A review of "How to Make a Social Justice Warrior" by Will Shetterly
Will Shetterly is a science
fiction/fantasy writer and fan. His main claim to fame is the novel “Dogland”,
apparently a curious blend of fantasy and autobiography. Shetterly's political
views are liberal (in the U.S. sense) with a socialistic tint. It’s the kind of
colorblind and genderblind liberalism that was popular before the rise of
so-called identity politics and political correctness. Shetterly combines it
with a heavy emphasis on class and the need for economic equality. I originally
assumed the man was a Marxist! His main political heroes include Martin Luther
King and post-Nation of Islam Malcolm X (which he interprets in a colorblind
fashion).
For about ten years, Shetterly has been involved in constant and frequently nasty “flame wars” (or "kerfuffles") on the web, engaging a group of activists sometimes known as Social Justice Warriors (SJWs). The activists in question support various forms of “identity politics” and react against real or perceived racist, sexist and heterosexist content in science fiction and fantasy literature, as well as in popular culture at large. “How to make a Social Justice Warrior” is Shetterly's critical look at the various controversies he's been directly involved in. I haven't read the final version, but an earlier draft has been published on the author's website. It doesn't mention the Gamergate controversy, but it's obvious that there is a overlap between the flame wars covered in Shetterly's book (with fanciful names such as Racefail 09, Mammothfail or Petitiongate) and the gaming controversy. There is also the still ongoing controversy over the Hugo Awards. While many opponents of “political correctness” within science fiction and fantasy are presumably libertarian or conservative, some liberals and feminists have also voiced their discontent with identity politics.
Personally, I happen to strongly disagree with both sides in the conflict, so reading Shatterly's tract was frequently a frustrating experience. The author really is “colorblind” and “genderblind” (and perhaps homo-blind) in the negative senses of those terms. While he nominally acknowledges that racism still exists in America, he nevertheless declares that “the race war is effectively over” since O J Simpson, Clarence Thomas, Condoleeza Rice and Colin Powell are Black. All seeming racism is really about poverty and hence class, even the bizarre rescue failures during Hurricane Katrina. The elite have become multi-racial and lords over a working class and underclass that is largely White. Yet, in other sections of his draft, he admits that the elite still consist largely of White males, thus contradicting himself. His observation that Asian-Americans and Jews are overrepresented in the elite compared to their percentage of the population is interesting but probably irrelevant, since racism against these groups is surely less widespread than anti-Black racism (anti-Semitism being a perennial feature of the Western mind, Jews may be excused for keeping their guard up, even in New York City). The author constantly mentions instances of reverse racism or non-White anti-Black racism (the Cherokee disavowed the Black members of their tribe), but when discussing White anti-Black racism usually discusses old examples from the time of the civil rights movement.
Shatterly also claims that women characters in science fiction or fantasy showing a lot of skin aren't sexist stereotypes, since – wait for it – Conan the Barbarian is also half-nude?!
And yet, after complaining about class exploitation, the author is nevertheless surprisingly positive to female Marine officers serving in Vietnam or female judges on the Supreme Court, since they can indirectly benefit all women, even though they aren't feminists (let alone working class). This is, I believe, true. But surely it's equally true of Condi Rice and other privileged women the author seems to dislike. Besides, it goes both ways: if a privileged woman is subject to sexism, it hurts *all* women, and (incidentally) proves that patriarchy really does exist. There was a time in American politics when being a woman was considered a liability, say for a Democratic vice presidential candidate…
That being said, the “identitarians” (as Shatterly often dubs his radical-liberal or leftist opponents) don't come across as much of an alternative. I always gasped at the typical American tendency to make cultural or religious symbols the center of controversy, often to the point when whatever the symbol is supposed to symbolize is quietly forgotten. Why do the identity activists concentrate so heavily on protesting female superheroes in chain mail bikinis, the erasure of American Indians from alternate history novels or the fact that Occupy students talk about “the Holocaust of unemployment”? I happen to agree that these phenomena are sexist, potentially racist or grossly insensitive, but why are they more important than the *actual* problems of unemployment, anti-Native discrimination or women being forced to work in the sex industry? Shatterly is probably on to something when he points out that many of the flame warriors come from very privileged social backgrounds, frequently study at private schools, and have zero experience from the labor movement or other movements of the oppressed.
