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Friday, March 13, 2015

"It’s not my job to educate you."

One man's View / "It’s not my job to educate you."

"Is a load of crap. It’s a cop out of the highest order. When you choose to represent a movement, you become an educator for that movement. It’s the reason I have been tagging my posts in both directions. I’m trying to call out hypocrisy on all sides. I see statements like these coming from all directions. LBGT(etc)s, MRAs, Feminists, even Equalists. They are all in the wrong when they say this.

If someone asks you to prove your stance, “Look it up yourself” or “It’s not my job to educate you” are not even remotely valid responses. At he very best a statement like that makes you look like you have no idea what you are talking about. As though you are only repeating talking points without actually understanding any of the data that backs it up. At worst it shows your contempt for everyone who questions you, and paints a picture that anyone who doesn’t immediately parrot your assertions is somehow beneath your notice. You know, that they are less than equal to you.

It is absolutely your job to educate people on your issues. It is not their job to know intrinsically what your life experiences are, or seek out the history of whatever group you think they should be educated on. Going a step further, if you run into someone completely ignorant of your movement, you are more culpable than they are. It means you have not been effective spreading your message. If you run into someone who doesn’t know about your movement, the proper lexicon, or even that you face an inequality, it’s your fault, not theirs."


This is Kale Privilege — On "It's Not My Job to Educate You"This is Kale Privilege — On "It's Not My Job to Educate You"

"If you’ve ever had an argument with a social justice warrior, he/she/zhe/zippitydoodah will probably tell you that you’ve said something “problematic” but refuses to tell you why because “it’s not my job to educate you.”

In a sense, that’s true. It’s certainly not a Tumblr SJW’s job to educate anyone (at least I hope to God these people aren’t in charge of teaching anyone) but it’s a bit of a cop-out—a way of winning an argument without ever having to prove your point.

But of course, logic is the all-time last priority for an SJW. If logic was ever actually implemented in their arguments, the more radical SJWs (you know, the ones who say things like “kill all white men”) would all just stop blogging.

It would make sense if the SJW argument was something normal and common knowledge, like “Racism is bad!” or “Many people harbor prejudices without knowing it!” But often, the things they are being asked to prove are so absurd and radical that, yeah, nobody is going to take their word for it without some evidence. And because most of their opinions are based solely on their feelings and not on actual facts, they respond with “it’s not my job to educate you.”

Now, in the SJW’s defense, they do receive lots of anonymous “asks” probably asking the same questions over and over again. I’m sure this gets tiring, but I wonder why it’s even necessary to respond. Surely, you can just ignore asks that you don’t like, or don’t think are worth answering?

And let’s not forget that running a blog full of your radical opinions means that OF COURSE people are going to be confused and ask questions. If I started a blog about how astrology is the best way to find a mate (I don’t really think this, as I’m not a moron, but for argument’s sake, let’s say I made this blog), I would kind of expect to get lots of questions like “Really? How do you know that astrology means anything?” While it wouldn’t be my *job* to educate these people, it would be kind of lame of me to rattle on and on about an absurd viewpoint and then not even bother to answer questions about it.

Of course, SJWs do have some reasonable viewpoints; it’s just that they take it too far. For example, none of them have ever been able to explain why it’s OK or accepted to change the definition of dictionary words (such as sexism or racism) to exclude certain sexes and races. If you ask them why racism now only applies to systemic, and not individual racism, they won’t explain why it’s possible to change the dictionary to your liking (because, well, shit, it isn’t) but instead they’ll say either that it’s not their job to educate you, you’re a racist, or some gif of a My Little Pony calling you a cracker.

The whole point of arguing is being able to back up your opinion with sources or at least well thought-out reasons why you feel the way you do. If you’re unable to do this (yes, it’s “not your job” but this is the whole point of arguing) then it’s not an argument at all.

Think about it- if someone told you that it was offensive to say the word “peach” but refused to tell you why, would you actually stop saying it? My guess is, you’d write that person off as a maniac unless they told you why that word was so terrible. How can you expect people to go along with your nonsense if you can’t even explain it?

