Quick update: I finally defended my master's dissertation and might even get it published ✨Congrats to those of you who are graduating or completed another year of college or high school, I wish you the best of luck for the future and hope you enjoy this new video! ☺️
I really struggle with online activism because it's difficult to disentangle from the ego: I'll often share things and then immediately delete them because I question "Am I sharing this because it will really affect change, or am I sharing this to curate a certain image of myself online?" It's a relief to be able to begin safely going back into the world in in-person community, where action doesn't always just mean sharing my opinion online.
If you're worried about narcissism, that's a mental illness caused by child abuse and parental favoritism as a "golden child," getting rich from lottery winnings or becoming a celebrity. The problem is not feeling awesome, it's treating others as inferior.
Well, in our society we're all operating under the _profilicity_ mode of constructing identity, to an extent. (See the YT channel "Carefree Wandering" for what "profilicity" is)
@@darlalathan6143 No only narcissistic people want to present themself as positive as possible online. Most people have that desire, one just has to recognize it and don't act on it in a political context
I think that social media has sped up the evolution of language to the point in which many words (fetishization, racist, bigot, internalization) have lost their essential meaning and, through this, their ability to create action. This is helped by the ever-improving capacity for corporations and marketing to use these terms for profit and promotion, emptying them of any real significance. If social movements are truly reliant on words that channel action, then we are heading for some dark times.
A lot of those words you listed do not even exist in some culture languages. Americanisms is basically what they are because the origin comes from them and they sell it back to the world
Have the words lost their meaning or have the definitions expanded? Are people just misusing words in some instances? Or are the recipients of those words just not open to listening and understanding?
Deconstruction though is a philosophy that's been around since the 1960s and was developed by French philosophers so not all words and ideas are the result of the internet or America.
One of the most damaging things that the right have achieved is to trivialise "woke words". I often find myself trying to express an idea without using words like feminism, privilege, the system, etc. because as soon as people hear these "buzzwords" (which would otherwise convey the point much better), they tend to shut down and be dismissive to ideas they would otherwise agree with. Sometimes the point gets diluted when translated to "bro terms", and I would like there to be a cultural shift where people's rhetoric is critiqued on merit rather than word selection. Merci :)
They are experts on trivialicing terms and demonicing groups of people by enless repetition of the same lie over and over. Even word like victim, victimhood and censorship can no longer be used without people negatively assosiating them to the discriminated groups and movements. And the people who shallow that lie don't even bother to contrast it with reality.
I think it Is the oposite, I think that the sudden and shallow popularity of for example feminism, has left us with a lot of people using words that they dont understand in their full extent, so those words start loosing all their meaning
The decision of being an activist is really important, at least here in Mexico you gotta think if it worth it, because you will probably be dead, a lot of activists have been killed in the recent years, so it's important to think very carefully
I live in a different country, but its the same. I just make sure that my activism is only within social circles and family, because anything more than that is dangerous
I get you man. I live in Peru and frankly I don't dare to share some of my more progressive views with family and friends (unless I know they share some of my views) because of how conservative things are over here. What you say about how dangerous it is to be an activist is so true. Last year here some Congress people blocked an attempt to pass a law (Acuerdo de Ezcasu) that that protects the activist in Peru, that considering that year like 20 activists and their families had been assasinated. Just this month a asháninka activist has been killed...
I think everyone should be aware of social injustices. But I don’t think everyone should be an “activitst”, per say. To be honest, most people are not equipt for that (and thats totally okay!) Because pushing people to become an activist leads it to be performative. In my opinion, social pressure for everyone to be “woke” harms a lot of movements. It allows for a lot of misinformation and oversimplification. I think its important to be knowledgeable of social injustices, but not everyone can and should be discussing things that they actually don’t know much about, and using academic language usually taught about in depth in college and graduate programs. (And I think this is what they were trying to portray in the video with the woke vs racist: performative activism oversimplifies topics with lengthy histories and nuances) You don’t have to know about every bad thing or every oppression in the world to be a good person, and you certainly don’t have to be an activist, especially for everything.
I mean, what you say is true but Alice has been known to drag Lana Blakely, Nate and Matt D'Avella for not being vocal enough about societal issues sooooo I'm afraid she'll disregard your criticism altogether lol
I think there's a difference between understanding/facing issues with an academic lens versus firsthand accounts. Especially in places whose issues only make sense from a specific geopolitical context (i.e. blackface, cultural appropriation, etc...)
This is a great comment and I agree with you. My social science undergraduate and postgraduate degrees span years of study spent to understand the historical, social and political contexts of terms and movements. As more of this language bleeds out into the mainstream, the context, nuance and understanding is lost or diminished. A perfect example of this phenomenon is seeing a group who has the most social capital on society - straight, white males - also using this watered down academic language to advocate for themselves. Are they doing something wrong? It’s complicated. They’re doing what everyone else is doing and co-opting language they don’t fully understand to apply to their social category. So while I disagree with them, I also see how they think what they’re doing makes sense and is right - because it is if you observe the broader cultural phenomenon. As you say, not everyone needs to understand these things to be a good person, but the social capital we gain by wielding these terms forces us into the game (especially when not using them will be used by others as evidence of your not-woke-enoughness in an effort to prop up their own woke profile). It is actually dystopian. We are creating a society where others not performing wokeness is viewed as the real social ill, rather than structural, systemic inequities. Social justice is not an identity; it is about class consciousness and movements. And so many of us concerned with wokeness have sold out marginalised classes in a bid to protect our own image.
because white people can assimilate easier than people of color. white ppl are seen as locals and poc are always seen as foreigners, even if theyre not.
@@mschell350 Where is this place exactly? I live in one of the most multiracial countries in the world (Panama), so saying "ethnic" here would mean literally every single person. But whatever the country or place is, to use the word ethnic to describe people who aren't white is ridiculous and useless. Every single human being has ethnicity, wherever they are.
@@em-sf7me anyone of European decent in the USA. So if you are of Mexican heritage you would put down that you are white with Latino ethnicity on government documents. People from the Middle East are also white. Asian, Pacific Islanders, African Americans, and native Americans are non white. Different countries have different groups this only applies to US legal documents.
So this does not necessarily refer to skin color, but a shared ancestry. I'm not sure what part of France Alice is from, but if you went to the south of france, you could probably find individuals of a darker skin tone. It's weird how someone is white in one country and goes to another one and something magical happens and they become a different race.
I support social justice, and I like your praise of it. But I feel that a huge part of the people who claim to be in this movement only do a ton of moral showing off by claiming over and over again that they are on the "right side of history" and attacking and canceling so many people who don't agree with their "stance", without considering their context or education, while not really doing anything to support actual people going through these injustices. I think we should talk/listen to each other more and create more empathy, instead of creating these weird isolated bubbles. This kind of behavior from this considerable chunk of people in the social justice movement is one of the huge fuelers of extremism on the other side.
I agree. Most of "social justice" in our times is just a cancer born off having grown up on the Internet, being aimless in a changing world, and more people having access to higher education and thinking it makes them morally enlightened. It has nothing to do with social justice any more. And while this cancer grows, we gradually lose sight of the collective "contract of meaning" that allows us to actually communicate with each other.
yes! I totally agree! the moral superiority that they push is actually making people less likely to get involved in this conversation, and that rlly sucks!
Cooperations appropriating and commodifying wokeness feels down right dystopian. Something about Kendall Jenner ending racism with a Pepsi really just hits my fight or flight. It’s like you can participate in all the movements you want to, so long as it makes us money but the second any real steps towards change are made that could potentially threaten revenue it’s destroyed.
Corporations are the true creators of wokism. As a Marxist communist I find this fake socialism of American woke disgusting. Also the fact that majority of the woke activists come from a well off family disgusts me even more. Have you ever questioned why Marxist China is jailing feminists while capitalist America is forcing kids to take hormones
@@YoureRightIThink hard disagree. China doing genocide and western countries attacking China are related, but the re-education camps (or whatever you want to call them) are enacting genocide. The man who is making these claims does not have a lot of credibility, but just by looking at the history of Xinjiang and the acounts of journalists who enter the province it is quite clear China is dealing with the “extremist” problem by forcing citizens (and especially children) into the camps. I do not like the downplaying of genocide in the modern wold by people on the left.
@@aizencaptain9564 forcing kids to take hormones? What? I am a Marxist, but I’m more an Anarchist and you cannot say that with a straight face. What are you talking about? There’s plenty of real things to dislike American hegemony for but come on man.
I am too selfish and self-centered to go out there playing Jesus Christ. Instead, I try to be the example of the change I want to see. I try to do things correctly and with responsibility and honesty. This is already a way of influence people.
A problem from both sides, is that we distill each other's argument to an overgeneralized/simplistic and jingoist heurism. Then we can dismiss the others view. When we group people into specific bins, it is much easier to view the people in that group by the group definition. However, many people can be part of many different and disparate groups. To define that one individual by the group, will preclude the observer from understanding the individuals. If you are "woke" you are a communist. If you believe in Individual rights, you are a "racist." If you believe in Social Justice, you are "lib". If you are fond of your "country", you are a....see the argument gets too distilled and we dismiss the others argument and we defend our position as, "we do not want to give false equivalency" to the other side. Their position is soooo reprehensible, they are not worthy of dialoging with. Then there is anger and violence. No mutual understanding. For the pathos, both sides do a poor job of framing the narrative to help the understanding. Instead we weaponize the pathos to bolster our positions and "rally the troops."
Sometimes, I, myself, confused with every words and terms thrown around. Far-right, right wing, left wing, far-left, leftist, conservative, MAGA, libertarian, libertard, centrist, progressive, feminist, feminazi, misoginy, misandrist, egalitarian, marxist, socialist, communist,....(continue the list if you will)
This so much. This is the exact sort of thing that contributes to extremism and radicalization, because from what I’ve seen a lot of Alt-Right folks probably started by acting out against concepts they don’t understand out of spite. If people keep screaming at each other they’re just going to double down. But yet no one understands it.
@@wannabehistorian371 ALt-Right/Alt-LEft, all part of the same Alt-Bird. The Extremes on both sides prevent regular folk from having honest conversations to create that understanding.
Agreed. I usually disagree with the left on most things, but why would anyone be against protecting the environment? I hate the idea of littering just as much as anyone else. And I'm not going to spend my time arguing against climate change when I never studied it a day in my life. I like a lot of libertarian ideas too but I don't side with them because of their stance on recreational drug use. I spent some of my free time volunteering for conservative causes for a short while, but stopped doing it when I realized I didn't want politics to be my entire lifestyle. I'd rather spend my time on recreational mathematics than politics if at all possible.
"You, as an individual, can change the system." This is such a perfect oxymoron. The contradiction in the messaging is very intentional, and has been very effective in stalling real change.
All activist groups are a bunch of individuals with similar opinions about politics. If large or loud enough, they can influence governments, religions and corporations. They already have since the '50s and '60s.
As a French American living in America, I often feel disconnected from France, but watching your channel helps me feel a bit more in the know with France and what my family might be seeing. I would love to hear any recommendations for other French youtubers (et oui, je parle français) in one of your future videos 💕
@@MoroccanPOV Mos Majorum j’ai eu l’impression d’une caricature totale. Sérieusement je suis blanc cis hetero mais je suis mort de rire quand je vois ce genre de mecton inculte prétendre « défendre » ma cause. D’abord c’est bon, les mecs blancs hetero n’ont pas besoin d’être défendus. On domine ce monde. La vraie grandeur - si la « grandeur » a un sens - consisterait à prendre conscience de notre situation dominante et à partager notre place avec les autres.
I’d love to hear more about “slackivism” during the start of the pandemic last year. I feel like I’m in a weird limbo where I’m not sure if I was doing enough or if I was doing anything at all.
Thank you for talking about this. I feel like sometimes there might be some stress over how to be or how not to be an activist in the "right" way, what constitutes a "real" activist, and so on. Maybe it's just my desperate desire to know where I stand and see where the boundaries are (when there aren't, and shouldn't be, any), but it seems as though whenever you do or do not say something, there is always a way to be called out on it: you speak/do too much or too little, or you focus on the wrong things, or it's not your place. Maybe it's only in my head. Still, at the end of the day, we just want to make the world a better place. Even individually, we might never tackle all of the problems or be right about everything, but at least we truly want to understand and do something at our own pace, and I think that matters. This was a bit of a rambling comment, I suppose I'm still figuring this out for myself :)
Yes, I totally agree, social movements are about educating people to empower them and find strength in numbers. We should primarily focus on expanding and reaching new people instead of over-judging those who are already on our side. I very much appreciate constructive criticism and know I'm not always right but at least we're willing to learn and improve and we should be encouraged to continue to do so. Thanks for your comment 😊
yeah, so for me, I am only a 15 yo, trying my very best to educate myself on social issues and trying to educate others in any way I can! I constantly feel like I am a "slacktivist" because at this point all I can do is share informational content. In my own time I do research and read articles and try my very best to stay informed, but I dont know what else I could possibly do. I am not allowed to go outside because I am immunosuppressed and at risk for covid, and I can't to much else. I have joined 4 non profit organizations to try and do my part, but I usually don't get assigned or accepted to join because I'm only 15. I don't know what else to do and I hope that I am doing enough but I constantly feel that I am not being a good enough activist, because I watch videos like these or other ones, and I cannot always follow and or comprehend what they are saying and it makes me feel so stupid. I am trying to do my part, but I also want to be better and dont know how.
As helpful as it has been in bringing systemic issues to a wide audience, social media has fundamentally altered authentic activism and authentic being-a-person in general. Our identities have become so visible through social media, that being a person is inseparable from how we represent ourselves online. You're not _____ until it's on your twitter, instagram or whatever. As you pointed out, social activism can merely become a way of projecting a kind of identity for the world to see, not an actual cause you're willing to sacrifice your time, energy, money for. It's not that we didn't have this tendency before social media--now it's just sooo much easier, whereas before the internet, you actually had to do more real activist work to look like a social activist, to satisfy your ego. I also think there's a degree to which the systemic issues themselves undergo a kind of dilution on the internet, endlessly represented and repeated until the actual lived experience of those issues becomes lost along the way. I suppose that despite this dilution that occurs, social media can benefit those social causes simply by garnering attention. But in truly changing people's personal views on those issues, I'm not so sure.
