The Social Justice Movement is Its Own Worst Enemy
The Social Justice Movement is Its Own Worst Enemy
...
The Quandry of Contemporary Social Justice - Ideals vs. Actions
I am sympathetic to social justice movement's desire to achieve a just society, but it does not appear as if its current approach will be successful in achieving that goal. Not only are the foundational concepts of the movement not conducive to establishing a just society, the "public relations campaign" of the current social justice movement is perhaps the single greatest train wreck the world has ever seen.
The most prominent cases of social justice warrior outrage resemble an all-star line-up of Darwin Awards for social and intellectual credibility. Inarticulate infantile tantrums, vapid delusions of victimization, irrational racist ranting, anti-free speech apoplexies of rage, advocating gratuitous genocide, irrefutable intellectual incompetence, together with an overt and explicit war on free speech have conclusively demonstrated that the social justice movement, as practiced by many of its advocates today, is all too often portraying itself as irrational, intolerant, ignorant, bigoted, racist, vengeful and violent.
Despite all of this - and there are thousands of examples with more coming out every day - the social justice movement as a whole doesn't seem to recognize that the behavior of its advocates is blatantly at odds with its professed goals. When such unhinged behavior is employed by a movement whose self-proclaimed goal is to achieve justice, it smacks of hypocrisy, which is not how to win supporters for a cause. This overt doublethink, which broad swathes of the population have not been indoctrinated into, gives the impression that the social justice movement has descended into full-blown mass hysteria. Could it be that this woefully counterproductive behavior is based on a flawed concept of what a just society would be?
It is appropriate to say that justice is a necessary component of a functioning society. And I would contend that most people (myself included) would prefer a great deal more justice in society, if not the establishment of a truly just society. But what is a just society? This topic has been discussed exhaustively elsewhere, here I will simply postulate that a just society would be based on individual rights and in its essence be voluntary, meritocratic and altruistic. This is very much a working definition, but is sufficient for my purposes here.
I would also like to include a somewhat lengthier consideration by the late Professor Tibor Machan, which I largely ascribe to, when he stated that a just society would be:
"... a society based on principles of individual rights that are identified by reference to human nature, a universal standard that can guide a social system to serve the best interest of all those who live under it. Seemingly paradoxically, the public interest or common good turned out to be what was in the interest of individual members of society as individuals and members of freely formed groups, not any group or the whole society or some such divisive faction of human beings. Protect the basic rights of all members of society and you will have achieved the public interest! Respect for and the protection of individual rights are what best serve the public! Human beings are fundamentally individual persons and none may be tossed aside as they are being properly, justly governed.
A side effect of this discovery was that society may only be minimally governed, that government's scope must be severely limited, that all temptation to regiment the whole must be resisted except for never allowing individual rights to be violated, sacrificed no matter how important it may appear to do so!" source
Tibor's inclusion of human nature is crucial in any "equation" for establishing a just society. It is the nature of humanity as a whole to strive to improve its circumstances both at the individual and communal level, and I contend that an injustice perpetrated on an individual must as a consequence undermine any attempts to establish justice at the societal level. This is an aspect that I contend is largely neglected in the current social justice movement.
If society is a bridge, the individual is one of the struts that supports it. Justice can be considered a kind of material integrity that is an essential aspect of each individual component and the structure as a whole. Seen in this way, undermining the integrity of a single strut would be a clear and present danger to the whole.
There are three main aspects of the social justice movement that I contend are antithetical to the establishment of a just society, beginning with:
Contemporary Social Justice is Rooted in Violent Authoritarianism
Firstly, the current iteration of 'social justice' as a term is a Marxist formulation at heart and the conceptual framework itself, in application, eliminates the possibility of a just society as I understand it (see above). This is because the foundational concept of "social justice", as formulated by Marx, argues for eliminating private property and justifies the use of governmental force (violent authoritarianism) to redistribute wealth to achieve absolute economic equality. Marxism in its original formulation was focused primarily on achieving economic equality and the elimination of economic stratification via force if necessary (and it is considered absolutely necessary).
This aspect is very much part of the current social justice movement, with its calls for wealth confiscation and redistribution via entitlement programs enacted by government. Further, in typical Marxist fashion, many social justice warriors rationalize intimidation and violence to achieve their financial and sociopolitical goals.
