Posts tagged with equality

So lets start off by saying I am a white, heterosexual, middle class, male. I have seen lots of comments on the internet about Social Justice Warriors (SJWs for short), and I gather that, based upon what I have seen, I should be worried for my very existence, as these SJWs are apparently out to rid the world of my kind, that is to say white middle class cis gendered (yes I know that "cis gendered" is a label for non trans gendered people, and some see it as an insult, but I am what I am, and I have no better label to use) heterosexual able bodied men. But I have very few examples I can point to of any of these SJWs that really concern me, or indeed that I disagree with in any significant way.

Before we go any further I should probably explain what triggered this particular rant. Recently a person at Google has been sacked for breach of Google's internal policies, a situation that has come to light because the breach was an article they authored about how diversity polices may be harmful, and then circulated within Google, and which promptly leaked. Now I have seen a version of this article, and I shall discuss my thoughts on it later, but what worries me now is the "debate" about the actions taken by Google, and I have already seen some very negative comments. There appear to be two basic sides to this debate, those who say the article was damaging, and wrong, and so Google did the right thing, and those that say Google has damaged itself by shutting down dissenting internal opinions (something the article points out is a risk of Google's current internal culture) and has also trampled this person's free speech rights. My concern is that these are the voices that are going to be screaming about SJWs in the not to distant future. So I thought I'd have a rant about the stupidity of this position from the viewpoint of a SJWs typical "victim".

So, I have seen on twitter that OK Cupid, the online dating website, has decided to block users of firefox because the Mozilla foundation have appointed Brendan Eich as their new CEO.

As I understand it the issue arises because Mr Eich supported a legal campaign in the state of California to prevent Gay marriage becoming legal.

Now I don't wish to say that the people at OK cupid do not have the right to do this (it is their site after all), and nor do I wish to condone Mr Eich's position on gay marriage, but this action still gives me an uneasy feeling.

I'm not sure why, but I feel this is part of a worrying trend, not in the gay rights movement as such, that just happens to be the issue at hand this time, but within many movements around issues of morality. The idea that there is a right opinion, and anything that opposes this needs to be crushed, and more to the point that the fact that the activists involved seem to think that they have an absolute right to enforce this. This strikes me as a decidedly un-tolerant trend. Like the no-more page 3 movement (which has also been brought to my attention today on twitter) the trend apears to be for people to want others to think like them, and anything less is unacceptable, if you don't agree, you shouldn't be allowed to disagree.

I dislike this trend, why can't we accept that some times people disagree with us? As long as no-one is imposing their views upon us what is wrong with allowing them their own opinion? (and yes I recognise that the actions that OK cupid are reacting too were a case of someone trying to impose his views on the laws of California, but he failed)