Social Justice

Justice4243 · 2012-07-13 12:29:05

I made this thread because I was enjoying the discussion that was taking place in the main thread.

Moved here so people can talk without the wackiness of the main thread interfering.

People seemed civil enough to me, so...keep on keeping on, follow the rules, etc...

" IIRC Justice was there for that one. The dumb thing was that OTC actually leans pretty liberal - or did at the time, not sure what it's like now - and a lot of us might well have been sympathetic if we'd had the issue explained to us instead of being immediately denounced for our ignorance. I think this is fairly typical of negative experiences with so-called "social justice" types."

I started the thread.

A troper ( who did little more than lurk) found the thread weeks after it had died. The general consensus was Penny Arcade hadn't really done anything out of the ordinary with the first comic. I think we determined that the second comic, while potentially funny, probably did make it worse, and that the "Dick Wolves" merch was probably poking the bear a bit and was in bad taste.

OTC moved on and then someone resurrected the thread and basically implied (or, if memory serves, out-right stated after a few posts) we where a bunch of rape-apologists.

Eventully, the dude got his wife to make an account just so she could argue with people on OTC.

Now, if they hand't lumped everyone in the thread into the "rape apologists" camp and just provided the alternative viewpoint, they probably would have been fine. 'Course, they did none of that and provided a microcosm of what the Dick Wolves situation was. Namely, party A reacted strongly to a tasteless joke, causing party B to react strongly to their reaction, causing party A to react even STRONGER, causing... you get the picture...a shit-storm of dickery commences

Now, the wife had apparently been a victim of rape...not that really gives her license to label people "rape apologists", and the husband apparently believed this gave him the right to become a "Champion of Rape victims" (note: I'm NOT using hyperbole here).

Honestly, I doubt his situation is nearly as unique as he thinks it is. Anyhow...

They both left in huff saying something to the extent that they where sad that TV Tropes "wasn't the community they thought it was." Which was just as well, they where also pissing off mods, so they probably weren't long for the community.

The moral of the story is "Try to provide your alternative viewpoint BEFORE you start passing out labels to strangers like you're giving out free samples at the supermarket."

Ace Rimmer · 2012-07-13 12:47:07

Out of all the things you could describe the TVT OTC forum, I don't think pretty liberal would be one of them.

But I can understand where the person is coming from, rape isn't really something you should joke about.

Justice4243 · 2012-07-13 13:01:01

OTC is pretty liberal, I'd say. There are some vocal minorities, but the general make-up is very left leaning (We are talking U.S. liberal here, might have a be a slight difference in the U.K.).

I've never had anyone adequately explain to me how "You can't do over-the-top rape jokes, but it's OK to have your protagonists visit violence and death upon each-other routinely."

Obā-san · 2012-07-13 13:03:11

I've never
had anyone adequately explain to me how "You can't do over-the-top rape
jokes, but it's OK to have your protagonists visit violence and death
upon each-other routinely."

Advocating against death is significantly more futile, so no-one bothers.

Imipolex G · 2012-07-13 13:08:24

Not necessarily. There are definitely some who object to graphic violence in the media. (The whole "violent video games make you kill people" crowd)

Corporal Forsythe · 2012-07-13 13:09:20

The whole "rape apologist" counter that these folks just love to use is one of the purest forms of ad hominem. One of my favorite wielders of this paper tiger is the very angry (and usually always wrong) woman who runs the "Shakesville" blog, the very same one who made the biggest stink about the PA comic. Don't agree with her? You're a rape apologist, a rape enabler, a card-carrying member espousing the values of a "rape culture." Facts, figures, logic and scientific data be damned. Those things are rape apologists too.

One of the responses that I've grown used to employing -- and am getting weary of -- is informing people that "or you are a bigot/rape apologist/bad person/whatever-cute-new-term-used-for-people-who-dare-disagree-with-me" is not a valid metric for anything. These things are as I stated above, ad hominem paper tigers used to scare people away from introducing sense into a discussion.

A while back a fellow made a statement that stuck with me. He basically said that there comes a moment that any decent person is going to just accept these labels to get this childish back-and-forth shit over with and continue to press for the facts of the matter. This is also enabled by the troublesome result of these groups abusing the terms such as "racist" and "bigot" to the point that they no longer have any significance anyway. Born white? Privilege! Inherent racism! Never done anything discriminatory or wrong to anyone who is not your race/creed/culture/religion? Doesn't matter, you're still basically a card-carrying member of the Klan. Here, all this verbal diarrhea in the formed of casewrapped dead trees by Tim Wise will enlighten you to the matter.

