In a dazzlingly archetypical display of horseshoe theory, this particular brand of millennial social justice advocates have warped an admirable cause for social, economic, and political equality into a socially authoritarian movement that has divided and dehumanized individuals on the basis of an insular ideology guised as academic theory.
I realize that this is merely a rhetorical trope which serves to position the speaker as reluctantly critical, rather than innately hostile, but the vapidity of it is still annoying. The vague, amorphous cause for “social, economic and political equality” (whatever the fuck that actually means in reality) does not need to be “warped” in order to become authoritarian; in fact, it’s part of the blueprint. The only way such a state of affairs could be achieved and maintained would be through some form of authoritarianism. You don’t have to be a card-carrying libertarian to see that as long as people are free to think and act for themselves, they will inevitably defy the best-laid plans of social engineers; hierarchies, both benign and harmful, will inevitably spring up like toadstools after a rainstorm unless they are mowed down. Calling the cause “admirable” is a pointless concession to make. You’re already one of the damned.