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I'll heartily endorse Legal Insurrection's coverage, but with the caveat that they've got a bone to pick against "social justice" and leftist campus activism. I

• clairity 7y ago
  interesting. opposition to "social justice" signals an opposition to fairness and equality, and theoretically should be rare. i wonder if it's the strain of opposition that sees it as zero-sum and resists (i.e., "if things get fairer for the disadvantaged, then i, as an advantaged person, must necessarily lose something")? or the strain that resists social normalization (e.g., i should be free to offend and belittle others)? or something else? even if everyone gains from growing the pie, the desire for relative status seems more powerful than our desire for fairness and equality unfortunately.
  • InTheArena 7y ago
    There is a form of the SJW movement that eschews “Liberalism” as basically being nothing more then the representation of the power of the oppressor rather then being a bedrock set of principles necessary for democracy and civil society. They have been vocal in demanding that those that would impress by any means (including speech) be suppressed and de-platformed or “canceled“. The systems that protect viewpoints that diverge or protect oppressors are must be removed. You see this not only with speech, but also things as basic as right to consul, right to face your accuser, right to a fair and speed trial - Under title 9 at college. It’s basically the same authoritarianism that hard core Trump fans embrace, but on the left.
    • ThrowawayR2 7y ago
      Not that I disagree with you (quite the opposite) but, please, let's not use that three letter acronym. It's needlessly provocative and is likely to derail the discussion.
      • deleted 7y ago
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    • clairity 7y ago
      most people would agree that authoritarianism is bad, and it's infections are certainly not bounded by the limits of one political party or one poltical ideology. so why not peel apart oppressive behavior from social justice and just denounce that by itself? why does it need to be lumped in with social justice?
  • whatshisface 7y ago
    >opposition to "social justice" signals an opposition to fairness and equality, That's like a pro-lifer wondering how anyone could be against "life," or a communist wondering why anybody would be against the proletariat, or a capitalist wondering why anybody would be against freedom. You have to go beyond the dictionary definition of the word, and beyond the most abstract and noble stated goals of the movement, to understand why anyone would be against anything.
  • deleted 7y ago
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  • ThrowawayR2 7y ago
    Everyone is all for fairness and equality but, as is becoming increasingly clear, "social justice" as a movement has little, if anything, to do with actual fairness or equality. Oberlin College's misbehavior may be at the extremum but it is far from the only example of this. Even on as pro-left a site as HN, people are realizing that this movement is more of a problem than a force for good and that one can be a liberal without necessarily being a progressive and vice-versa.
    • User23 7y ago
      SJWism is a revanchist ideology and posture and as such it will never lead to anything other than negative sum outcomes. Since the readership here is well above average in intelligence, it’s unsurprising that a destructive ideology is met with some skepticism. Edit: Why on earth is this flagged? The article we're discussing is exactly a negative sum outcome.
      • Nasrudith 7y ago
        I'll bite - how the hell can it be revanchist in even the worst sorts of strawman? Revanchism is an ideology about reclaiming all territorial losses. The always negative outcome claim is questionable - even considering that it in order for it to be successful by definition they need overwhelming might to reclaim to hold it and it will impair peace for lesser processes. If massively and hopelessly overpowered like say a hypothetical small subset of radicals in the Cherokee Nation proposing to annex large sections of the United States it can pretty safely be declared 'long lost cause'. That isn't really applicable to anything "Social Justice" - even metaphorically. The closest thing for revauncism would be found in white supremacists and chauvinists who believe they should have complete domain over society by being sole holders of rights or 'rights' over other people. And even then that is a metaphor confused and stretched so thin that it is akin to thinking all alcohol should be kept far away from national borders for fear that if spilled it could erase the lines because it could do so to ink on a map.
    • clairity 7y ago
      but what is "the movement"? the situation here seems like small-time stupidity and jerkiness (of behavior), not a movement. just to note, group-labeling people tends to undermine openness and short-circuits revelation, so i'd like to avoid that (especially dichotomies like left-right and liberal-conservative).
  • Strang 7y ago
    Opposition to "social justice" typically signals that one does not believe that "social justice" equates to fairness and equality.
  • adolph 7y ago
    Qualifying “justice” makes it not justice. Is any student at Oberlin substantially “disadvantaged” or are they playacting a story they tell themselves? The situation reminds me of the part in Foster-Wallace’s address to Kenyon college where he described his default negative mindset toward folks who drive gas guzzling SUVs. The audience hoots and applauds the viewpoint and Foster-Wallace has to stop them saying no, no, my point is to break out of that mindset. Similarly to the Kenyon crowd, my guess is that the Oberlin crowd didn’t pause a moment to step out of their default mindset and realize that their pursuit of “social justice” drove them to injustice. Best listened to rather than read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Is_Water https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Is_Water