To my mind, it is inconceivable how forcibly depriving people of money or property they have fairly worked for could ever result in a just outcome. The use of force to enforce a "just" society on non-consenting individuals is unjust on its face. Advocating such a position is much the same as saying you have to wage war to end war. The greatest irony here is that the social justice movement today seems to believe it is actually combating violent authoritarianism using ... you guessed it ... violent authoritarianism. This is nowhere more apparent than among the anti-fascists, who are behaving almost exactly like Mussolini's fascist Black Shirts and Hitler's fascist Brown Shirts did during the rise of their respective regimes.
Contemporary Social Justice is Antithetical to Meritocracy
Secondly, 'social justice' as a term has also evolved to include an oppositional stance to the concept of "social privilege", meaning that no individual should have any social privileges that others do not. Earned privileges are however one of the defining components of a meritocratic system, eliminating the ability to earn privileges for productive behavior is anti-meritocratic. Further, it should be noted that some privileges are innate or the product of natural selection that are viewed favorably by society as a whole. There are many different types of social privilege and predicating a just society on the elimination of those privileges is not only impractical but unachievable in accordance with human nature.
The following video highlights this in a somewhat humorous manner (adult language):
Eliminating all social privileges may stop a few fragile snowflakes from having their feelings hurt, but it would be a manifestly unnatural social engineering attempt doomed to create a completely dysfunctional society. The enforcement of equality is ultimately impossible, because the individuals tasked/privileged with enforcing equality must - in keeping with their task - have authority over others, ipso facto inequality is inherent in any attempt to use force to achieve equality.
The objective of enforced equality very much reminds me of Kurt Vonnegut's tale of "Harrison Bergeron" in which:
"The year was 2081 and everybody was finally equal. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger than anybody else, quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th & 213th amendments to the Constitution and the unceasing vigilance of the agents of the United States Handicapper General. They were not only equal before God & the law, everybody was equal every which way."
There are many screen adaptations of this tale, the most appealing of which is "2081":
2081 Universal Absurdity - Edited from Mayra Tribeca Film Fellow on Vimeo.
(Watch this! You won't regret it!)
Short of a genetically engineered clone society, I fail to see how it is possible to achieve the goal of equal social privileges for all people. Uniformity of this sort would also be a death knell for meritocracy, which is perhaps the prime motivator for people trying to better themselves or their condition. If people can't "get ahead" no matter what they do, why would anyone bother to work or contribute to society? The belief that people would do it "just because" is not in keeping with human nature and goes counter to every known historical precedent. The earliest pilgrims learned this the hard way when they had to abandon their utopian communal (socialist/communist) dream, which can be read about in Why the Pilgrims Abandoned Communism and The Pilgrim's Failed Socialist Experiment.
Identity Politics are Inherently Biased
Thirdly, the social justice movement has completely embraced identity politics. Identity politics do not appear to be rational forms of argumentation for social or political discourse. Why? If an argument's validity is to be judged on the race, gender, sexual orientation or ethnicity of its formulator (rather than on its objective merit), it seems to me that is a position that at the very least tacitly advocates a racist, sexist, ethnocentric or gender discriminatory mindset or behavior.
Ben Shapiro recently addressed the role of identity politics in the assault on free speech on university campuses during his testimony before the United States Congress and it a very concise summary of the challenges faced by those who desire a peaceful and just society today:
It is also worth watching the compilation of his complete testimony to congress here. Being that the contemporary social justice movement is supposed to be about eliminating discrimination and oppression of people by recognizing the worth of each individual, I fail to see how any identity based argument - which is by definition predicated on groups that happen to share an arbitrary characteristic and band together to promote their common agenda - can be anything other than a form of relative discrimination against some other identity or intersectional group. Identity politics appear intrinsically discriminatory and, by definition, biased in favor of the respective group if called upon to formulate any given argument. Thus if identity politics are part and parcel of the contemporary social justice movement, it would be logically impossible to achieve a just society.
