Social justice activism, "wildly ineffective"

[Taytoface]

Marina has nailed it here again.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/04/meghan-markle-art-political-cultural-duchess-of-sussex-with-love-meghan

The model of change making via activism doesn't work. It doesn't work, because it doesn't listen, however valid the challenge. It doesn't work because instead of trying to win hearts and minds with data, evidence and stories, it tries to steam roll people with mantras and cliches. It doesn't work because it rests on oppression hierarchies that sees the preferences of white men prioritised over women. It doesn't work because the balance between objective journalism and activism has been lost. It doesn't work, because when they don't get their own way they resort to threats, violence intimidation and criminal damage.

We need a better way to help the world do better.

“I won’t labour the 1% of the 1% mood, though someone driving through one of America’s most rarefied billionaires’ communities to buy a few hundred dollars’ worth of flowers while telling you, “It’s the little things that count” is obviously ridiculous. As is referring to a bucket as a “garbage vessel”. Nor will I, “as a woman”, do more than note that you don’t see successful men spending forever on all this stuff. Zuckerberg and Sarandos presumably decided a very long time ago that part of the goal is to not even know where your kitchen is.”

Ha!

I do love Marina.

“Decades often seem to be about certain things, before another, defining thing sneaks in under the radar. The 2000s seemed to be about celebrity culture and Islamist fundamentalism, but in retrospect the 2008 financial crash – both its causes and the failure to deliver justice in its aftermath – was the key event. The 10 years we have just lived through might have seemed to be about social media and what came to be summarised as woke culture. But a global fracturing was stealing under the radar.”

And on a more serious note, this.

Ooh. Wonder if Marina's just read the More In Common research on 'progressive activists' - it's very interesting.

https://www.moreincommon.org.uk/our-work/research/progressive-activists/

Thanks for that report. The other thing that has failed is the omnicause. Force teaming every social justice cause with every other one just drowns out the messages that matter. And also makes people feel that to make a difference at all they have to care about everything everywhere all at once. Personally I find this paralysing

I feel this JKR quote fits on this thread.

"The reason we haven't been won over by these talking points and remain so tragically 'uneducated' isn't that we've failed to grasp the sophistication of your world view. It's that we think you're talking unadulterated bullshit and making fools of yourselves."

I just took the “Progressive activists” quiz and it concluded that I was probably most political on/campaigned about climate change and implied I was some kind of general progressive campaigner.

I suspect their model has left gender critical women out of the equation. They asked about petitions and campaigning and giving money to political causes. The principal reason I have done most of those things is to argue for women’s rights. Until 2017 and on many other topics, I was and continue to be very middle-of-the-road. I steered clear of politics in general.

It didn’t put me down as right wing however, so it got that part right, despite the insistence of so many transactivists.

Aside: I wish my autocorrect would stop with their enforced space in the word transactivist. I have never, ever used a space in that word. I thought computers were supposed to learn.

I am seeing here and there a return to recognising that factors such as poverty and "class" is the most impactful barrier. And it coming through in a very specific political way.

Sam Fender for example, talking about how unusual it is for a lad with his background to get to where he is.

I watched an incredibly insightful interview a year or so ago with a knife crime campaigner who pointed out that knife crime happens where poverty happens. He was black but he said that it's exactly the same in the depths of Glasgow where the kids are predominantly white. Poverty being the driving factor.

Social justice has become more about the individual and their identity making a claim rather than identifying tangible barriers

None of this is about actually doing any good. It's about signalling the 'right' opinions so that you are seen to be doing good.

We need to get back to substance.

But it would be nice if Marina started to face up to her own role in all this by towing the Guardian line on the TRA movement and failing to stand up for her more courageous peers.

We need to get back to substance.

Absolutely

I also feel it's an enormous grift sometimes.

Not all of it obviously.

It sometimes feels very unfair that staff in send schools, for example, (describing my own experiences) are physically struggling with too many children and not enough resources, many of the children really are living in poverty and don't have money for a decent winter coat. Parents may have LD too and need a lot of support.

And then I look at some charities who's workers are claiming that they are under privileged (you know who) and so representing those who are like them whilst swanning off to fancy award ceremonies and quite frankly having a great time.

And then waltz into said send schools giving out their "education" and demanding that a special breed of individualism is the most oppressed ever.

<gets off soap box>

Yes, Douglas Murray has a good chapter in The Madness of Crowds about the point in the 80s where academic Marxists decided to eschew the ungrateful, unmanageable, disagreeable and in some cases NOT EVEN LEFT WING workers of the world and instead co-opt other 'matrices of oppression' into their power struggle pyramid.

Is the mirror of a tribal omnicause a tribal unicause?