Climate Change is back for useful idiots

The latest effort by the White House is exactly what my next post (later this morning) will be about. 

The Joker vs. SJWs

The new Joker movie apparently is very well done, and social justice warriors hate it.

For real? Cherokees are racist now?

If you can watch this and still not understand how ridiculous social justice warriors are, then you are walking through life with blinders.  That said, I though SJWs thought only white people can be racist.  Does this finally destroy that notion for them?

SJWs, why so shrill?

Former president Obama was roundly lauded for his use of the phrase in describing his enemies as being on the wrong side of history and he, and his supporters were on the right side of history. As backwards as he was on all the important issues, it was a compelling phrase for a lot of people.  Even though it was often used in a really backhanded way.   

Which brings me to my question for Social Justice Warriors - if you are on the right side of history, and your side and your points of view will win in the end, then, 

Why so shrill?

Why yell, why antagonize, why fight? If president Trump and his supporters are the historical anomaly, why antagonize, demonize and vilify them? You are not going to win them over.  You are not in any way advancing the 'right side of history' by engaging in shrill and often violent protests.  What are you achieving by screaming at the top of your lungs about how terrible these people are?

You don't need to do so, because they are a dying breed.  Right?  Right?

I can think of only three possible reasons why you SJWs continue to be so shrill. (1) You want to make yourself feel good (at someone else's expense) about yourself.  (2)  Deep down you are not convinced you are right and are trying to convince yourself more so than anyone else about the veracity of your 'truths'. or (3) It's to impress a girl.

Whichever it is, isn't that just special for you?

Real diversity vs SJW diversity

Diversity. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. Today, people who call themselves liberals insist that America (or the West in general) is not diverse enough.  They claim that we are not diverse enough with respect to gender (no really, there are more than two genders. Okay.) or ethnicity or sexual orientation, or religion.   The problem with their claims is actually two distinct problems: (1) that's not really diversity and (2) it goes against actual liberal principles.

Real diversity means diversity of thought.  The way liberals classify diversity by identifiable categories like race and gender is literally, superficial.  Real diversity - the diversity that makes America a great country - is diversity of thought. Making sure that society is a certain percentage gay, a set percentage female, an exact ratio Muslim and an equal proportion of African American, Hispanic, Asian, White or otherwise does absolutely zero.  The ultimate question is what does that offer?  Next to zero benefit will arise from the supposed fairness this offers. I'll save the fairness argument for another time. Instead let's look at viewpoint diversity.

Tackling a problem with viewpoints from the left and right, from a passive or aggressive viewpoint, a scientific and humanitarian perspective concurrently, allows for a greater possibility of a comprehensive and successful solution to a problem than one developed by a visibly diverse but otherwise homogeneously-thinking group.  Without ideas being challenged they do not get tested before being put in place.  That's a recipe for failure.  But that's exactly what social justice warriors want to happen.

This is where the other problem of incongruity with liberal principles comes into play.  As a reminder, here's what classical liberalism actually is:

Classical liberalism is a political philosophy and ideology belonging to liberalism in which primary emphasis is placed on securing the freedom of the individual by limiting the power of the government.

The philosophy emerged as a response to the Industrial Revolution and urbanization in the 19th century in Europe and the United States.

It advocates civil liberties with a limited government under the rule of law, private property, and belief in laissez-faire economic policy.

"Securing the freedom of the individual by limiting the power of government".  Social Justice Warriors want the government to impose equality on everyone. And by that they mean equality of outcome, not of opportunity.  They mean equality of visibility based on visual identifiers.  That comes at the expense of ideas.  There will be no diversity of ideas under that model and that means that individual freedom of thought is superseded by these visual markers.  That represents the death of liberty and true classical liberal ideals.

The problem for the country is that leftist leadership are adept at using that social justice warrior thinking to increase the preponderance of that sort of thinking. And while they have had a lot of success at doing that, they have simultaneously tried to tamp down individual thinking within these identity groups; if you are African American you have to be a Democrat.  If you are gay and are a Republican you need to have your head examined.  If you don't use the pronouns people choose to identify themselves by, you are a racist, misogynist homophobic neanderthal. 

The synergy of progressive liberalism with the consolidation of superficial identity groups is a recipe for totalitarianism. Classical liberalism it is not.

Are safe spaces a reflection of our social media culture?

