On the exemplary guilt of celebrities and its uses

Comment published February 10, 2018 in New York Times, in reply to article, “The Smearing of Woody Allen,” by Bret Stephens, February 9, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/09/opinion/smearing-of-woody-allen.html?comments#commentsContainer (3 “recommend”):

These sensational stories appear in the media as impetus for ad hoc activist action. Consonant with media norms, the observed standards of rational inquiry are minimal or none. People auto-incite their passionate partisanship and so brook no compromise. To do so would appear to be denying another claim with which the claim that someone is or must be guilty of violating an important social norm is associated. That basic claim is that the underlying social norm--the measure in the instance--is itself right. The question "Is A guilty of this crime?" becomes "Do you not agree that this kind of crime is a big deal?"

Whether something we agree is evil is a big deal is an important debate sometimes; it enters into most social justice questions. Consider the Holocaust, where denial can take the form precisely not of denying that it happened as said, but that it matters. The Black Lives Matter movement is a good example of a claim for the importance of an issue: its real claim is not that black people are being killed but that the rest of us should care.

The Social Justice Warrior logic short-circuits certain questions by collapsing them. Here the type of crime is generally recognized, but the SJWs worry that not everyone cares enough. 

And so, dear Dylan, We do care about the kind of thing you say happened to you. It's wrong. Did it happen? The media are poor law courts. Could you be not lying but mistaken? Perhaps, for all we know. But we do care. End sex abuse now!