Every time I try to argue for intellectual honesty, I get labeled “part of the problem”. Every time I try to encourage people to listen to others and treat them equally because it’s a good thing to do and not because they identify as a feminist, I am met with hostility. If I make friends with someone of a different background than me and then mention them at all in a discussion about equality, I am accused of tokenism, because I’m cis-het white male scum (hey, thanks for asking, but I’m not all those). I am tired of this abusive rhetoric. I want real feminism, real equality, whatever label you want to use, and it starts with treating people with respect and conducting honest dialogue.
Be very careful about how you interact with these people, the mere act of following a person on Twitter who disagrees with them can land you up on a list that makes you unemployable. They claim to be feminists, and because that is a real issue today people believe them by default; without ever questioning whether they are the extremists in ways that the article explains.
The sad truth is that they are damaging the very movements that they claim to support: legitimate victims of discrimination are voiceless against the deafening noise of "wolf! Wolf!"
Ironically, by dismissing your input because of your race or gender, they are engaging in the exact behavior they are purportedly against. That kind of juvenile hypocrisy should be avoided by everyone, but sadly, is not.
You don't want to hold up the author as intellectually honest. He sneaks in a propaganda organ on par with the Party from 1984 as one of his sources without admitting that is what they are. :/
http://www.leadershipinstitute.org/aboutus/ runs some of what he is using as "evidence". They are pretty clearly a political organization with an agenda. If the author wasn't in the same vein, he'd have disclosed that or used someone else.
---
EDIT:
For example this guy:
> Your post feels eerily reminiscent of pro-industry conservatives pointing at snow and saying,"Global Climate Shift is a fallacy!" Maybe he used a poor source (though i think you'd have a hard time finding any data aggregator that does not have some political lean), but amongst how many credible ones? In my industry, the last day on the job is all that matters. On a 50 day job, 49 perfects mean nothing if the one bad one is on the last day. I always hated this; IMO it has no place in logical debate/discussion.
Since I'm rate limited and people are making various claims I'm going to point this out:
It isn't a "data aggregator with a political leaning", it is literally owned by an institution founded exclusively to further a single political party.
Hi! Cis-het white dude here. That you come in arguing is likely part of the problem. That you have constructed your point of view as the intellectually honest one, making your conversational partners the un-intellectual, dishonest ones, is surely another part.
What your approach doesn't acknowledge is the historical inequality, and the system by which that inequality is maintained. Just by virtue of being a comfortable white dude, I already get listened to way more than somebody less historically favored. And if I want, I can use that power to harm discussion of the systemic problems that give me that power.
Anybody in a disfavored group has experience that misuse of power about a zillion times. It's such a popular activity that there are mocking how-to guides for the powerful, like Derailing for Dummies.
So when people pop in to a discussion saying, "Hold on there, ladies; you seem hysterical. Let's calm down and listen to the white men for once," it's infuriating, because a) they are pretty familiar with the dominant perspective, and b) it is an exhibition of the unearned power that they are directly working against.
As a white dude, I get that this sucks. I am used to being heard, so not being heard feels unfair. But because I want real equality, I put on my big boy pants, shut my opinion-hole, and listen to people who are different than me. And in doing that, I've come to a much better understanding of what real equality means and how much hard work it will take us all to get there.
..using the completely contrived (and incorrect) definition of "feminism" that asserts anyone who believes in equality is a feminist.
That is not how groups work.
I believe that black people should have the same rights as everyone else too, but that does not make me a member of the "black power" movement. I believe in meditation and stilling of the mind, but that does not make me a Buddhist.
Why is feminism the only group that tries to claim dominion over otherwise unaffiliated people? As far as I know, it is unique in that respect. I can't think of any other ideology, good or bad, that operates in this way.
Given the behavior of prominent/famous feminists (say, campaigning for the abolition of due process, which is the single most fucked up thing I think I've read this year), that is not a label I want to be anywhere near. It is anti-intellectual, it is toxic, and I want nothing to do with it.
(apologies for posting on a new account for this; I don't feel safe discussing social-justice-related topics on accounts that can connect with my real-world persona)
>If you said yes to any of these questions, you're a feminist.
There's danger in treating ideological positions in the same way we treat party affiliations. The idea of the "motte and bailey doctrine" [0] is relevant here, where ideas like "feminism is just the belief that women are people!" are the motte, and more controversial ideas are the bailey that not only do many adherents support, but then use the near-universal acceptance of the motte as reasoning why people should accept the package deal of including the bailey as well.
