Your point about social justice orthodoxy acting as if it's the only legitimate leftist viewpoint is something my friends and I often talk about. There's clearly a strategy going on where people of that ideology want there to only be 2 options: their ideology or some outrageously far-gone oppositional ideology that most sane left-ish people would be repulsed by.
Their lack of genuine and prioritized concern for material interests makes sense since a lot of social justice orthodoxy is really an intra-class war among the elites (or wannabe elites). They're either comfortably off anyway or don't care too much about money in the first place. They care much more about social status hierarchies (of which money is one of, not the only, factor), sexual self-esteem, attention and deference, and so forth.
Thank you for this piece!! It gives me so much food for thought re: what I've seen AND internalized in these spaces. P.s. my heart skipped a beat (in gratitude!) to see a comment about the anxiety this causes mixed-race people. I often feel SO alone in this pain that I rarely see talked about! (e.g., where do I, in my mixed-ness, fit into these hierarchies? There's already enough identity crisis pain caused by being mixed, it doesn't need to be compounded in SJ world!
Question if you happen to see this: is there any zine by Bebe Montoya in particular you recommend, or any other writing about the mixed-race experience? Thanks again! <3
Bebe Montoya's zine called "Rude Awakenings Vol I" has an essay called Outside In OCD Phenotype Freak that I think you will love ;) I told Bebe the digital zine is missing from their storefront & they should have that fixed soon: http://bebemontoya.com/
I've spent a bit of time today reading through your essays on leaving the SJW subculture, in addition to this piece. I never got too deeply into it, but I brushed up against it, and have distanced myself in recent years from spaces that seem to be infected by it. You've written with great insight into the dynamics of the culture, and of the mental liberty that accompanies turning away from it.
One thing in particular that's struck me is your experience with its impact on creativity, and the near impossibility of writing in a way that successfully toes the line. When I dipped my feet in years ago, having initially bought into the culture's outward projection of empathy and egalitarianism, the strictures imposed upon writers were what warned me not to wade in too deep. "If white people can't write about people of color," I thought, "in an environment where most of the people in publishing and film are still white...then won't that have the effect of /reducing/ representation?" What's more, the attitude seemed to be at cross purposes with the notion of empathy. Part of the purpose of fiction is to help readers/viewers empathize with those who are different from them, to challenge them to inhabit the minds of such people. But here was an ideology that said that, no, the purpose of fiction is in fact to meditate exclusively on one's own "lived experiences;" and that further insisted that it's impossible to understand anyone who is different from you.
I enjoyed "problematic" works and characters; I couldn't bring myself to believe that they were irretrievably tainted. And I also couldn't buy that I, when writing fiction, should explore only my own self, and should refrain from including diverse characters. In what world could that possibly be antiracist?
It was then that I noticed that even following the rules wasn't good enough. As you've noted, all works are judged not only by the rules that currently exist; they're judged by rules that, at the time of writing, hadn't been invented yet. The point, therefore, couldn't be to build a better world. The point was to have an inexhaustible supply of enemies on whom to vent one's worst impulses.
Goodness, I've gone on quite a bit, here. I think it's mainly due to relating to your experience of the culture stifling creative energy, because that's absolutely what it does. I'm glad you're out of it and can write freely, now. Keep doing it!
I relate so much to what you’ve written—there are these irresolvable contradictions that arise when you try and follow all the rules, and I think the end result is a lot of people give up and don’t create at all. I’m glad you were alert enough to keep some distance from this all!
Hi Kier. Redirected here from Blocked and Reported. Excellent essay. This is all very relatable, especially that conflicted feeling of "Huh, this feels wrong....no, that's just the white fragility talking."
Long story short, I discovered all this angry SoJus stuff by way of the movie criticism world in the mid-to-late 2010s. All the same dynamics apply. It's pretty awful, and it's all just an excuse for hurt people to find a "socially acceptable" reason to be bullies.