What intrigues me the most, however, is the frivolous and cannibalistic nature of much identity politics. Very often, the activists attack symbols that aren't even racist, such as the word “niggardly” (which means stingy and has no connection to the n-word), the expression “brown bag lunch” or the name of the comic superhero Kilowog. Perhaps inevitably, harsh attacks are directed at minority people, women or gays who support the “wrong” side. Even PC productions are attacked, if they aren't pure enough or PC in the wrong way. I was surprised to learn that “Doctor Who” (the version featuring the Ninth Doctor) was attacked for racism?! When nobody else is around, the cyber activists attack each other: the conflicts between “cis-women” and “trans-women” are a case in point. The fact that many of the flame warriors are very young and seem to suffer from severe attitude problems simply compounds the problem (this goes for some of the anti-PC groups, too). Behind it all lurks the notion that one can change reality by changing the language or the symbols, an idea probably derived from postmodernism. Many of the neologisms used by the activists strike me as so weird that they become unintentionally funny, such as “whitesplanation” (when Whites try to explain away their racism).
This kind of quasi-political activism is very easy for the elites to assimilate and render harmless: in Sweden, the admittedly racist comic album “Tintin in the Congo” was taken off the shelves of an important library in Stockholm after identity-inspired protests, but as far as I know, this didn't appreciably change the dire straits of the actual Congolese. In the same way, adding a White working class girl with a Black boyfriend to “Doctor Who” didn't appreciably affect the course of the finance crisis. Ultimately, the identity activists are “useful fools”, since economic neo-liberalism can co-exist with political correctness, at least up to a certain point (it may even be profitable – PC pop culture wouldn't exist otherwise). Shatterly is wrong when he (in effect) suggests that class is the only variable, but it can hardly be denied that social inequality *is* a central problem. It can't be meliorated or abolished by changing the contents of science fiction and fantasy. Clerks in the publishing industry joining the AFL-CIO (or even the NAACP!) might be a more interesting proposition...
For about ten years, Shetterly has been involved in constant and frequently nasty “flame wars” (or "kerfuffles") on the web, engaging a group of activists sometimes known as Social Justice Warriors (SJWs). The activists in question support various forms of “identity politics” and react against real or perceived racist, sexist and heterosexist content in science fiction and fantasy literature, as well as in popular culture at large. “How to make a Social Justice Warrior” is Shetterly's critical look at the various controversies he's been directly involved in. I haven't read the final version, but an earlier draft has been published on the author's website. It doesn't mention the Gamergate controversy, but it's obvious that there is a overlap between the flame wars covered in Shetterly's book (with fanciful names such as Racefail 09, Mammothfail or Petitiongate) and the gaming controversy. There is also the still ongoing controversy over the Hugo Awards. While many opponents of “political correctness” within science fiction and fantasy are presumably libertarian or conservative, some liberals and feminists have also voiced their discontent with identity politics.
Personally, I happen to strongly disagree with both sides in the conflict, so reading Shatterly's tract was frequently a frustrating experience. The author really is “colorblind” and “genderblind” (and perhaps homo-blind) in the negative senses of those terms. While he nominally acknowledges that racism still exists in America, he nevertheless declares that “the race war is effectively over” since O J Simpson, Clarence Thomas, Condoleeza Rice and Colin Powell are Black. All seeming racism is really about poverty and hence class, even the bizarre rescue failures during Hurricane Katrina. The elite have become multi-racial and lords over a working class and underclass that is largely White. Yet, in other sections of his draft, he admits that the elite still consist largely of White males, thus contradicting himself. His observation that Asian-Americans and Jews are overrepresented in the elite compared to their percentage of the population is interesting but probably irrelevant, since racism against these groups is surely less widespread than anti-Black racism (anti-Semitism being a perennial feature of the Western mind, Jews may be excused for keeping their guard up, even in New York City). The author constantly mentions instances of reverse racism or non-White anti-Black racism (the Cherokee disavowed the Black members of their tribe), but when discussing White anti-Black racism usually discusses old examples from the time of the civil rights movement.
