The Woke Dividing Line | OnlySubs with James Lindsay, Ep. 70

Why is conversation with the Woke so difficult? There are many reasons, but one reason is that the Woke have, by definition, adopted a completely different view of the world, one they believe they have awakened (woke up) to and that no one else can see. At the heart of this worldview is the matter of structural determinism, which roughly means that your membership in an identity group and that identity group's relationship to "power dynamics" the Woke believe shape society also shape your character. In other words, there can be no equal ground upon which we could possibly stand to judge people by the content of their character that doesn't also take into account the impact society has had on them in terms of the color of their skin. Conveniently, of course, the Woke get to define for themselves and everyone else what that essential experience of being in a particular identity group happens to be and so what it's "unique voice" sounds like. In this episode of my subscribers-only podcast, James Lindsay OnlySubs, I walk through the idea of structural determinism and outline how its acceptance or rejection (in favor, say, of individualism that also recognizes a common humanity shared by all) is a deep, fundamental reason why conversations across the "woke dividing line" go so badly. In short, those conversations seem to be about various details, ideas, policies, outcomes, doctrines, and all the rest, but those are all meta-conversations above the question of whether or not we accept or reject structural determinism. Join me to explore this idea and hopefully gain a little more clarity in to the difficulty of talking across this divide.

-James Lindsay

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