You really hit the nail on the head here: corporate appropriation of social justice is like having a friend who doesn't do you any real favors and just hangs around to eat the food in your fridge. It feels good at first to be affirmed by somebody else, but in reality he's just a lazy bum who is no good.
hey why is your friend here automatically a 'he'? thats not very DEI friendly, Women can be bums too if theyre willing to put in the work (or lack thereof)
My wife is trans and is a trans activist. We’re almost used to death threats and slurs. I don’t know what the answer is except to keep fighting for trans rights and hope that the death threats are idle threats.
@@ojyochan I’m slightly confused as to how this person would provide you with receipts. Surely they could just say anything true or not and idk if that would satiate you. Maybe just look it up if you want to know more I’m sure you’ll find something.
@@ojyochan trans activists getting death threats is common sense, unfortunately. Anyone fighting against norms will receive hate and vitriol. It comes with the territory, as Alice points out in her video.
On a broader note, since you mentioned anger as a form of activism. I’ve found that anger and sadness are usually interchangable emotional reactions to a situation that is unfavourable to us. Sadness comes naturally when you cannot accept a situation, yet don’t see how you could change it. Anger is the feeling we get from unjustice that upsetts us, yet we realize we can do something to change it. So of course, sadness goes together with passivism while anger is married to activism.
Even if you are a relatively quiet "slacktivist" (vs. an all out activist) there are significant phycological repercussions I think. I share my "woke" material only with my spouse, and 2 or 3 closest friends. Living in the rural bible belt south (USA), being even somewhat "woke" (and mostly an "in the closet type" woke by the way) has destroyed so many of my relationships with friends, parents, grandparents, etc. I haven't even had any direct confrontations over said subjects, but that is because I know how primitive, and far right the majority of my surrounding colleagues is. I don't even bother to push controversial information in front of them. Trust me, it would be blasphemy to them anyway. So now, in an effort to keep the peace I have almost no one to talk to outside of social media that I can have meaningful conversations with.
Oh, I'm so sorry that your environment has pushed you this way. I send you strength to dive through the feelings of loneliness that are so frustrating and sad. Friendly reminder that there's always a chance to build a chosen family, even online, where you can find a place of healthy debate and respect.
It's so much harder for women to take part in woke culture. I have been compelled to in many instances to keep my thoughts to myself just to not get labelled or shamed. And those times I did open my mouth I've been labelled as feminist, leftist, deep, too serious or even dismissing my arguments telling me I couldn't take a joke
@@ludwigvanbeethoven3896 absolutely feel this - I honestly thought as a mixed race woman that I held a lot of privilege and was in the position to share information with my friends and family, but they all assumed it came from a place of pain/personal trauma, rather than a learning process to which I came to the conclusion of. Whereas if a white man took the same path I did in my decolonisation he'd be praised for his intellect. Now I'm suffering from the pain of experiencing the same things you've been told
@@pipancla I think society is built in a way that it encourages the mobility of men over women. So when Feminism came like a wave men had less equipments to back their arguments but are slowly forging their blade like for example incels, mgtow phenomena, or going hard alt Right. Heck! Some are even using the Bible to defend patriarchy when it's never been mentioned that women are inferior or subordinate to men.
I was so confused when you called Napoleon a war hero, but then I remembered that you‘re french and I wenn to school in germany😅 I was also wondering why leftism is associated with islam in france, to go as far as having a combined Word with islamogauchisme? Could you maybe elaborate more on that in a future video? I really like and appreciate the way you research your videos and the unique examples you give.
Something similar regarding leftism and Islam is happening in Greece, because leftists in general support helping out asylum seekers for example, who are often Muslims, so they then get attacked for this stance.
same haha, obviously us germans are not so fond of Napoleon! :D i recently read houellebecqs novel 'soumission' (in German 'Unterwerfung') which also deals with a fictional alliance between the Islam and leftists in french politics, and although I know that houellebecq and especially that book is quite controversial, it was an interesting read and gave me some insights into french attitudes towards the Islam and leftism! but I also feel like you can see a similar development in Germany, especially with right-winged politicians claiming that leftist politics encourage or at least tolerate radical islamism (and thereby of course falsly equating islamism and the islam)
it's islamogauchisme because the left exculpates Islam of having any oppressive elements that because it doesn't fit the narrative of it being a repressed, discriminated group. Michel Onfray of all people has noticed this phenomenon and been recently very critical of the left.
I love how I can share your videos with my parents! That's really a feat of yours, your videos are really accesible and not just 'online youth talk' or idk how boomers perceive the internet. It's been great to show them where I'm coming from in what I'm thinking about, and what the debate amongst younger (leftist) people is like. I also loved to see Sylvana Simons in the description, she's my political hero, and if you look at the comments of that video she herself has to bear so much hate and ignorance. I'm glad to see she has reach beyond the Netherlands, because she's a big step up from politicians right now, and a great role model. Congrats on you master's, I'm sure you'll make it very far in life!
I think the heavy emphasis on pathos Alice identifies is linked to a wider lack of moderation across contemporary discourse, which predates the concept of woke culture itself. In the UK, we've swung from laddism (with comedians asserting their "right" to be ableist and sexist) to hair-trigger linguistic sensitivity over social issues, back to an even more extreme right-wing libertarianism (espoused by our present government), in less than a decade. The common thread is an excessive focus on emotion (anger, fear, shame, pride) in the rhetoric, a lack of reflection on the effects of that rhetoric, and little evidence to back it up.
Interesting video, but... Isn't the right wing's adoption of MLK's colour blind outlook a good thing? Just as a hyper-fixation on race (and gender) is likely to have some very negative side effects. (also, re colour blindness, on the whole saying they're the 'very same' conservatives is misleading, as adults in 1963 are at the ends of their lives now, and today, the general small-c conservative is pro race equality & pro gay marriage). When considering those opposed to wokism, it's easy to look at the far-right, but general small-c conservative (ppl with a largely a-political conservative mindset), classical liberals, and most working class folk, are very critical of the woke ideology, veiwing it is a liberal elite phenomenon, and are often very concerned about loss of free speech, excessive identity politics, and excessive activism in journalism, teaching and corporations. Lastly, I feel the woke ideology has been really quite damaging to all the minorities it ostensibly fights for. You mentioned some of the elements responsible, such as slacktivision and its adoption by corporations - but much of its manifestation is very intolerant, and prone to believing its detractors to be morally wrong. There's a rebust defence for ppl that oppose wokism BECAUSE they oppose racism etc.
On the MLK point, MLK was not colour blind but the conservatives made him so to use as an exemple why you should not talk about race. The focus on colour blindness of some people was very deliberately manufactured by powerful people to keep people from addressing racism. Also, many people say they are not racist but still are. Racism is such a bad word in our society that nobody wants to be associated with it, even the fascists in my country say they are not racist just because it has a bad connotation.
@@777jones Actually, it's mostly Alt-Right who advocate "ethnostates," "racial realism" and practice ramming attacks and mass shootings of Leftist activists.
I've always found it hard to dabble into english speaking online activism because of the US-centric vision, mainly individualism. It's not necessarily a bad take, but it's so present and rarely discussed as ONE possible vision of activism or social issues. I'm from Europe myself, so the Marxist view of social classes and the importance of collective action is much more anchored in my vision of activism (definitely a European thing), and it's sometimes painful to see it overlooked by a destructive and simplistic individual take on everything. Yes the individual vision is important, but one person can't change a narrative and people need to unite (gilets jaunes being a good example of trying to create class solidarity based on sole individualism...it doesn't work). En bref, merci d'apporter un regard anglophone plus tamisé de l'individualisme, il est bon de rappeler que cette vision n'est pas une évidence et ne doit pas l'être en tout temps...Il faut se lier à celles et ceux autour de nous si l'on veut changer le système, et se méfier d'un activisme individualiste que l'on pourrait qualifier de "facile". Si c'est facile, c'est que le statut quo a tout intérêt à ce que les gens soient individualistes (et donc désuni·es).
This topic could be investigated further! There's so much there. Sticking your neck out for justice involves such risk and exposure. I think it's part of why more people don't do it, and could partly explain why the wheels of justice move so slowly. I'd be interested to see you collaborate with activists, interview them on this subject and others, perhaps analyze obstacles and try to figure out how to work towards unity on a level that is immune to all the hate-filled pushback. I'm glad I found your channel. Such a fresh voice. Congrats on your Masters 🙂
C'est la deuxième fois que je regarde cette vidéo, je la trouve tellement intéressante, ça m'aide à mieux comprendre à quel point le pouvoir du collectif prime dans les mouvements sociaux et ça me donne des clefs pour tenter d'utiliser au mieux tous mes privilèges. J'adore tes vidéos, merci beaucoup.
This video feels like the right place to say it: your channel is what turned me away from the alt-right culture I grew up with, and helped me recognize the struggles of women and minorities 💜
I just wish people asked more questions when the corporations, bankers, bureaucrats, and activists are all on the same page about the big social issues
Amazing video. I love how you shape your content. I rarely see these issues discussed. Actually last year I think Amnesty International released a guide on how not to burn out as an activist, which was also informative
I think you missed the point of the Ryan Long video. He never claimed, at least in that one, that the woke character was virtue signaling. The point was that viewing society from a completely racialized way, even from a progressive angle, can lead to behavior that would overlap with a traditional racist.
@@nataliekhanyola5669 sure, so some progressive have advocated for having black only restaurants/hangouts, separate graduations from blacks, and the weirdest of all to me actually advocating for separate dorms on college campus. So while the motivations for this is a lot different than that of racist in the 50s your still advocating for segregation. Now on the academic front you’ve seen this weird push to label a lot of characteristics that the vast amount people would consider good as part of “whiteness.” For example arguing that things like working hard, punctuality, self reliance, delayed gratification, the scientific method, objectivity, rationality, etc are part of white cultural as if you wouldn’t find all the traits in literally any other group…which is silly. Also to use the video she referenced if you think it’s bad for black men to date white woman because they have internalized racism than I think you’re kind of racist.
The short film 'hypernomalization' which can be seen on YT makes a very interesting and scary point where being an activist and protesting is to the advantage of the power that be as it'll make the activist tired but their efforts lead to nothing. 😓
Another facet of how activism is diffused is how it vicariously articulates the rage of passive viewers, allowing them to feel that their issues have been voiced, leaving them satisfied without being prompted to act in any real manner. It is psychological appeasement with few risks, if any.
I've realized something through this pandemic: Trying to educate people about their own privileges is like trying teach a fish to be grateful of the water it swims in. Only when the fish get out of the water will it appreciate what it has lost.
Isn't this one of the toxic elements of the rhetoric common in some corners of progressive activism? Things like not being a victim of police brutality, not being sexually harassed at the workplace etc. should never ever be framed as a "privilege", when they're quite clearly a human right. Making the latter truly universally protected and enforced should be the goal, not rescinding the so-called "privileges" and making the lives of all groups equally miserable.
@@YunTomeq exactly! I don't feel like everyone understands the difference between priviledges and rights. Just because a particular group isn't having their rights upheld doesn't mean that the other group is priviledged. We should be improving the circumstances of the first group without trying to tear the second group down.
@@kevenfromsales6830 lol what? You're not even correct...if someone falsely accuses another person of r*pe, the accused can claim defamation of character. But more importantly, why would someone lie about this when they probably feel very ashamed, scared, and when so few of the accusations even lead to convictions?
This video is tremendously important. In the past video I saw a lot of very morally rigid comments about people not explicitly tackling political issues and how they always should because apoliticism is always a privilege (ironically a conclusion that lacks a lot of nuance). We need to understand that the ability to constantly engage with political issues inherently implies a privileged position too, particularly one derived from the subject of ableism. A lot of people are mostly unable to critically tackle these issues because they are not in the right emotional, chemical or neuronal place to do so. This is also a political issue, curiously, and might be disclosed from the start to understand the context around a discourse, but to demand constant political engagement seems as damaging as the same toxic positivity that wants us to believe nothing is problematic.
In my country, every time someone speak against the status quo or the majority to increase the knowledge about how things should be based not just the majority but also the minority, the would be called SJW (Social Justice Warrior), not as a positive but sadly in a negative terms. Anyway, thankyou for your video, I am a new subscriber here (decide to that after watch 2-3 videos) and I hope you're always healthy so you could always have time and energy to share your knowledge here.
Such a good video Alice! I have thought about this topic before but had never seen anyone mention it so it was very refreshing! Also your lighting looks great!
Thank you. The consequences of activism need to be acknowledged, which many people don’t consider. Beautiful video 👌👏 you’re my favourite video essay TH-camr
The threshold for defining oppresion is way to low on society now a days. That is the main critique from the conservative movement. Oppresion has become the scape goat for all of the problems and individual responsability has lost all of it value. You have to wonder why immigrants from actually oppresed countries like North Korea, China, Africa, generally oppose the SJW agenda.
Why would "actually oppresed" people have to have the truth about what has to be set for the "oppresion threshold". I'm not into youtube discussions so I won't reply, I'm just questioning that sentence. Cheers!
@@santimontali People who is been deprived of freedom, food and shelter by their own goverment. A bushman in the African Sabana is not oppresed, A North Korean farm worker is as well as a 15 years old girl living under Taliban rule, a person living in the first world feeling depressed because other people is having it better than them is not oppesed he is just annoyed.
@@cncmyself6897 "Oppressed First World People" get driven to suicide by internet trolls, r raped with impunity by Supreme Court Justices. Some athletes are barred from same-sex sports teams, despite hormones and even sex reassignment surgery, because they were born the opposite sex. Even white male allies can be murdered with impunity by Alt-Right extremists with assault weapons. Most Americans with depression are untreated, because psychiatric and other health care are expensive and mental illness is falsely associated with serial killers. Homeless people are right to complain about overpriced apartments and houses. The unemployed are right to protest workplace bullying, mass layoffs and exporting American jobs to developing nations for cheap labor. "First World Problems" are just as bad as "Third World Problems" and deserve solutions.
