So, Ive written articles defining this before, but I kind of want to make a more definitive one to reference to anyone who asks, because let's face it, half the time I end up going on irrelevant rants that reduce the quality of said articles, since sometimes i write these articles as a stream of consciousness and not really with an intended purpose to discuss the issues succinctly and make them particularly readable.
When I criticize "wokeness" and "social justice warriors", I do it differently than the right tends to do it. For the right, the issue is one of recognizing systemic injustices exist and that something should be done with them in general, and they often propose extremely authoritarian solutions that amount to censoring such views as the solution to them. I'm not a rightoid, and I respect free speech. Heck, by the above definition, I'm woke myself.
For me, being "woke" or a "SJW" isn't so much about beliefs. I am totally down with critical theory to some degree and think it has validity. My problem comes from a level of extremism that often comes with support for the belief system these days. It's fine to use critical theory as a lens through which to view gender relations, race relations, etc., but I think it's another thing to turn that into one's entire political ideology, and to shove it down peoples' throats, which is my problem with "wokeness" and with "SJWs". It's not so much the core ideas, as they are worthy ideas that deserve some level of consideration on the left. The problem is the dominance of these ideas, to the point that they often suck the air out of the room of discussing other ideas. That said, these are what I consider to be the key aspects of wokeism as used as a pejorative in politics:
1) A belief in critical theory or critical theory related ideas to the point that rather than acting as a small part of one's overall worldview, it becomes their entire worldview to the point that it entirely defines how they see the world and approach politics.
2) SJWs are extremely pushy and evangelical about their views, to the point that they are dedicated to spreading them with a level of zeal reminiscent of a religion or a cult. For an SJW, it's not simply okay that they have these views, you have to have them too. They tend to believe that "white moderates" are as bad as racists themselves, and "you cant not be racist unless you're actively anti racist." So they tend to have very much a with us or against us mentality.
3) Excessive virtue signalling, both to express one's virtue and to test others. SJWs LOVE to virtue signal. They love to say self righteous things that are designed to get a rise out of and irritate those who don't agree with them. This both acts to boost their own ego and self esteem, but also to test others' dedication to the cause. Sometimes virtue signals are speech checks to see if people are as dedicated to the idea of fighting whatever ism or phobia they're crusading against. Responding positively and reflecting their nonsense back to them turns the situation into a circlejerk. Responding negatively and confronting them leads to a rather nasty confrontation, since SJWs seem intolerant of others' opinions. Speaking of which.
4) Intolerance toward disagreement and the use of authoritarian measures to suppress and silence opposing opinions. SJWs tend to believe in the paradox of intolerance, that is "we can't be tolerant of those who are intolerant", believing it would bring about the end to a free society. As such they propose...the end to a free society. They often crusade in favor of banning "hate speech", and try to use any measure possible to punish the dissenters. They believe in shaming. They believe in "cancelling", ie, the act of trying to financially punish dissenters by getting them fired from their job, boycotting them, or inducing other financial sanctions on them in order to teach them a lesson. Despite the end goal of their ideology supposedly being a better society in which people live and let live, they seem unwilling to engage in that behavior themselves. For me, the real paradox is how these guys preach love and tolerance but are as hateful and intolerant as those who they criticize.
And that basically sums it up. For me, being a SJW or woke, when I use the term pejoratively, is less about ideals, and more about behaviors. You can be for social justice, without being a social justice warrior. You can be in support of critical theory and related policies, without being an obnoxious, self righteous "woke" person. Again, it's not about the beliefs, it's about how you practice them.
And yeah, this concludes my abridged article on defining these terms.
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