The main forum has an excellent book review thread, but I don't tend to read books that fit the theme. On the other hand, my recent and future book list includes plenty of material that fits the culture-war theme of this forum, and just as I was about to open this copy of Materialist Feminism and the Politics of Discourse (1993) I thought "I should make an SJW book thread. That could be entertaining." And here we are.

I decided to read that book in part because I am beguiled by the title (I'm fascinated by social movement framing in general), in part because it is apparently based in some form of post-modernism, of which I am fairly suspicious, and in part because it promised a discussion of feminist standpoint theory, which I think is fascinating.

However, I've been informed by a Superior Justice Warrior that before I read Materialist Feminism that I should read Foucault's The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1 (1978), the cover of which seems to include a review that begins by calling the text "disconcerting," so that sounds fun. I don't know anything else about it. Details to follow.

Feel free to post your own SJW book reports, or really any book reports you'd like. Or not, I'm not the boss of you.

I'd give a recommendation for Susan Moller Okin's Justice, Gender, and the Family if you want a good book of feminist political philosophy. People here would probably also appreciate her essay on "Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women."

I've got about five books open right now, but a new gf of mine (a Bernie Bro, who I'm trying to understand) gave me this book: The Shock Doctrine, which she says is critical I understand. Not really SJW, but I will read it and report back.

Still working on Foucault. It's a short book but I have a short attention span. Probably tomorrow.

In the meantime, this article by economist Brendan O'Flaherty may be the best explanation of the concept of "social construction" that I've read...and it doesn't use the phrase "social construction".

I read another really clear description of a related po-mo concept, the construction of truth.

A strike in baseball has no independent material reality. It comes into existence only when we define a strike and an event that matches it. The truth of whether a pitch is strike or ball comes from how we construct the ideas. This is not a rejection of truth, rather, a definition of it. Which isn't especially useful when discussing physical objects, but becomes more so as we examine ideology.

Yes, O'Flaherty article is good, and I also appreciate his getting away from post modernism's more cliched and unnecessarily abstruse jargon.

You need to start a thread or make a post defining SJW. I always think it means Single Jewish Woman. Anyway a definition would help with this book thread. Was Mao a SJW? Tecumseh Sherman? Lucius Cornelius Sulla? Inquiring minds need to know. Is there a list of current SJW? - Or at least a set of qualifications and criteria and accomplishments, etc., etc?


Whatever, I am just now finishing up this book:

U.S. Grant Memoirs

An excellent book mostly about Grant's involvement as a warrior in the Mexican War and the US Civil War, or as it is sometimes called the War of Insurrection. Well worth reading, a true warriors history.

Zeno is very well read. I mean his ass is red from sitting on it all day modding and reading books.

Update: my new gf informs me that she is neither my new gf nor a Bernie Bro. Moving along, I'll probably not be finishing this book very soon, so don't hold your breaths.

My usage of social justice warrior is mostly just light-hearted trolling, so I'm not sure I can be of too much assistance. However, I suppose I'm at least roughly referring to people who believe social issues related to inequality are important political issues, especially inequality related to race, gender, and sexual orientation. Additionally, I'm referring to the body of academic literature concerned with those topics which originates in the social sciences and humanities. I don't think Mao was an SJW, although I'm not that familiar with Mao's specific formulation of communism. But at least some major streams of thought in socialism are opposed to the "SJW" focus on inequality based in race/gender/etc., being more focused on class inequality. I'm not familiar enough with the other names to comment :P

SJW is a term used exclusively by 14-18 year old boys on reddit who hate feminists because they can't get a date and lump in them with a range of movements such as black rights, Marxists and environmentalists which have nothing in common.

It bears no resemblance to any kind of actual political movement.

To be clear, I consider my use of the term to be some kind of reappropriation. Inspired by the the frequency with which I've been called an SJW. And referring to the kind of books I've been reading lately and planned to discuss.

Well Named, you're no SJW. That's a pejorative term made up by online kids to ironically mock those who are too anti-social and stupid to know what justice is. They usually latch onto the movement because it's "trendy", like evil hipsters. Assuming you contribute more to the cause than a few well thought out arguments here, you should call yourself a SJA, a Social Justice Activist, and a gentleman, and a scholar.

Shame trolly would point out that what I do isn't activism

The New Jim Crow, Mass Incarceration in the Age of Color Blindness, should be in every SJW collection. The writing is good, not great. There is some pointless bloviating (like injecting super ambitious inferences with no supporting arguments and that sort of thing), as most books covering racial issues have. However, New Jim Crow is written by a law professor and that's how the book is valuable. There is a thorough chronicling of the legislation and SCOTUS precedents on race matters which have followed the ebbs and flows of racial animous and it's modes of expression through the law. The central premise of the book, that the mass incarceration ramped up in the 80s is tantamount to a "New Jim Crow" is dubious and pointless. The author is no great social theorist, but she does know the law and this book is invaluable as a compendium of legal decisions and the general federal prerogative regarding law enforcement policies and practices affecting black people disproportionately and unfairly in the recent decades.
A lot of (relatively recent) SCOTUS decisions explained in this book might shock you as the author goes into detail on key arguments made in signal cases. The irony of Bill Clinton's dubbing as the "first black president" is exploded as the Clinton's insidious use of a "Southern Strategy" variant in his presidential campaign, and it's consequences to African Americans, are laid bare.

