Talk:Woke/Archive 2

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Criticism section

§ Reception and criticism cites the opinions of Bill Maher, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Brendan O'Neill, Douglas Murray, Timothy Egan, Nick Cave(!), and the redoubtable David Brooks, among others. While these are all notable individuals in their own right, I'm not aware of any of them being considered subject-matter experts in race relations, civil rights, or the English language. Most are just pundits whose careers depend on their ability to deliver spicy takes, resulting in disproportionate media coverage of current controversies. I think this section could be pared down subtantially, at least by getting rid of the opinions that aren't mentioned in a reliable, secondary source. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 21:53, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

Got rid of the sensationalist examples except for Cave's opinion which I find it to be unique. Espngeek (talk) 23:21, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

Maybe, but the source is a music magazine and the tone of Cave's comments is heated and sensationalist. Overall I don't see how the source represents the most prominent viewpoints on the topic. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 00:22, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

@Hodgdon's secret garden: I've reverted your addition of more material about Maher for the reasons cited above. Please discuss here. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 00:08, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

The New Discourses source is just another opinion essay, of which there are innumerable, criticizing "wokeness" or use of the term "woke". That makes it a primary source for such criticism. To avoid original research and undue weight, we need independent sources that discuss the criticism as a topic in its own right. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 22:27, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

user talk:Sangdeboeuf describes New Discourses as "just another opinion essay." Something approaching Feature-article level coverage of controversial topics is often only achievable through balanced use of notable opinion pieces; otherwise, imbalance results in favor of the pov's of proponents of the theory or otherwise-controversial subject under review: in my opinion, ND's editor and principal author (who has co-authored more than one book-length treatment critical of the topic at hand) satisfies this requirement of notability for our purposes here. See wikiguideline Neutral#Bias in sources; the essay "RS may be non-neutral"; & wikiguideline "PARTISAN":

From Wikipedia:Neutral point of view#Bias in sources: "...biased sources are not inherently disallowed based on bias alone, although other aspects of the source may make it invalid. Neutral point of view should be achieved by balancing the bias in sources based on the weight of the opinion in reliable sources and not by excluding sources that do not conform to the editor's point of view...."

Wikipedia:Neutrality of sources#Reliable sources may be non-neutral

One of the perennial issues that arises during editor disputes is how the neutral point of view policy interacts with the reliable sources guideline. Arguments often arise which contend that a given source ought to be excluded as unreliable because the source has an identifiable point of view. These arguments cross a wide variety of topics and stem from a common misunderstanding about how NPOV interacts with RS. The neutral point of view policy applies to Wikipedia articles as a whole: articles should reflect an appropriate balance of differing points of view. The reliable sources guideline refers to a source's overall reputation for fact-checking and reliability--not the source's neutrality. Reliable sources may be non-neutral: a source's reputation for fact-checking is not inherently dependent upon its point of view. A frequent example that arises in this type of discussion is The New York Times, which is the leading newspaper of record in the United States yet which is sometimes said to reflect a left-wing point of view. If that presents a problem within article space, the problem is not reliability. The appropriate Wikipedian solution is to include The New York Times and also to add other reliable sources that represent a different point of view. The Wall Street Journal and National Review are reliable sources that present right wing points of view. Left-leaning The Village Voice might also be cited. The appropriate balance can be determined from the undue weight clause of the neutrality policy. Overall, good Wikipedian contribution renders articles objective and neutral by presenting an appropriate balance of reliable opinions. It requires less research to argue against one reliable source than to locate alternate reliable sources, which may be why neutrality/reliability conflation is a perennial problem. This phenomenon is global rather than national. For instance, with regard to Middle East politics the Jerusalem Post presents a view of events that is distinct from Al Jazeera. Generally speaking, both sources are reliable. When these two sources differ, Wikipedian purposes are best served by clearly stating what each source reported without attempting to editorialize which of the conflicting presentations is intrinsically right.

Wikipedia:PARTISAN):

Wikipedia articles are required to present a neutral point of view. However, reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective. Sometimes non-neutral sources are the best possible sources for supporting information about the different viewpoints held on a subject.

Common sources of bias include political, financial, religious, philosophical, or other beliefs. Although a source may be biased, it may be reliable in the specific context. When dealing with a potentially biased source, editors should consider whether the source meets the normal requirements for reliable sources, such as editorial control, a reputation for fact-checking, and the level of independence from the topic the source is covering. Bias may make in-text attribution appropriate, as in "Feminist Betty Friedan wrote that..."; "According to the Marxist economist Harry Magdoff..."; or "Conservative Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater believed that...".

--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 17:06, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

Except that New Discourses isn't an independent reliable source. It's akin to a personal blog - there is no evident editorial structure or masthead, and there is no indication of fact-checking or correction policies. New Discourses has no evident reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. This makes it a self-published source. The author of the piece, David Bern, does not appear to be a recognized expert on cultural issues - his bio simply calls him a "nonprofit CEO" and "critic of woke ideology" and his Twitter account has fewer than 600 followers. Unless there's substantial reliable secondary sources commenting on Bern's opinion, it's unclear to me why his primary-sourced opinion merits any weight whatsoever here. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 19:33, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

Agreed regarding New Discourses as non-RS. Jlevi (talk) 23:44, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

Please do note that Lindsay's work has been reviewed in prestigious media outlets including The Economist and The Times and various American news outlets. (Also, opinion pieces he's penned have been published in a variety of opinion magazines, too.)

Lindsay & co.'s opinions have received notice within such independent RSes as those contained herein.

economist [1] - “Cynical Theories”, a forthcoming book by Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay, two writers, argues that the two systems of thought are incompatible. One reason is that the constellation of postmodern thinking dealing with race, gender, sexuality and disability, which they call “Theory”, disempowers the individual in favour of group identities, claiming that these alignments are necessary to end oppression. Another is Theorists’ belief... thetimes [2] - Cynical Theories by Helen Pluckrose & James Lindsay Review — Woke warriors are conquering academia: This book exposes the brainlessness in today’s universities. Douglas Murray fears that it may have arrived too late spectator [3] - Cynical Theories: How Universities Made Everything About Race, Gender and Identity — and Why This Harms Everybody [By] Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay [review] usatoday [4] - James Lindsay has literally drawn up an entire line of flash cards breaking down the various contemporary left-wing meanings for terms like “racism.” city journal [5] - Most of my nonfiction reading lately has, sadly, been about critical race theory and identity politics. Cynical Theories, by James Lindsay and Helen Pluckrose, is an invaluable primer for anyone trying to understand what this new set of jargon means and what its architects intend. spectator [6] - As Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay put it in their book Cynical Theories, the question is not ‘Did racism take place?’ but ‘How did racism manifest in that situation?’ Those trained in critical race theory are apparently uniquely qualified to make such determinations; the rest of us have to take them on faith. commentary [7] - In Cynical Theories, dissident academics Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay bear a timely warning: Destructive ideas, built to take aim at liberal democratic capitalism, will have destructive consequences. These ideas, known as Critical Theory, Social-Justice Scholarship, or just “Theory,” openly acknowledge their appetite for destruction. Adherents to Theory reject the authority of science, view liberalism as oppressive, and deny the possibility of objective knowledge. worldnews [8] - James Lindsay, has been promoting the book he wrote with his colleague Pluckrose, Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything About Race, Gender, and Identity—and Why This Harms Everybody. According to the authors, it began in the 1960s—like so much else—with the broad acceptance of postmodernism as an academic philosophy. ozy [9] - James Lindsay, one of the three scholars, along with Areo magazine editor Helen Pluckrose and Portland State philosophy professor Peter Boghossian. However, Lindsay added, “a culture has developed in which only certain conclusions are allowed … the fields we are concerned about put social grievances ahead of objective truth.”

