Social Justice is a dangerous, illiberal ideology that is taking over society. Although often associated with “liberalism” in the United States, it is explicitly anti-liberal. One of the core pillars of Critical Race Theory, upon which one dimension of Social Justice ideology rests, is a critique of liberalism, where “critique” is meant as Karl Marx used it and “liberalism” is the broad philosophy of individual liberty upon which the United States was founded.
One of the easiest ways to understand how illiberal Social Justice can be is available to anyone who attempts to criticize it. Those who criticize Social Justice are not thanked for helping to improve its tenets. Rather, they’re called bigots, homophobes, Nazis, grifters, misogynists, or, the trump card meant to silence all conversation: racists.
Proving its commitment to illiberalism even further, when the accused denies these accusations and demands evidence to substantiate claims that they’re racist, this denial is taken as evidence of guilt. To ask for evidence of racism is considered a form of willful ignorance of racism, according to Social Justice. Then, when the accused points out the obvious, that name calling isn’t an argument and they’d like to have a conversation about the manifestation of Social Justice that led them to be accused in the first place, nobody comes forward to converse. In the Social Justice ideological paradigm, conversing with someone who’s been accused of being a racist, sexist, or bigot would be acting in complicity with racism. (There’s even a word in their lexicon for this, “platforming.”) So conversation is a priori ruled out.
But Social Justice’s illiberalism is actually far worse. In many situations, because nobody comes forward to speak with the accused—in spite of the fact that he has pleaded with adherents and enforcers of Social Justice ideology to have a conversation—a narrative is then constructed that paints the accused as someone who does not want to have a conversation with anyone with whom he disagrees. Moreover, this is often reframed as the accused being unwilling to have a conversation about racism!
And this is exactly what has happened to me. I have called out Social Justice ideology for being dangerous, illiberal, and unjust. I have stated that it’s an ideology for which not only is there at best scant evidence for its particular claims, but there is actually an entire body of established scientific literature (biology, up against gender studies and queer theory, for example) that contradicts many of its underlying assumptions (e.g., that differences between men and woman are entirely social constructs). I have asked my colleagues and the administration at Portland State University, where I teach, to provide evidence for policies and practices that may be institutionalized (trigger warnings, safe spaces), and I have sent them evidence (Scott Lilienfeld’s or Jon Haidt and Greg Lukianoff’s work) that contradicts these policies. I’ve either been ignored, or ridiculed, or told I’m committing a microaggression and making people feel unsafe. Requests for evidence have even been characterized as having caused them trauma.
From the outside, of course it looks like I’m not having conversations with those who have substantive disagreements, but this is because in Social Justice communities if anyone has a conversation with me they’re contributing to a platform where their claims about reality can be questioned and where alternative views can be explained. And why would they want to do that, given the moral certitude they place in their conclusions? They wouldn’t, especially because Social Justice has been remarkably effective at spreading throughout the society—government (see Benjamin A Boyce’s videos on YouTube), media, tech (note the controversy around the infamous “Google memo”), and, quintessentially, the academy.
The unwillingness of Social Justice adherents to speak with me—or others who challenge their doctrines—does not stop them from accusing me of not wanting to speak with them. In fact, it escalates those accusations. This is because the primary method of Social Justice is to accuse, whether true or false, sensible or insensible, and to manipulate everything that follows into further accusations.
Sadly, this is exactly the response one would predict given that Social Justice ideology is highly aggressive, intrinsically political, and completely in conflict with science, evidence, and reason. If it were backed by science, evidence, and reason, science evidence and reason would be presented in conversation and there would be no need to call anyone names or accuse people who want to have conversations of not wanting to have conversations. The Social Justice canons would also not need to build an infrastructure that insulates itself from criticism and uses name calling and accusation as the primary tool to dispense its ideological enemies. Rather, it would encourage dialogue, conversation, and even debate. Instead, it sees discourse not as an effective means for determining truth but as yet another political project to oppress people.
Social Justice cannot continue to be taken seriously on its own terms, which it has literally made up. It must be taken seriously in terms of the threat it poses to liberal and civil society, which it is actively undermining and seeks to destroy. I am just one man, of course, but the problems I’m facing are becoming commonplace throughout society—in workplaces, schools, academia, hobby groups, online, and even in churches. As Social Justice creeps into everything and rewrites it with illiberalism, accusations, unfairness, and a conspicuous refusal to have a reasoned conversation about anything it proposes, we put ourselves and our societies at tremendous risk of losing the norms civil society needs to function. We must stand up to Social Justice ideology. We must fight. New Discourses is helping us do exactly that.
17 comments
It is now obvious that the “intention” behind ‘Social Justice’ and related themes of ‘Wokery’ is to ‘replace’ or ‘supplant’ our existing perception of the world ‘out there’ that we perceive with our five senses. Of course, they will not debate because that would be to break down their ‘new’ gestalt in terms of the old they wish to replace! and simply place them back in the rational world view they want to break out of.
