The definition of "woke" in entertainment

[Houseman]

Woke: "Art should serve society"

Normal: "Art for art's sake"

Under the woke view, art should be made to educate society on how they should act. Art that does not serve this purpose should be destroyed.
Under the normal view, art is good because art exists, and that's it.

As you can see from the links, this "woke" vs "non-woke" fight has been going on for hundreds of years already. It is nothing new. Many writers, artists, and politicians have debated about it before, and we can read their arguments.

Socialists like Stalin and Lenin and Communists like Mao have made arguments that "all art is political". That should sound familiar to us too. Again, it is nothing new.
Hitler too, saw the value of controlling culture through art, and sought to destroy what he saw as "degenerate" and create new art as propaganda in its place.

The woke create art only to teach us how to behave, and to shape the world in their image.

 

[Vendor-Lazarus]

Indeed.

Iconoclasm - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Signa]

I think normal art is for the expression of the artist. It's not really being made for its own sake.

 

[Houseman]

I think normal art is for the expression of the artist. It's not really being made for its own sake.

Those can be the same thing. It just means "art not made for the purpose of propaganda", as marxists were trying to do at the time. One sentence on Wikipedia puts it: ""Art for the sake of art" affirmed that art was valuable in itself; that artistic pursuits did not need moral justification, and indeed, could legitimately be morally neutral or subversive."

It's more about the "value" of art, and what gives it that value. The woke believe the value is derived from how much it reinforces certain morals. Normal people see it as above, that art itself intrinsically has value.

 

[Houseman]

Y'know, I don't really think that this is a good defintion. I think the standard definition, which is "concerned with modern-day social justice issues" fits better.

I was originally just excited to have learned that we're not the first generation to deal with a problem like this. While I think that's still a beneficial truth that more people should be made aware of, what I suggested doesn't quite work as a definition.

According to Wikipedia, the debate was about "political art", or art as propaganda, vs a rejection of that concept.
Today, it's not about that, not entirely. What if "political art" comes from the conservative side, and is about "serving society" according to their morals and ideals? Could you call something conservative "woke"? Probably not. That's why I think this definition doesn't work.

The standard definition is fine.
I think the historial aspect of this is worth exploring further.

Further reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aestheticism

The artists and writers of Aesthetic style tended to profess that the Arts should provide refined sensuous pleasure, rather than convey moral or sentimental messages. As a consequence, they did not accept... [the] conception of art as something moral or useful, "Art for truth's sake". Instead, they believed that Art did not have any didactic purpose; it only needed to be beautiful.

 

[Arnox]

My approach to art is ruthlessly simple.

Art is the expression of any idea or experience in a stylized manner, intentional or otherwise.

That's it. That's the entirety of all art.

 

[Vendor-Lazarus]

Y'know, I don't really think that this is a good defintion. I think the standard definition, which is "concerned with modern-day social justice issues" fits better.

I was originally just excited to have learned that we're not the first generation to deal with a problem like this. While I think that's still a beneficial truth that more people should be made aware of, what I suggested doesn't quite work as a definition.

According to Wikipedia, the debate was about "political art", or art as propaganda, vs a rejection of that concept.
Today, it's not about that, not entirely. What if "political art" comes from the conservative side, and is about "serving society" according to their morals and ideals? Could you call something conservative "woke"? Probably not. That's why I think this definition doesn't work.

The standard definition is fine.
I think the historial aspect of this is worth exploring further.

Further reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aestheticism

It's all Identity Politics. The pattern of similarities is exactly the same, and the only differences are between who's targeted as out-groups to their in-group. It's the same means, the same tactics, the same goals, and the same intent. Only their labels and terminology differentiate. Neo-nazi, KKK, Stalinist, Leninist, Communist, Woke, Christian, Muslim, etc etc.