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.
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."
This is such a great post. It’s very frustrating that disagreement is interpreted as hating marginalized people. Maybe in the past, it was common to hate Black and gay people. But in 2022, the vast majority of people engaged in these discussions genuinely want the best for everyone—they just disagree about what to do.
Some people think we should address the racial achievement gap by eliminating testing. Others think we should keep the tests and focus on material and cultural factors that cause the gap. Both sincerely believe their approach is best for Black people (and there are Black people on both sides). But only one side gets accused of secretly wanting to keep Black people down.
It’s the same in the queer community. I genuinely believe the social justice movement is harming young queer people by teaching them to obsess over identity, to see oppression everywhere, and to position themselves as victims whenever they can. A recent survey showed Gen Z queer people are afraid to go out in public because of discrimination (unlike older queer people who say it’s fine). I truly think this stuff is toxic. But pushing back is interpreted as hate.
It's impossible to debate these issues when you know you’ll get called racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. Especially because members of these groups have been taught to believe it, and many do. I might be okay with Mr. Costco thinking I’m racist for having some forbidden opinion, but the idea of a Black person thinking I’m racist is really unsettling (and would be for most white liberals). And even though I am gay, cis lesbians are considered oppressors of people with the newer identity labels—people would genuinely believe I hate them. The social justice movement doesn’t allow for the possibility that disagreement could be in good faith.
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.
I would make a small, respectful disagreement. I think movements like Black Lives Matter *have* achieved policy victories--for example, some municipalities have banned no-knock warrants, which is part of what got Breonna Taylor killed. These are admittedly not sweeping changes, but I view even incremental progress as good. (My acceptance of incrementalism sometimes sets me at odds with fellow liberals, but there you have it.)
Otherwise, I totally agree with you. When you have liberals fighting liberals to the death over a half-percentage point of disagreement, it just makes my head hurt.
I love, love, love the message here. I spent ten years deeply involved in party politics and I loved talking to Republicans. It was one of my favorite things. One of the best complements I got was from this conservative kid I worked with who was attending college in the Deep South. He was talking about the (few) liberals on campus and he said "I know you're a Democrat but you're not like them. You make sense." I think it's because they talked at him to change his mind. I talked with him to understand his mind. It's just a much more effective and rewarding approach.
A lot of times people are wrong and a lot of times people are just dumbasses. I definitely have dumbass opinions! A lot of times people (even most SJWs I know) don't believe things nearly as extremely as the most prominent examples of their ideology do (there's that Iron Law of Institutions again). And a lot of times people just believe stuff because everyone else in their group does and it's easier to just go along. Which doesn't mean lie about their belief, it means genuinely believe it. People are complex and we do dumb shit. And it's glorious and life is better if you try to figure that out than just assume everyone is a grifter or an evil mastermind or a bigot.
Or, I could be wrong and on my deathbed my major regret will not be accusing more people on the internet of being transphobes. Who knows?
I agree with all of this, but I would take it one step further. It's not just that people will disagree with you about tactics but basically want the same things (as Freddie disagrees with the SJ movement). It's that, in a democracy, you actually do have to engage even with, and account for, people who want fundamentally different outcomes. It's perfectly acceptable, of course, to try to convince them that they're wrong, of course. But if someone has a strong belief in, say, the virtues of capitalism, or the biological foundations of sex, or the necessity and value of America's foreign wars... well, they still get a vote.
Moreover, it would take an extreme level of arrogance to think that such (quite mainstream) positions you disagree with have NO support that a reasonable person could find convincing -- and that support, if you examined it carefully, might cause you to at least modulate and deepen your own beliefs.
Finally, of course, people can be very wrong about one thing and very right about another. I think Christopher Hitchens was wrong to support the Iraq war. But he had many other fine ideas over the course of his life (including a vigorous defense of free speech!).
So attributing such beliefs solely to bad faith deprives you not only of the opportunity to convince and/or bargain with people (and thereby get more of what you want), but of the opportunity to put your own beliefs to test and proof, and to learn from people who may be wrong in one way but right in another.
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.
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.
“If I actually wanted to maintain the status quo of the power hierarchy, I would press for more social justice framing, as it has proven to be very conducive to nothing really changing.“ Enter… Woke Capitalism! Give ‘em bread and devices.
