
Social Justice Bullies: The Authoritarianism of Millennial Social Justice - bovermyer
https://medium.com/@aristoNYC/social-justice-bullies-the-authoritarianism-of-millennial-social-justice-6bdb5ad3c9d3?section=suggested
======
evincarofautumn
Every time I try to argue for intellectual honesty, I get labeled “part of the
problem”. Every time I try to encourage people to listen to others and treat
them equally because it’s _a good thing to do_ and not because they identify
as a feminist, I am met with hostility. If I make friends with someone of a
different background than me and then mention them at all in a discussion
about equality, I am accused of tokenism, because I’m cis-het white male scum
(hey, thanks for asking, but I’m not all those). I am tired of this abusive
rhetoric. I want real feminism, real equality, whatever label you want to use,
and it starts with treating people with respect and conducting honest
dialogue.

~~~
fweespeech
You don't want to hold up the author as intellectually honest. He sneaks in a
propaganda organ on par with the Party from 1984 as one of his sources without
admitting that is what they are. :/

[http://www.leadershipinstitute.org/aboutus/](http://www.leadershipinstitute.org/aboutus/)
runs some of what he is using as "evidence". They are pretty clearly a
political organization with an agenda. If the author wasn't in the same vein,
he'd have disclosed that or used someone else.

\---

EDIT:

For example this guy:

> Your post feels eerily reminiscent of pro-industry conservatives pointing at
> snow and saying,"Global Climate Shift is a fallacy!" Maybe he used a poor
> source (though i think you'd have a hard time finding any data aggregator
> that does not have some political lean), but amongst how many credible ones?
> In my industry, the last day on the job is all that matters. On a 50 day
> job, 49 perfects mean nothing if the one bad one is on the last day. I
> always hated this; IMO it has no place in logical debate/discussion.

Since I'm rate limited and people are making various claims I'm going to point
this out:

It isn't a "data aggregator with a political leaning", it is literally owned
by an institution founded exclusively to further a single political party.

[http://www.leadershipinstitute.org/campus/activism.cfm?Idea=...](http://www.leadershipinstitute.org/campus/activism.cfm?Idea=81)

> Over 30,000 scientists have signed a petition, publicly voicing their
> dissent over the consensus regarding climate change. - See more at:
> [http://www.leadershipinstitute.org/campus/activism.cfm?Idea=...](http://www.leadershipinstitute.org/campus/activism.cfm?Idea=81#sthash.9OlZIp6f.dpuf)

If you actually look at the list you find a bunch of people like these folks:

> Donald R. Buechel, MD, Walter R. Buerger, MD

They strongly imply its "climate scientists" when in reality its anyone they
can claim has a Phd.

These are trained liars who lie through omission regularly. That isn't
anywhere near "the same" as a newspaper with a political leaning.

To hold them up as a source when you claim you are being intellectually honest
[and not disclosing what they are] really is dishonest.

~~~
Karunamon
I'd argue that this is not an instance of dishonesty. The ideologies of groups
like the one you linked to, despite being radical, are quickly becoming
mainstream.

You've got an author in a mainstream newspaper who can write that due process
shouldn't exist, and this is taken seriously in the current political climate.

You've got an ideology that asserts your identity is more important than the
content of your character, and this is taken seriously.

You've got an ideology that states literally any dissent is at least bad, at
most hateful, and this is taken seriously.

The example you link to is not dishonest because it is not meant to be an
example of "everyday" thoughts by everyday people, it is meant to be an
example of radicalism becoming mainstream.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
I'm sorry, but I think everything you've written is utterly backwards. Nobody
outside the internet takes seriously the ideas that due process shouldn't
exist, or that identity is more important than actions, or that dissent is
morally harmful.

And "Conservatism" in its hard-right, Koch-and-Paul incarnation is _already_
mainstream. It _has been_ mainstream ever since Ronald Reagan -- not just
mainstream but _the_ mainstream, in the sense that it _keeps winning
elections_ , no matter what the San Francisco digerati think of it.