Of course New Discourses is not "indie" of Lindsay, in that it's edited and largely written by him; however, WD is indie of eg the scholars-developing-CRT: which is what "independent" means in the context at wp:RSes (as opposed to what's being claimed this guidelines says). Yet, per WP:SELFPUB: "Self-published material is characterized by the lack of independent reviewers (those without a conflict of interest) validating the reliability of content. [...E]xamples of self-published sources include press releases, material contained within[...]material published in media by the owner(s)/publisher(s) of the media...." // "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications."--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 19:05, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

As I replied to a nearly identical wall of text at Talk:Critical race theory:

City Journal is published by a conservative think tank.

... Taking a few examples from WP:FA § Culture and society, our articles on the Apollo 15 postal covers incident, Macedonia (terminology), and Same-sex marriage in Spain don't cite a single opinion piece, though the topics are/were definitely controversial.

... Most of the sources you linked are primary sources for one person's opinion or another. WP articles should be based mainly on secondary sources.

... no one is suggesting we exclude sources based on their POV. Due weight of opinions based on reliable sources is exactly what most editors here are going for, I think.

... Just because we can use [these sources] doesn't mean we should.

... from what I know, Lindsay & Pluckrose's work does not meet [WP:RS] requirements. They authored a polemic which seeks to debunk academic theories but was not itself academically vetted prior to publication. Their involvement in the grievance studies affair directly links them to the topic, meaning they are not independent from it.

... most of [these sources] are not reliable for factual content. I already mentioned City Journal; The Spectator, Commentary, and World are opinion sources. OZY is a fairly new player in the media sphere; I'm not sure how much weight we'd give it. (And it explicitly calls Lindsay & co. "fringe".) Additionally, news coverage of recent controversies like the grievance studies affair is often disproportionate to their overall significance and should be handled cautiously.

... that's what opinion magazines do. They publish opinions, often controversial ones. That doesn't mean [Lindsay's] (non-expert) opinion is relevant for our purposes. CRT is but one of the many fields and schools swept up in Lindsay & co.'s anti-wokeness dragnet.

... independence from the topic is only one consideration; the other is a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy.

... James A. Lindsay is a mathematician. Please show where his work in [the relevant field] has been published in reliable sources ... (not counting hoax papers, obviously).

—Sangdeboeuf (talk) 22:53, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

That is not what "independent" means in the context of RS.

Moreover, I fear that you are conflating "critic" and "expert." I would not dispute that James Lindsay is a critic of "wokeness/CRT/whatever." I would strongly dispute that Lindsay is an expert about those things. He has no academic background studying CRT, there is no evidence that he has published any peer-reviewed research on CRT or, honestly, any non-polemic work about CRT, and he has publicly declared that the social justice movement is his ideological enemy. Those are not the words and deeds of a disinterested "expert" in a field. No one would describe Michael Moore as an "expert" on conservatism - similarly, James Lindsay is not an "expert" on critical race theory. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 01:58, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

@Hodgdon's secret garden: I'm confused why you copied your lengthy arguments in favor of a James Lindsay source from Talk:Critical race theory to here. The New Discourses piece I linked to is by one David Bern; Lindsay is the founder (and editor?) of the site. Are you proposing to use a different source by Lindsay commenting on wokeness? --Sangdeboeuf (talk) 03:01, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

User talk:Sangdeboeuf, sure, there are a number of people who've criticized this topic; however, our dear Mr. Lindsay is the only person I know of who's embarked on a career solely as a single-issue warrior against---- well, what he's termed "Woke theory" (ah or the "Woke motto," "Woke movement," "Woke ideology," "Woke project," or "Woke critical consciousness," and so forth). Because of this veritable mantra -- by which he'd become notable -- I concluded that his skewerings (of <w>wokism wokeness awakening wokery the wokerati the wokish the wokous ah, okay, okay an awakened consciousness among the oppressed to no longer buy into this oppression) would be notable as well: just as the (otherwise liberal) columnist and public intellectual Mencken's opinions, about what he thought were the New Deal's overreaches in relation to certain democratic principles, were influential/of note in his day, despite these also not having been published in scholarly journals.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 16:12, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

There are lots of single-issue warrior[s] out there who are not experts. Jenny McCarthy is notable as an opponent of vaccines. That doesn't make her a reliable source on them. Wikipedia didn't exist in H. L. Mencken's day, but if it had, his opinions wouldn't have been any more encyclopedic then. An encyclopedia article is not an indiscriminate collection of noteworthy (or newsworthy) opinions, but a summary of accepted knowledge on a subject. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 20:51, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

As was the case at Talk:Critical race theory, the blurb at the end of Lindsay's piece says: "[James Lindsay] is the founder of New Discourses and currently promoting his new book 'Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity―and Why This Harms Everybody.'" I think that tells us everything we need to know. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 21:12, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

User:Sangdeboeuf, knowledge accepted by whom? WP doesn't limit its coverage to such a standard at all, unless reasonably varying points of view of what's to be accepted as knowledge are accounted for! For example, Lindsay-&-company's book related to our topic at hand is notable enough that it has its own wikientry -- of course, at which could be created a wikiarticle section dedicated to its chapter about critical race theory; and, since Lindsay has come, subsequently, to term CRT with what he calls "Woke" theory: at the point where Woke is used in that article, it could, and well ought, to bluelink -- here; yet, of course, your interpretation of guidelines would preclude this article from linking there. Such a regime would be unworkable to apply on Wikipedia across the board; by which token, it cannot function as a regime at all but only as an ad hoc rationale. Lindsay's a published philosopher whose numerous books [many of which have "God" in their titles, fwiw] have been reviewed in multiple independent sources, yet because he isn't credentialed at a Ph.D. level in, very specifically, a social "science" [sic!], your regime would count Lindsay's critiques unnotable. Yet in circumstances where you were to find a book convincing that had been authored by individuals of Linday's level of academic credentials, it wouldn't take too great a stretch of the imagination to believe you likely to suddenly discover some rationale to link to it.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 18:39, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Purpose: The goal of a Wikipedia article is to present a neutrally written summary of existing mainstream knowledge; and What Wikipedia is not: A Wikipedia article should not be a complete exposition of all possible details, but a summary of accepted knowledge regarding its subject. By your logic, every Holocaust-denying racist notable enough for their own Wikipedia page should be quoted alongside mainstream scholars of The Holocaust. We don't give undue prominence to fringe views like Holocaust denial, anti-vax, flat Earth, or those of Lindsay & co. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 21:45, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

User:Sangdeboeuf: "...fringe views like[...]those of Lindsay & co."

I deduce that, within certain subdisciplines of the (self-admittedly) "soft" sciences, researchers and theorists have attempted to effect a correction to certain systemic, cultural biases that's been perpetuated in these fields from days past &ndasd; and, in their efforts to do so, they've ventured a panoply of brand-new theories within these subdisciplines— Enter, Pluckrose, Lindsay & Boghossian: who've attempted, at some degree or another at least, to debunk them. I grant that papers in these P/L/B-critiqued fields are published in their disciplines' journals and are, by this measure, not, for Wikipedian purposes, considered "wp:Fringe"; yet, it's the scientific method to which Ms. Pluckrose & co. were enjoining (their critiques' contending that the general run of the newly-minted theories in these fields have as yet not been subjected to sufficient rigor), it's they whom you patently identify as being the "fringey" ones, IMHO. Are you revealing which side you personally support in this debate? E.g. Richard Dawkins's side (about postmodern attempts at scholarship's allegedly disguising its lack of anything deserving the name by resort to obscurantism)? or that of these newer theories proponents? And, in point of fact, whereas e.g. Google scholar links papers by these theorists, so does it to the paper written by P. L. & B. proposing their critique. Just saying.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 17:55, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

While Google Scholar is generally useful for finding academic papers, not all of the sources listed there are academic publications. Lindsay and Pluckrose did not publish their findings in an academic journal, and the grievance studies affair was hardly a scientific investigation. (The selection process was unclear and there was no control group.) --Sangdeboeuf (talk) 18:46, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

In a thread further downpage, User Sangdeboeuf (diff) claims I made an assertion in the thread here which he "showed to be false."

