The Newly-Minted Totalitarian Left: Millennial Social Justice Advocacy
Some wise observations by Aristotelis Orginos at Medium.com about the authoritarian left -- which I've renamed the "totalitarian" left, per this blog item I posted a few days ago:
Millennial social justice advocates have warped an admirable cause for social, economic, and political equality into a socially authoritarian movement that has divided and dehumanized individuals on the basis of an insular ideology guised as academic theory. The modern social justice movement launched on Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, Jezebel, Slate, Huffington Post, et al. is far more reminiscent of a Red Scare (pick one) than the Civil Rights Movement.When George Orwell wrote Nineteen Eighty-Four (and here some will lambast me for picking a white male author from a historically colonialist power despite the fact that he fought and wrote against this colonialism), he wrote it to warn against the several dangers of extremism on either side of the political spectrum. Orwell's magnum opus is about authoritarianism on both ends of the political spectrum. If the arc of the moral universe bends toward justice, then the arc of the political spectrum bends toward authoritarianism at both ends.
The very fact that I am drawing a connection between the text most referenced when discussing politics-gone-bad is a problem in itself. But it warrants further exploration.
2+2=5 "In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality, was tacitly denied by their philosophy."
-- George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-FourThis particular brand of social justice advocacy assaults reason in a particularly frightening way -- by outright denying it and utilizing fear-mongering to discourage dissent. There is no gray: only black and white. One must mimic the orthodoxy or be barred forcibly from the chapel and jeered at by the townspeople. To disagree with the millennial social justice orthodoxy is to make a pariah of oneself willingly. Adherence to the narrative is the single litmus test for collegiate (and beyond) social acceptance these days.
...The version of millennial social justice advocacy that I have spoken about -- one that uses Identity Politics to balkanize groups of people, engenders hatred between groups, willingly lies to push agendas, manipulates language to provide immunity from criticism, and that publicly shames anyone who remotely speaks some sort of dissent from the overarching narrative of the orthodoxy -- is not admirable. It is deplorable. It appeals to the basest of human instincts: fear and hatred. It is not an enlightened or educated position to take. History will not look kindly on this Orwellian, authoritarian pervision of social justice that has taken social media and millennials by storm over the past few years.
I think a big part of the problem is that what was formerly a "culture of debate" on college campuses has become the culture of debate not allowed/debate is racist and mean!
If you aren't schooled in debate -- for example, how to debate and the fact that it's an integral part of a free (and healthy) society -- it's easy to veer off into finding debate disagreeable and mean instead of essential for making problems (and society) better.
Oh, and by the way, without debate, the ugliness that would have been debated doesn't go away; it just goes underground -- where it can't be seen, heard about, or challenged.
Good job, millennial SJWs!
Given the talk about taking down monuments and such, the real money quote from 1984 is the one aboue rewriting history: "Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past."
1984 was written as a warning; here they go again, thinking it's an instruction book.
a_random_guy at July 11, 2015 10:37 PM
If only they were this strident about civil liberties. If they would work on the big things, these little things would sort themselves out along the way.
Canvasback at July 12, 2015 2:21 AM
"If you aren't schooled in debate -- for example, how to debate and the fact that it's an integral part of a free (and healthy) society -- it's easy to veer off into finding debate disagreeable and mean instead of essential for making problems (and society) better."
I think *debate* is the problem in itself. Many debate tactics are devices to win an argument in a competitive format.
They are not a reasonable discussion in an objective format.
When the goal is to *win* it is impossible to concede that the person on the other side of the argument might be right.
Isab at July 12, 2015 2:25 AM
But, Isab, being comfortable with debating is a way to be comfortable with the idea that there is not just one idea, one way.
Amy Alkon at July 12, 2015 5:17 AM
Things have changed since Orwell's time. Who ever controls the data base controls the past.
Fred Mallison at July 12, 2015 6:32 AM
As people in the US more and more date and marry across racial lines and create mixed race children, the social justice warriors insist on sharper racial divisions. Why is someone with a white parent and a black parent to be called black? And what if the "black" parent is only rather brownish...oh no, he is still black. So we get the absurd results that someone with all white blood but a Spanish surname is a minority and a mixed race person living in the suburbs is a victim of injustice. Meanwhile a white teenager from a broken home living in Detroit with no opportunities is invisible. It is insane.
Craig l at July 12, 2015 10:25 AM
So we get the absurd results that someone with all white blood but a Spanish surname is a minority
But a man of South American Latin decent is called a "white hispanic" when he killed a black man in self defense
lujlp at July 12, 2015 10:28 AM
Horseshoe theorists argue that the extreme left and the extreme right are a lot more similar than members of either group would admit.
In what they want to achieve, no.
But in their tactics -- e.g., as Orginos puts it, "publicly sham[ing] anyone who remotely speaks some sort of dissent from the overarching narrative of the orthodoxy" -- yes.
JD at July 12, 2015 11:46 AM
Who ever controls the data base controls the past.
The Chinese just called and said "Hi".
