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Social Justice Warriors - poisoning Rational Discourse?

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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,222 ✭✭✭✭PopePalpatine


    In my view it's not remarked upon often enough that the alt-right and the Trump movement are consequences of the SJW movement, to a large extent. Their bullsh!t is causing people to radicalise in the opposite direction. They've unleashed forces they seem to have no understanding of, and it's pretty terrifying.

    Simple example: Transgender people. Most moderates are perfectly ok with transgender people. I mean it must suck feeling like you've been born into the wrong body and being stuck with that, or having to get surgery to change it if you're well off enough to do so. It would in times gone by have only been the far right which would have had any issue in this regard, or any animosity towards these people.

    Enter the SJW left. Enter concepts like "genderfluid", "non binary", "otherkin", "genderqueer", etc. Enter the idea that it's a good idea to give reassignment surgery to pre-teens, knowing full well that they may horribly regret it later in life because nobody is equipped to make decisions like that at their age. Enter the argument that peoples' self-chosen gender identity should override things like gender segregation in sports due to advantage differences, gender based privacy in changing rooms, etc. Enter the ridiculous and seemingly never-ending push to add more letters to the term "LGBT", so that literally anybody with the slightest individual difference to anybody else gets their own special label (honestly, I know people who are legitimately transgender who regard the latter as insufferably attention-seeking and credibility-robbing). Etc etc etc.

    On top of all this, enter the argument that if you don't 100% subscribe to the most radical of ideas around gender identity, you are clearly a conservative trolling bigot who deserves to have his or her life ruined through online harassment, petitions to your place of work to have you fired, the spamming and doxxing of all social media accounts you hold, and even potentially the targeting of your place of residence in real life, and those of your family.

    Got all that so far? Right, now consider the argument that the internet should be regulated and policed so that anybody who disagrees with these people is muzzles. Consider the argument that one shouldn't be welcome to speak in college unless you subscribe 100% to all of these ideologies. Consider the argument that media companies should actively censor those whose opinions deviate from the SJW sacred cows. Consider the argument that hate speech against certain groups is fine, but hate speech against others should be severely punished. Consider the fact that amazingly, this latter ideology is specifically constructed to give the SJWs a free pass to harass and insult anybody they like, but to entirely embubble them from receiving any such harassment in response.

    Is it honestly any wonder that even people like myself (I consider myself left wing - even far left - and I personally find these morons on my own side of the political aisle more gratingly irritating than the Trumpeteer muppets) are utterly fed up with them and regard them as genuinely dangerous, a threat to the free society we've all grown up in, in which you cannot be persecuted for your beliefs?

    Seriously, the Trumpeteers are completely honest about this - their utter disgust and impatience with radical PC culture is one of their reasons for their gleeful support of Trump. They're happy that somebody is deliberately "triggering" all of the SJW types because they've been so incredibly irritating about their perceived invincibility to opposition.

    As much as the "regressive left" (hey, at least that term doesn't throw the concept of "social justice" under the bus like "SJW" does) makes me cringe, I've got to disagree with you here. In my opinion, the alt-right are just a new, tech-savvy breed of the far-right. The term was appropriated by Richard Spencer in 2010, long before "no-platforming" and "safe spaces" entered public discourse. The bigoted trolling which took place on 4chan and certain subreddits provided fertile breeding grounds for alt-rightists to post their own bullshit on them.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 33,195 ✭✭✭✭blanch152


    20Cent wrote: »
    Donald Trump encouraged his followers to attack dissenters at his rallies even offered to pay the legal bills for them. He banned media that he has deemed biased from press briefings. He constantly attacks media that criticises him. Dozens of journalists have been arrested and charged covering protests at his inaguration. He now says he wants to change libel laws to make it easier to sue.
    He wants the passwords of people entering rhe US and to sell peoples browsing histories. He has silenced many departments from publishing their own data.

    Yeah the problem with free speech and censorship is some twitter account calling someone racist.


    Equally, Paul Murphy encouraged his followers to detain Joan Burton in a car and ensured they got free legal aid.......Occupy protestors were guilty of similar hubris.

    The problem is that the centre has been lost. From Trump to Brexit to Paul Murphy to the SNP to racist anti-immigrants, politics is being lost to the extremists.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,798 ✭✭✭✭hatrickpatrick


    As much as the "regressive left" (hey, at least that term doesn't throw the concept of "social justice" under the bus like "SJW" does) makes me cringe, I've got to disagree with you here. In my opinion, the alt-right are just a new, tech-savvy breed of the far-right. The term was appropriated by Richard Spencer in 2010, long before "no-platforming" and "safe spaces" entered public discourse. The bigoted trolling which took place on 4chan and certain subreddits provided fertile breeding grounds for alt-rightists to post their own bullshit on them.