Note that my original statement, as I quoted, said, "Something approaching FA level coverage of controversial topics is often only achievable through balanced use of notable opinion pieces?" (emphasis added). User Sangdeboeuf's assertion confuses me as to which part, of my statement as just given, had been by them successfully contradicted: Where I'd said that FA quality can be achievable through use of opinion pieces which have been determined to be notable? Or, I'd said that FA quality is achievable through balanced use of these opinion pieces? Or, baldly, that FA quality is often achieved through use of opinion pieces?(*)

If it is of this last-mentioned emphasis that my statement's to have been successfully contradicted, note that the first line at the wikiguideline "Opinion" (which I bluelinked and highlighted) reads: Wikipedia:Describing points of view: At Wikipedia, points of view (POVs) – cognitive perspectives – are often essential to articles which treat controversial subjects."(*)

Are not FA quality thought to be obtainable through diligent often application of such guidelines as this? And, furthermore, doesn't Wikipedia:Featured article criteria advise that —

"A featured article exemplifies Wikipedia's very best work and is distinguished by professional standards of writing, presentation, and sourcing. [... They're deemed] comprehensive: it neglects no major facts or details and places the subject in context; well-researched: it is a thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature; claims are verifiable against high-quality reliable sources and are supported by inline citations where appropriate; neutral: it presents views fairly and without bias....

In the introduction to Wikipedia's "Featured Article Criteria" page included a link to the guideline references Category:Wikipedia content policies, of which a member is Wikipedia:Reliable sources, of which a subsection is Wikipedia:Reliable sources#Biased or opinionated sources, which, in turn, reads: "reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective. Sometimes non-neutral sources are the best possible sources for supporting information about the different viewpoints held on a subject."

__________

(*) —— Ironically, the text of this wikiguideline happens to show how it accomplishes this by way of its own illustration:

"In Thought du Jour Harold Geneen^{b. 1910; d. 1997; president of the ITT Corp.} has stated^{Ref.: Cited by Michael Kesterton in The Globe and Mail}: "The reliability of the person giving you the facts is as important as the facts themselves. Keep in mind that facts are seldom facts, but what people think are facts, heavily tinged with assumptions."^†

^† Who gives a toss what Harold Geneen's opinion is? Answer: Apparently, it's Canada's The Globe and Mail who does.
--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 19:09, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

The false part was FA quality is often achieved through use of opinion pieces, as I showed with examples. The part of WP:OPINION you left out says, the article should represent the POVs of the main scholars and specialists who have produced reliable sources on the issue. Scholars' and specialists' relevant writing is to be found in in academic journals and monographs, not op-eds and blogs. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 22:37, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Describing points of view says that "At Wikipedia, points of view (POVs) – cognitive perspectives – are often essential to articles which treat controversial subjects." Or Wikipedia:Verifiability#Self-published sources's "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications." Not only that, but – and this ostensibly by way of illustration – this guideline (helpfully shorthanded as "wp:OPINION") itself cites the opinion, cited in additional third-party sources, of a business guru, which citations satisfy letter-and-spirit of WP's concerns about an opinion's notability, provided editors of a page deem said opinion sufficiently of import and relevance, etc. But, I tire of having to repeat my own side of the disagreement here. Maybe it's something like wikiinclusionism vs. wikideletionism and we'll just have to agree to disagree. Could you accept a truce such as that, then? If you must call out primarily-sourced opinions as though the same's a blanket disqualifier, could you do so especially succinctly, and then I'd agree to respond also in shortwinded fashion? What do you say? As, to me, the "controversy" mentioned @ wp:OPINION implies that there will be a mutiplicity of views; as well as the definition at Dictionary-dot-com, as based on the American Heritage Dictionary of the English language, as, in its first entry at opinion as "a belief or judgment that rests on grounds insufficient to produce complete certainty" all fit into my own statement, "FA quality is often achieved through use of opinion pieces." I see you disagree, either in my emphasis or in my definition of what constitutes "opinion pieces." (By which I mean, by the way, such opinion piece as op-eds currently cited at the article critical race theory, or, such as Harold Geneen's statements on the topic of Opinion, cited above, and on which has been commented elsewhere.)--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 19:36, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

The idea that I'm the one who needs to express myself more succinctly is laughable. I've already responded to most of these arguments; try to WP:LISTEN. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 19:55, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

Well, sir, your removal here (DIFF) of the wp:PRIMARY source to which our article extremely directly refers indicates to me the difference between one camp's narrow interpretation of the guidelines and another's broader one, both reasonable IMHO.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 20:37, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

Regarding this edit, just because we can use primary sources doesn't mean we should, as I explained already. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 00:14, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

Leaves holes: Who? Douthat, Ross; what? neologism of woke capitalism; where? Times of n.y. city; when? becauses of primary-source gingerliness, year must remain blank.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 17:02, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

A regular thread about whether WP should give coverage to "commentators' having used woke as an identifying term for anti-racism methodologies"

Edited

I've removed the RfC here and replaced it with an informal request to for help about a suggested topic for treatment.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 15:43, 15 March 2021 (UTC)--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 18:57, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

The article is presently about "Woke" (in its adjectival sense). It's suggested it be enlarged to include pertinent material more-so about "woke-ness" (which Cambridge University defines as a mainly US informal noun meaning "a state of being aware, especially of social problems such as racism and inequality").

Independent coverage such as this article in Vox arguing that "Republicans are trying to outlaw wokeness," which adds that "Jeffrey Sachs, a professor of politics at Acadia University, calls it 'The New War on Woke.'" Elsewhere RS discussions abound that concern woke-influenced sensitivity trainings in government and business human resources departments. Should these be thought tangential our Wikipedia entry's coverage of woke or not? If yes, I suggest something like the following for possible inclusion.

As of the early 2020s, works of such thinkers on race relations as Ibram X. Kendi, Robin J. DiAngelo, Carol Anderson, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and others, had come to cultural salience in the U.S. After various company human resources departments began featuring some of these works' thought within employee sensitivity training courses, certain scholars and commentators used woke as an identifying term for to their methodologies, including Jonathan Chait, John McWhorter, Wilfred Reilly Raluca Bejan and others. In January 2021, a confidential "anti-woke" help line was founded in the U.K. by the scholar Helen Pluckrose, known for her critique of wokeism: a Discord server that fields such calls as those from employees concerned with some allegedly overwrought features within diversity training programs, and aims to "help people convince their employers to allow them to reject racism from their own philosophical, ethical or religious beliefs and not [a] highly theoretical and political one."

Sources

Of course, wanting to avoid, per WP:FORBESCON, material that's self-published, I do note that one of the above citations is to Raluca Bejan, a published academic who teaches in the school of social work at Nova Scotia's public university Dalhousie, which piece was published in the Conversation, a publication of her own university.

