SJW Campus Insanity and its Causes

[Splendid]

Let me tell you all this:
I graduate this summer semester, and I already have a job offer. I've signed it and everything. I'm in my early 20's, and I'll be singlehandely making more than the average American family AND I live in the South, which is of course super cheap.
Why is this? Because I majored in STEM.
Meanwhile, my friend, who's got three years of English under his belt, is considering dumping it all and moving over to STEM himself because the job market is just that bad despite the recovery.
Non-STEM is pretty much worthless if you're in college nowadays, and anyone who thinks otherwise is either full of shit or has some sort of crazy inside connection that guarantees them a job.

 

[TyrannoNinja]

I got my B.A. in Biological Anthropology at UCSD a couple of years back, but from what I remember, SJWs weren't really an issue for me there. If anything, it was pro-Ron Paul sentiment that threw itself into my face more often than not (e.g. chalk graffiti on the pathways), and Ron Paul is not exactly my idea of a SJ hero. But perhaps that was because most of the classes I took weren't really SJW magnets; they were mostly about history, human evolution, and archaeology, with a couple of creative writing classes thrown into the mix. I did take one sociology class and one multiculturalism class which had evident left-wing slants, but the professors actually did have studies and data to back up their arguments rather than just feels like the stereotypical "soft liberal arts" classes.

Keep in mind that even before "SJW" was a term, academia has long been known for its predominantly liberal culture. And I think that makes some sense. Colleges have a vested interest in attracting and accommodating students from different backgrounds, and you can't deny incorporating diverse perspectives beyond the traditional "Wealthy Straight White Male" bubble can do wonders for enriching knowledge and understanding. Unfortunately I wonder if some of this much-lamented censoriousness on campuses might be an inadvertent side effect of that need. When you have such a heterogeneous student body, you run the risk of alienating at least one contingent of them no matter what you do. If you can't navigate that minefield, you might as well limit your alienation to the more "privileged" demographics---however you define those.

That said, my worst experiences with SJWs have all taken place online rather than any IRL environment. In addition to social media like tumblr and Twitter, I see them on forums and sites premised around art, writing, or pop culture. They've become a particularly vocal faction on speculative fiction (sci-fi and fantasy) forums, which are guaranteed to have recurring (and usually longer than most novels) threads on gender or race. My belief is that today's SJWs are culture critics first and foremost, since pop culture's portrayal of women and minorities is easier for kids to pick up than the complicated history and socioeconomic problems that serious social justice scholars actually analyze. They have less to say about, say, redlining or abortion rights than they do how the latest comic book depicts its female and/or non-European characters.

 

[AnOminous]

Keep in mind that even before "SJW" was a term, academia has long been known for its predominantly liberal culture.

True, but academic liberalism at its core is supposed to be about freedom of thought. This is sort of the whole idea behind tenure, that those with unpopular opinions are not removed from the environment because of them, even if the majority of people even among their own peers find their opinions offensive or outrageous.

SJWs are leftists without liberalism.

They want to destroy the canon without the foggiest idea what it is or how to replace it if it were destroyed.

 

[RP 520]

This is sort of the whole idea behind tenure, that those with unpopular opinions are not removed from the environment because of them, even if the majority of people even among their own peers find their opinions offensive or outrageous.

SJWs are leftists without liberalism.

The issue now is that most people who control who gets tenure are hardcore leftists and if you don't spout leftist views or they catch you supporting a political party they don't like then you don't get your tenure and you'll probably be fired too. This has led to professors who think differently either keeping their trap shut or conforming to the college culture while keeping their true views under wraps.

This then trickles down to the students where some professors are heavily biased and only tolerate one view of thought. If you're a naive student then you're either going to start thinking the way they want you to think or else your grades will suffer.

 

[AnOminous]

The issue now is that most people who control who gets tenure are hardcore leftists and if you don't spout leftist views or they catch you supporting a political party they don't like then you don't get your tenure and you'll probably be fired too.

The people who control tenure are still, mainly, old people. Most campuses still have their minority of conservative faculty.

The main desire of the administration of most universities is a) to keep federal money flowing in and b) to cater to the large alumni and corporate donors who keep money flowing in. Generally, the president of any university is there for one reason, and that is they're good at keeping money flowing in.

Campus culture on the lower level is not really their concern, so long as it doesn't rock the boat enough to get bad press about the university.

(Not that there aren't horrifyingly awful examples of PC run amok: the case of John McAdams, a tenured professor fired for a blog post that no reasonable person would consider grossly offensive being an obvious example.)

