Thread Drift: Spider-Man and Social Justice

[Tuck]

the Intellectual Dark Web,

The "Intellectual Dark Web" isn't a right-left thing. That's a dishonest narrative pushed by some progressive purists. (I mean, Sam Harris is not right wing outside of maybe some of his views about Islam.)

[Lee]

i'm not sure that's lee's implication here; its that gamersgate and comicsgate and breitbart and the proudboys and all those "subsets of the right" have brought the term sjw to its current useage. you may be part of circles where it's still used as a term to expose hypocrisy, but its wider and more immediate use has become a catch all for "the enemy".

to say it isn't...well, that would be either intellectually dishonest... or out of touch.

This is correct. Without Gamergate/Breitbart/RedPill and associated Alt-Right groups, it wouldn't have even become part of the Internet vernacular.

I have not brought the phrase social justice warrior to the conversation (I was responsible for making the thread drift but that's because this was an offshoot of arguments about the upcoming movie, and whether MJ should be a reporter, and we can all agree that the question isn't really about those topics.)

I responded to a point someone else made about conservative fans and social justice warriors, so I'm going with the most generous take on that phrase "conservative fans" rather than picking on the most disgusting members of a political subset. I am conservative so I don't appreciate any implication that I've got anything to do with neo-nazis or Gamer-Gate. It seems intellectually dishonest to bring that baggage to a political argument. It would be like implying all Democrats are socialists, eco-terrorists and/ or minority separatists.

If you disagree with me on the idea that the phrase is used to suggest a liberal is ineffective, we can discuss specific examples. In most cases, there is the argument that the alleged SJW isn't managing to make things better.

Mets, look at what you said.

"The criticism of social justice warriors isn't that they want to help people, but that they're not effective at it, and that there are serious tradeoffs to what they want to do."

THE criticism. Singular. Only. Definitive.

In my initial response to you, I acknowledged that it was a criticism that exists (a, one of many), but that your singular definition doesn't apply to the likes of Gamergate, Breitbart and the Alt Right - the very groups that brought the phrase into the Internet vernacular.

Not once did I use the word "conservative".

You gave a singular, all-encompassing definition of what "THE criticism of social justice warriors" is - a definition that completely whitewashes the origins of the wider usage of the phrase and its status in the lexicon of the Alt Right.

You refused to acknowledge that there are groups whose "criticisms of social justice warriors" don't fit that definition.

For example, when someone in the Breitbart comments section calls a trans activist a sjw cuck, it's not because they're furrowing their brow and stroking their beard, hoping for a day when the recipient of their words will more effectively aid the transgender community - it's because they hate trans people.

[boots]

For example, when someone in the Breitbart comments section calls a trans activist a sjw cuck, it's not because they're furrowing their brow and stroking their beard, hoping for a day when the recipient of their words will more effectively aid the transgender community - it's because they hate trans people.

if your facebook profile photo is a flag, a knight, a dog, a pick up truck or a fish you caught...you might use sjw to mean "degenerate".

[boots]

The "Intellectual Dark Web" isn't a right-left thing. That's a dishonest narrative pushed by some progressive purists. (I mean, Sam Harris is not right wing outside of maybe some of his views about Islam.)

my favourite wiki, which skews left and has no problems critiquing the right agrees with you

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Deep_web

[Spiderfang]

if your facebook profile photo is a flag, a knight, a dog, a pick up truck or a fish you caught...you might use sjw to mean "degenerate".

Nice sweeping generalizations there.

[gregpersons]

Perhaps. It's pretty interesting that Bill Finger was quite explicit about the fact that Bruce Wayne (which he entirely wrote and created on his own) was supposed to be a patrician with ancestry dating to the American Revolutionary War. Finger of course was Jewish. So for him it was a conscious literary choice. He saw Batman as a New England aristocrat. So I don't think Finger intended Batman as a metaphor for passing or was especially conscious of it.

Right! And it's worth remembering too that we're trying to parse through what the creator was conscious of, and what the writer/artist may have been expressing in their work through their subconscious. One's cultural upbringing is only one aspect of "subconscious influence" that ends up in the work — and of course we can never precisely "know" these things — but one of the fun things about art, IMO, are the things within the art that the artist may not have necessarily intended, yet is still "there." Even before Superman, Captain America, and Batman literally fought Nazis, these characters were still being created in the "Hitler era." Was Batman created with Kristallnacht in mind? It maybe wasn't literally in the thoughts of Bob Kane or Bill Finger... But did the terrifying tone of the news have an impact? I think it's clear. Or, more conservatively, I think it's at least as plausible as the influence of, say, the Reagan era in Frank Miller's work, or the Bush era in Mark Millar's (although those creators had the luxury to be more explicit about it, you can see the era's influence on their work even where they don't nominally cite Reagan or Bush).