Every time I watch one of your videos I am BLOWN AWAY by the way you think and how I see the subject you treat in a completely different way. Well done!
The conservatives and those "on the right" of society are truly cynical in their use of the term "virtue signalling" as something pejorative. As for intersectionality, it may come across to ordinary people as an intellectual techo-jargon, but for those people whose lives are affected by it all the time, whether on a daily, weekly or much longer term basis, intersectionality is a very real phenomenon. Great video Alice, Salut.
actually oppressed and poor people don't use woke terms to describe their situations. If you want the average joe and jane to listen to you using jargon isn't going to work. Most people don't want to hear jargon in any conversation especially political. Not only does it demean them because they feel dumb or left out because they don't know the terms your using. But it also makes you sound pretentious and elitest. The woke movement is made up of the privlidged and attacks the underprivlidged. For not wanting to use the terms they want to impose on them.
@@appropriate-channelname3049 Your comments are thought provoking. I'm university educated but live in a traditionally very working class city in the north of England. The friends and acquaintances I speak with regularly here never bring up the subject of "wokeness", and neither do I. But on British TV and on quite a few channels on TH-cam and on some UK newspaper websites, hardly a day goes by without the whole concept and "reality" (for want of a better word) of wokeness being discussed. Also, no one I know face to face in my life uses the term "intersectionality", but on BBC Radio 4, it's part of the "higher brow" (than us "street folks") vocabulary that gets used quite regularly and also by certain columnists in British newspapers. You state that the woke movement is made up of the privileged and attacks the underprivileged. This is truly ironic, as from what I understand, the term originated from African-Americans. However don't quote me on this, I am sure read this when the term "woke" came into common usage a few years ago. Certainly in the UK, poorer and more disadvantaged members of society don't use woke terminology as part of their everyday speech. But the world is continuously changing ... In 10 or 20 years, who knows how "ordinary" people will describe and talk about themselves ?? :)
The price of being woke = you're awake, not feeling sleepy. But seriously...people need to be aware of social issues around them.. Gonna watch it later because it's still too early here! ❤️But need to comment for the algorithm
I hate that the term “woke” has now become a joke and representative of a kind of performative activism that is itself a bit of a mythology. It turns the actual meaning of the term into a joke. I’m old enough to remember when, for example, the average middle class white person in the US wasn’t forced to think much about privilege, white supremacy, or systemic racism. This wasn’t that long ago. In spite of the slacktivism, corporate recuperation, and performative wokeness of the present I still think this is a better moment to be in than the false peace of the past.
It's only a joke to the Alt-Right. Wokeness is only performative when corporations use diverse models and actors in ads but not in the office staff, bully overwork and underpay their workers and ship their jobs overseas to children in developing nations. Slacktivism is useful for organizing and communication, such as flash mobs and online petitions to politicians. I've seen many political reforms, such as our current President and Congress, due to petitions I signed in social media and emails!
The weight of one's contribution to their own political existence might be related to how "politically heavy" that existence is. I like to use the example of Ironman killing Thanos, which works very well in a fictional setting, but in a real-life contemporary setting, it has a chance of being labelled as "wasted" because Tony Stark is basically Jeff Bezos. In that example, the contribution Ironman brings to the political landscape is arguably meaningless, because he barely represents anyone at all, politically speaking. About being woke, meaning recognizing the importance of the political existence of each individual and the existence of the political landscape in its several shapes (structures, systems, unspoken rules and behaviors indoctrinated through tradition, etc), I feel like there is a disagreement with how it reaches each person. The more valuable knowledge still seems to be empirical, instead of theoretical, real hunger instead of understanding hunger by thinking about it and comparing it to a stomach growl. So the argument of "you would never understand this" aims at that specific experience of being, and there is perhaps little room for empathy. I am not against embracing the ignorance of my political existence, I would just like to have a clearer idea of what some discourses actually aim at, or mean. But then we still might need people of color, endangered ethnic backgrounds, and religious/tribal practices to have more ways to share their words. That feels like a bit of a utopia, sadly. I really appreciate this video. I don't see an actual meaning in watching a video about a guy who doesn't consider himself woke speaking against being woke. It's like people who are basically afraid of reading anything related to communism believing they can critique it. Capitalists criticizing socialism, etc. Self-criticism in politics is what makes more sense in this woke era, in this empathy era, even you did it in this video, which is great. A capitalist can only criticize capitalism, and a socialist can only criticize socialism. The most interesting videos to me are the ones where people of color bring out things they believe are wrong in their own cultures. To me, that is very powerful, and also when even though people are minorities they still have aspects their self-criticism can tinker on. That would be the one true thing that unites us: we have aspects to improve at. As political movements go that would be the thing that breaks the pack, so to speak, when there is a problem. This leader hit on this female member and it was inappropriate then boom the whole thing collapses. Morality still poisons our social gatherings and feeds into our illusion that not being exactly the same is a forever issue. These are my thoughts. Thank you for the video!
@@LucasSSP always trying to argument in social medias is dedication, I usually shut up but i like seeing people trying it You're welcome have a good day man
great video. i began taking an activist role in art school when our education quality was seriously lacking. gave up from the stress and emotions. the more i learn about the world now, the more sombre and sad i get. This , i know is an unbalance of my content diet, but is definitely a burden to bear to understand the more broken pieces of our systems.
My problem with the so called activists is that in their view, they are the only righteous ones and in places where we have seen teh need for justice, the same activists turn into victim shaming because in their worldview the victim does not fit in their oppression group, hence does not deserve justice. Activists don't shy away from taking the rights away from people while themselves enjoying the privilege. Probably the most unaware hypocritical version of justice there ever was. No skin in the game, create chaos but cannot think of solution because all their tools and thought process is matured till the point of tearing down things, not building society. Give me one example where social justice of your flavour has been able to build a stable society, been able to run a nation state towards prosperity while maintaining peace with their neighbours?
@@mechanomics2649 In ehat way shouting about equality has led to acting towards equality? Since your awareness is limited to Middle America, further conversation would be worthless.
Another great video Alice. I wonder what your thoughts are on young people typically being liberal and as they get older they start becoming more conservative? The reason I ask is because I’m 39 and I find my views changing. I’d say I don’t support either side any more and rather agree with ideas from both sides on different topics. Do you think your views are likely to change as you grow older?
I have also been wondering about this, and one question I have is whether the usually bad financial situation of younger people ( before they start their careers, due to student loans, etc. ) plays a role in younger people political point of views ? What do you think about this as someone who is slightly older and has more perspective? I'm curious to know :)
@@alice-je8ui elder zoomer here, I went further left as my material situation approved. I'm recently self-employed. I doubt that I will ever move right, there's literally nothing there that isn't actively trying to kill everyone.
@@alice-je8ui I'm non partisan, I believe ideas have their own merit, and I have lost faith in the political system, especially when it seems to be in the interest of keeping the status quo to have people become tribal and squabble over what side they choose to be on. As I have got older I think a radical change needs to be made, based on a meritocracy of ideas, rather than charisma of leaders, and the swaying of public opinion by media influences. I also think that it is far from a realistic ideal, which has left me more passive, more of an observer, less of an activist.
I recently had to block out a few friends whose cynicism honestly exhausted me. I've reached a point where I'm constantly judged because I'm not "woke enough" to someone else's standards. I'm glad you've made this video, and I'm so glad you brought up Ryan Long. I often recommend Thought Slime's video on conservative humor to explain how the comparisons don't hold up (in case you haven't come across his before) EDIT: Congrats on defending your dissertation btw!!
I found the Pepsi Ad you showed as an example very fitting. Ads like these give a template to right wing commentators, which allows them to misrepresent the entirety of the fight for systemic change and social justice.
Thanks for this video! I do agree that wokeness can make people who don’t have a deep interest in politics more aware of what’s happening around them even though they can’t see it themselves. But the problem is that, truth becomes rarer and rarer. There’s a lot of Black people do not suffer racism as much as the leftist parties say. It does not mean that we don’t at all nor that there’s nothing to do about it. But wokeness cut all debates between, black people with different point of views, let those subjects to people who have never seen or experienced racism, who eventually speak for us.
For some reason, I enjoy coming here and hear you talking about anything, somehow you resemble me when I was younger, I believe you still got a lot to learn, but i think the things you're interested on and the path you're walking will definitely take you to places and i don't mean in a common sense but developing a critical thinking will somehow put distance from you and the world outside but when you finally get to put it altogether completely, you will enjoy something which is not common to most people.
I just watched this a second time and got much more out of it. There is a lot to think about and you've done a great job of presenting your thesis . . .
My family is mostly liberal, maybe even more on the conservative side. I'm a leftist and I'm both tired and kinda surprised. I'm tired because I still get weird looks from my family when I disagree with them when they say something unfair. But I'm also surprised by how much they changed. Before I started speaking out about freedom and equality, they would entirely skip a series when it was about a gay character. They still have a lot of work to do on themselves, but there is progress! And I know my life is not nearly as tough as lives of activists who risk their lives on protests. It's just that even in small spaces, with small efforts you can really change a lot, even if it's tiring.
I know that feeling too well. Despite what the media portrays about leftism dominating the modern scene, I still think most of society is still ignorant, unenlightened individuals who didn't step out of their comfort zone and lives under the guise of a conservative shell. Even though the shell is empty
I feel the same way, I get alot of the same dirty stares from my family members even for things that arent very controversial. One time I tried to have a conversation with my cousin about him maybe stopping his use of racial slurs, because duh. But he shot me down and called me a "sensitive gen z sjw" and ever since then thats what everybody views me as. although I noticed that when I started questioning their beliefs which are rooted in racism, sexism, homophobia, and colonialism I noticed that they were slowly becoming more open to the idea of equality. I just wish they weren't as mean to me for trying to speak about it.
I completely agree with everything in this video, the problem is that the masses boil everything down to a simple talking point and lose the nuance. A real life example is I encountered a teen boy who was made to feel at school (by other students) that his identity (as a white male) was bad. And so he was then drawn to a group of white boys who essentially embraced racism, because they validated him and made him feel welcome. While group identity is valuable to look at in a lot of ways, in this particular case it caused further divisiveness.
Je viens de découvrir grâce à ta vidéo la liste des professeurs/chercheurs et je suis hyper choqué omg... quasiment tous mes profs de master sont dans la liste mais j'en entends seulement parler maintenant...
@@AliceCappelle après je suis à Dauphine aka un fief universitaire de droite donc j’imagine que la minorité de prof qui étaient dans la liste ca n’a pas convaincu l’administration d’en parler … mais ce qui me surprend c’est surtout le fait que les profs ne nous en aient pas parlé :(
Great points, I have to say that this is also true for activists on the right wing. People on both sides send hate to the other side and it's terrible. People on the right wing often (luckily not by everyone) get labelled as racists and bigots without people making an effort to understand. This has real life repercussions as well. Target personal attacks is real on both sides on both sides and I think it's terrible. can't we just discuss the arguments rather than the people?
It's weird that a lot of these comments claiming "both sides" only gesture vaguely at alleged wrong doings of people on the left without a word about any wrong doing on the right.
HEY! I am only a 15 yo, trying my very best to educate myself on social issues and trying to educate others in any way I can! I constantly feel like I am a "slacktivist" because at this point all I can do is share informational content. In my own time I do research and read articles and try my very best to stay informed, but I dont know what else I could possibly do. I am not allowed to go outside because I am immunosuppressed and at risk for covid, and I can't to much else. I have joined 4 non profit organizations to try and do my part, but I usually don't get assigned or accepted to join because I'm only 15. I don't know what else to do and I hope that I am doing enough but I constantly feel that I am not being a good enough activist, because I watch videos like these or other ones, and I cannot always follow and or comprehend what they are saying and it makes me feel so stupid. I am trying to do my part, but I also want to be better and dont know how.
Being a white guy but hammered for my place on the autistic spectrum - my sense of various forms of suffering and social responsibility are a bit like this, you should be on your own to find your own happiness and you shouldn't try to 'extract' that out of other people, but at the same time if you're in a sadistic situation - such as being thrown in jail over race, or having other people trying to 'railroad' your life history or story, or having to work 80 hrs a week at a back-breaking job to keep a small apartment, and all of this on top of alienation imposed by society, that's what's wrong. When someone genuinely makes bad choices and finds themselves in a hole they dug - they just need to take it as a signal to make better choices. OTOH if they're in a well of torment fenced by other people and what's worse when it's torment that they themselves are forced to take a torturous form of accountability in (a bit like 'if you can't draw a square circle we can beat you'), that's twisted and it has to be stopped.
Being a white guy who is autistic himself, it's never as simple as "person makes choices and finds themselves in a hole they dug". There are many externalities that lead that person to their choice. Telling people to "make better choices" is a non-solution. People will make better choices as their material conditions improve.
@@mechanomics2649 much of the time sure, it's hard to really have that conversation without specifics but lets say in the dance of hard-bound external influences and compound trauma, there are places people can be and things they can do that are the result of almost sheer external force where their ability not to do them would have come down to little more than just different luck, OTOH there are things people can do which were indeed poor decisions - ie. they had plenty of time with it and plenty of time to have done something different, plenty of warning signals, etc.. It's really questionable how much we should play punitive games with people over that sort of thing, I do subscribe lets say to Sam Harris's take on determinism and criminal justice (similar to Robert Sapolsky's) but I still have to find a point where one can distinguish between survival and hard-bound threats to survival boxing a person's path in vs. choice in the sense that they didn't get there by living under such threat that they were never able to put a distance between themselves and their actions or inactions.
Hey, while I do agree with your points, I am very concerned about the Left's beef with science and all that constructivism talk that some Left academic thinkers (which I usually find to be slackers) translate when it comes to science. It makes the Left look like a cult, indeed... and conservatism does exploit that. I would like to hear your take. I think very good examples are Sandra Harding, Lacan, Derrida & the French gang. I am also referring to things like the Sokal affair and the book Higher Superstition. I started questioning the validity of everything fashionable in woke culture.
There are people who suffer and those who want validation for recognizing that suffering. Those that suffer make their own destiny for change because their existence reflects that. Not people of privilege. Your self aggrandizement as a savior doesn't change the mistreatment of others or how other people perceive that injustice. Your attention towards activism puts your efforts over that of others who live that reality every day.