>I bet you think women should vote, and be treated equally under the law. I bet you think women should earn equal pay for equal work (even if you think the wage gap is caused by parenthood / not asking for raises or some other explanation). I bet you think rape is wrong. If you said yes to any of these questions, you're a feminist.
This is a logical fallacy (Association). If you believe in X, then you are Y. You can believe in all of those listed criteria and not consider yourself a feminist, because it is a broad topic and some viewpoints are more extreme then others.
The problem is that the internet won't "get off" reality. It is no longer true that what happens on the internet mostly stays on the internet. If a bunch of tumblr people start denouncing you, you could get fired.
We saw that happen to a hackernews poster a few years ago.
College campuses are capitulating to these people's demands.
I think this movement will let off some steam and people will stop taking it seriously, but I don't think it is unfair to worry that they will take real positions of power in the future.
> Yeah, there's a handful of misguided activists who read
> malice into everything. But they're the minority
> (albeit a loud one).
And there's the problem. It's not that the represent them majority, it's that, by sheer volume, they've managed to set the terms of the the debate to suit their own viewpoint, biases, and beliefs. Even movement has its fruitcakes and its lunatics, but when they're the ones setting the agenda, it becomes a real problem and actively undermines the otherwise noble, sensible aims.
> Y'all gotta get off tumblr. Yeah, there's a handful of misguided activists who read malice into everything. But they're the minority
But isn't the problem the fact that if nobody speaks out against them that they'll eventually continue to grow? I mean, a minority opinion graduating into the opinion of a majority isn't exactly improbable or unprecedented.
And if that doesn't happen, you'll possibly have something even worse; you'll end up with what's been going on with Muslims where people think all muslims are extremist terrorists who hold radical views (because of a minority). Obviously that's not the case but many people really do think like that. Not helping matters is their most prominent leaders remain silent on those extremist views. Sure, you'll have a few leaders here and there putting in PR time while speaking out against extremism, but there's no conviction and it's not backed up by actual actions. The moderates and their leaders should be the fiercest fighters of that extremism and that's just simply not the case.
The reason it seems this way is that the handful of misguided activists work to silence the large proportion of moderates.
Tumblr, as an example, is not a place where you can admit moderate views about feminism or identity politics without getting shouted down. This results in moderates self-censoring and refusing to talk about their views publicly online, resulting in a hateful echo chamber completely lacking in subtlety.
If I had to guess I would attribute it to the fact that the internet allows radical viewpoints to not only be heard more easily, but it also enables congregation point to exist. I'm not implying that this type of radicalism is new millennial-exclusive thinking, just that it's more noticeable now.
The moderate majority doesn’t make for a good article, it’s true, however it is worthwhile to call out the bullies nonetheless.
I have experienced this from those older than millenials, too. But as someone in their mid-20s, I’m kind of in the thick of the part of the internet where the bullies reside, and it’s certainly not just on Tumblr.
Nope, egalitarian here. I actively choose not to use the term "feminism" because the only encounters I've had with "feminists" have shown that they aren't accepting of anyone who disagrees with them in the slightest. (yes now tell me I need to "get out more", I have.)
Not only that, but in my experience with feminism, to not be a feminist is to be a racist (according to them), and that's kind of how you sound.
There are good people who believe in equality that don't want to wear the moniker of feminism, believe it or don't.
I'm not sure how other tech individuals feel about these issues, but with the accounts of mass public shaming by everyone against perceived injustices and their supporters I feel like the best thing for myself is to say and do nothing at all. Until the tone of the discussion changes I think many people will continue to feel this way as well
I nearly always just keep my mouth shut because I know that I can be shot down and 'discredited' purely because I'm white, male, and straight. Part of it is perhaps age (I'm 31 now, and less angry/opinionated than I once was), but it's mostly just that I have, in the past, been repeatedly disregarded or outright abused because of who I am rather than what I'm saying. That kind of response is fundamentally censorious, and it has worked; I'm effectively self-censoring now to comply with the wishes/intentions of this lunatic fringe. From your comment, I get the impression you're doing the same.
The scary outcome of that is a continued chokehold on the narrative and conversation by these extreme fringes, and no change for the better because nobody is willing or able to engage in a reasonable discussion or take reasonable action.
That's exactly what they want you to do. Don't try to form any sort of counter argument against them or you'll immediately be painted as a racist, bigoted, misogynist. And if you use your real name they'll attempt ruin your career and destroy your life.
I think that's a good response, but I'd suggest adding some listening and learning to it. The Internet is accelerating some important cultural changes.
