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.

 

 

 

 

 

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D., Executive Director

Neuro-Semantics

738 Beaver Lodge

Grand Jct., CO. 81505 USA