You are viewing a single comment's thread from:
RE: Frankenstein's Monster, Social Justice & Higher Education
My caveat to this post is that this SJW movement may have started in the 1990s with generation X, it gained major followers under generation Y or the Millennials. I went to university from 92-95 and it was nothing like what I am viewing on university campuses today. There was still some common sense.
Undoubtedly it has reached new heights with the rise of the Millenials and some of the older Gen Ys, but today in my classes among the Gen Ys I am starting to see real pushback, which makes me hopeful. By the way, I wrote this having been in the university environment from 1991 to 2011, so I had some longitudinal perspective at many levels within the educational establishment that I tried to bring to bear. It looks like you agree with me here on Gen X, but disagree insofar as you agreed with Clemdane above, can you clarify? Thanks for your response!
You can have both classical liberal and social justice beliefs without being an SJW. I also believe in free speech, open discussion and freedom of expression. It's a matter of how far you want the pendulum to swing. In my opinion, it's swung too far one way. I have some hope that generation Z (my son's generation) will be able to see through the current psychological fog and assist in putting the pendulum back to centre.
Okay, I see it now. I also consider myself a classical liberal in many respects as well, but today believing in free speech strangely makes me a conservative...? It seems like the political orientation terminology these days just isn't keeping up with events on the ground.
I addressed the pendulum concepts a few times in my writings thusfar, the most succinctly I believe in my post Meritocracy is Dead where I said "The radical doublethink of privileging anybody based on their race or sex to combat racism and sexism is beyond mind-boggling. Rather than establishing a meritocratic system that requires the non-consideration of race and sex, the exact opposite has occurred. This is not a "response mechanism" to solve a problem, it is a reactionary swing of the pendulum that perpetuates and hastens the complete dissolution of social cohesion by transferring "privilege" to a new group. The very idea that the pendulum could now be swinging away from the SJW movement has resulted in its advocates engaging in preemptory defensive violence to silence words of opposition." (with associated links to provide examples, check the post if you are interested.
Thanks for taking the time to provide the clarification, I appreciate it!
I'm glad that my clarification helped. I will check out your other post. It sounds interesting. I never thought that my beliefs would tag me as a right -wing libertarian minarchist either but that seems to be the way the world is today.