this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2023
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Generally, social justice is at best, a distraction from real issues, albeit with very good intentions.
(We talk about human dignity, representation in film etc but not say, the fact most of our stuff is made by children who occasionally burn to death making it. If I were one of the billionaires running things, I would be overjoyed that people were so distracted about what a comedian said versus how our entire economic model is structured.)
The lack of justice is exactly how the elite class gets the lower groups to fight each other. The thought of a unified working class would keep up every banker at night if it werenβt for apathetic privileged class claiming that social justice isnβt that important.
I think it depends on your definition of social justice. A real social justice, in my mind, would be concerned about the kids who die mining the cobalt for our phones rather than whether we should be saying latinx.
No banker or elite is scared because we now say policeperson instead of policeman.
With that criteria, nobody should do anything about anything until world hunger is eliminated.
People can do more than one thing at the time.
Except people don't do more than one thing. And the frustrating part is that the very issues that depend on nothing more than simple cultural views/coolness are the ones we are ignoring.
Imagine wearing slave made clothes was as uncool as wearing a shirt with the N word or something. Companies would respond like lightning and the problem would be well underway to being solved.
Instead, we whine about the Oscars or get angry about a part of Dave Chappelle's special. And I get it, it is MUCH easier to complain about things that necessitate zero change or effort on our part (besides complaining on twitter or agreeing with our friends about how evil whatever is.) It just annoys the hell out of me.
Except they do. Greedy people and responsible people exist, as well as all kinds of idiots in between.
The numbers are disheartening, yes. But no universal collectives exist.
Damn right.
This is the whole point of it though, you're saying that other people should put up with being treated badly because you don't care about them - that's selfish but beyond that it's very short sighted, you think you're going to get everyone to fight to make a better society when you can't even do the smallest thing to make people feel included?
It's literally no effort to say police officer rather than police man, spokesperson is again no effort at all to say compared to spokesman - it's more accurate and more inclusive, refusing makes no sense. The only reason you'd refuse is if you don't want to acknowledge the reality that women also do those jobs, would you want to fight alongside someone who resents your existence? Who thinks you shouldn't have the same rights and dignity as them? That's shown even the smallest thing is too much for you to care about and that your brave new world you're fighting for will exclude and denigrate you? Why should you?
We fight for everyone or we fight for no one
I think you misunderstand the point I'm making.It's not that saying police officer in of itself is a bad thing, it's that the majority of social justice is about smaller issues like that rather than actual serious things. Those smaller, albeit well intentioned issues wouldn't be harmful in of themselves but they drown out or take the place of more serious, meaningful issues. And more irritatingly, make people feel lile they are "fighting" for real change when we're arguing about semantics instead of the children who are maimed to support our cushy lifestyles.
Another way to think about it, it is sort of like a slave owner chiding someone for using the N word in the 1700s; that's very enlightened but surely the slaves are the more pressing issue!
You really think we're going to tackle large systematic problems when we can't even agree not to use language that excludes half the population? The tiniest attempt at improving society is met by endless pushback, but sure let's play your game - give me an ordered list of the first five things we should work on
I think we should at least try for real issues, like children burning to death, vs nagging people about slightly better language.
I don't have an ordered list but like I said earlier, the women and children who die making our stuff is exactly the type of issue for which modern social justice is ideally placed. It would take nothing more than making slave made clothes uncool and then people's buying habits change and then companies would follow for thay whole "profit" thing.
Make wearing slave made stuff as uncool as saying f****t and the rest follows.
Otherwise, you're just patting each other on the back on twitter about being morally superior while not changing or doing anything.
Policing language is the junk food of social justice, it feels like real food and is fine in some quantities but the real harm is that it takes the place of real, nutritious/meaningful food/social change.
I mean, who says I don't?
But really, my social justice isn't usually online. Right now, this is me trying to contribute to Lemmy while I poop, with honest opinions.
And I do believe there is something absolutely more worthwhile that we should be focusing on instead of the latest silly social justice trend (latinx anyone?) And that is the children who are maimed and burn to death making our stuff. I live my life as best I can to avoid that and support ethical businesses, I encourage my friends to do the same and I think if half the energy that people spend on twitter being outraged about relatively meaningless shit (I am hard pressed to believe that Chappelle's jokes are somehow worse than a 6 year old burning to death) that things would be a lot better.
I don't feel morally superior so much as saddened that all those good intentions and energy are channeled to relatively meaningless battles instead of making real, tangible change that is entirely within our capability.
The thing is you can't provide "justice" to all. A society will always have conflicting beliefs and some things just aren't worth fight for. Like when people were trying to make Latinx a thing. And like someone else posted not all immigrants are going to agree with a minority movement just because they are a minority.
The cynical among us believe this pivot was deliberate.
I've wondered about that a lot. I think it's more a natural consequence of social media algorithms. Surely you are more likely to reteeet/like/post something that doesn't imply you yourself are, with your daily choices, supporting an abhorrent structure.
Eyinah would like to have a word with you.