Poll: Usage of the term "Social Justice Warrior"

[metalhead]

It can get annoying if you're on the receiving end of their obsession. I mentioned Steve Martin being bullyied into apologizing for an entirely harmless homage he had made to his recently deceased friend Carrie Fisher.

This sort of bizarre inquisitorial behavior is the result of people obsessed about the tiniest, most irrelevant details of "fighting sexism". A healthy normal human being would never see anything wrong in what Steve Martin said. Deranged sociopaths thought it was a worthy endeavor to "expose and shame" him.

So you can see why obsessive behavior can have bad consequences beyond the sick individuals themselves.

How did any of this affect you? I had no idea this even happened and certainly don't care enough to look into it. You claim that SJWs waste their time picking at minute details like this, but then you're spending your time reading about and getting upset about stuff that happened to a celebrity, which doesn't affect you the slightest bit. Unless you happen to be Steve Martin, in which case - u ok bro???

 

[luiz]

How did any of this affect you? I had no idea this even happened and certainly don't care enough to look into it. You claim that SJWs waste their time picking at minute details like this, but then you're spending your time reading about and getting upset about stuff that happened to a celebrity, which doesn't affect you the slightest bit. Unless you happen to be Steve Martin, in which case - u ok bro???

Eh, the Steve Martin case is pretty famous because Bill Maher brought it up in his famous tirade against SJWs, which was shared extensively on Facebook. Facebook and CFC are pretty much my only contact points with obsessive SJWs.

I'm not Steve Martin, but I can relate because I've also been called a sexist, a racist, a homophobe, a fascist, what have you, always of course without any merit. I used Martins case because it's publicly accessible and verifiable - the obsessive sickness of SJWs is public in this case.

So my problem is not that SJWs are wasting their time - I find it silly but that is their problem. If they wasted their time staring at the wall I would not bother writing a post about it. But they waste their time playing a modern day inquisition. Within reason - as I said I am all for embracing worthy causes, and opposing SJWs is a worthy cause. But I certainly won't obsess about it - you'll never catch me in Twitter or Facebook battles against SJWs

 

[metalhead]

An inquisition? Because Steve Martin had to make an apology for PR reasons? I think you're overstating things juuust a tad here.

Thing is, if you're just wholesale dismissing "SJWs" when someone applies a label to you, do you bother to actually assess the merits of what they claim, or are you just reflexively dismissing them as without merit? My own personal experience is that people use "SJW" as pejorative, in order to allow themselves to be dismissive about whatever a person is trying to say. People who use the term, or claim to be "anti-SJW" are really just looking for a way to avoid uncomfortable examination of their own thoughts and feelings, or to avoid tackling the sad realities of the world we live in.

 

[Lexicus]

I mean do people really not see how his tweet could be construed as problematic especially given the relentless cultural pattern of valuing women solely for their appearances? It wasn't like it was malicious and there was surely overreaction, but...

 

[luiz]

An inquisition? Because Steve Martin had to make an apology for PR reasons? I think you're overstating things juuust a tad here.

Thing is, if you're just wholesale dismissing "SJWs" when someone applies a label to you, do you bother to actually assess the merits of what they claim, or are you just reflexively dismissing them as without merit? My own personal experience is that people use "SJW" as pejorative, in order to allow themselves to be dismissive about whatever a person is trying to say. People who use the term, or claim to be "anti-SJW" are really just looking for a way to avoid uncomfortable examination of their own thoughts and feelings, or to avoid tackling the sad realities of the world we live in.

If somebody starts throwing away grave insults without any merit (and I certainly consider racist, homophobe, etc to be grave insults), then yeah, it becomes hard to take them seriously. And while now I'm kind of "vaccinated" against their crap, the first few times people threw those insults at me it was pretty aggravating.

And yeah, SJWs have created an inquisitorial environment on social media, and sometimes beyond, closely monitoring what people say, always looking for new targets for "exposing and shaming". A childhood friend of mine was recently "exposed and shamed" on some Facebook community because he participated on a medicine symposium and somebody took a picture of his discussion table, where according to them there were only "white males" (he is half amerindian, BTW). What is wrong with these people? And can't you see they're sick and harmful?

I mean do people really not see how his tweet could be construed as problematic especially given the relentless cultural pattern of valuing women solely for their appearances? It wasn't like it was malicious and there was surely overreaction, but...

I don't see it at all, I see it as a very human tweet by a grieving friend. And the first thing we note about anyone is their physical appearance. And people had a crush on princess Leya - nothing weird or bad about that. Before meeting her in person, she was just the movie princess.

 

[Archon_Wing]

So it's not okay to compliment someone because of their appearance? I mean like it or not, it is a huge factor for being a performer.

The twitter accustaions are dumb because it makes the implication a tweet summarizes the entirety of one's stance. Some people aren't going to write a book about someone to the public so he probably picked what he thought was a safe topic. I guess not. People are assuming because only one thing was said, it must be everything. That is disingenuous at best.