Not necessarily on topic, but am I the only sort of liberal that is pissed that a Supreme Court nominee can’t just answer a bad faith, stupid question: “What is a woman?”? Everyone can look at their birth certificate and realize that years ago a non biologist saw their genitalia and made the right call. Where each of us voluntarily decides to live on the masculine to feminine scale of gender stereotypes is a completely different issue.
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.
I heard a comment by a rock and roll star a few years ago that i often think of. He was really pissed off that young men did not know how to do anything, specifically how to hang a picture on the wall. His deeper point was that a generation was growing up that had little skill with or awareness of how to interact with the real world. They had become helpless at altering their environment in any real way. Nor did they seem to have any understanding of just how much focus it takes to alter the environment in which one lives or of the many mistakes that are made on the way, the necessity to learn to shift course as a physical problem is solved.
William Deresiewicz makes a crucial related point in a recent article at Unherd. Specifically, the social justice movement as Freddie (and others) has commented many times, is not what it appears to be on the surface. It is in fact a religion or to take it down a notch, a moral system which people use to define themselves and others and as well to define proper and improper behavior. It is like a religion in that it absolves individuals of the necessity to reason, to grapple with the terrible complexities of life. And like christianity (or islam) it is a proselytizing religion which believes that all who do not believe it are suffering from an evil influence that has corrupted them and which must be opposed with every force available, including violence. Otherwise we will be lost, not saved.
While many of us older 60s activists have come under fire the past several years (decades?) the difference then was that our goals were specific and measurable. (and yes, there were crazy people then, too, there always are.) And many of those goals were reached, many of them have also been reversed; the republicans never did agree with many of them. I mean, why let people vote if you can't control what they vote for? And why let the working class have a voice? They are inarticulate and besides they are stupid and do not bathe often enough. (And worse, they like Trump; here the left joins in with a certain amount of glee.)
In truth, all the current left knows how to do is to break things. They do not know how to create or build or repair. And most certainly they do not know how to love or forgive or bring people together in the common good.
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!
Sometimes People Legitimately Disagree on Difficult Questions
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.
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."
This is such a great post. It’s very frustrating that disagreement is interpreted as hating marginalized people. Maybe in the past, it was common to hate Black and gay people. But in 2022, the vast majority of people engaged in these discussions genuinely want the best for everyone—they just disagree about what to do.
Some people think we should address the racial achievement gap by eliminating testing. Others think we should keep the tests and focus on material and cultural factors that cause the gap. Both sincerely believe their approach is best for Black people (and there are Black people on both sides). But only one side gets accused of secretly wanting to keep Black people down.
It’s the same in the queer community. I genuinely believe the social justice movement is harming young queer people by teaching them to obsess over identity, to see oppression everywhere, and to position themselves as victims whenever they can. A recent survey showed Gen Z queer people are afraid to go out in public because of discrimination (unlike older queer people who say it’s fine). I truly think this stuff is toxic. But pushing back is interpreted as hate.
It's impossible to debate these issues when you know you’ll get called racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. Especially because members of these groups have been taught to believe it, and many do. I might be okay with Mr. Costco thinking I’m racist for having some forbidden opinion, but the idea of a Black person thinking I’m racist is really unsettling (and would be for most white liberals). And even though I am gay, cis lesbians are considered oppressors of people with the newer identity labels—people would genuinely believe I hate them. The social justice movement doesn’t allow for the possibility that disagreement could be in good faith.
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.
Great post, and I have finally subscribed.
I would make a small, respectful disagreement. I think movements like Black Lives Matter *have* achieved policy victories--for example, some municipalities have banned no-knock warrants, which is part of what got Breonna Taylor killed. These are admittedly not sweeping changes, but I view even incremental progress as good. (My acceptance of incrementalism sometimes sets me at odds with fellow liberals, but there you have it.)
Otherwise, I totally agree with you. When you have liberals fighting liberals to the death over a half-percentage point of disagreement, it just makes my head hurt.
I love, love, love the message here. I spent ten years deeply involved in party politics and I loved talking to Republicans. It was one of my favorite things. One of the best complements I got was from this conservative kid I worked with who was attending college in the Deep South. He was talking about the (few) liberals on campus and he said "I know you're a Democrat but you're not like them. You make sense." I think it's because they talked at him to change his mind. I talked with him to understand his mind. It's just a much more effective and rewarding approach.