Social Justice is Riddled with Logical Inconsistencies
In closing, it appears to me that every self-proclaimed goal of the social justice movement is actively undermined by the conceptual foundations it rests upon. Additionally, the individuals that comprise the social justice movement appear to have very little understanding of what justice is, all too often appearing to misunderstand revenge or vengeance as justice, which is highly counterproductive to what many social justice advocates believe it should achieve. A large portion of the individuals advocating the contemporary social justice movement appear to have little to no understanding of what it means to be just. Moreover the law of consequences seems to be completely disregarded, successfully "revolutionizing" society with the current approach would be catastrophic for everyone - themselves included - as the cycle of discrimination, oppression and violence would only continue at a much accelerated pace.
Indeed, the current social justice movement is now exacerbating precisely those injustices it claims to be fighting by substituting one victim group with another. I am willing to concede that many SJWs have their heart in the right place, but it appears they just haven't thought it through to its logical conclusion. The concrete actions of many social justice warriors today demonstrates an audacious degree of hypocrisy that suggests they are completely lacking in self-reflection or the ability to be objective while pursuing what increasingly appears to be a radical ideology of revenge that is erroneously described as "justice". That this is not self-apparent to those perpetrating the hypocrisy indicates that the skills of critical thinking and logic have not only remained unlearned, but that the educational establishment within which it has gestated is not interested in teaching it to them.
.
.
.
Shot with a golden arrow,
.
.
.
Don't forget to upvote, follow and resteem! Comments always appreciated.
.
.
.
All gifs courtesy of Giphy
Ayn Rand Quote: source
tags: politics justice society life logic
Here's the problem, and the answer to why your title exists:
"social justice movement's desire to achieve a just society"
SJWs do not want to achieve a just society. They actively work against justice, wanting quotas and special treatment.
When you realize that SJWism is a supremacy movement to help the SJWs themselves (make their gender studies degrees more valuable, make their violently anti-justice viewpoints more culturally acceptable, get more hiring quotas that favor them, etc.), then everything else will fall into place.
"Contemporary Social Justice is Antithetical to Meritocracy"
"the current social justice movement is now exacerbating precisely those injustices it claims to be fighting"
Ah, you already knew all that, then. Well done.
Relevant:
I like your point about the social justice movement being about making gender studies / social justice degrees (yes, there are social justice degree programs!) more valuable. Looked at that way, the promotion of this ideology could be seen to be creating a new industry that, perversely, seems to financially incentivize creating victim groups which are then granted special treatment, entitlements or privileges, financial or otherwise, which encourages the creation of more victim groups.... wash, rinse, repeat. Have to think about that some more, there is definitely a post in there somewhere.
...
Just finished watching the video you posted, that is some great stuff!
I look forward to the post this spawns.
It would only take a small amount, 1-5%, of claimed SJWs to be in it for this reason, and they could make substantial headway. They've pretty much taken over a bunch of colleges already. The foolish 20-year-olds who will later be ashamed of their Marxism are just providing cover for the real sharks.
I got around to writing that up the other day, you might be interested in it (I split it into two parts due the length, the link to the second is in the first: The Vicious Cycle of Social Justice Indoctrination - Part 1. Part 2 goes into the self-edifying effect of ideology propagation in the educational establishment.
You might also be interest in my latest: Horror on the Horizon - Cultural Misappropriation and The Politics of Oppression.
I'll try to catch up on all those, thank you.
Given that many feminists are sheeple, and incapable of independent thought (perhaps indisposed might be more precise than incapable), the supremacist ideology that impels the movement is clearly imposed on them, rather than being derived from them. I expect that it is a prong of the fork of D&C being applied to the general population, yet another mechanism that potentiates the fracturing of a society being suppressed for the good of the ruling class.
With this in mind, I have considered how those of us who are not psychopaths, or sheeple, might best utilize this sub-population in order to best govern ourselves.
See my comment below for specific thoughts on how to do that.
Agreed. The younger generation, which make up most of the "footsoldiers" of the new Marxist movements, are not the sources of the ideology. They are just easily swayed into not thinking for themselves since, as you noted, they're not predisposed to doing it voluntarily.
After all, it's hard and often boring, and American Idol is on.
