Woke Gets Everywhere

One of the things I hate most about woke is how all-pervasive it is. Why this should be the case is something of a mystery, since I think most people are more anti-woke than woke. Perhaps it's because most people are also generally agreeable and don't like to get into an argument. The woke brigade take advantage of this. (Every faction takes advantage of this, but the woke brigade are in the ascendant now.)

I've mentioned my interest in the concept of atmosphere, atmosphere in the sense of a social or emotional ambience. I'm rather afraid you're groaning right now, dear reader, and wondering why I'm so interested in atmosphere.

Well, in a nutshell, because it's so elusive and yet so vital to human life. Most things can be pinned down pretty well. For instance, you can say a particular town flourished because it was on a new railway line, or that a new haircut became popular because an actress in a big Hollywood movie wore it.

But atmosphere is extremely hard to pin down. Impossible, probably. For instance, when people write about the nineteen-seventies, they talk about the "atmosphere" of an increased interest in traditions or roots or belonging, or any other number of atmospheres.

When we evoke atmosphere, it's generally not a shorthand for something that could actually be itemized if we took the trouble. It seems irreducible in very many cases. (Sometimes, even in work meetings-- where, one would imagine, brass tacks are what's on the menu-- I often hear people say "There's that sense of...", or some such usage.)

Anyway, I'm very interested in atmosphere. But I'm interested in atmosphere mostly as something nice, or at least neutral. I'm interested in atmospheres the way many people are interested in food, clothes, or transport.

So I can imagine myself (in an alternative world) founding a field of study called "Socio-atmospherics", that would engage in activities such as studying this or that atmosphere. You might, for instance, study it by collecting examples of how people have described it or tried to evoke it.

So you might take the atmosphere of fish and chip shops, for instance, and collect instances where they are described-- articles, passages in novels, that kind of thing. You might even take photos of them and try to work out what aesthetic fish and chip shops generally strive for.

 

Socio-atmospherics wouldn't be confined to places, of course. It could also examine times, situations, subcultures...anything, really.

Well, contrast that to what I found when I came across a journal called Emotion, Space, and Society that describes its mission thus: "Emotion, Space and Society provides a forum for multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary debate on theoretically informed research on the emotional intersections between people and places. These objectives are broadly conceived and seek to encourage investigations of feelings, encounter and affect in various spatial and social contexts, environments and landscapes." (I have access to these kind of academic journals through my job in a university library.)

Bingo, right?

Not really.

Here are a list of article titles from Emotion, Space and Society:

"“Media is absolutely disgusting”: Emotions and affect towards political elites, information sources and conspiracy theories in anti-lockdown protests."

"Safe behind the gate: Safety perceptions of residents in barrios cerrados in La Plata."

"Violence as ‘adii: atmospheric manifestations of normalised violence in the occupied West Bank."

"Eco-emotions in climate deliberation: A deliberative mini-public on consumption and mobility in Spain."

"Creating safer spaces in higher education: failure and discomfort in spacing for difference."

"Esports events & hegemonic masculinity: Reflections on participant-observation at Evolution Championship Series 2019."

You get the picture. 

One doesn't need to read these articles to know their ideological slant. The first article is inevitably going to assume that all "conspiracy theories" on public health questions are deluded (or "misinformation"); the last article is going to assume that masculinity is "hegemonic" and that all women's and men's problems both come from The Patriarchy.  Feminism has nothing to do with it!

I still hope there are a few interesting articles in there that aren't weighed down with ideological baggage. I actually glimpsed a couple of promising-looking ones and intend to do a deeper trawl.

But it's sad that I have to trawl. Here's the thing: I don't want to be fulminating against political correctness all the time. I don't want everything to be politicized.

Even the most left-wing person could surely find plenty to write about, within this journal's remit, without lurching into their victimhood and oppression narratives.

It's hilarious that leftists stereotype conservatives (and anti-woke libertarians etc.) as people who are just itching to be offended by anything remotely resembling woke. Some people might be like that. I enjoy some ideological combat as much as anybody. But not all the time. Most of the time (like most people, I think) I just want to watch a film, read a history book, listen to a joke, or read an article about socio-atmospherics.