About the rest: the New York Times's Elizabeth A. Harris on its books-and-publishing beat, the Guardian's Nosheen Iqbal is its women's editor, the Atlantic's London-based staff writer Helen Lewis has written a book on the history of feminism, the NewYorker's Sanneh Kelefa's beat is primarily race and culture, PBS NewsHour's Amna Nawaz is an Emmy award-winning broadcast journalist, the Washington Post's opinion-piece writer Jonathan Capehart analyzes politics, Forbes contributor Julia Wuench has expertise in emergent leadership training, columnist Jonothan Chait of New York (magazine's) Intelligencer writes about US culture and politics, NPR "Morning Edition" journalist Steve Inskeep has received awards including for his reporting on complexities of electoral politics and race, Atlantic contributor John McWhorter is a linguist and social critic at Columbia, USA Today contibutor Wilfred Reilly is a political scientist at Kentucky State, The Independent opinion columnist writes nonfiction/fiction and teaches at UC Irvine, The Hill opinion contributor Dennis M. Powell is a management consultant, the Independent's Celia Walden's beats include women's issues and social etiquette.

The small number of the opinion pieces above are suggested as being appropriate under wp:PARTISAN: "Sometimes non-neutral sources are the best possible sources for supporting information about the different viewpoints held on a subject. Common sources of bias include political, financial, religious, philosophical, or other beliefs. Although a source may be biased, it may be reliable in the specific context. When dealing with a potentially biased source, editors should consider whether the source meets the normal requirements for reliable sources, such as editorial control, a reputation for fact-checking, and the level of independence from the topic the source is covering. Bias may make in-text attribution appropriate, as in 'Feminist Betty Friedan wrote that...'"; and also see WP's Neutral-Point-of-View page at wp:YESPOV.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 19:24, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

• Procedural close: the above statement is not neutral and brief as per WP:RFCNEUTRAL and there has been no prior discussion of the text in question as per WP:RFCBEFORE. Failing that, oppose as off-topic and WP:UNDUE. As I said when I removed the text from the article, The linchpin of this paragraph is a WP:FORBESCON – essentially self-published – the rest are primary sources or unrelated to the topic. Bejan's commentary and the rest aren't about the term "woke". "Wokeism" is undefined and POV. See § Use vs. mention above. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 21:55, 14 March 2021 (UTC)
  • Hodgdon's secret garden's opening statement is not showing up on the list of active RfCs, I suspect it's too long for Legobot to handle. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 23:06, 14 March 2021 (UTC)
  • Illing's Vox article might be a good start for expanding coverage of the term as a "lens" for viewing other topics. So why were neither it nor Jeffrey Sachs' blog cited in the proposed text? —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 21:42, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose, not sufficiently supported by the sources cited; most of these sources don't even use the term "woke", which is a bare minimum to be relevant. Out of the sources, the NYT, Guardian, Capehart, Wuench, and Nymag ones don't use the term "woke" at all (the latter two are also opinion pieces that you're trying to cite to establish facts.) The Atlantic one uses it a sense that directly contradicts the one you're arguing for in this paragraph. The sources for Chait, McWhorter, and Bejan likewise don't use the term 'woke' and cannot be used (this actually involves WP:BLP issues because you're implicitly attributing to them controversial positions that aren't supported by the sources you used.) The final Pluckrose one doesn't use 'woke', either, and is published in an unreliable source besides. In fact, out of the cites here, only three of them use the term "woke" in the sense you're trying to establish; two of them are low-quality opinion pieces by non-experts, and one of them is an article about a hotline that ultimately only uses it in passing without going into any depth on it, and essentially implies that it's grandstanding by another culture-war talking head with a lot invested in the topic - the amount of focus you're devoting to the existence of the hotline, which is largely trivia, is plainly WP:UNDUE here. You say that you want to use a small number of opinion pieces, but in practice you are hinging the entire section on what they say, while using unrelated non-opinion pieces to try and make their argument in the text via WP:SYNTH. Finally, I don't see what source you're using for the term "wokeism", which would clearly require a high-quality non-opinion source to state as if it were definitely an indisputable thing in the article text, the way you're using the word here. --Aquillion (talk) 21:58, 14 March 2021 (UTC)
  • Procedural question. I hope that respondents, if they would, might comment (in light of wp:EDIT's "wp:PRESERVE section) if they believe that any of these sources might support appropriate content that could belong in a fully-formed article on woke? Thanks. -- The Requester of Commentary Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 22:51, 14 March 2021 (UTC)
    • The reasons for not relying on opinion pieces have been explained on this page ad nauseam. As for the paragraph in question, you boldly added it, I reverted it. There's nothing significant to preserve. Instead, WP:BRD applies. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 02:56, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
• Firstly, I agree with Sangdeboeuf that this should be closed and revised because I honestly don't understand what I'm being asked to comment on. But reading the proposed text, I agree that it should be excluded. It seems to be unacceptable synthesis of sources where the text proposes a new hypothesis ("wokeness" as a scholarly methodology) unsupported by any actual citation. — Wug·a·po·des​ 01:23, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
• Exclude - There doesn't appear to be any sort of consensus or agreement on what "wokeness" is, and the best we can apparently conclude from the available sources is that's a pejorative applied by opponents of progressivism and social justice to a wide variety of things they oppose. Using sources which don't use the word "woke" to support claims about living people being "woke" or responsible for whatever "wokeness" is, is dishonest and violates fundamental policy on living people. Specifically, not a single source in the proposed addition connects Coates or Anderson to "wokeness," and Kendi gets two passing mentions of his name without detail. This is clearly prohibited synthesis - you can't just take what someone says and declare it to be "wokeness" because you say so. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 02:08, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
• I withdrew the formal RfC which apparently wasn't loading in favor of a request for help, of less formality, about whether to give encyclopedic coverage to the suggested topic and, if so, how to do so.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 15:43, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

"MEA CULPA"!

Yes, as promised, I'm going to offer a mea culpa – below! – but, first, I want to explain myself (and, with apologies, if I seem prolix):

Two articles in Vox, by Aja Romano and Sean Illing and from their separate vantage points looking, respectively, at cyberculture and politics, argue that the use of (a.) woke in each venue has been co-opted by the right-wing as a shorthand for— well, to quote our Wikipedia article, fwiw: b. identity politics, c, cancel culture, d. race-baiting, e. political correctness, f. internet call-out culture, and g. virtue signaling within society's general h. culture war.

(All of these items b. through h. are used "by folks on the right-wing," it seems to me, as well.) Anyway: I think Romano and Illing both err a bit in their implying it is the right-wing that must have been the term woke's [as well as its "sometimes-constituent" term's] provenance. (Easy to do: In that the eight "sometimes-constituent" phenomena each are quite-arguably of the left-wing, so, one might overgeneralize that criticisms of the these "left-wing" phenomena would have sole provenance in the opposing wing.) This hypotheses, however, doesn't seem to align with facts readily available to even the most cursory observation; no, rather, it is people from pretty much all political persuasions, who, when critiquing some combination of these phenomena, have been using woke as a shorthand!— Including: By editors when writing headlines. By journalists when needing a quick and/or punchy way of expressing their own critiques or when giving journalistic coverage to such critiques as spoken or authored by others. By commentators of whatever political stripe or of whatever category of professed expertise. And by– for example, Harvard's Dr. Pinker, when asked about what he thought of woke culture, his saying in off-hand fashion that it's a "convenient label for a kind of ideology that has been with us for decades but it has increased in its prominence particularly in 2020. (By the way: Note that, in Pinker's branch of the Academy, if Conservatives are not as "rare as black swans," they are not common— and, in fact, Pinker's own case, he happens to be outspokenly very politically liberal and, also – an advocate of "combating [racism through] the open exchange of ideas").