Great post! I think you hit on a lot of the problems with the SJW movement. I would just add I believe many of these problems come from a basic disagreement over human nature. The social justice movement, as a product of its Marxist origins as you mention, is fundamentally opposed to freedom and individual rights. They believe people are evil in nature and have to be coerced into doing the right thing. Hence the bully tactics in arguing their point also come from their authority of knowing what's best for everyone else and their perceived moral highground. They don't want honest conversation, or liberty for all. With social justice (justice by group identity) individual justice is not desired because that may suggest we are actually responsible for our own actions. I was just recently writing about this too. https://steemit.com/politics/@daodesam/political-theories-on-human-nature-2017729t20123595z
"Marxist origins as you mention, is fundamentally opposed to freedom and individual rights. "
You said it. These people must be rooted out and destroyed, if necessary. They are cancer to the liberal west (that once existed).
Right on. I would also say that the Marxist origins have roots in an even older antihuman force that has always been the enemy of life, freedom, and creativity https://steemit.com/got/@daodesam/the-enemy-we-don-t-believe-in-2017730t234537712z
I've put up another one that might interest you: Horror on the Horizon - Cultural Misappropriation and The Politics of Oppression.
Interesting, I'll check that article out.
Thanks for the feedback and those are some really nice points you raised, I will definitely check out your blog.
As scholars of Marxism have pointed out, "Democracy presupposes the effectiveness of reason — that individuals can observe, think, and judge for themselves, that they can learn from experience, be open to argument, and change their minds. Marxism, however, rules that out on epistemological principle: knowledge is conditioning, not rational judgment."
Based on that, I am not sure SJWs believe people are so much predisposed to evil as incapable of thinking for themselves (oh, the irony!). Thus if people are raised inside a system that is structurally biased they have no choice but to biased themselves - how exactly the SJWs managed to break free from structural bias remains unaddressed, perhaps they believe themselves exceptional insofar as they were able exercise rational judgement whereas everyone else is conditioned into mental slavery? I think I smell doublethink, but maybe there is another explanation.
And I believe you are correct, the social justice movement does not appear to want justice or liberty for individuals, only for groups, which necessitates the subordination of the individual and thus eliminates the individual's potential for freedom.
I wholeheartedly agree. I don't think most individual SJW's believe people are evil; many adopt and espuse the philosophy because they love people and think it's the best way to give the most the fairest shot. I meant the ideology it's built on asserts that people ultimately can't be trusted to make their own decisions and have to be forced into a collective beneficial to them. It's like original sin: humans are impure in their natural state and have to be saved by an external force.
Your comprehensive feedback is live :)
Here is Part Two of Issue #7 for your convenience:
https://steemit.com/buildawhale/@buildawhale/curation-digest-issue-7-part-ii
Congrats again :)
Namaste
I believe that a large part of the problem in the social justice movement is an inability to articulate precisely what it is that they find offensive about something, such as 'cultural appropriation'. If it is (as one person was able to communicate, albeit in an over-the-top manner) about turning something something that speaks of poverty and oppression into today's fashion trend, then that argument is better grounded than simply 'that's XYZ culture; don't copy it!'. This coherency is strongly lacking in the movement, which is causing some valid points to be instantly dismissed by people who look only at the messenger, and not the message.
And then, there are the hangers-on who don't have an idea what it is all about, except that it is fashionable to shout slogans (that they can't understand, either). This is a problem that plagues most movements, political or social. Unfortunately, there is nothing that can be done to make people stop doing something simply because their friends are 'into it', and they want to be, too.
The inarticulate nature of SJ outrage is definitely a problem, it makes any rational response almost impossible, as the events at Yale and the cultural appropriation outrage over Halloween costumes adequately demonstrated. I am currently working on a piece about the unintended long term consequences of cultural misappropriation outrage, I hope you'll stay tuned for that in the next few days. I've been working on it a while, but the lack of logical consistency makes treating all of these SJ issues very thorny.
Trendy lemmings are unquestionably amplifiers of the friction in society, participating in order to virtue signal while having very little understanding of the issues. This bandwagon effect is intentionally manipulated to grow political movements (and ideologies, religions etc.) by vacuuming up what Marxists call "useful idiots".
The advocacy of socialism is a perfect example on college campuses today:
What a telling video! The utterly blank, deer in the headlights, look of those that had just waxed prosaic regarding socialism, when asked what it is, perfectly exemplifies the entire class of people that are best defined as sheeple. The question clearly delineates the mechanism by which those people fabricate their world view.
They do not personally consider issues, facts, or information, but rather social inclusion alone. They simply align their views with the promoted zeitgeist, and the factual basis for the issues isn't even relevant.
