2 thoughts on ““Social-Justice” Advocates”

  1. On deBoer’s initial complaint about not having a name for the broad ideology, why would they ever go along? Does anyone think that any such label, no matter how snappy, wouldn’t become a pejorative inside of a year?

    I think a big part of the problem here is that this is the second or third generation of academic peacocks, who status signal by deliberately coming up with new descriptions and rationalizations of the same stuff every few years. This chaotic mess means labels based on historical ideological evolution don’t hang well. A lot of it really can’t be connected to early ideology because they made it in some way contrary to earlier stuff (even if they borrow heavily the basic assumptions).

    There’s certain common irrational characteristics though: core claims are allegedly self-evident/common sense; division of world into in and out-groups: out-groups are excluded from discussion and always in the wrong while in-groups are the only ones allowed to speak and always in need of redress by the out-groups; problems are binary not matter of degree and hence, can never be fixed to the point of irrelevance; emphasis on nomenclature and obsession with labels (especially used to signal intelligence and knowledge); and a general shrillness coming from demonization and inflation of importance.

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