For example, look at the speed with which gay rights have happened, and how quickly society changed. In my view, that's because the Internet has drastically increased the ability of people with minority viewpoints to be heard.
What does that feel like for somebody with the old opinions? It has to be hard. For their whole lives, something they didn't like was actively hidden from them out of fear. They just never had to accept that gay people were real humans. So now they have a whole reservoir of views and habits and comments that are no longer appropriate. Many surely feel uncomfortable enough that they just shut up in public.
And I think that's fine. Their views and habits and comments were part of the social structure that oppressed gay people. Nobody wants to hear them anymore. I think it's best for everybody if they say nothing in public. They should instead take some time listening to the gay people whose voices they previously ignored. To the extent that they need help working through their opinions, they should do that privately, with people already sympathetic to them, rather than demanding that the world help them process things.
This piece belongs on HN as much as any of the pieces that spring up and are flag killed about feminism i.e. it doesn't.
However, the fact that it is on HN and has received quite a bit of support let's me know I'm certainly not alone in my frustration with the modern social justice movement, their antics, and its creep into the "tech media".
It is an incredibly divisive, hate-fueled movement based on flawed, debunked statistics and what amounts to a game of oppression olympics. Where once the type of person to spout their hateful rhetoric would be simply ignored, through social media they have been enabled, given a voice to, and been able to form an echo-chamber with other similarly deluded, hate-fueled people.
Through their network they have wielded an undue amount of power and we have unfortunately witnessed the result of it in real life, as a man who landed a probe on a comet millions of miles away had his team's achievement pushed to the back in favour of the furor over the shirt he wore while doing so, and who then wept on TV as a result of the sheer level of hate he received.
We have seen GitHub shamed for its rug championing unity in meritocracy, who then quickly moved to throw the "problematic" rug into the trash amidst the furor from these online "feminists".
We saw two people lose their jobs and have their names ran into the ground online by these "feminists" over a bad joke at a tech convention.
And the list goes on.
They have become simply too large to ignore. Their presence, and their narrative, drives so many clicks that we now see the "tech media" latch onto it, give their toxic views air and promote their narrative in the name of gaining clicks.
Facts no longer matter when it comes to these people, only the narrative. It doesn't matter that Ellen Pao was proven to have no case against Kleiner Perkins and was exposed as an incredibly shady person while doing so, you wouldn't tell she lost as the media driving this narrative cherry picked that which was convenient to the narrative and brushed over everything which was not.
I could go on about this, but all I will say is that I'm glad to see backlash against this movement increasing. I'm glad to see more speaking out against it. I'm glad to see their hashtags on Twitter being used against them, and I'm extremely glad to see some of their champions like Sarah Noble being held accountable in real life for the hate they spew online.
I think this is a bit disingenuous. I have definitely seen many articles on the web playing "oppression olympics" pitting supposedly privileged and oppressed groups against one another in literally every possible category, but these are usually met with scorn from rational individuals who identify as feminists or social justice warriors who believe that it harms the relevancy of actually oppressed minorities. There are fringe groups on every topic -- just as the Tea Party isn't representative of the visions of Libertarians and Islamic extremism isn't representative of the views of most Muslims, most radical exclusionary feminism isn't representative of the views of the vast majority of feminists.
And as for Pycon 2013, most feminists I know argued that Adria had done enough by complaining to staff and had no right to post the employees' names and pictures on Instagram/Twitter/whatever, and that the individuals involved did not deserve to lose their jobs. But being a jerk isn't a prerequisite for being a voice for a traditionally oppressed group. It's just a result of being impassioned and hopelessly misguided, both traits that are indicative of naïveté rather than malice.
> In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality, was tacitly denied by their philosophy. —George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four
Well, doesn't that sum up the modern West in a nutshell. War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength.
This is quite unsurprising, since the political system in the United States is very authoritarian.
The entire political discourse lies between the authoritarian center (Democrats) or the authoritarian far right (Republican). There are no real libertarians. There were a few fringe candidates in the past (e.g. Ralph Nader, Ron Paul) who were basically unelectable, and there are a few fringe candidates now (e.g. Rand Paul) who have begun singing the tune of authoritarian government to get elected.
The prerequisite for civilized discourse is that arguments should stand or fall on their own merits. To evaluate opinions on the basis of the sociopolitical identity of the author, and to shout down those who do not pass this test, is pure prejudice indicative of intellectual debility.
I enjoyed reading the contrarian comments attached to the article, because they were revealingly thin on argumentation. My favourite one was "this is not a good article", closely followed by the inscrutable "you need to come to terms with the idea that you're more libertarian than left-wing."