Take the concept of a boy sidekick — Robin and Bucky. Why are they there? Well, we know some of the repeated lines about them -- they were placed in the books to make the stories more relatable to younger readers, which makes sense, and usually that's enough of an answer to suffice. I think it makes even more sense when looked at through the lens of Judaism (both creators were Jewish here, too), where the concept of young boys being mentored into adulthood is a more prominent part of the cultural tradition. Or, perhaps it owes more to the time period when it was more acceptable for young boys to be in the workforce. Or maybe it's a mix of both.

I, again, would only point to the various books on the subject by Jewish scholars who make the case for the things I'm referencing (I read "Up Up and Oy Vey" but there's several books by many authors). I think reading them is especially interesting to readers who, like me, didn't grow up in a Jewish household, and so there are certain concepts I wouldn't have necessarily connected. I always knew that, yes, a lot of early creators were Jewish, but for some reason, rather than admitting the obvious -- that those identities might influence their work -- I instead ignored it as mere trivia... which is sort of how the culture at large tends to view such things. But everything is more interesting, IMO, from a view of the broader context... because, for as universal and timeless as these characters are, they are also, at the same time, extraordinarily specific.

That they can be both is the beauty of it, I think!

In the case of Spider-Man, you have the fact that Steve Ditko and Stan Lee worked with the Marvel Method and most of the heavy lifting on plotting and characterization was done by Ditko, who wasn't Jewish (he was Slovakian descent, and philosophically an atheist). Yet at the same time, Ditko also worked on Dr. Strange and according to Blake Bell and Romita Sr., Strange was more autobiographical for Steve than Spider-Man was. I mean Stephen Strange lives all alone and is reclusive in his New York apartment but in his mind, or his imagination, he visits great realms and so on, so that's a good autobiographical framing of how Ditko saw his life, living alone but making a living with his imagination and living his study with his reference books and so on. That entire Eternity Saga, has Strange being hounded by this global conspiracy by Mordo and so on, and there's a paranoia there and fear of people and interactions that Ditko probably had.


One of things people forget, and this is something that really happened when Ditko left Spider-Man, is that Spidey was very popular among African-Americans because they related to someone who was on the police and media's s--tlist. Spider-Man's experience of being misunderstood, scapegoated, and hounded by trigger happy cops, and constantly being worried and paranoid about how his actions might cause him trouble and so on, is close to the black experience. The difference is that Spider-Man has superpowers and so survives. When Ditko was around, he actually showed police as competent and capable. Like the Crime Master 2-Parter has the cops arresting the bad guy, the Spider-Man and HT fight with Sandman, ends with the two teen hotheads fighting each other, and Sandman being brought down by cops. The police are ironically shown more critically after Ditko left, ironic because Stan Lee initially had Captain George Stacy embody the duty-driven police officer and noble type, basically a second Uncle Ben. And then Captain Stacy dies, and the cops go apes--t on Spider-Man and then you have the 2-Parter Sam Bullitt story (ASM #91-92) where Spider-man is aligned against white supremacy, and explicitly identified and stated as such. Stan Lee of course introduced more diversity in the Romita era, so you had Robbie Robertson, his son Randy (a campus radical who in the Drug Trilogy got all in Norman Osborn's face), and of course the Prowler, the first Non-Peter to wear the Spider-Man costume..

Don't really have anything to add here except that these are interesting examples. Thanks for sharing!

[boots]

Nice sweeping generalizations there.

that was the joke, glad you caught it

[Spiderfang]

that was the joke, glad you caught it

I'm sure it was (a joke).

[Tuck]

my favourite wiki, which skews left and has no problems critiquing the right agrees with you

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Deep_web

The "Intellectual Dark Web" is a group of web pundits who pissed off their employers or political tribe with some position they took and gained notoriety for it. (Well, and also Joe Rogan, who I guess doesn't fall into that category. )

Whatever one thinks of them, they don't fall on one side of the political spectrum.

[Mister Mets]

i don't know how you or i could begin to know how often it happens. or if it were "most". it still looks like you're painting your own group as diverse and complex while the outsiders are one amorphous mass of group thinkers except for a tiny exception.

in my own anecdotal experience, i tend to follow more conservative and right wing pages and groups on social media because i'm always curious about how others think. and i'm keen not to live in an echo chamber.

(i'd add that not all libertarians are necessarily right or conservative either)



sure, that's your experience and that's valuable. but i'll always take empirical data over anecdotal.

personally, i have been an active member (as well as a donor) of equity groups that have had a measurable affect on diversity/representation and improved pay for my particular industry. and the push back from some of the public has been the assertion that these improvements have been sjw pandering/madness/etc.