A socially acceptable reason to be bullies: what a concise and accurate way to describe how some deploy SJ language! Once you start noticing it, it can't be unseen. And I think it's fairly easy to tell apart from people who are drawing attention to a legitimate concern they hold.
Yeah, the comparison I've always made is the Moral Majority. Yelling Social Justice Politics (to borrow a term from Freddie DeBoer) is in my mind a lefty version of that.
It’s weird, I was in an abusive relationship with someone who behaved and believed in the same things you describe in this particular kind of subculture. To be fair, the person definitely had some trauma in their life, but they projected it onto everyone and everything, and basically policed a lot of peoples emotions, behavior (unwarranted might I add), while neglecting to ever do any meaningful self-analysis of their own shitty behavior and how they treated others. Politically, I can’t say that people who fall into the hive mindset subcultures within leftism are all traumatized, but I do think it has to do with finding a sense of control and meaning. Anyone can do it-right, left, apolitical, whatever you are. It seems to stem from a personal problem though, like a sense of inadequacy, a legitimate need for justice turned into vitriolic revenge, fear, idk. I’ve been that person myself, and I still struggle to break out of it at times. Idk, just made me think.
What you describe sounds so familiar. There's a temporary comfort in locating all distress outside of ourselves, and refusing to consider how we may contribute to our own misery. But I know for me, it left me full of helpless rage that spilled onto the people closest to me.
It sounds like your mind was imprisoned by convictions you had onboarded about what was right and what was wrong and how to be part of the left. I’m so glad that you were able to liberate yourself from that mind set. I sense that you have gone on to experience a lot of joy and relief now that you removed yourself from the social justice subculture. I wish you continued joy as you move forward with a more accurate understanding of your self worth and a more open and curious mind.
Your point about social justice orthodoxy acting as if it's the only legitimate leftist viewpoint is something my friends and I often talk about. There's clearly a strategy going on where people of that ideology want there to only be 2 options: their ideology or some outrageously far-gone oppositional ideology that most sane left-ish people would be repulsed by.
Their lack of genuine and prioritized concern for material interests makes sense since a lot of social justice orthodoxy is really an intra-class war among the elites (or wannabe elites). They're either comfortably off anyway or don't care too much about money in the first place. They care much more about social status hierarchies (of which money is one of, not the only, factor), sexual self-esteem, attention and deference, and so forth.
Yes! The lack of material focus is astounding at times.
Thank you for this piece!! It gives me so much food for thought re: what I've seen AND internalized in these spaces. P.s. my heart skipped a beat (in gratitude!) to see a comment about the anxiety this causes mixed-race people. I often feel SO alone in this pain that I rarely see talked about! (e.g., where do I, in my mixed-ness, fit into these hierarchies? There's already enough identity crisis pain caused by being mixed, it doesn't need to be compounded in SJ world!
Question if you happen to see this: is there any zine by Bebe Montoya in particular you recommend, or any other writing about the mixed-race experience? Thanks again! <3
Bebe Montoya's zine called "Rude Awakenings Vol I" has an essay called Outside In OCD Phenotype Freak that I think you will love ;) I told Bebe the digital zine is missing from their storefront & they should have that fixed soon: http://bebemontoya.com/
I've spent a bit of time today reading through your essays on leaving the SJW subculture, in addition to this piece. I never got too deeply into it, but I brushed up against it, and have distanced myself in recent years from spaces that seem to be infected by it. You've written with great insight into the dynamics of the culture, and of the mental liberty that accompanies turning away from it.