In all of this shit at no point do you ever see the attempt to simply treat each other decently. Oh, they crow about it. They scream to the heavens about it. But they never actually do so in these debates.

Justice4243 · 2012-07-13 13:45:26

Not necessarily. There are definitely some who object to graphic violence in the media. (The whole "violent video games make you kill people" crowd)

This. I'm sure these groups lump rape in as well (which, I'm not attacking, it makes sense to: in the sense these people are also against graphic violence).

And, yeah. I was quite surprised to be labeled a rape apologists. Luckily, this rhetoric didn't fly in TVTropes.

Mr. Darcy · 2012-07-13 13:52:09

One of the responses that I've grown used
to employing -- and am getting weary of -- is informing people that "or
you are a bigot/rape apologist/bad
person/whatever-cute-new-term-used-for-people-who-dare-disagree-with-me"
is not a valid metric for anything.

This is where they can say that you're being oppressively logocentric, because formal logic is a social construct that only white males had access to. Women and POCs have other ways of knowing that are being discriminated against.

Justice4243 · 2012-07-13 13:58:06

Eesh, some of these lines of thinking are kinda weird. It's not like the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is coded to have one's computer shoot sparks at any females trying to read it...

Ace Rimmer · 2012-07-13 13:59:09

This is where they can say that you're
being oppressively logocentric, because formal logic is a social
construct that only white males had access to. Women and POCs have other
ways of knowing that are being discriminated against.

Eh what

Obā-san · 2012-07-13 14:01:43

This is where they can say that you're
being oppressively logocentric, because formal logic is a social
construct that only white males had access to. Women and POCs have other
ways of knowing that are being discriminated against.

That's the bit where you

Because at that point you have no common ground to argue on.

^ I've seen it happen. Not saying it's common.

Ace Rimmer · 2012-07-13 14:03:57

^ I've seen it happen. Not saying it's common.

Tbh, the only place I've seen that argument is on r/menrights.

Imipolex G · 2012-07-13 14:03:58

That's one of the more out-there lines of thinking...one of those "Western metaphysics as a whole is fucked up" types.

But, like FM said, it leaves you with basically no common ground to argue on. So may as well table flip.

KJI · 2012-07-13 14:05:24

Yo man, I identify as a tablekin so you flipping that table is pretty triggering to me

Imipolex G · 2012-07-13 14:05:52

Are you Table-kun?

KJI · 2012-07-13 14:06:21

Table-san~

Imipolex G · 2012-07-13 14:06:59

Or are you James Hetfield?

KJI · 2012-07-13 14:08:05

Lou-san~

Princess Alice · 2012-07-13 14:11:40

*taps the "Talk" label with a stick*

Corporal Forsythe · 2012-07-13 14:11:58

Gryphon said:

This is where they can say that you're being oppressively logocentric, because formal logic is a social construct that only white males had access to. Women and POCs have other ways of knowing that are being discriminated against.

where is the "like" button for this forum, I cannot find the "like" button

truly this is a depthist stereonorm conspiracy

Justice4243 · 2012-07-13 14:17:45

*taps the "Talk" label with a stick*

Agreed, but I will go on record that:

Yo man, I identify as a tablekin so you flipping that table is pretty triggering to me

Made me laugh out load.

I think I agree with the table flipping. Once the person rejects all forms of conventional logic they're essentially saying "MY car has buzz-saws to saw all the cars in front of so it never gets stopped in traffic."

inkblot · 2012-07-13 14:41:04

Why have these social justice issues broken into the mainstream so suddenly? I'm glad people are having this debate, but it feels like these activists sprouted out of nowhere over the past 2 months.

Ace Rimmer · 2012-07-13 14:51:26

inkblot said:
Why have these social justice issues broken into the mainstream so suddenly? I'm glad people are having this debate, but it feels like these activists sprouted out of nowhere over the past 2 months.

The past 2 months???

Where have you been??

inkblot · 2012-07-13 14:58:07

Not Tumblr, I suppose.

I don't mean social justice in general, I mostly mean this new wave of activists, who are focused on transgender issues and the idea of instutionalized racism/sexism.

Corporal Forsythe · 2012-07-13 14:59:14

I'll go look this up if I have to, but from what I understand, the "cis-" prefix came about from either a transgender or transsexual person on usenet (in the 90's) looking for a way to apply a label to everyone who isn't trans and said person even admitted to such. Then it took a life of its own until it became a form of insult, or at least they like to think it's an insult.

