Social Justice

Yes, I left out the "Warrior" part of this hot topic. The post you're about to read explains why, in my opinion, the "social" part should be left out as well.

In "Social Justice Warrior" (SJW), it's the "Warrior" part that makes it a pejorative term, because it's a play on "Keyboard Warrior", which is defined in the Urban Dictionary as:

A Person who, being unable to express his anger through physical violence (owning to their physical weakness, lack of bravery and/or conviction in real life), instead manifests said emotions through the text-based medium of the internet, usually in the form of aggressive writing that the Keyboard Warrior would not (for reasons previously mentioned) be able to give form to in real life.

The term is a combination of the word 'keyboard' (the main tool by which the person expresses his/her latent rage) and 'warrior' (due to the warrior-like aggression, tendency towards violence, headstrong nature and propensity towards brute force as a means of resolving conflict rather than more subtle means dependant on finesse).

Keyboard Warriors are generally identified by unnecessary rage in their written communications, and are regarded as 'losers' by other virtual identities on the internet.
_{source: Urban Dictionary}

As you can see, the definition contains all the attributes ascribed to the Social Justice Warriors by their opponents, usually found among the far right or alt-right keyboard warriors and politicians. These anti-SJW posts are usually accompanied by pictures of blue- or purple-haired, screaming feminists, and often claim to have come from a "red-pilled" mind. Now, we could just ignore these anti-SJW warriors, or ridicule them, because who in their right mind is against social justice? But that's too easy. Sure, a handful of them are true misogynist and/or racist assholes, no doubt. But most of them share the expressed goal of social justice. Their opinion of the SJWs is, ironically, skewed by the "Warrior" part. They see SJWs as people who wage war on society in order to achieve social justice, and accuse them of giving the rights of suppressed social groups a higher priority than individual rights. They see the war for social justice as a war against individualism and individual rights, and they fear that a social justice order will destroy any individual rights and make life a living hell for the entire community in the name of social righteousness.

That's how I have come to understand the root of the opposition to SJWs. And these people, sadly, fall for the same trap that liberals and conservatives fall for when they repeat Martin Luther King Jr.'s quote about wanting his children to live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. You see, this quote is popular among the right and left-of-center liberals, because it's easy to explain it as a call for "color-blindness", and that MLK called only for equality. But that's not true. MLK called for reparations and many more policies explicitly aimed at lifting up African Americans. In his eyes it is necessary to give African Americans preferential special treatment to catch up with America's white population. Only when that necessary leveling of the playing field is done, can we even begin to speak of equality.

In other words: if we agree that certain social groups start in a position of suppression, they need to be given certain privileges to be raised to the level of equality the rest of society already enjoys. This is nothing new or special, we already do it by defining "protected groups" in the laws against discrimination by the government, landlords and businesses that say individuals can't be refused on ground of their ethnicity, race, gender, sexual orientation, religion and so on. There's no discrimination law for whites or men because they're already included; a restaurant can't refuse you because you're a white heterosexual man, just as it can't refuse you because you're a black lesbian woman. It's just that historically the white heterosexual man has always enjoyed all the "equal rights" the nation has to offer, women, blacks and homosexuals had to fight to get those rights, and they all started with a deficit when they finally got those rights.

The anti-SJWs only see that all those protected groups already have equal rights under the law. The war is over and social justice has won. But they reckon without the deficit the protected groups accumulated during the generations they didn't have equal rights. They also deny the existence of systemic injustices against those groups. Laws don't have to contain the words "African American" in order to be biased against African Americans; just look at gerrymandering and redlining, the latter of which is literally described in Wikipedia as "a discriminatory practice in which services are withheld from potential customers who reside in neighborhoods classified as "hazardous" to investment; these neighborhoods have significant numbers of racial and ethnic minorities, and low-income residents."

Just like conservatives and right-wingers, the anti-SJWs have trouble with collectivist ideas and policies. They claim that fighting for groups is the same as neglecting the individual, which is simply not true. Sure, some SJWs take it too far and genuinely fail to recognize the individuals that make up the group. But let me just say this: anti-SJW warriors treat SJWs as a homogeneous group as well when they criticize them. I'll remind them of Matthew 7:3 which says: "And why do you look at the splinter in your brother's eye, but not notice the beam in your own eye?" Make no mistake: the fight for the rights of social groups is fighting for the rights and freedoms of the individuals in those groups.

I occasionally do agree with the anti-SJWs. For example when so called "equal representation" goes too far in the casting of roles for film and TV. I have nothing against Asian or Asian looking people, but it's a fact that Asians are often cast just to cater to the considerable Asian and especially the Chinese market. I have nothing against gender-fluidity or rainbows, but it's a fact that corporations and businesses display rainbows on their products just to sell more of them, to capture a wider market. And they're successful doing it, so the anti-SJW war-cry "Go Woke, Go Broke" is not based in reality.

In the end however, social justice is a cause worth fighting for. The fight for the equal rights and treatment for marginalized groups is a good fight. But... Why make social justice special? Equal rights for women, homosexuals and so on is the same as fighting for all other equal rights. That's where the emphasis belongs, on equal rights, and it doesn't matter if they're social, legal, political or economic rights. We should all be "Justice Warriors", where "Justice" implies an equal playing field in our individual lifes among all other individuals in society.

But it's easy, certainly in these times with search-algorithms feeding us "recommended" content based on our search- and viewing-history, to fall down the "anti-SJW rabbit-hole". Another name for this is the "alt-right pipeline". However easy it is to understand why people, especially on the political right, get turned off by SJW rhetoric, falling down that rabbit-hole too deep often leads to not only a confirmation of the current political, social and economical status quo, but venturing into the extreme versions of the confirmation. Ultimately you'll be led to the opinion that everything is fine as it is, and the reactionary response towards those who don't share that belief, the SJWs, leads to alt-right and even fascist extremes. Watch the below linked video for a great explanation of how this works.

Thanks so much for visiting my blog and reading my posts dear reader, I appreciate that a lot :-) If you like my content, please consider leaving a comment, upvote or resteem. I'll be back here tomorrow and sincerely hope you'll join me. Until then, stay safe, stay healthy!