Social Justice and censorship.

The fight for equality of all kind has always been a neverending struggle. Artists, philosophers and the average person, all have an opinion and all of them fight for what the believe, being it equality of gender, race, the defense of the rights of handicapped people,  respect and freedom of people's sexuality or the defense of those who suffered crimes against them. All forms of media play a vital role in this debate and if we were to look the changes of books, films and the such, we could see the changes of mentality of society and the different ways the creators tackle the subject matter.

No one would openly speak againts equality nor could make offensive comments without being confronted by an inmense number of people. Afterall, nobody wants to be dicriminated and equal opportunities for everyone is, as far the moral standars of our modern society stand, the pinacle of justice and good. Social justice tackle this matter, and has been in the foreground of thousands of debates through history. But what would happen if we take this just endeavour to its logical extremes ? So is born a recent movement, very present on the internet but with palpable effects in real life, the Social Justice Warriors or SJW.

The name Social Justice Warrior is a derogatory term that makes references to people who supposedly defend equality, not matter how extreme or radical their ideals are, with dogmatic dedication, yet most of the time they themselves do not believe in what they defend, do not understand it or have any logical aproach about it. They use a flag of equality to hide their true goals, a shield that they believe make them impervious to any form of criticism or attack, proclaming themselves defensor of the people, the voices of those who are disciminated. But most of the time none of what they said represent the group they claim to understand and just want social recognition or pushing their own agendas. Their ideal of equality is in true the opposite, a strong desire to differentiate people, a bias againts those they consider the privileged group and to segregate the statement of society they favored from them.

Some example of this buffoonery are activist againts Cultural Appropiation, which means the adopting of customs  or elements of other cultures, generally one who had been discriminated in the past, by the labeled privileged cultures, going from music to celebrations, religions, ways of thinking or even hairstyles, deemed all of this as stealing and dominance of one culture over other, a true pirouette of logical thinking. Ableism, not in its true meaning of discrimination againts disabled people, but in this case refering to terms that may offend handicapped people, reaching ridicolous extremes as accusing words like crazy or dumb. Or the Thin Privilege, accusing thin people of discriminating fat people and activelly encouraging people to stay fat, saying that they are beautiful that way with disregard of the health problems obesity carries.

And as is only logical, the SWJ tackle the matters of equality in the media. Going from nitpicking words, imagery, any single dettail they consider offensive and blow it up out of proportion, labeling the authors of the works bigoted, sometimes even insulting them and believing themselves with the right to censor what they desire.They won't try to understand why it is the way it is, nor care about if it is logical for the work in question to be that way, they will ravish it without a caring, claiming that the ideal goals they upheld are above freedom of expression. Any term can be deemed a "trigger", a word that triggers feelings of memories that are either hurtful or uncomfortable, from words like "rape" and "retarded" to "stupid" and "silly", all are fair game for them, without the context they are using in mattering at all.

This movement of censorship is not new. From the longest time there have been debates about the subject matter, people complaining about the content of something. Too violent, too sexual, too dark, too gritty and the list goes on. Age clasiffications were created to regulate the consume of media and still there was censorship to avoid offending people's sensibilities. There is an obsession to overprotect every member of society, no matter the age or the background, but this is more an insult to their inteligence. It do not matter how uncomfortable the topic tackled in the media may be, we as adults are able to take it, think about it, face it. Sometimes that what we deem offensive could actually move people to think, even to act, to reflexionate, not matter how hard or how bad it makes them feel.

Equality is a noble goal, but SJW undermine it with their misguided radicalism. To reach true equality and justice in the media we have to matured, we have to confront the fear of being offended, of thinking and making questions. To use reason and not only heart when debating and denounce the crimes againts freedom of expression. Not to focus on attacking the media we consider racist or sexist nor trying to censor it, but instead use reason and understanding why is the way it is and then, if there have reasons enough to do so, confront the creator or even the society as it's sources, being the work a tool to see what social injustice lay whithin. To not have fear of being label as bigoted to claim againts this mockery of justice and wield reason as a blade in this fight. To teach our children to think by themselves and to confront their problems, not overprotect them. The only way to slay the monster of discrimination is to face it, fight it and claim victory after receiving one or two scars, but hiding in our castle of ignorant security and "holier-than-thou" actitude facing imaginary dragons and avoiding that what makes us feel a little uncomfortable won't solve anything.