Post: #1

Thinking back to my college days on a traditionally liberal major college campus, I remember now seeing what we'd call SJW's today. Pretty easy to spot, they were usually either drama/English/Film majors and sort of dressed like hippies.

Think back to the late 90s/early 2000s.

They typically supported causes like "Free Tibet" or "Free Darfur" as their main platform. They were into poetry slams and other stupid stuff like that but didn't brag about it (since everyone was using fat nokia's back then, IM, email and "theFacebook" wasn't around yet). A lot of them talked about one day wanting to join the Peace Corps or Greenpeace. Medical marijuana was equally high on the list to gay marriage (but not as important as Tibet or Darfur). Feminism was there but seemed confined to academia and some intentionally oddball publications. Opposition to the Iraq war and the 9/11 truth movement were also very high on their totem pole.

Some of the old school SJW's were dare I say...fairly nice. They weren't nearly as snarky en masse and didn't seem to have an exclusive campaign against straight men since they were too concerned about trying to free Darfur. Again, I am only speaking in general terms.

The current SJW is extremely snarky, obsessed with LGBT and wants to literally have all straight men tossed into the loony bin for being straight.

What I'm saying is, everyone knows how irreversibly insufferable they are today and there are no signs of them slowing down.

If I had to quantify one change, it's the proliferation of social media. It has made the annoying - significantly more annoying.

Anyone else have any thoughts on the previous brand of SJW and how it compares to the current?

Post: #2

(03-20-2015 08:08 PM)la_mode Wrote:  They typically supported causes like "Free Tibet" or "Free Darfur" as their main platform.

Don't forget this one:

Post: #3

Paging AnonymousBosch so he can talk about the psychological difference between Gen Xers and millenials which I think is VERY relevant to your question.

Post: #4

It has grown decidedly more spoiled and petty when before it was just pretentious

Post: #5

They also seemed more willing to participate & organize protests.

Nowadays, everything is done with #insufferablehashtags.

Post: #6

The ultimate old-school SJWs:



Not gonna lie. I still listen to their stuff

Post: #7

Great band. I still have "Evil Empire" and "Battle of Los Angeles" somewhere.

SJW tactics back then were more about disenfranchised populations in faraway countries. In the past 5 years something happened when SJW's turned straight LGBT.

Pardon the pun.

Post: #8

(03-21-2015 03:11 AM)la_mode Wrote:  SJW tactics back then were more about disenfranchised populations in faraway countries. In the past 5 years something happened when SJW's turned straight LGBT.

It's because on the subject of feminism and homosexuality, far left activists suddenly noticed something that hadn't happened for decades: they had ended up on the winning side. There, their beliefs and the interests of political elites lined up very conveniently, and although they didn't understand it at the time (and still have trouble digesting it), they reveled in the prospect of making 'progress'. As a result, they've focused on those issues more and more until that's almost the entirety of what the left cares about now (the "Black Lives Matter" campaign and the now-forgotten "Occupy" movement are the only significant exceptions).

The rhetoric about "privilege" also ramped up massively in the late 2000's. The left loves it because even though it's specious and fallacious, they can throw the non-argument at every conceivable issue and feel superior about it (and they increasingly do so without challenge as it's become the official ideology of the Democrats and something Republicans aren't willing to refute directly). The ideology of "privilege" has existed since the 80's at least, but it took a generation or two before it became mandated in enough sociology classes, then it escaped the insane asylum academia and got play in the media. Without the tacit and active support of professional politicians and corporations, however, it would have never gained such ascendancy.

Another aspect is that Obama got into the White House and so the left's critique of American foreign policy and domestic security policy got the mute button. "Anti-imperialism" used to be the left's bread and butter but yesterday's imperialism is today's whatever, and since everyone knows it's a losing argument it got shelved in favor of feminism where they can browbeat and bully their opponents and get applauded for it by the political mainstream.

Post: #9

Most of those activism themes were top-down created - even some of the stuff going back to the flower power sexual revolution and marxism-styled protests in the 60s and 70s.

I have read reports ranging back to those times where they said that some of the leading organizers of the 60s were some strange government sponsored dudes with buzz-cuts. They fucked the girls, but hated the hippies and still let them build communes on their property and bankrolled their dogma.

Social engineering is done in steps - sometimes going in opposite directions to destroy the old way of life (family, patriarchy) before herding the morons back in to the desired end goal - mixture between Brave New World and 1984.

All the current SJW as well as feminism fits the narrative, but of course it won't become an all-male killing cult, because the elite knows fully well who is responsible for creation and upkeep of civilization. The SJW memes will be updated every few years. In 10-15 they will talk about other themes.

That will continue until their fucked-up card-house breaks down and the patriarchy and the nuclear family is back.

