A friend of mine recently made a casual comment concerning the “woke” movement and the cancel culture crowd that got me thinking: “No one is born that stupid. You’ve got to take lessons to get there!”
The more I thought about this conversation, the more I realized that, aside from being funny, it was damned close to the truth. There’s no other way to describe the childish nonsense this “woke” movement has come up with. But where did they get their “lessons” from? The answer is the same place we of our generation got ours: in schools and universities.
Ours began in kindergarten, where we were taught to use our brain and common sense, along with “readin’, ritin’ and rithmatic.” But, a couple of decades or so ago, new generations were being taught by a small group of “enlightened” educators that these “old school” ideas were irrelevant, and claimed if they would become “woke,” it would free their minds of the limitations and restrictions found in the now-obsolete “common sense.” The new generations were thus freed of these stifling limitations by canceling out any thoughts, words and concepts viewed as restricting one’s ability to decide for themselves what was right, and what was wrong for their “new” culture. If those enlightened educators’ intentions were to “dumb down” our future generations and program them to think only in a certain way, then it’s done a pretty damned good job.
If it happens that “woke-ism” was merely a passing novelty, common sense will win out in the long run. It’s too early to predict which concept will “win,” but as of now, it’s common sense vs. cancel culture running neck-and-neck as they round the far turn.
Dale Paule
Canyon Country
