33-482: Social justice warrior ( SJW ) is a pejorative term and internet meme mostly used for an individual who promotes socially progressive , left-wing or liberal views, including feminism , civil rights , gay and transgender rights , and multiculturalism . The accusation that somebody is an SJW carries implications that they are pursuing personal validation rather than any deep-seated conviction , and engaging in disingenuous arguments. The phrase originated in
66-513: A backlash among people who feel their speech is being policed". In Internet and video game culture , the phrase is broadly associated with a wider culture war that also included the 2015 Sad Puppies campaign that affected the Hugo Awards . A study from Feminist Media Studies noted that "the appropriation of SJW as a memetic straw man became commonplace during and following the upheaval of #Gamergate." In August 2015, social justice warrior
99-445: A dog he had been given by a supporter: It was a little cocker spaniel dog, in a crate he had sent all the way from Texas, black and white, spotted, and our little girl Tricia , six years old, named it Checkers. And, you know, the kids, like all kids, loved the dog, and I just want to say this right now, that, regardless of what they say about it, we are going to keep it. This was a straw man response; his critics had never criticized
132-707: A human figure made of straw that is easy to knock down or destroy—such as a military training dummy , scarecrow , or effigy . A common but false etymology is that it refers to men who stood outside courthouses with a straw in their shoe to signal their willingness to be a false witness. The Online Etymology Dictionary states that the term "man of straw" can be traced back to 1620 as "an easily refuted imaginary opponent in an argument." Reverend William Harrison , in A Description of England (1577), complained that when men lived in houses of willow they were men of oak, but now they lived in houses of oak and had become men of willow and "a great manie altogither of straw, which
165-405: A non-pejorative sense (or vice versa ) in some or all contexts. The word pejorative is derived from a Late Latin past participle stem of peiorare , meaning "to make worse", from peior "worse". In historical linguistics , the process of an inoffensive word becoming pejorative is a form of semantic drift known as pejoration . An example of pejoration is the shift in meaning of
198-550: A real category of people. It's simply a way to dismiss anyone who brings up social justice." The term's negative use became mainstream due to the 2014 Gamergate harassment campaign, where it emerged as the favored term of Gamergate proponents and was popularized on websites such as Reddit , 4chan , and Twitter . Gamergate supporters used the term to criticise what they claimed were unwanted external influences in video game media from progressive sources. Martin states that "the perceived orthodoxy [of progressive politics] has prompted
231-482: A similar concern; Douglas N. Walton identified "the first inclusion of it we can find in a textbook as an informal fallacy" in Stuart Chase 's Guides to Straight Thinking from 1956 (p. 40). By contrast, Hamblin 's classic text Fallacies (1970) neither mentions it as a distinct type, nor even as a historical term. The term's origins are a matter of debate, though the usage of the term in rhetoric suggests
264-424: A stronger argument for one's own position. In a 1977 appeal of a U.S. bank robbery conviction, a prosecuting attorney said in his oral argument: I submit to you that if you can't take this evidence and find these defendants guilty on this evidence then we might as well open all the banks and say, "Come on and get the money, boys," because we'll never be able to convict them. This was a straw man designed to alarm
297-401: A term begins as pejorative and eventually is adopted in a non-pejorative sense, this is called melioration or amelioration . One example is the shift in meaning of the word nice from meaning a person was foolish to meaning that a person is pleasant. When performed deliberately, it is described as reclamation or reappropriation . Examples of a word that has been reclaimed by portions of
330-496: Is nutpicking (or nut picking ), a neologism coined by Kevin Drum . A combination of "nut" (i.e., insane person) and " cherry picking ", as well as a play on the word "nitpicking," nut picking refers to intentionally seeking out extremely fringe, non-representative statements from or members of an opposing group and parading these as evidence of that entire group's incompetence or irrationality. A steel man argument (or steelmanning )
363-657: Is a sore alteration [i.e. a sad change] . " The phrase men of straw appears to refer to pampered softness and a lack of character, rather than the modern meaning. Martin Luther blames his opponents for misrepresenting his arguments in his work On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church (1520): Respondeo, id genus disputandi omnibus familiare esse, qui contra Lutherum scribunt, ut hoc asserant quod impugnant, aut fingant quod impugnent. (I answer that this kind of discussion