When someone responds to your question with something inexplicable, ad hominem or otherwise childish, you pretty much know you’ve caught them in a bind. So when you hear “it’s not my job to educate you,” you’re actually hearing that you’ve won, about 85% of the time (source: me, and it’s not my job to educate you about how I figured out this number.)"


Just Smith. / Your Job is to Educate. Stop Denying it.

"If you have spent any time arguing with SJ activist bloggers, you may have seen one of the following lines;

“Educate yourself.”

“It’s not my job to educate you.”

“Just Google it.”

“I don’t have the spoons to explain it to you.”

Now do you know how I know that an SJ activist blogger is in it just to feel morally superior to others and to good about themselves and really doesn’t give a shit about SJ causes? Because they break out the aforementioned lines.

Now what does an activist do? “Well duh, ChromatophobicCuttlefish, they raise awareness!” You may answer. Well how do you raise awareness? “By educating people about social justice causes!” And there’s the ticket.

Education is a massive part of activism. The onus is not on the average joe to go look up everything YOUR movement is about, it’s your responsibility to know what the fuck you’re talking about, not the person you are talking to. If the potential ally already knew what the hell you were talking about, then most likely s/he would’ve considered your position by now.

Education is the thing that could bring someone to your side of thinking, shrieking at someone like a hyperactive howler monkey about how it’s not your job to raise awareness (which is interchangeable with “educate”) is a surefire way to scare off potential allies and goes against the entire act of activism.

Let’s take a scenario that happened here at my pissant liberal arts college. Some students were gathering signatures to change where the college invests so it wouldn’t fund companies that fund the Israeli Palestine conflict. I fell asleep during world history, so I know fuck all about the conflict. I asked the people who came by my door to tell me about the conflict, what they’re proposing to change, and how it would affect the college. They were more than happy to tell me all about the conflict, handed me a pamphlet that detailed their proposal and history of the companies they wanted to stop investing in. Remember; their goal is to make me aware of the problem and get my signature.

Imagine if they showed up at my door and just rattled off a bunch of SJ lingo. And when I asked them what they’re talking about they just go “Look, not my job to educate you, just go open a history book or Google it or something. Sign the petition.” If you were in my shoes, would you want to sign? Hell no. Because they look like they have no idea what they are crusading for. Which is the exact impression SJ bloggers give when they break out the defensive “go educate yourself” or “it’s not my job to educate you.”

If you are passionate about a cause, you know about the cause forwards, backwards, inside-out, and sideways. If someone asks, you’ll be happy to talk about it. That’s passion and activism. Moral superiority is refusing to raise awareness just to feel good about the fact you stomped some unknowing person’s face in by calling them a bigot for not knowing what you could’ve just fucking told them. It’s the equivalent to holding a child’s toy just out of their reach and watching them flail around to grab it.

You’re an activist. Be active."

"if you’re going to jump in and attack people, calling yourself an activist, then you’ve made a choice. You’ve made that choice, as a free person, and now you’re bound by the responsibilities involved. To start, you have the responsibility not to be a douche to that person. You can’t just come in and start harassing them without an explanation. That’s not even relevant to activism: this is just being a good human being. But if you’re an activist, you’re bound further. Shouting at somebody and calling them names is not going to raise awareness; or if it does, the awareness will be of the bad ‘oh look more stereotypical feminazis’ kind. You’ve got an opportunity to spread your movement, but you’re also now in danger of damaging your movement if you handle this poorly. You’ve taken the label, you’ve chosen to jump in on this person and be an activist, and so you do have an obligation now to be an activist! If you don’t want to, then fine. If you don’t have the spoons, then fine. If you’re going to get triggered and can’t be expected to act reasonably, fine. Just don’t call yourself an activist. It’s not my responsibility to teach children about geography, but if I make the choice to call myself a geography teacher and enter a classroom full of children, then I have created that responsibility for myself. I wouldn’t normally owe them anything, but now I do."
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