Social Justice, Moral Agency & American Posers

What Progressives really really want.

One of the most important considerations in assessing the effective details of everything that goes under the headings of CRT, ESG and DEI is to identify the agency of individuals as compared to the initiatives of organizations.

Actually what's going on here is that a particular political group, let's call them 'white baby boomer liberals who believed their parents were evil', have a sentiment that drives middle class morality. But I'm just being stereotypical. They could be anyone who considers themselves part of 'social justice activism' These people, over time, have created and sustained several social and political movements that make them look like moral superheroes. Let's call them the Posers.

These people have taken credit for what other Americans have done on their own, which is find their way in American society and made that society a little bit better, inch by inch, family by family. So the Posers will give a list of social successes and say that they came from political activism. Even though everybody with half a brain knows that you cannot legislate morality, and that people's hearts and minds are not changed by the enforcement of laws, consent degrees, and lawsuits, the Posers will say that this is what democracy is all about.

So they will take every opportunity to co-opt the everyday struggles of real people and them box them up into a narrative of ethnic, sexual orientation, or religious liberation that only their political agenda serves. In other words they attempt to convert every social success in America into a validation of their political activism. They call this Progress, and they pretend like they're the only people on planet Earth who really get it. They are especially good at roping in nickels and dimes into their economy of seduction.

Economies of Seduction

They've been pretty good at convincing people who don't know any better that they are serving America and that they represent the best that America can be; that if you're not part of their solution, you are stupid and hateful. They seek to embrace you into their collective because they say it is beyond the capacity of ordinary individual humans to make a difference. Except they will always say that *you* can make a difference *only* if you join them. They have no respect for your individual accomplishments if it doesn't reinforce their politics.

When you hear anyone defy their narrative, they are charged with some 'ism'. They will immediately mock such a person as stupid and/or hateful. If you are fortunate enough to be outspoken and recognizable, the 'ism' will be attached to your last name.

Anyway. The Posers are scouring the country for people who *appear* desperate enough to call out for Progress. The Posers will identify them as 'forgotten' or 'oppressed' or 'victims' and will craft up a political agenda that seeks to establish themselves as union bosses for collective bargaining on behalf of said apparently desperate people. They call this process 'social activism' (but it really wants laws changed, so it's political activism), and they call the end goal 'social justice' (but it really wants government prosecutorial power).

The easiest way to upset and defeat these Posers is to recognize your own moral agency in society, but don’t be evangelical about it. Just know that you really don't need third parties negotiating the way you think about, behave around and talk to other Americans or any people around the world. Extend that sense of self-awareness to other people. Know that people are their own moral agents and work their own way through society. Not through Congress. They will start talking about history and how they saved the poor ________ (insert apparently desperate person here).

Now you know. The Posers are not America. You are.

P.S. I’m talking about Effective Altruists too. You’re just Oxfam in Toms shoes.