REVIEW: SJWs Always Lie (Vox Day – 2015, Castelia House)

Genre fiction writer, video game designer, web developer, and head of his own publishing house, Vox Day is not a guy that has time to screw around with Leftist idiots seeking to tear down and destroy anything they disagree with.  So naturally, he wrote a book about it—about GamerGate, about the 2015 Hugo Awards, about the Tim Hunts and Brendan Eichs and James Watsons of the world, and most importantly, about what to do when confronted with SJWs in both your personal neighborhood and their own natural habitats.

A bit overdue for a review, the book is about two years old as of this post.  It is, however, worth another mention, as it’s the single best book of its kind when it comes to the contemporary Left’s unofficial and effeminate Red Guard brigades known as the Social Justice Warriors.  What makes them warriors remains elusive even today, as the degree to which they’re personally threatening tends to be matched only by the size and stubbiness of their fingers, the angle at which their wrists flop down while they gesticulate, and the garishness of the frames that hold in their corrective lenses.  The women among them periodically turn out to be men wearing dresses and makeup, and all too often, they have those enormous hoop earrings which, had they been worn by a man, would draw glib jabs from onlookers about having to compensate for perceived anatomical shortcomings.  Social Justice Warriors are, in a word, warriors inasmuch as they have access to a Twitter account, an internet forum, and a Human Resources department.

The SJW phenomenon, in its current form, predated SJWs Always Lie by a few years, but it wasn’t until the events that Day describes in his chapters on GamerGate that it became a distinctly public crisis that could no longer be covered up by the news outlets and social media platforms.  The idea of social justice dates back at least to the Bolshevik days, as even Fredrich Hayek had noted its existence and problems back in the nineteen-forties.  The difficulty with social justice is, of course, the self-contradictory nature of the term.  Justice implies a rule of law; laws are decided by—in the modern world—legislators who create them in accordance with the will of the people, and the people are brought into accordance with those laws by the will of an executive body and a separate system of courts.  The courts arbitrate on a case-by-case basis according to both the general principles of the law and the specific nature of the cases involved.  Social justice, however, has no comprehensible set of laws by which its adherents supposedly live by, and it has no set of courts with which innocence or guilt can be determined whereupon transgressions are recognized.  Social Justice Warriors are, in a word, just inasmuch as they seek to dominate others through the shrillness of their power-hungry, authoritarian impulses, seeing no real distinction between guilt and innocence so long as the outcome services their personal feelings.

Believing that actual justice is not enough to service their Narrative, SJWs seek, in typical postmodern fashion, to overturn the existing notions of justice and the rule of law and substitute it with their own version of Orwellian groupthink.  This tendency, the manner in which it is implemented, and what to do when you recognize it being used against you are each the subjects of Day’s book.

He derives the title from his first law of Social Justice Warriors:

“1. SJWs always lie.

2. SJWs always double down.
3. SJWs always project.” (50)

SJWs always lie, Day writes, and they’re always pushing or defending their Narrative.  When the Narrative is threatened, they always double down, attempting to draw a greater web of support.  When the Narrative is questioned, they always project, attributing their own impulses and neuroticisms to the opposition.  The goal of the second law, he explains, “is to destroy the whistleblower’s credibility so that even if the truth comes out, no one will believe it”, but in reality, all three laws work in tandem with this fundamental principle (39).  SJWs are an ideological strike force in the Left’s war against the culture; as such, the annihilation of their opposition’s credibility is their only effective means of direct engagement.  The rest of the SJW program is the same as the standard Marxist’s in terms of approach: infiltrate, subvert, beguile, and destroy.  Much of that doesn’t need direct offensive maneuvers.

But simply knowing of their modus operandi isn’t enough.  Day continues by citing and elaborating upon examples of their attack strategy, both when they deployed against people like Nobel Prize winning biochemist Tim Hunt, as well as Day’s own experiences grappling with them during the years leading up to the 2015 Hugo awards.  The GamerGate drama and subsequent fallout also take center stage in being an appropriate depiction of how to retaliate against SJW-dominated organizations that are seeking to suppress their own consumer bases in order to push their Narrative.

And for those who aren’t familiar with him, Vox Day is not one to mince words.  Likewise, his approach to dealing with SJW incursions is direct, succinct, and quick.  This is not to say that his understanding of the SJW is dismissive, however; his observations of SJW in-group identity being forged largely on self-victimization and competitive attempts to be offended by casual remarks are worth noting.  As is his chapter on approaching the fight armed with at least rudimentary knowledge of 4^th generation warfare tactics and strategy.  Being rhetorically body-slammed by doughy-faced, green-haired SJW with cheek piercings is something of a normal occurrence for relatively prominent people on the Right who use social media with any regularity.  Galvanizing yourself and your organization against their sad attempts at relevancy is a must.

What Day’s book points out is that these SJWs are effectively overgrown children.  They are selfish, act primarily out of an embarrassing need for attention and self-validation, and they are easily bruised.  The first mistake when dealing with their tantrums is to concede to whatever their demands are.  Yet the people most susceptible to SJW attack aren’t even far-right extremists or dyed-in-the-wool traditionalists; they’re usually right-leaning moderates or, apolitical specialists, or even worse, compatriot lefties that simply forgot to tow the correct line.  Concessions, resignations, and offering up meek and confused apologies result from SJW attacks because their targets are almost never those hardened against their moronic complaints.  They only attack those who are willing to entertain their petulant need for petty power-plays.  And when they attack hard enough, the mainstream media can end up involved.  That sort of pressure can drive someone to drastic measures if they haven’t yet realized that SJWs tend to be as impulsive as they are childish.  Wait a few weeks and they’ll have forgotten the incident even took place.

This book is a must-read for any right-winger looking to actually make a difference beyond mere virtue-signaling to “moderates” and Leftists on internet sites.  It’s a short, quick, and pleasant read, clocking in at only a little over 200 pages and maybe a few lazy afternoons’ worth of coffee and beer.

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