I have seen little published research (I haven't looked for it either. I assume TPTB are so dependent on this mechanism that public awareness of it is suppressed), but suspect up to 1/3 of the general population fits, more or less, into this category.
The other two categories aren't co-equal in number, with controllers (psychopaths) constituting ~1-3%, and 'normal' people (those capable of freedom), comprising the balance.
Accordingly, governance should be developed in order that these folks, and their masters, are allowed their desired inclusion in the productive herds, while the rest of us can go about the business of dealing with actual issues.
Neither psychopaths nor their willing prey are suited to such endeavor, due to their proclivity for social control.
There has been a lot of research done on conformity and obedience to authority, the most famous being the Milgram Experiment and the second most being The Standford Prison Experiment (which got a cinematic adaptation). The Asch Conformity Experiment is a famous one on group conformity.
Here's a short piece on the Milgram Experiment:
Asch Conformity Experiment:
And this classic gif:
Regarding suppression, well, I certainly have never heard the MSM actually advise people to form their own opinions or do their own research. Considering the MSM has become a mechanism of control in itself, that shouldn't be surprising. Thanks for the response!
Important experiments that everyone should know about.
"We have met the enemy and he is us."
LOL according the the Asch experiment, conformity was 37%. That's pretty close to 1/3, which was my working estimate of sheeple.
I much prefer Asch to the Milgram, or Stanford prison experiments, as there is far less psych trauma ;)
Well, that is an interesting video. Kids today are too used to using word-salads to hide their cluelessness when asked to define what they can't be bothered to look into. I like the term 'trendy lemmings', btw. Oh, and you really should look into what some of these people who want holidays banned on the grounds of 'cultural appropriation' actually believe they are about. If I recall correctly, I once saw one where a young lady was easily led to believe (as a prank) that St. Patrick's day had something to do with black slavery... .
Cultural appropriation is on my list of topics to treat, where I will be focusing on the long term backfire that could result if that sort of segregational idiocy actually becomes a dominant factor in society. I hadn't considered the aspect of holidays being cultural appropriation, will have to look that up. Thanks for the input!
I got around to treating cultural appropriation, it might interest you! Horror on the Horizon - Cultural Misappropriation and The Politics of Oppression.
Whoa, great essay! Upvoted and followed!
Thanks! I checked out your blog and found a voluntarist, that's great! Wish there were more of us.
Nice to meet you! There are more of us than you'd think :)
Great write up. There is so much in here I may have to go back and read it again. Even though you pretty much had me with the GIF Brilliant!
The thing with SJW'S we should realize is they are generally speaking, hurt, brain damaged, unruly little children trapped in big people bodies.
Once you connect those dots they make perfect sense in their reactionary insanity.
Following.
Looking forward to more in the future. Steem on!
Thanks for the kind comment, glad to have won another follower! I am currently working on a whole cycle of posts treating different aspects of the SJ movement and hope they will appeal to you as much as this one. Your comment about "unruly little children" leads me to believe you will like what is coming up later today. Cheers!
You said you were looking forward to more, my most recent one is up: Horror on the Horizon - Cultural Misappropriation and The Politics of Oppression. Not sure if you saw my two-parter that started with The Vicious Cycle of Social Justice Indoctrination - Part 1, it might interest you as well.
Exceptional post. Very well thought out and I am still watching some of these videos which are intense. I resteemed this earlier, but this is a truly a great post.
Thanks Deva! The more of your stuff I have read, the more your positive feedback means. As I mentioned in another response, I am in the middle of writing up a whole cycle of social justice posts that I was brainstorming on while traveling this summer. So stay tuned!
Congratulations @cupidzero! You have completed some achievement on Steemit and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :
Click on any badge to view your own Board of Honor on SteemitBoard.
For more information about SteemitBoard, click here
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOPI agree completely. To me, academe should be a structured environment in which one is free to fully and vigorously pursue knowledge and scientific truth, unfettered by dogma or apology. No preconceived notions, no biases, no euphemisms and no censorship should get in the way. No topic should be beyond debate. No one's cow is sacred.
