{"id":19847,"date":"2015-05-14T09:43:34","date_gmt":"2015-05-14T16:43:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=19847"},"modified":"2015-05-14T09:43:34","modified_gmt":"2015-05-14T16:43:34","slug":"if-you-want-to-take-the-first-step-towards-a-kinder-gentler-more-tolerant-discourse-start-by-putting-down-the-sjw-label","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=19847","title":{"rendered":"If you want to take the first step towards a kinder, gentler, more tolerant discourse, start by putting down the \u201cSJW\u201d label."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"I<\/a><\/p>\n

(A guest post by Alexandra Erin<\/a>, quoted from her comment<\/a> on another person’s blog. Thanks to Alexandra for her permission, and visit her blog Blue Author Is About To Write<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Joshua, I appreciate both where this post is coming from and where it may lead, but may I suggest a slightly more radical move?<\/p>\n

Rather than figuring out where the dividing line between SJWs and others are, why don\u2019t you stop dividing the world into SJWs and others? I\u2019m not saying not to judge people\u2019s actions, and not to speak up when you see someone who seems to have an axe to grind or whatever, but the thing is, \u201cSJW\u201d is mostly an externally applied label. Oh, sure, there are people on Twitter and Tumblr who now take it as an ironic badge of honor, but the label started off as a pejorative. I\u2019m not saying you consciously use it this way personally, but for a lot of people, once they\u2019ve applied the label to someone, they stop trying to understand where they\u2019re coming from and even paying attention to what they\u2019re saying. It\u2019s like labeling a sentiment \u201cPolitical Correctness\u201d \u2014 the main effect is that it lets you write someone off.<\/p>\n

If I tell you that trans rights are important to me, I\u2019m telling you a thing about myself. If you care enough to, you can listen to what I\u2019m saying or ask me questions or just try to imagine the world as I see it. Empathy is possible.<\/p>\n

As soon as you decide I\u2019m an \u201cSJW\u201d, though, you can no longer try to understand my perspective because I no longer have my own perspective in your head. I\u2019m one of those wacky \u201cSJWs\u201d. I think whatever SJWs think. One time someone you called an SJW said all men should be strangled at birth, so I must think that. Some people who are SJWs don\u2019t believe anything but are just trolling for attention or PC Cred Points or revenge on society. Once I\u2019m labeled an SJW, that\u2019s me, too.<\/p>\n

And the thing is, an incredibly large and diverse amount of people and belief and attitudes all get swept up together as \u201cSJWs\u201d and then treated as a monolith. I\u2019ve seen people on Tumblr talk about us supposed \u201cSJWs\u201d as a group that includes vegans, radical feminists, and trans women like myself. I\u2019m not vegan, and most vegan extremists who know who I am hate me. Radical feminists actively work to subvert trans rights, and so we have no love lost for them. But I can go to any number of posts on a Puppy blog like Brad Torgersen\u2019s, and know that I will find someone stating with perfect confidence that radical feminism informs the tenets of everything I do and believe, because Ess Jay Double You.<\/p>\n

And once I am established as an SJW\u2026 well, believing is seeing.<\/p>\n

Imagine that you saw me talking about how I think that racism and sexism are endemic to the fabric of society and as no human being is perfect, no human being has perfect self-awareness, we are all susceptible to its influences, in the same way we\u2019re all susceptible to advertising and other ubiquitous messages. It doesn\u2019t control our minds, but it influences us, and we\u2019re ill-equipped to see it, particularly as the human mind rebels from the thought that it is not a completely independent entity.<\/p>\n

Now, you can disagree with that! But I think you could also probably recognize that it\u2019s a reasonable point of view. If you did disagree, I imagine it would be at the premise level: that racism and sexism are endemic in society. But even in that case, I\u2019d hope that you\u2019d recognize that the line of thinking makes sense for someone starting from those premises, and then we\u2019d have something we could talk about.<\/p>\n

But if you decide\u2014or you\u2019ve been told already\u2014that I one of those Social Justice Warriors, we probably won\u2019t get there. Because you see me talking about racism and sexism as ubiquitous social forces and oh, boy, there goes one of those SJWs again, saying everybody and everything is racist and sexist. I just accused you of being racist and sexist just for being born! Are you gonna stand for that? No you\u2019re not!<\/p>\n

