Were social justice warriors responsible for the election outcome?

[Asmodee]

Okay, is a "social justice warrior" a real thing or is that just what people are calling the bogeyman of the day because a tirade against it seems more legitimate if it has a name? Are there people out there who consider themselves to be "social justice warrior"? And if so, how many hours a week do they spend playing D&D? I like to play. Don't get me wrong. But it just seems to me that anyone who uses the word "warrior" to describe themselves, but doesn't actually do any physical fighting, probably plays a lot more than what would be considered "normal".

Regardless, I'm tired of hearing about this particular bogeyman.

[John V]

Now on FB I'm screwing with the SJWs by just accepting their charges. Drives them crazy. 

[Regina]

I think that reaction is real, personally

When you've got a situation where we've got used to shutting down anything perceived as "racist" speech with just that one word, and not actually using reasoned arguments to back up what we're saying, of course it's going to eventually backfire. Like I said in another post the other day, it shouldn't be difficult to convince someone why racism is not only wrong, but also damn stupid. But when the entire argument is "that's racist." they're not hearing what they need to hear to change their views.

Any post I've made on this forum where I'm arguing something "anti-racist" against someone who I perceive to have biased views, I deliberately avoid the r-word and have for a while. Why? I want to actually engage them and give them arguments they can think about. That goes so much further. Same with when I'm talking about gay issues, I'm not trigger-happy using "homophobic" either.

It's not talking about race that's the problem, it's the way "that's racist." is automatically accepted as a profound argument.

I do also think these hippy dippy arguments - "racism = prejudice + power, so People of Colour can't be racist" and "ALL white people are racist" do not help. All these do is alienate potential allies and oversimplify a complex issue.

[NuclearEnergy]

I think you might be onto something there.

[Esquilax]

If you're in a position where the only things you can think of that are preventing you from becoming one are that you don't want to be called one or treated like one... you probably already were one.

Not you specifically, Brewer, just following the patter. When I ask myself why I don't become a racist, not being called out as a racist doesn't even come up. The fundamental humanity and similarity of people of other races does. What is that saying about this hypothetical person you're talking about, if that doesn't register for them?

Just pointing out a potential reaction to extreme labeling.

I understand, but given that the logic that would cause one to come to that conclusion reflects a set of racist beliefs that were obviously already held, I think the issue isn't one of becoming racist, but enabling passing, casual racists to up their ante now they no longer fear social censure.

It's taking the leash off a dog that already exists, not creating a dog, essentially.

[vorlon13]

Election outcome?

Since the first day of Bill Clinton's presidency Hillary has been running for president, by my reckoning, upwards of 24 years. If she couldn't seal the deal in 24 fucking years, it is HER fucking fault.

Lord knows she's had fucking BUCKETS of fucking useful and practical advice along the way and ignored it all. She ran it her way and screwed the fucking pooch, royally.

I'll even reiterate, had she wanted the presidency body and soul she would have won. It was hers to lose for 24 years, and fucking dammit to hell, she fucking did exactly that.


It any more complicated than that, and this thrashing, twisting, contriving, whining and wheedling about the why of the failure is just fucking lame and it ignores the plentifully obvious fucking truth about Trump's win, Hillary had 24 years to pull it off, and she fucking wouldn't and couldn't, and it's all fucking on her 100 fucking %.

[Little lunch]

It's hard to pin down the definition of a social justice warrior.
It's just as hard to pin down the main prejudice of those who use the word.

[FatAndFaithless]

It's a pretty much useless term. Virtually nobody self-identifies with it (unlike say, Christian or atheist or liberal or conservative, for example), so it's up to each person to supply their own definition, which means no two are the same. It's become more or less a thing you call someone who is uncomfortably more liberal then you are in one area or another, though usually surrounding civil/human rights (hence the social justice part).

[paulpablo]

It's hard to pin down the definition of a social justice warrior.
It's just as hard to pin down the main prejudice of those who use the word.

It's not an official job title, it's just a sarcastic term to vaguely describe someone thinks everything is racist or sexist or whatever.

Take for example the term "over reacting" someone might say this guy is over reacting others might sympathise with the guy who is supposedly over reacting.

Someone might say by not using someone's chosen gender pronoun you're as bad a nazi then someone else might accuse that person of being an SJW. But it just depends who you agree with.

[TaraJo]

While I do see your point, I'm also kind of monumentally fucking frustrated that we're at this point now where if we don't couch the correct position in nice enough terms, this is somehow justification on its own for rejecting it. "Yeah I did the wrong thing! You were so mean in explaining what the right thing was!" These are the people that rail at PC culture and not being able to say disparaging shit about other groups, why exactly do they need this special treatment to be enticed to even considering a different position? 

There are big communication problems with the messaging on the left, but I think the landscape that conservative political rhetoric is constructing for its side makes it increasingly difficult to effectively deal with them. Bridging this curiously prevalent double standard- where they reserve the right to start shit with us in the interests of not being politically correct, while expecting a certain degree of obeisance to even come to the table of conversation at all- is problematic for a number of reasons, chief among them being that... well, a lot of the big mouthpieces on that side are already apt to take the mere existence of other positions is an anti-them message. That's exactly why we get the war on christmas crap every year, why atheist billboards get vandalized and liberal positions get spun into conspiracy theories about false flags.

Obviously not everyone on the right is like that, in fact I hope the majority aren't, but in voting for Trump what they've told us is that at the very least that shit is not a dealbreaker to them. It does raise the question of how we should be communicating with whatever groups led to this incoming administration, and how we do it without ceding more ground to them in the process.

Yeah, I mean, when it comes to the issues, I think the left is right that there are issues that need to be dealt with.  I mean, black people make up a heavy majority of the prison population.  Women make up 20% of the senate (and that's a comparatively high number).  GLBT people are still likely to suffer from emotional health issues, related in large part to our status as social pariahs.  

But.... how we deliver a message really does matter.

I mean, look at it this way: When I'm on lunch, at work, the break room is really crowded.  If someone is blocking my way to the microwave, I usually just say "Excuse me, I need to get to the microwave."  Generally speaking, they apologize and move for me.  Simple as that, right?  But what do you think would happen if, instead, I said "Get your fat ass out of my way, bitch!"  Well, it probably wouldn't go quite so smoothly for either one of us, despite the fact that I tried to communicate the same message.

It's communication basics here: if you keep delivering a message a certain way and it's never understood the way you want it understood and you never change anything about your message, it's not anyone else's fault that they STILL can't understand what you want them to understand.

But maybe this is just indicative of a larger societal problem: we don't communicate with people outside our niche.  Especially online.  The alt-right talks about feminists and transsexuals and communists and liberals and, sometimes, Jews, but they almost never talk to people in those groups.  Likewise, you go to liberal spaces and they're always talking about racists and misogynists and rapists and conservatives and religious fundamentalists, but none of them ever attempt to interact with people from those groups.  And neither side really does a good job of listening to the other side; the left just calls you a "white male" or a misogynist or racist and dismisses you while the right calls you a cuck or a degenerate and generally belittles you.  It's really frustrating to me, the problem that we're all so adamant that we be heard, but nobody is willing to listen to anyone else.