(And for reference, I'm very hard-left. I don't _like_ that the Republican
Party wins elections; I just also don't _pretend it doesn 't happen_ and then
claim the Tumblr Left is somehow mainstream!)

~~~
classicsnoot
Fallacies abound.

>Nobody outside the internet takes seriously the idea that due process
shouldn't exist. The _Internet_ is made of people. Do these people (you and I
and everyone ITT) not exist in the real world?

>...ever since Ronald Reagan. Do you honestly believe a Golden Age actor
invented Conservatism? Crazy town banana pants

>...the Tumblr left is somehow mainstream. main·stream ˈmānˌstrēm/ noun noun:
mainstream

    
    
        1.
        the ideas, attitudes, or activities that are regarded as normal or conventional; the dominant trend in opinion, fashion, or the arts.
    

Isn't mainstream more of a reflection of Common Knowledge then ubiquity
throughout subgroups? Regardless, the idea that leftishness is somehow an
underground thing is CTBP. Full disclosure, I am an intellectual anarchist.
THAT is a fringe group.

I am not trying to hate, i just disagree with what you said, and i am sorry if
you feel offended by anything i wrote, but i am not sorry for anything i have
written.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
>The Internet is made of people. Do these people (you and I and everyone ITT)
not exist in the real world?

The internet is mostly made of a _strict subset_ of people who exist in the
real world, and the people who make up The Internet, in the sense of internet-
centered subcultures, are a very _small_ subset of all real people.

The fact that an idea or ideology is loud, or even possibly dominant, _within
our subculture_ is not even _evidence_ of its being dominant within _society
as a whole_. Most of society are _nothing like us net-folk_.

>Do you honestly believe a Golden Age actor invented Conservatism? Crazy town
banana pants

What I _said_ is that he brought it to mainstream electoral dominance,
particularly after the social-democratic Postwar Consensus.

> Isn't mainstream more of a reflection of Common Knowledge then ubiquity
> throughout subgroups?

Right, hence why we need to check to make sure that what _we_ think is common
to think _among our friends and cliques_ is actually common among the
population as a whole -- because our friends and cliques are _not_
representative samples.

>Regardless, the idea that leftishness is somehow an underground thing is
CTBP.

Don't be silly. It's not _underground_ , it's just a comparatively small
minority of the total population. In the United States, for instance, if I
recall the numbers correctly, I believe that roughly 40% of the population
self-report as conservative or conservative-leaning, 10% as
independent/undecided, 20% as liberal or leftist, and 30% as
moderate/centrist. So in total, there are fewer devoted leftists than devoted
rightists, and fewer devoted anything-ists than self-declared non-ideologues.

And of the people who self-declare as leftists, only a minority will be
_Tumblr_ leftists.

So yeah: a tempest in the internet's teacup doesn't mean that a bunch of
authoritarian identity-politicking liberals are taking over the world.

------
saboot
I'm not sure how other tech individuals feel about these issues, but with the
accounts of mass public shaming by everyone against perceived injustices and
their supporters I feel like the best thing for myself is to say and do
nothing at all. Until the tone of the discussion changes I think many people
will continue to feel this way as well

~~~
wpietri
I think that's a good response, but I'd suggest adding some listening and
learning to it. The Internet is accelerating some important cultural changes.

For example, look at the speed with which gay rights have happened, and how
quickly society changed. In my view, that's because the Internet has
drastically increased the ability of people with minority viewpoints to be
heard.

What does that feel like for somebody with the old opinions? It has to be
hard. For their whole lives, something they didn't like was actively hidden
from them out of fear. They just never had to accept that gay people were real
humans. So now they have a whole reservoir of views and habits and comments
that are no longer appropriate. Many surely feel uncomfortable enough that
they just shut up in public.

And I think that's fine. Their views and habits and comments were part of the
social structure that oppressed gay people. Nobody wants to hear them anymore.
I think it's best for everybody if they say nothing in public. They should
instead take some time listening to the gay people whose voices they
previously ignored. To the extent that they need help working through their
opinions, they should do that privately, with people already sympathetic to
them, rather than demanding that the world help them process things.

~~~
saboot
I don't agree with the sentiment that those who are afraid of speaking up are
supporting bigotry or inequality. I hope my comment doesn't imply that I would
support those things, or belong to those with 'the old opinions'.