One thing in particular that's struck me is your experience with its impact on creativity, and the near impossibility of writing in a way that successfully toes the line. When I dipped my feet in years ago, having initially bought into the culture's outward projection of empathy and egalitarianism, the strictures imposed upon writers were what warned me not to wade in too deep. "If white people can't write about people of color," I thought, "in an environment where most of the people in publishing and film are still white...then won't that have the effect of /reducing/ representation?" What's more, the attitude seemed to be at cross purposes with the notion of empathy. Part of the purpose of fiction is to help readers/viewers empathize with those who are different from them, to challenge them to inhabit the minds of such people. But here was an ideology that said that, no, the purpose of fiction is in fact to meditate exclusively on one's own "lived experiences;" and that further insisted that it's impossible to understand anyone who is different from you.
I enjoyed "problematic" works and characters; I couldn't bring myself to believe that they were irretrievably tainted. And I also couldn't buy that I, when writing fiction, should explore only my own self, and should refrain from including diverse characters. In what world could that possibly be antiracist?
It was then that I noticed that even following the rules wasn't good enough. As you've noted, all works are judged not only by the rules that currently exist; they're judged by rules that, at the time of writing, hadn't been invented yet. The point, therefore, couldn't be to build a better world. The point was to have an inexhaustible supply of enemies on whom to vent one's worst impulses.
Goodness, I've gone on quite a bit, here. I think it's mainly due to relating to your experience of the culture stifling creative energy, because that's absolutely what it does. I'm glad you're out of it and can write freely, now. Keep doing it!
I relate so much to what you’ve written—there are these irresolvable contradictions that arise when you try and follow all the rules, and I think the end result is a lot of people give up and don’t create at all. I’m glad you were alert enough to keep some distance from this all!
Hi Kier. Redirected here from Blocked and Reported. Excellent essay. This is all very relatable, especially that conflicted feeling of "Huh, this feels wrong....no, that's just the white fragility talking."
Long story short, I discovered all this angry SoJus stuff by way of the movie criticism world in the mid-to-late 2010s. All the same dynamics apply. It's pretty awful, and it's all just an excuse for hurt people to find a "socially acceptable" reason to be bullies.
Keep up the good work.
A socially acceptable reason to be bullies: what a concise and accurate way to describe how some deploy SJ language! Once you start noticing it, it can't be unseen. And I think it's fairly easy to tell apart from people who are drawing attention to a legitimate concern they hold.
Yeah, the comparison I've always made is the Moral Majority. Yelling Social Justice Politics (to borrow a term from Freddie DeBoer) is in my mind a lefty version of that.
It’s weird, I was in an abusive relationship with someone who behaved and believed in the same things you describe in this particular kind of subculture. To be fair, the person definitely had some trauma in their life, but they projected it onto everyone and everything, and basically policed a lot of peoples emotions, behavior (unwarranted might I add), while neglecting to ever do any meaningful self-analysis of their own shitty behavior and how they treated others. Politically, I can’t say that people who fall into the hive mindset subcultures within leftism are all traumatized, but I do think it has to do with finding a sense of control and meaning. Anyone can do it-right, left, apolitical, whatever you are. It seems to stem from a personal problem though, like a sense of inadequacy, a legitimate need for justice turned into vitriolic revenge, fear, idk. I’ve been that person myself, and I still struggle to break out of it at times. Idk, just made me think.
What you describe sounds so familiar. There's a temporary comfort in locating all distress outside of ourselves, and refusing to consider how we may contribute to our own misery. But I know for me, it left me full of helpless rage that spilled onto the people closest to me.
A staggeringly beautiful piece. Yes. Yes, yes, yes. This is where we *all* are, whether we know it or not. Thank you for the bravery to step forward.
It sounds like your mind was imprisoned by convictions you had onboarded about what was right and what was wrong and how to be part of the left. I’m so glad that you were able to liberate yourself from that mind set. I sense that you have gone on to experience a lot of joy and relief now that you removed yourself from the social justice subculture. I wish you continued joy as you move forward with a more accurate understanding of your self worth and a more open and curious mind.
Thank you!
The way I ran to read this so fast! Thank you for writing this. 🙏🏾
You were one of the first people I saw speaking out about this, so thank YOU!