Honestly I understand your point but I would like to provide nuance which is that political parties, groups ect change over time and that the conservatives from back then are not the conservatives from now and also while yes labels can be useful in conveying a point try to look at a case to case basis on individuals and their beliefs to understand what you can learn and any possible criticisms you may have on their beliefs also ask for clarifications if a point is not understood
It varies from country to country too. Liberal to conservative in China and most EU nation (women/feminist) are against surrogacy, porn, prostituion. But not from Christian perspective, it's about patriarchy and sexual exploitation of women. It's hard understand North American based conservative values, when some women there r happily popping babies and being free-housekeepers, some even hv modest dress code. It's another form of male's gaze same to hajib, and over-reveling clothes (women brainwashed by media to objectify themselves into ideal female looking appearence) Also Ben says women intelligence whatever weaker than man blablabla = what I view American conservative values. Science base subjects university scores and entry exam for all civil servants in China prefer male application, not fake news, the scores are all public documents, grades of male/female grade academic performance also r public in China, yet all jobs that r not physically demanding would hire man when they score 50% less than women. The minimum requirements rate of female application r way higher, and only few got hired. Some may argue about efficiency, well for that public records also shows, women in government and private work force r superior in performance. I'm sure it's the same globall, not because Chinese hv magical genetics. And radical feminist is not radical at all, radical men right activist murder, rape, kidnap, harras, school shooting, they've done everything, starting world wars as well. East Asian rad fem just wear baggy clothes, keep bodyhair, short hair, no makeup, no heels, be muscular, and focus on career. 4b movement eg. Also, terf, trans right no, absolutely support save women's sports, and fuck non-binary bullshit. It could be slightly difficult for the West, since the capitalist control everything. Male own business profiting from women's income. Ain't nothing empowering at all, putting my Zuckerberg plain t-shirt is more empowering.
Hi Alice, I love for your videos! I am a little bit of a Francophile and studied French at university. I really love to hear your perspective on Islam in France. I wrote my dissertation on Arabic teaching in France and the media storm surrounding this. I studied a little bit of Arabic while I was on Erasmus and I was surprised by the reaction some French people had to this. Laïcité and how it is used in French political discourse really allows Islamophobia to flourish. Would love your thoughts on this!
Not everyone has what it takes to be an activist. To be an activist a person has to be truly passionate about the cause. So passionate that they are willing to die for it, bc sometimes if u are true to the cause.. it's a great possibility. If that's not u, then u should just find another way to support it. Doing something bc it's trendy doesn't make u a true activist.
Activism is essential to a healthy society. A healthy society also needs freedom of speech. In the current social landscape, people are being silenced/censored/punished for voicing controversial opinions in the present or past. It is vital to reverse this trend. We must confront opposing viewpoints but should not bully them into silence.
Bonjour Alice! Thank you for another interesting video :) **I personally find that the background music is a bit distracting sometimes, besides, you have a beautiful voice that needs no additives ;)**
I belive tha the main reason some people choose to be alienated and not understand inequality is exactly the disconfort of feeling the suffering of poverty.
I personally think I'm a woke individual because I'm very interested in the larger picture and how the society works and functions, social upheavals, social discourses, memes analysis, etc. Not a slacktivist but more of a progressive thinker. But in pursuing these things I mostly have no one to share this with and I feel almost Alone in pursuing my interests, as a result I have no one to share my thoughts with which compels me to find like-minded people that I can have deeper conversations on the internet. It's almost impossible to share deep conversations with your friends or expect your siblings or parents to get you to the point of frustration. I have been called serious or deep just cause I wanted to delve into some more unusual topics that weren't so apparent to them or that they could notice in an instant. They just like to dismiss them and go back to being ignorant in a way. And being female doesn't help much either since I live in a conservative patriarchal society, so your viewpoints are secondary or dismissable and not as valuable. So screw that. Moreover women in my state are not encouraged to have these kinds of interests so it becomes so much harder to find people to Converse over similar topics. Also the concept of saving your normal face in societal bounds becomes more important so people actively try to avoid having deep conversations to prevent discomfort. And taking into account the fact that being female makes you appear more irrational cause they believe you act from your emotions so you're not acknowledged as much. Thus I've been labelled a feminist, leftist, woke, made fun of for defending my beliefs on occasions that I did open my mouth.
2021 and you still live in patriarchal society? When thirsty men pay 1000$ for photo of your feet? When you can accuse somebody of gRape and hes guilty until proven innocent? When divorce laws and courts massively favour women? When in most statistics men have worse? Are fcking kidding me?
Hey! If you want someone to have conversations with I am always open! I am very young so I won't be the most articulate person, but I love listening to people talk about this stuff and giving my opinions. luckily for me my brother shares the same "deep" thinking or the need to think critically and explore certain things and patterns present in society!
The algorithm just put this video in front of me. I get the sense there's an assumption in your thinking that I see a lot, which is that people who are activists (or campaigning for what they describe as social justice issues) are automatically on the right side of whatever issue they're protesting. But really, the fact of somebody being angry, or animated, or passionate enough to march down the street with a sign or post arguments online doesn't make them any more likely to be right about the issue than the very people they're protesting against. Being an activist definitionally puts you in opposition to whatever is considered the norm or status quo. This means you will receive backlash, and more to the point you're asking for it. That's what activism is. Activism might start with lived experiences, but that doesn't mean the conclusions you're reached from your particular lived experience would benefit society at large if it followed your conclusions and prescriptions. It doesn't mean the people pushing back against you are unenlightened reactionaries who don't know what's best for the world. You yourself might be wrong, that's why it's so important to have clear arguments and solid facts to justify your position. Today there are activist groups who are protesting for the right of children (who are too young to vote, enter into a legal contract, or be treated by the criminal justice system as an adult) to have gender reassignment surgery without the consent of their parents or legal guardians. It's fairly obvious that the overwhelming majority of society is against this, yet this form of activism seems to be increasingly popular. Can these activists really claim to be on the right side of history? Is this kind of activism even a good thing? It's certainly challenging the orthodoxy, but that doesn't make it right. If a young person is walking down the street with a sign that says "NYPD = KKK" drawing equivalency between regular police and a white supremacist hate group, should I even be taking such a person seriously? There's a reason that Ryan Long video you mentioned went viral: it hit a nerve because there's a lot of truth in it, which is funny.
@@ellawinchester8266 Does that include the the rights of, say, a 12 year old boy to access irreversible hormone treatment or surgery without parental consent? If so, why? This is exactly the problem I'm getting at: you can't just assert that something should be a right. Especially with controversial subjects, you need to explain why. Imagine if somebody was arguing that 12 year old girls should be allowed to marry older men, and then gave you some lazy slogan like "Children's rights matter" and asserted that they were on the right side of history for defending the right of a minor to marry whomever they want, whenever they want to. Would you accept that argument? Such a person would have to explain why giving a child such legal rights would be a good idea for society. They'd still have all their work ahead of them. So do you.
I just found your channel. I like how speak and understand different subjects. As a sociologist is very interesting the way you see contemporary problems/topics. I will continue to see more videos in order to write good comments. Keep up the good work :)
Ryan Long video is on point. Class-based wokism is great and actually facing the reality many right wing people deny. But culture-based or race-based wokism is pretty dumb and leads to so many weird idological paradoxes, as portraied in Ryan's Long video. Most of the race issues are actually class issues in desgise (think of underrepresentation in universities for example) and it does not make sense to tackle the problem with racial view rather than class view.
Thank you for another great video! And thank you for talking about events in France as my media consumption is too anglo-centric. I'm sad to hear that you are already being targeted online by abusive people.
I am just wondering if anyone here has actually walked through a slum anywhere like sub-Saharan Africa or South or Southeast Asia. This will only require about 15 seconds to make you more "woke" than the most passionate online activist. But it focuses you on the practical, rather than "spreading awareness" or some such.
Lies cost more the longer they go unrecognized... you either align yourself with reality and go about making things better, or you kick the can down the road while the lie's interest skyrockets... especially in terms of psychological health for all involved.
You made some interesting points. I especially agree on the ideas around the romanticization of activism. The desire to be the "main character" is an underlying reason why most people become activists. Ironically, it ties to your first point of our individualistic society and how we strive to better ourselves and only ourselves. However, when we ultimately shift our focus on solving the issue, therein stands a barrier - specifically the fact that it has become uncool to care about these issues and to speak about them lest you become labelled as "nerd" if you care for climate change or "simp" if you subscribe to feminism. We can only move forward when we destigmatize caring for societal issues and realize that one side of the boat may have a hole but we are all in the same boat.
Woke culture has its pathological sides, but anyone who points these out is vilified with words that end on -ist or -phobic. PragerU *is conservative and anti-woke* but is not alt right. The counter woke movement is concerned with a few things: Anyone who advocates progressive talking points or supports the rights of groups they see as oppressed is automatically believed to represent the good cause, regardless of the content of their beliefs. I call this the "nobly colored flag" effect. Since "justice" and "equality" are at their core good things, anyone who says they represent those things is assumed to be good willed by neutral bystanders. This can and will be abused by people with selfish motives. How is this abused? Let's say there is some change you want implemented, all you have to do is present what you want as a solution to some form of inequality and injustice and tadaa, anyone who opposes your original proposal is now a pariah in the eyes of the neutral bystander. I think we can all agree that making the world a better place starts with yourself. I can respect a genuine desire to make the world more fair for others, but this is achieved not through the vilification of an appointed bad guy. When you want to make the world better through some change X, and others oppose X, it is not because they are racist, sexist or hopophobic, but it is because there is an actual issue with X. But we can't seem to discuss the content of X, and rather just call each other names for clout. unlucky society
Quick update: I finally defended my master's dissertation and might even get it published ✨Congrats to those of you who are graduating or completed another year of college or high school, I wish you the best of luck for the future and hope you enjoy this new video! ☺️
Hey, congratulations. Your content allows me to see criticaly many modern trends that often are unchecked for one reason or other. My best wishes💚🎉🎊💚
Bravo et félicitations Alice !
Contgratulations Alice! That are some amazing news, can't wait until I am that point :)
Congratulation Bravo, what was your thesis about?
Wow congratulations!!!
I really struggle with online activism because it's difficult to disentangle from the ego: I'll often share things and then immediately delete them because I question "Am I sharing this because it will really affect change, or am I sharing this to curate a certain image of myself online?" It's a relief to be able to begin safely going back into the world in in-person community, where action doesn't always just mean sharing my opinion online.
If you're worried about narcissism, that's a mental illness caused by child abuse and parental favoritism as a "golden child," getting rich from lottery winnings or becoming a celebrity. The problem is not feeling awesome, it's treating others as inferior.
I deleted my social media last month. Best decision I’ve made.
@@petereames3041 I did the same over a year ago and i feel like I backed myself into a corner.
Well, in our society we're all operating under the _profilicity_ mode of constructing identity, to an extent. (See the YT channel "Carefree Wandering" for what "profilicity" is)
@@darlalathan6143 No only narcissistic people want to present themself as positive as possible online. Most people have that desire, one just has to recognize it and don't act on it in a political context
I think that social media has sped up the evolution of language to the point in which many words (fetishization, racist, bigot, internalization) have lost their essential meaning and, through this, their ability to create action. This is helped by the ever-improving capacity for corporations and marketing to use these terms for profit and promotion, emptying them of any real significance. If social movements are truly reliant on words that channel action, then we are heading for some dark times.
A lot of those words you listed do not even exist in some culture languages. Americanisms is basically what they are because the origin comes from them and they sell it back to the world
Have the words lost their meaning or have the definitions expanded? Are people just misusing words in some instances? Or are the recipients of those words just not open to listening and understanding?
yes exactly... and i feel they are, in fact, reliant on words that channel action as you said. lol bye world
THE MAN THE MYTH THE LEGEND, MA MAN SISYPHUS
Deconstruction though is a philosophy that's been around since the 1960s and was developed by French philosophers so not all words and ideas are the result of the internet or America.
One of the most damaging things that the right have achieved is to trivialise "woke words". I often find myself trying to express an idea without using words like feminism, privilege, the system, etc. because as soon as people hear these "buzzwords" (which would otherwise convey the point much better), they tend to shut down and be dismissive to ideas they would otherwise agree with. Sometimes the point gets diluted when translated to "bro terms", and I would like there to be a cultural shift where people's rhetoric is critiqued on merit rather than word selection.
Merci :)
They are experts on trivialicing terms and demonicing groups of people by enless repetition of the same lie over and over.
Even word like victim, victimhood and censorship can no longer be used without people negatively assosiating them to the discriminated groups and movements.
And the people who shallow that lie don't even bother to contrast it with reality.
Like "internalized misogyny"
Yes! And also making material that's pseudo-woke to water down the movement and of good intentions.
I think it Is the oposite, I think that the sudden and shallow popularity of for example feminism, has left us with a lot of people using words that they dont understand in their full extent, so those words start loosing all their meaning
@@estefaniaboujon6830 I believe it was purposefully overused and wrongly used by the opposition to disrupt.
The decision of being an activist is really important, at least here in Mexico you gotta think if it worth it, because you will probably be dead, a lot of activists have been killed in the recent years, so it's important to think very carefully
Lol here in the US you become an activist, take a selfie at the march, and then go home and post it on Instagram.
I live in a different country, but its the same. I just make sure that my activism is only within social circles and family, because anything more than that is dangerous
I get you man. I live in Peru and frankly I don't dare to share some of my more progressive views with family and friends (unless I know they share some of my views) because of how conservative things are over here.
What you say about how dangerous it is to be an activist is so true. Last year here some Congress people blocked an attempt to pass a law (Acuerdo de Ezcasu) that that protects the activist in Peru, that considering that year like 20 activists and their families had been assasinated. Just this month a asháninka activist has been killed...
Exactly the same in Colombia, you'll most likely get killed.
@@Andrea-pr7wo though we walk through the valley
I think everyone should be aware of social injustices. But I don’t think everyone should be an “activitst”, per say. To be honest, most people are not equipt for that (and thats totally okay!) Because pushing people to become an activist leads it to be performative.