The drives behind social justice are very relevant. Especially in the divided states.
The numbers overwhelmingly confirm it. From wiki: While the United States represents about 4.2 percent of the world’s population,[5] it houses around 20 percent of the world’s prisoners.
The justice and prison system in the divided states focuses on blue collar and poor people crime. White collar crime (typically done by people with $) is not a focus. As a result, poor people are hit by the law. Much of it is stupid – e.g. imprisoning for possession or sale of drugs, prostitution,
The “social justice warriors” are dysfunctional. Especially in calls to “defund the police” and other issues like that. I own a business where one employee (a social justice warrior) decide she did not want to serve the police during the height of the BLM movement. She quit and then led a cancel event against us. That’s was ridiculous.
My daughter was a camp counselor. They advocated social justice in the camp. Its not the “social justice” as a concept that is the problem, its the “social justice warriors” that are the problem.
In other words the globalists know that the social justice model they put in place is compatible with todays state of affairs & will be with the state of affairs in a police state. It will be adaptable enough to make the transition & wicked enough to suffice it until the new model arrives.
Todays social justice model has that kind of plasticity.
Members of “marginalised groups” will be disappointed to learn that the ‘intention’ behind Critical Social Justice is not for their benefit, but that they are just the “means-to power – by which” the Culture War is being waged. For the Wokenlightenment is actually about achieving ‘power over reality’ not merely describing reality- as is the case with liberal western Society. White people, are to blame, just for being white, so must be ‘demoralised’ to ‘Stay in their Lane’, ‘Know their Place’, become Allies I e. subservient citizens. Religion Education the Family Gender Stereotypes, the Law, government Culture and History are all sustaining damage from assaults by the Wokerati. Like Ukrine, opposing Putin’s invasion, can we hold out and achieve victory?
commenter wrote: “Like Ukrine, opposing Putin’s invasion, can we hold out and achieve victory?”
Only if we pose for Vogue magazine.
I doubt many of the postmodernist SJWs have ever read Marx or Freud, neither of whom rejected science or reason. Evidently the commentators here haven’t either, just repeating claptrap about ‘cultural Marxism’ and the Frankfurt school that they’ve been served up by right wing Cold War style anti communists, who have no interest in Marxist theory or psychoanalysis. Pity because these ideas are formative influences of contemporary thought – or they were until this all got completely mangled on US campuses. Only Helen Pluckrose seems to respect intellectual history, and point out that postmodernism was a critique and rejection of Marxism. The Frankfurt School no longer had any coherence by the 1960s anyway
I agree with you entirely. In fact unless the counter argument learns that postmodernism works by rejecting freud as a flaw far larger than it seems the social engineers will eat it all for breakfast. You have got to be convinced that there is only a conscious theory of mind in order to ignore what the social engineering is doing to the mass emotion.
And there is a bright side to it also. At least on the mesoscopic level where entirely chemical neuro transmission drives a spiritless brain matter, there is bedrock to fall back on for a chemically driven unconscious mind. The conscious isn’t quite as simply with the mind body argument around, but almost as. But if europe & americas social engineers are allowed to have it so easy to manipulate millions of people emotionally, the counter argument is P ing in the wind unless it restores & works with Freud. If not ? – then by implication one has taken the bait & is trying to counter reason to a level of mind that does not contain the emotional apparatus. Like that no person can be convinced that the social engineering works by attacking self efficacy, self esteem, emotional regulation, ontological security and sense of identity
The conscious mind is only a browser (cognition) for the purpose of receiving things (metacognition). But if the enemy is allowed to be dug in there alone its pointless arguing at all. Part of the post of postmodernism is to use this vital red herring. Thats why Lacan wrote his ”Return to Freud” . He was cunning enough to make it feel like a compliment. Sly enough to revise it all to suit postmodernism & deconstruction thus impugn and neutralise freud in order to remove all proper study of psychoanalytical reason.
This site does have challenges in gaining a grasp of how this worlds most evil social engineers are masters at second guessing all the mistakes in coding their evil & they play intellectual booby traps everywhere. More – they’ll often go to elaborate lengths to use certain prices of engineering that they don’t actually want / does nothing for their agenda – but drags people off in the wrong direction.
They do a psychoanalysis of the of the people – The Mass – as part of the definition of social engineering. Thus without psychoanalytical skills one may as well forget putting up meaningful resistance.
Completely agree
You forgot the part about being accused of “internalizing” racism when you disagree with the tenants of social justice and you happen to be someone who “should” get it (aka, anyone but a straight white male).
Before recent times, when I have thought about the terms “social” and “justice” I have thought of community of people in mutual respect and equitable and fair application of the law to all. The trouble now is that the definitions of these terms, put together as a concept, have been distorted to mean equality of outcome for everyone.