I remember once when I was in grad school and one of the professors was asking us how various seminars were going. Another grad student, a devout Catholic, reported that she thought that people in her comparative religion seminar shouldn't be allowed to debate the Trinity because it was offensive to Catholics! And I remember thinking (yes, I was too chicken to say this out loud), "In that case it's no longer an academic subject. You are removing it from the academic context and placing it into a religious one. If there is any topic that is exempted from debate on religious grounds, the seminar shouldn't be a seminar. "
Do you follow Professor Jonathan Haidt and the Heterodox Academy? If not, I would highly recommend you read his articles and watch his Youtube videos. He is one of the heroes who is speaking up for "viewpoint diversity" and against safe spaces, censorship, trigger warnings and the rest of the creeping neofascism that has taken over our universities. Here's the website of the Heterodox Academy: https://heterodoxacademy.org.
Thanks for your response, I very much appreciate your perspective on how research should be conducted (or be allowed to be conducted). "No one's cow is sacred," that is a beautiful phrase. The anecdote about your comparative religion seminar was insightful, fortunately I have very rarely encountered Christians or Catholics that are so faithful that it interferes with academic study (three times total I think), though in my experience other religious persuasions can be very vocal.
Haidt... had to think about it.... I think I included the article he wrote "The Coddling of the American Mind" in Part 2 of the Safe Space posts as further reading; his name hadn't stuck, but I am familiar with his work. As you can see I read and reference a lot of stuff via hyperlinks in my posts, I am one of those people who is great at remembering content and arguments but probably don't focus enough on remembering names. The Heterodox Academy also rings a bell... I will take a closer look... Just went through their site, that is some great stuff ... if I wanted to go back to the states, I would apply for the director position they are advertising right now. On the other hand, maybe not, having to deal with the Marxists every day sounds like slamming my head into the wall.
As to the neofacist anti-free speech front at the universities, it isn't "creeping", it's smashing windows, bloodying people with bicycle locks and threatening people's lives for not being as "tolerant" as it is. Honestly, it looks like most of the liberal arts departments, especially gender studies and social justice departments need to be abolished or they are going to completely collapse the institutions in which they have a foothold.
Thanks for taking the time for such thoughtful replies!
Yes, I also tend to remember content over names, but I kept seeing Haidt's name over and over and I started to follow him.
If I hadn't dropped out of my Ph.D. program and left the academic world I would love to get more involved with this movement. I also had the impulse to apply for the position at Heterodox Academy, but I do not know how to launch or run a non-profit organization!
Unfortunately, this bullshit seems to have invaded the UK and Canada as well, and god knows where it will go next? I thought that my beloved Oxford would be immune to this nonsense, but then I read that story about Christchurch - the angels wept!
Indeed you are right that neofascism hasn't "crept" at all. It has inundated. All of this baloney was already underway when I was at Berkeley in the early 90s. It just hadn't spread to mainstream universities back then. And I hated it and hated identity politics the whole time I was there, and I naively thought, "Thank god I'm leaving this all behind in Berzerkley where it belongs."
However - let us not give in to despair. We have to stick around and fight, and keep eyes on this situation, and find and support other people who can still see clearly. I am making a list (a very short list) of universities that have taken a stand against these toddler-terrorists, the University of Chicago being the most well known one. I am hoping that list is going to grow.
I am also watching schools like Mizzou suffer massive drops in enrollment and alumni donations following their debacle a couple of years ago. It is heartening to me to see that the public is as disgusted with this as we are.
When I left the states, ca. 2000, the social justice movement had not as yet revealed itself as the Trojan Horse for social division, it was a bit over the top at times, but nothing like we see today. And as you noted, it has already invaded (infected may be a better term) the anglophone academic sphere and is now an epidemic sweeping the European continent as well.
Many of my colleagues though the European scene would be a rational bulwark against the madness up until around the year 2010, but today they recognize they underestimated its virulence and many are resigned to things going the way of the states. "It will take a crisis to reset the system, and we aren't there yet," is how one of them summarized the situation. It looks like the States went over the precipice with the Evergreen State College debacle, at least I hope it did, but even if it did the climax of the crisis is going to take a very long time to manifest.
For my part, I haven't given in to despair, if anything the bullshit I have had to deal with made me reevaluate my approach and redouble my efforts in a (hopefully) more effective way. I have seen that I am making inroads among my students today, but it is like trying to dance in a minefield, you have to watch your step.