I think I'm in a better position now to articulate why exactly I left social justice and the socialist left completely behind. I've spent a couple of years making fun of and attacking it, but not getting to a deeper reason for why I view it so venomously these days. Not a small thing either, considering I've been willing to abide my reputation being ruined in many ways just to be able to criticise it. There's no way I'd do this without a damn good reason. First thing's first, what do I mean by "social justice"?
Feminism, diversity policies, hate speech policies, political correctness in general. These are social movements predicated on the idea of controlling people, to "teach" people to be a certain way, with the hand of the government enforcing the ideas recommended by these movements. Social justice looks at demographics of people and infers imbalances of "representation" are down to oppression or discrimination. People are categorized by an ever increasing set of variables, like race, sex, sexuality etc. In short, social justice collectivises people, sorts us into boxes prior to playing a gigantic game of chess with those boxes. Everything in society is viewed in terms of power and oppression. Who is being oppressed and who is doing the oppressing is the first thing to be established, from which follows the "remedies" to these "problems". If a company, say, is 80% male and society around it is 50% male, the imbalance of "representation" of the sexes is a problem to be remedied, it can only be because of discrimination, an imbalance of power. To cut right down to it, social justice is a flat-out denial of individual human agency and treats people as interchangeable units of their categories. How could it not be, if we are to actually believe that the employment of more "women" in a company increases the representation of women? Does each woman represent women in any meaningful way? Only if you believe people in each group are essentially the same can this make any sense at all. If a random gay white male called James gets a job at a business in my area, does he represent me just because I am a gay white man? I don't even know the bugger, give me a fucking break.
So why do I detest all this so much? It isn't just on a logical level, though that is a large part of it, it is something more fundamental than that. It is enough for me to be willing to have my reputation and character disparaged horribly. I don't say this to play the victim, on which count I have been repeatedly accused. It is the statement of a fact, to go up against social justice ideas is to pay a price, one I accept responsibility for and would not have taken the trouble to speak out if I wasn't willing to. It isn't just that social justice ideologues try to make the lives of dissidents miserable, it is that it makes everybody miserable. Miserable and helpless.
To contextualise what I'm about to say I need to resort to anecdote. For well over a decade I was firmly on the left (I'm still left now, tho classical liberal), I thought Socialism was a good idea, even Anarcho Syndicalism. My life revolved around the principle that our destiny as human beings was mostly dictated by forces outside ourselves. I've been through a lot of shit in my life and my sympathy for others who have been through shit has remained constant. Back then, I believed most of this suffering was down to the shortfalls of society, that there just wasn't enough help out there, that desperate people were all around and nobody gave a toss. It was a comforting philosophy in a way, because it meant that it wasn't my fault that I'd suffered, it had been done to me. Now, it's true that shit happens, probably the most true thing to say about life is that "shit happens". It is true that circumstances in life can advantage some and disadvantage others, in countless ways. The mindset of social justice is to try to log all of these advantages and disadvantages, an account book of mitigating circumstances. A tragedy audit. I used to think of where I'd be if I hadn't been clinically depressed for over 20 years, if I hadn't had over a decade of severe anxiety, if I hadn't been through all the crazy, scary, scarring nastiness. I looked at others who hadn't been through a fraction of it with envy, that if only I hadn't been handicapped I could have had a great start in life, I could be going places dammit! Coulda woulda shoulda. If only those privileged by circumstances could recognize it. When I turned 30 I happened to start listening to Jordan Peterson talking about various things, after I saw him in the news online, causing a stir with his talk about compelled speech. One night, early morning really, I was listening to him talking about personal responsibility, mulling over what was being said in my head. Something snapped. Here's a truth, a basic, simple truth: no matter how right you are about how badly life has fucked you, there is no progressing anywhere with the mindset that life is holding you down. To see oneself as a victim of circumstance, to the point that you have a genuine excuse, a reason for your failures; that can't go anywhere. As much as one may hurt, filled with resentment, bitterness, pain, remorse, whatever, a losing strategy is a losing strategy. Stick a knife in your chest and you'll be in trouble, no matter what you think or feel about it. Set yourself up as someone dependant on favourable circumstances to get anywhere and you're going to lose.
Did I want to empower myself or not? That is the question, to my mind. So I looked at how I'd been thinking and feeling, I looked at all the comforting smoke and mirrors that is social justice rhetoric and I saw it for what it was. Fucking poison. Sure, the language sounds good; compassion, diversity, rights, love. Is it really this way? One has to wonder, can a worldview which is happy to paint people as Nazis and scum with the confidence and eagerness with which one calls grass green really be about love and not hatred? We see students talk about being oppressed, in western societies. We live in a patriarchal, white supremacist society that hates, apparently. Now be honest with me, as I'm being honest with you, do you fucking seriously believe that a worldview which requires you see the society you live in as hell on earth is good for people? Does it empower us to be told we need to rely on being given things we want, things we wish we had? That society is set up for us to fail? If you're black, does it help you to be told that society hates your black skin, that because your ancestors were slaves that you're still a fucking slave? Under the guise of positive language we are being poisoned by inculcated fragility. What if I said that you have a life that is yours to live, that you can be the architect of your own destiny? Is that a message of HATE? Tell me, honestly, are people who support social justice made happier for it, more successful for it? Or is everybody treading on eggshells, avoiding talking about serious subjects, wondering if we'll say something upsetting or triggering? I don't think this fucking shit is what freedom looks like, I don't think it's what life looks like. Social justice drains the human spirit and makes you feel like you're a hopeless, helpless weakling the moment anything upsetting occurs, it is a strategy for life dependant on disinfectant.
I don't know what the answers are, I don't know what the best policies for society are, what the ideal government looks like. One thing I do know however, for a fact, is that there is more hope and strength in me now than I ever had under my old mindset. Social justice destroys people in every direction, it finds enemies everywhere to be destroyed and it saps the spirits of those who believe in it. We don't need it, we need to be rid of it. I can't stand seeing people's minds being poisoned like this. The damage this is doing is off the charts and those stuck in it think they're doing good, which is precisely what makes the most dangerous ideas so dangerous. There is no end to the evil, the damage one can do while one is convinced they're righteous. An ideology in which someone can be thought of as absolute scum just for drawing fucking cartoons or making risqué posts on social media is not about love. Never was. That is why I despise social justice.
