Is Critical Social Justice the Biggest Problem in the World?

However, over the over the past six months, it has become clear that CSJ can become totalitarian. Beginning in 2019, factionalism within CSJ has been gradually replaced by hierarchies. First, white women ceased to be a priority: the white women’s tears and Karen memes demonstrated their fall from oppressed to oppressor. White gay men also fell foul of the system by frequently failing to be woke and lesbians were automatically suspected of being TERFs (trans-exclusionary radical feminists). Asians, Jews and Hispanics became “white adjacent” because large numbers of them failed to espouse Critical Race Theory. Over the last six months, the idea of combating anti-blackness and transphobia has taken centre stage and, with it, totalitarian aims to revolutionise society by abolishing the police, compelling white people to confess their inherent complicity in white supremacy and punishing and silencing anyone who disbelieves in the queer and gender theories behind trans activism.

It should be clear by now that there is a genuine and serious problem here that affects the real world, not just the ivory tower and a few mad activists. There is ample evidence of Critical Race Theory and trans activism being imposed on the workplaces, universities and schools of average people. Anyone still claiming that the Social Justice left is just a few fringe loons must be wilfully blind. However, when it comes to politics, morality, values and culture, we humans seem to long for simplicity. We want problems we can grasp, straightforward solutions, a cause to support and an enemy to fight. Never has this been clearer than since the US election.

Unfortunately, the problems we face right now—including the culture wars with their various feuding factions and sub-factions on left and right—are extremely complicated and navigating them in a responsible, nuanced way is hard work.