~~~
wpietri
I'm sure you don't _want_ to support those things. I don't either. But I
expect we both accidentally do. Let's look at the previous example to gay
marriage, interracial marriage:

[http://www.gallup.com/poll/149390/record-high-approve-
black-...](http://www.gallup.com/poll/149390/record-high-approve-black-white-
marriages.aspx)

For a long time, it was the near-universal opinion that it was wrong. Now it's
the near-universal opinion that it is fine.

When opposition was the dominant opinion, nobody thought that was supporting
bigotry and inequality. Then there was a long period where one side believed
it was bigotry and one side didn't. Now everybody sees it as bigotry.

For a long time, opponents of interracial marriage were comfortable sharing
their views. Supporters were afraid of speaking up. Eventually supporters
started speaking up energetically. Opponents did the same:

[http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Little_Rock_integrati...](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Little_Rock_integration_protest.jpg)

Eventually, the tide turned. Opponents generally didn't lose their opinions,
but they became afraid to speak up because of possible social consequences.
And eventually a generation grew up that doesn't even question the topic.

Why does this matter? Well, either A) all racism, sexism, etc, have now been
eliminated from society in this manner, or B) most of us harbor some bigoted,
erroneous views that we haven't collectively recognized as wrong.

I believe it's the latter. That's certainly been my personal experience as
I've come to learn about these topics.

------
borgia
This piece belongs on HN as much as any of the pieces that spring up and are
flag killed about feminism i.e. it doesn't.

However, the fact that it is on HN and has received quite a bit of support
let's me know I'm certainly not alone in my frustration with the modern social
justice movement, their antics, and its creep into the "tech media".

It is an incredibly divisive, hate-fueled movement based on flawed, debunked
statistics and what amounts to a game of oppression olympics. Where once the
type of person to spout their hateful rhetoric would be simply ignored,
through social media they have been enabled, given a voice to, and been able
to form an echo-chamber with other similarly deluded, hate-fueled people.

Through their network they have wielded an undue amount of power and we have
unfortunately witnessed the result of it in real life, as a man who landed a
probe on a comet millions of miles away had his team's achievement pushed to
the back in favour of the furor over the shirt he wore while doing so, and who
then wept on TV as a result of the sheer level of hate he received.

We have seen GitHub shamed for its rug championing unity in meritocracy, who
then quickly moved to throw the "problematic" rug into the trash amidst the
furor from these online "feminists".

We saw two people lose their jobs and have their names ran into the ground
online by these "feminists" over a bad joke at a tech convention.

And the list goes on.

They have become simply too large to ignore. Their presence, and their
narrative, drives so many clicks that we now see the "tech media" latch onto
it, give their toxic views air and promote their narrative in the name of
gaining clicks.

Facts no longer matter when it comes to these people, only the narrative. It
doesn't matter that Ellen Pao was proven to have no case against Kleiner
Perkins and was exposed as an incredibly shady person while doing so, you
wouldn't tell she lost as the media driving this narrative cherry picked that
which was convenient to the narrative and brushed over everything which was
not.