The question of whether Democrats/ liberals are less diverse/ complex is itself a bit complicated. I haven't addressed it in this discussion, since it hadn't come up. Diversity of thought certainly exists, with socialists, the more moderate Clinton Democrats, and the identity politics types all pushing for different things. Democrats are more likely to have varied groups working together to advance their interests (these are often protected classes but not exclusively as public-service employees are a key constituency; you see this with the focus on intersectionality and being a good ally) but I certainly don't view them as one amorphous group. A complicating factor is that there are divides within various interest groups, with older African-Americans aren't always on board with the Black Lives Matter movement, and a difference between gay (mostly white and middle/upper-class) and queer (more people of color/ radical) politics, which could suggest more divisions, although that would also mean individual constituencies are often less powerful.

On the question of whether critics think SJWs are ineffective, we could consider whether that makes sense in the context of specific things that are considered to be SJW pandering. We haven't really mentioned specifics so far.

[Mister Mets]

The "Intellectual Dark Web" isn't a right-left thing. That's a dishonest narrative pushed by some progressive purists. (I mean, Sam Harris is not right wing outside of maybe some of his views about Islam.)

Fair point. It is largely seen as oppositional to the mainstream left, and it is more embraced by conservatives.

There was a piece about whether the IDW should be more intellectually diverse.

https://quillette.com/2019/04/17/is-...cally-diverse/

And it was immediately criticized as sloppy by Bret Weinstein, seen as one of the leaders of the "movement."

https://twitter.com/BretWeinstein/st...56157436518400

Their main argument is that they're not left or right, but correct. As a conservative, I'm more likely to think this aligns them with the conservative movement.

This is correct. Without Gamergate/Breitbart/RedPill and associated Alt-Right groups, it wouldn't have even become part of the Internet vernacular.



Mets, look at what you said.

"The criticism of social justice warriors isn't that they want to help people, but that they're not effective at it, and that there are serious tradeoffs to what they want to do."

THE criticism. Singular. Only. Definitive.

In my initial response to you, I acknowledged that it was a criticism that exists (a, one of many), but that your singular definition doesn't apply to the likes of Gamergate, Breitbart and the Alt Right - the very groups that brought the phrase into the Internet vernacular.

Not once did I use the word "conservative".

You gave a singular, all-encompassing definition of what "THE criticism of social justice warriors" is - a definition that completely whitewashes the origins of the wider usage of the phrase and its status in the lexicon of the Alt Right.

You refused to acknowledge that there are groups whose "criticisms of social justice warriors" don't fit that definition.

For example, when someone in the Breitbart comments section calls a trans activist a sjw cuck, it's not because they're furrowing their brow and stroking their beard, hoping for a day when the recipient of their words will more effectively aid the transgender community - it's because they hate trans people.

The initial post was was about conservatives fans and SJWs, "I'm curious how conservative fans reconcile liking a character who is literally a social justice warrior" so the context on criticism of SJWs was about conservatives in general.

If you don't think the criticism of SJWs as ineffective applies, we could look at specific examples of things criticized as part of the SJW effort, and see whether the idea that it is ineffective as a method of making money or fixing inequality can be considered part of the criticism.

It would be weird for someone in Breitbart comments to refer to a trans actvist as a sjw cuck, since the context of the pejorative cuck generally refers to conservatives seen as disloyal (It's also a reference to a porn genre in which some white men watch black men sleep with their wives, so it does imply that anyone using the phrase is racist.)

[Zeitgeist]

Hi, the term "SJW" lost all meaning (if it ever had one at all, erring on "no") when it became a shorthand term designed to attack, minimise and trivialize any voices speaking for diversity and any initiatives/movement designed to uplift racial and sexual minorities into equal standing and realms of greater visibility. It belongs in the bin with phrases like "get woke, go broke" and "red pilled".

[Haquim]

I always considered Peter Parker to be something of a liberal, although extremely lukewarm. Peter is someone who wants to do good, even if that costs him, he'll go out of his way to help but he's just not someone who acts out of ideology, "From great power comes great responsability" aside, obviously.

As for SJW: are you familiar with cognitive shortcuts? That's what the term is. A way to characterize a subset of people and portray them in a certain light. SJW is an acronym some people with a political agenda use to define other people with different political leanings in order to devalue their arguments and (they hope) making "neutral" people stop listening to them. It's basically political marketing and judging from the reactions on this thread it seems to work quite well.

[boots]

I'm sure it was (a joke).

again, glad you caught that it was a gentle self-mocking of mine and lee’s stance as well as a riff on the “...you might be a redneck” joke

i mean, i’ve spent the last few pages arguing against generalising people and then i go and generalise? i know you can put two and two “twogether”

though if your fb profile picture is of you in armour on the back of a pick up truck, astride your doggo with a flag in your left hand and a fish in your right...then i am deeply sorry

[boots]

It would be weird for someone in Breitbart comments to refer to a trans actvist as a sjw cuck, since the context of the pejorative cuck generally refers to conservatives seen as disloyal (It's also a reference to a porn genre in which some white men watch black men sleep with their wives, so it does imply that anyone using the phrase is racist.)

dude. “cuck” stopped being used to communicate “cuckservative” a loooooong time ago

that one isn’t even up for debate