Post: #10

I don't disagree with the central idea of your post, but...

(03-20-2015 08:08 PM)la_mode Wrote:  The current SJW is extremely snarky, obsessed with LGBT and wants to literally have all straight men tossed into the loony bin for being straight.

making shit up and being over-the-top histrionic about it makes you/us look bad.

Post: #11

Quote:I have read reports ranging back to those times where they said that some of the leading organizers of the 60s were some strange government sponsored dudes with buzz-cuts. They fucked the girls, but hated the hippies and still let them build communes on their property and bankrolled their dogma.

Got any links? I would like to see that.

As far as Social Justice Warriors goes, I think it is a few things.

First and foremost, most of the liberals you meet on college campuses, or that I did back in the 00's and even a little later, weren't actually progressives. While those two groups, liberals and progressives, overlap a lot they are quite distinct.

Liberals can be quite conservative in many ways, and often come from conservative roots, but change sides based on one or two issues. Gay marriage is one big issue that I think has caused a lot of the more liberal and less religious conservatives to change sides. Whether they have a family member come out or not, many look at it as a matter of fairness, The same is true of other issues like the Iraq War, Marijuana, Prison reform, and so on.

Progressives seem to be a completely different beast. A large part of them seem mindless and only parrot what they are told. They also seem to want 'progress', how ever it is defined in the moment, for progress sake. A big part of them seem to be made up of the far left and from what I have seen many liberals can't stand them.

In my mind it would break down something like this:

Animal Rights
Liberal = It is wrong to be cruel to animals, we should have safe guards to make sure they are treated well and we should push for more restrictions on certain types of animal processing with free range as a good solution

Progressive = If you aren't vegan you are a hypocrite. Animals have feelings too. Eating meat is an expression of patriarchal dominance. Blah Blah tumblr blah blah

You can see the same type of thing on pretty much all left issues.

Secondly, I think social media has played a big part in this.

It used to be that, in my experience, when you ran into a progressive person or two in a humanities class they were given the platform to talk and most of the liberals just kinda rolled their eyes or went along to get along and would often times break down the points. Also, just a few years ago most progressives new that their ideas would put off most middle of the road liberals so they would be very careful in how they presented them.

One of the nice things about the internet is how it allows you to connect with people on issues that are important to you.

One of the bad things about the internet is how connecting online with so many people of the same opinion in such insular ways actually makes people more and more radical in their beliefs and more harsh against dissenting opinions. There have been studies showing exactly this.

I think that is why you see all this crap among progressives/SJW's that you wouldn't have seen just 5 years ago.

Post: #12

(03-21-2015 03:01 PM)DrewP Wrote:  I don't disagree with the central idea of your post, but...

(03-20-2015 08:08 PM)la_mode Wrote:  The current SJW is extremely snarky, obsessed with LGBT and wants to literally have all straight men tossed into the loony bin for being straight.

making shit up and being over-the-top histrionic about it makes you/us look bad.

On some level, I'm convinced that's their ultimate endgame - given the choice.

However, I should clarify. What I said is meant to be metaphorical.

The gay man is glorified for checking grindr every 5 minutes finding a new guy to jack with, while the straight man is demeaned for simply desiring a young, attractive, fit woman.

Post: #13

They old SJW's were also united for the most part.

The current SJW's might not be able to agree on if french fries come from potatoes.

Post: #14

Under the gun here, so, briefly, 90's vs 10's social justice:

Sex-positive vs sex-negative.
Community vs segregation.
Optimism vs suspicion.
Earnest vs abusive.
Physical vs online.
Collectivism vs authoritarianism.
Pacifism vs fantasies of violence.
Self-love vs self-loathing.
Libertine vs puritan.
Creating art vs curating art.
Changing the world vs controlling the world.

Post: #15

(03-20-2015 08:10 PM)Tuthmosis Wrote:  

(03-20-2015 08:08 PM)la_mode Wrote:  They typically supported causes like "Free Tibet" or "Free Darfur" as their main platform.

Don't forget this one:

Post: #16

(03-21-2015 03:06 PM)Troll King Wrote:  

Quote:I have read reports ranging back to those times where they said that some of the leading organizers of the 60s were some strange government sponsored dudes with buzz-cuts. They fucked the girls, but hated the hippies and still let them build communes on their property and bankrolled their dogma.

As far as Social Justice Warriors goes, I think it is a few things.

First and foremost, most of the liberals you meet on college campuses, or that I did back in the 00's and even a little later, weren't actually progressives. While those two groups, liberals and progressives, overlap a lot they are quite distinct.