"Trigger words" are this thing that SJ bloggers came up with to warn their audience of anything that might "trigger" an episode related to PTSD or panic attacks or whatever. I'm no medical doctor or specialist on either of these conditions, all I have is the anecdotal after seeing two of my friends who both came back from Iraq both suffer from an onset of PTSD and the basics on how to identify the possible symptoms and behaviors. Even from what little I do know about it, the way these SJ bloggers treat it and carry on about it comes across to me as self-diagnosed, completely ignorant, please-pity-me bullshit. Especially the [trigger warning] preambles.

Ace Rimmer · 2012-07-13 15:04:07

I'll go look this up if I have to, but from what I understand, the
"cis-" prefix came about from either a transgender or transsexual person
on usenet (in the 90's) looking for a way to apply a label to everyone
who isn't trans and said person even admitted to such. Then it took a
life of its own until it became a form of insult, or at least they like
to think it's an insult

Actually "cis" is Latin, it means "on the same side".

Corporal Forsythe · 2012-07-13 15:12:13

The Wind Fish said:

Actually "cis" is Latin, it means "on the same side".

Right, that was one of said person's stated reasons for choosing that prefix.

Ace Rimmer · 2012-07-13 15:14:34

Right, that was one of said person's stated reasons for choosing that prefix.

Not sure...

But cis-gendered has a specific meaning of "person whose actual gender is their birth gender."

Tachyon · 2012-07-13 23:44:09

inkblot said:
Why have these social justice issues broken into the mainstream so suddenly? I'm glad people are having this debate, but it feels like these activists sprouted out of nowhere over the past 2 months.

They're not new ideas, at any rate, and some of the remarks I've seen in response are kind of distressing to me, to be honest. I don't hang out on tumblr, so I'm largely not seeing the attitudes that people are reacting against, I'm just seeing the backlash.

So I don't know if Gryphon's post about "Logocentrism" (a term that, in any case, has absolutely no place being thrown around outside the context of deconstructive critical readings) or Corporal Forsythe's characterization of "privilege" as "inherent racism" that makes you "basically a card-carrying member of the Klan" are descriptions of actual arguments that you guys have seen, and it doesn't strike me as particularly far-fetched that somebody might have been daft enough to say those things - but on the face and without that presumed context, they just look to me like extremely ugly strawman arguments attempting to wreck the credibility of an entirely valid and worthy cause.

I'm not saying that's what they are, and if you guys say that those are exact arguments you have seen I don't really doubt you, but if so then this is kind of scary to me, because it suggests that terms like "privilege" are being co-opted by people who either don't know or don't care what they actually mean and misused, essentially maliciously, to the detriment of any possibility of having a reasoned discussion of these issues.

I'll probably come back to this when I'm slightly more awake, but I said I'd respond to Forsythe's post in the heap and here seems to be the place to do it, so.

Corporal_Forsythe said:

Fouria G said:
See this, to me, appears to be not only a gross misrepresentation of safe-spaces but also a massive insult directed at everyone who has ever benefitted from them or supported them.

Unless you are describing some other phenomenon that has escaped my notice?
Just so we're on the same page here, the "safe spaces" I'm talking about are entirely race related. I'm not criticizing the ones that handle abuse/violence/etc victims.

Every example I've seen of these "safe spaces" as discussed is so "people of color" can go and retreat to be only with other "people of color". This does not jive with the philosophy behind the Civil Rights movement which is that people of any color of skin should be able to freely function and mingle together within society with no worry for their safety. This is on the level of basic human rights here. If these people really fear for their safety inside this society, something is broken on a fundamental level and giving them a room to hide in is not a fix. It's also no different than what the south did when they instituted the Jim Crow laws and segregation to ease racial tensions.

I'm also going to go ahead and say that there is no valid reason for society to provide extra to or deprive from any person based on the color of their skin. Every explanation and defense I have seen and heard of these "safe spaces" has been exactly that.

Thank you for the clarification. And yeah, this is not at all what the term "safe-spaces" brings to mind, and I suspect that I may, again, be missing some important context here. It's for that reason that I'm reluctant to say for definite that such "spaces" are racist or harmful when I may well be overlooking some particular factor which necessitates their creation; I would have to hear the arguments in favour and decide for myself.

