Psychology: Social Justice Warriors & Political Correctness

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Thomas Jefferson isn't just a founding father of the United States—he's the founding father of the University of Virginia. But some UVA professors and students wish the administration would stop reminding them.

Nearly 500 members of campus signed a letter to UVA President Teresa Sullivan criticizing her for continuously including Jefferson quotes in emails—particularly in her post-election message to campus.

"For many of us, the inclusion of Jefferson quotations in these e-mails undermines the message of unity, equality and civility that you are attempting to convey," read the letter.

Jefferson owned slaves and committed atrocities "against hundreds of human beings," according to several professors who signed the letter.

"The point is that the move that says, he owned slaves, but he was a great man, is deeply problematic, and I think it will continue to prevent us from being the kind of inclusive, respectful community that President Sullivan and the rest of us envision," another professor told The Cavalier Daily.

But… Jefferson did own slaves, and was also a great man. That may be problematic, but it's undeniably true. Jefferson is an important historical figure responsible for a number of praiseworthy accomplishments, and also a flawed human being who mistreated a great many individuals, in accordance with the standards of the time.

It would be easier, of course, if historical figures were always universally good or universally evil, but reality is more complicated and contradictory than that. It falls to modern students of history to recognize the virtuous deeds of people like Jefferson while also condemning barbarity.

This literally just landed in my Facebook feed, with several of my friends liking and commenting about how insightful it is:

What's your problem with this? Do you disagree with their interpretation of the text, or with the ideas that they say the text is spreading (which I would summarise as "good people can be racist")?

Suppose the government puts a certain drug in the water supply, saying it makes people kinder and more aware of other people’s problems and has no detrimental effects whatsoever. A couple of conspiracy nuts say it makes your fingers fall off one by one, but the government says that’s ridiculous, it’s just about being more sensitive to other people’s problems which of course no one can object to. However, government employees are all observed drinking bottled water exclusively, and if anyone suggests that government employees might also want to take the completely innocuous drug and become kinder, they freak out and call you a terrorist and a shitlord and say they hope you die. If by chance you manage to slip a little bit of tap water into a government employee’s drink, and he finds out about it, he runs around shrieking like a banshee and occasionally yelling “AAAAAAH! MY FINGERS! MY PRECIOUS FINGERS!”

At some point you might start to wonder whether the government was being entirely honest with you.

This is the current state of my relationship with social justice.

Personally I think their interpretation is very strong; Ron is used to show the attitudes of typical wizards, and sometimes those attitudes are meant to be negative (such as taking house elves for granted, dismissing the goblins' views on ownership, etc.). Similarly, Dumbledore was childhood friends with Grindelwald, and even helped to shape his anti-Muggle ideology; the first book draws implicit comparisons between Grindelwald and Hitler. Yet throughout the first six books, Dumbledore is presented almost as a god, a flawless human who has to be pushed to one side to allow the plot to happen.

There's enough hatred in the wizarding world to allow Voldemort to exploit it, but most of the evil people are not irredeemable, many of the "good" wizards have some form of prejudice, and it's even acknowledged that Voldemort could be redeemed if he changed his ways. Rowling presents a nuanced vision of evil.

I think sometimes people think that "you can be nice and ___ist" is supposed to imply that the ___ism cancels out the niceness. Maybe sometimes it is, but if anything I think it's usually the opposite. It's an acknowledgement that being ___ist doesn't necessarily make you a bad person, it isn't a character fault, it's just part of human nature that we need to be aware of and try to fight against when we notice it.

Everyone is a little bit racist. We know this because there is a song called “Everyone’s A Little Bit Racist” and it is very cute. Also because most people score poorly on implicit association tests, because a lot of white people will get anxious if they see a black man on a deserted street late at night, and because if you prime people with traditionally white versus traditionally black names they will answer questions differently in psychology experiments. It is no shame to be racist as long as you admit that you are racist and you try your best to resist your racism. Everyone knows this.

Donald Sterling is racist. We know this because he made a racist comment in the privacy of his own home. As a result, he was fined $2.5 million, banned for life from an industry he’s been in for thirty-five years, banned from ever going to basketball games, forced to sell his property against his will, publicly condmened by everyone from the President of the United States on down, denounced in every media outlet from the national news to the Podunk Herald-Tribune, and got people all over the Internet gloating about how pleased they are that he will die soon. We know he deserved this, because people who argue he didn’t deserve this were also fired from their jobs. He deserved it because he was racist. Everyone knows this.

So.

Everybody is racist.

And racist people deserve to lose everything they have and be hated by everyone.

This seems like it might present a problem. Unless of course you plan to be the person who gets to decide which racists lose everything and get hated by everyone, and which racists are okay for now as long as they never cross you in any way.

Sorry, there’s that paranoia again.

Someone will argue I am equivocating between two different uses of “racist”. To which I would respond that this is exactly the point. I don’t know if racism school dot tumblr dot com has a Rosetta Stone with Donald Sterling on the top and somebody taking the Implicit Association Test on the bottom. But I think there is a strain of the social justice movement which is very much about abusing this ability to tar people with extremely dangerous labels that they are not allowed to deny, in order to further their political goals.

Wow that's a trip. Then again to get $50,000 a year out of these kids they'd probably provide free escort services if it were legal.



In a way that's kind of touching. It even reminds me a bit of the Rosicrucian Contribution to Peace, just that SJW's unfortunately seem to be translating that impulse in about the most boneheaded way possible in turning this whole thing in an authoritarian direction.

I don't see anything wrong with the image posted.Seems like what decent people should do.
I agree that folks can take the SJW and PC stuff too far and then it loses credibility and looks silly and whiney.There is no sense in yelling "cultural appropriation" at a white person wearing dreadlocks,thats just stupid and annoying.Instead kick up a fuss where it's really needed.Like when an unarmed man gets shot in the back by the police.
It's like PETA,some of their actions just drive people away.Like the billboard that said milk causes autism.WTF?On the other hand,I fully support them for their actions in shutting down puppy mills,dog fighting rings and helping to put animal abusers in jail.
Just choose your battles well.