“Social Justice” and Its Postmodern Parentage

Acad. Quest. (2018) 31:130–139 DOI 10.1007/s12129-018-9701-9 CAN REASON WIN? “Social Justice” and Its Postmodern Parentage Michael Rectenwald Published online: 10 April 2018 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2018 Editor’sNote:Although not a self-described political conservative, New York University professor Michael Rectenwald found himself the object of a barrage of vicious verbal attacks in 2016 when he took to Twitter and Facebook to object to such recent campus developments as the banning of speakers, the mandate to construct classroom discussions as “safe spaces,”“bias reporting hotlines” to which students can anonymously report any deviations from political correctness by their professors, and the absurdity of the pronoun wars. Fearing for his safety, the NYU administration offered him a paid leave of absence from his non-tenured position, which he took. He wrote in the November 3, 2016, Washington Post about his experience, “There was no attempt at constructive dialogue, offering of rational counterargument or even acknowledgment of the possibility of the existence of a legitimate point of view outside of progressive orthodoxy. It showed that this debate isn’t about promoting an environment of inclusivity and diversity, but about punishing transgressors.”1 The following are excerpts from Rectenwald’sforthcoming book, Springtime for Snowflakes: “Social Justice” and Its Postmodern Parentage (New England Press Review, fall 2018). He discusses the roots of the current irrationalism and so illustrates the challenges to reason on the contemporary campus. The excerpts are two discreet parts of the book; the first his preface, the second a later chapter on transgender theory. 1Michael Rectenwald, “Here’s What Happened When I Challenged the PC Campus Culture at NYU,” Post Everything, Washington Post,November3,2016,https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016 /11/03/campus-pc-culture-is-so-rampant-that-nyu-is-paying-to-silence-me/?utm_term=.3f7b327011f4. Michael Rectenwald is professor of liberal studies at New York University, New York, NY 10003; [email protected]. He is the author of seven books, including Nineteenth-Century British Secularism: Science, Religion and Literature (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), Academic Writing, Real World Topics (Broadview Press, 2015), and Global Secularisms in A Post-Secular Age (De Gruyter, 2015). A prominent spokesperson for academic freedom and free speech, he has published widely and has appeared in numerous national and international media venues regarding politically correct authoritarianism and social justice ideology. “Social Justice” and Its Postmodern Parentage 131 At the moment postmodern theory lay dying in the academy, it bore a child, namely, “social justice.” Social justice gestated within the university as postmodern theory ruled the roost. It was nursed during the Occupy movement and the Obama era. The financial crisis left its hapless followers in search of empowerment. It took root on the internet on social media. But because its parent had taught it that the object world is not real, or else that the world at large was beyond one’s purview, the child of postmodern theory could only change itself, as well as, so it imagined, those who bore signs of its oppressors. The phrase “social justice” recalls movements of the recent past that used the same political terminology. The civil rights movement and the student rebellions of the 1960s come to mind. But it would be a mistake to equate the contemporary social justice movement with these or other forerunners. Contemporary social justice embodies postmodern theoretical notions as well as the latter’s adoption of Maoist and Stalinist disciplinary methods. And today’s social justice creed is marked by preoccupations with new identities and their politics. It entails a broad palette of beliefs and practices, represented by new concerns and shibboleths, including “privilege,”“privilege-checking,” “self-criticism” or “autocritique,”“cultural appropriation,”“discursive violence,”“rape culture,”“microaggressions,”“mansplaining,” and many others. The terms proliferate almost as rapidly as gender identities. Self-criticism and privilege-checking are the vestiges of “autocritique” and “struggle sessions,” purification methods of the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976). In the late 1960s, as word from the communist revival spread to the West through the student and feminist movements of Europe, especially France, the birthplace of postmodern theory, they became part of the Western Left’s vocabulary and toolkit. In struggle sessions, the guilty party—accused of selfishness, ignorance, and the embrace of bourgeois ideology—was pilloried with verbal and often physical assaults by his comrades, until he broke