In an interview in El Pais, Polish born sociologist Zygmunt Bauman says social media are a trap.  He's talking about society-level problems that are evolving from social media.  Drilling down on one particular example of his argument, after watching this video it's tempting to draw the conclusion that safe spaces are a direct result of the isolating impact of social media of which he speaks. It's not even a long linguistic leap from "comfort zones" to "safe spaces" What else is social media doing to our culture?

In case you're not familiar with safe spaces, Geekfeminism has a description here.  But this video sums it up pretty well.

The real question is whether Safe Spaces become an accepted cultural norm or go the way of Ebonics.  Given the relatively early and appropriate backlash towards the self defeating fatuousness of safe spaces, my guess is the latter. But is ebonics really gone? After all, it's caught on in rap culture and the specific dialect (sorry, it's a version of English not a distinct language as some would claim. And it's an ersatz dialect at that), it has not expanded beyond that. It won't either and the reason is clear - economics. How many CEOs releasing quarterly results deliver their results in ebonics? How many bank branches can you walk into and transact in ebonics? For that matter, doing online banking, where is the option for ebonics? Professional athletes (from NASCAR to the NBA to the NFL) making millions of dollars may not always have the best grammar at all times, but they make an effort to speak in a telegenic manner. Ebonics is a dead end because failing to attempt to meet a minimum hurdle on societal norms is self defeating economically for an individual and pursuing that route, and those who do, do not develop the wherewithal to propagate the dialect to a broader spectrum of people.

Social media might change that - anyone can upload a video to Youtube if they have the means to create one. But that's only half the story. Unless Google decides to have ebonics videos consistently as trending hot videos, the audience is still limited and self contained. Now Google could decide as a social cause to do just that. I doubt they will, but if they did, it would be an artificial outside help to elevating ebonics, and such artificial support can at best be transitory. After all, the Google elite, if they are interesting in social engineering, have a plethora of such 'noble' causes to support.

The comparison is apt, because there has been a myriad of external support for safe spaces, from universities to media outlets. Just as there has been for the transgendered washroom issue. The problem for these absurdist endeavors is that not only does social media enable support for these bizarre causes, it also exposes them to criticism, some itself absurd, but much of it warranted. The social media window therefore is at best a double edged sword for safe spaces, social justice warriors and their ilk. It may enable them but it also alerts others to their latest inane ideas. Relative to safe spaces, the irony is that while social media has greatly isolated people from face to face human interaction, and enabled the idea of the need for safe spaces, the nature of social media (again without manipulation by social engineering by power brokers in the tech industry) is the opposite of a safe space. It is a window to differing ideas and a place where ideas can, and should, be challenged.

None of this controverts the ideas of Zygmunt Bauman as he relates to the differences between community and network.  You can create a social media bubble for yourself and in effect a social media safe space.  The same is not true for your ideas.  Ideas are not bound by limits of direct communication.  Once an idea is expressed it will travel by any means necessary, and once created can never be destroyed (a thousand years from now, if Marxism has been completely invalidated, it will still have its adherents). Ideas are therefore not bound by safe spaces (or personal networks).  While the idea of a safe space may thrive within a safe space network, it cannot progress further if the idea is soundly rejected by thoughtful counter-arguments.  But Zygmunt Bauman's point still holds true for individuals - you can create a bubble for yourself, a safe space.  His concern if I am interpreting correctly is that this ultimately detracts from the human experience and is detrimental to society as a whole if it becomes a pervasive condition, which it seems to be more and more.

Social Justice Warriors vs Logic

Social Justice Warriors getting their hats handed to them.

Paul Joseph Watson versus Social Justice Warriors

One more rant today on the same topic as my last two posts.  Paul Joseph Watson versus social justice warriors (SJW).  There's definitely language and offensive stuff in the video below.

After a few anti-SJW videos today, you'd think I was assaulted by one today.  No.  I'm normally pretty tolerant of stupidity but it's good to finally see people standing up to this stupidity.

Steven Crowder versus Social Justice Warriors

Today is anti-Social Justice Warrior day on Nonsensible Shoes. Earlier I posted Billy Corgan discussing SJWs, below is a recent rant from Steven Crowder.

[Warning: Language]

Billy Corgan vs. Social Justice Warriors

I most often find Alex Jones' Info Wars too far out there for my taste.  However, Billy Corgan, front man of alternative rock band Smashing Pumpkins, took social justice warriors to task as a guest on the show, and it's too good to ignore.