Not always so simple. And much easier when commenting about societal forces and trends than about individuals. (More below.)
I once saw where a certain historical religious figure, who was known as a religious zealot and heresy fighter, commented on the difference between himself and another contemporary religious figure who was known as an even bigger zealot and heresy fighter. He said the difference wasn’t just in degree, but was more fundamental, as in the following illustration.
There was a baker who had a persistent problem with a mouse running around in his shop. He couldn’t catch it, and he finally went out and got a cat, which caught it and ate it. At that point the baker was happy and the cat was happy. But there was a difference. The baker was hoping that was the last mouse and there wouldn’t be any more. The cat was hoping there would be all the more mice, so that he could catch and eat all the more.
So too there’s a fundamental difference between a person who sees injustice (or heresy, as the case may be) and feels the need to fight it and so goes out and fights it, and someone who has a need to be an injustice (or heresy) fighter, someone who needs to feel that he is nobly battling the Forces of Evil. The second type would be what’s meant by the term SJW, a guy who is always looking for an injustice to fight, so he can get that righteous glow.
And one crucial difference is in how one assesses a given injustice (or heresy). The guy who is dragged into fighting injustice has no incentive to exaggerate or otherwise incorrectly assess the level of injustice he’s contemplating. Not so the person with the psychological need to be an injustice fighter - he has every incentive to exaggerate to himself the scale and scope of the evil that he’s fighting, so as to make himself all the bigger hero in fighting it.
And this has practical relevance in assessing the issues and public policy. As noted earlier in this thread, many times there are competing interests at stake. Moving too much in one direction risks harm in the other. Protecting the interests of one class of people risks harming the interests of another. Something has to give. And here is where you need a rational and unbiased assessment of the benefits and harm to the various interested parties. And if you have a situation where SJWs have seized on one issue as the primary area of their focus, with the attendant need to exaggerate the scope and scale of this particular injustice, then the scale gets improperly tilted in the direction of preventing that injustice, at the expense of other competing interests whose needs are not the focus of a social justice campaign.
This is what I was suggesting was in play here, in my first post to this thread.
There’s some truth to this. But it’s not as illogical as may seem.
To the extent that facts and logic would dictate that X is true and Y is not, then all else being equal any random person would be more likely to believe X and reject Y. If he doesn’t, then there should be some reason for it. Maybe the guy is ignorant of the facts, maybe he’s not capable of logical reasoning, maybe he’s biased. Of course, it depends on how conclusive the facts and logic are. The more the facts and logic leave some ambiguity, the more it’s possible that the one who disagrees with X might simply have a difference of opinion. The more the facts and logic are overwhelmingly conclusive of X, the more likely it is that the one denying X is ignorant and/or illogical, biased etc.
And the same applies even more so to groups. Because as noted, the above only holds all else being equal. But all else is not equal, and especially when it comes to individuals. Maybe there’s some reason specific to this individual, based on his experience, psychology, whatever that leads him to a different conclusion. But if you’re talking about why it obvious that X is true but 50% of the country disagrees with it, then it’s all the more question as to how could so many people be wrong. And this is where it’s even more valid to look for a common shared factor other than facts and logic which have led so many people to the wrong conclusion.
As a general rule this appears to be completely uncontroversial - I would bet there is not a single poster who participates in these types of discussions who has not at some point done something of this sort. (Pick a random political thread.) The suggestion that the need of SJWs to find, exaggerate, and fight certain SJ issues might be one force capable of influencing public attitudes is just a sub-set of this concept.
As above, it’s easier with groups than with individuals. I mean, it’s not hard to imagine where, based on the description above you might be able to speculate that some individual or another is motivated - whether in whole or in part - by SJW motivations. But it’s a lot easier when all you’re doing is speculating about forces influencing public attitudes, as I as doing here.