Re: [OT] Social Justice Warrior

[Robert Kiraly <oldcoder at yahoo dot com>]

On 05/09/18 23:11, Alexandre Oliva wrote:

Hello, Robert, Thanks for your email, interesting story. I was not
familiar with the term Social Justice Warrior as recently as 24
hours ago. I got acquainted with it in another post about this same
issue.

In that message, those who expressed concerned about how others
might be offended by the joke were qualified as SJW. I don't know
whom to believe. Am I a SJW, or not? Why?

This is an honest question, BTW; I'm really curious about a consen-
sus definition for the term. I actually found it inspiring, before
seeing it defined in a way that made it sound like it had been
adopted and spoiled by people and behaviors I'm not aligned with.

Thanks in advance for any enlightenment you might provide on the
matter.

Responding to Alexandre:

I'm new to the term "Social Justice Warrior" (or "SJW") myself.
It most likely applies to both of us. This doesn't mean that we'd
necessarily agree on things.

One of the answers is that I see the term as being technically
neutral, though it's used increasingly as a pejorative. In short,
I'd say that the term is neutral as a denotation, but that it has
negative connotations.

The definition that confused you, the one that somebody offered
you about being offended, would be related to "politically correct".
I don't accept that definition.

"Politically correct" is a pejorative term related to "leftist" views and
being easily offended. "SJW" is, in my view, about political activism
per se, generally "leftist", viewed either neutrally or in a negative
manner.

The two things aren't the same.

There is no single official definition that I accept as authoritative.
The denotation is social activist. "Freedom Fighter". That is the
reason that you asked me for; the reason that you're a SJW: You
self-identify as one. It's in your signature.

The connotations include politically correct, unnecessarily aggres-
sive, unreasonable, illogical. None of these connotations are neces-
sarily "fair".

It has to do with the rapid evolution of slang especially taking the
influence of the Internet into account.

There is a line that should be drawn. Wikipedia claims that the term
SJW is sometimes used, these days, to deprecate the motivations as
well as the actions of the people involved. If this is true, I reject
the usage.

I don't feel that it's appropriate to reduce the range of motivations
involved to a single term.

My post suggested that it's negative for a FOSS project to refocus
on Social Justice unless that is its charter. I stand by that and lean
towards a negative position on the role of Social Justice in FOSS.

But, to balance that point, the fact is that I'm presently looking
in the mirror to decide whether or not I'm a SJW myself. I believe
that some people consider me to be one.

As an unrelated note, I seem to recall that you're in Brazil. For what
it's worth, I'll be posting a story about a dying cat in Brazil on my
weblog next week; the Haggis Hell weblog listed in my signature.
The young man in the story is a writer friend in Brazil named
CodeLicker.

Regards, Robert Kiraly (the Old Coder)
@BoldCoder
https://haggishell.com/

My Linux distro will start to appear on laclin.com this Summer.
25 years in the making.