I would take this post personally, but I recently replaced the "Black Lives Matter" sign in my window with a Ukranian flag and I'm feeling perfectly normal about it. This is what social justice is, to me.
Thanks Freddie! Good article. One typo: "to the tune of hundreds of years of engagement a year" should presumably be "to the tune of hundreds of hours of engagement a year".
I also had a question: any chance you'd be up for putting the book club in the general article pool? I hadn't realized the discussion of ACoD had started because it doesn't pop up on the app or the Substack page - I had to go hunting for it.
No big deal, I know how to find it now, but just an idle thought.
Did you deliberately call him Costco (rather than Kotsko)? Either way, hilarious. Also, I agree wholeheartedly with all of it. I began my book on left-to-right turncoats by addressing a very similar issue with how the left tends to talk about ex-leftists, treating them as acting in bad faith, out of opportunism, rather than just taking them at their word and dealing with their arguments.
There seems to be a dispositional difference between some who feel like acknowledging the strengths of opposing arguments, discussing difficult edge cases, etc. is something to always be avoided vs something to be embraced. It seems similar to the mistake vs conflict theorists (https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/01/24/conflict-vs-mistake/) dichotomy, but I feel like it's a little different.
The hardcore activists don't really care who's in charge, Republican or Democrat. Code Pink was more than happy to "Stand with Rand" to oppose double tap drone strikes.
But for the Democratic establishment all of the troubles of 2020 were primarily useful as a means to attack Trump's legitimacy. Support for causes like BLM are understandably less urgent now that a Democrat is in office. The other issue is that, as Wesley Yang pointed out, the assumption was that the protests amounted to "good trouble" and that the protesters were good middle class Democrats. A lot of burning cities showed that wasn't the case.
In my humble estimation, this is Pulitzer-worthy material Mr. deBoer, and I will simply offer a tip of my hat for your masterful essay on this all-too-poignant subject!
I just find it annoying that trying to get someone fired because they wrote/said/tweeted something you disagree with isn't considered to be a constriction of free speech. And even people I generally like and agree with refuse to engage with this at all
"So you're saying people being mean to you on Twitter is a violation of free speech?"
"No, be as mean as you like, just don't try to get me fired"
"So you're really butthurt about that Twitter ratio, eh?"
"Don't care about that. Please just don't call or e-mail my employer"
"Why can't you take a little criticism?"
"I'm happy to argue with you, but I need to pay my mortgage."
I think it all comes down to being able to steelman any good faith argument.
I used the example of someone being a manager who was put in charge of a big 2 year project. If the project fails you’ll be fired. You have two equally qualified project managers to choose from. One is a newly married 25 year old guy and the other is a newly married 25 year old woman. Is it wrong to pick the guy as it’s very likely the woman will become pregnant in the next two years.
Many folks on the right don’t think there is anything wrong with that - it’s just reality.
I get the impression that some in the social justice movement are so convinced they are right they can’t even comprehend anyone thinking differently. And since they can’t comprehend it they can’t change anyones’ mind.
There's also degrees of severity that SJ activists are unwilling to acknowledge. For instance, lots of people will agree that police brutality is bad and needs addressing; far fewer think it happens to such epic levels that policing needs to go away--not least because the claims while initially believed have proved unsupportable by actual data.
The whole "literal violence" is further proof of this pedal-to-the-metal approach to every single issue, whether its simply poor manners, discourteousness, or ignorance as opposed to, you know, the aforementioned literal violence.
I could be overly generalizing, but it seems to me that as soon as the "social justice" crowd jumps on an issue, it manages to alienate normies because "anybody who disagrees with the issue we just jumped on is evil/a bigot/a "phobe"/a racist." If you want to persuade people, name-calling is a poor tactic.
I would take this post personally, but I recently replaced the "Black Lives Matter" sign in my window with a Ukranian flag and I'm feeling perfectly normal about it. This is what social justice is, to me.