Going purely by what you wrote here, though, I will admit that these do at least sound questionable to me. I don't think a direct comparison to Jim Crow laws is fair, because everybody chooses who they prefer to socialize with, but I can't see any reason that isn't in itself racist for why a person would have any kind of racial preferences whatsoever. If a person had, say, had negative experiences with white people, then isolating themselves in a white-free environment is essentially blaming "whites" rather than the guilty individuals who happened to be white and ought to be apprehended for their behaviour. If racists are not being apprehended then that does indeed point to a serious problem with society and with relevant law enforcement that won't be fixed by forcing the victimized parties underground.

But... I'm aware that I'm saying this from both a position of privilege and a position of ignorance, so if somebody was willing to explain to me why, in their opinion, such spaces were necessary, and didn't feel the need to call me a fascist or similar for not already being familiar with the arguments in favour, I would at least be willing to listen.

Obviously, this is not a post-racial society (if it was, odds are we wouldn't even be discussing this), much as we might want it to be. Collectively, this society has come a long way towards eliminating racism, but we have a very long way to go yet.

Obā-san · 2012-07-13 23:48:54

on the face and without that presumed context, they just look to me like
extremely ugly strawman arguments attempting to wreck the credibility
of an entirely valid and worthy cause.

I don't think anyone really disputes the worthiness of the cause, but it seems that such bizarre arguments do crop up with disturbing regularity. Like they're strawmen that actually exist.

Maybe I'm just looking in the wrong places.

(*Shrug*)

(*I'll have more to say once I read the entirety of your post*)

Obā-san · 2012-07-13 23:55:12

RE: Safe Spaces: What that term brings to mind in my head is the LGBT safe space thing at my school, which is along the lines of "you have the right to feel safe as an openly LGBT person, and you can talk to teachers about concerns ect."

I don't think I've ever seen or heard of "Safe Spaces" as defined there in Forsythe's post before.

Tachyon · 2012-07-14 00:02:13

Ditto, which is obviously a lot different from what Corporal Forsythe is describing. If a school is an LGBT safe-space there isn't any implied indictment of straight people.

I have seen the term applied in an online context, but I don't think I've ever encountered it in the sense that certain races (or sexualities or genders) are automatically unwelcome. I've seen the request that members of privileged groups avoid dictating how members of less privileged groups should behave in such spaces, which seems entirely reasonable to me, but that's it.

Obā-san · 2012-07-14 00:06:41

I don't think I've ever encountered it in the sense that certain races (or sexualities or genders) are automatically unwelcome.

...Damn, who was that dude who came into the LGBT thread and told all the straight people to shut up...

He got all confused as to why we all thought he was nuts, and Maddy ended up banning the dude...

Tachyon · 2012-07-14 00:09:06

I remember that. At the time I thought it looked like an honest misunderstanding that got out of hand, to be honest. As I remember it, he didn't initially tell all the straights to shut up, but he entered the thread with a wrong perception of what it would be about, caused offence and reacted with hostility. Or at least, went on the defensive rather than acknowledge his mistake.

Boney · 2012-07-14 00:17:35

I remember I disagreed with some idiot who thought that all white people were racist, then dumbthingswhitepplsay and a white blogger disagreed with me. dumbthingswhitepplsay gave me some crap about how my experiences with white people weren't the same as everybody else's, then went after the white blogger for disagreeing with a black person on a racial issue. Then the white blogger apologized, which was strange.

Honestly, that was my only experience with a crazy.

And yeah, I guess she did her safe zone thing differently.

Justice4243 · 2012-07-14 00:20:05

"who thought that all white people were racist"

Boney · 2012-07-14 00:24:24

Yep. And only white people could be racist.

Justice4243 · 2012-07-14 00:25:10

Obā-san · 2012-07-14 00:25:44

I don't think I've met a racist black person before.

But saying it's impossible seems far-fetched.

Justice4243 · 2012-07-14 00:26:41

I met a racist black person...but he was racist against black people.

We nick-named him "Uncle Ruckus".

Boney · 2012-07-14 00:26:57

Well, the person who ran that blog eventually changed the url to "cracker things salty crackers say", so...

Obā-san · 2012-07-14 00:32:22

cracker things salty crackers say

lol tryhard

Tachyon · 2012-07-14 00:36:41

I've met one fairly racist black person IRL, but he was a teenager at the time and I think he grew out of it.

I guess what kind of concerns me about descriptions of particular types of people, e.g. "social justice bloggers," is that they very often do sound like strawman versions or misunderstandings of familiar beliefs and demographics. And often when people do take offence at one another, from an outside perspective, it definitely comes across like they're approaching the topic from entirely different frames of reference and allowing their assumptions about the "type" of person who thinks otherwise to colour their interpretations of the arguments being made. I'm similarly wary of the pejorative use of any term of identification, for much the same reasons.