Liberals can be quite conservative in many ways, and often come from conservative roots, but change sides based on one or two issues. Gay marriage is one big issue that I think has caused a lot of the more liberal and less religious conservatives to change sides. Whether they have a family member come out or not, many look at it as a matter of fairness, The same is true of other issues like the Iraq War, Marijuana, Prison reform, and so on.

Progressives seem to be a completely different beast. A large part of them seem mindless and only parrot what they are told. They also seem to want 'progress', how ever it is defined in the moment, for progress sake. A big part of them seem to be made up of the far left and from what I have seen many liberals can't stand them.

It's why I like to use the term "leftist" or "SJW" rather than liberal to describe progressives. The word liberal as it is used in the United States covers everything from the guy who sends yearly donations to the ACLU and is slightly left of center on must issues to the crazed teenage college girl that thinks all the worlds problem are caused by heterosexual white men and uses the terms "cis" and "trigger warning" in a non-ironic way.

An article that got a bunch of SJWs all wound up to the point that multiple sites like Gawker, Jezebel, and others felt the need to all coordinate an attack on it makes the difference between liberals and progressives/leftists clearer then I could:

"The right wing in the United States is unusually strong compared with other industrialized democracies, and it has spent two generations turning liberal into a feared buzzword with radical connotations. This long propaganda campaign has implanted the misperception — not only among conservatives but even many liberals — that liberals and “the left” stand for the same things.

It is true that liberals and leftists both want to make society more economically and socially egalitarian. But liberals still hold to the classic Enlightenment political tradition that cherishes individuals rights, freedom of expression, and the protection of a kind of free political marketplace. (So, for that matter, do most conservatives.)

The Marxist left has always dismissed liberalism’s commitment to protecting the rights of its political opponents — you know, the old line often misattributed to Voltaire, “I disapprove of what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it” — as hopelessly naïve. If you maintain equal political rights for the oppressive capitalists and their proletarian victims, this will simply keep in place society’s unequal power relations. Why respect the rights of the class whose power you’re trying to smash? And so, according to Marxist thinking, your political rights depend entirely on what class you belong to."

There's plenty of people on these forums would are liberal as defined above and I welcome their contributions. Leftists on the other hand I'm guessing will never ever feel welcome here."

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/201...o-say.html

Post: #17

I don´t personally see much distinction between left-liberal and left-SJW in the current generation. The older leftists are almost all alienated by new developments and would like to preserve their left-wing identity by insisting that economic views still are the defining factor of it. These are the ones most likely to distinguish between liberal (here in England this would translate into "a bit of a lefty") and this new crop. But amongst my generation of left wingers only a tiny minority dissent from feminist orthodoxy.

My theory is that in the past, far left wing bull sessions, being overwhelmingly male, were completely unprepared to deal with a woman entering their space and terrorizing them. The academic feminists of the 2nd wave like Judith Butler and Julia Kristeva piggybacked on marxist terminology and concepts and gave classic marxists the one horn of criticizing the conceptual faults of unlawful "priviledge" that both abuse, and the other horn of completely lopsiding their "scientific" sociology by incorporating the massively confusing dimension of gender into their already convoluted metaphysics of class. In the past, politics generally didn´t interest a lot of women for the same reason that it largely doesn´t now (exceptions expected). It´s only through feminist politicization that women can muster the shits to give. And once they storm into left wing circles they alter the dynamic so that, socially, they can dominate discussions and terrorize the men into biting their tongues. The liberals used to distinguish themselves sharply from the radical left wingers (in England, the labour party has never tolerated flaming marxist rhetoric), but since the fall of the Berlin wall, liberals (whose traditions go back before capitalism) let their guard down and it hasn´t yet made the choice to verbally condemn the intruders whose traditions are 100% marxist.

On the right? Well I´ve never been privvy to the social dynamics but it seems to me that since the right has never been idealistic, there´s no conception of social idealism to hijack as the marxist uptopia was hijacked and supplanted by the feminist one.

Post: #18

You forgot the Free Kony movement. I upset a lot of the morons at my university when I decided to troll them on facebook.

I noticed how they would label me racist and ignorant. The SJWs like to step it up a notch because they live in an echo chamber of no consequences for their actions. Primarily social media allowed this echo chamber to grow and what we have now is a legion of people who believe they're untouchable.

Post: #19

(03-21-2015 03:01 PM)DrewP Wrote:  I don't disagree with the central idea of your post, but...

(03-20-2015 08:08 PM)la_mode Wrote:  The current SJW is extremely snarky, obsessed with LGBT and wants to literally have all straight men tossed into the loony bin for being straight.

making shit up and being over-the-top histrionic about it makes you/us look bad.

It isn't a complete fabrication.

It isn't far from the truth at all.

I appreciate your desire to have an objective discussion, but I don't think he is being hyperbolic.

