Counter Wokecraft - A Work in progress

MayCaesar

Something I have recently arrived at is that life is extremely easy if one simply accepts a very basic and obvious idea: that he has full control over his behavior. I do not mean it in the literal sense - obviously there are things outside of our direct control, such as instinctive jerking away of the hand that touched a hot stove - but, rather, in the sense that no one is ever forced to do anything against his will. Even if someone puts a gun to your head and says, "Give me your wallet, or die", you still have the choice on whether to give him your wallet or not. You are not free from the consequences of your choice, but you are free to make that choice and determine your path in life.

Realizing and fully internalizing it is not only extremely liberating, but it also makes traditionally thought of as hard things extremely easy. Suppose you are addicted to alcohol and want to quit. Hard, right? Well, accept the idea that you have the choice to quit it right now and never consume it again. Do not listen to your agitated brain convincing you that this is not true... Just accept that it is the unconditional truth. Realize that it takes more effort to drink alcohol than not to drink it: by definition, not drinking it is effortless. All you need to do is simply not react to the part of your brain that is trying to convince you that drinking just one glass of wine will make you feel so-so much better... Simply dismiss it: "You are wrong, part". That is it, you have won.

The reason it does not appear this simple to us is because we misinterpret the signals our brain gives us. When the chatterbox inside our head starts yapping, "You are feeling bad right now, and you will feel better if you do X!", we take the yapping seriously. We are used to, because in many other contexts said yapping warns us of real danger. The moment we realize that we simply do not have to listen to it any more than we have to listen to a drunken homeless guy telling us that the end is nigh, it looses virtually all control over us.

The "woke" people, however, learn the opposite lesson: that the chatterbox inside our head is everything. That whenever an external event triggers its yapping, the yapping takes over our mind and body and we become its slave. Therefore everything that has a potential to trigger unpleasant yapping has to be silenced, suppressed and, ultimately, eradicated. And even if our yapping is a product of our own self-induced confusion, it is not our responsibility to deal with it, but it is everyone else's responsibility to adjust their behavior so the yapping is never triggered. The "woke" person gives up all control over his behavior, he fully surrenders to the chatterbox, and he loses all agency in his life.
Then, of course, he projects it onto everyone else: no one has any agency, right? Therefore a utopia must be built in which the system makes everyone equally happy, and no one needs to take responsibility for anything: the collective will take care of it.

Greg Lukianoff is completely on point here: "wokeness" is nothing but a set of cognitive distortions running amok. A black woman smiles at a white server at a restaurant, and the server does not smile back - and the woman instantly assumes, "She would have smiled at me if I was white. Figures", and becomes offended. Objectively speaking, there is zero evidence to suggest that the server's reaction had anything to do with the woman's race: perhaps she just had a bad day, or was distracted by her thoughts, or was just tired and could not muster a smile, or just was not a friendly person in general - could be anything. And the black woman had the option to simply not listen to her chatterbox telling her that this is a manifestation of systemic racism. She simply does not realize that this option is available.