In my opinion, social pressure for everyone to be “woke” harms a lot of movements. It allows for a lot of misinformation and oversimplification. I think its important to be knowledgeable of social injustices, but not everyone can and should be discussing things that they actually don’t know much about, and using academic language usually taught about in depth in college and graduate programs. (And I think this is what they were trying to portray in the video with the woke vs racist: performative activism oversimplifies topics with lengthy histories and nuances)
You don’t have to know about every bad thing or every oppression in the world to be a good person, and you certainly don’t have to be an activist, especially for everything.
I mean, what you say is true but Alice has been known to drag Lana Blakely, Nate and Matt D'Avella for not being vocal enough about societal issues sooooo I'm afraid she'll disregard your criticism altogether lol
People will eventually join a movement if it affects them. Is that good? I don't kmow.
I think there's a difference between understanding/facing issues with an academic lens versus firsthand accounts. Especially in places whose issues only make sense from a specific geopolitical context (i.e. blackface, cultural appropriation, etc...)
This is a great comment and I agree with you. My social science undergraduate and postgraduate degrees span years of study spent to understand the historical, social and political contexts of terms and movements. As more of this language bleeds out into the mainstream, the context, nuance and understanding is lost or diminished.
A perfect example of this phenomenon is seeing a group who has the most social capital on society - straight, white males - also using this watered down academic language to advocate for themselves. Are they doing something wrong? It’s complicated. They’re doing what everyone else is doing and co-opting language they don’t fully understand to apply to their social category. So while I disagree with them, I also see how they think what they’re doing makes sense and is right - because it is if you observe the broader cultural phenomenon.
As you say, not everyone needs to understand these things to be a good person, but the social capital we gain by wielding these terms forces us into the game (especially when not using them will be used by others as evidence of your not-woke-enoughness in an effort to prop up their own woke profile).
It is actually dystopian. We are creating a society where others not performing wokeness is viewed as the real social ill, rather than structural, systemic inequities. Social justice is not an identity; it is about class consciousness and movements. And so many of us concerned with wokeness have sold out marginalised classes in a bid to protect our own image.
You're using the term "woke" very loosely here. You can be "woke" without being an activist.
Everyone is “ethnic.” Even white people have ethnicities.
I wonder how “ethnic” became a descriptor for non-white?
because white people can assimilate easier than people of color. white ppl are seen as locals and poc are always seen as foreigners, even if theyre not.
What exactly are "white people"?
@@mschell350 Where is this place exactly? I live in one of the most multiracial countries in the world (Panama), so saying "ethnic" here would mean literally every single person. But whatever the country or place is, to use the word ethnic to describe people who aren't white is ridiculous and useless. Every single human being has ethnicity, wherever they are.
@@em-sf7me anyone of European decent in the USA. So if you are of Mexican heritage you would put down that you are white with Latino ethnicity on government documents. People from the Middle East are also white. Asian, Pacific Islanders, African Americans, and native Americans are non white. Different countries have different groups this only applies to US legal documents.
So this does not necessarily refer to skin color, but a shared ancestry. I'm not sure what part of France Alice is from, but if you went to the south of france, you could probably find individuals of a darker skin tone. It's weird how someone is white in one country and goes to another one and something magical happens and they become a different race.
I support social justice, and I like your praise of it. But I feel that a huge part of the people who claim to be in this movement only do a ton of moral showing off by claiming over and over again that they are on the "right side of history" and attacking and canceling so many people who don't agree with their "stance", without considering their context or education, while not really doing anything to support actual people going through these injustices. I think we should talk/listen to each other more and create more empathy, instead of creating these weird isolated bubbles. This kind of behavior from this considerable chunk of people in the social justice movement is one of the huge fuelers of extremism on the other side.
I agree
I agree. Most of "social justice" in our times is just a cancer born off having grown up on the Internet, being aimless in a changing world, and more people having access to higher education and thinking it makes them morally enlightened. It has nothing to do with social justice any more. And while this cancer grows, we gradually lose sight of the collective "contract of meaning" that allows us to actually communicate with each other.
@Rachel Forsheeyes, you're right. That's why I used "huge part", instead of "all".
The problem is its too easy to monetize the ben shapiro and hasanabi watchers by doubling down on "my side is right and the other side is dumb"
yes! I totally agree! the moral superiority that they push is actually making people less likely to get involved in this conversation, and that rlly sucks!
Cooperations appropriating and commodifying wokeness feels down right dystopian. Something about Kendall Jenner ending racism with a Pepsi really just hits my fight or flight.
It’s like you can participate in all the movements you want to, so long as it makes us money but the second any real steps towards change are made that could potentially threaten revenue it’s destroyed.
at the end of the day, corporations will do everything they do ONLY for profit, they dont give a fuck about race or sexism or whatever
@Arthur Frayn I think that's exactly what's happening with China right now and the "concentration camps"
Corporations are the true creators of wokism. As a Marxist communist I find this fake socialism of American woke disgusting. Also the fact that majority of the woke activists come from a well off family disgusts me even more.
Have you ever questioned why Marxist China is jailing feminists while capitalist America is forcing kids to take hormones
@@YoureRightIThink hard disagree. China doing genocide and western countries attacking China are related, but the re-education camps (or whatever you want to call them) are enacting genocide. The man who is making these claims does not have a lot of credibility, but just by looking at the history of Xinjiang and the acounts of journalists who enter the province it is quite clear China is dealing with the “extremist” problem by forcing citizens (and especially children) into the camps.
I do not like the downplaying of genocide in the modern wold by people on the left.
@@aizencaptain9564 forcing kids to take hormones? What?
I am a Marxist, but I’m more an Anarchist and you cannot say that with a straight face. What are you talking about?
There’s plenty of real things to dislike American hegemony for but come on man.
I am too selfish and self-centered to go out there playing Jesus Christ. Instead, I try to be the example of the change I want to see. I try to do things correctly and with responsibility and honesty. This is already a way of influence people.
yes! leading by example is the very least we can do.
Jesus did lead by example, so I think you actually are playing Jesus Christ. Keep doing it, it's a noble goal.
@@adonisadmirer2752 what I meant was not to try to salve the entire world.
@@elysianfields1671 Oh yeah, that's also good.
Although I'd argue Christ's original message was pretty individualistic.
Jesus loves you
A problem from both sides, is that we distill each other's argument to an overgeneralized/simplistic and jingoist heurism. Then we can dismiss the others view. When we group people into specific bins, it is much easier to view the people in that group by the group definition. However, many people can be part of many different and disparate groups. To define that one individual by the group, will preclude the observer from understanding the individuals.
If you are "woke" you are a communist. If you believe in Individual rights, you are a "racist." If you believe in Social Justice, you are "lib". If you are fond of your "country", you are a....see the argument gets too distilled and we dismiss the others argument and we defend our position as, "we do not want to give false equivalency" to the other side. Their position is soooo reprehensible, they are not worthy of dialoging with. Then there is anger and violence. No mutual understanding.
For the pathos, both sides do a poor job of framing the narrative to help the understanding. Instead we weaponize the pathos to bolster our positions and "rally the troops."
Sometimes, I, myself, confused with every words and terms thrown around.
Far-right, right wing, left wing, far-left, leftist, conservative, MAGA, libertarian, libertard, centrist, progressive, feminist, feminazi, misoginy, misandrist, egalitarian, marxist, socialist, communist,....(continue the list if you will)
This so much. This is the exact sort of thing that contributes to extremism and radicalization, because from what I’ve seen a lot of Alt-Right folks probably started by acting out against concepts they don’t understand out of spite. If people keep screaming at each other they’re just going to double down. But yet no one understands it.
@@wannabehistorian371 ALt-Right/Alt-LEft, all part of the same Alt-Bird. The Extremes on both sides prevent regular folk from having honest conversations to create that understanding.
Agreed. I usually disagree with the left on most things, but why would anyone be against protecting the environment? I hate the idea of littering just as much as anyone else. And I'm not going to spend my time arguing against climate change when I never studied it a day in my life. I like a lot of libertarian ideas too but I don't side with them because of their stance on recreational drug use. I spent some of my free time volunteering for conservative causes for a short while, but stopped doing it when I realized I didn't want politics to be my entire lifestyle. I'd rather spend my time on recreational mathematics than politics if at all possible.
Woke is not communist. I'm a Marxist communist and I despise woke ideology the most. It's a creation of deep state
"You, as an individual, can change the system." This is such a perfect oxymoron. The contradiction in the messaging is very intentional, and has been very effective in stalling real change.
it's an antithesis , not an oxymoron
All activist groups are a bunch of individuals with similar opinions about politics. If large or loud enough, they can influence governments, religions and corporations. They already have since the '50s and '60s.
@@wailchalabi2666 Agreed - an oxymoron would be "let's treat people different based on their race for the sake of anti-racism!"
As a French American living in America, I often feel disconnected from France, but watching your channel helps me feel a bit more in the know with France and what my family might be seeing. I would love to hear any recommendations for other French youtubers (et oui, je parle français) in one of your future videos 💕
What topics are you looking for exactly?
Qu'est-ce que tu veux regarder?
Si tu cherches des vidéos de "commentaire" un peu comme celle d'Alice, je te recommande la chaîne de @Clarinette !
L' observateur, Pleinement femme, Femme qu'on prise, Femme à part, Mos Majorum
Chaînes un peu antiwoke
@@MoroccanPOV
Mos Majorum j’ai eu l’impression d’une caricature totale. Sérieusement je suis blanc cis hetero mais je suis mort de rire quand je vois ce genre de mecton inculte prétendre « défendre » ma cause. D’abord c’est bon, les mecs blancs hetero n’ont pas besoin d’être défendus. On domine ce monde. La vraie grandeur - si la « grandeur » a un sens - consisterait à prendre conscience de notre situation dominante et à partager notre place avec les autres.
I’d love to hear more about “slackivism” during the start of the pandemic last year. I feel like I’m in a weird limbo where I’m not sure if I was doing enough or if I was doing anything at all.
You should watch Khadija Mbowe's video on the topic if you haven't already, it's really good
Oh same! This anxiety was so prevalent that it ended up being one of the themes in a short story I wrote for class
@@Vampire_Nightshade YES! Literally what I came here to comment
I'd say slacktivism is justified during a pandemic, lol.
I think the term "slacktivism" is a bit inappropriate because it downplays the influence that online media has on society.
Thank you for talking about this. I feel like sometimes there might be some stress over how to be or how not to be an activist in the "right" way, what constitutes a "real" activist, and so on. Maybe it's just my desperate desire to know where I stand and see where the boundaries are (when there aren't, and shouldn't be, any), but it seems as though whenever you do or do not say something, there is always a way to be called out on it: you speak/do too much or too little, or you focus on the wrong things, or it's not your place. Maybe it's only in my head. Still, at the end of the day, we just want to make the world a better place. Even individually, we might never tackle all of the problems or be right about everything, but at least we truly want to understand and do something at our own pace, and I think that matters.
This was a bit of a rambling comment, I suppose I'm still figuring this out for myself :)
Yes, I totally agree, social movements are about educating people to empower them and find strength in numbers. We should primarily focus on expanding and reaching new people instead of over-judging those who are already on our side. I very much appreciate constructive criticism and know I'm not always right but at least we're willing to learn and improve and we should be encouraged to continue to do so. Thanks for your comment 😊
Just agree to what I say and that's the guidance you need
yeah, so for me, I am only a 15 yo, trying my very best to educate myself on social issues and trying to educate others in any way I can! I constantly feel like I am a "slacktivist" because at this point all I can do is share informational content. In my own time I do research and read articles and try my very best to stay informed, but I dont know what else I could possibly do. I am not allowed to go outside because I am immunosuppressed and at risk for covid, and I can't to much else. I have joined 4 non profit organizations to try and do my part, but I usually don't get assigned or accepted to join because I'm only 15. I don't know what else to do and I hope that I am doing enough but I constantly feel that I am not being a good enough activist, because I watch videos like these or other ones, and I cannot always follow and or comprehend what they are saying and it makes me feel so stupid. I am trying to do my part, but I also want to be better and dont know how.
@@kianaamarnani5232 Social issues are all a lie to sell you more
@@gvi341984 could you like elaborate maybe
As helpful as it has been in bringing systemic issues to a wide audience, social media has fundamentally altered authentic activism and authentic being-a-person in general. Our identities have become so visible through social media, that being a person is inseparable from how we represent ourselves online. You're not _____ until it's on your twitter, instagram or whatever. As you pointed out, social activism can merely become a way of projecting a kind of identity for the world to see, not an actual cause you're willing to sacrifice your time, energy, money for.
It's not that we didn't have this tendency before social media--now it's just sooo much easier, whereas before the internet, you actually had to do more real activist work to look like a social activist, to satisfy your ego.
I also think there's a degree to which the systemic issues themselves undergo a kind of dilution on the internet, endlessly represented and repeated until the actual lived experience of those issues becomes lost along the way.
I suppose that despite this dilution that occurs, social media can benefit those social causes simply by garnering attention. But in truly changing people's personal views on those issues, I'm not so sure.
There are studies that disprove this. Online media objectively played a significant part in the 2016 US election.
You really hit the nail on the head here: corporate appropriation of social justice is like having a friend who doesn't do you any real favors and just hangs around to eat the food in your fridge. It feels good at first to be affirmed by somebody else, but in reality he's just a lazy bum who is no good.
hey why is your friend here automatically a 'he'? thats not very DEI friendly, Women can be bums too if theyre willing to put in the work (or lack thereof)
My wife is trans and is a trans activist. We’re almost used to death threats and slurs. I don’t know what the answer is except to keep fighting for trans rights and hope that the death threats are idle threats.
Receipts? I've never seen death threats at trans activists.
@@ojyochan There certainly are enough transphobes out there.
@@ojyochan I’m slightly confused as to how this person would provide you with receipts. Surely they could just say anything true or not and idk if that would satiate you. Maybe just look it up if you want to know more I’m sure you’ll find something.
Best of luck and health to you and your wife! I hope you both do well
@@ojyochan trans activists getting death threats is common sense, unfortunately. Anyone fighting against norms will receive hate and vitriol. It comes with the territory, as Alice points out in her video.
