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The contents of the Woke mind virus page were merged into Woke on 3 May 2024. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected page, please see its history; for the discussion at that location, see its talk page.
A fact from Woke appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 13 January 2017 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
Did you know... that Bloomberg Businessweek asked, "Is Wikipedia woke?"
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The following references may be useful when improving this article in the future:
Postill, John (2024). "Woke politics". The Anthropology of Digital Practices: Dispatches from the Online Culture Wars. New York: Routledge. pp. 14–26. doi:10.4324/9781003335238-2. ISBN978-1-003-85133-2.
Schoorman, Dilys (2024). "Waking up to the 'Anti-Woke' agenda". Journal of Educational Administration and History. 56 (4): 404–410. doi:10.1080/00220620.2024.2364632. ISSN1478-7431.
Comments from this user should be excluded from assessments of consensus.
Collapsing a WP:1AM discussion involving a blocked sockpuppet
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Merriam-Webster's entry for "woke" gives two primary definitions:
aware of and actively attentive to important societal facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice)
disapproving : politically liberal or progressive (as in matters of racial and social justice) especially in a way that is considered unreasonable or extreme
There is no suggestion that the second definition has become the primary meaning, either among conservatives or the general public. The quote from Shadi Hamid about "woke cultural warriors" is given as an example, not as definitive. We already have several reliable sources for "woke" being used primarily as an insult. The second definition above gives undue weight to the notion that "woke" ideas are unreasonable or extreme. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 16:03, 27 February 2025 (UTC)edited 13:22, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Here's how they are used. The first is like defining racism. The second describes an abuse of the term (an illegitimate attempt to redefine) by racists when they are called out and retaliate by claiming their accusers are the real racists. It parallels the trick taught to Trump by Roy Cohn, that when he is accused of anything, no matter how true the accusation, he should, without pause, immediately use the accusation as an accusation against his accusers, even though it has no basis in fact. That's one of the types of lies he uses all the time. This abuse of the term tells us who the racists are and that they are lying and spinning to try to justify their abominable behavior. It's a nasty form of spin constantly used by Fox News, right-wing media, and their neo-Nazi supporters.
When RS contextualize abuse of the term in that way, we can use them to back up our content describing this abuse. We cannot use the unreliable sources that use it as if that was the proper definition. Sources that abuse the term should be rejected. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 16:30, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You are saying Merrian-Webster's dictionary is unreliable? OK, we see your POV. Anyways, "woke" initially referred to a heightened awareness of social justice issues, particularly around race, but over time, it has been used more pejoratively, often referring to a radical or extreme form of progressivism that some people see as judgmental or overly focused on identity politics. And actually, there is such a thing as a woke ideology, and it's different from your run-of-the-mill progressivism, which is much more about keeping the air and water clean, making sure kids have a good education, and more of what contemporary woke people would label "color-blindness" as if it were a bad thing. Woke is a more radical ideology but also much more nasty and judgey and less inclusive, focused on identity politics and punitive even to allies who are perceived as being insufficiently woke. Nowadays, wokeness has really jumped the shark and it's on its way out.[1]. Regular old progressives and liberals are actually not like authoritarian socialists, and they'll admit when they've lost an election and they don't go around labeling people racists who have never said anything bad about any group of people. I guess it's a kind of gaslighting to make a bunch of super hostile and judgey generalizations to defend a movement that supposedly doesn't even exist. Indeed, the critical race theory gymnastics is even capable of saying that black people have internalized racism and that's why they support Trump, which makes a mockery of democracy, which is the idea that adults have the right to vote their conscience and to be respected. Woke ideology is much more like Leninism, which says that working people need to be told what to believe because they just don't have enough free time to study socialist literature. It's not surprising that a massive popular majority just repudiated that whole point of view. Manuductive (talk) 00:26, 28 February 2025 (UTC) Blocked sock. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:18, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
