I think the thing I hate the most about whatever you wanna call the SJW circlejerk thing is that it demonizes asking questions.
You are, one supposes, just supposed to inherently know all the right things and inherently hate all the wrong ones, and if you weren't born with that knowledge, well, sorry.
I am lacking any good examples at the moment, which is unfortunate.
This is very true, and I think that's part of what sends me up a wall about these people: They hold what should be open-minded, non-judgemental views, yet are incredibly narrow-minded and judgemental in their attitudes.
Reminds me of how, in some technical circles, asking questions incorrectly is a perfectly good reason to be rude to someone. You can't just answer "We need more information", you have to answer "lol stfu n00b rtfm".
I agree. For one thing, it demonizes being misinformed. It treats honest mistakes as identical to malice. SJWs take the valid statement that "intent is not magic" and turn it into "intent doesn't matter". The former statement is correct: lack of harmful intent does not negate harm. The latter is wrong: someone who did harm without intending it can be educated and probably wants to be. Most people don't want to hurt anyone.
Then there's the whole "I'm not here to educate you!!!" thing. Again, this is taking a reasonable thing and going to ridiculous lengths with it. No, it's not the job of everybody in a disadvantaged group to explain things to everyone else. For instance, white Americans should try and learn about racism for themselves and attempt not to do racist things, rather than expect black people to do all the heavy lifting.
But if you set yourself up as an activist, you are volunteering to be an educator, among other things. Education is activism. And an activist should damn well have education resources to hand. Especially online, when all you have to do is give someone a link and say "Read this!" Sure, sometimes you don't have the time or the energy or the patience, but still.
Besides, if all you do is yell at people and tell them to google it, you are risking them finding wrong things! If you're a feminist and tell someone to go fucking look up "rape culture" for themselves, they're just as likely to find some virulent anti-feminist site!
And also: they so often act as if these things are all settled, universally agreed upon things, where there's only one right answer and you should just fucking know. Well, the real world ain't that. People don't agree. Often there is no universally agreed upon answer even among social-justice people; their ability to fight among themselves is unparalleled.
All too often, SJWs act like they're playing out Mean Girls, not being real activists.
Which is why I try to be direct but nice. I know that I don't have to be polite about some things, but it makes people more inclined to listen to you, and sometimes that can be the difference between helping make someone a better, wiser person and just making them angry.
As dumb as it sounds, and as lazy as might be in the pursuit, I want to help make this world a better place. I want to be one of the people that saves our society from becoming worse rather than better, and I want to contribute to a new, better one if this one doesn't pan out. But yelling at people for making mistakes in the pursuit of doing right by others just isn't the way for me.
I kind of feel like I have no right to tell people that being polite would work better. I know that eg. Aondeug has expressed anger over that before.
I don't know, I often feel like I'm not able to express my opinions on this stuff or at least that I shouldn't. I'm not straight or cisgendered but that's easy to hide (for me, anyway) so surely I have some level of privilege, no? I have often wondered if that just makes me unable to relate to people who have to deal with hatred on a day-to-day basis.
But from what I've seen when Aondeug gets mad about stuff she's actually articulate. But that's a whole other thing.
Really, man, if you have to closet yourself like that out of fear for your well-being and that of your family, even if it isn't "hard" for you, it's still a struggle. You do not have the upper hand. You are still being screwed over by your environment.
Really, man, if you have to closet yourself like that out of fear for your well-being and that of your family, even if it isn't "hard" for you, it's still a struggle. You do not have the upper hand. You are still being screwed over by your environment.
yeah but I don't have that internal need to come out that is being held back by some fear of my safety. I just don't feel the need in the first place, and my understanding is that most people in similar positions do.
Plus I've seen queer bloggers say that most "closeted bisexuals" are straight people who want attention, and it does make me wonder you know? What if my perceived pickiness with men just means I'm not attracted to them in the first place?
^^ I would say it's less about leaders than general standards. Even most fervent anarchists agree that you have to lay down basic codes of conduct and have an understanding to get things done.
^ Bullshit. You're not straight just because you're choosy. That's a ludicrous accusation.
Also, there's I think something that SJWs are so, so unwilling to admit: they attack those who are basically on the same side, more or less, because it's safer and easier than attacking the true enemy, and because they have no power over the real enemy. People sympathetic to their cause will actually be hurt by what they say. Their enemies will just laugh. In the end, they'd rather feel powerful than do anything useful, and they'd rather do that by hurting those who support them.
I don't think that all of them or even most of them are consciously doing it. Being consciously nasty just to feel better about oneself is not so common as misdirecting one's anger in blind frustration. But it is true that they directly lash out far more at people who they could be helping and befriending than those who really deserve it - who may be just at close at hand but are, indeed, far harder to confront.
Man is a most complex simple creature: see what he weaves, and how base his reasons for doing so.
I feel like the problem with social justice warriors is part of the label; they treat it like a war, with points to capture and enemies to vanquish and flags to fly high and the foe to demonize. And that makes people who find themselves in-between these things feel unwilling to take sides.
I don't think they're consciously doing it (for the most part, anyway). I think that they are displacing anger onto safer targets because they feel scared or powerless in confronting their real worst enemies.
Man is a most complex simple creature: see what he weaves, and how base his reasons for doing so.
Americans also seem very preoccupied with the concept of war. Battle of the Sexes, the constant assertion that "this is war", the various reality TV shows about competitions with "war" in the title...