I would agree in general that the left has appropriated and advocates the kind of extreme, life-changing response to perceived enemies that it has accused the right of using. I do think that ultimately there will be backlash against this. The left mentions routinely that it has demographics on its side, but I could just as easily envision them being perceived as having gone too far and being the 'establishment' that people will eventually work to rebel against - though at that point, it may be too late.
This article appears to have fallen off the front page rather precipitously. It was at position 5 last I looked, and now that I refresh the page, it's not even there anymore - older posts with fewer votes are now far above it.
Would any staff care to chime in? It seems as if this posting was penalized.
There is (used to be?) a flamewar detection algorithm built into the larger ranking algorithm that would penalize stories which sparked rapid discussion accompanied by frequent downvoting.
The mindset may not be a millennial thing but its prominence in modern society most certainly is. Where once the hate-fueled rhetoric these kinds spew all day and night would have been written off as the delusions of a bitter lunatic, social media has given them a platform to find those similar to them, to network, to organise, etc. and those people tend to be within the millennial age group.
This is like some kind of Clickhole parody that mashes up MRA literature with How Millennials are Destroying the World(TM). There's no discussion to be had because the author's engaged in a dialog in his head about what the counter argument is and decided to format his thoughts in regards to that. Pepper a little Orwell here and some allegory there and you've got an article that shows exactly what's wrong with this argument - a refusal to listen to reason and instead substitute your own perception of how the world works.
I stopped hating my generation (born 1983, so I'm just barely a Millennial rather than an Xer) when I stepped back and looked at the picture in its totality and realized that we looked bad because (except in athletics, where objective genetic talent rules the day and rich parents or producers alone can't make a career) most of the prominent Millennials were produced by the worst of the Baby Boom generation.
First of all, authoritarian leftism isn't new. The ex-leftist neoconservatives of 2003 who got us into the Iraq War? They weren't the civil rights activists or the hippies. They weren't the ones fighting for desegreation or womens' or gay rights activists. Rather, those people were the communists, Stalin-defenders in the 60s, the left-wing authoritarians who swung right when they were older and richer. It's not really a loss that they went from left to right in the Reagan Era, as they were assholes the whole time.
Anyway, someone being a jerk on Twitter is not the same thing as what the Weather Underground was up to. For good and bad, we're pretty moderate in comparison to the Baby Boomers.
I stopped hating Millennials when I realized that the worst of us are products created by the worst of the exiting generations. You can find anything in any generation, so one bad apple (or few) says little about the generation and much more about those who endeavored to find it. And a young generation will be defined, when it is young, based on the uses that older generations find for it. Evan Spiegel? Lucas Duplan? Miley Cyrus? Justin Bieber? Lena Dunham? They're detestable, but they reflect on their producers, the ones who made their careers, and not on "our generation" in any meaningful way. If you look at the currently small-- and it's small not because we suck but because we're still young and most of us haven't had a chance to get started yet-- percentage (in the arts and business) of prominent Millennials who are actually self-made, the picture is a lot more flattering.
> Rather, those people were the communists, Stalin-defenders in the 60s
I think you'll find a lot of them were rather Trotsyists rather than Stalinists[1] which made the leap to the right during Reagan's early anti-USSR years somewhat easier as they had a long term hatred of the (post-Stalin) Soviet Union.
> Evan Spiegel? Lucas Duplan? Miley Cyrus? Justin Bieber? Lena Dunham? They're detestable, but they reflect on their producers, the ones who made their careers, and not on "our generation" in any meaningful way.
I'm with you otherwise but this line of reasoning is pretty dubious, a sort of counting the hits and not the misses approach.
It doesn't reduce well. If we blame the boomers for "producing" millennials why can't we just turn around and blame the prehistoric Madison Avenue types that produced the boomers[0], and so on and so forth.
Cheap synopsis: MRA tries to make make a cogent case without the overt whining, misogyny, bigotry. Still a privileged rant. Author may be feeling strident in the wake of Rolling Stone's retractions and recriminations.
You just proved how you either didn't read the article, or read it and completely missed the point as the author directly addresses what you're complaining about.
It's very telling (and actually directly proves the author's point) that the best criticism you can come up with is the author's identity (i.e. a personal attack, i.e. an adhom) rather than a concrete problem with his ideas.
I've been through divorce in Texas. I know how sexist the system can be towards men. But I have looked into the issues and the politics, and it's clear that feminist policies would have served me much better than sexist ones.