You might see another \u201cSJW\u201d talking about racism in terms of outcomes rather than individual personal intentions and decide the same thing. And please understand, when I say \u201cdecide\u201d, I don\u2019t mean to imply that you sit here going, \u201cWell, you\u2019re saying this thing, and I could argue with it, but instead I\u2019m going to call you an SJW and just ignore it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The decision is to see people as \u201cSJWs\u201d or not. Everything else follows from that. The purpose of the label is to rope people together and then write them off. That\u2019s all it does.<\/p>\n

I have seen people who were just blogging about their lives\u2014their own personal struggles\u2014on their personal blogs get discovered by people who have an axe to grind against \u201cSJWs\u201d, and because they said something that is not politically correct by the anti-SJW crowd\u2019s standards, they get labeled an SJW and hounded to heck and back. \u201cYOU CALL YOURSELF AN ACTIVIST, BUT YOU\u2019RE REALLY JUST A SOCIAL JUSTICE WARRIOR!\u201d the hounds say, but the person never called themselves an activist.<\/p>\n

And yeah, I said politically correct. I don\u2019t know how it became codified that political correctness only exists on the left. There are people waiting to pounce on anyone who spouts the \u201cwrong ideas\u201d on every side of every political spectrum, and the attitude that this is just a leftist thing means they have more free rein on the right.Nobody\u2019s guarding against \u201cpolitical correctness\u201d from that side, because it\u2019s only used to refer to the infiltration of knee-jerk leftist versions of sensitivity.<\/p>\n

Anyway, my point is that dividing the world between \u201cSJWs\u201d and \u201ceveryone else\u201d is not how you get to the world you\u2019re describing as your goal. On the internet, calling someone an \u201cSJW\u201d is tantamount to declaring open season on them and then writing off anything they might have to say as being noise.<\/p>\n

I know you probably feel like that\u2019s what \u201cSJWs\u201d do when they label someone as racist or whatever. I\u2019m not going to argue the point, mostly because in my experience it\u2019s the people who just zealously look for any ripe target to attack in situations where we\u2019re talking about racism or sexism are also the ones who inevitably have an epiphany down the line where they realize that\u2019s not really justice and then become the most zealous crusaders against \u201cSJWs\u201d. Most people on the other side from you don\u2019t actually \u201cride out under a banner of Social Justice\u201d, as I\u2019ve so often seen it described\u2026 and those that do, it\u2019s the act of riding out under a banner that\u2019s important to them. It\u2019s the twin rush of getting to go after someone viciously while simultaneously feeling like they\u2019re the hero. The cause doesn\u2019t matter, only that they have one. And because the cause doesn\u2019t matter, there\u2019s about the same number of people on any side of an argument.<\/p>\n

Although I should also point out that the \u201csides\u201d aren\u2019t as clear cut as all that, either. Again, the label of \u201cSJW\u201d tends to minimize differences and paint people as a monolith. You guys have formed camps and ran campaigns. You\u2019re organized. You can describe everybody who disagrees with your premises, goals, or tactics as \u201canti puppy\u201d, but there is no Anti-Puppies. Pretending there is distorts your view of everything.<\/p>\n

I mean, we\u2019ve had David Gerrold insisting that everybody must be welcomed warmly and treated honorably at the Hugo awards ceremony and Connie Willis backing out of presenting because she doesn\u2019t feel she can do that. That\u2019s two individuals both expressing an individual view. But if you insist on seeing them not as individuals but as facets of an Anti-Puppy faction, then Gerrold\u2019s words seem hollow, and can only be read as sarcasm or a veiled threat. And so many Puppies did exactly that. But objectively: if he wasn\u2019t serious about what he had said, why would Connie Willis have backed out?<\/p>\n

When people in either Puppy camps bother to spell out who they think is in the clique that they imagine congrols the Hugos, some of the big names they put out there don\u2019t even get along. I\u2019m not going to name examples because it\u2019s not my place to air dirty laundry or speak for other people about who they do or don\u2019t like, but honestly, a lot of it\u2019s been very public. A lot of the people assumed to be super influential really aren\u2019t. It\u2019s all the view from outside, seeing connections where there aren\u2019t any, extrapolating things to explain away results that the viewer can\u2019t otherwise make sense of.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s this really weird bit of cognitive dissonance that goes on where people look at everyone to the left of them (I don\u2019t know where you\u2019d say your politics lie, so I won\u2019t say you\u2019re on the right, though I imagine you\u2019re to the right of me) and see us both as marching in lockstep with one another and constantly turning on each other. This happens when one insists on seeing a monolith where none exists.<\/p>\n

