> certain items measure differences between conservative and liberal positions on culture war issues
I strongly dislike the oversimplified left/right dichotomy. If your political views strictly adhere to either side, it suggests a lack of independent thought. I have very little interest in engaging with someone who can't appreciate alternative perspectives.
> I strongly dislike the oversimplified left/right dichotomy. If your political views strictly adhere to either side, it suggests a lack of independent thought. I have very little interest in engaging with someone who can't appreciate alternative perspectives.
Agreed, but irrelevant to the paper, because they are studying the differences between two groups with opposing positions within the context of social justice.
Your point is relevant to one-on-one discussions only, because you qualify it with "independent" thought. By definition alone, a group does not have independent thought.
I totally get wanting to stray away from the empty signifier of "woke", but doesn't just calling it "social justice" make you kind of sound like the baddie if your opposing yourself to it?
"The scourge of social justice must be stopped!"
From a grim tactical point of view, it is smart to start finding ways to force an antagonism between your evil teens and regular liberals. I think that will work very well in the long run.
Because gosh darnit we must keep those statues standing up! Literally can't think of anything more important.
The term social justice has been in popular use for at least a decade. "Woke" is just a dogwhistle. "Social justice warrior" had already been a polarizing term that came and went in popularity.
It's probably best to name political ideologies for the ideal they believe in rather than whatever criticism their opponents hold for those ideas.
Conservatives want to conserve the status quo. Progressives want to see society progress. Liberals want liberty. Authoritarians want strong authority. "Social justice ideologists" doesn't roll off the tongue, but it does a decent job of conveying who we are talking about.
Liberal/conservative or progressive/authoritarian work because they describe a dichotomy of sorts (even if these are kind of clumsy in this regard). But what could possibly be the opposite pole to "social justice"?
Among your examples I actually think that "liberal"/"authoritarian" are mostly opposite each other. But "conservative" in its simplest form is resistance to change, so it ends up being one end of almost any political dimension. That's why in most two-party political systems you can point at one of the parties and call it "conservative". "Progressive" is also very generic and can mean very different things depending on the society, but it's generally in opposition to "conservative".
Changing society back to 1950's and 1860's values is what conservatives want, and that's not progress, so your definition is wrong. When progressives finally succeed at canceling slavery and making racism unacceptable in public discourse (at least until Trump came along), conservatives aren't suddenly progressive just because they want to change that. They're fundamentally regressive.
> Conservatives want to conserve the status quo. Progressives want to see society progress
Nope, that is not what conservatives and progressives want. Conservatives want to keep that which is proven to work and only want to change things which are proven not to while progressives want to change that which has been done for a long time because not doing so leads to stagnation. Society works best when there is a balance between conservative and progressive attitudes. When things work well they are better left alone - this is where conservatism gets it right - but when the situation changes those things which used to work may need to be replaced with something else, traditions be damned. That does not mean all traditions need to be kicked to the curb - they often form the glue which holds society together - which is why a balance between conservative and progressive attitudes works best.
I never understand what's the driving force behind it until recently. It also tended to follow me for some reason; not because of me... but it just seemed to always be there.
Worse yet, I always found the warring sides in the social justice battles are almost always the same kind of people. 1 side seemed to hate the other side, not because of what they were, but because they saw their own hate personified in their opponents? Both sides see each other as nazis.
So for example, the atheist four horsemen. Dawkins, Harris, etc. But then "Dear Muslima" from Dawkins went down.
Then the james randi, penn jillette, bill nye, etc. The amazing meeting of skeptics and scientists. But then yikes social justice had to destroy them.
Then gamergate at basically the same time. Armor isn't allowed to have boobs!
shortly there after was comicsgate, but it was the opposite. Like comics aren't allowed diversity? James Damore happened roughly here.
But then Trump got elected and the social justice warriors became anti-trump. Literally the world has ended because he got elected. I'm not in the USA, I dont care about US politics, But Trump is LITERALLY HITLER.
But then in 2018, a terrorist killed a bunch of people in Toronto and the CBC invented/boosted the word Incel. Organizing a group of people for the first time ever. Really bad decision.
Learn to code happened next after this.
Everyone involved in social justice or for that matter anti-social justice are just the same thing. I have been watching autism tear itself apart publicly over and over.
Autistic people, who lived a life of trauma, are very social justice. But also really bad at communicating. Some unintentionally say painful and cruel things. There's no way the autism identity or label could ever stay unified.
I think it goes beyond communism. There is a victim/outrage mentality in some people, and I get the impression they will always look for something to be outraged about. From what I have read of communism it is not based on a personality of playing the victim, and constantly looking for something to be outraged about.
> From what I have read of communism it is not based on a personality of playing the victim, and constantly looking for something to be outraged about.
It absolutely is. Proletariate vs bourgoisie in Marxism and Maoism. Kulak in the Russian revolution, Red vs Black identities in the Chinese cultural revolution. Only in the modern Western incarnation, it's ineffective to leverage economic classes since Capitalism leaves everyone better off economically than Communism (even the Communists have documented this). So instead they put their effort toward stoking racial divides and social justice to create the aggrieved class that can be leveraged as activists.
It's no coincidence that nearly all social justice thought leaders are self-described Marxists and that huge swaths of their literature view the world through that lens.
When someone tells me they're a communist. I tend to believe them.
Apparently pointing out that society discriminates against certain people is “stoking racial divides”. Or pointing out that society is biased in favor of others is “creating an aggrieved class”.
The thing is, the divide has always been there. Pretty sure slavery, Jim Crow, redlining, gerrymandering, etc… created that racial divide. Pretty sure institutional and societal sexism, homophobia, and various other biases that have been left unchecked created that aggrieved class.
People who point that out and try to organize around fixing those biases aren’t making victims. The victims were already there. They are trying to empower those people and change society so it victimizes people less.
Also, during all this organization, class consciousness is clearly pushed and communicated. To say there are no class issues in the west cause everyone is rich, apparently, is absurd. The reason people don’t talk about class is because everything in western society works to make people ignorant of class issues.
> Secondly, it would educate the proletariat in Marxism in order to cleanse them of their "false individual consciousness" and instill the revolutionary "class consciousness" in them.
I strongly dislike the oversimplified left/right dichotomy. If your political views strictly adhere to either side, it suggests a lack of independent thought. I have very little interest in engaging with someone who can't appreciate alternative perspectives.