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#1732869888813396-512: Is beside the point: the position that the legislation is attacking and dismissing is a straw man. In subsequent debate, this error was recognized, and the eventual bill omitted all mention of Darwin and Darwinist ideology. Darwin passionately opposed slavery and worked to intellectually confront the notions of " scientific racism " that were used to justify it. As a fallacy, the identification and name of straw man arguments are of relatively recent date, although Aristotle makes remarks that suggest
429-485: Is familiar to all who write against Luther, so they can assert (or: plant , literally: sow ) what they attack, or pretend what they attack.) Luther's Latin text does not use the phrase "man of straw". This is used in a widespread early 20th century English translation of his work, the Philadelphia Edition My answer is, that this sort of argument is common to all those who write against Luther. They assert
462-491: Is often viewed as another act of reclamation, though much like the latter in the LGBT movement, there exists a vocal subset of people with Sub-Saharan African descent that object to the use of the word under any circumstances. Straw man A straw man fallacy (sometimes written as strawman ) is the informal fallacy of refuting an argument different from the one actually under discussion, while not recognizing or acknowledging
495-490: Is the opposite of a straw man argument. Steelmanning is the practice of applying the rhetorical principle of charity through addressing the strongest form of the other person's argument, even if it is not the one they explicitly presented. Creating the strongest form of the opponent's argument may involve removing flawed assumptions that could be easily refuted or developing the strongest points which counter one's own position. Developing counters to steel man arguments may produce
528-546: The Louisiana State Legislature in 2001: Whereas, the writings of Charles Darwin , the father of evolution, promoted the justification of racism, and his books On the Origin of Species and The Descent of Man postulate a hierarchy of superior and inferior races. . . . Therefore, be it resolved that the legislature of Louisiana does hereby deplore all instances and all ideologies of racism , does hereby reject
561-569: The Something Awful forums in 2013. According to Know Your Meme , the pejorative term " keyboard warrior ", which describes a person who is unreasonably angry and hides behind their keyboard, may be a precursor to the "social justice warrior". The negative connotation has primarily been aimed at those espousing views adhering to social progressivism , cultural inclusivity, or feminism . Scott Selisker writes in New Literary History that
594-580: The SJW is often criticised as the "stereotype of the feminist as unreasonable, sanctimonious, biased, and self-aggrandizing". Use of the term has also been described as attempting to degrade the motivations of the person accused of being an SJW, implying that their motives are "for personal validation rather than out of any deep-seated conviction". Allegra Ringo in Vice writes that "in other words, SJWs don't hold strong principles, but they pretend to. The problem is, that's not
627-513: The United Kingdom may also be known as an Aunt Sally , after a pub game of the same name, where patrons throw sticks or battens at a post to knock off a skittle balanced on top. The straw man fallacy occurs in the following pattern of argument: This reasoning is a fallacy of relevance : it fails to address the proposition in question by misrepresenting the opposing position. For example: In 2006, Robert Talisse and Scott Aikin expanded
660-494: The appellate judges; the chance that the precedent set by one case would literally make it impossible to convict any bank robbers is remote. Another example of a strawman argument is U.S. president Richard Nixon 's 1952 " Checkers speech ". When campaigning for vice president in 1952, Nixon was accused of having illegally appropriated $ 18,000 in campaign funds for his personal use. In a televised response, based on Franklin D. Roosevelt's Fala speech , he spoke about another gift,
693-424: The application and use of the straw man fallacy beyond that of previous rhetorical scholars, arguing that the straw man fallacy can take two forms: the original form that misrepresents the opponent's position, which they call the representative form ; and a new form they call the selection form . The selection form focuses on a partial and weaker (and easier to refute) representation of the opponent's position. Then
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#1732869888813726-433: The community that it targets is queer , faggot and dyke which began being re-appropriated as a positive descriptor in the early 1990s by activist groups. However, due to its history and – in some regions – continued use as a pejorative, there remain LGBT individuals who are uncomfortable with having this term applied to them. The use of the racial slur nigger (specifically the - a variant ) by African Americans
