The internet’s toxic brew of cruelty, rumour and misused statistics, hatred’s potent fuel, has been super-charged by adopting fanciful and unproved social theories. The younger academic disciplines, such as Social Studies, priding themselves on their revolutionary newness, were always going to be attracted to media innovations for spreading their ideas.
In this environment, then, for all the reasons I’ve mentioned over my last few posts, social justice campaigning was doomed. It was always going to degenerate into endless rounds of personal attacks, trolling and counter trolling, petulant blaming and wounded feelings, backed up by misunderstandings, and unworkable pseudo-theories, of how human societies function.
And this, of course, breeds schism, suspicion, and hostility. The power of unity, in the Civil Rights movement, in its universal appeal to our core, Liberal-Humanist values, has been fatally dissipated by division, as former allies turn against each other.
And all of that just provides ammunition and opportunities for the resurgence of the Far Right. They are always prowling on the outskirts, waiting for their chance to push back, to discredit and dismiss us.
Middle-aged Male Anorexic 