Thanks very much for the crisp insights! Good stuff! The original sin for the Woke Left - "did God say...?" We see the cultural scrambling across the US coming from needing to fill the life vacuum with something that seems to work and is NOT the Gospel.
"The original sin for the Woke Left - "did God say...?" Interesting take. Not taking things for granted can be helpful at times, but if you rebel against reality and the givenness of things, like the simple act of falling in love and falling for romance stories, all the time, it is not helpful and constructive.
Yeah, one Prog. tell is their willingness to mess with source material - Conserv. want to preserve, but Prog. want to tinker with original messaging, even in pop culture ways - "Snow White." Plus Prog. and Conserv. both LOVE story - romance stories at not, but Conserv. know the difference between story and reality. This is why Prog. make the worst theologians because they're always trying to square the circle between what is simply just literature and what is Gospel solid. This is why Prog. theo depth hits bottom quickly with Lewis, Nouwen, Merton or even Tolkien. ;)
Yeah that Freddie Deboer post was good. Also, read up on how more women read pornography daily than men probably look at: and they recommend to each other in churches! (Sarah Mass, crown of roses Thorn series). I also really like Fandom Pulse substack as an on-focus very Christian view of culture without going political
Interesting piece. Thank you, and I completely agree with your "motivation as a Christian writer, for many years, has been to help evangelicals get out from under the tyranny of bad thinking, especially bad thinking in the service of tribal alignment." Well said.
If you’re going to complain about woke people being unable to define what they mean and why, you should probably also be able to define what you mean and why beyond vague generalizations.
This kind of feels like “everything I don’t like that is wrong with the world is what ‘woke’ is”
Like, why is hookup culture even roped into what you think it means to be woke? Maybe an argument could be made that the two are linked, but it’s definitely not just an apparent connection that you can take for granted everyone will understand and agree with.
1) My starting point for the piece was Nell Minow (I misspelled her last name, for which I am sorry), and the way SHE connected being woke to being uncomfortable with the Snow White story. She did that, not me. The piece presumes Minow's connection is correct for the sake of argument, expands it into other demonstrably kind ideologies.
2) Hookup culture is not necessarily woke, and I never said it was. What *is* woke is the idea that women should own the patriarchy by torching their marriages and embracing it. That's the subject of the Deboer post I linked to.
Agreed. There's no reason to link them, and it muddies the point. (And it leads more to a question - are we supposed to be going back to being outraged at young people having sex after a few year span of outrage over them not having enough sex?)
RETARD ALERT. How much Reddit do you consume to use that line?
You know exactly what "woke" is and you know exactly what the author meant.
You're not only regurgitating the most stupid "gotcha" of /r/SubredditDrama, but also being dishonest because both Nell Minnow and Sam James know what "woke" means:
• Nell is virtue signaling, proclaiming her legitimacy to other Woke Mind Virus believers.
• Sam is pointing out that everything Nell is writing about is pointless: it's woke because it's to signal to others. There's no justification for holding those opinions Nell has. They're not correct. They're literally retarded. Yes, retarded.
I'm just saying what he wrote more words about because in 2025, "woke" is over and calling it what it is (retarded) is the greatest way to show in one word what 1000 cannot do.
He wrote a good piece, spoke his mind, but the first comment to today's post is you ignoring it all because only calling you a retard will have any effect.
Woke is wicked anti-civilization, immoral, irrational, and it's time is over. It peaked alongside Peak Trans at the end of 2023.
😂 I’m not on Reddit. I’ve followed Sam for a long time and generally think he’s a good writer and thinker, that’s why I read his substack. You, on the other hand, seem to have the temperament and maturity of a 6th grade boy who just learned a new bad word.
Can you define “woke”? Tell me what it is besides “everything that makes me uncomfortable and that I think ruins society”.
Sam, if you see these comments, I think it’s worth asking yourself if confirming the biases of a guy who uses the word “retard” and it’s derivatives 6 times in a single comment is what you want your writing to do. I will continue to sub and read, and I do hope my first comment isn’t received as poorly by you as by the Gray Man.
Flint, I'm sorry you were subjected to the insults, but I would certainly hope that you don't hold writers accountable for what their readers do. That way madness lies.
You you just continue being the irrational “you must define woke" again? Clearly you can't read because not only did I help explain what Sam meant, I made it very explicit with my own words.
You don't seem to realize that even people who are woke know exactly what woke means. Just be quiet you're making yourself look like an absolute fool.
There seems to be a right-ist talking point of "reddit is real left-wing". Which is not what I find at that site. If anything, on gun politics it's very conservative, regardless of which subreddit one is posting on.
