Instead of Criticizing the “awakening”, Say What You Really Mean.
Spend enough time on the Internet and you will begin to recognize the buzzwords that are currently being used to refer to broader social conflicts – perhaps even before they become widespread thanks to cable news analysts and hot news coverage. With each update of the feed, a new “moral panic” looms; commentators are outraged by the rise of “illiberalism” ; Awakening is classified as a massive belief system that drives the Twitter crowd.
But if you scroll through social media, you’ll notice that these words are used so often – and to refer to such a wide variety of situations – they often don’t mean anything. The reality is much more complex than fabricated indignation would suggest, so you should refrain from using such hot phrases as much as possible if you are unsure of what you are talking about.
What is awakening?
No word is making more of a splash in the online space now than “woke up” – a modern term that describes a much older way of thinking, namely a commitment to social justice, racial and economic equality. Opponents of “awakening” present it as a modern ghost – a system of thinking that prioritizes politically correct thinking over logical problem solving, which makes dangerous incursions into the army , schools , charitable organizations and other countries of our country, putting supposedly functional institutions at the sight of a cohort of cultural warriors …
But if this is what awakening means to the most vicious of detractors, then it is often used by less warlike types simply to describe what they dislike. A good example is the recent blog of NYU marketing professor Scott Galloway, which encourages recent graduates to be “warriors, not workers” when they enter the workforce.
To be clear, Galloway doesn’t quite agree with the crowd trying to turn “critical race theory” into derogatory ones , but his blog is indeed a masterclass in combining workplace self-advocacy with cynical victim-enactment.
He’s writing:
Structural racism is real, and our economic system is tilted, if not rigged. The most accurate indicator of your ability is not your intelligence or work ethic, but where you were born. But being a victim reduces your ability to be a warrior against this injustice. A personal identity policy ensures that you remain an individual, alienated and alone. The warriors make sacrifices for the tribe, but they admit they are part of the tribe. Separate people from ideology, otherwise you will deny access to 50% of potential relationships and allies.
In an era of staggering economic inequality, stable wages, and diversity as a corporate PR tactic , Galloway is not encouraging young employees to stay out of awakenings – he is telling them not to defend themselves. Clearly these are two different things, but by viewing self-advocacy (or even complaints) as a symptom of an alleged social wakefulness illness, he makes his essay more culturally resonant – more clickable – at the expense of clarity.
Galloway’s article is a direct example of why you should always use more specific words instead of resorting to controversial phrases reminiscent of the zeitgeist, because the latter often serve only to perpetuate the cycle of outrage that fuels social media.
Instead, say what you mean
While it’s unclear how many young employees across the country regularly join the “Twitter crowd grabbing the hapless middle manager,” Galloway writes, the concept is certainly largely illusory, especially for those outside the public domain. It seems that what Galloway really means is that new workers should roll with blows, not crater in the face of discouragement. Fair enough, making a real effort to create a better and fairer work environment – for example, through unionization – while a rampant awakening only holds back efforts to bring about meaningful institutional change.
Outside of the circumstances suggested in Galloway’s essay, the call for something awakened, regardless of your intentions or beliefs, increasingly makes those you call that word antagonists or hysterics. You can be more precise in your judgment – and not be part of the latest cultural cycle of anger – by using precise language. If you feel that someone or a group is being silenced or belittled in some way to others, you can say, “You seem to be trying to prevent them from sharing a fair point of view”; if you think someone is too reactionary, you can suggest, “I think it’s helpful to be well-meaning here.” Either way, you will do a lot more to promote rapport than if you add a powerful word like “woke up” to the conversation.