Carts and horses

From Ace: "Old-fashioned virtues like honesty, gentleness, respect, kindness, forbearance, and self-control are not important in a woke environment." The new idea, he says, is that all that matters is the wokeness level. I'd argue that wokeness--however threadbare the concept has become--is not irrelevant to virtue, it's just being applied backwards. The important thing is the traditional virtues. Wokeness comes in when we face the challenge of living up to our virtues even in a conflict with someone from an outgroup, which might be someone with a different race, sex, political philosophy, etc. You don't become a more honest, just, or kind person by self-flagellation over the crimes of your ancestors, or dramatic indulgence in guilt over your previous advantages in life, or stoning un-woke pariahs. You do it by keeping in mind your basic duties even to people who are alien to you in some annoying way. You do it by setting a good example and standing up for people who are being victimized. I mean actually victimized in a particular situation, not per se victimized according to some kind of definition published in a magazine. Unjust situations aren't all that hard to find; we don't need thought police to drum them up for us in our daily lives.