I’m traveling this week and so sharing some older pieces and Twitter threads I’ve written. Regular content will resume shortly. The correct referent here is not social justice movements now widely agreed to be on the 'right side of history' but movements that *claimed* the mantle of social justice, which includes a much wider range of causes, many of which we now recoil from.
I immediately thought of eugenics when I read this. Apparently, it was a "progressive" cause at the time, "backed by science", and touted by rich philanthropists. But, like so many atrocities, we hide what we're ashamed of, more concerned with the appearance it gives for us to be associated with such things than applying any meaningful analysis of what happened so we might prevent it from happening in the future.
This is an insane take in that tweet. The communist movement did all sorts of terrible things claiming to be doing so for social justice. To the point where in some post-communist countries there is a saying that the difference between “justice” and “social justice” is similar to the difference between “a chair” and “an electric chair”. I remember hearing that saying from my grandfather in the 1980s. Truly idiotic statement coming most likely from someone who thinks that the whole history of the world happened in America.
I think this is a great take. History is written by the victors, sort of.
...and, I think Edmund Burke's Reflections merit revisiting. I would venture that *all* those social justice causes have their dark sides. (Note: this is NOT to say that I am against, for example, women's rights. By no means. However, some ways of defining those rights are counterproductive, likely for women too. (Although, to be honest, I think the "rights"-discourse is a rather weak substitute for a real moral framework. In that sense I do think the fight for rights in the modern era is generally ill-conceived.))
Indeed, I don't think there is a "right-side of history." That is a funny, quasi-religious idea that rests on the assumption history bends this way or the other. History meanders in all sorts of weird directions. This is not to say there is no good or evil, or that there can be no local change for the better. Just that the passing of time is no passing of judgment.
I mean, what a dumb statement… first history doesn’t have ‘sides’. As a historian I HATE it when people project their present pet projects and foibles on essentially a foreign people and country and attribute motives to people who can’t defend themselves.
How’s this for a social justice movement always winning… prohibition and the temperance movement was a ‘social justice’ cause in its day, driven largely by women who were sick of being subjected to drunk husband’s violence and financial abuse. Did they win? For a while. Then they stopped winning because the proposition became unreasonable. Now we’ve long forgotten it, despite the curse that alcoholism still wreaks when it is endemic in communities. Which ‘side of history’ is right there?
No one teaches history anymore and I blame Critical theorists who pedal that kind of ‘right side’ nonsense all the time.
It all depends on who the "victors" are, at any given time in history.
SJWs and their antics are subjective and ever shifting.
Without a foundation of higher principles, morals and guidelines (typically and historically religious), things go off the rails quite quickly. If you have no grounding and centering ethos, you have chaos, no matter what the agenda, activism, or goal of a person/movement.
I am less interested in how history views activists on either side of the mix and more interested in how they are incrementally changing society for the worse, by wiping out those foundational norms and truths, right under our noses.
Consider this story and watch the video clip.
Ask yourself...how is it the oath has changed to this version; what damage can these drones do, over the course of their careers; this is just one story of one school, how many others do you think are happening; how will this give momentum to this woke movement, in this industry...these people will sit on boards/councils and write papers and studies to be published and followed by peers and those who come after them...the list goes on.
If we continue down the wokeistan road we are on, then these SJWs and their ilk, will be viewed favorably...much like Sanger would have been seen, as a eugenics hero, had Hitler been victorious and Nazi Germany still existed.
I don't care how history judges them, I care about judging their destruction now. If we wait for history to do it, we will perish, like millions of Jews did, during the late 1930s and 40s.
A side note...with these ALL in woke newbies...how hard do you think it will be, to hold back the the tide of this trans, subversive operation and save our society?? It has been an uphill battle for decades, it's just now, the hill has gotten steeper and people are waking to the horror they have ignored for way too long.
