Thread by @SethCotlar

Woke opinion ca. 1853: Slavery is wrong and we should abolish it and make formerly enslaved people fully enfranchised citizens.

Woke opinion ca. 1869: The KKK is bad and the federal government needs to play a more significant role in furthering the economic, political, and legal rights of Southern black people.

Woke opinion ca. 1895: Ida B Wells says that lynching is terrorism designed to support white supremacy in America.

Woke opinion ca. 1915: It’s bad when corporations sell meat with maggots in it and which endangers the health of consumers. The government should do something about that.

Woke opinion ca. 1930: Workers should be allowed to form inions. Also, too many workers die on the job due to their bosses’ negligence.

Woke opinion ca. 1957: Jim Crow is bad and black people should have access to good schools and the ballot box.

Woke opinion ca. 1965: Maybe Rachel Carson was right and DDT is really bad for people.

Woke opinion ca. 1985: AIDS is a serious health crisis and homophobic bigotry is preventing the nation from addressing it.

Woke opinion ca. 1989: Bill McKibben just wrote a long New Yorker article about the threat of climate change. Maybe we should do something about that.

Anyway, you get the point. Isn’t one generation’s “silly woke people” just what later generations call “the people who fought for the values and policies we now value?”

It just seems like such a reactionary tell when someone uses the word “woke” as an epithet. I know activists can sometimes say and do extreme things that are sometimes annoying. But you know who was considered annoying at the time? All of the people listed above.

Woke opinion ca. 2003: Invading Iraq is a dumb way to respond to 9/11 and will further destabilize the Middle East for decades.

Woke opinion ca. 2004: There’s no good reason why same sex couples can’t get married if they want to.

Woke opinion ca. 1935: The growing spread of fascism across Europe is bad, and we should do everything in our power to prevent it.
Anti-woke opinion ca. 1935: Oh don't be so hysterical. They're just nationalistic patriots who sometimes get a little overzealous.

Woke opinion ca. 1971: Women should have the same career opportunities as men. Also, sexual harassment on the streets and in the workplace is bad.

Woke opinion ca. 1969: The fact that our cities are so polluted that you can barely breathe somedays is a problem, and we should probably do something about it. Also, rivers catching on fire is bad.

Woke opinion ca. 1981: Drunk driving is bad and you shouldn't do it.

Woke opinion ca. 1977: I think smoking might be a public health menace and the tobacco companies know that but are keeping that information from us with the assistance of politicians who they have influence over.

Woke opinion ca. 1721 in Massachusetts: Everyone should get inoculated against the small pox because it will help prevent that disease from killing so many of us.

Woke opinion ca. 1984: Apartheid in South Africa is racist and the world should take action to push that government to change.

Woke opinion ca. 1848: Women should have the right to vote.

Woke opinion ca. 1967: The Vietnam War is unwinnable and is wasting American lives and treasures in pursuit of a misguided foreign policy.

Woke opinion ca. January 1776: The actions of George III's government has demonstrated that we can no longer live as free people within the British Empire. Thus we should fight to create an independent, self-governing nation.

Anyway, the next time a "woke" person says something that annoys you, just take a breath and ask yourself if you truly have good reasons for being annoyed, or if you're just being like one of the anti-woke people from the American past who recoiled at all of the wokeness above.

Didn't expect this to get circulated so widely, so I guess I have to do the usual caveats here. No, this is not my entire theory of how history works. It's a freaking Twitter thread. And yes, all of those opinions listed above would have been considered "woke" at the time.

Also, yes, there are many past "woke" opinions that in hindsight we see as silly or dangerous. My point is not that anyone called "woke" today is inherently 100% correct and should have the reins of absolute power handed over to them.

Wokeness (if we'll grant the existence of such a thing) usually shapes history not by imposing its vision upon the world with state power...but rather, by shifting public opinion through activism, argumentation, etc.

Wokeness is one part of the dynamic that we call historical change. Conservatives tend to want to keep all of the positive gains those past wokesters won (ending slavery, women voting, gay rights, clean air, etc.) while also finding all of today's wokesters distasteful.

But...that's not how the dynamics of historical change have ever worked.

Being hysterically afraid of "woke" people who you think are going to bring about the end of civilization as we know it if they're not silenced is pretty much a constant in history. Such people rarely come out looking good in hindsight. Just keep that in mind.