 

[SU 390]

The issue now is that most people who control who gets tenure are hardcore leftists and if you don't spout leftist views or they catch you supporting a political party they don't like then you don't get your tenure and you'll probably be fired too. This has led to professors who think differently either keeping their trap shut or conforming to the college culture while keeping their true views under wraps.

This then trickles down to the students where some professors are heavily biased and only tolerate one view of thought. If you're a naive student then you're either going to start thinking the way they want you to think or else your grades will suffer.

Maybe it's just me not paying attention or not caring but I didn't have any issues when it came to leftist views in my now old school. I did have one professor in my Self-Defense who's a feminist. She wasn't bad. She did claim that her colleague is worse than her. One of the reasons why I regret sticking to a Lib Arts degree path is because of gym courses.

 

[autisticdragonkin]

Maybe it's just me not paying attention or not caring but I didn't have any issues when it came to leftist views in my now old school. I did have one professor in my Self-Defense who's a feminist. She wasn't bad. She did claim that her colleague is worse than her. One of the reasons why I regret sticking to a Lib Arts degree path is because of gym courses.

I didn't know any universities offered PE
I have one class in which I am well to the right of everyone else (despite being a socialist) and the professor is a normal radical feminist and the rest of the students are all SJWs (long story about how I got into it but the SJWs were nursing students)

 

[Sweet and Savoury]

I wonder if these SJW's have actually taken the time to understand the true reality of the world that they say they want to build?

I know they tend to be young and inexperienced, naive and sometimes blatantly hypocritical but do they really understand the society that would arise from their ideals?

 

[SU 390]

I didn't know any universities offered PE
I have one class in which I am well to the right of everyone else (despite being a socialist) and the professor is a normal radical feminist and the rest of the students are all SJWs (long story about how I got into it but the SJWs were nursing students)

Some do if you're a Lib Arts student. Don't ask me why but it's a requirement.

 

[TyrannoNinja]

I wonder if these SJW's have actually taken the time to understand the true reality of the world that they say they want to build?

I know they tend to be young and inexperienced, naive and sometimes blatantly hypocritical but do they really understand the society that would arise from their ideals?

I don't think most of them even know much about politics in general. Like I said, they seem much more interested in critiquing pop culture and day-to-day interactions than complicated things like the mechanics of government or economics. Even Karl Marx would school most of them in a debate about politics or economics.

 

[autisticdragonkin]

I don't think most of them even know much about politics in general. Like I said, they seem much more interested in critiquing pop culture and day-to-day interactions than complicated things like the mechanics of government or economics. Even Karl Marx would school most of them in a debate about politics or economics.

SJWs are fundamentally driven by their lizard brains and thus they really have no content in their arguments

 

[Damocles_Sword]

My own impression is that SJW's are either communists that have hijacked feminism to promote their marxist agendas, or, are opportunists trying to make a buck by using gender issues to whip the sheep-like tumblrites who are the children of the idle rich seeking some purpose in life, into an outrage.

 

[AnOminous]

My own impression is that SJW's are either communists that have hijacked feminism to promote their marxist agendas, or, are opportunists trying to make a buck by using gender issues to whip the sheep-like tumblrites who are the children of the idle rich seeking some purpose in life, into an outrage.

Actual Communism is more like Scientology than SJWs. You're a woman and you think society is unjust? Communism can help you with that. You're black and society is racist? Communism can help you with that.

But it's only really interested in promoting Communism, not any of these other causes. It wants to co-opt them and basically replace them. Communism really doesn't have time for special snowflakes.

 

[RepQuest]

SJWs are leftists without liberalism.

Thank you. I wouldn't call the average college student or even the average San Franciscan/Angeleno Democrat "liberal" by any stretch of the imagination. It really irks me when those sorts of people describe themselves as such. What liberty do they even support?

 

[Wallace]

I’ve been a grad TA for six years now, and this video is so true it hurts.

An alarming number of students coming into college have zero critical thinking skills. Studying consists of memorizing the textbook, so the first exam question asking them to apply what they’ve learned results in failure, followed by butthurt that I’m deliberately preventing them from getting into Harvard Medical by giving them a bad grade. (I teach biology, so a lot of my students are pre-med.)

These kids aren’t stupid, they’re just very rhetorically weak and intellectually lazy. They want to be told the answer, rather than how to solve the problem. When they see racism or sexism, they know darn well it’s bad, but they lack the ability to come up with a plan to address the issue other than shouting it down, nor are they capable of identifying or treating the root causes.