I immediately thought of eugenics when I read this. Apparently, it was a "progressive" cause at the time, "backed by science", and touted by rich philanthropists. But, like so many atrocities, we hide what we're ashamed of, more concerned with the appearance it gives for us to be associated with such things than applying any meaningful analysis of what happened so we might prevent it from happening in the future.
This is an insane take in that tweet. The communist movement did all sorts of terrible things claiming to be doing so for social justice. To the point where in some post-communist countries there is a saying that the difference between “justice” and “social justice” is similar to the difference between “a chair” and “an electric chair”. I remember hearing that saying from my grandfather in the 1980s. Truly idiotic statement coming most likely from someone who thinks that the whole history of the world happened in America.
Reminds me of this poem by John Harington:
Treason doth never prosper, what' s the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason
I think this is a great take. History is written by the victors, sort of.
...and, I think Edmund Burke's Reflections merit revisiting. I would venture that *all* those social justice causes have their dark sides. (Note: this is NOT to say that I am against, for example, women's rights. By no means. However, some ways of defining those rights are counterproductive, likely for women too. (Although, to be honest, I think the "rights"-discourse is a rather weak substitute for a real moral framework. In that sense I do think the fight for rights in the modern era is generally ill-conceived.))
Indeed, I don't think there is a "right-side of history." That is a funny, quasi-religious idea that rests on the assumption history bends this way or the other. History meanders in all sorts of weird directions. This is not to say there is no good or evil, or that there can be no local change for the better. Just that the passing of time is no passing of judgment.
Sterilizing kids no matter their sexuality...
it does depend. here's one of the earlier & most prominent uses of the phrase "social justice" in the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Justice_(periodical)
I think Sarah Ditum compared this crowd to the Anabaptists recently and ooooooh that’s an apt comparison
Two words: survivorship bias
I mean, what a dumb statement… first history doesn’t have ‘sides’. As a historian I HATE it when people project their present pet projects and foibles on essentially a foreign people and country and attribute motives to people who can’t defend themselves.
How’s this for a social justice movement always winning… prohibition and the temperance movement was a ‘social justice’ cause in its day, driven largely by women who were sick of being subjected to drunk husband’s violence and financial abuse. Did they win? For a while. Then they stopped winning because the proposition became unreasonable. Now we’ve long forgotten it, despite the curse that alcoholism still wreaks when it is endemic in communities. Which ‘side of history’ is right there?
No one teaches history anymore and I blame Critical theorists who pedal that kind of ‘right side’ nonsense all the time.
It all depends on who the "victors" are, at any given time in history.
SJWs and their antics are subjective and ever shifting.
Without a foundation of higher principles, morals and guidelines (typically and historically religious), things go off the rails quite quickly. If you have no grounding and centering ethos, you have chaos, no matter what the agenda, activism, or goal of a person/movement.
I am less interested in how history views activists on either side of the mix and more interested in how they are incrementally changing society for the worse, by wiping out those foundational norms and truths, right under our noses.
Consider this story and watch the video clip.
Ask yourself...how is it the oath has changed to this version; what damage can these drones do, over the course of their careers; this is just one story of one school, how many others do you think are happening; how will this give momentum to this woke movement, in this industry...these people will sit on boards/councils and write papers and studies to be published and followed by peers and those who come after them...the list goes on.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/10/13/minnesota-medical-student-swear-oath-to-fight-white-supremacy-honor-all-indigenous-ways-of-healing/
If we continue down the wokeistan road we are on, then these SJWs and their ilk, will be viewed favorably...much like Sanger would have been seen, as a eugenics hero, had Hitler been victorious and Nazi Germany still existed.
I don't care how history judges them, I care about judging their destruction now. If we wait for history to do it, we will perish, like millions of Jews did, during the late 1930s and 40s.
A side note...with these ALL in woke newbies...how hard do you think it will be, to hold back the the tide of this trans, subversive operation and save our society?? It has been an uphill battle for decades, it's just now, the hill has gotten steeper and people are waking to the horror they have ignored for way too long.