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Thread: “woke” is the new sorcery

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    “woke” is the new sorcery

    OK, this is a little heady so I'll drop it under philosophy. Woke is sorcery, in my simpler thinking, because there is nothing rational about it, nothing empirical, but a sort of magic, black magi one might say.

    “WOKE” IS THE NEW SORCERY

    It may seem bizarre to diagnose certain current events as involving sorcery. Surely sorcery is something that was never real, and attempts at using it disappeared hundreds of years ago. Yet the political philosopher Eric Voegelin demonstrated that many of the new ideologies that have arisen during the past three centuries have, in fact, been efforts to change the world by casting a spell of words over it.

    Voegelin aimed his analysis chiefly at nineteenth-century thinkers such as Friedrich Hegel, Karl Marx, and Auguste Comte. He notes that Hegel quite clearly saw himself as a sorcerer, as he referred to his Zauberworte (magic words) and his Zauberkraft (magic force) that would transform reality. But Voegelin’s analysis applies equally well to more modern sorcerers, including those who conjure up a new political order through the magic language of “wokeness.”

    ...In “On Hegel—A Study in Sorcery,” Voegelin summarizes this feature of the sorcerer’s work as “replacing the first reality of experience by the second reality of imaginative construction, and endowing the imaginary reality with the appearance of truth by letting it absorb pieces of first reality.” Voegelin notes that this sort of sorcery is widespread: it is “the great confidence game played by modern man . . . under such titles as advertisement, propaganda, communication, and comprehensively, as ideological politics.”

    ...Lest this analysis of sorcery seem like merely a right-wing tactic to smear leftists—although Ayn Rand, for one, was hardly on the left!—I will cite another recent example of sorcery: what is often called “neoconservatism.” The secondary reality that neoconservatives of the George W. Bush era attempted to create is one in which all actions by the United States are, by definition, virtuous, and all people, all around the world, have as their deepest aspiration to become American.

    ...Yet the promise of being able to create one’s own reality is very seductive: as Voegelin noted, “Once you have entered into the magic circle the sorcerer has drawn around himself, you are lost.”


    (tPF to keep the usual suspects from wrecking this thread on the serious side.)
    Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire. ― Gustav Mahler

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    been efforts to change the world by casting a spell of words over it.....snip~







    History does not long Entrust the care of Freedom, to the Weak or Timid!!!!! Dwight D. Eisenhower ~

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    It's not changing reality, but there is a power of mass delusions and persuasions throughout human history. For example while we mock Hitler today in the 1930's he was able to persuade massive crowds of otherwise decent people and was said to have a powerful personality by those who met him in person.

    In my observation "WOKE" is simply a newer version of PC that surfaced off college campuses in the 90's. It makes people who identify as Progressive Left feel superior, and at the same time have little or no need to argue with the inferior conservatives. WOKE meaning I am enlightened in politics and Social Justice as if in a mystical or religious sense beyond question.

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    Quote Originally Posted by RMNIXON View Post
    It's not changing reality, but there is a power of mass delusions and persuasions throughout human history. For example while we mock Hitler today in the 1930's he was able to persuade massive crowds of otherwise decent people and was said to have a powerful personality by those who met him in person.

    In my observation "WOKE" is simply a newer version of PC that surfaced off college campuses in the 90's. It makes people who identify as Progressive Left feel superior, and at the same time have little or no need to argue with the inferior conservatives. WOKE meaning I am enlightened in politics and Social Justice as if in a mystical or religious sense beyond question.
    Moreover even before the Left and their Woke mentality comes along. They have always been about playing word games, and changing terminology. As they know they can trick Leftist voters.
    History does not long Entrust the care of Freedom, to the Weak or Timid!!!!! Dwight D. Eisenhower ~

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    Quote Originally Posted by RMNIXON View Post
    It's not changing reality, but there is a power of mass delusions and persuasions throughout human history. For example while we mock Hitler today in the 1930's he was able to persuade massive crowds of otherwise decent people and was said to have a powerful personality by those who met him in person.

    In my observation "WOKE" is simply a newer version of PC that surfaced off college campuses in the 90's. It makes people who identify as Progressive Left feel superior, and at the same time have little or no need to argue with the inferior conservatives. WOKE meaning I am enlightened in politics and Social Justice as if in a mystical or religious sense beyond question.
    True but the way people see the world can actually change it.
    Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire. ― Gustav Mahler

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