Saturday, June 03, 2017

The fundamentalism of Social Justice Warriors

I generally like Arthur Chu. I follow him on Twitter. I've quoted him with approval. I think his piece Your Princess is in Another Castle is great.

But unfortunately like so many other erstwhile smart and decent people, the subject of race completely short-circuits his rational thought processes.

Because when it comes to race, Social Justice Warriors are fundamentalists in comparison to other liberals. They are fanatical and constantly looking for chances to denounce others who are not as fanatical.

You can see the fundamentalism of Social Justice Warriors in action in this series of tweets Chu wrote in reference to Bill Maher using the term "house nigger" in a non-racist context.

But in the world of the SJWs, there is no context in which the word "nigger" may be used. The very sound of the word itself is a crime against humanity much like saying "Goddam" is always a sin to fundamentalist Christians. If you use the word "Goddam" you are a sinner. To a SJW, if you use the word "nigger" you are a racist. End of discussion. SJWs are not interested in context.

Others pointed out to Chu that Maher had no problem writing a check for a million dollars for Obama's 2012 presidential campaign. But to Chu, writing a check for a million dollars to a black candidate means nothing. The only thing that matters is that Maher used the taboo word.

And Chu used the word "indulgence" to describe Maher's donation. To Chu, to Social Justice Warriors, using the N-word, once, regardless of context more than balances out donating a million dollars to a black man's campaign. That is the religious intensity with which Social Justice Warriors view taboo words - they believe uttering a bad word is literally worth more than a million dollars of "indulgences."

One of the big differences between the Catholic Church and Protestantism is that Catholics believe that "good works" may ameliorate the wrath of God. So even if you have committed some (non-mortal) sins in your day and died before confessing them during the Sacrament of Confession, your kindliness and decency would weigh in your favor and you might go to Purgatory instead of Hell.

Like all human systems this one was abused - "good works" eventually became synonymous with "donating money to the Catholic Church" and so sinning was essentially monetized. The richer you were the more sins you could get away with as long as your forked over "indulgences." And so Protestants reacted by not only creating sects which refused indulgences but which also refused to count any good actions as beneficent.

Protestants came to believe that your actions as a moral human being mean nothing. In some sects they believe that only declaring that Jesus is your savior will save you from an eternity of hellfire. In other sects they are even more extreme - there is nothing you can do to save yourself from going to Hell, you are already predestined for Hell before you are born.

Much like Robin DiAngelo, the queen of the Social Justice Warriors, believes that all white people are racist simply by being born white, and neither their intentions nor their good works matter. You may have marched in Civil Rights rallies, married a non-white person, donated to the NAACP, campaigned for Obama, spoke out against a racist at work, or all of the above and you assume that a rational person would look at those actions and pause before declaring you a racist.

But Social Justice Warriors are not rational. And they are looking to point a finger at heretics. It's their greatest joy.

It would be interesting to do a study and see what percentage of Social Justice Warriors come from fundamentalist Protestant backgrounds.