Author's premise that feminism is a propagandistic response to actual sexism faced by men is offensive to all my experience with the facts and the people involved. Thus my conclusion is, this tries to be a high-minded sounding article but it is a hit piece.
My god, why can't white cis males handle any criticism? It's as if people live in paralyzing fear of being called a name. And then can't wait for an opportunity to say "Aha! You're now exactly like your oppressors!" WTF? If you can think these things are the same, you automatically prove you do not actually understand anything. And yet you preach, and preach...
The problem here is that there is also an equal opposite force.
Pretty much all of those who use the derogatory term "SJW" turn out to be misogynistic right-wing bullies for whom feminism equals evil, and who think rape threats are free speech. The whole gamergate movement is utterly disgusting and spreading. (For instance, the right-wing bullies are now terrorizing the Hugo awards.)
It's a movement towards intolerant extremism from both sides.
While the author has a couple good points [there is alot of 1984 kind of Doublespeak in Western culture and it is getting worse] and there are those overzealous individuals who will use false information to push an agenda...
> The fact of the matter is, this particular brand of millennial social justice advocacy is destructive to academia, intellectual honesty, and true critical thinking and open mindedness. We see it already having a profound impact on the way universities act and how they approach curriculum.
The mere fact political propaganda from a known biased source would be used as "evidence", honestly, shows the OP has the same biases as the SJW but from a different direction.
Intellectually honesty isn't repeating stories from a well known political organization that solely exists to train future conservatives to spread their message as fact [without disclosing that is what they are].
---
Since I'm rate limited I'll reply to the accusation below here:
> Your argument is simply ad hominem. Either the ideas themselves are wrong, or they're not. It doesn't matter where the information came from. If Hitler told me about gravity that doesn't mean there is no gravity just because I learned about it from him.
Hitler in a clown mask coming to tell you about how the Jews are ruining society. The author knows its Hitler, but he doesn't tell you. All the while claiming he is a paragon of intellectual honesty and the opposition is not.
That is the actual comparison and why him doing this is a problem.
Your argument is simply ad hominem. Either the ideas themselves are wrong, or they're not. It doesn't matter where the information came from. If Hitler told me about gravity that doesn't mean there is no gravity just because I learned about it from him.
[+] [-] evincarofautumn|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zamalek|11 years ago|reply
The sad truth is that they are damaging the very movements that they claim to support: legitimate victims of discrimination are voiceless against the deafening noise of "wolf! Wolf!"
[+] [-] bonesmoses|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fweespeech|11 years ago|reply
http://www.leadershipinstitute.org/aboutus/ runs some of what he is using as "evidence". They are pretty clearly a political organization with an agenda. If the author wasn't in the same vein, he'd have disclosed that or used someone else.
---
EDIT:
For example this guy:
> Your post feels eerily reminiscent of pro-industry conservatives pointing at snow and saying,"Global Climate Shift is a fallacy!" Maybe he used a poor source (though i think you'd have a hard time finding any data aggregator that does not have some political lean), but amongst how many credible ones? In my industry, the last day on the job is all that matters. On a 50 day job, 49 perfects mean nothing if the one bad one is on the last day. I always hated this; IMO it has no place in logical debate/discussion.
Since I'm rate limited and people are making various claims I'm going to point this out:
It isn't a "data aggregator with a political leaning", it is literally owned by an institution founded exclusively to further a single political party.
http://www.leadershipinstitute.org/campus/activism.cfm?Idea=...
> Over 30,000 scientists have signed a petition, publicly voicing their dissent over the consensus regarding climate change. - See more at: http://www.leadershipinstitute.org/campus/activism.cfm?Idea=...
If you actually look at the list you find a bunch of people like these folks:
> Donald R. Buechel, MD, Walter R. Buerger, MD
They strongly imply its "climate scientists" when in reality its anyone they can claim has a Phd.
These are trained liars who lie through omission regularly. That isn't anywhere near "the same" as a newspaper with a political leaning.
To hold them up as a source when you claim you are being intellectually honest [and not disclosing what they are] really is dishonest.
[+] [-] wpietri|11 years ago|reply
What your approach doesn't acknowledge is the historical inequality, and the system by which that inequality is maintained. Just by virtue of being a comfortable white dude, I already get listened to way more than somebody less historically favored. And if I want, I can use that power to harm discussion of the systemic problems that give me that power.
Anybody in a disfavored group has experience that misuse of power about a zillion times. It's such a popular activity that there are mocking how-to guides for the powerful, like Derailing for Dummies.
