By Steven Pratt,
B.A. English & Teaching English as a Foreign Language, The University of Utah
At the very least, to be woke means you know what’s really going on, usually in the context of world
affairs, but I’ve also seen it used in a spiritual/metaphysical context.
On a smaller scale, a child that learns—or figures out—that Santa does not come down a chimney to deliver toys is woke. For us adults, similar discoveries await.
In the first Matrix movie, Neo becomes woke. It was a distressing and disorienting process, not fun at all, and possible in the end only because he truly wanted to know the truth. To call someone woke is a sizeable compliment as it suggests that, like Neo, the person has paid a price that not everyone is willing to pay. It means they have certain amount of character and intelligence, and that truth matters more to them than comfort, money, or popularity.
A woke person knows the game and the score, and the cost of buying in to be a player as well as the cost of staying out and opposing the gamed system.
Have you ever heard the phrase to be ‘disabused of an illusion’? A woke person has been disabused of certain illusions that most others still live with. To be woke is to know that the emperor has no clothes and to dare to be alone in speaking that truth.
Just recently, I have also seen the term faux woke, or falsely woke, and there are few greater condemnations. A faux woke person has accepted a paradigm that seems to explain reality, but is actually an even more misleading and malicious deception. So far, I have only seen this epithet leveled against celebrities. To be faux woke is to be a sellout, a person who, no matter how smart and capable in certain ways, suffers from feeble character and is therefore interested in only their own survival—a dangerous loser.
December 12,
2017 -- Woke is indeed short for awoke. So far, I’ve found the term used
only by people involved in truther movements and/or conspiracy theories, which
includes me, it appears.
At the very least, to be woke means you know what’s really going on, usually in the context of world
affairs, but I’ve also seen it used in a spiritual/metaphysical context.
On a smaller scale, a child that learns—or figures out—that Santa does not come down a chimney to deliver toys is woke. For us adults, similar discoveries await.
In the first Matrix movie, Neo becomes woke. It was a distressing and disorienting process, not fun at all, and possible in the end only because he truly wanted to know the truth. To call someone woke is a sizeable compliment as it suggests that, like Neo, the person has paid a price that not everyone is willing to pay. It means they have certain amount of character and intelligence, and that truth matters more to them than comfort, money, or popularity.
A woke person knows the game and the score, and the cost of buying in to be a player as well as the cost of staying out and opposing the gamed system.
Have you ever heard the phrase to be ‘disabused of an illusion’? A woke person has been disabused of certain illusions that most others still live with. To be woke is to know that the emperor has no clothes and to dare to be alone in speaking that truth.
Just recently, I have also seen the term faux woke, or falsely woke, and there are few greater condemnations. A faux woke person has accepted a paradigm that seems to explain reality, but is actually an even more misleading and malicious deception. So far, I have only seen this epithet leveled against celebrities. To be faux woke is to be a sellout, a person who, no matter how smart and capable in certain ways, suffers from feeble character and is therefore interested in only their own survival—a dangerous loser.
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