LTE: Woke 1.0 vs. Woke 2.0

Woke 1.0 vs. Woke 2.0

I was listening to the news this morning and they were reporting on AWOL’s (AOC) laying the groundwork for her presidential run in 2028. She revealed or possibly just discovered that Woke 1.0 was crazy and that those on the left should both stop referencing it and disavow any association with it. “Woke 1.0” is a newly minted expression, a rhetorical device, designed to mask their abominable behavior.

This behavior they have displayed has done tremendous damage. It has cost people their jobs, their careers, friendships and fractured family relationships. Woke behavior created the cancel culture. The only beneficiaries are Sandy’s acolytes who walk about feeling superior to all those they ridicule and correct at every possible turn.

Artists create great metaphors; and Ray Stevens summed up Sandy Cortez’s Woke persona perfectly in his novelty song the Mississippi Squirrel Revival with AOC standing in as “Sister Bertha Better-than-You”.

Seriously though, this mode of behavior, which I won’t dignify by calling it an ideology, has caused nothing but heartache since it started. Woke 1 and 2 are the arguments of an unhappy teenager, difficult to refute without damage to the complainant’s psyche, always with shifting targets and grievances, and never ending in a hug. This adolescent way of treating people stems from the progressive self-righteous certitude that “If you don’t agree with me, you are wrong” and that “You must actively demonstrate your approval of their “delusional notions” of economics, and science. 

A third insidious rhetorical device is to question the motives of the critic. “You are expected to, you must, assume that everyone has good intentions”. This device denies “Human Nature” and individuality, ignoring motives. This faux-rose-colored-glasses assumption is designed to extinguish debate.

I must admit that when I hear someone proclaim they are a Furby, my first instinct is to place a litter box on the floor and then to arrange for a spay/neuter procedure.

In conclusion, this whole movement, Woke and cancel culture, has been one big divisive and belittling experiment. That AOC and other democrats want us to forget about it before the 2028 election, shows that they believe it was ok, for a while, and that we all have short memories. I will never forget those people I have lost to this. I also will never believe they are anyone’s betters.

Joseph Shortino

Owego, New York