But, hmmm— Who came up with the idea of representing any one or combination of b. through h. as "woke"? Maybe a single person did it; maybe several or many did it unbeknownst to each other: It doesn't matter one way or another, though, because: How the development of language works, is that when someone comes up with a useful term, it gains currency through its utility; and, Woke has such currency because of the utility of it's being a one-syllable summation of related things describable in various ways by seven other multi-word phrases. This word's currency exists, at the moment. It's a common feature of language development that growing and/or allegedly "uppity" social phenomena or movements receive nicknames that are and/or were originally derogatory: "flaming[ly]" "queers," teetotalers," the "Methodists," the "Quakers," the "Mormons." One option for a group thus shorthanded-in-its-being-critiqued is to so-called reclaim the term on their own terms: This is how the Q got into LGBTQ, of course. Teetotaler, I guess, is jokey for the Temperance movement and now seems usually used with self-deprecation to mean "abstemious." Methodists figured the term was as good as any (if not, perhaps, better than others) and simply adopted Methodism to talk of themselves. Quakers (more correctly: Friends) term themselves the former designation, but informally. Mormons (Latter-day Saints) once accepted their own use of this formerly-given designation in more informal contexts but have come extremely recently almost completely to deprecate its use among themselves.

It appears that such a deprecation may be afoot with regard woke, as well: By saying its use is by Conservatives, maybe those critiquing b. through h. who are not Conservative will become scared off and come up with an alternative (say, should it become successfully tabooized as a vulgarism, perhaps even sometimes resort to terming critiques of the ideology "the w-word"!).

Which is to say: I doubt any informed person has trouble making out what Pinker was referencing, ideologies' being social movements (for example, a candidate runs for a seat and, when she begins to gather support, political scientists begin to use the term momentum in their analysis of the burgeoning "movement" of people – with of people a synonym for "social," obviously!). Pinker talks of an ideology increasing in promenance especially in 2020. Any reasonably-observant person watching the social scene would agree with him here; and, as any review of commentators-on-society (including editors creating short headlines) during the past year will indicate.

Well, but, then— I came to this Wikipedia articles talkpage–– and I find that people hereabouts don't believe there has been any such social movement! At first, I thought these contributors were engaging in wikilegalistic or pedantic gamespersonship and that they were (as were Romano and Illing!) simply going about their business – out of some kind of ill-begoten, "socially-conscious" motives – of their attempt to accomplish the deprecation of this by-now-only-too-common term.

---

OK: Now, I'm getting to my mea culpa— (!)

I now know that my leeriness about other-editors-here's motives to have been illogical of me: Because I myself believed woke to be a used and useful shorthand for any combinations of b. through h., I then illogically thought any talkpage commenters hereabouts would do so, as well. But, it turns out that there seems to be pretty solid ground for them to doubt this shorthand even exists! Probably a lot of people know what it means but never themselves use it! Prof. Pinker, for example, only referred to the word, and this because his having been asked by an interviewer about it; but, Pinker, himself, actually omitted his use of the word even whilst he was otherwise-directly addressing its use. What does this tell us? That the word actually is considered impolite enough that – whereas everybody knows what it means, I'm sure – it appears a very good many people still would be disinclined, themselves, at all to use it in their own language, let alone openly. Hence, if Wikipedia were to have an article on this catchall or rubric for critiques of any combination of b. through h.———

Per wp:NEO:

"[...A]rticles are often created in an attempt to use Wikipedia to increase usage of the term. Care should be taken when translating text into English that a term common in the host language does not create an uncommon neologism in English. As Wiktionary's inclusion criteria differ from Wikipedia's, that project may cover neologisms that Wikipedia cannot accept. Editors may wish to contribute an entry for the neologism to Wiktionary instead.

"Some neologisms can be in frequent use, and it may be possible to pull together many facts about a particular term and show evidence of its usage on the Internet or in larger society. To support an article about a particular term or concept, we must cite what reliable secondary sources say about the term or concept, not just sources that use the term (see use–mention distinction). An editor's personal observations and research (e.g. finding blogs, books, and articles that use the term rather than are about the term) are insufficient to support articles on neologisms because this may require analysis and synthesis of primary source material to advance a position, which is explicitly prohibited by the original research policy.

"Neologisms that are in wide use but for which there are no treatments in secondary sources are not yet ready for use and coverage in Wikipedia. The term does not need to be in Wikipedia in order to be a 'true' term, and when secondary sources become available, it will be appropriate to create an article on the topic, or use the term within other articles.

"In a few cases, there will be notable topics which are well-documented in reliable sources, but for which no accepted short-hand term exists. It can be tempting to employ a neologism in such a case. Instead, it is preferable to use a title that is a descriptive phrase in plain English if possible, even if this makes for a somewhat long or awkward title.

wp:Non-judgmental descriptive titles

"...In some cases a descriptive phrase (such as Restoration of the Everglades) is best as the title. These are often invented specifically for articles, and should reflect a neutral point of view, rather than suggesting any editor's opinions. Avoid judgmental and non-neutral words; for example, allegation or alleged can either imply wrongdoing, or in a non-criminal context may imply a claim 'made with little or no proof' and so should be avoided in a descriptive title. (Exception: articles where the topic is an actual accusation of illegality under law, discussed as such by reliable sources even if not yet proven in a court of law. These are appropriately described as "allegations".)

"However, non-neutral but common names (see preceding subsection) may be used within a descriptive title. Even descriptive titles should be based on sources, and may therefore incorporate names and terms that are commonly used by sources. (Example: Because 'Boston Massacre' is an acceptable title on its own, the descriptive title 'Political impact of the Boston Massacre' would also be acceptable.")

That is all.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 18:57, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

Read WP:NOR. If you want people to take your argument seriously, provide actual peer-reviewed scholarship on the term, not your own inferences from sources or poorly chosen policy quotations. — Wug·a·po·des​ 20:16, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

... (a.) woke ... has been co-opted by the right wing as a shorthand for— to quote our Wikipedia article: b. identity politics, c, cancel culture, d. race-baiting, e. political correctness, f. internet call-out culture, and g. virtue signaling within society's general h. culture war. I've tagged that statement for a citation. These are all contentious, loaded terms/topics. Saying or implying that any or all of them fall under the rubric of "woke(ness)" is highly POV. Giving coverage to commentators' having used woke as an identifying term for anti-racism methodologies needs to be based on independent, secondary sources. An indiscriminate collection of op-eds, blogs, polemics, etc. that happen to use the term aren't enough to show that this expanded meaning of "woke" is sufficiently notable. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 21:04, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

I've removed the "commentary" label from the section now titled § Reception and analysis. Based on the proposed text above, we can assume that the kind of commentary this would attract would be essentially unencyclopedic and WP:UNDUE. --Sangdeboeuf (talk) 16:28, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

Should we use e.g. nytimes quote about "woke american ideas"?

1. nytimes [10] - "'Woke' American Ideas Are a Threat, French Leaders Say"
2. vox [11] - "Republicans Are Trying to Outlaw Wokeness"
3. columbia economist jeffrey sachs [12] : ". . woke ideas, meaning everything from feminism and racial equity to calls for decolonization . ." (also, links to [as sachs terms them] "anti-woke activists."

   ". . One need only look to the pages of Tablet Magazine, National Review, or a seemingly endless parade of podcasts and Substacks to see how common these once-fringe theories have become. And so by the time a local politician encounters them, even the most lunatic of voices . ."

