Welcome to Social Justice bootcamp, shitlord. I’m your training officer, Sergeant Jacob Wright, but you can call me SJW.
Lesson 2: I know how you feel (Arbitrating Feelings)
In industries, there are lamers, makers and arbiters. Lamers usually give orders. Makers execute the orders, and arbiters report to lamers on whether or not the order was executed.
In many fields, makers and arbiters are the same person. If your boss asks you to pick up your dirty socks off the floor, she can then figure out herself whether you did it or not. However, if your factory boss asks you to increase productivity by 10%, he’s probably going to rely on other arbiters.
In the case of dirty socks, the level of expertise required is next to none, the results are demonstrable and binary. So you can’t weasel out of doing it if you’re the maker, and you can’t pretend it wasn’t done if you’re the lamer.
Now the 10% productivity boost is a little bit more muddy, depending on the industry. So the lamer will turn to a couple of arbiters: Accountants, production managers and the like. and determine whether or not the numbers add up to 10%. A bit less binary.
Our ideals are to improve people’s feelings. It doesn’t get less binary. And as we all know, binary is a dirty dirty word in the this army. So our job is to position ourselves as the sole arbiters of people’s feelings. And then work as consultants to improve them. Results are foggy and undefinable, we get sole arbitration on whether or not the objective has been achieved. In other words, we can keep this shit going forever.
Know this: Our ideals are the greatest ideals. They are also the vaguest, most unattainable ideals that can ever be. They are: Good feelings. And we are the arbiters of them all.
We know how you feel, even better than you do. You’re black and disagree with us? Well you’ve got internalized racism. Uncle Tom. You’re a woman and you’re not afraid to go into STEM? We got that covered too: It’s called Stockholm syndrome.
Just know that you’re on the right side. The side that knows how EVERYONE feels, and the side that can be hired to make things better, in a sort of undefined way.
Takeaways
Make sure you define your goals so as to avoid dealing with independent arbiters. That’s why we’re not interested in how things are, but how things feel.
Coming back to last week’s question. If you say women should _be_ safer, and suddenly statistics pop up revealing that they are the safest demographics, then you’re screwed. Your goals have been revealed as invalid, and you as a fraud. If you say women should _feel_ safer, then anything goes. Because we decide when and how these feelings have been achieved. Here’s a hint: Never gonna happen, our revenues depend on it.
Exercise
I know what you’re thinking, but don’t worry. Finding a high-paying job as a lifelong consultant on self-arbitrated issues is _not_ the exercise for the week. In fact, if you manage that, you’re already in the SJW elite.
No, this week’s exercise is a lot simpler. Find something people find fun, like a movie, book or video game. Go to a forum, and casually mention that you find some of the content objectionable. Don’t go into details yet. In fact, for this exercise it’s useless to even have consumed the product in question, because you’ll stay as vague as possible. If people ask specific questions, evade. Refer to lesson 1 on calling them names and not educating them.
The important thing here, is to plant the notion that you hold some sort of intimate knowledge of the subject matter, and that your perspective gives you a unique insight on how to make the thing better. Your refusal to share details is an expression on how valuable you believe your knowledge is, and how it could be made available for a price. Play your cards right, and down the road, you could be set for life. FOR LIFE!
Question time!
Paul asks: How do you expect companies to hire me on a consultancy job that lasts forever and has little to no demonstrable value?
We can’t really demonstrate that our work has value. Because really, it doesn’t. But what if we reversed the question? What is the value of _not_ using our work? Maybe using us has no value, but ignoring us has infinite _negative_ value? Coïncidentally, it relates to my next lesson: Shaming Tactics.
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