Everyone will become woke (unless, of course, we try harder to prevent them from becoming woke)

Submitted by Prashant (United States), Jun 23, 2022 at 11:25

Dear Dr Pipes,

I am not surprised if JNF is becoming woke. I think unless we try hard(er) to prevent people from going woke, everyone will become woke. I will not build an exhaustive thesis here and just mention the first few reasons that come to my mind for everyone becoming woke:

1. The woke and leftist thought is so lucrative: What can be wrong in charity, diversity, free immigration, anti-nationalism, redistribution of wealth etc.? These ideas are so appealing and so close to what religions teach us. These ideas are so simple that a 3rd grade teacher can teach these ideas to a 9 year old. It is the opposites of these ideas that are difficult to explain. Example: young people's support for Palestinian propaganda.

2 Woke-thought is an easy vehicle for politicians to gain power: Since the above ideas are so lucrative, politicians exploit them to get reelected. Example: Behavior of the democratic party prior to the 2020 elections..

3. Those who do not pay for prosperity, do not value prosperity: The young generation has not done the sacrifices that are needed to build a nation (This is not a fault of the youth. It is true by definition.) So, they do not value the principles that are benefiting them today. Example: today's youth will not ever appreciate the sacrifices of the generation that sent men to die in Europe and sent women to "man" the factories.

4. When a bad thing dies, we fail to permanently register its effects: Just as the youth do not appreciate the virtues of the past, they fail to see the negatives of the bad things of the past. Example: Today's generation will not see all the harms that communism did to the world. You have to live in and around communism to appreciate how bad it was.

We can write essays and books on the above four topics but it is more important that we discuss them repeatedly in our day-to-day discussions. We need to try hard to prevent the woke thought from spreading even if it makes us appear repetitive. Not every spoken word reaches every person every time. So, every good word has to be repeated as often as possible.

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".