   (note - the quote's hypertext @ tablet leading to commentary by bari weiss; @ <chuckles> "most lunatic of voices," to some panelist testimony @ the NH statehouse that incl. mr. james lindsay)
   --Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 22:36, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

The first link is to a poorly-translated (and evidently plagiarized) article on a site called Lovebylife.com. I assume you meant to link to this NYT article by Norimitsu Onishi, which uses the term "woke" once, almost as a throwaway line. I think we need more than such trivial usage to establish relevance. How exactly do you propose we use this quote? —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 23:00, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

Yes (I've struck the errant link; thanks). --Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 19:21, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

CLICK UPPER-RIGHT MARGIN: I believe a term will arise for "contra 'wokeness'."

I was asking what others might think could be considered of importance with concern to the topic of the word woke here. For more granularity: LeMonde's editor-in-chief Michel Guerrinpublishing a cultural policy column dated every Saturday, and was previously LeMonde's photography editor, its cultural editor as inaugural editor of its "Culture & Ideas" supplement, and its deputy editor-in-chief[13] talks about A savoir le décolonialisme, les études sur la race ou le genre, les mots « woke » (éveillé aux discriminations) ou « cancel culture » (qui condamne les créateurs inconvenants ou les œuvres inappropriées). As Google machine-translates Guerrin's column (that is, its first 58.65%, the remainder behind a paywall): A long investigation published on February 9 on the New York Times' site is studded with teasing irony. Its title: "Do American Ideas Threaten French Cohesion?" »Bigre: [that is: "OMG!"--- Hodgd.] not Google or Amazon, but the ideas. Namely decolonialism, studies on race or gender, the words woke (awakened to discrimination) or cancel culture (which condemns inappropriate creators or inappropriate works). It is true that, in the identity debate, fueled by the so-called religious separatism law, political leaders often cite the United States. Not really to speak well of it. Rather to denounce a communitarized society, [I believe meaning: "[French] society brought into a [supra-national] community"--Hodgd.] bathed in an ocean of good thinking, which muzzles art in museums and words at universities on behalf of minorities that should not be hurt. President Emmanuel Macron denounces social science theories imported from the United States and the Minister of Education, Jean-Michel Blanquer, calls for them to be combated. About a hundred academics supported the latter in Le Monde on October 31, 2020. In their essay Race and Social Sciences (Agone), the sociologist Stéphane Beaud and the historian Gérard Noiriel worry about an “Americanization” of France, while in Le Prophète et la pandémie (Gallimard), the specialist in Islam Gilles Kepel denounces "the Islamo-leftists, decolonials and other intersectionals, holding the upper hand at the university, who prohibit any critical approach to political Islam. These examples, among others, are as many signs for the New York Times that France lives an "existential threat". By implication, it exaggerates the importance of the decolonial movement on American campuses, concentrated "around a handful of disciplines". The American newspaper sees it rather as a form of distress of white and elderly men who are afraid of losing their power in a France which was a great power and which denies its racism as its colonial past. The New York Times forgets to say that it is less the decolonial approach that is denounced in France than its abuses, in particular the exclusion of any other approach and its moralizing postures. The newspaper ignores the dozens of examples of censorship in the United States, rampant self-censorship and the appalling oratorical precautions taken by academics and cultural leaders alike.(*) [... ... ... (paywalled)] At one point, I thought to add to our article: In 2021, Social scientists Stéphane Beaud and Gérard Noiriel argued that French culture, to achieve social progress, should retain as an object greater leveling of social classes without emphasis on racial considerations rather than adopt that of its becoming "woke" (éveillé aux discriminations), Noiriel's noting that race is not recognized by the French government. Sources --my thought's having then been of "woke" as the universally-accepted monicker, in English, for what Beaud & Noiriel were critiquing. I've changed my editorial direction since then, however, and now think the ah amalgam of /a/, /b/, & /c/ components of social consciousness occasionally tagged woke out of journalistic or argumentative convenience somehow doesn't yet carry any set label; so, although Beaud & Noiriel and others' critiques of [NAME] are noted by various LeMonde journalists and the Times's Onishi, we as of yet apparently don't have WP entry – as wp:NEO advises to be composed of some "descriptive phrase in plain English if possible, even if[...]somewhat long or awkward" – where such critiques can be cited. ________ (*)Note: What is here emphasized at the excerpt of Guerrin's bottom is that he/others find [amer-] 'Ricaine-style of social science worrysome – in its amalgam of "decolonialism," "race and gender studies," ah um "woke" (for which he uses the American-English word and appends as definition: awaken to discrimination), and "cancel culture" – not, per se, because of its decolonialism (Guerrin's favored one-word shorthand?) but because of alleged "abuse" of the same through cancel culture's/the "woke's" self-perception of inherent morality and hence its necessary exclusivity, Guerrin (Macron/Beaud & Noiriel et al)'s not being hip to emulate seemingly Yankee-esque, as he says, "self-censorship and the appalling oratorical precautions taken by academics and cultural leaders" . (For what it's worth.) ======== (2) Vox political reporter Sean Illing also has reported on analogues to Michel Guerrin's critiques in the US and UK, interviewing Jeffrey Sachs, as an expert, who's an economics professor at Columbia. (3) Below the Vox link is one to the expert Sach's take about these critics: He believes them conspiracy theorists and their fears akin to another era's Red Scare or some such ( —— hmmm! How about the wikititle "the Woke scare": no? I believe something or another will turn up, in normal usage, in any case, quite eventually). --Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 19:21, 19 March 2021 (UTC)--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 20:59, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

That's an extremely long-winded way of saying you don't have a proposal. Talk pages are not a forum for speculation about what may or may not turn up, in normal usage, one day. And editorials like Guerrin's are not reliable for facts. Why do we care what LeMonde's editor-in-chief thinks? —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 20:17, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Because, I believe, per wp:RS (e.g., see wp:PARTISAN): Commentatary that's been made note of by sources independent from it are for our purposes notable, including not only Macron's about American cancel culture and so-called wokeness but that of the pair of social scientists who'd spearheaded the letter published in LeMonde, but also that of LeMonde's ed.-in-chief, too. For what it's worth.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 22:19, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

I see only two mentions of Le Monde in the NYT article, and neither of them are about this editorial. --Sangdeboeuf (talk) 00:28, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

cmt - well, guerrin's opinions (eg re the paris opera's use of alleged blackface) do tend to garner some international attention: theguardian[14] (". . Guerrin, said France was 'slowly going down the American road . . ' "), thetimesoflondon[15], france24[16], canada'stheglobeandmail[17], portugal'ssol[18] (". . Guerrin, warning about the danger of the country being carried away «slowly but firmly on the road to America . ."), etc. — his, since then, apparently continuing to double down in his near-to lindsayian alarmism about the franco-american alleged contagion of woke-tarianitis).--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 19:29, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

Several of these sources are behind a paywall. Where do any of them say anything about "woke(ness)"? —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 00:11, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

The title of this talkpage section involves the nytimes piece "'Woke' American Ideas Are a Threat, French Leaders Say" and whether these "woke American ideas" should get coverage in our WP article. To discover to what "American ideas" the Times referred, I proffered an opinion by LeMonde's editor-in-chief M Michel Guerrin in the aftermath to M Alexander Neef, Macron-appointed helmsperson of the Paris Opera, having said in an interview with LeMonde's weekly magazine M: Certain operatic "works will no doubt disappear from the repertoire."