I could go on about this, but all I will say is that I'm glad to see backlash
against this movement increasing. I'm glad to see more speaking out against
it. I'm glad to see their hashtags on Twitter being used against them, and I'm
_extremely_ glad to see some of their champions like Sarah Noble being held
accountable in real life for the hate they spew online.

~~~
morbius
I think this is a bit disingenuous. I have definitely seen many articles on
the web playing "oppression olympics" pitting supposedly privileged and
oppressed groups against one another in literally _every possible category_ ,
but these are usually met with scorn from rational individuals who identify as
feminists or social justice warriors who believe that it harms the relevancy
of actually oppressed minorities. There are fringe groups on every topic --
just as the Tea Party isn't representative of the visions of Libertarians and
Islamic extremism isn't representative of the views of most Muslims, most
radical exclusionary feminism isn't representative of the views of the vast
majority of feminists.

And as for Pycon 2013, most feminists I know argued that Adria had done enough
by complaining to staff and had no right to post the employees' names and
pictures on Instagram/Twitter/whatever, and that the individuals involved did
not deserve to lose their jobs. But being a jerk isn't a prerequisite for
being a voice for a traditionally oppressed group. It's just a result of being
impassioned and hopelessly misguided, both traits that are indicative of
naïveté rather than malice.

------
wtbob
> In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you
> would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim
> sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the
> validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality, was
> tacitly denied by their philosophy. —George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four

Well, doesn't that sum up the modern West in a nutshell. War is Peace; Freedom
is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength.

------
littletimmy
This is quite unsurprising, since the political system in the United States is
very authoritarian.

The entire political discourse lies between the authoritarian center
(Democrats) or the authoritarian far right (Republican). There are no real
libertarians. There were a few fringe candidates in the past (e.g. Ralph
Nader, Ron Paul) who were basically unelectable, and there are a few fringe
candidates now (e.g. Rand Paul) who have begun singing the tune of
authoritarian government to get elected.

------
dropit_sphere
If anyone hasn't had the chance, I highly recommend reading Scott Alexander's
"Meditations" series, particularly the ones on superweapons and bingo:

[http://squid314.livejournal.com/329171.html](http://squid314.livejournal.com/329171.html)
[http://squid314.livejournal.com/329561.html](http://squid314.livejournal.com/329561.html)

------
atlantic
The prerequisite for civilized discourse is that arguments should stand or
fall on their own merits. To evaluate opinions on the basis of the
sociopolitical identity of the author, and to shout down those who do not pass
this test, is pure prejudice indicative of intellectual debility.

I enjoyed reading the contrarian comments attached to the article, because
they were revealingly thin on argumentation. My favourite one was "this is not
a good article", closely followed by the inscrutable "you need to come to
terms with the idea that you're more libertarian than left-wing."

------
dudul
"When Fascism comes to America, it will be called anti-Fascism!"

\- Huey Long

~~~
john_butts
"It's hip to be square"

\- Huey Lewis

~~~
classicsnoot
"Uncah Donald, Uncah Donald!"

-Huey, Dewey, and Louis

------
ls66
I would agree in general that the left has appropriated and advocates the kind
of extreme, life-changing response to perceived enemies that it has accused
the right of using. I do think that ultimately there will be backlash against
this. The left mentions routinely that it has demographics on its side, but I
could just as easily envision them being perceived as having gone too far and
being the 'establishment' that people will eventually work to rebel against -
though at that point, it may be too late.

------
Karunamon
This article appears to have fallen off the front page rather precipitously.
It was at position 5 last I looked, and now that I refresh the page, it's not
even there anymore - older posts with fewer votes are now far above it.

Would any staff care to chime in? It seems as if this posting was penalized.

~~~
vonmoltke
Note: not staff

There is (used to be?) a flamewar detection algorithm built into the larger
ranking algorithm that would penalize stories which sparked rapid discussion
accompanied by frequent downvoting.

~~~
classicsnoot
Kind of sad. A case where the algorithm is wrong. This is not a flame war,
rather it is a passionate discussion between opposed ideologies. The nefarious
tentacles of PC culture infecting the maths. Maybe they should add a word
search for certain terms ( _No, idiot_ , _fucking moron_ , _you are dumb_ ) as
well as rapid responses and downvotes to determine if it has gone all _Reign
of Fire_ up in here...

------
abruzzi
Is this really a millennial thing? While the prominence may be a recent thing,
the mindset discussed in the article goes back a long way.

~~~
borgia
The mindset may not be a millennial thing but its prominence in modern society
most certainly is. Where once the hate-fueled rhetoric these kinds spew all
day and night would have been written off as the delusions of a bitter
lunatic, social media has given them a platform to find those similar to them,
to network, to organise, etc. and those people tend to be within the
millennial age group.

