As I understand it, most social justice warriors (SJW) spend much of their time castigating people, or social institutions, who speak or act inappropriately toward people SJWs deem to be victims of society. The universe of social causes which mobilize SJWs include feminism, civil rights, multiculturalism and sexual identify issues. However, the popular understanding is that these mercenaries take on their adversaries primarily to build a personal reputation of fighting for the oppressed, but their true motivations may not be inspired by much empathy or sympathy for the presumptive victims. They are in it to build their credibility in the SJW network.
I can bear witness to the spirited attacks some of these SJW’s can launch in response to something said in the course of a discussion or a conversation on the internet. I used to enjoy submitting commentary in response to political, socio-economic and scientific articles I subscribe to online. In the beginning, I naively thought my comments might serve as constructive critique to the subject article. I actually thought the authors would read the comments and might derive some benefit from them. It wasn’t long before I actually read some of the comments others were submitting. Was I ever wrong! Only a few comments , usually those submitted early, were germane to the subject topic and offered constructive critique and opinions. The vast majority turned out to be a free-for-all among discrete groups of commenters. The discussions flow wildly and include ad hominem and invective often directed at their fellow commenters, as well as the article’s author. Here is where you may find some individuals who take on the persona, if not the identify of an SJW.
I understand that the internet has been the impetus for a million ideas and some of those ideas have resulted in extraordinary enterprise. It has also been the inspiration for a lot of concepts that are neither positive nor productive. Cyber crime and related dark-side activities are also products of the internet. In the case of SJWs, who ply their tradecraft on the internet, their game seems to be widely recognized as a form of self-aggrandizement.
I would ask whether the “victims” of social injustice deserve the outreach, insincere as it may be, from SJW’s, or are some of these victims facultatively inflicted. I will try to explain. It is my understanding that a fair share of these “victims” express gender fluidity. They are ambivalent about their gender and are constantly being confronted with comments from people, who are uncertain, or confused about how to address them. The inadvertent use of the wrong pronoun when addressing a person with an indeterminate gender could obviously animate an activist SJW. In this instance, some of these “victims” are probably what I would call facultative. They may be one gender, or the other only because local and federal jurisdictions have attempted to preserve their right to decide for themselves what gender they choose to identify with in spite of the reality of their birth gender. Facultative can be defined as “optionally in response to circumstances rather than by nature.” Said another way, they are equipped to be defined one way, but society has enabled them to express an optional gender preference. Being given such discretion can lead to increased ambivalence within the “victim” group.
It is past time for our society to come to terms with the contagion of gender anomaly syndrome that is being expressed increasingly throughout the culture. Trans folks, either post-gender reassignment, or those thinking about the surgery, are probably having identity problems, at a minimum. When progressive-leaning governments rush to pass bathroom laws to ostensibly accommodate the transient gender identities of these ambivalent citizens, it is asking for trouble. Look at the state of North Carolina’s experience with this flawed attempt to reach out to a small group of conflicted individuals. This small subset of social justice issues naturally provides opportunity to the SJW.
The socially “responsible” progressive movement in our country needs to slow down and look in their rear-view mirror. Their oohing and cooing over any and every subset of humanity that deviates from the norm will accomplish several things. It will definitely motivate those in charge to keep raising taxes, because there’s a lot of humanity that needs special dispensation. Second, its outreach to humanity may be creating a lot more victims than there really are simply by giving them a fish rather than encouraging them to catch a fish, and third, they are dramatically increasing the population of SJWs.
Randy Turner is a semi-retired environmental biologist with numerous publications in the scientific literature.