Then, attempting helpful input regarding my question (not with xenophobia), you inquired, Who gives a toss about opinion of M Guerrin?; and, I demonstrated that, concerning coverage of d'homme à homme entre les gentilshommes M^ssrs Guerrin et Neef de l'Opéra de Paris, those caring include the Times of London.

(To the question of whether M Guerrin has used the word woke):

In M Guerrin's editorial subsequent to one(s) concerning the M^ssrs Guerrin–Neef brouhaha (the one I cited toward the top of the thread), he used woke in English followed by its French translation (about America's allegedly disproportionate political correctness by which M Guerrin's believes French culture might be becoming overly influenced); however, in M Guerrin's specific editorial about Neef and, e.g., operatic "blackface," Guerrin referenced a term also-of-American-origin: cancel culture (about M Neef – who'd formerly been director of the Canadian Opera Company – giving the indication that operas' rightly ought to become cancelled).

Or: "Who's on first?"''
--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 17:08, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

The title of the NYT article is "Will American Ideas Tear France Apart? Some of Its Leaders Think So". Unless a reliable source directly links any of the ideas in question with the word "woke", naming them in the article is improper synthesis. The fact that Guerrin's opinions on other topics have been noted by reliable sources doesn't make his opinion on this topic noteworthy. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 22:18, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

Please: I concede that Times's editors' having recast Onishi's headline to omit woke from it doesn't portend well for a contention that woke is passing wp's NEO with concern its meaning the overall woke left – although, as I admit, my original contribution of the material sourced to Onishi concerned precisely the meaning that's now in dispute. However, my initial inclination wasn't entirely out of left field, if you pardon the pun:

Onishi's third graf references "high-profile journalists' " pushback against "social science theories" he'd referenced in his second graf: absolutely certainly including LeMonde's Michel Guerrin – Onishi's saying these-mentioned pols/journos&thinkers warn[] that progressive American ideas — specifically on race, gender, post-colonialism — are undermining [French] society ...Next sentence: as contamination by the out-of-control woke leftism of American campuses and its attendant cancel culture

MORE, from Onishi, if wished: ...echoes of the American culture wars[: ...]Mass protests in France against police violence, inspired by the killing of George Floyd, challenged the official dismissal of race and systemic racism. [ ...A]ctivists prevented the staging of a play by Aeschylus to protest the wearing of masks and dark makeup by white actors [ ...Nathalie Heinich: ] 'It was a series of incidents that was extremely traumatic to our community and that all fell under what is called cancel culture'.........

AND: 100...scholars wrote an open letter.......... Pierre-André Taguieff: '...importation' in France of the 'American-style Black question'......... Stéphane Beaud's & Gérard Noiriel's book critical of racial studies...received extensive news coverage.
--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 18:20, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

Connecting any of these ideas/statements to the idea of "woke(ness)" is pure original research. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 19:52, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

Not out of any synthesis but out of reading comprehension: At first my believing our page about a pan-revolution (you know, involving gender, orientation, et al) yes, post-Ferguson, I contributed mention of these Paris events here ie, the times' paris correspondent norimitsu onishi's coverage given governmental, media, and scholar 'guardians' of european culture having countered a variety of post-floyd 'cancellations' (hah! some were mere postponements) there by brushing them with an alleged tar of their being "out-of-control woke leftism of American campuses and its attendant cancel culture."--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 16:13, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

What you're describing is improper synthesis: do not combine different parts of one source to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by the source. --Sangdeboeuf (talk) 21:49, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

Proposed "split" [sic] for "contra wokeness" material (as otherwise tangential to our topic at hand?)

Proposal: The current article Woke is about the term itself. Yet, there is also a movement that is against things that encompass said wokeness, along with a few other things. (See, for example, the following information (LINK) by Zorro Maplestone of MDI (non-governmental organizational, based in London, the Media Diversity Institute),

". . if you were reading French newspapers Le Point, Le Figaro, Le Monde, or watching TV channel CNews, you might have believed that the true threat to France is the 'Americanisation' of social sciences in French universities. 'Gender, identities, cancel culture… The fantasy of the American peril': the presumed culprits are made clear, and the front lines are drawn – both across the Atlantic and within universities – for the latest battles of the French culture war. The issue, according to a growing list of critics, would be that French universities are host to 'indigenist, racialist, and "decolonial" ideologies (transferred from North American campuses)…[which]…nourish a hatred of "whites" and of France', as stated in an open letter in the most-read French daily newspaper Le Monde. Some of these critics have even gone so far as to found a semi-satirical Observatory of Decolonialism and Identitarian Ideologies. ."

But—— This counter-movement doesn't yet have a wikientry associated with it; therefore, I suggest, humbly, that we create a new article. And, respectfully, that this entry's name utilize some terminology used by individuals in this counter-movement, while it also follows our wikimanual of style's wise guidelines at wp:NEO that, in cases when there exists non-established (as yet) neologisms, an article title-to-be be composed as a

"descriptive phrase in plain English if possible, even if[...]somewhat long or awkward"

; therefore, in light of the foregoing – and, also, to scholar-activist Bari Weiss's inability to find a name for it (other than her resort to such as "as-yet-unnamed") in her article here – I humbly propose for the fulfillment of these purposes the title Movement against de-colonialism and identitarian ideologies.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 22:33, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Opinion pieces like Weiss's and advocacy sources like the Media Diversity Institute are generally not enough to show notability by themselves. Using the same terminology used by individuals in this counter-movement in the title is unavoidably POV as well. Which material specifically are you proposing to split off from this article? --Sangdeboeuf (talk) 04:56, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

Material in our article concerning businesses's being termed "woke"? Actually, It seems, due yours and other editors' efforts to restrict coverage in it to the definitionally woke, little material remains here in to split off; rather, its edit history would have to be combed through to find where sufficiently-sourced material about, as it might be offhandedly termed, "anti-wokeness," was contributed but subsequently removed, with there not yet being another article to which to contribute it.

As for notability concerns, MDI's Zorro Maplestone points, for example, to a paper by scholars Eléonore Lépinard & Sarah Mazouz about "resistance to the concept of intersectionality" and defines the phenomenon of anti-(term?) critiques such as Gérard Noiriel's as their concerning, perhaps disparately, "intersectional feminism, post-colonial studies, critical race studies, cancel culture, the concept of 'woke'-ness, and even the practice of inclusive writing."

( – Fwiw, I think it's this "inclusive writing" that is what MDI itself encourages in its targeted sectors of journalism, the academy, and civil society – that is, business, government, etc. – by the way. So, I guess, in this regard, the Media Div. Inst. might be construed, as you say, "an advocacy group." However, my noting that MDI has affiliations with such academic institutions as the U. of Westminster, Mass., and that perspectives of inclusiveness generally are valued among the MDI's targeted areas of journalism, the academy, and civil society, I wonder if MDI's efforts in this regard aren't that removed from those of the Poynter institute: MDI's saying that it "gathers the latest guidelines, studies and other resources" – with these said to be toward "cultivating practical skills to combat negative stereotypes and disinformation, improve media and information literacy, and influence the conversation on diversity and the media"(?))

Thanks for the thought about not adopting, perhaps, a descriptor used by a particular "player" (perhaps its somehow giving the player unearned prominence?). However, I do find support for terming the ideology e.g. identitiarian (and not identitarian: ". . antiracist and other identitiarian ideologues' incessant rehearsal of the trope . ." - Penn's Adolph L. Reed Jr. "Antiracism: a neoliberal alternative to a left." Dialectical Anthropology 42, 105–115 (2018). [19] uday jain in the New Socialist: ". . both Corbynism in the UK, and the Jacobin-centred public sphere more broadly, have much to gain from a serious engagement with what the latter have derisively termed 'identitarian Leftism' . ."