Morven: Sure. I feel like it's part of the public consciousness. And I mean we all know of wartime stories of people trying to root out The Enemy amongst their own, sending them to holding camps, lynching them, etcetera.
There's also the fact that despite historical evidence they are so scared of imperfect change. The fact is, generally, each degree of greater acceptance and justice opens the door a little wider for the next one.
Yes, gay marriage isn't the solution to all sexuality-related issues, for instance. But it's a step that makes other steps closer.
i would say that i know of such things from the news, but i do not read the news firsthand, i only see whatever ends up being relevant to foreign policy decisions in the various policy wonk blogs and things that i follow
Man is a most complex simple creature: see what he weaves, and how base his reasons for doing so.
Well the twentieth century is full of people turning on their own population because they may be enemy spies or saboteurs or they just didn't like them or whatever. Your folks used to be from Nation A, but then they went into war with Nation B, and now Nation B is fucking with you because you might have loyalties, even if such a thing is highly impractical and unlikely, because of the time you and your family has spent here.
See: Internment of various ethnicities during World War II, in general this page on Population Transfer.
Americans also seem very preoccupied with the concept of war. Battle of the Sexes, the constant assertion that "this is war", the various reality TV shows about competitions with "war" in the title...
I find the American culture to be unsettlingly aggressive at times
And I mean we all know of wartime stories of people trying to root out The Enemy amongst their own, sending them to holding camps, lynching them, etcetera.
Do we? I don't, and both of my grandfathers are veterans.
The phrase "war stories" has a specific connotation of rose-tinted stories about the glories of like battling the Nazis in WW2 and things along those lines.
More people have said that and been killed than there are thorium decay products.
I saw this but it seems to me like BS. In my experience: the left column is gossip that certain mean girls might say about another girl, while the right column sounds like male fantasizing, sort of, except I've never actually heard a real person talk like that outside of TV Tropes. They may as well be the same girl. Even if you are a popular high school student, I sincerely doubt that being attractive makes you exempt from scathing gossip or being seen as "weird." But what do I know. Actually why am I even taking the time to share thoughts on this nonsense?
And I mean we all know of wartime stories of people trying to root out The Enemy amongst their own, sending them to holding camps, lynching them, etcetera.
Do we? I don't, and both of my grandfathers are veterans.
hopefully you learned about japanese internment camps in school
The US interned German and Italian citizens as well, but in nowhere near the numbers it did the Japanese. Also, not all German or Italian citizens were interned, while essentially all Japanese citizens in the western continental US were interned. In addition, Japanese internment included pretty much anyone of Japanese ancestry; even having one Japanese great-grandparent qualified you for internment, and it was regardless of citizenship status or assimilation.
It's rather ironic how this sounds like an echo of Axis countries' racism, isn't it?
Though note that was not a euphemism for 'death camps'. The intended purpose was to hold the civilian population captive so that irregulars could not disguise themselves among civilians. They did end up with lots of disease and many people dying, though.
I don't remember learning about that in school, actually.
i'm confused. do lin and you think you would learn about this in your schools? it's not really relevant outside of the US and Canada. It's hardly even relevant in Japan, since most of the interned were emigrants from 1900 or so, or their kids.
We learned about a bunch of stuff that happened in Spain and America and France and other parts of the world that didn't directly affect the UK, so it doesn't automatically follow that we wouldn't learn about that, but we didn't.
I don't remember learning about that in school, actually.
i'm confused. do lin and you think you would learn about this in your schools? it's not really relevant outside of the US and Canada. It's hardly even relevant in Japan, since most of the interned were emigrants from 1900 or so, or their kids.
I mean I didn't learn about no Boer War
it's only American History Classes that are ridiculously self-centric, usually :V
I've noticed that when people complain about what's taught in history class, they have trouble remembering that classrooms are often fairly heterogenous in what political stance they take.
I don't remember learning about that in school, actually.
i'm confused. do lin and you think you would learn about this in your schools? it's not really relevant outside of the US and Canada. It's hardly even relevant in Japan, since most of the interned were emigrants from 1900 or so, or their kids.
I mean I didn't learn about no Boer War
I learned about the Boer War!
But I also took Euro, which was pure swag, and World History, which was way less interesting than it should have been.
Comments
You are, one supposes, just supposed to inherently know all the right things and inherently hate all the wrong ones, and if you weren't born with that knowledge, well, sorry.
I am lacking any good examples at the moment, which is unfortunate.
I don't know, I often feel like I'm not able to express my opinions on this stuff or at least that I shouldn't. I'm not straight or cisgendered but that's easy to hide (for me, anyway) so surely I have some level of privilege, no? I have often wondered if that just makes me unable to relate to people who have to deal with hatred on a day-to-day basis.
Plus I've seen queer bloggers say that most "closeted bisexuals" are straight people who want attention, and it does make me wonder you know? What if my perceived pickiness with men just means I'm not attracted to them in the first place?
Anyone who's not a hermit knows about that nonsense though. This happens to anyone who is even remotely "muslim" looking.
I actually read an article today about apparently they're changing something about the Federal No-Fly List to make it more transparent or something.
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
I do remember learning that we (as in, Britain) basically invented concentration camps during the Boer War though.
I mean I didn't learn about no Boer War
We learned about a bunch of stuff that happened in Spain and America and France and other parts of the world that didn't directly affect the UK, so it doesn't automatically follow that we wouldn't learn about that, but we didn't.