I R A Darth Aggie at July 12, 2015 11:47 AM
The Goddess writes: Good job, millennial SJWs!
I find it interesting and somehow sad that SJW is used as a pejorative. It prompts me to ask, "You mean, you aren't a social justice warrior?"
You don't believe in equal rights or fair treatment of all members of society, particularly those that have little voice to speak for themselves?
I accept that some people have a lot to do and might not necessarily think that social justice is not their cause to champion, but how cynical do you have to be to think that people who fight for social justice are bad people.
I accept those who don't have the time or the ability to champion social justice, but seriously, don't knock those that do. The time may come when you yourself will need someone to stand up for you.
Patrick at July 12, 2015 2:34 PM
Yes SJW is a pejorative for good reason. Anytime you see the word "social" modifying a concept you can substitute the term "selfish agenda." You either want justice for everyone or you don't. Social justice implies that some of societies groups deserve more justice than others.
You believe in equal rights then fight for equal justice for all.
You believe in fair treatment then fight for fair treatment for all.
Not just specific social groups.
Jay at July 12, 2015 3:11 PM
"You don't believe in equal rights or fair treatment of all members of society,..."
I do; that's why I'm not a SJW>
dee nile at July 12, 2015 3:27 PM
I find it interesting and somehow sad that SJW is used as a pejorative. It prompts me to ask, "You mean, you aren't a social justice warrior?"
You don't believe in equal rights or fair treatment of all members of society, particularly those that have little voice to speak for themselves?
People who seek to modify words like "equality", and "justice" with prepositional modifiers have no interest in justice and equality.
lujlp at July 12, 2015 6:18 PM
Patrick you should really look into the origin or the term, and who it's applied to, before taking offense.
SJW's don't believe in equal rights, and certainly not fairness. Their definition of social justice is 'compensatory' - meaning that oppressed groups should have greater rights and dispensations than 'privileged' groups.
That's why they generally reject civil and universal rights - like due process, freedom of speech and assembly, sovereignty of conscience etc..
I'm not kidding, you should really look into it.
leon at July 12, 2015 6:26 PM
I'll lump in with everyone else. Social justice is neither. If you believe in universal and equal rights then you aren't a SJW. In reality SJW just stands for modern day racist and bigot.
Ben at July 12, 2015 6:40 PM
"Rachel Sklar, who confirmed for posterity that she considers “women who speak of their own experiences” to be automatically “credible,”
So, Emmett Till was a rapist, and while his lynching was wrong, he should have been tried before a jury?
The Scottsboro Boys got what they deserved?
KateC at July 12, 2015 8:17 PM
"Many debate tactics are devices to win an argument in a competitive format... They are not a reasonable discussion in an objective format."
Yeah, the thing that's already happened is that our debate has lots its connection with reason. Our politicans today see debate not as a search for enlightenment, but as a power exercise in which the goal is to silence or humiliate the other side. And it's the very people whose ideas would clearly be seen to be unjustifiable, if looked at in a rational light, who have made it that way -- specifically because they know that in a debate grounded in reason, they won't get what they want. Their arguments are basically highly developed and very sophisticated temper tantrums, and they're going to continue to yell and scream and kick the sides of the crib until the parents give in.
Cousin Dave at July 13, 2015 7:48 AM
And Patrick, think of what happened to the word "feminism". The term "social justice warrier" has been stolen, and it's probably irretrievable now.
Cousin Dave at July 13, 2015 7:50 AM
http://thoughtcatalog.com/joshua-goldberg/2014/12/when-social-justice-warriors-attack-one-tumblr-users-experience/
"SJWs – almost all of whom are white, upper-middle-class college students – picture themselves as persecuted, oppressed crusaders for peace and equality. But, upon any level of inspection, this claim immediately falls apart. I have been on the Internet since I was a small child and I have perused some of the most extreme and disturbing corners of the web. I have had personal encounters with every manner of vile cretin – the sorts of people who would make even Charles Manson himself blush. With that said, never have I encountered anyone who was so giddy about their hatred than the people who make up the SJW community. These are people who, on a regular basis, call for violence and genocide against “oppressors”, whether it’s white people, heterosexual people, thin people, or just anyone who even slightly disagrees with them."
Conan the Grammarian at July 13, 2015 12:27 PM
There is an even uglier aspect than the Neo-McCarthyist modus operandi of these people and the puppets who apparently cave to their rhetoric in major media and even HR departments:
The heart of their assertions and their campaign for certain groups to be "more equal than others" is white supremacy.
By claiming "cis white men" must be subjected to systemic discrimination in order for persons of color to advance, they are tacitly implying "cis white men" are fundamentally superior.
It's bigoted both on its face (systemic discrimination) and on its back (implying PoC's are fundamentally inferior).
It's absolutely maddening watching such blatant racism walk right in the front door just because they dressed it in a tux!
aewehr at July 14, 2015 4:14 PM
That's the kind of thing George W. Bush was referring to when he decried the "soft bigotry of low expectations."
Conan the Grammarian at July 14, 2015 7:27 PM
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