Just a side observation, but I wonder how much of the Disney princess hatred is helped by the fact that they just weren't the greatest stories? Like I grew up watching them, and I agree with the base of all your points, but I also tell my daughter, "yeah it's a weird story."
I think the fairy tales originally had more depth (?), but cartoon Disney whittled some down a bit to paper thin romances. I know since live action has tried to include more, but sometimes that seems to only be additions of whatever modern trending issues are available. (Though the live action Cinderella really did a great job at storytelling and enriching the plot).
I don't think you're as concerned with Snow White literary analysis though 😆
"But my foremost motivation as a Christian writer, for many years, has been to help evangelicals get out from under the tyranny of bad thinking, especially bad thinking in the service of tribal alignment." Keep on, keeping on!
You aren't giving Nell Minnow a fair representation of her views. I get that you wanted her to more fully explain why some elements of story would be problematic, but your hang-up on that one point kept you from seeing the rest of her review.
Did you have her in mind when you wrote: "there is a comfortable class of media voices that express genuine shock and dismay that anyone could actually still like this story"? Because her literal words state: "there is still enormous affection for the original film".
The piece isn't about Minow. It's about her assumption in the first paragraph that reasonable people might be disturbed by Snow White's desire for Prince Charming. I don't think that's a reasonable assumption. People might disagree, which is fine, but I certainly didn't misrepresent her on that point.
I think this is right in terms of what was written. The question is about whether the assumption that 'some might be troubled' is reasonable.
I have done my best to offer a reply to that and suggest that I think there may be some more credit to that claim than you perhaps permit in your piece.
And to be clear about my viewpoint, it's pretty normal to not be offended by anything in the snow white story*. And yet, of the people who have notes about Snow White, they aren't necessarily condemning the story outright, and may not even be that "woke" (I'm not sure if this comment is the best place for me to try to untangle that).
*to digress, there is something in some adaptations that Disney leaves out. In some tellings - including the Brothers Grimm story, probably - the story ends with the Evil Queen dying after being forced to wear red hot iron shoes and dance until she collapses. as a kid when this version was read to our class we were shocked - I now know this is par for the course for Grimm tales originally. When this scene is adapted into a wide release movie, then I will really be searching the reviews!
Thanks very much for the crisp insights! Good stuff! The original sin for the Woke Left - "did God say...?" We see the cultural scrambling across the US coming from needing to fill the life vacuum with something that seems to work and is NOT the Gospel.
"The original sin for the Woke Left - "did God say...?" Interesting take. Not taking things for granted can be helpful at times, but if you rebel against reality and the givenness of things, like the simple act of falling in love and falling for romance stories, all the time, it is not helpful and constructive.
Yeah, one Prog. tell is their willingness to mess with source material - Conserv. want to preserve, but Prog. want to tinker with original messaging, even in pop culture ways - "Snow White." Plus Prog. and Conserv. both LOVE story - romance stories at not, but Conserv. know the difference between story and reality. This is why Prog. make the worst theologians because they're always trying to square the circle between what is simply just literature and what is Gospel solid. This is why Prog. theo depth hits bottom quickly with Lewis, Nouwen, Merton or even Tolkien. ;)
Yeah that Freddie Deboer post was good. Also, read up on how more women read pornography daily than men probably look at: and they recommend to each other in churches! (Sarah Mass, crown of roses Thorn series). I also really like Fandom Pulse substack as an on-focus very Christian view of culture without going political
Interesting piece. Thank you, and I completely agree with your "motivation as a Christian writer, for many years, has been to help evangelicals get out from under the tyranny of bad thinking, especially bad thinking in the service of tribal alignment." Well said.
If you’re going to complain about woke people being unable to define what they mean and why, you should probably also be able to define what you mean and why beyond vague generalizations.
This kind of feels like “everything I don’t like that is wrong with the world is what ‘woke’ is”
Like, why is hookup culture even roped into what you think it means to be woke? Maybe an argument could be made that the two are linked, but it’s definitely not just an apparent connection that you can take for granted everyone will understand and agree with.
1) My starting point for the piece was Nell Minow (I misspelled her last name, for which I am sorry), and the way SHE connected being woke to being uncomfortable with the Snow White story. She did that, not me. The piece presumes Minow's connection is correct for the sake of argument, expands it into other demonstrably kind ideologies.
2) Hookup culture is not necessarily woke, and I never said it was. What *is* woke is the idea that women should own the patriarchy by torching their marriages and embracing it. That's the subject of the Deboer post I linked to.
Agreed. There's no reason to link them, and it muddies the point. (And it leads more to a question - are we supposed to be going back to being outraged at young people having sex after a few year span of outrage over them not having enough sex?)
RETARD ALERT. How much Reddit do you consume to use that line?
You know exactly what "woke" is and you know exactly what the author meant.
