5 Feet of Fury

Steve Sailer: Identity politics, political correctness and the world of sports

Steve Sailer writes:

Similarly, the vast to-do over, say, gay marriage is mostly a struggle for cultural dominance, with strikingly few real-world applications. For example, last October CNN ran a listicle entitled “By the numbers: Same-sex marriage” that detailed 18 stats about gay marriage—none of which, though, specified how common it is where it’s legal … because it’s not. The issue exists mostly as a popularity contest that distracts from old-fashioned working-class politics. (…)

Identity politics discussions in the United States, on the other hand, tend to decline quickly into tantrums, as members of what Jonathan Haidt terms sacralized groups become outraged when anybody notices that reality doesn’t conform to their claims.

The bullying behavior of social-media justice warriors is partly due to lack of reciprocity. Raising official victim groups above criticism is like a football game where the Seahawks would get to throw that final one-yard-touchdown pass without the Patriots being allowed to try to intercept it: i.e., boring and pointless.