Paint by numbers
I’ve been thinking I should do a little dictionary of Social Justice Bullshit. I say “little” because there wouldn’t be much to put in it…more of a page than a dictionary. But there are some words and phrases, and they could do with some beady-eyed interrogation. Intent isn’t magic; check your privilege; my feminism will be intersectional or it will be bullshit – you know the ones.
One word I really hate is “schooling.” Use it in a sentence, you say, so that we all know what we’re talking about. “I schooled her on the issue but she doubled down and went right on asking her terrible questions.”
You recognize it now, right? Used by “activists” entranced with their own certainty, to describe the way they disagreed with an Impure Person.
And you also see how it works, yes? It’s not that I disagree with Impure Person and we argued about it, it’s that I have the correct knowledge and Impure Person has lack of knowledge and needs me to school her.
I don’t think I’ve ever used the word that way. I certainly hope I haven’t. I have often thought people were talking about something they didn’t know enough about, like the ones who kept saying Charlie Hebdo is racist, full stop – but even when I thought that I hope I didn’t tell them I was going to “school” them.
But people who consider themselves outstandingly virtuous activists do tell each other they “schooled” the designated ignoramus of the moment, and I never see them telling each other what an asshole thing that is to say. They know they have the right take on the issue at hand, so they know that anyone who has a different take is simply wrong, end of story. There is no different take. This isn’t a world of different takes. There is what the schoolers tell you, and there is error, and those are the only two categories that exist.
You don’t have to think about it terribly long or hard to realize this way of looking at the matter is unlikely to enrich anyone’s stock of ideas. It’s more like trying to live by a recipe than it is like thinking.
Ha. Yes, I’m glad you included “doubled down”. I hate that one. The usual definition seems to be, “rudely persisted in disagreeing with me, despite being informed of my opinion!”.
I feel this way a bit about “Dictionary X”.
When someone thinks racism is racial prejudice rather than a systemic bias favoring one race, or when someone thinks atheism means a person doesn’t believe in any god, not secular humanism, they aren’t *wrong*. They may simply be using the wrong definition *for the particular discussion*. We don’t need a pejorative term that suggests willful ignorance. Just set them on track with something like, “We aren’t using the common understanding of racism here. In sociology, racism is systemic” or “Yes, and anyone can not believe in gods, but in *movement* atheism, we need to actually believe in some shared values to have a movement”.
Just fucking talk about the definition you want to focus on, don’t scold everyone who goes by the usual one.
Some of these catchphrases have perfectly good meanings that have been distorted by the SJ Inquisition & Cosplayers. “My feminism will be intersectional or it will be bullshit” – sure, but so will your race activism and your trans activism and your class activism. If you’re ignoring or worse, suppressing, women then your activism is also bullshit. Bernie DoucheBros and trans activists who object to women’s health services: bullshit.
This reminds me of ’60’s Trotsyites arguing about the size of the ice pick used to assassinate their hero. You can’t imagine the importance of getting this right if you didn’t want to be considered the fount of all evil.
It’s the old “show, don’t tell” rule — it’s not just for fiction writers!
People who feel the need to tell me that they won an argument (or “destroyed” the opposing argument) are irritating. Either link to the argument and let me make up my own mind, or don’t bother. Nobody gives a damn about your debating skills, and they give even less than a damn about your self-assessment of your debating skills.
And it’s only marginally less annoying when people do it on behalf of third parties. Whether it’s lefties forwarding the latest video clip of John Oliver DESTROYING someone, or a theist proclaiming how William Lane Craig DEMOLISHED his opponent in a debate, my eyes are rolling.
I haven’t heard “schooling” used it that context before, but here in Australia “schooling” colloquially means to dominate someone unforgivingly, generally in terms of games or sports i.e. “Hawthorn schooled the Sydney Swans in the Grand Final”.
Given that sense, and the archaic sense of reprimanding, I find it a pretty aggressive turn of phrase.
@ 3 Alethea
Good point. It seems some “axes” are expected to be more intersectional than others.
All in. Lived experience. Words matter. Safe space.
And I don’t even disagree with the premises of these, and many other, expressions. It’s the thought-free way they’re so often used, like a ritual incantation meant to dispel demons, that sends me round the twist.
Where did all this rigid righteousness come from? We’ve all seen varying flavors of such egotism from particular individuals, but having so many march and maunder in lockstep within the progressive population seems a peculiarly 2015 phenomenon.
Fwiw, I concur with Bernard Hurley @ # 4 in having unpleasant flashbacks to the Trots ‘n’ the Sparts. But at least they had well-disciplined cadres with a history and a Machiavellian leadership; our present Tsunami of Purity™ has, sfaict, emerged without any such infrastructure, to recruit across very wide demographics.
