“Social Justice Warrior – or SJW. A term that bigots use to insult people who don’t like their bigotry”

– Urban Dictionary

FOR those of us unfortunate enough to patrol the frothier corners of the internet the term “SJW” has become almost as familiar as “Nazi”.

But it speaks volumes about where the English-speaking peoples are at these days that an initialism for “Social Justice Warrior” can be used as an insult.

Recently the extremely entertaining trailer for the upcoming “Star Wars” midquel (set between movies three and four) was released to the immense satisfaction of right-thinking people the world over.

And then the media got all excited by a group of angry men on Twitter complaining that the protagonist was a woman.

(At this point we should note that media quoting random nobodies on Twitter as Vox Populi are in grave danger of getting fooled by increasingly sophisticated borderline criminal organisations paid to create false waves of public feeling on social media.)

“Why are they forcing SJW bulls*** down our throats?” the outraged shrieked mid-tantrum at the very thought that someone other than a white man could ever be the centre of a story.

And then a bunch of my friends who haven’t had the misfortune of encountering these weirdos before asked “What is an SJW?”

“Social Justice Warrior,” came the reply.

“How is that a bad thing?” asked the voices of sanity.

Warrior is generally considered a positive term. Very few people will openly admit to being against social justice. Yet somehow the self-aggregating dregs of the internet now openly use the term pejoratively.

We saw something similar here in Australia earlier this year with the blow-up about the Safe Schools program.

A group actually formed, and was treated with respect in parliament calling itself the “Anti-Safe Schools Coalition”.

They were happy to march under a banner of making schools less safe.

In the old days they at least had the good sense to frame the language of the debate.

Calling everyone who was a bit different a “deviant” was a good way to go, or “perverted”.

These days when people start shrieking about deviancy a lot of people ask “Steady on now, exactly what are you getting upset about because a lot of us might be into that sort of thing.”

This is by no means to attempt to suggest that all progressive politics is good, and all conservative politics is bad. Many so-called progressive policies are bad ideas that haven’t had a chance to fail yet, there is much good in our society which we should be trying to conserve.

We can argue about policies and their effects until the cows come home.

But what are we trying to achieve by these policies?

Those who are actively working for social injustice and unsafe schools are frankly, in my view, monsters.

It’s sobering to think that such monsters now openly walk amongst us.

Tolerance and diversity was always going to come at a price.