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The thing is, there is no big yellow line between aggressive politics and warfare. If someone gets me fired from my job, that is actually worse for me than if I

The thing is, there is no big yellow line between aggressive politics and warfare. If someone gets me fired from my job, that is actually worse for me than if I get punched in the face. And while many SJW's don't engage in violence themselves, they do play the role of trumpeter, and the trumpeter should be considered a type of warrior - http://www.bartleby.com/17/1/79.html http://www.bartleby.com/17/1/79.html And there are plenty examples of the left either using the state to engage in violence to further left-wing causes, or in tying the hands of the state to allow left-aligned mobs to engage in violence. The defining trait of SJW is not that they are activists for a cause. If they were just trying to win hearts and minds so they could win at the ballot box, that would be one thing. The defining trait is that they use any means at their disposable to defeat their enemies: naming and shaming, purging, getting people fired, getting people banned from communities, lawsuits, criminal complaints, etc. That is the mentality of warfare, and deserves to be called as such.

pekk 11y ago
At this point, the term "SJW" is so overused as a content-free pejorative that I don't think it is even possible to rehabilitate it for any kind of constructive communication. I see people's use of this term as a signal that they have accepted the framing of warfare, because by use it appears to mean "my enemies who are so wrong and unjustly aggressive that I have the right to fight them tooth and nail." Unfortunately, the people "on the other side" will tend to see things the same way. And our tendency is to define the enemy group vaguely, over-generalizing by including lots of people who are not really malicious or even wrong. Maybe our anger makes us hungry for targets. Or maybe we are just so upset about the disagreement itself that we are happy to have a list of bad things the other side does as a way of trying to discredit people who are not involved in those bad things, but disagree with us. Not everyone is honest about why they want to hurt the people they publicly declare as enemies. Sometimes it is just intolerance of disagreement, or simple sadism. Even if the damage among the "combatants" didn't matter, it is often the "civilian bystanders" who are hurt. This is totally nuts. Even if these issues are worth being passionate about, they are not rationally comparable to warfare, they don't rationally justify war tactics. This isn't the Thunderdome, it's the civil society we all have to live in. And we don't have a real choice about whether that society includes people we disagree with, so it's better if we come to terms with that and find ways either to fence off or compromise in the common space, to mutual advantage. For example, I think you're stacking the deck with your talk about "left-aligned mobs" and that you are intentionally eliding the history of right-wing fascism to make "your side" look better than "the other side." I'm a realist, I don't think people will usually be civil without special effort. So for all I know based on your rhetoric, you'd identify me as an enemy and a threat based on my views, and even kill me if you had the chance; I will defensively avoid testing that. But that's as far as I should rationally go. The important part is that whatever our disagreements, and they may be very deep, I don't need to assume that we are at war, that I am a warrior and you are my enemy, and focus on somehow figuratively "killing" you. In my view, that would actually be very silly and self-destructive. I don't actually benefit from trying to damage you, it's pointless, it doesn't help my causes and it pollutes the civil society I have to live in. (Of course it is another issue if you decide to literally threaten me and my lawful interests, but then it is a purely defensive and practical issue; I don't need to respond to that by declaring war on your "tribe" and I certainly can't pre-empt that by turning every disagreement into an intractable "war.")
- georgemonck 11y ago
  I don't like how politics becomes warfare, but the phenomena exists, and we need a name for the people who engage in this kind of activism. I don't think that all leftist activists are social justice warriors, but there are very clearly activists who believe in shaming and purging, and there needs to be a name distinguishing those aggressive activists versus activists who just want to convince people. The war tactics exist, refusing to label them as such does make them go away. For example, I think you're stacking the deck with your talk about "left-aligned mobs" and that you are intentionally eliding the history of right-wing fascism to make "your side" look better than "the other side." I mention that because we were talking about social justice warriors, who are on the left. If there was a term "Right-wing Warriors" or such to describe right-wing people who wanted to dox, shame, purge, ban, and use any tactic necessary to fire leftists, then that would make sense. It would be completely appropriate to label such people as "warriors", if they are engaging as politics as warfare rather than as a way to convince people.

pekk 11y ago

At this point, the term "SJW" is so overused as a content-free pejorative that I don't think it is even possible to rehabilitate it for any kind of constructive communication. I see people's use of this term as a signal that they have accepted the framing of warfare, because by use it appears to mean "my enemies who are so wrong and unjustly aggressive that I have the right to fight them tooth and nail." Unfortunately, the people "on the other side" will tend to see things the same way. And our tendency is to define the enemy group vaguely, over-generalizing by including lots of people who are not really malicious or even wrong. Maybe our anger makes us hungry for targets. Or maybe we are just so upset about the disagreement itself that we are happy to have a list of bad things the other side does as a way of trying to discredit people who are not involved in those bad things, but disagree with us. Not everyone is honest about why they want to hurt the people they publicly declare as enemies. Sometimes it is just intolerance of disagreement, or simple sadism. Even if the damage among the "combatants" didn't matter, it is often the "civilian bystanders" who are hurt. This is totally nuts. Even if these issues are worth being passionate about, they are not rationally comparable to warfare, they don't rationally justify war tactics. This isn't the Thunderdome, it's the civil society we all have to live in. And we don't have a real choice about whether that society includes people we disagree with, so it's better if we come to terms with that and find ways either to fence off or compromise in the common space, to mutual advantage. For example, I think you're stacking the deck with your talk about "left-aligned mobs" and that you are intentionally eliding the history of right-wing fascism to make "your side" look better than "the other side." I'm a realist, I don't think people will usually be civil without special effort. So for all I know based on your rhetoric, you'd identify me as an enemy and a threat based on my views, and even kill me if you had the chance; I will defensively avoid testing that. But that's as far as I should rationally go. The important part is that whatever our disagreements, and they may be very deep, I don't need to assume that we are at war, that I am a warrior and you are my enemy, and focus on somehow figuratively "killing" you. In my view, that would actually be very silly and self-destructive. I don't actually benefit from trying to damage you, it's pointless, it doesn't help my causes and it pollutes the civil society I have to live in. (Of course it is another issue if you decide to literally threaten me and my lawful interests, but then it is a purely defensive and practical issue; I don't need to respond to that by declaring war on your "tribe" and I certainly can't pre-empt that by turning every disagreement into an intractable "war.")

georgemonck 11y ago
I don't like how politics becomes warfare, but the phenomena exists, and we need a name for the people who engage in this kind of activism. I don't think that all leftist activists are social justice warriors, but there are very clearly activists who believe in shaming and purging, and there needs to be a name distinguishing those aggressive activists versus activists who just want to convince people. The war tactics exist, refusing to label them as such does make them go away. For example, I think you're stacking the deck with your talk about "left-aligned mobs" and that you are intentionally eliding the history of right-wing fascism to make "your side" look better than "the other side." I mention that because we were talking about social justice warriors, who are on the left. If there was a term "Right-wing Warriors" or such to describe right-wing people who wanted to dox, shame, purge, ban, and use any tactic necessary to fire leftists, then that would make sense. It would be completely appropriate to label such people as "warriors", if they are engaging as politics as warfare rather than as a way to convince people.