Invitation to My Bandwagon of Uncertainty: A Critique on Modern “Social Justice”

In 2010, the famous slam poet Taylor Mali wrote a poem titled “Totally like whatever, you know?” In it, he called our generation out for “inviting people to join us on our bandwagons of uncertainty” when we spoke our opinions—in other words, for lacking conviction in what we believe.

This is true to some extent. Rather than declaring what we think, it has become natural for us to speak with “tragically cool interrogative tones” and append “parenthetical (you know)’s” in daily conversation as if we need our peers to offer affirmation to everything we say before we continue saying it. Yet in some sense, Mali’s criticism may actually belie the conviction that our “invisible question marks” represent.

This seems counterintuitive. How can we have conviction if we are always asking our friends to confirm our beliefs with every sentence? How can we think what we have to say is important if we never say anything, but ask it?

These are good questions, and what Mali challenges us to do is not wrong. But when we speak in questions, it’s understood that we aren’t asking people if we’re right—we’re inviting people to think about what we say. Our conviction is hidden in that invitation, and here’s why:

Think about the last time you saw two people arguing about some controversial social justice topic on the Internet, or even discussing something that some celebrity said. Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, Yik Yak, you name it. Chances are, in the former, you saw something like, “you racist,” “you bigot,” “you white-cishet-scum,” or some other insult meant to demean the other’s ability to have a valid opinion. In the latter, you probably saw, “that piece of trash garbage,” “they’d better apologize,” or some screenshot of people screaming death threats about “racists/sexists/etc.-ists like you don’t deserve to live!”

These statements obviously don’t come with invisible question marks at the end—in fact, they’re the opposite—but they certainly don’t scream conviction. Instead, they say one of three things: a) you only believe in what you’re yelling about because it makes you not-racist/-sexist/-etc., b) maybe you don’t really know why you believe in what you’re arguing for and this is the only way to justify that the other person is wrong, if you don’t know why you’re right, or c) you feel some insatiable urge to insult and/or humiliate the other person into apologizing or admitting defeat. Even worse, even if the other person may apologize, these scathing words don’t often change their opinion at all.

Obviously, the above three things may not be true. They’re most likely not. Many people who say these things have good reasons for their opinions—they are arguing against racism or sexism or fighting for the Black Lives Matter movement or raising awareness about rape culture in America and other important ideas. I believe in fighting these battles, too. But this is not the way to fight them.

If you know me, you probably know that I used to argue this way. I made my biggest Internet presence where people thought it was cool to “drag” or “go ham on” anyone who disagreed with the Bible of Contemporary Political Correctness. If a random person said, “I believe in gender equality but not feminism,” a whole group of people—sometimes even hundreds—would rally together and yell insults and the sporadic fact or two from the Why We Need Feminism handbook until the other person spit out an apology, made their account private, or deleted it.

Not even two years ago, I admired those people.

I thought it was a skill you could look up to, making a person realize they were so wrong that you didn’t even have to say anything substantial before they were so embarrassed they’d either gather the guts to admit wrong or run away screaming. The mean things people said were funny sometimes, like, “Yeah I’m Mexican and don’t speak Spanish, but when will your mayonnaise a** speak 17%-Irish 23%-Italian 54%-Polish 100%-Raciste-Faciste-Blanc-Fromage?” (this quote is a combination of two tweets I really saw, by the way, as best as I can recall them) and I wanted to be that kind of funny. I have to admit, I still think both tweets are hilarious.

But we can’t prove our points this way. We cannot tell people they are wrong and accuse them of being racist, sexist, elitist, or anything else without explaining our perspectives, and expect them to suddenly know why we’re angry or upset. We cannot force people to apologize if they don’t understand what they’re apologizing for. If this were the most effective form of debate, all of us could have turned in our English papers with a single thesis statement on each one and gotten a 4.0.

Everyone is attached to their beliefs: the “wrong” people, the “right” people, the in-between people, and the people who are just confused. This is why we are trained from fourth grade to write those tedious essays in the name of convincing people. This is why we have rhetoric. This is why we fight wars. People are not simple and no one is a mindreader. If you believe you are right, then explain why.

An anonymous Tumblr user once asked me a few years ago about abortion and slut-shaming, genuinely confused about both topics because of their family background, but also begging me not to be angry with them. Begging me not to be angry because they wanted to see my point of view, but didn’t already understand it. At that time, I had never gotten into or seen an Internet argument, so I didn’t understand why they were so scared and proceeded to explain, adding that I admired their courage to be curious. But now, I know why they were scared to ask someone to teach them something.

Isn’t there something wrong with that?

By being so aggressive, we are harming our own ability to make a statement. We come across as “crazy liberals,” as satirically named “social justice warriors,” as intolerant of the intolerant, as a rabid cult of rainbow-spear-wielding squirrels on a mission to get offended by literally everything. We scare people who want to ask us our point of view, because not knowing the pro-choice argument or that girls shouldn’t be slut-shamed seems ignorant enough to warrant a vicious attack. Being correct does not warrant the use of force.

Rather than throwing a fit when someone disagrees, we should take the chance to convince yet another person of what we believe in. We should explain it to them with straight facts and objective language instead of going on and on about how we’ve been personally offended. (Yes, in the perfect world, people would care, but this world is far from that.) We should not censor malicious opinions or any opinions at all. Even in the smallest of arguments, we should follow the leaders of social change that came before us in being peaceful. We should take every opportunity for intelligent, intellectual discussion, to show the world that this is how we see things and that we are only trying to make a change for the better. If someone isn’t persuaded, the sky won’t fall down.

Our only goal is to encourage people to think for themselves on what we’ve shown them, and to draw their own conclusions from it; to invite people to think about what we say, and to challenge them to agree with it.

If we believe in our own words, then we should act like it: it is the confidence we have in that invitation that bespeaks our conviction.