------
Lancey
This is like some kind of Clickhole parody that mashes up MRA literature with
How Millennials are Destroying the World(TM). There's no discussion to be had
because the author's engaged in a dialog in his head about what the counter
argument is and decided to format his thoughts in regards to that. Pepper a
little Orwell here and some allegory there and you've got an article that
shows exactly what's wrong with this argument - a refusal to listen to reason
and instead substitute your own perception of how the world works.

~~~
Karunamon
Except, for that part where he directly responds to a WaPo author who thinks
due process isn't a thing that should exist.

~~~
wpietri
The WaPo author explicitly says, "This is not a legal argument about what
standards we should use in the courts; it’s a moral one, about what happens
outside the legal system."

The Medium piece conflates social justice and legal justice. Slavery was
legal, so forcibly returning slaves to their owners was legally just. However,
we came to recognize it as a moral wrong, something socially unjust.
Eventually, we changed the laws, but the cultural change had to happen first.

~~~
Karunamon
What is the end game in a world where an accusation of a crime is accepted as
factual, and any questioning of that accusation makes one an apologist for the
crime _at best_?

The legal system is supposed to be a reflection of society's morals. If you
challenge the moral framework, by asserting that an accusation should never be
questioned, you challenge the legal framework by extension.

~~~
wpietri
Nobody is saying that accusations should never be questioned in court. But we
live in a society that, outside of court, treats rape victims very differently
than victims of other crimes. The dynamic is lampooned here:

[https://feministphilosophers.wordpress.com/2011/09/17/a-usef...](https://feministphilosophers.wordpress.com/2011/09/17/a-useful-
rape-analogy/)

It is that aspect of the moral framework that people are attempting to change.
Like it or not, society has collectively acted to excuse rapists for
millennia. That has been gradually declining; at least now it's a crime that
is taken somewhat seriously.

------
michaelochurch
I stopped hating my generation (born 1983, so I'm just barely a Millennial
rather than an Xer) when I stepped back and looked at the picture in its
totality and realized that we _looked_ bad because (except in athletics, where
objective genetic talent rules the day and rich parents or producers alone
can't make a career) most of the prominent Millennials were produced by the
worst of the Baby Boom generation.

First of all, authoritarian leftism isn't new. The ex-leftist neoconservatives
of 2003 who got us into the Iraq War? They weren't the civil rights activists
or the hippies. They weren't the ones fighting for desegreation or womens' or
gay rights activists. Rather, those people were the communists, Stalin-
defenders in the 60s, the left-wing authoritarians who swung right when they
were older and richer. It's not really a loss that they went from left to
right in the Reagan Era, as they were assholes the whole time.

Anyway, someone being a jerk on Twitter is not the same thing as what the
Weather Underground was up to. For good and bad, we're pretty moderate in
comparison to the Baby Boomers.

I stopped hating Millennials when I realized that the worst of us are
_products_ created by the worst of the exiting generations. You can find
anything in any generation, so one bad apple (or few) says little about the
generation and much more about those who endeavored to find it. And a young
generation will be defined, when it is young, based on the uses that older
generations find for it. Evan Spiegel? Lucas Duplan? Miley Cyrus? Justin
Bieber? Lena Dunham? They're detestable, but they reflect on _their producers_
, the ones who made their careers, and not on "our generation" in any
meaningful way. If you look at the currently small-- and it's small not
because we suck but because we're still young and most of us haven't had a
chance to get started yet-- percentage (in the arts and business) of prominent
Millennials who are actually self-made, the picture is _a lot_ more
flattering.

~~~
CPLX
> Evan Spiegel? Lucas Duplan? Miley Cyrus? Justin Bieber? Lena Dunham? They're
> detestable, but they reflect on their producers, the ones who made their
> careers, and not on "our generation" in any meaningful way.

I'm with you otherwise but this line of reasoning is pretty dubious, a sort of
counting the hits and not the misses approach.

It doesn't reduce well. If we blame the boomers for "producing" millennials
why can't we just turn around and blame the prehistoric Madison Avenue types
that produced the boomers[0], and so on and so forth.

[0] [http://www.amazon.com/The-Conquest-Cool-Counterculture-
Consu...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Conquest-Cool-Counterculture-
Consumerism/dp/0226260127)

~~~
michaelochurch
My point is that a large percentage of the people who are prominent _right
now_ are the ones who had lift from the worst of older generations. They're
not reflective of the generation as a whole, or what we will be when some of
us actually get into real power.

