Some notes:

 How we know what is true - epistemology.

Ideas based on evidence and reason.

What does it mean to be liberal ? In the USA being liberal is taken to mean being leftist but being liberal can mean or can be better understood by looking at what most mean with the word illiberal - ie: illiberal means being unfair and unjust and opposing freedom and equal opportunities......

The Woke hard Left is often illiberal....

Authoritarian idea of language creating reality......we have to regulate what people can and can’t say because language and discourse, ie: how we talk about things, constructs reality.

Liberal = being in favour of free speech....

Woke worldview = all on the Right and even all who politically centrist must be racist and homophobic etc.....

Wokeism = alternative ways of knowing, 

“The sane centre”   / Woke Left........Far Right.

Different approaches to achieving social justice.

The Woke worldview is wrong because it takes to extreme lengths things that are in fact often true or partly true, for example:

People as individuals and groups can be biased and find it difficult to be objective and rational.

Most of us as individuals and as racial, religious or ethnic groups have been guilty of reconstructing our histories in a way that makes us the hero and the other party the villain.

There have been many instances in which so-called historical, philosophical and even scientific “truths” have turned out to be heavily distorted....

Power elites in every society and every era have used the slipperiness of language to try and foist their construction of the “truth” on to minorities .....

“Truths” and categories have been at times, and to an extent, constructed according to the power interests of groups advantaged by such constructions......

Rejection of science, reason and philosophical liberalism.........replaced by the new religion of Social Justice....

Critical Theory - that of the Frankfurt School...

critical Theory - that draws from postmodernism.....

A cynical way to read and understand society and all social interactions....and the intentions and motivations of people, especially white, western males.....this is viewed cynically too...

“Critical consciousness” - if you are woke you can see these systems of power and privilege and how they operate....

Woke = similar to a religious awakening - one sees how the system really works, the systemic power dynamics.....

A deep lament for the decline of true liberalism - ie in the book: Cynical Theories...

Liberalism - an ethos of freedom, freedom of speech, stress on freedom for individuals to flourish, equal opportunities etc

Liberalism - a way or a strategy of settling disputes.......general principles of conflict resolution...a belief in universal humanity, emphasis on individual too, 

Western liberalism - rule of law, no one above the law"..............SJW = western liberalism is naive at best.....AND  created by and created to benefit white, western males.....

Western liberalism - often leads to societies that are wealthy, free and peaceful......

Identity politics - ( which can bring out our worst tribal instincts.....)...it is fed, nurtured and built up by critical Theory and “grievance studies”.....

Good/Bad - the dividing line should be within each individual NOT ridiculously simplistic divisions - ie Bad oppressors = white, western, wealthy, straight males....Good oppressed groups = fat, disabled women, Hispanic LGBT people, black trans women etc.....

Wokeness is based on bad ideas...a kind of virus...

Postmodernism made a comeback c. 1990 in conjunction with radical politics....

Over the last 30 years the SJ language has got simpler and simpler .....a 10 year old can understand the SJW slogans....

Social media and internet = a natural playground for cynical Theories.....

Cynical Theories = we have the answers to all this oppression and persecution / modern media makes the world, or makes things in general in modern, functioning Western democracies to be far worse than they actually are.....

X person did not make a mistake he is an agent of this oppressive force !

Modern liberal humanism  - more forgiving, redemption possible

SJW - oppressive ideas and oppressive people must be taken out....

Old school socialist left, liberal left and liberal right  -  often can oppose Woke madness...

Cultural Marxism -  Frankfurt School and Gramsci and his followers....

Relationship between Marxism and Wokeness - yes and no.....

Marxist Conflict Theory = classes of oppressors and oppressed.....the oppressed have the moral high ground...

Ask why the economically oppressed did not rise up AND often voted for politicians on the Right....

Many postmodernists early on were pro Mao.......but under Mao and Stalin tens of millions were killed, starved to death or oppressed and persecuted....

Failure of communism = nihilistic despair of key postmodernists....

Marxists - workers led by their socialist leaders seizing the means of production....

Wokeness - seek to remake society by seizing the means of cultural production.....

It is supposed to workers of the world unite / not races of the world divide...

Many old school Marxists regard the Woke SJW pathetically bourgeois, middle and upper middle class uni educated people....

People can oppose racism, sexism and homophobia without agreeing with and without embracing Woke SJ Theory....

TAFE colleges, more down market community colleges and average units no where near as Woke as elite universities...

Poorer students and lower middle class students don’t have the inclination or the time to get into Woke SJ Theory.....

A set of beliefs that are a luxury for the wealthy leisured elite.......eg- believing science, reason, evidence-based arguments etc are white, western, straight male ways of knowing !!

The sort of nonsense only a certain type of intellectual could believe.....e