The Core Misunderstanding At The Root Of Woke Ideology

Human-beings Are Not Blank Slates

I use the term “Woke Ideology” to discuss a set of beliefs and a world-view that has swept across the western world, particularly the United States, over the last 20 years.

This ideology is a mixture of feminism, critical race theory, intersectionality and various other areas.

(While the term “Woke” originally had a different meaning among the black community, its meaning has evolved among the wider culture and now means something different from its origins).

While Woke Ideology has some valuable and important points to make, it also has an enormous gap in its understanding of the world that leads it to absurd conclusions that don’t line up with reality.

This misunderstanding at the core of Woke Ideology is what causes so much confusion, and leads its believers to believe things that simply aren’t true.

The misunderstanding is as follows: That human-beings are a blank slate. That they do not have in-built characteristics that they carry with them from the moment they’re born.

To those in the woke ideology, everything is socially constructed. You will constantly hear them use phrases such as “we have been taught that…” or “society teaches us to..” or “the culture has made us believe…”.

You will frequently hear them talk about our “cultural beliefs” or our “attitudes towards…”.

What you will never hear those inside the woke ideology say, are things like this: “It’s in our nature to…” or “human nature is…”.

When you were at school, your science teacher taught you one of the fundamental concepts of science: Nature VS Nurture. Everything that human beings are and do are a result of both nature and nurture.

The problem with woke ideology is that they only ever discuss the “nurture” side of the argument.

They spend ample amounts of time discussing the “nurture” side of the debate. They will discuss how we absorb our beliefs from the culture. They will discuss how what we’re taught as a child influences our beliefs as adults.

What they never discuss is the very real fact that human-beings have a nature.

For example, it’s in the nature of dogs engage in certain behaviours (sniffing each other’s butts, barking to defend their territory etc). Human-beings are animals too and we have an in-built nature just as dogs do.

The belief that human-beings are blank slates that can be “taught” to believe and do absolutely anything that you program them to do is at the core of Woke Ideology. And I’m about to explain how.

Feminism

If there are different outcomes between men and women then they MUST be the result of a patriarchal society.

This is what woke ideology believes.

They have one single explanation for all differences between men and women.

After all, if you’ve never learnt anything about evolutionary psychology, or human nature in general, then this is the only logical conclusion left to explain the differences between men and women.

If men are paid more than women across multiple cultures around the world, then it has to be due to a world-wide patriarchal culture. After all, human-beings are a blank slate, so it couldn’t possibly be due to any in-built differences between men and women.

If little boys play with toy cars and little girls play with dolls, then it has to be because they were taught to do so by the culture. It couldn’t possibly be because the little boys and little girls are born with brains that are structured differently which results in them in taking an interest in different things.

If men are better than women at sports, then it has to be because the patriarchal culture “taught” women to be weak and docile. There couldn’t possibly be any biological differences built-in to the bodies of men and women.

If women have less orgasms than men on average (see: The Orgasm Gap), then it has to be due to our patriarchal society, and couldn’t possibly be because it simply takes longer or that it’s simply biologically more complicated for a woman to orgasm than it is for a man.

When the only tools you have for understanding the world are based solely on “nurture”, then you inevitably reach wrong conclusions about why things are the way they are.

While the culture you’re born in, as well as your upbringing, can certainly have a huge impact on your beliefs and your behaviours, the truth is that the genes hold culture on a leash.

Underneath the culture of every human society is human nature, and there are limits to how far the culture can stray from human nature.

For example, there are no cultures in the world where men prefer to have sex with elephants than with women. There are no cultures in the world where the men seen as the sexiest are weak, short, whining complainers. These absurd examples illustrate that our cultures are held on a leash by human nature.

Human nature also explains why it’s almost always men who are expected to approach a woman during courtship. It explains why women are usually the ones who do a larger share of the caring of children. It explains why there are more female nurses than male nurses, and why there are more male engineers than female engineers. And also why men stare at women’s bodies without their consent.

That’s not to say any of these things are “right” or “fair”, but that these outcomes are caused by the in-built characteristics of human-beings, and are not taught to us by the culture.

Much of the differences in behaviour between men and women are based on nature not nurture. But the woke ideology doesn’t discuss the nature side of the argument because they fundamentally believe that human-beings are blank slates that can be programmed to believe and do anything.

Fatphobia and Beauty Standards

We live in a fatphobic society that prioritises slim bodies instead of larger bodies.

This is another belief that has emerged out of the Woke Ideology.

This is one absolutely true. One look across the media landscape and you’ll see slim, beautiful people across movies, advertising and music videos. It’s not often you see an obese woman dancing in the music video of a pop song or an obese man posing for a male fragrance commercial.

Where the woke ideology goes off-course, is in explaining exactly why our society is like this.

According to woke ideology, the only reason that we find slim bodies more attractive than obese ones is because (as usual) we’ve been “taught” to feel this way. This leads to the conclusion that: if we just “teach” people that fat bodies are attractive, then everybody will begin to find fat bodies dead sexy.

But, as usual, they focus only on the “nurture’, and completely ignore “nature”

The truth is, you will rarely find a society where obese people are held up as the most as the most attractive, for the following reasons:

• An excess amount of fat hides facial features, such as a sharp jawline, that we’re biologically programmed to find attractive. This applies to both men and women.
• An excess amount of fat ruins the most attractive waist-hip ratio in women that men are biologically programmed to be attracted to: 0.7.
• As for the men, an excess amount of fat ruins the shoulder-waist ratio that women are biologically programmed to be attracted to: 1.6.

(Side-note, bodies that are too thin, such as those that suffer from anorexia, are also seen as unattractive. Therefore, it’s not that we prefer thin bodies, but that we prefer bodies that signal health and vitality).

It’s true that we live in a fatphobic culture, but the reason for this is that human-beings are naturally fatphobic when it comes to their choice of sexual partners. And you cannot “teach” people not to feel this way.

It’s certainly true that the constant bombardment of unrealistic beauty in the media is extremely damaging. And it’s certainly true that we should try not to discriminate anybody based on the shape of their body in the workplace or any other area of society (although when it comes to mate choices, we will always discriminate against people).

It’s also true that some cultures around the world, now and in the past, have held up larger bodies as a symbol of beauty; there is certainly lots of flexibility in what human-beings find attractive. (although, these larger female bodies still usually have a waist-hip ratio of around 0.7. Also, I don’t believe there are any societies that have ever found weak, short and skinny men as the most attractive).

But don’t forget, no matter what, the genes hold culture on a leash. Generally speaking, with occasional outliers, fat bodies, and certainly obese bodies, are less sexually attractive. Why? Because we’ve been “taught” to feel this way? No. It’s because human-beings are born with an in-built system of what they find attractive that, while flexible, has certain boundaries.

Those who carry “woke” beliefs need to discuss and address the in-built characteristics of human-beings if they want to be taken seriously. They need to acknowledge and take seriously the other half of the debate: Nature.

Until those inside the Woke Ideology acknowledge that human-beings are born with in-built characteristics and are not blank slates that can be programmed in any direction, they will continue to have an enormous blind-spot in their understanding of the world.

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