Right now, the oldest Millennials are 33. In 15 years, it will be different.

~~~
CPLX
Perhaps, I suppose we'll have to see. One could also make the argument that
these guys who are becoming billionaires will only spawn whole cottage
industries of metastasized douchebaggery in 15 years (ala Peter Thiel) but
I'll concede it's possible that there's a pending cultural shift that will
dwarf all this just over the horizon.

------
spacemanmatt
Cheap synopsis: MRA tries to make make a cogent case without the overt
whining, misogyny, bigotry. Still a privileged rant. Author may be feeling
strident in the wake of Rolling Stone's retractions and recriminations.

~~~
Karunamon
You just proved how you either didn't read the article, or read it and
completely missed the point as the author _directly addresses_ what you're
complaining about.

It's very telling (and actually directly proves the author's point) that the
best criticism you can come up with is the author's identity (i.e. a personal
attack, i.e. an adhom) rather than a concrete problem with his ideas.

~~~
spacemanmatt
No sir, I don't do my very best here on HN. I have a day job. Nice try.

~~~
classicsnoot
Completely beside the point. Many here have a day job. Horrible try.

------
bakhy
My god, why can't white cis males handle any criticism? It's as if people live
in paralyzing fear of being called a name. And then can't wait for an
opportunity to say "Aha! You're now exactly like your oppressors!" WTF? If you
can think these things are the same, you automatically prove you do not
actually understand anything. And yet you preach, and preach...

~~~
classicsnoot
I'm here, I'm white, I'm male. Criticize me. Let's see how well your blanket
statement holds up...

------
makeitsuckless
The problem here is that there is also an equal opposite force.

Pretty much all of those who use the derogatory term "SJW" turn out to be
misogynistic right-wing bullies for whom feminism equals evil, and who think
rape threats are free speech. The whole gamergate movement is utterly
disgusting and spreading. (For instance, the right-wing bullies are now
terrorizing the Hugo awards.)

It's a movement towards intolerant extremism from both sides.

~~~
classicsnoot
Really?? So by using a term, whether quoting, asking, or actually applying,
you can infer deep motivation? That is a pretty awesome skill... or maybe you
are being the change you refuse to see...

------
fweespeech
While the author has a couple good points [there is alot of 1984 kind of
Doublespeak in Western culture and it is getting worse] and there are those
overzealous individuals who will use false information to push an agenda...

> The fact of the matter is, this particular brand of millennial social
> justice advocacy is destructive to academia, intellectual honesty, and true
> critical thinking and open mindedness. We see it already having a profound
> impact on the way universities act and how they approach curriculum.

The first link in this paragraph is:

> [http://www.campusreform.org/?ID=6356](http://www.campusreform.org/?ID=6356)

Student petitions, not actual changes. That entire site is backed and run by
people with an agenda:

[http://www.leadershipinstitute.org/aboutus/](http://www.leadershipinstitute.org/aboutus/)

The mere fact political propaganda from a known biased source would be used as
"evidence", honestly, shows the OP has the same biases as the SJW but from a
different direction.

Intellectually honesty isn't repeating stories from a well known political
organization that solely exists to train future conservatives to spread their
message as fact [without disclosing that is what they are].

\---

Since I'm rate limited I'll reply to the accusation below here:

> Your argument is simply ad hominem. Either the ideas themselves are wrong,
> or they're not. It doesn't matter where the information came from. If Hitler
> told me about gravity that doesn't mean there is no gravity just because I
> learned about it from him.

Hitler in a clown mask coming to tell you about how the Jews are ruining
society. The author knows its Hitler, but he doesn't tell you. All the while
claiming he is a paragon of intellectual honesty and the opposition is not.

That is the actual comparison and why him doing this is a problem.

~~~
ManFromUranus
Your argument is simply ad hominem. Either the ideas themselves are wrong, or
they're not. It doesn't matter where the information came from. If Hitler told
me about gravity that doesn't mean there is no gravity just because I learned
about it from him.