Over in another culture skirmish, I\u2019ve tried to explain to people in Gamergate that some people really like video games but have different tastes and priorities, and we would just like to be able to read reviews that speak to our needs, and so it\u2019s distressing to see them label such reviews as \u201cunethical\u201d and try to hound them out of existence. This conversation never goes anywhere because the answer is always something like, \u201cOh, yeah? If you like video games, why did you censor Grand Theft Auto V in Australia?\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not in Australia, of course. I have a feeling that many of the moral guardians who signed the petition to get GTAV pulled from the shelves of Target would also protest any game that represented my ~*lifestyle*~, as they would call it.<\/p>\n

Yet because of the magical transformative value of the label SJW, I am responsible for the actions of those moral guardians, and no further conversation is possible.<\/p>\n

This is also how so many Puppies ended up demonizing Mary Robinette Kowal for a post where she basically endorsed the loftier versions of the Puppies\u2019 stated goals (open the gates, widen the conversation, let everyone in) and then ran a fundraising effort to randomly distribute voting memberships to any interested takers, regardless of their tastes and political views. If you see her as a member of the Anti-Puppies, and you see Anti-Puppies as SJWs, and you see SJWs as two-faced extremists who will say whatever is most advantageous while doing whatever they please\u2026 then you basically have no choice but to regard the whole body of her post as honeyed sarcasm or bald-faced lies and call the random membership giveaway drive \u201cbuying votes for her side!\u201d as so many did.<\/p>\n

(Though in fairness, many Puppies also recognized that what she was doing was a good step towards the world they wanted.)<\/p>\n

I know this a long comment, so I\u2019m going to wrap it up with pretty shortly. Just two more things.<\/p>\n

Up above, Ian says he\u2019s seen both the Puppy slate and the \u201cliberal recommendations\u201d. I know he\u2019s not saying the \u201cliberal slate\u201d, but just the fact that he has to phrase it that way kind of puts paid to the Puppy party line that there\u2019s a single clique of liberals that has been acting together to control the nominations, doesn\u2019t it? I\u2019ve seen people on the Rabid Puppies side say that the \u201cSJW side can\u2019t even fix an award competently,\u201d hence their ability to steamroller the nominations with ease. Isn\u2019t the more likely answer that it was never fixed to begin with?<\/p>\n

Maybe you\u2019ll read this and think I\u2019m talking nonsense. Maybe you don\u2019t think there\u2019s anything reasonable in the views I described as getting subsumed under the label of \u201cSJW\u201d. Maybe you even think that I\u2019m one of those vicious people who rides out under a banner to feel like a hero while attacking people. I have certainly had unkind things to say about the people leading the Puppy charges.<\/p>\n

But even if I am completely wrong about almost everything and als the worst person in the world, you would still have nothing to lose by excising the \u201cSJW\/everyone else\u201d division from your way of looking at the world. Judge people as individuals\u2026 don\u2019t sort them into a box and judge them against everyone else you\u2019ve put into the box. If you see someone arguing in poor face or browbeating someone or adopting extreme rhetorical poses in an obvious bid for attention or whatever, just label what they\u2019re doing as what it is. You don\u2019t need the word \u201cSJW\u201d to call them out for that, and in fact, it makes it harder because then you\u2019re talking about everything that everyone is doing, not what this one person is doing.<\/p>\n

If you want to take the first step towards a kinder, gentler, more tolerant discourse, start by putting down the \u201cSJW\u201d label. It only exists to burn people, and you don\u2019t want to fight fire with fire.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(A guest post by Alexandra Erin, quoted from her comment on another person’s blog. Thanks to Alexandra for her permission, and visit her blog Blue Author Is About To Write.) Joshua, I appreciate both where this post is coming from … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[165],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-civility-norms-of-discourse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19847"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19847\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19849,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19847\/revisions\/19849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}