You're not only regurgitating the most stupid "gotcha" of /r/SubredditDrama, but also being dishonest because both Nell Minnow and Sam James know what "woke" means:
• Nell is virtue signaling, proclaiming her legitimacy to other Woke Mind Virus believers.
• Sam is pointing out that everything Nell is writing about is pointless: it's woke because it's to signal to others. There's no justification for holding those opinions Nell has. They're not correct. They're literally retarded. Yes, retarded.
I'm just saying what he wrote more words about because in 2025, "woke" is over and calling it what it is (retarded) is the greatest way to show in one word what 1000 cannot do.
He wrote a good piece, spoke his mind, but the first comment to today's post is you ignoring it all because only calling you a retard will have any effect.
Woke is wicked anti-civilization, immoral, irrational, and it's time is over. It peaked alongside Peak Trans at the end of 2023.
Flint Spencer wins the "retard of the day" award.
😂 I’m not on Reddit. I’ve followed Sam for a long time and generally think he’s a good writer and thinker, that’s why I read his substack. You, on the other hand, seem to have the temperament and maturity of a 6th grade boy who just learned a new bad word.
Can you define “woke”? Tell me what it is besides “everything that makes me uncomfortable and that I think ruins society”.
Sam, if you see these comments, I think it’s worth asking yourself if confirming the biases of a guy who uses the word “retard” and it’s derivatives 6 times in a single comment is what you want your writing to do. I will continue to sub and read, and I do hope my first comment isn’t received as poorly by you as by the Gray Man.
Flint, I'm sorry you were subjected to the insults, but I would certainly hope that you don't hold writers accountable for what their readers do. That way madness lies.
Nope, don’t hold you accountable at all. More generally, I’m just saying we should all be aware of the tribe we are thinking with
You you just continue being the irrational “you must define woke" again? Clearly you can't read because not only did I help explain what Sam meant, I made it very explicit with my own words.
You don't seem to realize that even people who are woke know exactly what woke means. Just be quiet you're making yourself look like an absolute fool.
You should figure out what quotation marks are for.
I didn’t tell you to do anything, I asked if you could. In response, you changed my words and continued to insult me. Very smart of you.
There seems to be a right-ist talking point of "reddit is real left-wing". Which is not what I find at that site. If anything, on gun politics it's very conservative, regardless of which subreddit one is posting on.
Just a side observation, but I wonder how much of the Disney princess hatred is helped by the fact that they just weren't the greatest stories? Like I grew up watching them, and I agree with the base of all your points, but I also tell my daughter, "yeah it's a weird story."
I think the fairy tales originally had more depth (?), but cartoon Disney whittled some down a bit to paper thin romances. I know since live action has tried to include more, but sometimes that seems to only be additions of whatever modern trending issues are available. (Though the live action Cinderella really did a great job at storytelling and enriching the plot).
I don't think you're as concerned with Snow White literary analysis though 😆
Fantastic take.
"But my foremost motivation as a Christian writer, for many years, has been to help evangelicals get out from under the tyranny of bad thinking, especially bad thinking in the service of tribal alignment." Keep on, keeping on!
Fabulous insights as always!
I agree with the “tax”…I just don't like the “label”.
Some criticism:
You aren't giving Nell Minnow a fair representation of her views. I get that you wanted her to more fully explain why some elements of story would be problematic, but your hang-up on that one point kept you from seeing the rest of her review.
Did you have her in mind when you wrote: "there is a comfortable class of media voices that express genuine shock and dismay that anyone could actually still like this story"? Because her literal words state: "there is still enormous affection for the original film".
The piece isn't about Minow. It's about her assumption in the first paragraph that reasonable people might be disturbed by Snow White's desire for Prince Charming. I don't think that's a reasonable assumption. People might disagree, which is fine, but I certainly didn't misrepresent her on that point.
I think this is right in terms of what was written. The question is about whether the assumption that 'some might be troubled' is reasonable.
I have done my best to offer a reply to that and suggest that I think there may be some more credit to that claim than you perhaps permit in your piece.
https://shorturl.at/xKyrY
That's fair, looking at it that way.
And to be clear about my viewpoint, it's pretty normal to not be offended by anything in the snow white story*. And yet, of the people who have notes about Snow White, they aren't necessarily condemning the story outright, and may not even be that "woke" (I'm not sure if this comment is the best place for me to try to untangle that).
*to digress, there is something in some adaptations that Disney leaves out. In some tellings - including the Brothers Grimm story, probably - the story ends with the Evil Queen dying after being forced to wear red hot iron shoes and dance until she collapses. as a kid when this version was read to our class we were shocked - I now know this is par for the course for Grimm tales originally. When this scene is adapted into a wide release movie, then I will really be searching the reviews!