Many college kids also have a pretty intense need for social media and it’s associated recognition. Having a tweet retweeted a hundred times makes you feel important and liked. And unfortunately, the best way to get those digital rewards is by trading either jokes or outrage within your online clique.

 

[Totenkopf]

These kids aren’t stupid, they’re just very rhetorically weak and intellectually lazy. They want to be told the answer, rather than how to solve the problem. When they see racism or sexism, they know darn well it’s bad, but they lack the ability to come up with a plan to address the issue other than shouting it down, nor are they capable of identifying or treating the root causes.

This is what happens when you raise a generation of kids to believe being racist is one of the worst things you can possibly be, without telling them why it's bad. This leads to tons of confusion as to what racism even is. I have heard people claim the entire science of Anthropology is racist because "people are all the same." Like, fucking hell.

They all know racism is bad, but if you press them on why it's bad, they get incredibly vague and even confused as the question. "Because it's bad, obviously!"

This is why so many people are basically honorary KKK members even if they believe wholeheartedly they are not racist and are fair, because they have no idea what racism actually entails or where it comes from or what it means.

 

[autisticdragonkin]

This is what happens when you raise a generation of kids to believe being racist is one of the worst things you can possibly be, without telling them why it's bad. This leads to tons of confusion as to what racism even is. I have heard people claim the entire science of Anthropology is racist because "people are all the same." Like, fucking hell.

They all know racism is bad, but if you press them on why it's bad, they get incredibly vague and even confused as the question. "Because it's bad, obviously!"

This is why so many people are basically honorary KKK members even if they believe wholeheartedly they are not racist and are fair, because they have no idea what racism actually entails or where it comes from or what it means.

I have heard people say that if anybody doesn't act like a normal person (white american) then they are being stereotypical and are therefore racist and deserve to be mistreated

 

[Sweet and Savoury]

I've been thinking not just about SJWism and the new 3rd wave feminism and I think they're simply reflections of a deeper movement in current culture away from concepts like logic, reason and evidence towards more subjective truths.

Basically current culture is moving towards rejecting the older concepts of empirical evidence and constructional logic and embracing a more subjective sense where the view of the person is more important then the objective "Facts".

I copy/pasted some facets of Post-Modernism Enlightenment theory.

• Reality is unknowable
• Because reality is unknowable, truth does not exist
• Because truth does not exist, subjectivity is more valuable than objectivity.
• Reason does not exist, it is a “white male Euro`centric construct”
• Because reason and truth does not exist people should instead act according to emotions
• Individualism and humanism was based on humans being the fundamental unit of rationality. Rationality does not exist, and therefore individualism is wrong. Instead people should act as collectivists for their various racial, gender, and class groups.
• Science is not a tool to make life better for humanity; it is a weapon for the various collectivist groups to dominate each other.
• Language is not a method to communicate knowledge to reveal the truth, it is a weapon to intimidate and silence your enemies.
• With no truth to determine what is right and fair, and no language that can resolve disputes peacefully, disputes between people become a never ending battle of wills that is primarily resolved through force.

All of these sound familiar, too familiar.

I believe that our Western Culture is, for what ever reason, current in the early stages of moving from an Enlightenment culture to this new Post-Modern version. Basically people are moving away from adulthood and back into immaturity by rejection causation of self to protect themselves from any failures they encounter. Emotional well being trumps facts or reality.

Its an outright rejection of reality with a desire to create a more pleasant environment where no challenges are able to injure the ego.

I'm going to keep pondering this; I'm intrigued by how well Post-Mo fits the SJW methodology.

 

[Teddy]

So basically SJWs and their ilk can't face the facts of life thus live in a world of delusion, lies, dreams, and Internet.

Seems legit. Sad, somewhat scary, but legit.

 

[WilhelmIIofPrussia]

What falsified rape claims are we talking about here? I'm suspicious of claims that appear right-wing, since the right-wing often misrepresent their political opponents.
I'm supportive of gender-neutral toilets, although it obviously requires extra resources and space and doesn't seem to be a huge sacrifice for transgendered people to use regular toilets.
I'm also supportive of safe-spaces in theory, but can't support it being backed physically by authority (ie security on-campus throwing white people/"oppressors" out of lecture halls).

University environments have always harboured progressive and left-leaning ideas and movements. In my opinion it's not something that can be stopped, it's just a result of people being in a learning environment. The "lack of life-experience" explanation doesn't cut it for me because this would apply to the aged professors, and the professors do tend to be progressive/SJW too.