Wokeness, Cancel Culture and the Ethics of Public Discourse

Description

“The key trait of this era that we’re in is the immediate collapse of whatever the subject is into a conversation about semantics and linguistics.”

— Aja Romano

Being woke. Cancel culture. Politically correct. These have become very loaded and often antagonistic terms, and not just online. Different groups interpret and use these terms to mean different things. Wokeness especially has become polarized — some wield it as an insult and others wear it as a badge of pride.

George Orwell has written about the way that language can be politicized, exploited, and corrupted. Looking back on the relatively short history of these terms can teach us a lot about the way that meanings can shift to serve different ends.

This episode of Living Jewishly is an instalment of What Would You Do?, a podcast about ethics in the modern world. Dr. Elliot Malamet speaks to Aja Romano, culture writer for Vox.com, about the thin line between free speech and incitement to harm, the way that conversations are inevitably derailed, and how words seem to suddenly emerge in the societal lexicon… and then mutate in unexpected ways.

“We have an extremely bifurcated society and a very deeply polarized understanding of what it means to be American and what it means to protect one another.”

— Aja Romano

This‌ ‌episode discusses:‌ ‌

The history of the term “woke,” how it was originally used, and the way that the term has spread and developed different meanings
How language may be politicized — and how cause and effect can sometimes become muddled
How social media culture plays into the way that terms are received and reinterpreted

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Highlights:‌ ‌

00:51 Intro

02:16 Aja Romano & the history of woke

04:48 Politics and the English Language

06:02 The corruption of woke

09:17 Weaponization of words

12:12 Social media culture & free speech

16:15 Derailment & appropriation

22:06 Know the history

22:48 Free speech & comedy

27:07 How we argue in the modern era