down and confessed his characterological and ideological flaws. Today, the confessions involve privilege, or the unearned advantage enjoyed by members of a dominant group based on appearance. Usually on demand, checking one’sprivilegemeansto acknowledge unearned advantage and to atone for it publicly. Meanwhile, in the Cultural Revolution, autocritique began with the guilty party, who subjected himself to brutal verbal self-inspection and denigration before the jury of his comrades. Autocritique and struggle sessions could lead to imprisonment or death as the comrade was often found to be insufficiently pure. Soft forms of autocritique and struggle sessions became prevalent on 132 M. Rectenwald the internet sometime after 2009. They then infiltrated universities and other social spaces. “Cultural appropriation” is the social justice version of the trespassing condemned in the Ten Commandments. The term refers to the adoption of elements of a subordinate culture by members of another, usually dominant culture. Accusations of cultural appropriation are legion. Several recent cases involve chefs and restaurant owners accused of wrongfully appropriating cuisine and restaurant themes. A notable instance involved the white Pittsburgh restaurateur, Adam Kucenic. Kucenic announced plans to open a “90s hip-hop themed fried chicken” restaurant—“The Coop”—in the predominantly black and gentrifying neighborhood of East Liberty.2 After the inevitable backlash, the entrepreneur turned to “The Good People’s Group,” a company that specializes in social justice self-awareness for white business owners. “The Good People” apparently kick up social justice dust for such new business prospects—until they turn to “The Good People” for social justice consciousness-raising or “wokeness.” Social justice is thus a new industry and a new business model. On college campuses, social justice is evident with the prevalence of “safe spaces,”“trigger warnings,”“bias reporting hotlines,” and the “no-platforming” of speakers—to say nothing of speech codes, the use of which in public institutions arguably abridges First Amendment rights. “Safe spaces” are areas set aside for victims of unpleasant speech acts or “discursive violence.” Safe spaces were especially prominent after the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president. As college and university administrators went into crisis mode, they sought to provide students with spaces to relieve their post-electoral anxiety and distress. Safe spaces have been supplied with coloring books, crayons, therapy pets, and even pacifiers. They have come to most resemble hospital pediatric units. Originating in feminist social media sites and blogs, the trigger warning (TW) migrated to the academy, where it became expected on syllabi for alerting students about course content that may be distressful, or “triggering” of negative emotions. Not only do trigger warnings curtail expression, they represent a slippery slope. As in the case at the University of London involving the first erotic novel written in English, Fanny Hill, or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, the trend can lead to the removal of offensive texts from the curriculum entirely. 2Dan Gigler, “After Swift Uproar a Planned East Liberty Restaurant Opts For New Name,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 10, 2017, http://www.post-gazette.com/life/dining/2017/05/10/East-Liberty-restaurant-changes-name-and- concept-following-backlash-over-racial-tone-deafness/stories/201705100181. “Social Justice” and Its Postmodern Parentage 133 Bias reporting hotlines are means for students and others to contact bias administrators or “bias response teams” (BRTs) when they experience or witness a “bias incident,”“bias infraction,” or “microaggression.” A bias incident, bias infraction, or microaggression is an event that results from biases toward members of marginalized groups, including races, sexual orientations, genders, or “non-gendered” people, and so on. Microaggressions or bias infractions may be reported to BRTs, which generally act behind closed doors without transparency. On the website of my university (NYU) at least, I have been unable to find definitions of “bias incident,”“microaggression,” or even “bias.” Yet the bias hotline is advertised and promoted widely on campus and online. Although the University of Chicago does not abide safe spaces or trigger warnings, like over 230 other colleges and universities nationwide, it has a bias reporting hotline. Finally, no-platforming is the blocking of “dangerous” speakers from speaking on campuses, especially those expected to commit “discursive violence.” The Alt-Right necessarily commits discursive violence. But many other speakers do, too. Well-known aprioriperpetrators include Milo Yiannopoulos, “alt-lite”

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