On SJWs and Anti-SJWs

I usually follow the blogs of people who are SJWs.  Their basic philosophy of being accepting of everyone and helping the underprivileged to fulfill their potential is one that I want to practice in my own life.  That said, part of being a Social Justice Warrior means that you're fighting someone else. I can understand why anti-SJWs feel like their being attacked.  SJWs can be merciless when they hear about 'those jerks in the anti-SJW community.'  For anti-SJWs, who usually consider themselves realists, these attacks (or counterattacks, as the case may be) come off as hypocritical.  'You say you love everyone?  Well you certainly don't love me!'  So both groups start doing things specifically to cheese off 'the other side' and when the other side retaliates, each side still feels justified--even smug--about their actions.

Even trying to inject humor into the situation doesn't really help.  Take, for example, "John Scalzi Is Not A Very Popular Author And I Myself Am Quite Popular."  I follow people who follow Scalzi, and he read this novella out loud for charitable reasons, if I recall correctly.  It's a work of satire that is basically 'look at the hissy-fit the other side throws whenever minorities and SJWs do anything.'  I did not enjoy listening to it.  It won't promote genuine interested discussion about the issues, merely reaffirm 'I am justified and the other side is a bunch of jerks' for everyone.

 

Vox Day and people who follow him (I haven't spent a ton of time researching them, so take this with a grain of salt) generally take the stance that inviting all these minorities and minority supporters into the book community just results in saturating the market with a lot of bad books.  There is some truth to this claim.  I doubt Mr. Day has read all the books by minority authors, but to be fair, no one has.  I would suspect, however, that any minority books he did read were published early on in the SJW movement, before he got fed up with them and focused on reading books he actually liked.  The thing is, those early minority books were the growing pains stage of development (and, arguably, we're still in this stage).  You've got groups of people who are trying to get into the publishing business but have not historically had the infrastructure that white males have had.   These minorities won't necessarily know what works and what doesn't since they haven't been in the thick of the publishing world very long and they are unlikely to know those who have.  In this majority-centric system you do get some minority gems published, but they are outliers.

Now, in the short term, it might seem like a good idea to trash anything that looks like trash, but what will this teach minorities?  That they aren't wanted or needed.  But, the fact is, new perspectives are needed.  If the only writers are from one community, books are going to get stale.  New blood means new ideas, and there are some seriously cool ones out there.  But these ideas won't see the light of day if the people writing them don't look at the publishing world and believe they have a shot.  That environment, where anything can be published, even for niche audiences that other people consider to be trash, is what needs to exist to ensure that true gems can come from anywhere.

Many people that I follow (I usually get this from Jim C. Hines, but he isn't the most adamant voice out there) take the stance that anti-SJWs should be expelled from, or at least shunned by, the publishing world since they are a bunch of bigoted jerks.  This turning of the tables of 'now no one likes you--you see how that feels?' is only feeding into the destructive cycle of hatred.  Shunning people doesn't make their opinions go away, it merely puts those discussions in a place where you can't hear them anymore.  Is it any surprise that Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies seemed to emerge out of nowhere?  The anti-SJW voices moved to a place where their opinions were appreciated and reinforced.  Without them among the SJWs, the same homogenized extremism happened to them too.  Both sides are only wanting the publishing world to be better.  They differ on what better actually looks like, but the central tenets of good plot, good characters, good twists, etc. are all still there.

I can understand how introducing all this new blood intentionally feels like a big middle finger to anyone who fits the cis-white male box.  I might not be male, but I do check off most of the rest of the privilege boxes.  The fact that I am highly privileged does occasionally make me feel ashamed that I am even trying to make a place in the publishing world, where minorities characters seem to almost always be the creations of white people rather than minorities being the writers themselves.  People often say that publishing isn't a zero-sum game, but the fact is is that almost anyone who will be reading my book will not be taking the time to read someone else's, someone who probably deserves the readers more than I do.  Part of this mindset is imposter syndrome, but it does demonstrate that I am not purely SJW.  There are people who feel guilty for being white and many of them (or, at least, witnesses to those with the sentiment) can become angered by the white-shaming that is implied by the SJW philosophy.  I doubt SJWs intended me to feel white-shame--a great many SJWs are even more privileged than me and they can use their powers for good--but all philosophies can be taken in ways that weren't intended and some of these ways can cause pain.

I hope there will be people who bridge the gap between SJWs and anti-SJWs so both sides can actually listen to one another's grievances and empathize.  But right now, I don't see a way to create a space that won't end up as just intolerant bickering.