(Or: Movement against woke progressivism - hattip, david greenberg, history & journalism/media prof. @ Rutgers, "The Campus War over Israel": "the past decade saw the rise of the woke progressives . .") — and more readily comprehensible than, e.g., the bo winegard, ben winegard & david geary-suggested Anti-equalitarianism: ("we [in 2015] forwarded what we termed the 'paranoid egalitarian meliorist' (PEM) model of progressive bias. I’ve come to believe that the name is[...]pejorative[...], so my colleagues and I have renamed it equalitarianism. . ").
--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 18:48, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

We already have articles on intersectionality, intersectional feminism, post-colonial studies, critical race studies, cancel culture, and inclusive writing. Any noteworthy critiques belong on those pages. What you're proposing looks like a WP:CONTENTFORK segregating critical voices into their own article. Describing any of the above as an "ideology" is contentious. Your own source says "identitarian Leftism" is derisive, and "woke" (as in "woke progressivism") is used as a mocking insult by critics. None of these are neutral descriptions. --Sangdeboeuf (talk) 20:25, 20 March 2021 (UTC) edited 22:05, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Exactly. In the positive direction: According to N|notability guidelines,

"A topic is presumed to merit an article if: It meets either the general notability guideline (GNG) below, or the criteria outlined in a subject-specific notability guideline (SNG) listed in the box on the right; and – [negatively] It is not excluded under the What Wikipedia is not policy."

Then in the [negative] direction, per wp:FORK: "A content fork is the creation of multiple separate articles all treating the same subject— Thus, inasmuch as our current page covers, in full detail, a sub-topic centered on the word woke, per the-positive- direction "summary-style" guideline, creation of a parent article to woke – as well as parent to intersectionality, intersectional feminism, post-colonial studies, critical race studies, cancel culture, and inclusive writing, political correctness, identity politics (and other manifestations of grievance against the multifarious swaths of oppression) – usefully expand the encyclopedia (wp:SUMMARY STYLE: "A fuller treatment of any major subtopic should go in a separate article of its own. Each subtopic or child article is a complete encyclopedic article in its own right"). Although, in the hypothetical of were our present article in the future to become expanded from the word woke to developments an overall movement-become-associated-with-its-name (including notable criticisms thereof, per wp:CRIT): then, yes, yet "another" article on woke (in this expanded meaning) would be a fork.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 15:23, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Agree what's best is a generic description that doesn't imply any slant whatsoever.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 16:44, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

It appears that "woke left" has been used by those identifying as "liberal left" to distinguish the one from the other? - As see Bret Stephens in the Times here: ". . It's a striking — and increasingly familiar — tale of the battle the Woke left is now waging on well-meaning liberals who don't seem to understand the illiberal nature of what they are facing. . . the Woke left has the liberal left’s number. It’s called guilt. . . The Woke left doesn’t want to be a party to this bargain. Absolution is off the table. And the liberal ideals themselves are up for renegotiation. In place of former notions of fairness toward individuals regardless of race, the Woke left has new ideas of 'restorative justice' for racial groups. . ."

1. varsity(Cambridge indie student newspaper est. 1947)[20] -

   "Eliane Thoma-Stemmet Explores the Impact of the 'Grievance Culture' narrative in shaming those who speak up about racism into silence and how this has a powerful historical precedent in the British context. - ". . [the Guardian's] Afua . . Hirsch rightly points out that the term 'woke' has in recent years been twisted by conservatives of all kinds to undermine anti-racism. Institutions and individuals hostile to racial justice work are armed with many terms to trivialise an individual’s commitment to fighting inequality. In the case of a BBC skit entitled 'Are You Too Woke?', social justice is presented as a fad for white youth, who will soon grow out of their caricatured, liberal views. More aggressive cases attack 'identity politics' in order to condemn those who speak out about experiences of racial inequality for demanding 'special treatment.' . ."

About self-identified e.g. "identitiarians": Although I'd come across a Vox (and other venues) journalist / sometimes-pundit Zeeshan Aleem who does (Aleem's calling for the "need of an identitiarian left"), it might prove difficult to find others thusly self-identifying. (Fwiw: For a precis of "identity politics" @ stanford.edu, see here.)
--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 18:15, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

You're still citing opinion pieces to make your case about "woke". I really don't think you've been listening to the feedback you've received on this talk page at all. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 21:28, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Would you be so kind to kindly refrain from, with all due respect, ad nauseum re-re-re-re-re-referencing the identical contention, w/o proper guidelines support nor even the attempt to impeachment the thrust of what guidelines I'd cited? Because, understandably I think, I tire to, like a broken record, match your "re-'s" in mention: How —— <initiate message>Although they cannot dominate, opinion pieces are very often of prime importance in giving encyclopedic coverage to subjects of controversy: such, as in our present case's sub-set of the culture wars. To save from repeatedly pushing the exact same combination on my keyboard (...and, Who knows? perhaps resulting in my developing a pernicious carpal-tunnel condition, or something!): When you subsequently come to refer to your contention w/o proper guidelines support, I'll simply write Excelsior! — or better yet, will copy and paste the present, turquoised comment, by way of my reply.<conclude message> --Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 17:10, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

This is explicitly against policy; see below. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 00:13, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

As, @ fivethirtyeight, Perry Bacon Jr. (parts1[21]/ 2[22]) writes:

". . 'anti-racism,' 'cancel culture,' 'racial equity,' 'white privilege' and 'systemic racism' . . 'woke ideology,' 'critical race theory' or 'intersectionality' . . are now regularly invoked by activists, pundits and even some elected officials.[ . . M]any conservatives and Republican officials are now regularly invoking the term 'woke' as an all-encompassing term for liberal ideas they don’t like, particularly ones that have emerged recently[ . . .] Ten views, based on polls and public discourse, that are increasingly influential on the left. This is an informal list, but I think it captures some real sentiments on the left and ideas that people on the right are criticizing when they invoke the term 'woke': 1 . . America has never been a true or full democracy. . . 2 'white privilege' . . 3 . . a broader 'systemic' and 'institutional' racism. 4 . . Capitalism as currently practiced in America is deeply flawed . . 5 . . systemic sexism. 6 . . identify[ing] as whatever gender [. .] prefer[ed] . . 7 . . disparity — for example, Black, Latino or women being underrepresented in a given profession or industry . . 8 . . reparations . . 9 Law enforcement agencies[ . . w]hen they treat people of color or the poor badly . . 10 . . lots of Americans have negative views about people of color, Black people in particular. . ." // ". . most prominent uses of 'woke' are as a pejorative — Republicans attacking Democrats, more centrist Democrats attacking more liberal ones and supporters of the British monarchy using the term to criticize people more sympathetic to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. Those critical of so-called woke ideas and people often invoke the idea that they are being 'canceled'[ . . I]deas cast as woke are often coming from progressives and involve identity and race . . "

--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 22:23, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

The Fivethirtyeight source analyzes both the term "woke" and the idea of "wokeness" or "woke ideology". Seems to fit well within the scope of this article. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 00:26, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, User Sangdeboeuf. I've rmvd article content re "woke's" synonymity "with such things as progressive identity politics, cancel culture, race-baiting, internet call-out culture, or virtue signalling," replacing with, specifically, "cancel culture and progressive politics that emphasize identity and race," which I've referenced to 538's bacon.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 21:02, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

Another place that is unsourced —

– is at our lede's 2nd graf. Now that a few sources have begun to show up for this neologism, I've offered a tentative improvement here (diff).--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 17:57, 25 March 2021 (UTC)