In the jungles of the strange wilderness known as the internet resides the very vocal, temperamental species that the media has christened the “Social Justice Warrior.” Indeed, they are all too happy to liken themselves to activists in the image of Susan B. Anthony or Rosa Parks. Ideology is their battlefield, the hashtag their weapon of choice. Their rallying cry echoes amidst the wastelands of the world wide web, from atop the soapboxes they call Facebook and Tumblr. They scream, they beat their chests, they raise a deafening yell before the final battle. Onwards, for social justice!
At least, so they would have you believe. The reality is often not quite so romantic. In this writer’s experience, many online activists take up extreme positions that they are unable to defend without resorting to emotional outbursts. They point fingers, they complain. Theirs is a position that leaves little room for humor, one that places their own ideals upon a pedestal while decrying dissenting opinions as bigotry. In adopting a with-us-or-against-us mentality, they themselves become just as bigoted as their purported opponents. Such experiences leave this writer often questioning: Do these activists sincerely believe in what they are preaching? Or are they, perhaps, simply looking for attention?
The internet is a particularly rich medium for this pseudo-activism because it is now easier than ever to simply ignore the voices that one doesn’t agree with. It takes but a single click to silence an entire user’s commentary or block entire viewpoints. Instead of encountering perspectives that one may disagree with and talking them over accordingly, one can simply surround oneself with the like-minded and preach to the choir all day long. One can pat oneself on the back, convincing oneself that they are fighting the good fight, without ever once knowing the whole breadth of the situation in front of them.
Let me be clear here: social justice is good. It draws attention to core issues in the world we inhabit and informs us of areas we need to improve. The issue is when people engage in these righteous causes for the wrong reasons. When people enter these discussions for selfish reasons, ranging from entitlement to sheer narcissism. These intrusions derail important movements and often obsure the voices of those best able to affect real change. These are our Social Justice Warriors — the easily offended, the ones looking to fulfill themselves rather than enact true change in our society.
This purposeless outrage, in fact, the biggest danger of all. Not only do such misguided efforts undermine truly noble causes, they also see problems that aren’t really there. When emotion conquers rational thought, or when dissenting opinion is crushed underfoot, it detracts from substantial efforst to remedy social issues in our world today. Talk of “microaggressions” or “safe spaces” should not distract us from the very real issues that plague our society. From the Westboro Baptist Church to the Ku Klux Klan, there is no shortage of bigotry out there. We don’t need the “help” of Social Justice Warriors to find it in places where it doesn’t actually exist.
There is a real world out there with real problems. Perhaps it’s time for our rabblerousing netizen colleagues to put down the keyboard and become a part of it.