So when people pop in to a discussion saying, "Hold on there, ladies; you seem hysterical. Let's calm down and listen to the white men for once," it's infuriating, because a) they are pretty familiar with the dominant perspective, and b) it is an exhibition of the unearned power that they are directly working against.
As a white dude, I get that this sucks. I am used to being heard, so not being heard feels unfair. But because I want real equality, I put on my big boy pants, shut my opinion-hole, and listen to people who are different than me. And in doing that, I've come to a much better understanding of what real equality means and how much hard work it will take us all to get there.
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Karunamon|11 years ago|reply
..using the completely contrived (and incorrect) definition of "feminism" that asserts anyone who believes in equality is a feminist.
That is not how groups work.
I believe that black people should have the same rights as everyone else too, but that does not make me a member of the "black power" movement. I believe in meditation and stilling of the mind, but that does not make me a Buddhist.
Why is feminism the only group that tries to claim dominion over otherwise unaffiliated people? As far as I know, it is unique in that respect. I can't think of any other ideology, good or bad, that operates in this way.
Given the behavior of prominent/famous feminists (say, campaigning for the abolition of due process, which is the single most fucked up thing I think I've read this year), that is not a label I want to be anywhere near. It is anti-intellectual, it is toxic, and I want nothing to do with it.
[+] [-] d9h549f34w6|11 years ago|reply
>If you said yes to any of these questions, you're a feminist.
There's danger in treating ideological positions in the same way we treat party affiliations. The idea of the "motte and bailey doctrine" [0] is relevant here, where ideas like "feminism is just the belief that women are people!" are the motte, and more controversial ideas are the bailey that not only do many adherents support, but then use the near-universal acceptance of the motte as reasoning why people should accept the package deal of including the bailey as well.
[0] http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/03/all-in-all-another-bric...
[+] [-] stevenmays|11 years ago|reply
This is a logical fallacy (Association). If you believe in X, then you are Y. You can believe in all of those listed criteria and not consider yourself a feminist, because it is a broad topic and some viewpoints are more extreme then others.
[+] [-] rhino369|11 years ago|reply
We saw that happen to a hackernews poster a few years ago.
College campuses are capitulating to these people's demands.
I think this movement will let off some steam and people will stop taking it seriously, but I don't think it is unfair to worry that they will take real positions of power in the future.
[+] [-] koralatov|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mahranch|11 years ago|reply
But isn't the problem the fact that if nobody speaks out against them that they'll eventually continue to grow? I mean, a minority opinion graduating into the opinion of a majority isn't exactly improbable or unprecedented.
And if that doesn't happen, you'll possibly have something even worse; you'll end up with what's been going on with Muslims where people think all muslims are extremist terrorists who hold radical views (because of a minority). Obviously that's not the case but many people really do think like that. Not helping matters is their most prominent leaders remain silent on those extremist views. Sure, you'll have a few leaders here and there putting in PR time while speaking out against extremism, but there's no conviction and it's not backed up by actual actions. The moderates and their leaders should be the fiercest fighters of that extremism and that's just simply not the case.
[+] [-] AngrySkillzz|11 years ago|reply
Tumblr, as an example, is not a place where you can admit moderate views about feminism or identity politics without getting shouted down. This results in moderates self-censoring and refusing to talk about their views publicly online, resulting in a hateful echo chamber completely lacking in subtlety.
[+] [-] Lancey|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Vraxx|11 years ago|reply
If I had to guess I would attribute it to the fact that the internet allows radical viewpoints to not only be heard more easily, but it also enables congregation point to exist. I'm not implying that this type of radicalism is new millennial-exclusive thinking, just that it's more noticeable now.
[+] [-] evincarofautumn|11 years ago|reply
I have experienced this from those older than millenials, too. But as someone in their mid-20s, I’m kind of in the thick of the part of the internet where the bullies reside, and it’s certainly not just on Tumblr.
[+] [-] zxcvcxz|11 years ago|reply
Nope, egalitarian here. I actively choose not to use the term "feminism" because the only encounters I've had with "feminists" have shown that they aren't accepting of anyone who disagrees with them in the slightest. (yes now tell me I need to "get out more", I have.)
Not only that, but in my experience with feminism, to not be a feminist is to be a racist (according to them), and that's kind of how you sound.
There are good people who believe in equality that don't want to wear the moniker of feminism, believe it or don't.
[+] [-] saboot|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] koralatov|11 years ago|reply
The scary outcome of that is a continued chokehold on the narrative and conversation by these extreme fringes, and no change for the better because nobody is willing or able to engage in a reasonable discussion or take reasonable action.
