The War on Woke

Woke is a real thing, it’s often expressed by people on the internet, especially trained AI bots but also people who live very different circumstances then your own. Woke is not particularly racial or even associated with Black Lives Matters, in my mind it’s as much a part of the scientific establishment and especially environmental educators and educators more generally than anything else.

Wokeness to me is built on the idea that some policy is self evident. Anybody who does not agree with a policy is ignorant and needing of education. Disagree with the so called truth, and you at best are extremely foolish – a three towed sloth and a nuckle dragger – or you are oppositional to authority, a dangerous criminal who deserves to punished. I am reminded of tweeting a picture of wilderness camping during Memorial Day Weekend 2020 and the reaction on Twitter being – don’t you know you ignorant hick that it’s illegal to be in the wilderness during the pause! You better not be doing that, it’s a $500 fine! Not that was true but the woke in the world certainly believed it was their moral duty to educate people to the facts.

Oh, you drive a big jacked up truck, you use paper or Styrofoam plates in the woods and burn your garbage up at camp! You eat meat! Don’t you know about climate change! Dioxin! Those chemicals in garbage smoke are so toxic and bad for the environment! Don’t you know about styrene! Metals! Stop being so woke and worry about reality.