often referring to a radical or extreme form of progressivism Radical in the mind of those using the term in a perjorative manner. For example, many think being criticized for using the N-word, or thinking Blacks are equal are "radical" concepts. Woke ideology is much more like Leninism. Where did you get this extremist view from? massive popular majority About one-third of eligible voters voted for Trump. That is not a massive majority. O3000, Ret. (talk) 13:03, 28 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The key is the words "in a way that is considered extreme". In other words, the person using the word considers to be unreasonable or extreme the person/place/thing that they're calling woke. We are not endorsing the user's position, just reporting on the connotations of the word when it's used by whomever. I think that is a really obvious and important point about the word, and it's supported by the other sources that talk about the word woke being used to express disapproval. Manuductive (talk) 00:06, 28 February 2025 (UTC) Blocked sock. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:18, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Dictionaries are generally not great sources anyway (see WP:DICTIONARIES for discussion of this.) On a topic like this, when we have a large number of high-quality academic sources discussing the topic, it doesn't make sense to rely on a dictionary, whose authors generally lack expertise specific to the topic area. See the list of cites I added in the discussion above for better sources; they were for woke mind virus specifically but most of them go into much more depth on the concept of "woke" and how it is used in the modern day specifically. Honestly I do feel we can say more than "insult", but it'd be more about how (as those sources say) the right has used the concept of woke as a new form of new form of Cold War McCarthyism, to quote Samuels - ie. as a way to justify censorship of academia and education, something that Schuler, Ali, and Chen all go into extensive detail on. --Aquillion (talk) 14:17, 28 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Kolya Butternut I had the deep displeasure of reviewing Neiman's book Left is Not Woke and frankly it's bad. Real bad. Like "questioning the competence of the author" levels of bad. However one thing that is starkly clear in that book is that Neiman is not a leftist. She's a liberal. She's deeply committed to Kant, who is not well-liked by Anarchist nor Marxist academics, and is quite dismissive of both Anarchism and Marxism within the book - she's particularly dismissive of anarchism, mostly represented by Foucault.
Most of the book is spent railing against people calling enlightenment philosophers (particularly Kant and Rousseau) racists in university classrooms. As such I'm putting a citation needed tag on calling her a leftist. Based on my reading of her she's definitely outside the leftist tent pissing in. Simonm223 (talk) 18:40, 15 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
WP:ABOUTSELF only extends so far, especially when it is potentially unduly self-serving for her to describe herself in those terms. She wrote an (atrocious) pop-philosophy book about the left whose marketing depends on her being a "leftist" who is aghast at the extremity of the modern left. But it's mostly an extended set of apologetics for the racism of Kant and a disorganized and poorly conceived attack on Michel Foucault. She doesn't mention Marx, doesn't mention Beauvoir (who she is clearly indebted to) and elides Fanon's Marxism. If we're going to call Neiman a leftist we need someone other than her to do it. Simonm223 (talk) 18:58, 15 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The source in the article identifies her as on the left:
What began as a kneejerk reaction from the right has now spread to encompass an element of the left that is dissatisfied with woke’s current prominence, is concerned by what they consider its excesses, and its lack of universality. Woke is now used as an insult. The growing criticism of the woke from some members of the left is generating tensions, as reflected by authors and philosophers such as Susan Neiman, Umut Özkirimli and Stéphanie Roza, not to mention the exuberance of right-wing critics within the field.
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Suggested Insertion (for United States section on Woke page)
The variation “wokeism” is also used—particularly in critique of American higher education—where it has been defined academically as a structurally recursive belief enforcement system that replaces epistemic inquiry with the preservation of coerced moral authority.