Thanks Freddie! Good article. One typo: "to the tune of hundreds of years of engagement a year" should presumably be "to the tune of hundreds of hours of engagement a year".
I also had a question: any chance you'd be up for putting the book club in the general article pool? I hadn't realized the discussion of ACoD had started because it doesn't pop up on the app or the Substack page - I had to go hunting for it.
No big deal, I know how to find it now, but just an idle thought.
Did you deliberately call him Costco (rather than Kotsko)? Either way, hilarious. Also, I agree wholeheartedly with all of it. I began my book on left-to-right turncoats by addressing a very similar issue with how the left tends to talk about ex-leftists, treating them as acting in bad faith, out of opportunism, rather than just taking them at their word and dealing with their arguments.
A mere five minutes ago I had never heard of Kotsko. Happier times, my friends…
Why are you taking this out on Costco?
There seems to be a dispositional difference between some who feel like acknowledging the strengths of opposing arguments, discussing difficult edge cases, etc. is something to always be avoided vs something to be embraced. It seems similar to the mistake vs conflict theorists (https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/01/24/conflict-vs-mistake/) dichotomy, but I feel like it's a little different.
The hardcore activists don't really care who's in charge, Republican or Democrat. Code Pink was more than happy to "Stand with Rand" to oppose double tap drone strikes.
But for the Democratic establishment all of the troubles of 2020 were primarily useful as a means to attack Trump's legitimacy. Support for causes like BLM are understandably less urgent now that a Democrat is in office. The other issue is that, as Wesley Yang pointed out, the assumption was that the protests amounted to "good trouble" and that the protesters were good middle class Democrats. A lot of burning cities showed that wasn't the case.
In my humble estimation, this is Pulitzer-worthy material Mr. deBoer, and I will simply offer a tip of my hat for your masterful essay on this all-too-poignant subject!
I just find it annoying that trying to get someone fired because they wrote/said/tweeted something you disagree with isn't considered to be a constriction of free speech. And even people I generally like and agree with refuse to engage with this at all
"So you're saying people being mean to you on Twitter is a violation of free speech?"
"No, be as mean as you like, just don't try to get me fired"
"So you're really butthurt about that Twitter ratio, eh?"
"Don't care about that. Please just don't call or e-mail my employer"
"Why can't you take a little criticism?"
"I'm happy to argue with you, but I need to pay my mortgage."
"You're such a snowflake."
Welcome to Adam Costco. I love you.
I think it all comes down to being able to steelman any good faith argument.
I used the example of someone being a manager who was put in charge of a big 2 year project. If the project fails you’ll be fired. You have two equally qualified project managers to choose from. One is a newly married 25 year old guy and the other is a newly married 25 year old woman. Is it wrong to pick the guy as it’s very likely the woman will become pregnant in the next two years.
Many folks on the right don’t think there is anything wrong with that - it’s just reality.
I get the impression that some in the social justice movement are so convinced they are right they can’t even comprehend anyone thinking differently. And since they can’t comprehend it they can’t change anyones’ mind.
There's also degrees of severity that SJ activists are unwilling to acknowledge. For instance, lots of people will agree that police brutality is bad and needs addressing; far fewer think it happens to such epic levels that policing needs to go away--not least because the claims while initially believed have proved unsupportable by actual data.
The whole "literal violence" is further proof of this pedal-to-the-metal approach to every single issue, whether its simply poor manners, discourteousness, or ignorance as opposed to, you know, the aforementioned literal violence.
Name-mocking isn't cool. Also I read you both and mentally group you together, so that's interesting. I think you've created a straw Kotsko here.
I could be overly generalizing, but it seems to me that as soon as the "social justice" crowd jumps on an issue, it manages to alienate normies because "anybody who disagrees with the issue we just jumped on is evil/a bigot/a "phobe"/a racist." If you want to persuade people, name-calling is a poor tactic.