On a broader note, since you mentioned anger as a form of activism. I’ve found that anger and sadness are usually interchangable emotional reactions to a situation that is unfavourable to us. Sadness comes naturally when you cannot accept a situation, yet don’t see how you could change it. Anger is the feeling we get from unjustice that upsetts us, yet we realize we can do something to change it. So of course, sadness goes together with passivism while anger is married to activism.
Even if you are a relatively quiet "slacktivist" (vs. an all out activist) there are significant phycological repercussions I think. I share my "woke" material only with my spouse, and 2 or 3 closest friends. Living in the rural bible belt south (USA), being even somewhat "woke" (and mostly an "in the closet type" woke by the way) has destroyed so many of my relationships with friends, parents, grandparents, etc. I haven't even had any direct confrontations over said subjects, but that is because I know how primitive, and far right the majority of my surrounding colleagues is. I don't even bother to push controversial information in front of them. Trust me, it would be blasphemy to them anyway. So now, in an effort to keep the peace I have almost no one to talk to outside of social media that I can have meaningful conversations with.
That's really sadening ... Familly should always go beyond politics :/
Oh, I'm so sorry that your environment has pushed you this way. I send you strength to dive through the feelings of loneliness that are so frustrating and sad. Friendly reminder that there's always a chance to build a chosen family, even online, where you can find a place of healthy debate and respect.
It's so much harder for women to take part in woke culture. I have been compelled to in many instances to keep my thoughts to myself just to not get labelled or shamed. And those times I did open my mouth I've been labelled as feminist, leftist, deep, too serious or even dismissing my arguments telling me I couldn't take a joke
@@ludwigvanbeethoven3896 absolutely feel this - I honestly thought as a mixed race woman that I held a lot of privilege and was in the position to share information with my friends and family, but they all assumed it came from a place of pain/personal trauma, rather than a learning process to which I came to the conclusion of. Whereas if a white man took the same path I did in my decolonisation he'd be praised for his intellect. Now I'm suffering from the pain of experiencing the same things you've been told
@@pipancla I think society is built in a way that it encourages the mobility of men over women. So when Feminism came like a wave men had less equipments to back their arguments but are slowly forging their blade like for example incels, mgtow phenomena, or going hard alt Right. Heck! Some are even using the Bible to defend patriarchy when it's never been mentioned that women are inferior or subordinate to men.
Your channel is amazing, every topic you cover is very interesting and your thoughts are entertaining to hear about!
BOTH UR GUYS CHANNELS ARE AMAZING
I was so confused when you called Napoleon a war hero, but then I remembered that you‘re french and I wenn to school in germany😅 I was also wondering why leftism is associated with islam in france, to go as far as having a combined Word with islamogauchisme? Could you maybe elaborate more on that in a future video? I really like and appreciate the way you research your videos and the unique examples you give.
Something similar regarding leftism and Islam is happening in Greece, because leftists in general support helping out asylum seekers for example, who are often Muslims, so they then get attacked for this stance.
same haha, obviously us germans are not so fond of Napoleon! :D i recently read houellebecqs novel 'soumission' (in German 'Unterwerfung') which also deals with a fictional alliance between the Islam and leftists in french politics, and although I know that houellebecq and especially that book is quite controversial, it was an interesting read and gave me some insights into french attitudes towards the Islam and leftism! but I also feel like you can see a similar development in Germany, especially with right-winged politicians claiming that leftist politics encourage or at least tolerate radical islamism (and thereby of course falsly equating islamism and the islam)
it's islamogauchisme because the left exculpates Islam of having any oppressive elements that because it doesn't fit the narrative of it being a repressed, discriminated group. Michel Onfray of all people has noticed this phenomenon and been recently very critical of the left.
Leftists supporting religion where women have no rights and members of that religion beheaded people in France?
@@kevenfromsales6830 yes, the same happens in the UK. The most left wing newspaper is extremely Islam-friendly,
I love how I can share your videos with my parents! That's really a feat of yours, your videos are really accesible and not just 'online youth talk' or idk how boomers perceive the internet. It's been great to show them where I'm coming from in what I'm thinking about, and what the debate amongst younger (leftist) people is like. I also loved to see Sylvana Simons in the description, she's my political hero, and if you look at the comments of that video she herself has to bear so much hate and ignorance. I'm glad to see she has reach beyond the Netherlands, because she's a big step up from politicians right now, and a great role model. Congrats on you master's, I'm sure you'll make it very far in life!
Thank you so so much, I recently discovered Sylvana Simons and she really is inspiring !
So now you're not only stealing my clothes but also my decor ? Time to think of something i can borrow from you to compensate big sis lol
Let's sort that out in private.
I think the heavy emphasis on pathos Alice identifies is linked to a wider lack of moderation across contemporary discourse, which predates the concept of woke culture itself. In the UK, we've swung from laddism (with comedians asserting their "right" to be ableist and sexist) to hair-trigger linguistic sensitivity over social issues, back to an even more extreme right-wing libertarianism (espoused by our present government), in less than a decade.
The common thread is an excessive focus on emotion (anger, fear, shame, pride) in the rhetoric, a lack of reflection on the effects of that rhetoric, and little evidence to back it up.
Interesting video, but...
Isn't the right wing's adoption of MLK's colour blind outlook a good thing? Just as a hyper-fixation on race (and gender) is likely to have some very negative side effects.
(also, re colour blindness, on the whole saying they're the 'very same' conservatives is misleading, as adults in 1963 are at the ends of their lives now, and today, the general small-c conservative is pro race equality & pro gay marriage).
When considering those opposed to wokism, it's easy to look at the far-right, but general small-c conservative (ppl with a largely a-political conservative mindset), classical liberals, and most working class folk, are very critical of the woke ideology, veiwing it is a liberal elite phenomenon, and are often very concerned about loss of free speech, excessive identity politics, and excessive activism in journalism, teaching and corporations.
Lastly, I feel the woke ideology has been really quite damaging to all the minorities it ostensibly fights for. You mentioned some of the elements responsible, such as slacktivision and its adoption by corporations - but much of its manifestation is very intolerant, and prone to believing its detractors to be morally wrong.
There's a rebust defence for ppl that oppose wokism BECAUSE they oppose racism etc.
On the MLK point, MLK was not colour blind but the conservatives made him so to use as an exemple why you should not talk about race. The focus on colour blindness of some people was very deliberately manufactured by powerful people to keep people from addressing racism.
Also, many people say they are not racist but still are. Racism is such a bad word in our society that nobody wants to be associated with it, even the fascists in my country say they are not racist just because it has a bad connotation.
Strom Thurmond would absolutely love the new segregationists. Their message is really his message. Tribalism. Sewing discord and violence.
@@777jones Actually, it's mostly Alt-Right who advocate "ethnostates," "racial realism" and practice ramming attacks and mass shootings of Leftist activists.
I've always found it hard to dabble into english speaking online activism because of the US-centric vision, mainly individualism. It's not necessarily a bad take, but it's so present and rarely discussed as ONE possible vision of activism or social issues.
I'm from Europe myself, so the Marxist view of social classes and the importance of collective action is much more anchored in my vision of activism (definitely a European thing), and it's sometimes painful to see it overlooked by a destructive and simplistic individual take on everything. Yes the individual vision is important, but one person can't change a narrative and people need to unite (gilets jaunes being a good example of trying to create class solidarity based on sole individualism...it doesn't work).
En bref, merci d'apporter un regard anglophone plus tamisé de l'individualisme, il est bon de rappeler que cette vision n'est pas une évidence et ne doit pas l'être en tout temps...Il faut se lier à celles et ceux autour de nous si l'on veut changer le système, et se méfier d'un activisme individualiste que l'on pourrait qualifier de "facile". Si c'est facile, c'est que le statut quo a tout intérêt à ce que les gens soient individualistes (et donc désuni·es).
Merci à toi!
Any talk of Marxism or Socialism usually shuts down any productive discussion in the U.S, unfortunately.
This topic could be investigated further! There's so much there. Sticking your neck out for justice involves such risk and exposure. I think it's part of why more people don't do it, and could partly explain why the wheels of justice move so slowly. I'd be interested to see you collaborate with activists, interview them on this subject and others, perhaps analyze obstacles and try to figure out how to work towards unity on a level that is immune to all the hate-filled pushback. I'm glad I found your channel. Such a fresh voice. Congrats on your Masters 🙂
C'est la deuxième fois que je regarde cette vidéo, je la trouve tellement intéressante, ça m'aide à mieux comprendre à quel point le pouvoir du collectif prime dans les mouvements sociaux et ça me donne des clefs pour tenter d'utiliser au mieux tous mes privilèges. J'adore tes vidéos, merci beaucoup.
Your channel is an ocean of wisdom.
This video feels like the right place to say it: your channel is what turned me away from the alt-right culture I grew up with, and helped me recognize the struggles of women and minorities 💜
go to the third position, it will make even more sense.
@@dombam8490 third position is oxymoronic
You just moved from one extremism to Leftist extremism.
@@MatPost why?
@@AizenIsKubo and which part of recognizing the struggles of women and minorities constitutes Leftist extremism?
I just wish people asked more questions when the corporations, bankers, bureaucrats, and activists are all on the same page about the big social issues
Amazing video. I love how you shape your content. I rarely see these issues discussed. Actually last year I think Amnesty International released a guide on how not to burn out as an activist, which was also informative
I absolutely love listening to you Alice! I wish you uploaded more often! Thank you so much for always making such good analysis!
I think you missed the point of the Ryan Long video. He never claimed, at least in that one, that the woke character was virtue signaling. The point was that viewing society from a completely racialized way, even from a progressive angle, can lead to behavior that would overlap with a traditional racist.
How???
@@nataliekhanyola5669 watch the video
@@nataliekhanyola5669 Are you asking how she missed the point or how progressive behavior can imitate racist behavior?
@@PaulCDehlinger I don't see how the statement you just made is true. How does progressive behaviour mimic racist behaviour?
@@nataliekhanyola5669 sure, so some progressive have advocated for having black only restaurants/hangouts, separate graduations from blacks, and the weirdest of all to me actually advocating for separate dorms on college campus. So while the motivations for this is a lot different than that of racist in the 50s your still advocating for segregation. Now on the academic front you’ve seen this weird push to label a lot of characteristics that the vast amount people would consider good as part of “whiteness.” For example arguing that things like working hard, punctuality, self reliance, delayed gratification, the scientific method, objectivity, rationality, etc are part of white cultural as if you wouldn’t find all the traits in literally any other group…which is silly. Also to use the video she referenced if you think it’s bad for black men to date white woman because they have internalized racism than I think you’re kind of racist.
The short film 'hypernomalization' which can be seen on YT makes a very interesting and scary point where being an activist and protesting is to the advantage of the power that be as it'll make the activist tired but their efforts lead to nothing. 😓
Oh I didn't know about this film
@@AliceCappelle You should watch all of Adam Curtis' documentaries.
Yeah, that actually makes a lot of sense. I just feel so hopeless omg
Another facet of how activism is diffused is how it vicariously articulates the rage of passive viewers, allowing them to feel that their issues have been voiced, leaving them satisfied without being prompted to act in any real manner. It is psychological appeasement with few risks, if any.
@@pequodexpress change dot org is peak slacktivism.
I've realized something through this pandemic: Trying to educate people about their own privileges is like trying teach a fish to be grateful of the water it swims in. Only when the fish get out of the water will it appreciate what it has lost.
Isn't this one of the toxic elements of the rhetoric common in some corners of progressive activism?
Things like not being a victim of police brutality, not being sexually harassed at the workplace etc. should never ever be framed as a "privilege", when they're quite clearly a human right.
Making the latter truly universally protected and enforced should be the goal, not rescinding the so-called "privileges" and making the lives of all groups equally miserable.
Privileges ? That kinda sounds American
@@YunTomeq exactly! I don't feel like everyone understands the difference between priviledges and rights. Just because a particular group isn't having their rights upheld doesn't mean that the other group is priviledged. We should be improving the circumstances of the first group without trying to tear the second group down.
Privilige? You mean you can falsely accuse someone of gRape ans dont face consequences of lying? And life of that person will be destroyed.
@@kevenfromsales6830 lol what? You're not even correct...if someone falsely accuses another person of r*pe, the accused can claim defamation of character. But more importantly, why would someone lie about this when they probably feel very ashamed, scared, and when so few of the accusations even lead to convictions?
Lady, you show us very prescious position.
Thank you for your films.
Support from Siberia, Novosibirsk.
This video is tremendously important. In the past video I saw a lot of very morally rigid comments about people not explicitly tackling political issues and how they always should because apoliticism is always a privilege (ironically a conclusion that lacks a lot of nuance).
We need to understand that the ability to constantly engage with political issues inherently implies a privileged position too, particularly one derived from the subject of ableism. A lot of people are mostly unable to critically tackle these issues because they are not in the right emotional, chemical or neuronal place to do so. This is also a political issue, curiously, and might be disclosed from the start to understand the context around a discourse, but to demand constant political engagement seems as damaging as the same toxic positivity that wants us to believe nothing is problematic.
In my country, every time someone speak against the status quo or the majority to increase the knowledge about how things should be based not just the majority but also the minority, the would be called SJW (Social Justice Warrior), not as a positive but sadly in a negative terms.
Anyway, thankyou for your video, I am a new subscriber here (decide to that after watch 2-3 videos) and I hope you're always healthy so you could always have time and energy to share your knowledge here.
Such a good video Alice! I have thought about this topic before but had never seen anyone mention it so it was very refreshing! Also your lighting looks great!
Thank you. The consequences of activism need to be acknowledged, which many people don’t consider. Beautiful video 👌👏 you’re my favourite video essay TH-camr
I love your videos so much! I learn something new and feel like I get a broader sense of the world. Also, love the background 💖💖
Aww thank you so much 🥰 I owe the cute background to my sister ahah
Some people really can't comprehend the difference between racism and acknowledging the ongoing effects of racism.....
The threshold for defining oppresion is way to low on society now a days. That is the main critique from the conservative movement. Oppresion has become the scape goat for all of the problems and individual responsability has lost all of it value. You have to wonder why immigrants from actually oppresed countries like North Korea, China, Africa, generally oppose the SJW agenda.