[+] [-] return0|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] evincarofautumn|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zxcvcxz|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wpietri|11 years ago|reply
For example, look at the speed with which gay rights have happened, and how quickly society changed. In my view, that's because the Internet has drastically increased the ability of people with minority viewpoints to be heard.
What does that feel like for somebody with the old opinions? It has to be hard. For their whole lives, something they didn't like was actively hidden from them out of fear. They just never had to accept that gay people were real humans. So now they have a whole reservoir of views and habits and comments that are no longer appropriate. Many surely feel uncomfortable enough that they just shut up in public.
And I think that's fine. Their views and habits and comments were part of the social structure that oppressed gay people. Nobody wants to hear them anymore. I think it's best for everybody if they say nothing in public. They should instead take some time listening to the gay people whose voices they previously ignored. To the extent that they need help working through their opinions, they should do that privately, with people already sympathetic to them, rather than demanding that the world help them process things.
[+] [-] borgia|11 years ago|reply
However, the fact that it is on HN and has received quite a bit of support let's me know I'm certainly not alone in my frustration with the modern social justice movement, their antics, and its creep into the "tech media".
It is an incredibly divisive, hate-fueled movement based on flawed, debunked statistics and what amounts to a game of oppression olympics. Where once the type of person to spout their hateful rhetoric would be simply ignored, through social media they have been enabled, given a voice to, and been able to form an echo-chamber with other similarly deluded, hate-fueled people.
Through their network they have wielded an undue amount of power and we have unfortunately witnessed the result of it in real life, as a man who landed a probe on a comet millions of miles away had his team's achievement pushed to the back in favour of the furor over the shirt he wore while doing so, and who then wept on TV as a result of the sheer level of hate he received.
We have seen GitHub shamed for its rug championing unity in meritocracy, who then quickly moved to throw the "problematic" rug into the trash amidst the furor from these online "feminists".
We saw two people lose their jobs and have their names ran into the ground online by these "feminists" over a bad joke at a tech convention.
And the list goes on.
They have become simply too large to ignore. Their presence, and their narrative, drives so many clicks that we now see the "tech media" latch onto it, give their toxic views air and promote their narrative in the name of gaining clicks.
Facts no longer matter when it comes to these people, only the narrative. It doesn't matter that Ellen Pao was proven to have no case against Kleiner Perkins and was exposed as an incredibly shady person while doing so, you wouldn't tell she lost as the media driving this narrative cherry picked that which was convenient to the narrative and brushed over everything which was not.
I could go on about this, but all I will say is that I'm glad to see backlash against this movement increasing. I'm glad to see more speaking out against it. I'm glad to see their hashtags on Twitter being used against them, and I'm extremely glad to see some of their champions like Sarah Noble being held accountable in real life for the hate they spew online.
[+] [-] morbius|11 years ago|reply
And as for Pycon 2013, most feminists I know argued that Adria had done enough by complaining to staff and had no right to post the employees' names and pictures on Instagram/Twitter/whatever, and that the individuals involved did not deserve to lose their jobs. But being a jerk isn't a prerequisite for being a voice for a traditionally oppressed group. It's just a result of being impassioned and hopelessly misguided, both traits that are indicative of naïveté rather than malice.
[+] [-] wtbob|11 years ago|reply
Well, doesn't that sum up the modern West in a nutshell. War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength.
[+] [-] littletimmy|11 years ago|reply
The entire political discourse lies between the authoritarian center (Democrats) or the authoritarian far right (Republican). There are no real libertarians. There were a few fringe candidates in the past (e.g. Ralph Nader, Ron Paul) who were basically unelectable, and there are a few fringe candidates now (e.g. Rand Paul) who have begun singing the tune of authoritarian government to get elected.
[+] [-] dropit_sphere|11 years ago|reply
http://squid314.livejournal.com/329171.html http://squid314.livejournal.com/329561.html
[+] [-] atlantic|11 years ago|reply
I enjoyed reading the contrarian comments attached to the article, because they were revealingly thin on argumentation. My favourite one was "this is not a good article", closely followed by the inscrutable "you need to come to terms with the idea that you're more libertarian than left-wing."
[+] [-] dudul|11 years ago|reply
- Huey Long
[+] [-] john_butts|11 years ago|reply
- Huey Lewis
[+] [-] ls66|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Karunamon|11 years ago|reply
Would any staff care to chime in? It seems as if this posting was penalized.
