Woke or stay awake has been in use since the late 19th century as an invocation to stand against racial prejudice and discrimination. Over time, woke came to be used to refer to a broader awareness of social inequalities such as sexism and denial of LGBTQ rights and became the shorthand for the US Left approach to identity politics and social justice, such as white privilege and reparations for slavery.
In the backlash the political right and some centrists use the term pejoratively to disparage leftist and progressive movements as superficial and insincere performative activism. The terms woke-washing and woke capitalism later emerged to criticize businesses and brands who use politically progressive messaging for financial gain.
‘The Trump administration’s “war on woke” has pushed a lot of large companies and institutes to retreat from the diversity, equity and inclusion policies they used to pretend to be proud of.’
There is not much astrology in this except that two early examples of the use of ‘woke’ fell on Saturn Pluto squares which are repressive in nature – Pluto = power and Saturn = social ruling classes. So ‘woke’ was a way of standing up and not submitting.
The recent Neptune in Pisces during both of Trump’s terms did not bring clarity, quite the opposite as it muddied the waters. And did it in both directions as the victim-culture emerged.
One problem with the identity politics of marginalized groups is that they assume the manifest unfairness of their situation should be prioritised by the wider population. The problem being that the ‘ordinary’ person does not have the bandwidth to cope with multiple groups demanding rightful attention, so they switch off.
There is an extension to this in the results of a psychological study done years ago which showed that where people can help another with problems they will. Where circumstances are too overwhelming and the situation is such that they can’t help, they treat the ‘victim’ with hostility, maybe since it arouses guilt or a sense of impotence.
On a personal note, it irritated me immensely in the 1990s when I ran a campaign about child abuse and could not understand why everyone was not as enraged as me about inaction to root out cruelty and worse. Or even interested. They just tuned out. Not their thing and what could they do anyway? Getting realistic is a hard lesson but it helps.
One other problem about social attitudes is the pendulum swing – victims of all shades used to be swept under the carpet and now they are everywhere. Neptune in Pisces may be part of the reason for the snowflake effect, with minor infractions to social niceties being blown out of all proportion.
Trevor Phillips also had an interesting set of observations recently in The Times: “Too much political time is spent trying to protect our youngsters, we could take a lot from immigrant family values. It has been apparent for some years that poor immigrants display a mental and emotional resilience that seems to be rapidly disappearing in the historically native population.”
In England, 15.9 per cent of white children needed Send (special educational needs) support last year. The equivalent for black Africans was 10.3 per cent, for Indians 6.7 per cent and for Chinese-heritage children 5.6 per cent. ‘Immigrant parents, themselves typically the products of hard, unforgiving circumstances, raise their children to expect the world to be unkind, holding that no amount of coddling by the state will ever protect them from its hard knocks.’
My own pet theory (being old) is that my UK generation were brought up by no nonsense parents who had lived through WW11 and their parents WW1 before that.
Saturn in Aries until 2028 (leaving Neptune out of the equation) may knock some of the more fragile over-reactions out of the picture. It tends to produce circumstances that demand self-reliance and will attempt to put a curb on an overly dependent mindset.
I realise none of the above is of much help to those who are discriminated against. Maybe (??) Pluto in Aquarius will bring a tolerance of difference and help to iron out some injustices. Saturn Neptune will also do its bit for women and workers.
I’m not sure I want to go back to a time when having a mental illness brought shame on the sufferer, or to a time when young girls were institutionalised for becoming pregnant, sometimes through rape. I’m glad that that has changed. My mother was a child in WW2, was evacuated and it was tough on her. But both she and my father were generally gentle parents to us children and I’m grateful to her for that.
The politics of identity and relative disadvantage has effectively become a game of “top trumps” (if one can excuse the pun) where each group tries to outbid its rivals for most favoured status. This particularly applies to receiving material support from the government. Needless to say that sort of approach to social and economic justice eventually alienates the rest of society.
Like Marjorie I am a child of parents and grand parents who lived through or fought in two world wars. They understandably had little time for special pleading even from their own offspring. On the positive side they were the people who created the welfare state that saw it as society’s job to care for its members in times of adversity. Unfortunately as time has passed that overarching approach to the common good has got eroded as different groups in society have essentially competed to monopolise resources
I was just thinking about this exact subject last night. On a personal note, I was delayed in starting university (40) and not long after, COVID and the George Floyd protests turned our lectures into exercises on who had the most power. My campus was small and diverse so suddenly, I became the perpetrator of all the social injustice in the world. I was constantly called “Boomer”, told I wasn’t allowed to talk in class to allow for other “oppressed voices” to take centre stage, and even failed assignments for not adequately relaying my privilege within my perspectives. It was deeply unfortunate because the one thing that I had always liked about myself was my compassion and open-mindedness. As a result, my university experience had the exact-opposite effect where I just shut down and rejected their plight, especially since it was coming out of the mouths of people with PhD’s, earning six-figure salaries and generous pensions – all while I was using the food bank and was in therapy due to a history of childhood trauma-drama. But I digress. I’m evolved enough that I wasn’t pulled to the right by this experience and can once again hear another person’s hardships and fears with that same earlier compassion, but any current conversations about privilege that aren’t more nuanced and allow for complexity now fall on deaf ears. Needless to say, I couldn’t be more relieved that Neptune has 1) left Pisces, and 2) is currently joined by Saturn – forcing a reckoning. Good riddance!
Thanks for this.
Looking at previous saturn in Aries we see, I think, ideals and dreams coming to face reality. So 96-98 we have Blair and the rest coming to terms with power, 67 -69 we have the swinging sixties bashing up against social realities in the UK, and the realities of defeat for the US in Vietnam. Previously in 37-39 we see the ideals of peace coming crashing down in the face of fascism. Prior to that we have a new liberal government between 08-11 facing the reality and difficulty of power.
More generally I think that the increase in SEND is due to lack of general education resource and generally public services. The UK public is getting less deferential to the state just as they are demanding more.
What I am seeing in the news these past few days is the topic of school uniform, from UK, Australia, Nz to even South Korea. Aries = image, children?. So Saturn and Neptune in aries is putting a stop to extravagance, luxury?
A uniform is not a discrimination. As it is the same for everyone. A uniform does not have to be expensive. Schools could just have a choice of sweat shirts and even jeans. The envy politics is just another form of discrimination. This is our problem. Once we start to divide, it then starts a discrimination cycle, against another group etc. Saturn/Capricorn is the leader of the 10th and Authority. It is worth noting that Saturn is exhalted in Libra – the scales. One could argue that it is balanced that is required in order to be a good leader/ government!