RinaseaofDs
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To: GingisK

Unfortunately, some of them are family members. But I guess your tactic will work on a super-annuated aunt or a spinster cousin just as well.


53 posted on 09/16/2022 7:15:27 AM PDT by Eleutheria5 (All Hail the MAGA King, beloved of Ultra MAGAs and Deplorables!)
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To: Vaquero

“Slavery is horrible. It’s over.”

Actually no - slavery still exists today.

In Africa!

https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/03/opinions/lisa-kristine-lake-volta-spc-intl/index.html


54 posted on 09/16/2022 7:15:28 AM PDT by aquila48 (Do not let them make you "care" ! Guilting you is how they control you. )
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To: Eleutheria5

I no longer have a problem with discarding family members.


55 posted on 09/16/2022 7:19:00 AM PDT by GingisK
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To: MtnClimber
Interesting article, but I think the author muddles the distinction between "affect" and "effect".
56 posted on 09/16/2022 7:20:27 AM PDT by budj (Combat vet, second of three generations.)
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To: MtnClimber

Speaking knowledge to an illiterate is like speaking Chinese to a Frenchman or describing the color red to a blind man. It does not elicit the response you expect. Ego does not reflect or disappear. Instead, violence erupts.


57 posted on 09/16/2022 7:22:31 AM PDT by Whatever Works
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To: MtnClimber

“You’ve won.”

More like, you’ve wasted your time, or maybe you’ve gotten a bit of amusement out of the exercise, but as for changing their mind, forget it.

That method only works with people who are open minded, it does nothing to “true believers”.

It’s as tough as trying to convert a devout person away from their long held religious beliefs.


58 posted on 09/16/2022 7:31:58 AM PDT by aquila48 (Do not let them make you "care" ! Guilting you is how thery control you. )
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To: MtnClimber

This is a superficial argument. The Socratic method doesn’t work on them. If it did, we wouldn’t have wokesters. In fact, Athens eventually put Socrates to death, in part, for making the small argument seem large.

The wokester can dismiss everything you’re saying simply by insisting that, “You’re using white dead men logic – the logic is racist.”

There is no rational solution to this mindset. The outcome will eventually be civil war as history has shown time and again. Then, when we win and are interrogating people for their role in the war they will say, “I was a good American, I was never woke...”


59 posted on 09/16/2022 7:33:17 AM PDT by BEJ
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To: MtnClimber

although he comes with facts, Steven Crowder’s “change my mind” set-up is largely the Socratic method.


60 posted on 09/16/2022 7:35:16 AM PDT by Extra-Ordinary Objectives (My preferred pronouns are intuitively obvious to the most casual observer.)
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