What is wrong with social justice warriors?
Curious if you’ve read this (has a PDF link):
http://libjournal.uncg.edu/ijcp/article/view/249Is this paper bad? If it is bad, what is bad about it? How would you describe “what is bad about it” in a way that would connect to a college freshman who finds his/her economics and critical race theory classes to be equally interesting and deserving of further study? This extends to broader questions about “what precisely is undesirable about the state of social-justice-oriented academic study?” I have seen a lot of backhanded stuff from you on this topic, but not a centrally articulated, earnest answer.
That is from my email, and I would broaden the question to be about social justice warriors more generally. Most of all, I would say I am all for social justice warriors! Properly construed, that is. But two points must be made:
1. Many of the people who are called social justice warriors I would not put in charge of a candy shop, much less trust them to lead the next jihad.
2. Many social justice warriors seem more concerned with tearing down, blacklisting, and deplatforming others, or even just whining about them, rather than working hard to actually boost social justice, whatever you might take that to mean. Most of that struggle requires building things in a positive way, I am sorry to say.
That all said, do not waste too much of your own energies countering the not-so-helpful class of social justice warriors. It is not worth it. Perhaps someone needs to play such a role, but surely those neuterers are not, or at least should not be, the most talented amongst us.
No matter what your exact view of the world, or what kind of ornery pessimist or determinist or conservative or even reactionary you may be, you should want to be working toward some kind of emancipation in the world. No, I am not saying there always is a clear “emancipatory” side of a debate, or that most issues are “us vs. them.” Rather, if you are not sure you are doing the right thing, ask a simple question: am I building something? Whether it be a structure, an institution, or simply a positive idea, proposal, or method.
The answer to that building question may not always be obvious, but it stands a pretty good chance of getting you to an even better question for your next round of inquiry.