A lot of times people are wrong and a lot of times people are just dumbasses. I definitely have dumbass opinions! A lot of times people (even most SJWs I know) don't believe things nearly as extremely as the most prominent examples of their ideology do (there's that Iron Law of Institutions again). And a lot of times people just believe stuff because everyone else in their group does and it's easier to just go along. Which doesn't mean lie about their belief, it means genuinely believe it. People are complex and we do dumb shit. And it's glorious and life is better if you try to figure that out than just assume everyone is a grifter or an evil mastermind or a bigot.
Or, I could be wrong and on my deathbed my major regret will not be accusing more people on the internet of being transphobes. Who knows?
I agree with all of this, but I would take it one step further. It's not just that people will disagree with you about tactics but basically want the same things (as Freddie disagrees with the SJ movement). It's that, in a democracy, you actually do have to engage even with, and account for, people who want fundamentally different outcomes. It's perfectly acceptable, of course, to try to convince them that they're wrong, of course. But if someone has a strong belief in, say, the virtues of capitalism, or the biological foundations of sex, or the necessity and value of America's foreign wars... well, they still get a vote.
Moreover, it would take an extreme level of arrogance to think that such (quite mainstream) positions you disagree with have NO support that a reasonable person could find convincing -- and that support, if you examined it carefully, might cause you to at least modulate and deepen your own beliefs.
Finally, of course, people can be very wrong about one thing and very right about another. I think Christopher Hitchens was wrong to support the Iraq war. But he had many other fine ideas over the course of his life (including a vigorous defense of free speech!).
So attributing such beliefs solely to bad faith deprives you not only of the opportunity to convince and/or bargain with people (and thereby get more of what you want), but of the opportunity to put your own beliefs to test and proof, and to learn from people who may be wrong in one way but right in another.
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.
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.
Why are you taking this out on Costco?
“If I actually wanted to maintain the status quo of the power hierarchy, I would press for more social justice framing, as it has proven to be very conducive to nothing really changing.“ Enter… Woke Capitalism! Give ‘em bread and devices.
Not necessarily on topic, but am I the only sort of liberal that is pissed that a Supreme Court nominee can’t just answer a bad faith, stupid question: “What is a woman?”? Everyone can look at their birth certificate and realize that years ago a non biologist saw their genitalia and made the right call. Where each of us voluntarily decides to live on the masculine to feminine scale of gender stereotypes is a completely different issue.
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.
A mere five minutes ago I had never heard of Kotsko. Happier times, my friends…
I heard a comment by a rock and roll star a few years ago that i often think of. He was really pissed off that young men did not know how to do anything, specifically how to hang a picture on the wall. His deeper point was that a generation was growing up that had little skill with or awareness of how to interact with the real world. They had become helpless at altering their environment in any real way. Nor did they seem to have any understanding of just how much focus it takes to alter the environment in which one lives or of the many mistakes that are made on the way, the necessity to learn to shift course as a physical problem is solved.
William Deresiewicz makes a crucial related point in a recent article at Unherd. Specifically, the social justice movement as Freddie (and others) has commented many times, is not what it appears to be on the surface. It is in fact a religion or to take it down a notch, a moral system which people use to define themselves and others and as well to define proper and improper behavior. It is like a religion in that it absolves individuals of the necessity to reason, to grapple with the terrible complexities of life. And like christianity (or islam) it is a proselytizing religion which believes that all who do not believe it are suffering from an evil influence that has corrupted them and which must be opposed with every force available, including violence. Otherwise we will be lost, not saved.
While many of us older 60s activists have come under fire the past several years (decades?) the difference then was that our goals were specific and measurable. (and yes, there were crazy people then, too, there always are.) And many of those goals were reached, many of them have also been reversed; the republicans never did agree with many of them. I mean, why let people vote if you can't control what they vote for? And why let the working class have a voice? They are inarticulate and besides they are stupid and do not bathe often enough. (And worse, they like Trump; here the left joins in with a certain amount of glee.)
In truth, all the current left knows how to do is to break things. They do not know how to create or build or repair. And most certainly they do not know how to love or forgive or bring people together in the common good.
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!