[+] [-] vonmoltke|11 years ago|reply
There is (used to be?) a flamewar detection algorithm built into the larger ranking algorithm that would penalize stories which sparked rapid discussion accompanied by frequent downvoting.
[+] [-] abruzzi|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] borgia|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Lancey|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] michaelochurch|11 years ago|reply
First of all, authoritarian leftism isn't new. The ex-leftist neoconservatives of 2003 who got us into the Iraq War? They weren't the civil rights activists or the hippies. They weren't the ones fighting for desegreation or womens' or gay rights activists. Rather, those people were the communists, Stalin-defenders in the 60s, the left-wing authoritarians who swung right when they were older and richer. It's not really a loss that they went from left to right in the Reagan Era, as they were assholes the whole time.
Anyway, someone being a jerk on Twitter is not the same thing as what the Weather Underground was up to. For good and bad, we're pretty moderate in comparison to the Baby Boomers.
I stopped hating Millennials when I realized that the worst of us are products created by the worst of the exiting generations. You can find anything in any generation, so one bad apple (or few) says little about the generation and much more about those who endeavored to find it. And a young generation will be defined, when it is young, based on the uses that older generations find for it. Evan Spiegel? Lucas Duplan? Miley Cyrus? Justin Bieber? Lena Dunham? They're detestable, but they reflect on their producers, the ones who made their careers, and not on "our generation" in any meaningful way. If you look at the currently small-- and it's small not because we suck but because we're still young and most of us haven't had a chance to get started yet-- percentage (in the arts and business) of prominent Millennials who are actually self-made, the picture is a lot more flattering.
[+] [-] AwesomeGriffin|11 years ago|reply
I think you'll find a lot of them were rather Trotsyists rather than Stalinists[1] which made the leap to the right during Reagan's early anti-USSR years somewhat easier as they had a long term hatred of the (post-Stalin) Soviet Union.
But yes, they were still assholes.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservatism
[+] [-] CPLX|11 years ago|reply
I'm with you otherwise but this line of reasoning is pretty dubious, a sort of counting the hits and not the misses approach.
It doesn't reduce well. If we blame the boomers for "producing" millennials why can't we just turn around and blame the prehistoric Madison Avenue types that produced the boomers[0], and so on and so forth.
[0] http://www.amazon.com/The-Conquest-Cool-Counterculture-Consu...
[+] [-] mauricemir|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jellicle|11 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] spacemanmatt|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Karunamon|11 years ago|reply
It's very telling (and actually directly proves the author's point) that the best criticism you can come up with is the author's identity (i.e. a personal attack, i.e. an adhom) rather than a concrete problem with his ideas.
[+] [-] spacemanmatt|11 years ago|reply
Author's premise that feminism is a propagandistic response to actual sexism faced by men is offensive to all my experience with the facts and the people involved. Thus my conclusion is, this tries to be a high-minded sounding article but it is a hit piece.
[+] [-] bakhy|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] makeitsuckless|11 years ago|reply
Pretty much all of those who use the derogatory term "SJW" turn out to be misogynistic right-wing bullies for whom feminism equals evil, and who think rape threats are free speech. The whole gamergate movement is utterly disgusting and spreading. (For instance, the right-wing bullies are now terrorizing the Hugo awards.)
It's a movement towards intolerant extremism from both sides.
[+] [-] fweespeech|11 years ago|reply
> The fact of the matter is, this particular brand of millennial social justice advocacy is destructive to academia, intellectual honesty, and true critical thinking and open mindedness. We see it already having a profound impact on the way universities act and how they approach curriculum.
The first link in this paragraph is:
> http://www.campusreform.org/?ID=6356
Student petitions, not actual changes. That entire site is backed and run by people with an agenda:
http://www.leadershipinstitute.org/aboutus/
The mere fact political propaganda from a known biased source would be used as "evidence", honestly, shows the OP has the same biases as the SJW but from a different direction.
Intellectually honesty isn't repeating stories from a well known political organization that solely exists to train future conservatives to spread their message as fact [without disclosing that is what they are].
---
Since I'm rate limited I'll reply to the accusation below here:
> Your argument is simply ad hominem. Either the ideas themselves are wrong, or they're not. It doesn't matter where the information came from. If Hitler told me about gravity that doesn't mean there is no gravity just because I learned about it from him.
Hitler in a clown mask coming to tell you about how the Jews are ruining society. The author knows its Hitler, but he doesn't tell you. All the while claiming he is a paragon of intellectual honesty and the opposition is not.
That is the actual comparison and why him doing this is a problem.
[+] [-] ManFromUranus|11 years ago|reply