What is terrible is someone died, so people are finding ways to cope and they do not deserve the thought police scrutinizing them. If I were to tweet to my grandmother about being a great grandmother, I shouldn't because I am perpuating the patriarchy. I bet 90% of the people doesn't actually know what it means.

But then again, nobody was calling for further action though. Dumb but not really relevant. Getting riled over the reaction is just as silly. Maybe if they started proposing laws to outlaw people from thinking it like that yea, but besides that it is just what the internet is. People are idiots on it, and social media has made it worse. I mean this isn't specific to the left and social jutice people. I mean, look at those people burning their maga hats and #amnestydon

 

[Dachs]

As a good Latin raised catholic, I'm always suspicious of the zeal and quest for moral purity that cultural protestants so often exhibit. I take it as a sign of mental issues.

haha what

Like, saying that the people who literally gave us the concept of an Inquisition - which, y'know, you even referenced in a later post! - have nothing to do with "zeal" and "moral purity" kind of blows my mind.

 

[Camikaze]

If the concern with people obsessing over a cause is that they see the world and all its problems through a single lens, and so come up with non-mainstream political of philosophical frameworks (e.g. queer theory), then surely to the extent that those theories are not actively dangerous, it's a good thing from a purely Millian/liberal standpoint that they exist, and so a good thing that people are able to come up with that perspective. Okay, you wouldn't want everyone in the world to adopt that perspective and lose sight of other important problems and ways of interpreting the world, but it's always useful to have around an articulation of other perspectives, deriving from the struggles of particular groups. Surely that benefit outweighs the eye-rolling that might momentarily be induced if you opt to engage with someone with whom you disagree.

 

[innonimatu]

haha what

Like, saying that the people who literally gave us the concept of an Inquisition - which, y'know, you even referenced in a later post! - have nothing to do with "zeal" and "moral purity" kind of blows my mind.

To be fair, the protestants were busy burning witches at the time. The inquisition tortured and murdered people more for political reasons than religious ones, it seems. No moral panics and bloodthirsty pogroms, just a steady stream of oppression that any tyranny could be proud of.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Christians have moved on from that sort of barbarism though. I can't say the say the same for certain other religions....

 

[Lexicus]

Christians have moved on from that sort of barbarism though.

Not really at all but ok

 

[Lexicus]

Presented without comment for comparison to the SJWs who get all angry about nothing

 

[inthesomeday]

Real talk is that people who complain about SJWs seem to think that they're just as dangerous as white supremacist idpol

 

[Lexicus]

Real talk is that people who complain about SJWs seem to think that they're just as dangerous as white supremacist idpol

Exactly, when white supremacist identity politics is in complete control of the Republican Party which controls most of the governments in the US

 

[Archon_Wing]

Not really at all but ok

I'm not expecting the Spanish Inquisition. (Or maybe I should?). I think comparing modern day Catholics to a particular breed of Spanish ones 400 years ago is more than a bit unfair.

Christian theocracy is mostly dead.

 

[inthesomeday]

Not really. Mike Pence basically sells himself as a theocrat. There are a lot of Congresspeople who are pretty open about their allegiance to their religion before the country. Now obviously these are all lies to control a lot of poor people, but that's generally what religion has been throughout human history.

Then there are also a lot of forms of religious oppression that aren't literal theocracy. The Church covers up a lot of pedophilia in America, for example, and there are Christian death squads active in a lot of areas of the world, including (sadly) my family's homeland, the Philippines.

 

[Akka]

To be fair, the protestants were busy burning witches at the time. The inquisition tortured and murdered people more for political reasons than religious ones, it seems. No moral panics and bloodthirsty pogroms, just a steady stream of oppression that any tyranny could be proud of.

I have no sympathy for religion in general, but TBH when you dig into actual history, the Inquisition was surprisingly MUCH LESS horrible than the image it has in popular culture. I was pretty surprised, when digging around, to see just how much the historical stuff fell short of how I imagined it.

And on an unrelated point :

LOL it's used as an insult against anyone who is perceived to be an enemy of the right wing.

If you forget that half the people using it are left-winger themselves.

Now I'm going to smugly go to bed. Very smugly.

 

[inthesomeday]

TIL Akka somehow thinks he's left-wing

 

[Lexicus]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord's_Resistance_Army

Also Christians in Africa burn witches all the time

TIL Akka somehow thinks he's left-wing

He's "left-wing" but literally spends all his time denouncing actual leftism

 

[Camikaze]

Now I'm going to smugly go to bed. Very smugly.

I'm pretty sure that it's not overly prescriptive to say that as a matter of the English language, 'SJW' is a pejorative, and anyone using it in another way is simply incorrect or unaware of the proper use of the 'word'.