Shatterly also claims that women characters in science fiction or fantasy showing a lot of skin aren't sexist stereotypes, since – wait for it – Conan the Barbarian is also half-nude?!
And yet, after complaining about class exploitation, the author is nevertheless surprisingly positive to female Marine officers serving in Vietnam or female judges on the Supreme Court, since they can indirectly benefit all women, even though they aren't feminists (let alone working class). This is, I believe, true. But surely it's equally true of Condi Rice and other privileged women the author seems to dislike. Besides, it goes both ways: if a privileged woman is subject to sexism, it hurts *all* women, and (incidentally) proves that patriarchy really does exist. There was a time in American politics when being a woman was considered a liability, say for a Democratic vice presidential candidate…
That being said, the “identitarians” (as Shatterly often dubs his radical-liberal or leftist opponents) don't come across as much of an alternative. I always gasped at the typical American tendency to make cultural or religious symbols the center of controversy, often to the point when whatever the symbol is supposed to symbolize is quietly forgotten. Why do the identity activists concentrate so heavily on protesting female superheroes in chain mail bikinis, the erasure of American Indians from alternate history novels or the fact that Occupy students talk about “the Holocaust of unemployment”? I happen to agree that these phenomena are sexist, potentially racist or grossly insensitive, but why are they more important than the *actual* problems of unemployment, anti-Native discrimination or women being forced to work in the sex industry? Shatterly is probably on to something when he points out that many of the flame warriors come from very privileged social backgrounds, frequently study at private schools, and have zero experience from the labor movement or other movements of the oppressed.
What intrigues me the most, however, is the frivolous and cannibalistic nature of much identity politics. Very often, the activists attack symbols that aren't even racist, such as the word “niggardly” (which means stingy and has no connection to the n-word), the expression “brown bag lunch” or the name of the comic superhero Kilowog. Perhaps inevitably, harsh attacks are directed at minority people, women or gays who support the “wrong” side. Even PC productions are attacked, if they aren't pure enough or PC in the wrong way. I was surprised to learn that “Doctor Who” (the version featuring the Ninth Doctor) was attacked for racism?! When nobody else is around, the cyber activists attack each other: the conflicts between “cis-women” and “trans-women” are a case in point. The fact that many of the flame warriors are very young and seem to suffer from severe attitude problems simply compounds the problem (this goes for some of the anti-PC groups, too). Behind it all lurks the notion that one can change reality by changing the language or the symbols, an idea probably derived from postmodernism. Many of the neologisms used by the activists strike me as so weird that they become unintentionally funny, such as “whitesplanation” (when Whites try to explain away their racism).
This kind of quasi-political activism is very easy for the elites to assimilate and render harmless: in Sweden, the admittedly racist comic album “Tintin in the Congo” was taken off the shelves of an important library in Stockholm after identity-inspired protests, but as far as I know, this didn't appreciably change the dire straits of the actual Congolese. In the same way, adding a White working class girl with a Black boyfriend to “Doctor Who” didn't appreciably affect the course of the finance crisis. Ultimately, the identity activists are “useful fools”, since economic neo-liberalism can co-exist with political correctness, at least up to a certain point (it may even be profitable – PC pop culture wouldn't exist otherwise). Shatterly is wrong when he (in effect) suggests that class is the only variable, but it can hardly be denied that social inequality *is* a central problem. It can't be meliorated or abolished by changing the contents of science fiction and fantasy. Clerks in the publishing industry joining the AFL-CIO (or even the NAACP!) might be a more interesting proposition...
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