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I live in an area where most social spaces are dominated by woke ideology. People who don’t agree either pretend to go along, or have abandoned the shared social spaces. I feel that there is an unspoken shared social norm in most spaces around me that you must agree whenever someone implies/states that straight white men are problematic/oppressors. I feel like whatever is going on with this social norm is somehow tied to status games and tribalism. I feel that it is morally and epistemologically wrong to blame such a broad group for so many of the problems in society. It is wrong to over simplify societal problems to such a simple ideology. Ultimately, I believe every person deserves to be treated as a unique individual. It is fine to point out specific instances of a straight/white/male doing a problematic thing, but it wrong to assume that everyone in that group is bad and/or benefits from the problematic thing.
I believe it is ethically wrong for me to pretend to go along with problematizing any group of people just because that is social expectation to fit in with the group. Consequently, I mostly avoid social spaces because I don’t feel comfortable with the social norms that I’m expected to conform to.
There is a part of me that thinks the people in these social groups are otherwise reasonable, but they are also caught up in the social mania of modern times. I would like to be more social and make more friends, but the social norms of the spaces around me make me uncomfortable and closed-off to people. There don’t appear to be spaces near me without the straight white men are problematic norm for the areas I’m interested in (such as book clubs or running clubs).
Has anyone discovered a way to let it be openly known that you don’t agree with the group problematizing social norm, while still being accepted into the group? Like steering the group to a pluralistic acceptance of people with different values because those values don’t impact the stated purpose of the group (i.e. social norms about political ideology shouldn’t matter if you just want to go running with some people).
The problem with the niche crunchy con book clubs is that they're organized in person, often at churches, so you wouldn't know unless you, say, attended the church or somehow made friends through other means, but I can't think of how. My parents are in a very nice book club that's currently reading some 19th Century Russian intellectual, and previously read Death Comes for the Archbishop, GK Chesterton, CS Lewis, and so on. It was formed through their local Antiochian Orthodox Church. My dad also plays tennis with his church friends, specifically, including from a church he attended 30 years ago, they both changed churches several times since, but they continue to be tennis friends.
You might say that you don't believe in Jesus any more than you believe that white men are still benefiting from unearned privilege, and fair enough. But social groups gain cohesion through either a shared moral narrative, or shared ethnic identity. I suppose an alternative is an ethnic club -- I've still seen Celtic and Greek clubs anyway, perhaps there are others? I've also still seen evidence of current activity from the Elks and Rotary Clubs, I'm not sure what they're like, but they donate eyeglasses to children anyway.
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