    I agree, but this does not explain how and why it went mainstream in the manner that it has. A lot of people on alt right forums post about how they don't actually support some of the outrageous ideas that get thrown around, but that they're tired of 'unacceptable opinions' being a thing and just want to lash out against those who want to police speech and ideology. Maybe they're not the bulk of alt right supporters but there's no question that they're among the most vocal and tech savvy - the cohort which helped to rocket Trump and his candidacy into the mainstream by gaming the internet long before he had even begun to rack up the delegate counts in the primaries.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,249 ✭✭✭ Melina Tiny Toad


    Common sense is clearly lacking in some people today - on both sides


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,798 ✭✭✭✭hatrickpatrick


    blanch152 wrote: »
    Equally, Paul Murphy encouraged his followers to detain Joan Burton in a car and ensured they got free legal aid.......Occupy protestors were guilty of similar hubris.

    The problem is that the centre has been lost. From Trump to Brexit to Paul Murphy to the SNP to racist anti-immigrants, politics is being lost to the extremists.

    The Occupy and Anonymous movements got hijacked by the SJW-left in an absolutely appalling fashion. I supported Occupy in its infancy - initially, it was a very, very targeted movement which was opposed to the fact that those responsible for wrecking the global banking system in 2008 had largely escaped without prosecution or punishment. It was initially kicked off by groups concerned that the statute of limitations was coming close to expiring for some of the earlier activities which laid the foundations of the crisis (the aforementioned statute is five years for the relevant offenses). And had it continued in this vein, it could have been an exceptionally more powerful movement than what it became.

    The SJW-left essentially seemed to see these large groups of people gathering together and decide that this was a fertile recruitment ground for literally everything from environmentalism to anti-war. Now, I support both of these causes (just two examples, there were dozens more) but it infuriated me at the time that the message of Occupy was being diluted in the manner that it was, to the point at which it became a fractured, incoherent and entirely toothless movement.

    Anonymous followed a similar arc - it accomplished some serious sh!t up to and including 2011 (one of the hacks which received the least publicity but caused the most political fallout was when they exposed a private security firm essentially being hired by Obama's DOJ and Bank of America to find ways of blackmailing journalists into boycotting Wikileaks - chilling stuff) when it was focused almost entirely on internet freedom and opposing any attempts to police the internet, but once the SJWs got involved, Anonymous videos started cropping up every two days, targeting everything from colleges to random companies.

    These are two examples of how SJWs have managed to poison otherwise promising social / political movements. There are plenty more. I have previously referred to them as a cancer of the left and I fully stand by that.

    EDIT: One interesting anecdote. The decline of Anonymous in particular is now known to have begun with the arrest of one of its most prolific hackers, who turned informant for the FBI and essentially did their bidding for the next year. And if you read his old tweets, he was one of the biggest advocates for broadening the movement's focus to the point of incoherency - but only after is arrest. Makes one genuinely wonder how much of this SJW sh!te is being planted or stirred up by agent provocateurs with the hope of fracturing growing activist movements - state agencies particularly in America have a long history of doing this in order to protect the status quo.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 7,570 ✭✭✭Ulysses Gaze


    Anonymous followed a similar arc - it accomplished some serious sh!t up to and including 2011 (one of the hacks which received the least publicity but caused the most political fallout was when they exposed a private security firm essentially being hired by Obama's DOJ and Bank of America to find ways of blackmailing journalists into boycotting Wikileaks - chilling stuff) when it was focused almost entirely on internet freedom and opposing any attempts to police the internet, but once the SJWs got involved, Anonymous videos started cropping up every two days, targeting everything from colleges to random companies.

    EDIT: One interesting anecdote. The decline of Anonymous in particular is now known to have begun with the arrest of one of its most prolific hackers, who turned informant for the FBI and essentially did their bidding for the next year. And if you read his old tweets, he was one of the biggest advocates for broadening the movement's focus to the point of incoherency - but only after is arrest. Makes one genuinely wonder how much of this SJW sh!te is being planted or stirred up by agent provocateurs with the hope of fracturing growing activist movements - state agencies particularly in America have a long history of doing this in order to protect the status quo.

    Bingo


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,115 ✭✭✭✭Junkyard Tom


    Shenshen wrote: »
    The censors used to be the conservative and right-wing forces. Now I see universities banning groups from speaking there - that's not what a university should ever do.

    Individuals having control over what the public got to view/read (that's literally controlling the public consciousness) and some fringe morons prancing around a high-walled garden are hardly comparable.