One has to find an old dictionary to get the true definitions of the words because internet search now shows how our very dictionaries and the definitions of these words (among many others) have been changed to support “social justice” as EGALITARIAN–by which they mean equality of outcome for all–and, in practice, “more equal” for the persons hollering for “social justice.”
Wrong. They dont want equality of outcome for all, because “reparations must be made”. White hetero men must suffer and be discriminated against. The justification for this is “history”.
One of the worst and most pervasive parts of CT/SJ is the psychologizing defense tactic where they dismiss all criticism as motivated by subconscious or internalized -ism of some sort or other. Is this where Frued’s influence shows up? Or were communists dismissing all objections as “false consciousness” before the Frankfurt school tried to combine Marx and Freud?
Yes. Are you referring to the ‘kafkatrap’ ploy?
Kind of. I think the kafkatrap is related to what I’m thinking of in that it often involves attributing an unconscious attitude or belief to someone. But I was thinking more generally of the tendency to dismiss any criticism (even minor ones) as stemming from an unconscious bigotry. “You think you disagree with Robin Diangelo because she has said something that seems false to you, but REALLY your objection is just a manifestation of white fragility”. It’s especially bizarre when the person criticizing the SJ position (or even just a particular tactic) belongs to the social group SJ purports to protect. A woman criticizing a feminist view = internalized sexism; a black person criticizing critical race studies = internalized racism or Uncle Tom; a trans woman who doesn’t think think she’s biologically female = internalized transphobia. That sort of thing where SJ pretends to know the subconscious thoughts and attitudes of all of their critics and uses that supposed knowledge as an excuse to dismiss rather than engage substantive objections.
I’m laughing trying to think of how this would work with Freud. “You think you reject my theories because they’re unfalsifiable, but you’re just trying to impress your mother so you can sleep with her”
Well, basically sjw’s think they are God – all knowing.
I cant imagine anyone more dangerous than someone who automatically assumes they know your (negative) motivations – that are unknown to you. It’s not only impossible to engage with a person like this but immensely risky, for they will be completely unpredictable, because, whatever you say, they are internally interpreting in another way and will betray and turn on you exactly when the time is right. You will be left more than blindsided and confused in that moment: emotionally and psychologically disabled. This is their game.
The attribution of psychological motives as a tactic to discredit what a person says goes back to Marx who claimed that history was the struggle for supremacy between distinct classes who could not understand or communicate with each other (except through violence.) Dialog and discussion were therefore impossible because all speech was just an expression of the will-to-power of a class.
The fact that this is self-refuting didn’t bother Marx or his followers.
Excellent article. Short, clear and right to the point. Every aspect of Liberalism that I’m aware of is at odds with the illiberal Regressive Woke/Power activists. Let me show you with a few short examples:
1) Individualism — that’s a big no-no in the Woke Faith, everything is viewed through Collectivism.
2) Personal Liberty — that’s not respected by the Woke. In their world, feelings trump your liberties.
3) Equality of Opportunity — oh they hate that. Whenever a group or institution has equal opportunities and yet has any disparities, they automatically blame bigotry and bias as the cause even if there are zero gatekeepers (Wikipedia has none, yet editors are overwhelmingly male, because it’s all a matter of preference). Which is why they want to replace Equality of Opportunity with Equality of Outcomes.
4) Rule of Law + Right to Fair Trial — good luck with that. They don’t like due process. They don’t respect laws, especially for people they don’t like. On the other hand, they don’t like laws that are equal for everyone yet they deem hurtful because they are used against the “protected” demographics when they break the law. From big issues like thinking illegal immigrants should be exempted from breaking laws (illegal entry; identity fraud; identity theft; etc) to little things like encouraging people to break the laws like jumping charging stations instead of paying the train or bus fares (an issue that causes a loss of millions of dollars on a daily basis).
5) Economic Freedom — Instead of letting a business thrive or fail on it’s own merits, or respecting businesses catering to their market, they wish to restrict or control such businesses for their own pleasures. They’ve done this to many industries, from comic books, films, video games, etc.
6) Freedom of Expression — Peter already touched on this one in the article. Just try to criticize them, see what happens to your reputation, your job, your social media or any other “platform.”
7) Freedom of Assembly — look no further than when they trashed and set fires at UC Berkley. They don’t respect this liberal principle even with their own “allies,” they will shut down an event for women who wish to participate in a Women’s March because they are “too white.”
8) Freedom of the Press — they’d be happy with giving Big Corporations more power (kinda ironic) and allow them to decide what we can or cannot say. Look at what happened to Alex Jones.
9) Freedom of Speech — same as Freedom of Expression.
10) Freedom of Thought — like in any Cult, they don’t like this. Look at what happened to James Damore and the author of this article.
11) Political Freedom — they ban professors or get them fired for many reasons. From not using the right pronoun to simply just showing up to college campus (look at what happened to Bret Weinstein.) They’ll ban professors just for guilt of association, like what they did to that black professor (a Harvard alumni) who defended Brett Kavanaugh.