Post: #20

25 years ago a friend of mine who had devoted his life to studying weird political movements in the US alerted me to what was happening on the political left. According to him, the left had abandoned economic issues as a driving force. It was now focusing on race and gender issues. I find his observations to still be true today. Which what makes the various "Occupy" movements such a joke: they had no foundation.
This was the same man who defined the Left as varying degrees of the same thing. He enjoyed studying the Weird Right because he found it to be a sideshow circus: full of one-man acts each with their own brand of insanity.

Post: #21

ColSpanker, that's really interesting. What other observations did your friend make?

Post: #22

Anonymous Bosch is right - the old SJW contradict sometimes squarely the new topics of SJWs.

Even second wave feminism says the opposite of the current campus feminists. It reminds me of this little clip - fast forward to 13:50 where you will see a prominent second wave feminist saying that they find it strange that the current "sisters" are using the same anti-sex-liberation arguments of the former patriarchal colleges. The current generation seems to want to be chaperoned seemingly reversing the sexual liberation. (In reality it will just give women the power to incarcerate any man on any flimsy reason.)





(@Troll King - could not find the link - read so much stuff.) There are plenty of convincing articles on that front. The facts range back to CIA backed drug culture where sometimes entire bags of LSD were thrown across college walls (both in US & UK), the blatant promotion of sex, drugs and rock&roll with completely stoned rock stars doing interviews on BBC and having a good laugh as to how naughty they are.

They reversed the drug promotion later on - now it's mostly weed for the masses and meth for the underclass. Cocaine remains reserved to the upper crust, though even that is in most countries highly impure and laced with plenty of bullshit.

In any case - social engineering shapes most of the current frameworks - where do you think the current SJWs get their mental fodder? When you look at the current crap taught at colleges you find quickly where the craziness is coming from.

In the last decades very little was really grass-roots - we along the neo-masculinity are some of those, but even here I estimate that there are plenty of detractors watching and taking care that nothing sensible comes out of it. If we stick to not marrying, not having children and fucking sluts, then everything is fine with the "neo-masculinity" movement. Marching towards the Federal Reserve and demanding interest-free sovereign money reform with millions of men carrying torches - well then you would find out how free your country really is. But I don't see that happening anyway - we are too diverse here and unify only along certain guidelines - nothing that the elite really needs to be concerned about. The hot topics are quickly attacked either here or beyond this forum. You can herd wolves too.

Post: #23

(03-22-2015 10:27 AM)ColSpanker Wrote:  25 years ago a friend of mine who had devoted his life to studying weird political movements in the US alerted me to what was happening on the political left. According to him, the left had abandoned economic issues as a driving force. It was now focusing on race and gender issues. I find his observations to still be true today. Which what makes the various "Occupy" movements such a joke: they had no foundation.
This was the same man who defined the Left as varying degrees of the same thing. He enjoyed studying the Weird Right because he found it to be a sideshow circus: full of one-man acts each with their own brand of insanity.

Moar? Inquiring mind want to know.

Post: #24

(03-22-2015 12:25 PM)Zelcorpion Wrote:  Even second wave feminism says the opposite of the current campus feminists. It reminds me of this little clip - fast forward to 13:50 where you will see a prominent second wave feminist saying that they find it strange that the current "sisters" are using the same anti-sex-liberation arguments of the former patriarchal colleges.

Unfortunately this woman, Camille Paglia, was immediately disowned by actually existing feminism and was branded part of the "backlash" from day one. She's highly recommended to everyone on this forum.


--
Self-correction: Judith Butler actually wrote during the third wave, although in character she's of the typically po-faced and miserable 2nd wave anti-masculinity variety

Post: #25

I would say the main difference is old SJW was primarily concerned with economic power. Modern SJW is more concerned with cultural power.

You can go on to say that the old theme was one of liberation. From oppressive rules, hierarchy, and social grouping. Promoting the right to be different, not lumped into a group.
The new theme is one of conformity, control and labeling everything. Punishing dissent and difference.

Choice of theme is based on how much relative power a ideological movement has. When you are weak and fighting a cultural hegemony you promote free speech, the right to be different, rebellion, nonconformity and open debate.
When you are powerful you shut down free speech, pillory people for thinking differently, cast rebellion as evil, conformity to one ideal as the only good and shut down debate like your life depends on it.

Their methods have changed over the years because they have become more powerful. As they continue to gain total dominance their methods will become ever more oppressive and nasty.

One might be tempted to ask how bad can it get...just read some history to see what the "in" group can do to the "out" group when they have all the power. Lynchings, the inquisition, gulags, virtual slavery, forced migration, etc It could get that bad before it gets better.

Of course, "it can't happen here" ...until your life gets ruined over one offensive comment you thought you made in private.