    The difference between 'right-wing' and 'left-wing' ****bags is that the former are in positions of influence and power while the latter may as well be living in a cartoon.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 16,768 ✭✭✭✭tomwaterford


    JupiterKid wrote: »
    It's a form of Marxism that views the pre-existing structures of power as inherently unequal and elitist. Some of my college lecturerers in the 1990s were cultural marxists. It was propagated by the Frankfurt School in the 20th century. Here's a link:

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_School

    Surly the opposite of this,is to not challenge authority and existing power structures


    Which will lead to a rot and abuse of power....like how the catholic church got out of control ìn the country when noone would challenge them?



    Just because things were always done such a way,deosnt mean there's not a better way.....otherwise we'd all be still sitting in caves throwing stones at the wall,if noone was to have ever tried anything new?


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 1,084 ✭✭✭FA Hayek


    20Cent wrote: »
    More like people are not "upset" at forum posts - more "upset" at the movement to stifle debate.

    Offering opposing views is not stifling dabate. Only governments can censor. If someone gets grief online or denied a platform thats pushback against whatever is being proposed not censorship or stifling debate.
    Yet people are willing to self censor because they do not want to offend anyone nor appear racist/sexist/homophobic because some idiots on twitter.
    Also, you appear more then willing yourself to censor people who engage in 'hate speech' which means now days, saying anything that goes against the grain of progressivism.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 1,084 ✭✭✭FA Hayek


    Shenshen wrote: »
    The censors used to be the conservative and right-wing forces. Now I see universities banning groups from speaking there - that's not what a university should ever do.

    Individuals having control over what the public got to view/read (that's literally controlling the public consciousness) and some fringe morons prancing around a high-walled garden are hardly comparable.

    The difference between 'right-wing' and 'left-wing' ****bags is that the former are in positions of influence and power while the latter may as well be living in a cartoon.
    Are you telling me that Universities and their employees are not in a position of power and influence?


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,947 ✭✭✭20Cent


    Said it before but if you voted for trump or brexit because someone in twitter said Caitlin Jenner should be referred to with female pronouns you are an idiot.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 18,853 ✭✭✭✭silverharp


    As much as the "regressive left" (hey, at least that term doesn't throw the concept of "social justice" under the bus like "SJW" does) makes me cringe, I've got to disagree with you here. In my opinion, the alt-right are just a new, tech-savvy breed of the far-right. The term was appropriated by Richard Spencer in 2010, long before "no-platforming" and "safe spaces" entered public discourse. The bigoted trolling which took place on 4chan and certain subreddits provided fertile breeding grounds for alt-rightists to post their own bullshit on them.

    there you go with your own language inflation, "far right" are they people that would create a dictatorship and start executing minorities? , or just anyone who's politics I dont like? or "basket of deplorables" if you will :D

    A belief in gender identity involves a level of faith as there is nothing tangible to prove its existence which, as something divorced from the physical body, is similar to the idea of a soul. - Colette Colfer



  • Posts: 25,909 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    20Cent wrote: »
    Said it before but if you voted for trump or brexit because someone in twitter said Caitlin Jenner should be referred to with female pronouns you are an idiot.
    Neater_9975.png


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,947 ✭✭✭20Cent


    Neater_9975.png

    Sh1tposting another thing to dissuade debate.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 184 ✭✭Tayschren


    The real result of the discourse (read this thread for perfect example) that is current proliferation across social and old media of know it alls is that nobody normal gives a **** anymore. To much bull**** from too many wafflers spreading over the internet.

    Grab yourself a pair of hiking boots and up into the hills for some fresh air


  • Posts: 25,909 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    20Cent wrote: »
    Sh1tposting another thing to dissuade debate.
    Says the guy who mischaracterises others' points with a single line and calls some people he made up idiots. Yeah, good one.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,575 ✭✭✭RandomName2


    osarusan wrote: »
    I'm seeing more and more of people spouting nonsense like SJW, Cultural Marxism, the 'multikult', triggered, snowflake, safe space, virtue signalling, and other overused/empty terms.

    Far far more of that nonsense on AH than the stuff the posters are complaining about.


    Oh no, SJWs, Cultural Marxists and the like really do exist and they violently oppose anyone who doesn't share their own views. They are so insidious because they call themselves victims, say they are standing up to bullying, and feel themselves absolutely entitled to any sort of behaviour because they are more "caring".

    Here's an example of their level of debate:


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,098 ✭✭✭conorhal


    Surly the opposite of this,is to not challenge authority and existing power structures


    Which will lead to a rot and abuse of power....like how the catholic church got out of control ìn the country when noone would challenge them?



    Just because things were always done such a way,deosnt mean there's not a better way.....otherwise we'd all be still sitting in caves throwing stones at the wall,if noone was to have ever tried anything new?

    The problem is the 'everything must go' attitude of these deconstructionists, it rivals Pol Pot's 'year zero' ideology in it's simplistic denial of reality and refusal to compromise. The assumption that institutional change requires removing the entire institution is simply false.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 2,505 ✭✭✭infogiver


    20Cent wrote: »
    Sh1tposting another thing to dissuade debate.

