WOKE THINKING SICKNESS

While the content of what is called Woke claims to care about social justice, it only cares for justice for a few, not for everyone. Originating from the “Black Lives Matter” movement, Woke thinking lacks almost any common sense. The first un-common sense thing that came out of it was the defunding the police movement. Now just a few years later, we see many of the people who jumped on that bandwagon reversing themselves. Why? Because the rate of crime has been sky-rocketing, because mobs of people rob businesses in daylight, and because the hands of police have been tied so that they fear protecting the public

However, above and beyond the ideological contents of Woke is Woke thinking, and that’s the real problem. Because Woke thinking is driven by an ideology, and as with every ideology, that thinking is inherently biased by its unspoken assumptions. Consequently Woke thinking is not scientific, not realistic, and not rational. Rather than true thinking, it is “agenda thinking.” When you start with an agenda, in this case a political agenda based in Marxism and Socialism, that’s why it is nearly impossible to reason with a woke thinker. Like every ideological thinking, woke thinking doesn’t seek the truth, but to prostyle in order to gain followers to the Woke cult.

Now if you use your brain well, and if you think in the way that thinking is designed to be used, then you use it to grasp as best you can the “territory” of the world. Grasping it enables you to map it. That’s what thinking is—your mental mapping of what you construe is present and how it works. You do that in order to navigate that territory.

If effective thinking puts in touch with reality, it is the means and design of science. It is the scientific attitude. When we do science effectively, we discern what is there, how it works, how to manage it, etc. You consider all sides, tests the validity of statements, keep your hypotheses open for adjustment as new information arises, etc.

But Woke thinking does not do any of that. For example, in biology we know that there are two sexes and only two. Every biologist knows that. There are males and females and everybody either has a penis or a vagina. That’s the sexual facts. For the term “gender,” we generally use it as a synonym, although “gender” also carries with it the cultural ideas of what each gender is like, and how in any given culture we raise boys and girls. But today Woke thinking presents a mental map that in no way relates to reality.

Now regarding these facts, people within every culture develops views about masculinity and femininity—beliefs, understandings, assumptions, etc. These views make up each person’s psychology about males and females as concepts. When these are framed in extreme opposition to each other, while there may be clarity about male and female roles in a culture, there’s usually also unnecessary conflict between the sexes. Then men aren’t allowed to cry, to be tender, to nurture, to admit weakness, etc. Then women are not allowed ot be angry, speak up for

themselves, establish firm boundaries, say no, etc. Of course, these “problems” are problems of our framing and especially cultural framing, not of reality.

Sexual and gender identities are functions of framing and meaning-making. As an identity, what you think about being male or female depends on your beliefs, understandings, permitting, forbidding, framing, etc. If you are a biological male and “feel like a woman” that’s a psychological issue, not a biological one. If you’re a biological female and “feel like a man” your psychology is off. Your biology is a given, you are either male or female. If you have a problem with that, the problem lies not in your biology but in your mind and emotions. So trying to “solve” a psychological problem biologically is a living “outside–in” approach, and will not be very satisfactory. And as such, it is a superficial and shallow “solution.”

While it is certainly possible to change one’s sexual features, something accomplished by surgery, hormone therapy, etc., chopping off breasts and penises and reconstructing sexual parts is irreversible. Because of that, as a psychologist, I say that no child, adolescent, or even young adult ought to ever make that choice. After all, any decision that is irreversible ought to be reserved for a time in life after the brain has full matured —which is in the mid-30s.

And once a biological man has made all of the changes to become a woman, he should never be allowed to compete in women’s sports. Let them invent some transgender league of their own. Women have fought long and hard for their own leagues and for respect of their sports. That should not be thrown away to men who want to be women. Everybody knows that gives them an unfair advantage and, in the long run, will destroy women’s sports.

Now when you try to reason with a Woke thinker, to have a rational conversation, you’ll discover the sickness of their agenda thinking. Woke thinking seeks to shut up anyone who disagrees. Woke thinking bars conservatives from college campuses and disserters from boardrooms. Why? Because the Woke thinker has a “religion” to promote. That person will argue by calling names, using labels (“racists” is their favorite), generalizations, emotionally associating you with extreme examples—forms of cognitive distortions and fallacies. Their use of language itself is sick, it is the doublespeak that Orwell described in his novel, 1984.

As Neuro-Semanticists, we think about how people think because as a person thinks, so one reasons, emotes, communicates, acts, etc. The inner game of thinking governs all of the outer games of acting and relating. That’s why we have to address thinking first.