I read the OP which is why I was asking for clarification. In the OP you wrote how some people join causes for base motives. I agree that people like that might exist. A person might join a movement because he wants to see his picture in the paper to to impress girls or to build up a resume for a future political career and not because he actually believes in the cause.
But then in a later post, you said that some of these people actually do think they believe in the cause. So I asked my question to clarify what it was you were saying.
But in the OP I didn’t just say “for base motives” (or similar), such that I might have been referring to reasons such as you gave.
What I said was “someone who needs to feel that he is nobly battling the Forces of Evil […] a guy who is always looking for an injustice to fight, so he can get that righteous glow”. And in post #29 (responding to you), I referred to “emotional/psychological origins of this sort”.
Similarly, the study I quoted suggested the possibility that “moral outrage at third-party transgressions is sometimes a means of reducing guilt over one’s own moral failings and restoring a moral identity”.
The whole point of this type of mental process is that a person feels good about himself by convincing himself that he’s engaged in this great moral endeavor. If the person didn’t sincerely believe in what he was doing, it wouldn’t work at all in this manner. So the fact that a person is sincere about his beliefs on a conscious level is not an indication that he’s not ultimately driven by psychological forces of the types described.
I’m a Social Justice Warrior because I keep seeing assholes treating other people, usually minorities of some kind, poorly and unfairly. I’d rather not have to fight this fight but we keep producing bigoted assholes and the only other choice is to let them keep doing the things they do.
Is protesting abortion (and calling for law restricting abortion) an issue of social justice?
As best I can tell, anyone calling for or working toward changes in society could be a social justice warrior, but the capital letters are reserved for people who do so in a manner or for causes that you personally don’t like.
I have often wondered just who the heck are these 'social justice warriors"?
I mean in my circle of acquaintances for work, church, neighbors, friends I’ve never known anyone who has the time, desire, or attitude to do something crazy like try to block traffic, set things on fire, take their clothes off, or get into a fight with police over some issue like these people. Now I know 2 people who who part of the recent marches against Trump but they didnt go crazy.
Just who are these people?
Where do they have employment?
Who are their friends and family?
A lot are college students, because at that time they aren’t bound to a work employment schedule yet, and also are surrounded by a lot of like-minded peers.
Probably because if you have a job and responsibilities you cant be having to tell your boss you cant come to work for a week because your in jail. Plus a person often has to declare any brushes with the law when applying for employment.
In many ways, I think being a Social Justice Warrior is like being a hipster - people who clearly are one in the eyes of other observers will insist they aren’t, because of reasons.
That doesn’t contradict what I said. Sure, there are indeed obvious examples of any subculture. There are also many, many cases that exist only in the eye of the beholder and if one is looking for a way to dismiss ideas rather than individuals, the labels are handy.
-I don’t like “ethnic” food, so I call anyone who likes “fusion” restaurants a hipster.
-I don’t like women/gays/transgenders, so I call anyone who supports equal treatment under the law a Social Justice Warrior.
It’s a convenient tool for the intellectually lazy.
I’m not disagreeing the terms are misused, but I also think they’re valid in their own right.
You don’t have to dislike fusion restaurants because they have ethnic food - I love “ethnic” food but I’m not a huge fan of fusion restaurants, largely because they’re very expensive with small portions IME. That seems to be something which makes them attractive to hipsters, too.
And as for your second point - I don’t think most people this side of the middle ages are seriously saying gays/trangenders/minorities/women should receive different treatment under the law. What people are concerned about are those pushing for those folks to have what is perceived as “extra” privileges under social constructs rather than legally, if that makes sense.
For “Social Justice Warrior”, I gather the misuses likely outnumber any “valid” applications. At the height of Gamergate, picture wandering into a 4Chan thread and saying something as tepid as “Um, maybe it’s not such a great idea to post someone’s home address and threaten to rape and murder them.” What were the odds of you escaping an SJW label? Would they change if you were using an feminine-sounding username?
It doesn’t. The “extra” privileges supposedly sought are often just the same privileges the majority enjoys.
4Chan is hardly representative of society, though. And that’s without getting into my other theory that lots of people say stuff online they’d never say or act on IRL - from all sides of the socio-political spectrum.
Not necessarily, but it’s hard to get into a discussion of that without spectacularly hijacking the thread.