By the reflexes hammered into me by my own demographic status, I suspect some sort of Cointelpro op, but can’t imagine so many otherwise sharp minds lining up behind anything The Most Transparent President™’s minions or masters might contrive, so quickly and thoroughly. (Kinda reminds me of the 9/11 troofers that way: they hit some sort of genuine psychological need well beyond the usual sociopolitical manipulations.)
Confused as I feel, I still want to hazard a prediction: this trend will move beyond gender politics, probably even before getting a name that sticks.
Also, I avoid most mass media & pop entertainment – has some We Are Always Right show or song or motif or star or wev emerged lately? (Oh shit – they’re channeling Trump?!?)
Or have I suddenly turned into a lawn-yelling codger fussing about Impudent Youngsters? I’m starting to feel like a better-educated Republican facing a spate of teabaggers in ’09.
Remember, “if you actually believed in equality you wouldn’t be a feminist, you’d be a humanist” (meaning that women’s issues aren’t important enough for anyone to focus on exclusively) is something stupid dudebros say, but “my feminism will be intersectional or it will be bullshit” (meaning that women’s issues aren’t important enough for anyone to focus on exclusively) is Real Good Social Justice.
Ah, yes, this surfaces over and over again, doesn’t it? I haven’t been sensitive to the word “schooling” though; for me it’s been rather about the emphasis on the word ‘education’. But I guess it boils down to the same.
I’ve seen the phenomenon many times on social justice sites (I’ve even participated in some threads devoted specifically to this topic). Sometimes it starts with the question: “how should we treat the newcomers on our blogs”? Typically, the following two options are then introduced:
(a) If they are not trolls – that is, if they are just inexperienced – we should educate them. After all, education is important and we mustn’t shy away from our social duties!
(b) It’s very inconsiderate and rude of them to come to our spaces without educating themselves first. If this happens, then… well, sure, we can provide them with some useful 101 links. But keep in mind that even this is a big favor. These rude visitors should have found the information earlier, before coming to us!
After introducing these options, a heated discussion invariably follows.
What’s always been very striking (to me at least) is a complete absence of an option amounting to… hmm, something like “having a conversation with them” or “treating them as partners”. How about that? It’s amazing but somehow this seems out of the question. It’s always either (a) or (b). With both choices, the poor little dears obviously need education, the only question that remains is that of who the educator will be.
My impression has always been that many people involved in such practices would really profit a lot from a 101 course, devoted to the difficult and tricky art of having a normal conversation.
Not exactly related to the current topic but I can’t think ofanywhere else… anyway, here’s a strange tweet I noticed:
https://twitter.com/feministlady/status/670440432388603904
“PP [Planned Parenthood] does a lot of good work for people with uteruses, trans people, and even cis men. But today, it was targeted for providing abortions.”
Men are directly mentioned, women are replaced with ‘people with uteruses’. Bizarre.
Well I certainly recognise the picture painted by Ariel (#10). Not that I hang around many social justice sites; but it is also common in sports, gaming, activities – anything you could describe as ‘niche’ really. (Sorry couldn’t think of a better word – the opposite is sites general enough to attract people with widely differing views, so that they are almost entirely a collection of flame wars).
The “If they are not trolls” part is important too. It gives an out in case somebody *has* done research but reached a different conclusion to the site’s groupthink – they’re a troll. [Though this is complicated by many trolls doing some research so that they can be even more annoying]
‘Purity’ may not be the core problem. I suspect that careless certainty is.
We seem to have a national obsession for having a single, correct, ‘official’ view of any topic. Whether this Correct View comes from Limbaugh or Chomsky is less important than the smug, snide, assumption of superior understanding and knowledge that comes with it.
John tD, it seems like even intelligent people have a predisposition to wanting certainty. That comes only with simple answers. Problem is much ‘stuff’ doesn’t generate simple correct answers.
Yes, one thing that really strikes me about all this de-platforming and banning of opinions is its sheer epistemic hubris.
@ Holms, #12:
Alternately, reading that tweet, one can only concude [and this is snark] that trans people don’t have uteruses. Non-overlapping magisteria!
Oy. Probably just a poorly considered tweet, but given that the topic was “targeted for providing abortions”, you’d think the primary consumers of such (i.e. cis women) would at least get referenced by something other than their anatomy. For some reason, I had the impression that subordinating gender identity to biological markers was … wrong.
If I had the inclination to Tweet, I might respond to @feministlady with: “do you consider cis women ‘women’? Yes or no”
I think there needs to an entry in this category for something I was trying to put my finger on during the great trans-issues explosion. There seems to be this idea that if somebody is being oppressed for something, then they must be right about that thing, and we have to “shut the fuck up and listen”(TM) and aren’t allowed any other thoughts. Taken to its logical conclusion, the whole FtB gang should have converted to Islam by now because of the oppression of the Rohingya in Burma.
There needs to be a counterpush involving the enunciation of some harsh truths. Being oppressed means the people oppressing you are assholes, yes, but being oppressed does not make you nice, it does not make you The Good Guys, it does not make you right either morally or factually.