How Social "Justice" Is Actually Social Stalinism
Writer Cathy Young, whose real last name is probably a bunch of consonants having a bumpercar war, is from Russia. (Or so I'm guessing, anyway.)
She recently interviewed a Russian novelist for The Daily Beast and was struck by his description of a district Communist Party committee meeting. She noted "an uncanny resemblance" to the Social Justice crew.
Young notes, "The online gang-ups on accused transgressors against political correctness ... have become a common feature of the 'social justice' community."
She continues:
The tragicomic scene, which takes place in a provincial Soviet town in the fall of 1941, shows a meeting of the district Communist Party committee which holds hearings on several cases of alleged violations of the Party code of conduct.It's all here: the casual, innocuous remark interpreted as offensive; the demand for confession and repentance; the notion that maintaining one's innocence or trying to minimize the "offense" compounds guilt; the escalating, absurdly ballooning accusations in which everything the accused says or does is taken as further proof of guilt; the pressure on members of the community to join the mob to demonstrate their own allegiance to the One True Ideology; the lack of human sympathy elevated to a virtue; the notion that proper "humanism" is not manifested in compassion but in "relentless war on all manifestations of hostile ideas."
Ugly.
It's the religion of "shut up and do as we say -- and even think as we say." And even then, you might not be safe.
The young SJW do not know about Stalin, Hitler, Mao and the millions upon millions of deaths they caused. So it's all SOCIAL JUSTICE to them.
Bob in Texas at July 14, 2015 5:10 AM
Writer Cathy Young, whose real last name is probably a bunch of consonants having a bumpercar war
___________________________________
Only if you use the Russian alphabet, which takes its letters from the Cyrillic script.
Otherwise, according to Wikipedia, her name was Ekaterina Jung.
lenona at July 14, 2015 6:32 AM
I was having a little fun there. I do have access to Wikipedia. Next time I need somebody to rain on my parade, I'll count on you to bring the bucket!
Amy Alkon at July 14, 2015 6:39 AM
So, tie the accuse witch up and throw him in the river.
If he floats, he's a witch.
If he doesn't, he was innocent and deserves a nice funeral.
I R A Darth Aggie at July 14, 2015 6:46 AM
I was having a little fun there.
Social justice worriers tend to also be literalists. So if you make rhetorical flourishes to enliven your speech, they'll say you're inaccurate.
Or lying.
I R A Darth Aggie at July 14, 2015 6:47 AM
One of the main tactics of a totalitarian government is to keep people divided, and fomenting suspicion and paranoia (by dropping in a few agents as necessary) is a great way to do that. It keeps the hoi-polloi from getting any ideas.
Cousin Dave at July 14, 2015 7:00 AM
Hmm. Social Justice.
I suspect that this does not mean what you think it means.
It is also what happens when public opinion, manipulated by the media's dire need to sell Kleenex, judges someone absent any shred of evidence.
Like George Zimmerman. Darren Wilson. The Duke LaCrosse team. OJ Simpson.
"I saw this program on TV. I know he's guilty!" - Joe and Suzie Citizen, from the comfort of their couch.
And they are so confident in their wholly assumed authority that if the criminal court finds someone not guilty, they cheer when a civil court finds the same person responsible for a crime they were not shown to have committed - even as they would never, ever accept the same terms for any case in which they were the defendant.
Radwaste at July 14, 2015 11:49 AM
I was having a little fun there.
Check your privilege.
Steve Daniels at July 14, 2015 1:04 PM
I have seen this where I work and its very disturbing.
Someone talked about a video game, one of those first person shooter types, to someone who I will assume is their friend, saying that it was their method of relaxation to go kill things.
A 3rd person overheard them and filed a complaint saying the the first guys words constituted a "threat of workplace violence" and that she felt "personally threatened and at risk".
I also saw the incident. It was clear that they were discussing a video game.