I've brought up that very thing in the

"Who are the "far left"... and other mysteries explained" thread

Maybe you should bother talking to actual sjws well named but im sure you cant be bothered. You do moire harm to liberal movements than people who strongly disagree with you.

well named should try to actually discuss ideas instead of sidestepping the difficult ones.

yeah, ive noticed.

Deuces! ¡Dios Mio! I thought that bitch Hillary finally got you.... welcome back

So, to be perfectly honest, I skimmed parts of it. This review might be flawed because of that. :P

This book has that useful philosophical quality where the author has clearly developed a fairly nuanced conceptual framework that makes sense to them, but you're never quite sure if you're reproducing it properly in your own mind when you read their somewhat idiosyncratic jargon. There's always a delightful residue of ambiguity. I think this is useful to philosophers in that it allows their work to evoke all sorts of ideas in readers that may go quite far afield from the original material, and yet if those ideas prove fruitful the reader will give some credit to the original author. I'm imagining this sort of thing explains some of why it was suggested to me that I read Foucault before Hennesy's Materialist Feminism and the Politics of Discourse.

Anyway, through the first half of the book I wasn't really sure why Foucault was interested in the "history of sexuality", and he kept mentioning the sexuality of children and it was making me uncomfortable. But, I think I can divine three major goals for this book:

1. To argue against the commonly held idea that the primary goal in the development of Victorian norms about sexuality was the repression of sexuality.

2. To investigate why 19th century westerners thought sex was so fundamentally important to the social order.

3. To use the "history of sexuality" and the development of sexual discourses in western culture to introduce a set of ideas about how processes of "power" work in society, or how "power" as processes of social control expanded away from both political institutions and legal institutions and towards the development and maintenance of normalized discourse.

(3) is of the most general interest and I assume the point most relevant to authors inspired by the book.

A large part of the argument developed in support of all three points hinges on the role of confession as a Christian ritual, and especially a form of confession that originates in early Christian monasticism but which was adopted especially for the confession of sexual sins in the 16th century, as Foucault has it. To boil it down considerably, in the ritual of confession there is the idea that truth is arrived at through speaking, by putting into words the entirety of one's experience and sparing nothing. The revelation of truth requires both the use of language as well as the hearing and interpretation of those same words in a socially sanctioned way. This section beginning on page 68 sums up a large part of the argument:

This sort-of functionalism of discourse (the "economy" of discourses) is I think the most interesting idea, viewed as a means of social control over and against law and political institutions, developed in part as the complexity of social life increases during industrialization.

The salience of this kind of theoretical take on the importance of discourse in politics is obvious in light of the entire debate about "political correctness" and "SJWs" and the like.

So that sets the stage for Rosemary Hennessy's Materialist Feminism and the Politics of Discourse.

Also, my copy of The Genome Factor arrived yesterday so obviously that goes on the list, although I think Conley might be too white, male, and centrist, and this book too interested in biology to qualify for SJW status. But it looks pretty good anyway :P

Okay, who exactly is projecting this power and to what benefit? The bourgeoisie? Or does it work more like a meme: Anyone who can master the discourse uses it for whatever purpose?

I think this might be one of those things that's left a little ambiguous, and in some ways the answer is both, but I think the idea of memes captures the spirit somewhat better, although "the bourgeoisie" can wield this mode of "power" alongside other groups. Here's some passages that are illustrative:

So it's obviously a bit abstract, but the text traces the development of various discourses on sexuality in specific contexts, and you could say that in each context different groups are exercising power: the medical industry in the medicalization of "hysterical" women, educational institutions in the development of pedagogy regarding the dangers of masturbation, the state in its interest in regulating sex for the purposes of social stability and the management of populations, the church and its views about morality, and so on. From that standpoint, there isn't a single discourse but multiple discourses, a kind of mosaic, as I think he describes it at least a few times.

Recommendation (from a Trump supporting friend): Social Justice Warriors Always Lie
This is a book written by Vox Day, someone involved in Gamergate, and a self-described "Christian nationalist", so we're talking a far alt-righter. Not sure if giving him money is something you want to do, but then if getting an inside perspective on the war is your interest, I can think of few better ways. Not sure if I'll find time to read it, but it was highly recommended.

On the agenda: Mutated, The Asserted Narrative.