Boney · 2012-07-14 00:46:43

@Fouria

I've seen that in some reblogs. It kind of leads to that crap where you aren't allowed to be offended at things anymore and it's dumb.

Also, I have an awesome social justice blogger on my dashboard. I think her blog is mehreenkasana (sp) and she does bring insight on the lives of women in the Middle East and how they aren't helpless.

One-Winged Eagle · 2012-07-14 07:45:56

I wonder if Chinese people can be racist.

Ace Rimmer · 2012-07-14 07:50:01

kingCrackers said:
I wonder if Chinese people can be racist.

Justice4243 · 2012-07-14 13:19:37

I wonder if Chinese people can be racist.

I'd imagine some form of racism or bigotry is much more common for Chinese people in China.

Even in larger city areas, too. I remember an episode of No Reservations where Bourdain's Hong Kong (might have been Beijing) city guide had to convince a street foood vendor that Bourdain would be able to enjoy her food.

I'll grant that's probably a minor example, but I think there's also some deep routed bigotry for some of China's neighbors.

Speaking of which, China's neighbors probably have thing or two to say about the Chinese...and each other.

Ace Rimmer · 2012-07-14 13:26:10

Speaking of which, China's neighbors probably have thing or two to say about the Chinese...and each other.

Oh they do, its like Europe in that regard.

Corporal Forsythe · 2012-07-14 14:12:14

So I don't know if Gryphon's post about "Logocentrism" (a term that, in any case, has absolutely no place being thrown around outside the context of deconstructive critical readings)

That was just a joke on Gryphon's part. The whole "formal logic as a social construct" was kind of the dead giveaway there.

or Corporal Forsythe's characterization of "privilege" as "inherent racism" that makes you "basically a card-carrying member of the Klan" are descriptions of actual arguments that you guys have seen, and it doesn't strike me as particularly far-fetched that somebody might have been daft enough to say those things

but on the face and without that presumed context, they just look to me like extremely ugly strawman arguments attempting to wreck the credibility of an entirely valid and worthy cause.

From here:

What you need to realize is that we all have privilege to some degree: white privilege, male privilege, heterosexual privilege, etc. The hardest thing is to do is to get over your instinct to fight and say, “But I’m not like that!”

What is being said here is everyone is a fucking asshole no matter what culture you come from, how you were raised, etc.

If you can do it, you’ve completed the first step towards being a pro-equality in reality rather than simply saying and believing that you are.

"If you just conform to exactly what we're saying here, then you'll finally stop being such an asshole."

Corporal Forsythe · 2012-07-14 14:18:26

"If you just conform to exactly what we're saying here, then you'll finally stop being such an asshole." This is pretty much typical of every single argument for the concept of "privilege" that I've ever seen: You have privilege, and to deny that you do is proof of your privilege. You can spit-shine this concept, dress it up in a new way, give it a new paint job, call it something else, but at its core it's what it's always been, and always will be: Bullshit. How I got from being an idiot made homeless by a selfish, worthless father to a Marine finishing up a degree in a university had nothing to do with me being white. I made use of opportunities open to everyone regardless of their skin color, creed, or national origin. At the time there was the DADT policy but that has been tossed out, too. "Yes, but others have privilege" you will say which is bullshit too. In this country the opportunity for education and wealth is open to every citizen (and non-citizen, especially in the Marines - many of my fellow Marines signed up while living as illegal immigrants.) These opportunities, such as the military may not be to yours or anyone else's taste -- but that's beside the point. They're there.

I'm not saying that's what they are, and if you guys say that those are exact arguments you have seen I don't really doubt you, but if so then this is kind of scary to me, because it suggests that terms like "privilege" are being co-opted by people who either don't know or don't care what they actually mean and misused, essentially maliciously, to the detriment of any possibility of having a reasoned discussion of these issues.

I'm not trying to wreck your belief system here because it seems to me that your intentions are benevolent, but like I stated above, this whole concept of "privilege" hinges on the the "or you're a bigot" metric, which pretty much invalidates the entire concept. I'm an egalitarian in the simplest definition of the term, I think everyone should be treated with equal respect and these social justice ideals such as "privilege" are unnecessary bullshit that clouds what should be a simple issue and impedes rather than facilitates progress.

Misery · 2012-07-14 14:19:14

For some reason, I associate Social Justice with otherkin and weird stuff like that.

Social Justice

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