How to Talk to a Wokester

Conservatives reply to woke objections with a modest offering of facts that undo the woke narrative—and get nowhere. Here’s a better way

American Greatness (amgreatness.com)  . . ."And there lies the weak spot of the woke brigade: the pretension to moral superiority through better knowledge. They believe they have better hearts because they have better minds, and that’s an assumption that easily collapses. It points the way to a different response than argument. 

"Instead of challenging the Wokester's knowledge, let’s go with the wokester’s knowledge and draw it out. Let her school us, let her show us her certainty and let’s accept her duty to instruct the ignorant. She wants to be a pedagogue; we shall accept the position of pupil. 

"The model is Socrates, who comes to many dialogues as one who knows nothing and desires enlightenment. He asks simple questions and listens closely to the answers. The other participants believe they grasp the truth firmly, but as his queries continue, their confidence begins to wane. They speak at first as ordinary folk who nonetheless possess common sense, or as experts in a subject, such as Ion the rhapsode on the topic of Homer. They are complacent until the dialectic leads them to acknowledge their error.

"Take the same approach with the wokester. If she brings up the Native American issue, ask her in all innocence why those cavalry officers were often flanked by native scouts helping them track down other tribes.". . . 

On Cartoons, Wokesters Once Again Miss the Point (townhall.com)

Thus, it never occurred to me, as a little boy watching Pepe Le Pew cartoons on Saturday morning, to find his behavior acceptable, much less imitate it. Viewing his overly-amorous antics in light of what my parents had taught me about male-female relationships—and therein, perhaps, lies the key—I understood just the opposite: It was clear that Pepe was a cad, that no man should treat women that way, and that any man who did was—what else?—a skunk. That was the message I received because it was the message intended by the storytellers.