759-499: The core concepts of Darwinist ideology that certain races and classes of humans are inherently superior to others, and does hereby condemn the extent to which these philosophies have been used to justify and approve racist practices. Tindale comments that "the portrait painted of Darwinian ideology is a caricature, one not borne out by any objective survey of the works cited." The fact that similar misrepresentations of Darwinian thinking have been used to justify and approve racist practices
792-577: The distinction. One who engages in this fallacy is said to be "attacking a straw man". The typical straw man argument creates the illusion of having refuted or defeated an opponent's proposition through the covert replacement of it with a different proposition (i.e., "stand up a straw man") and the subsequent refutation of that false argument ("knock down a straw man"), instead of the opponent's proposition. Straw man arguments have been used throughout history in polemical debate , particularly regarding highly charged emotional subjects. Straw man tactics in
825-402: The dog as a gift or suggested he return it. This argument was successful at distracting many people from the funds and portraying his critics as nitpicking and heartless. Nixon received an outpouring of public support and remained on the ticket. He and Eisenhower were later elected. Christopher Tindale presents, as an example, the following passage from a draft of a bill (HCR 74) considered by
858-498: The easier refutation of this weaker position is claimed to refute the opponent's complete position. They point out the similarity of the selection form to the fallacy of hasty generalization , in which the refutation of an opposing position that is weaker than the opponent's is claimed as a refutation of all opposing arguments. Because they have found significantly increased use of the selection form in modern political argumentation, they view its identification as an important new tool for
891-496: The examples I've seen until quite recently are lionizing the person". As of 2015, the Oxford English Dictionary had not done a full search for the earliest usage. Merriam-Webster dates the earliest use of the term to 1945. According to Martin, the term switched from primarily positive to negative around 2011, when it was first used as an insult on Twitter . The term first appeared on Urban Dictionary in 2011 and on
924-412: The improvement of public discourse. Aikin and Casey expanded on this model in 2010, introducing a third form. Referring to the "representative form" as the classic straw man , and the "selection form" as the weak man , the third form is called the hollow man . A hollow man argument is one that is a complete fabrication, where both the viewpoint and the opponent expressing it do not in fact exist, or at
957-498: The late 20th century as a neutral or positive term for people engaged in social justice activism. In 2011, when the term first appeared on Twitter , it changed from a primarily positive term to an overwhelmingly negative one. During the Gamergate controversy , the term was adopted by what would become the alt-right , and the negative connotations gained increased usage which would eventually overshadow its origins. Dating back to 1824,
990-427: The term social justice refers to justice on a societal level. From the early 1990s to the early 2000s, social-justice warrior was used as a neutral or complimentary phrase, as when a 1991 Montreal Gazette article describes union activist Michel Chartrand as a "Quebec nationalist and social-justice warrior". Katherine Martin, the head of U.S. dictionaries at Oxford University Press , said in 2015 that "[a]ll of
1023-433: The very least the arguer has never encountered them. Such arguments frequently take the form of vague phrasing such as "some say," "someone out there thinks" or similar weasel words , or it might attribute a non-existent argument to a broad movement in general, rather than an individual or organization. A variation on the selection form, or "weak man" argument, that combines with an ad hominem and fallacy of composition
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1056-443: The word silly from meaning that a person was happy and fortunate to meaning that they are foolish and unsophisticated. The process of pejoration can repeat itself around a single concept, leaping from word to word in a phenomenon known as the euphemism treadmill , for example as in the successive pejoration of the terms bog-house , privy-house , latrine , water closet , toilet , bathroom , and restroom (US English). When
1089-514: Was one of several new words and phrases added to Oxford Dictionaries . Pejorative A pejorative word, phrase, slur , or derogatory term is a word or grammatical form expressing a negative or disrespectful connotation, a low opinion, or a lack of respect toward someone or something. It is also used to express criticism , hostility , or disregard. Sometimes, a term is regarded as pejorative in some social or ethnic groups but not in others or may be originally pejorative but later adopt
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