RE: Were social justice warriors responsible for the election outcome?
November 15, 2016 at 11:03 pm
(This post was last modified: November 15, 2016 at 11:04 pm by Regina.)
I think like anything else it's a partly responsible thing. There could be literally an endless list of different reasons why people voted Trump; SJW culture, Terror attracks, economic downturn, Hillary being an awful candidate as well. I think people went into this vote really wanting change so bad, and Trump was the one shouting the loudest that he promised to bring some kind of change (however much of a bigot he made himself sound doing it).
But yes, I've called out this petty SJW culture in several posts on this forum over the last week or so. There is an internet culture of name-calling against anyone who doesn't agree 100% with a particular groups' identity politics. And don't get me wrong, some people truly are bigots, but sometimes this charge of bigotry is used against even generally progressive-minded people who simply have nuanced middle-ground realistic opinion.
If you are in a relatively "privileged" position, you simply can't enter into these discussions on social issues from any angle without making some social blunder that gets you branded a "privileged asshole"... and if you choose not to engage at all for this very reason? Guess what, that's offensive too, because you're choosing to stay silent.
I think that environment just frustrates the unfairly vilified, and drives them to a point of thinking "oh well I can't win whatever I do, so fuck you".
What's gone missing is a real genuine discussion culture. We can't rationally talk about anything like adults anymore. So many people are just so damn sensitive to opinions they don't agree with that they have to shut people down with accusations of bigotry, rather than hear what they have to say.
You can take any "social issue" conversation right now, whether it's racism, sexism, "Islamophobia" (I hate that term, I prefer "anti-Muslim sentiment"), homophobia etc, you see the same thing. You are caught between people who claim that these forms of bigotry flat don't exist on one side, and people on the other side who think one or more of those forms of bigotry are to blame for absolutely everything. Both sides completely lack nuance or an ability to hold a meaningful productive conversation, I think it is becoming truly progressive to be opposed to both.
But yes, I've called out this petty SJW culture in several posts on this forum over the last week or so. There is an internet culture of name-calling against anyone who doesn't agree 100% with a particular groups' identity politics. And don't get me wrong, some people truly are bigots, but sometimes this charge of bigotry is used against even generally progressive-minded people who simply have nuanced middle-ground realistic opinion.
If you are in a relatively "privileged" position, you simply can't enter into these discussions on social issues from any angle without making some social blunder that gets you branded a "privileged asshole"... and if you choose not to engage at all for this very reason? Guess what, that's offensive too, because you're choosing to stay silent.
I think that environment just frustrates the unfairly vilified, and drives them to a point of thinking "oh well I can't win whatever I do, so fuck you".
What's gone missing is a real genuine discussion culture. We can't rationally talk about anything like adults anymore. So many people are just so damn sensitive to opinions they don't agree with that they have to shut people down with accusations of bigotry, rather than hear what they have to say.
You can take any "social issue" conversation right now, whether it's racism, sexism, "Islamophobia" (I hate that term, I prefer "anti-Muslim sentiment"), homophobia etc, you see the same thing. You are caught between people who claim that these forms of bigotry flat don't exist on one side, and people on the other side who think one or more of those forms of bigotry are to blame for absolutely everything. Both sides completely lack nuance or an ability to hold a meaningful productive conversation, I think it is becoming truly progressive to be opposed to both.
"Adulthood is like looking both ways before you cross the road, and then getting hit by an airplane" - sarcasm_only
"Ironically like the nativist far-Right, which despises multiculturalism, but benefits from its ideas of difference to scapegoat the other and to promote its own white identity politics; these postmodernists, leftists, feminists and liberals also use multiculturalism, to side with the oppressor, by demanding respect and tolerance for oppression characterised as 'difference', no matter how intolerable." - Maryam Namazie
"Ironically like the nativist far-Right, which despises multiculturalism, but benefits from its ideas of difference to scapegoat the other and to promote its own white identity politics; these postmodernists, leftists, feminists and liberals also use multiculturalism, to side with the oppressor, by demanding respect and tolerance for oppression characterised as 'difference', no matter how intolerable." - Maryam Namazie