There are a couple of interesting articles on social
justice, especially when it comes to “equity”, online today.
One is in Medium (Atlantic), by Ibram X. Kendi
(associated with critical theory, BLM, etc).
He actually associates “individualism” with injustice, and “community”
with justice. He also mentions empathy
in the sense that it needs to be emotional, more than just cognitive, and he
speaks of the racial pandemic within the biological one, which to me comes down
to unequal or asymmetric personal risk-taking in lower-wage work.
Another, by Amanda Mull, directly on the Atlantic, explores
“The Difference Between Feeling Safe and Staying Safe”, and sees things in a
totally tribal perspective. Most “ordinary”
people get their critical information through social hierarchies and not their
own thinking.
Graem Wood, a historian, examines why the 2020's will be unstable in a long essay, where he argues that there are too many elites and not enough jobs to pay them for "higher work". There is a hint of Maoism, or at least the idea of "pay your dues" in the essay. Earn your social credit. Maybe elites need to take their turns becoming proles. But he does not seem to be following the reasoning of "critical theory".
Chris Wylie (who had blown the whistle on Cambridge
Analytica and especially Facebook in 2018) contributes to a report from the
Forum on Information and Democracy, “Working Group on Infodemics, Design a
Policy Framework”, subsequently summarized by Chris Fox in the BBC on how social
media might be regulated (following the meetings on Section 230 in the US on
Oct. 28).
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