The first guy was given a written warning letter from our manager and HR. The rest of us are being encouraged to report anything about him that may make us feel uncomfortable, all in the name of "transparency, PC and safety".
Kelly at July 14, 2015 5:56 PM
Is your company's management actively trying to turn this guy into a workplace shooter? 'cause that's the way I'd do it.
Conan the Grammarian at July 14, 2015 7:21 PM
//The young SJW do not know about Stalin, Hitler, Mao and the millions upon millions of deaths they caused.//
This is the most disturbing part to me as someone who identified these same tendencies when the atheist / skeptic communities were undermined, then overrun, first rumblings starting way back in 2007 - not only ignorance of history, but actual contempt for it as some kind of artificial white patriarchal construct. History has no value and should be ignored (and it's books burned) - at least until it can be rewritten from the 'correct' perspective.
This was etched into my mind quite starkly after an encounter with a (no shit) Oxford educated millennial that maintained with a serious and earnest face that the Freethought movement had its origins in early 20th century socialism (Gramsci, Adorno and co.) and had nothing to do with the Enlightenment. For real. This is the kind of nitwit that now gets churned out of some of our most prestigious seats of learning.
SJWs want to obliterate history entirely. History is their enemy. They want a clean slate, a Year Zero. The latter Pol Pot reference flies over their heads as well.
franc at July 15, 2015 12:48 AM
Steve: Sounds to me like your co-worker was targeted for removal before he made those remarks and they were being used against him as pretext. I'm pretty sure that's what really happened to Brendan Eich at Mozilla: an awful lot of people in the company didn't want him as CEO, for reasons unrelated to his personal politics, and his Prop 8 contribution was used as the excuse for forcing him out.
Today's SJWs are, by and large, adolescent wannabe revolutionaries, and hence talk like adolescent wannabe revolutionaries. Unlike real revolutionaries, what they're really fighting for is the furtherance of adolescent antagonisms and resentments; I call it "tween clique rivalry on steroids".
ebohlman at July 15, 2015 3:59 AM
"Steve: Sounds to me like your co-worker was targeted for removal before he made those remarks and they were being used against him as pretext. "
Not necessarily. You can make lots of points with management, stockholders, the government and the media, by throwing white male employees under the bus. It can be anybody, and all you need to do is find a pretense. Women employees in particular realize that they can advance their careers in this way, and some of them aren't shy about saying so.
There's a woman in our office who has lost a lot of weight over the past half year. I almost complimented her on it the other day, then I caught myself. It's not that I worry that she would file a complaint -- she doesn't strike me as the type. But anyone who overheard me could file a third-party complaint. I've had it done to me before. And as in the case of the campus things, accusation is proof, and no defense is possible or permitted.
Cousin Dave at July 15, 2015 6:55 AM
Today's SJWs are, by and large, adolescent wannabe revolutionaries, and hence talk like adolescent wannabe revolutionaries.
Welcome to your new overlords.
Stinky the Clown at July 16, 2015 7:43 AM
As I see it, the very phrase "social justice" seems to contain intrinsic self-contradiction .. it purports this notion of "social justice" as if it were somehow distinct from, presumably "plain" "justice", but there is only one kind of "justice" - "justice" itself, with no adjectival modifier .. if you have to prefix an adjectival modifier that changes it in any way, you are promoting something other than "justice", and hence promoting something *unjust* .... so if you really genuinely believe in justice, then there would be point saying you believe in "social" justice, because you would just say, "well, I believe in justice" (i.e. if any proposed 'social justice' system were *just*, then you could just say, "justice" is present - the 'social' would be redundant) ... so when someone peddles 'social justice', if you dig below the surface, they're usually advocating some form of injustice, dressed up as justice. Conversely, from the other perspective, when you promote 'social justice' you're implying that regular old "plain" justice is somehow deficient in what it claims to be (i.e. 'justice'). (This is not to say we have perfect justice systems, but that's a distinction between systems and principles.)
Lobster at July 16, 2015 4:51 PM
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