On a basic level, nothing could be more American than the idea of “social justice.” Theoretically, it is an ideological commitment to equality and fairness, seeking restitution for historical wrongs and achieving reconciliation.
In reality, it is something far more sinister.
Social justice is identity politics in practice, which has come to reject objectivity and colorblindness. It instructs adherents to see society as an unnavigable matrix of overlapping persecutions and reject meritocracy as an unattainable myth, sapping them of agency and robbing them of individuality....
...The tenets of this new faith proscribe what the University of California system has called the “myth of meritocracy.” Among the forbidden “micro-aggressions” the sufficiently woke should avoid are boilerplate expressions of patriotism like “America is the land of opportunity” and “Everyone can succeed in this society if they work hard enough.” Pupils are instructed that they cannot achieve their dreams without the aid of enlightened liberal Sherpas.
...While a legitimate theory for understanding prejudice, intersectionality has transformed its adherents into blinkered paranoiacs. It has driven the Women’s March organizers to embrace noxious elements like the cop killer Assata Shakur and the anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan. To abandon them would suggest devotees hold the same prejudices against which they claim to struggle.
We are regressing to the point where we ascribe status based on hereditary traits. That is the only way to describe the so-called “right to be believed,” an idea endorsed by figures as prominent as Hillary Clinton, which requires deference, not impartiality, to the claims of alleged sexual-assault survivors. Adherents believe that misogyny is so interwoven into American institutions that such allegations are not fairly adjudicated in the justice system....
Social justice confuses racial enlightenment with stereotyping, as exemplified by the recent confrontation between MAGA hat-clad teenagers from a Catholic school and a black nationalist group fronted by a Native American man. The Atlantic’s James Fallows explicitly rejected the idea of individuality in this conflict. To him, the teenagers were the nondescript heirs to the 20th century’s segregationists, and their abusers were their righteous and aggrieved victims. The Washington Post saw this as a chance to litigate the historic injustices the Catholic Church has visited upon America’s indigenous population....
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Originally Posted by Helena
