Protecting Feelings

Ryan Holiday is one of my favourite readers, and I seek his advice on mentorship, reading, careers, self-development and so on. However, that doesn’t mean I agree with everything he says. I logged into Medium and came across this article, where he basically argues humans need to accept more personal responsibility for feeling offended by the media. Basically, if you let something offend you, it is your fault.

While I admire Holiday I realize he is imperfect. He incorrectly predicted that Trump would not be president, arguing that all of the Trump supporters were just a loud minority. Maybe he was right, but low voter turnout gave that minority more power and look where America is now.

Now, Holiday actually ends up parroting a lot of right-wing talking points I’ve discussed previously. As a preface, I recommend reading those articles first. I am not saying that Holiday is a right-wing bigot, I am only saying that a lot of his arguments unintentionally parallel those used by groups such as the alt-right and their sympathizers. While Holiday’s article present examples of sensitivity that are not race related, the comments reveal a slew of people who are applying his comments to “snowflakes” and “social justice warriors.” These terms are typically used in the realm of politics and race; the rallying cry to successfully derail any progressive conversations.

Holiday described “social justice warrior” as someone who creates an issue where there is none. Maybe that is what it originally meant, now someone who comments on any well documented form of racism is a sjw. Everything is relative. I remember listening to a podcast where the male speaker warned a listener about the racism in Arizona, while also saying he is not a social justice warrior. However, some people would still call him one because he spoke out against racism. Nowadays, people can only accept something as racist, discriminatory or offensive if it includes explicit racial slurs of lynchings.

Holiday has criticized the notion that freedom of speech means that people shouldn’t face consequences for what they say, or that everyone must agree with what you say. The anti-liberal meme above embraces the idea that disagreement is a threat to freedom of speech. As I’ve also discussed before, it seems like many members of the right-wing lost track of the term’s legal dimension, and now frame any disagreement with their ideas an attack on their rights. Holiday explicitly criticizes this view in his latest book, Conspiracy, which I was happy to see.

I didn’t have to look long and hard to find the anti-liberal memes posted above, and I used them because they help summarize the right-wing view. The things that liberals “cry” about include police brutality (which disproportionately affects minorities), racist Hollywood practices (which right-wing people care about when a role gets “blackwashed”) and a host of other issues that are supposedly not valid.

Now, people want to argue that the issue can’t bother us unless we let it. Fair enough point, I can see the purpose behind it. However, does the fact that I don’t get passionate about an issue or “triggered” mean I shouldn’t care. Should we just ignore all racist comments and people? Ignore racist cops and presidents? Ignoring the issue doesn’t make it go away. People like to use the analogy of a cut, saying that if we keep picking at it, it won’t heal. However, the people who routinely use terms like social justice warrior believe there is no cut.

What Does It Take for Something to be Considered Racist Nowadays?

I had another moment of weakness recently, scrolling through the scourge of YouTube’s recommended videos and watching a video from the REACT channel. Below was one of the recommended videos, and as you can guess, the title got my attention.

The video I was watching was one where millennials are basically tested on their knowledge of songs from the 90s, 80s etc. I guess the theme of “older music” related to older tv commercials with YouTube’s algorithm. Anyone who has read my previous posts might know my thoughts on the criticism of “pc culture” or “triggered snowflakes”. In short, the criticism of people who get “offended by everything” is often an argumentative tool used by outright bigots to defend their prejudice. You disagree with them saying Muslims shouldn’t be allowed in the US? You’re politically correct. If a smaller issue pops up, like people complaining about whitewashing in a film, you can bet that these same bigots will be there to complain about people getting worked up over nothing. And then they’ll also be the first to complain if a character gets “blackwashed”. Sometimes, political correctness can go too far. However, the people who constantly rally against pc culture are often just bigots upset that the world no longer tolerates their bigotry the same way it used to. They want to return to the good old days.

The commercials above are a great example. I did not watch all of them. Why? The title of the video and the description (which pokes fun at present “I’m offended” era) says there was nothing wrong with these ads at the time and also implies that there is nothing wrong with them now either. In short, while people nowadays are more likely to get offended because they are “snowflakes”, the ads are not racist. The issue is the pc snowflakes, not the ads themselves. That is the point the poster and most of the commenters are making.

So, if I watch any of the ads and find any of them offensive, that means I view the poster’s point as invalid. Firstly, many of these ads were released decades ago. Some were released during times such as Jim Crow, so obviously the standards for representations of minorities were not the same. If you are watching videos from that time and your first reaction is “I wish people would tolerate commercials like this nowadays”, then you are the issue: Not social justice warriors, political correctness, feminazis, white knights etc.

This is the perfect example that many people that say they want to avoid being pc just want to be able to embrace racism and misogyny without any criticism or pushback from the society around them. One commenter after another fails to see that maybe it is a good thing that these sexist and racist ads are no longer acceptable. Yes, maybe people do get offended by nothing sometimes, but these people think these ads are a good example of “nothing”.

In this day and age, these right-wingers need to hear a racial slur or see a lynching to be convinced that something is in fact racist.