Item — HN Reader

I think it's okay to refer to the word "woke", but if you use it more than 3 times in your writing, then it's hard to take you seriously.

Why?

Because it's a word that gets people emotional. Getting people emotional is the opposite of what you want to do when you're trying to intellectually dissect something. But it's exactly what you want to do when you're grinding a gear.

It's just like if somebody wrote a piece about trump, but mentioned he was a felon 4+ times, you'd know they weren't writing an unemotional thinkpiece.

1 comments

> I think it's okay to refer to the word "woke", but if you use it more than 3 times in your writing, then it's hard to take you seriously.

But when the essay is specifically about where "wokeness" comes from and what (pg) understands it to mean, then it has to be OK to use it more than 3 times?

> Because it's a word that gets people emotional. Getting people emotional is the opposite of what you want to do when you're trying to intellectually dissect something

Some terms are so charged that it's virtually impossible to have discussions without any emotional reactions to it. "Woke" seems to be one of those subjects/terms (at least judging by this submission), so if you try to shy away from it just because of that, isn't that a disservice as a whole? We need to be able to discuss and think about hard things too, not just fun and happy stuff.

> It's just like if somebody wrote a piece about trump, but mentioned he was a felon 4+ times, you'd know they weren't writing an unemotional thinkpiece.

But the comparison here would be an article whose purpose is to detailed how Trump is a felon, then obviously it'd make sense that it gets brought up, it's the subject of the text.

I don't think you're discussing in good faith.

I doubt you're truly unaware that everybody saying woke in 2025 unironically is angry and making an insult.

I also don't believe you could read this comment section and think PG didn't get everybody emotional (and mostly confused about his point too), or that he tried very hard not to.

> Anyone using the term woke in 2025 is using the term in bad faith

This was the initial claim. It got me curious how we're supposed to be able to discuss emotionally charged subjects, if you can't bring it up without getting the label "you're doing that in bad faith" slapped on you.

I disagree with most of pg's article, and I'm very left-leaning myself. But I also find it very worthwhile to find a sensible way to disagree with people, even if it's emotional. It's important we're able to understand and see good points no matter the delivery mechanism, or no matter how much we disagree with a person (like me, here with pg who I don't agree with at all, on most matters).

> I doubt you're truly unaware that everybody saying woke in 2025 unironically is angry and making an insult.

This is probably the first article/comment section I read about "wokeness" in at least a couple of years. I'm a left-leaning (European) person far away from American politics, so I am not aware of how the left/right of the US currently use the term. I saw the essay, read through the thing and now I'm here, reading through comments.

> I also don't believe you could read this comment section and think PG didn't get everybody emotional (and mostly confused about his point too), or that he tried very hard not to.

No, I do think he got people emotional, and I don't think he tried or didn't try to make people emotional, it seems to be a very heavy topic for Americans (right or left), so I'd wager it's impossible to discuss it without emotions. Some topics just are like that, and that's not necessarily wrong or bad.

You earn good faith. By being curious, and ensuring that the participants have the freedom to question, push back, and in general, manage the pace of the conversation.

It’s like walking on thin ice, you feel it out slowly, together, in a cooperative and sincere manner.

Its not hard, its just not possible when you dont really care about the other persons.