Why would "actually oppresed" people have to have the truth about what has to be set for the "oppresion threshold". I'm not into youtube discussions so I won't reply, I'm just questioning that sentence. Cheers!
@@santimontali People who is been deprived of freedom, food and shelter by their own goverment. A bushman in the African Sabana is not oppresed, A North Korean farm worker is as well as a 15 years old girl living under Taliban rule, a person living in the first world feeling depressed because other people is having it better than them is not oppesed he is just annoyed.
@@cncmyself6897 "Oppressed First World People" get driven to suicide by internet trolls, r raped with impunity by Supreme Court Justices. Some athletes are barred from same-sex sports teams, despite hormones and even sex reassignment surgery, because they were born the opposite sex. Even white male allies can be murdered with impunity by Alt-Right extremists with assault weapons. Most Americans with depression are untreated, because psychiatric and other health care are expensive and mental illness is falsely associated with serial killers. Homeless people are right to complain about overpriced apartments and houses. The unemployed are right to protest workplace bullying, mass layoffs and exporting American jobs to developing nations for cheap labor. "First World Problems" are just as bad as "Third World Problems" and deserve solutions.
Every time I watch one of your videos I am BLOWN AWAY by the way you think and how I see the subject you treat in a completely different way. Well done!
With me being a man who has Asperger's syndrome I have to judge social situations very carefully for social safety
Me, too!
You're not alone, I'm right there with you. I have to say, it's incredibly exhausting.
The conservatives and those "on the right" of society are truly cynical in their use of the term "virtue signalling" as something pejorative.
As for intersectionality, it may come across to ordinary people as an intellectual techo-jargon, but for those people whose lives are affected by it all the time, whether on a daily, weekly or much longer term basis, intersectionality is a very real phenomenon.
Great video Alice, Salut.
actually oppressed and poor people don't use woke terms to describe their situations. If you want the average joe and jane to listen to you using jargon isn't going to work. Most people don't want to hear jargon in any conversation especially political. Not only does it demean them because they feel dumb or left out because they don't know the terms your using. But it also makes you sound pretentious and elitest. The woke movement is made up of the privlidged and attacks the underprivlidged. For not wanting to use the terms they want to impose on them.
@@appropriate-channelname3049 Your comments are thought provoking. I'm university educated but live in a traditionally very working class city in the north of England. The friends and acquaintances I speak with regularly here never bring up the subject of "wokeness", and neither do I. But on British TV and on quite a few channels on TH-cam and on some UK newspaper websites, hardly a day goes by without the whole concept and "reality" (for want of a better word) of wokeness being discussed. Also, no one I know face to face in my life uses the term "intersectionality", but on BBC Radio 4, it's part of the "higher brow" (than us "street folks") vocabulary that gets used quite regularly and also by certain columnists in British newspapers.
You state that the woke movement is made up of the privileged and attacks the underprivileged. This is truly ironic, as from what I understand, the term originated from African-Americans. However don't quote me on this, I am sure read this when the term "woke" came into common usage a few years ago.
Certainly in the UK, poorer and more disadvantaged members of society don't use woke terminology as part of their everyday speech. But the world is continuously changing ... In 10 or 20 years, who knows how "ordinary" people will describe and talk about themselves ?? :)
The price of being woke = you're awake, not feeling sleepy. But seriously...people need to be aware of social issues around them.. Gonna watch it later because it's still too early here! ❤️But need to comment for the algorithm
I hate that the term “woke” has now become a joke and representative of a kind of performative activism that is itself a bit of a mythology. It turns the actual meaning of the term into a joke. I’m old enough to remember when, for example, the average middle class white person in the US wasn’t forced to think much about privilege, white supremacy, or systemic racism. This wasn’t that long ago. In spite of the slacktivism, corporate recuperation, and performative wokeness of the present I still think this is a better moment to be in than the false peace of the past.
love that worldview, it's groundedly optimistic.
Privilige is to steal from shops or to burn the building and not go to jail.
It's only a joke to the Alt-Right. Wokeness is only performative when corporations use diverse models and actors in ads but not in the office staff, bully overwork and underpay their workers and ship their jobs overseas to children in developing nations. Slacktivism is useful for organizing and communication, such as flash mobs and online petitions to politicians. I've seen many political reforms, such as our current President and Congress, due to petitions I signed in social media and emails!
The weight of one's contribution to their own political existence might be related to how "politically heavy" that existence is. I like to use the example of Ironman killing Thanos, which works very well in a fictional setting, but in a real-life contemporary setting, it has a chance of being labelled as "wasted" because Tony Stark is basically Jeff Bezos. In that example, the contribution Ironman brings to the political landscape is arguably meaningless, because he barely represents anyone at all, politically speaking.
About being woke, meaning recognizing the importance of the political existence of each individual and the existence of the political landscape in its several shapes (structures, systems, unspoken rules and behaviors indoctrinated through tradition, etc), I feel like there is a disagreement with how it reaches each person. The more valuable knowledge still seems to be empirical, instead of theoretical, real hunger instead of understanding hunger by thinking about it and comparing it to a stomach growl. So the argument of "you would never understand this" aims at that specific experience of being, and there is perhaps little room for empathy. I am not against embracing the ignorance of my political existence, I would just like to have a clearer idea of what some discourses actually aim at, or mean. But then we still might need people of color, endangered ethnic backgrounds, and religious/tribal practices to have more ways to share their words. That feels like a bit of a utopia, sadly.
I really appreciate this video. I don't see an actual meaning in watching a video about a guy who doesn't consider himself woke speaking against being woke. It's like people who are basically afraid of reading anything related to communism believing they can critique it. Capitalists criticizing socialism, etc. Self-criticism in politics is what makes more sense in this woke era, in this empathy era, even you did it in this video, which is great. A capitalist can only criticize capitalism, and a socialist can only criticize socialism. The most interesting videos to me are the ones where people of color bring out things they believe are wrong in their own cultures. To me, that is very powerful, and also when even though people are minorities they still have aspects their self-criticism can tinker on. That would be the one true thing that unites us: we have aspects to improve at. As political movements go that would be the thing that breaks the pack, so to speak, when there is a problem. This leader hit on this female member and it was inappropriate then boom the whole thing collapses. Morality still poisons our social gatherings and feeds into our illusion that not being exactly the same is a forever issue. These are my thoughts. Thank you for the video!
interesting pov my dude
@@gerardlabeouf6075 i don't even remember this comment hahaha thank you anyways
@@LucasSSP always trying to argument in social medias is dedication,
I usually shut up but i like seeing people trying it
You're welcome have a good day man
great video. i began taking an activist role in art school when our education quality was seriously lacking. gave up from the stress and emotions. the more i learn about the world now, the more sombre and sad i get. This , i know is an unbalance of my content diet, but is definitely a burden to bear to understand the more broken pieces of our systems.
My problem with the so called activists is that in their view, they are the only righteous ones and in places where we have seen teh need for justice, the same activists turn into victim shaming because in their worldview the victim does not fit in their oppression group, hence does not deserve justice. Activists don't shy away from taking the rights away from people while themselves enjoying the privilege. Probably the most unaware hypocritical version of justice there ever was. No skin in the game, create chaos but cannot think of solution because all their tools and thought process is matured till the point of tearing down things, not building society. Give me one example where social justice of your flavour has been able to build a stable society, been able to run a nation state towards prosperity while maintaining peace with their neighbours?
Indeed.
In what way would social justice, a belief in equity, create instability?
This whole thing reads like a Tucker Carlson script lmao
@@mechanomics2649 In ehat way shouting about equality has led to acting towards equality? Since your awareness is limited to Middle America, further conversation would be worthless.
Another great video Alice. I wonder what your thoughts are on young people typically being liberal and as they get older they start becoming more conservative? The reason I ask is because I’m 39 and I find my views changing. I’d say I don’t support either side any more and rather agree with ideas from both sides on different topics. Do you think your views are likely to change as you grow older?
I have also been wondering about this, and one question I have is whether the usually bad financial situation of younger people ( before they start their careers, due to student loans, etc. ) plays a role in younger people political point of views ?
What do you think about this as someone who is slightly older and has more perspective? I'm curious to know :)
I went from skewing more center-right to being more leftist. I suppose people are eager to corroborate the “older-conservative” adage
@@alice-je8ui elder zoomer here, I went further left as my material situation approved. I'm recently self-employed. I doubt that I will ever move right, there's literally nothing there that isn't actively trying to kill everyone.
@@zesky6654 thank you for your answer! I guess political point of views depend more on other factors than one's own financial situation
@@alice-je8ui I'm non partisan, I believe ideas have their own merit, and I have lost faith in the political system, especially when it seems to be in the interest of keeping the status quo to have people become tribal and squabble over what side they choose to be on. As I have got older I think a radical change needs to be made, based on a meritocracy of ideas, rather than charisma of leaders, and the swaying of public opinion by media influences. I also think that it is far from a realistic ideal, which has left me more passive, more of an observer, less of an activist.
I recently had to block out a few friends whose cynicism honestly exhausted me. I've reached a point where I'm constantly judged because I'm not "woke enough" to someone else's standards. I'm glad you've made this video, and I'm so glad you brought up Ryan Long. I often recommend Thought Slime's video on conservative humor to explain how the comparisons don't hold up (in case you haven't come across his before)
EDIT: Congrats on defending your dissertation btw!!
I found the Pepsi Ad you showed as an example very fitting. Ads like these give a template to right wing commentators, which allows them to misrepresent the entirety of the fight for systemic change and social justice.
Exactly!
Corporate Activism oh boy. Pepsi should practice some economic justice if it wants a well-rounded message
Thanks for this video! I do agree that wokeness can make people who don’t have a deep interest in politics more aware of what’s happening around them even though they can’t see it themselves. But the problem is that, truth becomes rarer and rarer. There’s a lot of Black people do not suffer racism as much as the leftist parties say. It does not mean that we don’t at all nor that there’s nothing to do about it. But wokeness cut all debates between, black people with different point of views, let those subjects to people who have never seen or experienced racism, who eventually speak for us.
For some reason, I enjoy coming here and hear you talking about anything, somehow you resemble me when I was younger, I believe you still got a lot to learn, but i think the things you're interested on and the path you're walking will definitely take you to places and i don't mean in a common sense but developing a critical thinking will somehow put distance from you and the world outside but when you finally get to put it altogether completely, you will enjoy something which is not common to most people.
There’s a parallel universe where people age non-linearly, and every day you have no idea how old you’ll wake up.
I just watched this a second time and got much more out of it. There is a lot to think about and you've done a great job of presenting your thesis . . .
woop im third!! love your videos, they genuinely make my evenings.
Thank you 🥰
My family is mostly liberal, maybe even more on the conservative side. I'm a leftist and I'm both tired and kinda surprised. I'm tired because I still get weird looks from my family when I disagree with them when they say something unfair. But I'm also surprised by how much they changed. Before I started speaking out about freedom and equality, they would entirely skip a series when it was about a gay character. They still have a lot of work to do on themselves, but there is progress! And I know my life is not nearly as tough as lives of activists who risk their lives on protests. It's just that even in small spaces, with small efforts you can really change a lot, even if it's tiring.
I know that feeling too well. Despite what the media portrays about leftism dominating the modern scene, I still think most of society is still ignorant, unenlightened individuals who didn't step out of their comfort zone and lives under the guise of a conservative shell. Even though the shell is empty
I feel the same way, I get alot of the same dirty stares from my family members even for things that arent very controversial. One time I tried to have a conversation with my cousin about him maybe stopping his use of racial slurs, because duh. But he shot me down and called me a "sensitive gen z sjw" and ever since then thats what everybody views me as. although I noticed that when I started questioning their beliefs which are rooted in racism, sexism, homophobia, and colonialism I noticed that they were slowly becoming more open to the idea of equality. I just wish they weren't as mean to me for trying to speak about it.
I completely agree with everything in this video, the problem is that the masses boil everything down to a simple talking point and lose the nuance. A real life example is I encountered a teen boy who was made to feel at school (by other students) that his identity (as a white male) was bad. And so he was then drawn to a group of white boys who essentially embraced racism, because they validated him and made him feel welcome. While group identity is valuable to look at in a lot of ways, in this particular case it caused further divisiveness.
I watched her school of life video because her accent is very cute, but im finding myself interested in the topics covered as well!
Ahaha yayyy
Je viens de découvrir grâce à ta vidéo la liste des professeurs/chercheurs et je suis hyper choqué omg... quasiment tous mes profs de master sont dans la liste mais j'en entends seulement parler maintenant...
Ah oui? :O On en avait beaucoup parlé à la fac quand elle était sortie, le doyen avait même fait un communiqué de soutien :/
@@AliceCappelle après je suis à Dauphine aka un fief universitaire de droite donc j’imagine que la minorité de prof qui étaient dans la liste ca n’a pas convaincu l’administration d’en parler … mais ce qui me surprend c’est surtout le fait que les profs ne nous en aient pas parlé :(
C'est juste la liste des signataires d'une tribune anti Vidal
This is a tough watch but I'm determined to get through it
Great points, I have to say that this is also true for activists on the right wing. People on both sides send hate to the other side and it's terrible. People on the right wing often (luckily not by everyone) get labelled as racists and bigots without people making an effort to understand. This has real life repercussions as well. Target personal attacks is real on both sides on both sides and I think it's terrible. can't we just discuss the arguments rather than the people?
It's weird that a lot of these comments claiming "both sides" only gesture vaguely at alleged wrong doings of people on the left without a word about any wrong doing on the right.
HEY! I am only a 15 yo, trying my very best to educate myself on social issues and trying to educate others in any way I can! I constantly feel like I am a "slacktivist" because at this point all I can do is share informational content. In my own time I do research and read articles and try my very best to stay informed, but I dont know what else I could possibly do. I am not allowed to go outside because I am immunosuppressed and at risk for covid, and I can't to much else. I have joined 4 non profit organizations to try and do my part, but I usually don't get assigned or accepted to join because I'm only 15. I don't know what else to do and I hope that I am doing enough but I constantly feel that I am not being a good enough activist, because I watch videos like these or other ones, and I cannot always follow and or comprehend what they are saying and it makes me feel so stupid. I am trying to do my part, but I also want to be better and dont know how.
