Why Social Justice is Losing the Internet, Part 1

I've devoted a pretty significant part of my adult life to working for social justice. I'm not going to slap a label on it, but I believe that everybody deserves to be treated fairly and compassionately, and I believe factors you can't control should not determine your destiny.

So I'm sad because of all the ways that social justice is losing the internet.  

 

1. Recto-crainial inversion, or thinking justice means never getting your feelings hurt.

This is the most common failing of "social justice" activism on the internet. 

In a time when economic inequality is increasing and the very rich are looting the country, people spend a lot of time on the internet complaining about jokes they don't like. 

People should not say dumb shit that hurts your feelings.  But you shouldn't confuse getting your feelings hurt with being oppressed.

Here's an example: when I was young and broke, (well, I should probably say "even more broke") I looked into sperm bank donation as a possible supplement to my income. I did not get very far because I am 5'5". Sperm banks deem my height to be a defect so significant as to render my DNA worthless.  This is dumb, and even a little hurtful, but as a straight, white, college-educated cisgender man, it would also be dumb for me to make a career complaining about how society is out to get me because I'm short. I have plenty of other advantages.

Similarly, if you, no matter how you identify, are an adult in the US with a bachelor's degree, congratulations: more than two-thirds of Americans do not have one. Given how strongly education correlates to income, and given that our economic system is built on oppressing the poor, if you have a bachelor's degree, you are the oppressor in this country.  

And I suspect that a lot of the "activism" coming from people in the oppressor class stems from a desire to avoid confronting your complicity in oppression. If you keep pointing at other people as the ones who create problems, you don't have to look at the problems you are creating, or at the systems of oppression you are benefiting from.  

Everyone deserves physical safety, but the fact that somebody hurt your feelings by saying something stupid to you at Harvard doesn't really count as a social justice issue, because you go to Harvard and will for the rest of your life be complicit in oppressing the poor of the United States and possibly the world.  

Rainbow Rowell recently tweeted this: "You're sick of "feminism"? Well, I'm sick of making less money, feeling like my body is community property, and feeling shamed & harassed."  

Rainbow Rowell has two bestselling novels and a movie deal. She makes a lot of money.  More money than at least 99% of people in this, the richest nation on earth.  Her complaint about making less money is so out of touch as to be actually offensive.

As for the rest of it--I think her choice of words is telling.  Feminism isn't about women having the same chance as men to control their own bodies and destinies--nope. It's about feelings.

So let's not talk about how the apparel industry is built on the exploitation of poor women (but actually read this, because it's awesome); let's not talk about the choices that low-wage single mothers have to make between being physically present for their children and making enough money to actually feed them; hell, let's not even talk about some poor girl in a rural county who's pregnant and can't afford the five-hour bus ride to a place where she can get an abortion. Because what's really important is a rich woman's feelings.

Is your vision of a just society one in which nobody gets their feelings hurt?  Because mine is more about people having enough to eat and a roof over their head and physical safety.

Not at all coincidentally, if your feelings being hurt is the same as being oppressed, everyone is always oppressed and nobody has to admit that they're part of the problem.

Next time: being an asshole to everybody online!