This past week there was a bewildering little discussion on Bill Maher’s Real Time where—yet, again—Maher railed mightily at the horrors of political correctness and social justice warriors, while columnist Charles M. Blow sat bewildered at what his problem was. [Transcript below from Breitbart, available on its website.]
Friday on HBO’s “Real Time,” host Bill Maher lamented so-called social justice warriors, who he argued were not motivated by actual social change, but out of a need to increase an audience on social media.
“Here’s what’s wrong with social justice warriors: They’re not interested in justice. They’re interested in clicks,” he said. “They’re interested in getting clicks. Oh please, you don’t think so?”
Maher’s remarks were met with pushback from New York Times columnist Charles Blow, who said there were “social justice warriors” with genuine interests in improving society.
Maher insisted he was speaking about a totally separate thing, and he and his guest author Bret Easton Ellis pointed to the way some reacted to criticism of blockbuster movie “Black Panther.”
For his part Blow was clearly confused as he happens to know people who are seriously interested in implementing positive social change, who aren’t just making noise and being obnoxious or opportunist for its own sake but really are trying to address real social inequities by raising their voices, and sometimes putting their own bodies on the line, to implement that change.
That’s a significantly different view from Maher who as an absolute free-speechist believes anyone should be able to say just about any ridiculous obnoxious thing you want without facing the backlash of those people responding by telling you you’re a total fracking jerk.
Here’s another example of Maher’s attitude from his “New Rules” segment from that same show where he basically dumps on Generation Z for being fragile little snowflakes who don’t know how to take any responsibility for themselves or deal with any bad news or direct criticism. Hilarious, kinda.