Quick background; I have a degree in the Liberal Arts (not an outsider), and in the early 1990s when PC culture was only starting up I would have certainly considered myself a Liberal or Classical Liberal. I protested the first Gulf War, I debated in public against the Death Penalty and I still support the concept of a Universal Basic Income or something more dynamic that is related to that concept. While I have many Libertarian friends, once they get to know me, they let me know in no uncertain terms that I am not a “real Libertarian,” and I am fine with that. I hate labels anyway, they only divide us and make us easier to control.
I was also a pretty hardcore atheist back in the day, not exactly an activist about it, but I would let someone have it if they wanted to debate the subject, and in hindsight, I was wrong with that attitude. I was “popular” on social media, that I ended up deleting entirely, and I was active in the various atheist communities online. My first conflict with the authoritarian left was with “Elevatorgate.” Elevatorgate was when Rebecca Watson of the “Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe” was basically asked on a date in an Elevator, totally inappropriate. She just shared about it and said basically, “guys don’t do that,” and she was sharing an opinion that men might not understand and should. I actually think she was in the right and sharing a unique perspective that us men don’t get. Nothing wrong with that, and nobody was harmed, just embarrassed I imagine. That should have been the end of it.
Little did I know that the University system had changed and so had the attitude of young people. They had become intolerant racists, and Social Justice was starting to be a thing. My first direct experience was with the anti-smoking movement in California, and I was shamed so much for smoking in public, in smoking areas, it actually did help me quit smoking. It took the fun out of it, added guilt, and of course, I wanted to quit and had failed a few times. In that case, shaming was something beneficial, technically, like fat shaming is, but that is another story I won’t get into now. So when Elevatorgate happened I chimed in with totally fair opinions, in support of Rebecca Watson. Of course, I was attacked for being a “White Man,” and my privilege, which was a new thing I had never heard of. (I worked full time through college and paid my own way for everything, I had been so poor as to be renting couches in the ghettos of LA, so it did not match my experiences of struggling to get ahead).
The debate raged on, some of the leading atheists chimed in, and of course, they were old white men, so basically the devil incarnate based on original sin out of the Bible, despite their intellect and accomplishments. Then atheism+ started up, which was atheism and authoritarian social justice combined. That finally pushed me away from the left, I gave up, deleted all my social media accounts. Figured, kids are just fucking idiots these days and moved on. I had no plans to ever rejoin Facebook or the like in the future. Without going into too much detail, something called Bitcoin came around, and I found a new passion other than religious debate and philosophy, so I came back, but the Social Justice stuff had only grown and become more toxic, with the natural blowback of creating more real racism on the far right. By pushing those in the center away and alienating people based on age, race, and gender, of course, this started to unravel traditional values and society itself in a small way. Nothing good was coming of it.
This narrative of victim and oppressor was coming almost exclusively from young white people with little real-world experience. People with no experience of racism, no experience of living in multicultural areas, and in my view, the height of arrogance and hypocrisy. They serve the state in that they disarm the anti-war left, they distract from real issues, they help the elites by having the common people at each other’s throats just over the color of their skin. Not exactly the dream of Martin Luther King. Without any doubt, Racism and division are far worse now, and it is not the rise of the Nazis, most everyone hates real Nazis, they are not popular, not cool, they never will be. They sort of have a reputation, you know? After demonizing Whites, they started going after Jewish people and Asians, which you would think would be protected minorities based on the Holocaust or US internment camps, but no, they have talent so they are evil by default.
So, what went wrong? Some of the progressive ideas, in general, are a good notion. When there is radical inequality it is good to point it out and try to fix it without causing more harm. At a certain point, there are not as many things to fix, not as many real Nazis, not as many haters. That is actually where we are now, although we have gotten a bit worse. There is still no real chance in the USA of some Nazi party taking over. Older people that are not Social Justice Warriors are not racists, they are just individuals that have all sorts of various opinions. This situation is like a war on terrorism, like something out of 1984. There is no end game but perpetual blame and guilt. They now cause more harm than good with this nonsense. They embolden the far right, the alienate the center, they are creating problems when we're almost there. The notion of America the melting pot is the ideal we should be struggling toward, and the later ideas of Martin Luther King are so beautiful because they are pure truth and love.
So, how to fix it? This is easy, just go back to how they were earlier and apologize to those they offended if they have a moral conscious. We can see the timeline where the left went off course and tried to force everyone to be some perfect ideal, and then that ideal became to be racist sexist and ageist, and basically proto-communists. The ideals of the authoritarian left are opposed to the notions of the Melting Pot of America, they are opposed to the vision of Martin Luther King. They even shame people for cultural appropriation, which in almost all cases is a sign of respect and love. So, they should have a bit more respect and love, a lot more humility, and they should not speak for others or define people into simplistic groups. Treat people as individuals, treat others as you yourself would be treated. The Golden Rule, Karma, some of the most beautiful ideas in all of history. They should go back to following them and all they wished for will mostly come true.