Social Justice Warrior?

[rowyn]

grrm has been writing about the Hugos lately, and one of his side issues has been that he finds the term "SJW" very offensive, and wants "his side" to be called "liberals" or "progressives" instead.

I am fascinated by this, for a couple of reasons. One: I rather like the term "Social Justice Warrior". I prefer "social justice cleric" for myself, but I'm fine with SJW. I find it a convenient term for distinguishing those with a keen interest in social justice and tolerance of diversity in many and varied forms. I know SJW was originally a conservative jab at us, but I thought it had been reclaimed, like "gay" or "queer". The other is that I think of myself as an SJW, but not a liberal or a progressive. So the substitution doesn't work for me. I suppose SJWs could claim "egalitarian" instead, but who would claim to be anti-egalitarian?

Then again, who wants to come out as antisocial injustice pacifists? As insults go, SJW has never had a lot of sting. n_n

EDIT: I've locked comments to this entry, 'cause I'm not enjoying some of the conversation the topic is generating. Y'all feel free to carry on in your own journals if you've more to say. :)

Comments

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

Well, he proposed that *if* people were talking about politics, *then* it would be appropriate to identify him as a liberal or progressive. *If* people were talking about the Hugos, *then* he should be identified as a WorldCon fan or a trufan. Using SJW for both is just sloppy and shallow thinking.

[rowyn]

Then those terms work for labeling GRRM. They still don't work for labeling me. And I clearly need a new label, because this post has convinced me SJW doesn't work. x_x