Also suggest that @Cognita-Camlin review WP:SELFCITE. It's not against Wikipedia policy to insert your own writing into an article when doing so is otherwise appropriate but one should expect that if they are saying something controversial WP:DUE is likely to apply and people are strongly encouraged, in these cases, to defer to community opinion. In other words, should this pass through peer review, please remember this will very much be a "proceed with caution" situation. (As a personal note, I'm a professional author and have been publishing in RSes for years. I've self-cited precisely once in all my years editing Wikipedia, in a topic with minimal other RSes, that was non-controversial, and very carefully labeled the edit as such.) Simonm223 (talk) 11:44, 16 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
And frankly I'm a bit suspicious of a paper that is citing Alasdair MacIntyre in 1981 for a definition of "wokism" - a phrase that would not enter the popular lexicon for roughly another 40 years so this paper doesn't seem like it's non-controversial. Simonm223 (talk) 11:59, 16 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Also, who is Cognita Prime? Was an LLM used to draft this essay? It cites Aquinas? The more I read the longer the list of questions grows about this as even a potential future source. Simonm223 (talk) 12:02, 16 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If you read it, do you have any reasonable agreement or disagreement with the content of the paper as a source for the one sentence I added? Cognita-Camlin (talk) 16:20, 16 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia largely defines source reliability based on how the source in question was published, and the reputations of the author and publisher. Whether people personally agree or disagree with its content is supposed to be irrelevant here. MrOllie (talk) 16:26, 16 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I get asked by alot of people outside the US what wokeism means / is. That's why its a one sentence blurb in a giant article under the US to help those outside the US figure it out from a NPOV. Definitely not anything close to undue emphasis. Not only that, you don't even cite any content issue. Cognita-Camlin (talk) 16:18, 16 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I did read it. But my opinion as a critic or a philosopher is rather irrelevant. What is relevant is that it is a pre-print of which considerable copy was inserted as the direct output of a chatbot. I was, with my human eyes and mind, able to spot it right away and then I subsequently verified this against several chatbot checkers. Neither preprints nor chatbot generated texts are allowable by Wikipedia. And so this source is not allowable by Wikipedia regardless of my opinion of it. Simonm223 (talk) 16:24, 16 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
And there is an AI ethics disclaimer I see, so is your legal claim that scholarly paper was 100% generated and completely fabricated? ScholarLoop (talk) 18:57, 16 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We cannot use preprints (like basically everything on zenodo) as sources, as they are considered self published, see WP:RS. That one of the credited authors is a chatbot is a separate issue that would also disqualify use of this as a source. MrOllie (talk) 16:25, 16 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, a different source would be required. And for such a strong claim probably enough sources to demonstrate some level of academic consensus. Simonm223 (talk) 18:01, 16 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
here's a few. I recommend the 1st. or all 3.
The variation “wokeism” is also used particularly in critique of American higher education where it has been defined academically as a structurally recursive belief enforcement system that replaces epistemic inquiry with the preservation of coerced moral authority.
Rzepka, A., Fazlagić, J., Ahamed, I. (2023). Measuring woke culture in universities: a diagnostic approach. Journal of Modern Science, 54(5), 488-509. https://doi.org/10.13166/jms/176387
Defines Wokeism in Universities similarly – does not explain the engine of wokeism in universities as the original citation but has a qualitative measurement matrix for recursive belief enforcement system to measure it.
The rest are mainly report on the effect’s of wokeism in universities confirming the definition and final statement of the original citation. While opinion they are on topic and are reliable sources.
Apparently Index Copernicus had a little controversy specific to Poland (where this journal is published) though:At the time of partnership between Index Copernicus and the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education in the project of evaluating Polish universities, Index Copernicus was offering a paid option to speed up the process of indexing journals so the IC ranking displayed prominently by the journal isn't really an indicator either direction. Simonm223 (talk) 23:43, 17 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
After doing more digging the journal seems like a low-impact but legitimate minor journal. It's not on any predatory journal lists anyway. Simonm223 (talk) 23:54, 17 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I haven't had a chance to review the journal article yet but the assertion that the Forward article, which is about the suppression of pro-Palestinian student activists, is related at all to the "Wokism" neologism is not born out in the text. Using the Forward article in this context would be clear WP:SYNTH regardless of whether its opinions were otherwise due. Simonm223 (talk) 14:08, 17 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The term, ideology and movement have also been accused of hypocrisy and of promoting and encouraging, under the guise of anti-racism, other forms of discrimination and bigotry deemed "acceptable", such as anti-white racism, misandry, ageism, neo-puritanism, historical and cultural revisionism, and antisemitism.[a]
The first problem with this WP:WEASELLY paragraph is that the term, ideology and movement all mean different things to different people. Plenty of RSes maintain that there is no such thing as "woke" ideology and that the term is merely a pejorative for whatever conservatives don't like. The WP:CITEOVERKILLattributed to multiple references is a pretty clear sign that this paragraph is WP:SYNTH based on primary WP:SPS/WP:NEWSOPED sources, making the opinions expressed WP:UNDUE at the very least. It's as if someone did a keyword search for "woke hypocrisy" and just threw together a grab bag of whatever blogs, press releases, and op-eds happened to show up. That's a completely WP:BACKWARDS way to write an encyclopedia article, verging on WP:SOAPBOXING. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 11:30, 19 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the 