    Well you didn't know how to answer my post so you decided to call me homophobic and anti Semitic. So you would know all about sh1tposting to dissuade debate, wouldn't you?


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 2,505 ✭✭✭infogiver


    Oh no, SJWs, Cultural Marxists and the like really do exist and they violently oppose anyone who doesn't share their own views. They are so insidious because they call themselves victims, say they are standing up to bullying, and feel themselves absolutely entitled to any sort of behaviour because they are more "caring".

    Here's an example of their level of debate:

    That is horrific.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 221 ✭✭NinjaKirby


    Oh no, SJWs, Cultural Marxists and the like really do exist and they violently oppose anyone who doesn't share their own views. They are so insidious because they call themselves victims, say they are standing up to bullying, and feel themselves absolutely entitled to any sort of behaviour because they are more "caring".

    Here's an example of their level of debate:

    Not really sure what's going on there.

    Someone is roaring at him "Nazi scum, get off our streets".

    But, another one is saying to him "F*** cop apologists".

    So because he supports the police, he's a Nazi?

    Honestly, I don't think the guy in blue is particularly good at making his points but under the circumstances there that could be understandable. The protesters aren't exactly making their point well either.

    Surely the behavior of the mob towards the gentleman in blue would be classified as harassment?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 19,801 ✭✭✭✭suicide_circus


    The idea of an organised and orchestrated global patriarchy is a myth


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,947 ✭✭✭20Cent


    infogiver wrote: »
    That is horrific.

    More debate there than a trump ralley.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,687 ✭✭✭andekwarhola


    To outside observers, it just seems like circular, interminable idelogical playground spats where each gang instantly shows up at a flashpoint and assume the relevant stance.

    Kinda my kids coming in from the street blaming each other on 'starting it'.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 41,236 ✭✭✭✭Annasopra


    Enter the idea that it's a good idea to give reassignment surgery to pre-teens, knowing full well that they may horribly regret it later in life because nobody is equipped to make decisions like that at their age.

    I have never ever seen this idea promoted as a good idea. Have you some links or evidence of this?

    It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was us, what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things.

    Terry Pratchet



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,496 ✭✭✭Will I Am Not


    20Cent wrote: »
    More debate there than a trump ralley.

    Any comment on the actual events in the video or are you just going to accuse everybody else of sh*tposting when it's pretty much all you do.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 12,898 ✭✭✭✭Ken.


    Mod-20cent, do not post in this thread again.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,222 ✭✭✭✭PopePalpatine


    silverharp wrote: »
    there you go with your own language inflation, "far right" are they people that would create a dictatorship and start executing minorities? , or just anyone who's politics I dont like? or "basket of deplorables" if you will :D

    See for yourself. Here, I'll even quote the sidebar of their subreddit:
    The Alt-Right, unlike the dominant ideology of the 20th Century (Liberalism/Conservatism), examines the world through a lens of realism. Rather than continue to look at the world through the ideological blinders that Liberalism imposes in its dogmatic evangelism of the Equalitarian religion, we prefer to look & examine social relations & demographics from a perspective of what's real. Thus, racial & sexual realism is a key component of the Alt-Right - perhaps the key component that ties the diverse factions within it together.
    Another core principle of the Alt-Right is Identitarianism. Identitarianism is the prioritization of social identity, regardless of political persuasion. Thus, the Alt-Right promotes White Identity and White Nationalism.

    And here's some choice quotes of Richard Spencer himself:
    “At the end of the day, America belongs to white men.â€
    “You’re part of a bigger extended family, and that race has a story to tell. It’s a people and a blood and a place on the map.â€
    “Whether it was nice or not, and I’m not going to deny there was a lot of brutality that went along with it, we won,†Spencer reportedly said about civilizations built by Europeans, which according to him are eventually put in danger when their fundamental racial identity is lost.
    “Race is real. Race matters. Race is the foundation of identity.â€
    “Trump was the first step toward white identity politics in the United States. He is not going to be the last. The alt-right is a new beginning.â€


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 2,505 ✭✭✭infogiver


    20Cent wrote: »
    More debate there than a trump ralley.

    Why, was there plenty of debate at a Hillary Clinton rally?
    Why are you comparing a mob of bullies harassing a mentally ill man on the street with a political rally?
    You genuinely don't see any problem with how that man is being treated. You think it's entirely justified and appropriate
    You accused me of homophobia and anti Semitism and your trying to pretend you didn't . Your not engaging in any debate here or argument at all because you don't have the skills, what is it that you want?


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 12,898 ✭✭✭✭Ken.


    Mod-Don't quote thread banned people, they can't reply.


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