You're amazing and are already doing so much! Please don't burn yourself out
Being a white guy but hammered for my place on the autistic spectrum - my sense of various forms of suffering and social responsibility are a bit like this, you should be on your own to find your own happiness and you shouldn't try to 'extract' that out of other people, but at the same time if you're in a sadistic situation - such as being thrown in jail over race, or having other people trying to 'railroad' your life history or story, or having to work 80 hrs a week at a back-breaking job to keep a small apartment, and all of this on top of alienation imposed by society, that's what's wrong. When someone genuinely makes bad choices and finds themselves in a hole they dug - they just need to take it as a signal to make better choices. OTOH if they're in a well of torment fenced by other people and what's worse when it's torment that they themselves are forced to take a torturous form of accountability in (a bit like 'if you can't draw a square circle we can beat you'), that's twisted and it has to be stopped.
I heartily agree and I'm an autistic black trans woman!
Being a white guy who is autistic himself, it's never as simple as "person makes choices and finds themselves in a hole they dug". There are many externalities that lead that person to their choice. Telling people to "make better choices" is a non-solution. People will make better choices as their material conditions improve.
@@mechanomics2649 much of the time sure, it's hard to really have that conversation without specifics but lets say in the dance of hard-bound external influences and compound trauma, there are places people can be and things they can do that are the result of almost sheer external force where their ability not to do them would have come down to little more than just different luck, OTOH there are things people can do which were indeed poor decisions - ie. they had plenty of time with it and plenty of time to have done something different, plenty of warning signals, etc.. It's really questionable how much we should play punitive games with people over that sort of thing, I do subscribe lets say to Sam Harris's take on determinism and criminal justice (similar to Robert Sapolsky's) but I still have to find a point where one can distinguish between survival and hard-bound threats to survival boxing a person's path in vs. choice in the sense that they didn't get there by living under such threat that they were never able to put a distance between themselves and their actions or inactions.
Hey, while I do agree with your points, I am very concerned about the Left's beef with science and all that constructivism talk that some Left academic thinkers (which I usually find to be slackers) translate when it comes to science. It makes the Left look like a cult, indeed... and conservatism does exploit that. I would like to hear your take. I think very good examples are Sandra Harding, Lacan, Derrida & the French gang. I am also referring to things like the Sokal affair and the book Higher Superstition. I started questioning the validity of everything fashionable in woke culture.
I would like to hear your thoughts on James Lindseys book cynical theories
I’ve watched a bunch of your videos so far and I wanted to say you gained a subscriber. I also love your fashion.
Thank you 🥰
There are people who suffer and those who want validation for recognizing that suffering. Those that suffer make their own destiny for change because their existence reflects that. Not people of privilege. Your self aggrandizement as a savior doesn't change the mistreatment of others or how other people perceive that injustice. Your attention towards activism puts your efforts over that of others who live that reality every day.
I'm so sorry that people have to deal with this kind of harassment online. You don't deserve that
she deserve worst
@@promecio8085 wtf
@@promecio8085 No u
Not a word on imperialism
The superior cultures conquered inferior cultures. You have some problem withthat?
Congrats on getting your master's degree!! I also love the new background, the sofa looks very cozy.
Honestly I understand your point but I would like to provide nuance which is that political parties, groups ect change over time and that the conservatives from back then are not the conservatives from now and also while yes labels can be useful in conveying a point try to look at a case to case basis on individuals and their beliefs to understand what you can learn and any possible criticisms you may have on their beliefs also ask for clarifications if a point is not understood
Hi, Just wanted to tell you that I think you are spot on
It varies from country to country too. Liberal to conservative in China and most EU nation (women/feminist) are against surrogacy, porn, prostituion. But not from Christian perspective, it's about patriarchy and sexual exploitation of women.
It's hard understand North American based conservative values, when some women there r happily popping babies and being free-housekeepers, some even hv modest dress code. It's another form of male's gaze same to hajib, and over-reveling clothes (women brainwashed by media to objectify themselves into ideal female looking appearence)
Also Ben says women intelligence whatever weaker than man blablabla = what I view American conservative values. Science base subjects university scores and entry exam for all civil servants in China prefer male application, not fake news, the scores are all public documents, grades of male/female grade academic performance also r public in China, yet all jobs that r not physically demanding would hire man when they score 50% less than women. The minimum requirements rate of female application r way higher, and only few got hired. Some may argue about efficiency, well for that public records also shows, women in government and private work force r superior in performance. I'm sure it's the same globall, not because Chinese hv magical genetics.
And radical feminist is not radical at all, radical men right activist murder, rape, kidnap, harras, school shooting, they've done everything, starting world wars as well. East Asian rad fem just wear baggy clothes, keep bodyhair, short hair, no makeup, no heels, be muscular, and focus on career. 4b movement eg. Also, terf, trans right no, absolutely support save women's sports, and fuck non-binary bullshit. It could be slightly difficult for the West, since the capitalist control everything. Male own business profiting from women's income. Ain't nothing empowering at all, putting my Zuckerberg plain t-shirt is more empowering.
Hi Alice, I love for your videos! I am a little bit of a Francophile and studied French at university. I really love to hear your perspective on Islam in France. I wrote my dissertation on Arabic teaching in France and the media storm surrounding this. I studied a little bit of Arabic while I was on Erasmus and I was surprised by the reaction some French people had to this. Laïcité and how it is used in French political discourse really allows Islamophobia to flourish. Would love your thoughts on this!
Ixlamophobia is a made up word tbh
I'll never understand putting my entire identity under a label.😲
Mine requires so many labels, that I'm "just me!" I pull out my labels when protesting on and offline, though. Everybody has a label, even you!
Very useful for spend the time at work, very long day and see you, it's a dose of hope
Not everyone has what it takes to be an activist. To be an activist a person has to be truly passionate about the cause. So passionate that they are willing to die for it, bc sometimes if u are true to the cause.. it's a great possibility. If that's not u, then u should just find another way to support it. Doing something bc it's trendy doesn't make u a true activist.
Activism is essential to a healthy society. A healthy society also needs freedom of speech. In the current social landscape, people are being silenced/censored/punished for voicing controversial opinions in the present or past. It is vital to reverse this trend. We must confront opposing viewpoints but should not bully them into silence.
Bonjour Alice!
Thank you for another interesting video :)
**I personally find that the background music is a bit distracting sometimes, besides, you have a beautiful voice that needs no additives ;)**
It stops at the end of the intro :)
I belive tha the main reason some people choose to be alienated and not understand inequality is exactly the disconfort of feeling the suffering of poverty.
I personally think I'm a woke individual because I'm very interested in the larger picture and how the society works and functions, social upheavals, social discourses, memes analysis, etc. Not a slacktivist but more of a progressive thinker. But in pursuing these things I mostly have no one to share this with and I feel almost Alone in pursuing my interests, as a result I have no one to share my thoughts with which compels me to find like-minded people that I can have deeper conversations on the internet. It's almost impossible to share deep conversations with your friends or expect your siblings or parents to get you to the point of frustration. I have been called serious or deep just cause I wanted to delve into some more unusual topics that weren't so apparent to them or that they could notice in an instant. They just like to dismiss them and go back to being ignorant in a way.
And being female doesn't help much either since I live in a conservative patriarchal society, so your viewpoints are secondary or dismissable and not as valuable. So screw that.
Moreover women in my state are not encouraged to have these kinds of interests so it becomes so much harder to find people to Converse over similar topics.
Also the concept of saving your normal face in societal bounds becomes more important so people actively try to avoid having deep conversations to prevent discomfort.
And taking into account the fact that being female makes you appear more irrational cause they believe you act from your emotions so you're not acknowledged as much. Thus I've been labelled a feminist, leftist, woke, made fun of for defending my beliefs on occasions that I did open my mouth.
2021 and you still live in patriarchal society? When thirsty men pay 1000$ for photo of your feet? When you can accuse somebody of gRape and hes guilty until proven innocent? When divorce laws and courts massively favour women? When in most statistics men have worse? Are fcking kidding me?
@@kevenfromsales6830 something happened to you buddy?
@@ludwigvanbeethoven3896 Tahts all you have? We live in matriarchy, you agree?
@@kevenfromsales6830 The place where I live it's patriarchal and I live in a third world country where violence towards women are alarming
Hey! If you want someone to have conversations with I am always open! I am very young so I won't be the most articulate person, but I love listening to people talk about this stuff and giving my opinions. luckily for me my brother shares the same "deep" thinking or the need to think critically and explore certain things and patterns present in society!
I would love to see you do a collab with The Financial Diet!! You guys would get along very well.
Ahaha why not ! I used to follow their channel, love Chelsea 😊
The algorithm just put this video in front of me. I get the sense there's an assumption in your thinking that I see a lot, which is that people who are activists (or campaigning for what they describe as social justice issues) are automatically on the right side of whatever issue they're protesting. But really, the fact of somebody being angry, or animated, or passionate enough to march down the street with a sign or post arguments online doesn't make them any more likely to be right about the issue than the very people they're protesting against.
Being an activist definitionally puts you in opposition to whatever is considered the norm or status quo. This means you will receive backlash, and more to the point you're asking for it. That's what activism is. Activism might start with lived experiences, but that doesn't mean the conclusions you're reached from your particular lived experience would benefit society at large if it followed your conclusions and prescriptions. It doesn't mean the people pushing back against you are unenlightened reactionaries who don't know what's best for the world. You yourself might be wrong, that's why it's so important to have clear arguments and solid facts to justify your position.
Today there are activist groups who are protesting for the right of children (who are too young to vote, enter into a legal contract, or be treated by the criminal justice system as an adult) to have gender reassignment surgery without the consent of their parents or legal guardians. It's fairly obvious that the overwhelming majority of society is against this, yet this form of activism seems to be increasingly popular. Can these activists really claim to be on the right side of history? Is this kind of activism even a good thing? It's certainly challenging the orthodoxy, but that doesn't make it right.
If a young person is walking down the street with a sign that says "NYPD = KKK" drawing equivalency between regular police and a white supremacist hate group, should I even be taking such a person seriously? There's a reason that Ryan Long video you mentioned went viral: it hit a nerve because there's a lot of truth in it, which is funny.
Protesting in support of trans rights is on the right side of history.
@@ellawinchester8266 Does that include the the rights of, say, a 12 year old boy to access irreversible hormone treatment or surgery without parental consent? If so, why? This is exactly the problem I'm getting at: you can't just assert that something should be a right. Especially with controversial subjects, you need to explain why. Imagine if somebody was arguing that 12 year old girls should be allowed to marry older men, and then gave you some lazy slogan like "Children's rights matter" and asserted that they were on the right side of history for defending the right of a minor to marry whomever they want, whenever they want to. Would you accept that argument? Such a person would have to explain why giving a child such legal rights would be a good idea for society. They'd still have all their work ahead of them. So do you.
Thank you for making this video. Please keep making these videos, you are important in this fight for eyeballs
Woke was a term used back in the 2010s. It means "Politically Correct"
Well... people should understand that "activism" is not "influencer" or neither "youtuber" first... But, hey. Internet is making everyone dumb.
We stan Alice.
🥰
I just found your channel. I like how speak and understand different subjects. As a sociologist is very interesting the way you see contemporary problems/topics. I will continue to see more videos in order to write good comments. Keep up the good work :)
Ryan Long video is on point. Class-based wokism is great and actually facing the reality many right wing people deny. But culture-based or race-based wokism is pretty dumb and leads to so many weird idological paradoxes, as portraied in Ryan's Long video. Most of the race issues are actually class issues in desgise (think of underrepresentation in universities for example) and it does not make sense to tackle the problem with racial view rather than class view.
Thank you for another great video! And thank you for talking about events in France as my media consumption is too anglo-centric. I'm sad to hear that you are already being targeted online by abusive people.
I am just wondering if anyone here has actually walked through a slum anywhere like sub-Saharan Africa or South or Southeast Asia. This will only require about 15 seconds to make you more "woke" than the most passionate online activist. But it focuses you on the practical, rather than "spreading awareness" or some such.
Lies cost more the longer they go unrecognized... you either align yourself with reality and go about making things better, or you kick the can down the road while the lie's interest skyrockets... especially in terms of psychological health for all involved.
You made some interesting points. I especially agree on the ideas around the romanticization of activism. The desire to be the "main character" is an underlying reason why most people become activists. Ironically, it ties to your first point of our individualistic society and how we strive to better ourselves and only ourselves. However, when we ultimately shift our focus on solving the issue, therein stands a barrier - specifically the fact that it has become uncool to care about these issues and to speak about them lest you become labelled as "nerd" if you care for climate change or "simp" if you subscribe to feminism.
We can only move forward when we destigmatize caring for societal issues and realize that one side of the boat may have a hole but we are all in the same boat.
Interesting that is exactly the same problem cyberbullying that non woke experience with woke activists.
Woke culture has its pathological sides, but anyone who points these out is vilified with words that end on -ist or -phobic. PragerU *is conservative and anti-woke* but is not alt right.
The counter woke movement is concerned with a few things:
Anyone who advocates progressive talking points or supports the rights of groups they see as oppressed is automatically believed to represent the good cause, regardless of the content of their beliefs. I call this the "nobly colored flag" effect. Since "justice" and "equality" are at their core good things, anyone who says they represent those things is assumed to be good willed by neutral bystanders. This can and will be abused by people with selfish motives.
How is this abused? Let's say there is some change you want implemented, all you have to do is present what you want as a solution to some form of inequality and injustice and tadaa, anyone who opposes your original proposal is now a pariah in the eyes of the neutral bystander.
I think we can all agree that making the world a better place starts with yourself. I can respect a genuine desire to make the world more fair for others, but this is achieved not through the vilification of an appointed bad guy.
When you want to make the world better through some change X, and others oppose X, it is not because they are racist, sexist or hopophobic, but it is because there is an actual issue with X. But we can't seem to discuss the content of X, and rather just call each other names for clout.
unlucky society
also love your content, thank you so much, it makes my brain work