Against Social Justice Warriors: Evil is not a category of the political

Comment published on New York Times blog, in response to opinion essay by David Brooks, “America is facing 5 epic crises all at once,” June 25, 2020:

It perhaps only needs to be added that the "socialist" "left," properly so called, has more or less never thought in the manner Brooks attributes to the "social justice" ideology. Appearances notwithstanding, it's actually a kind of militant and enraged centrist liberalism.

Though Brooks is right about its existence, and prominence, and some of its features. It simplifies social conflicts and problems, on the models of law and war. It is moralistic. It is mean-spirited. It seeks not to change the society, but to win against opponents. It is paranoid; it is Manichaean (good guys vs. bad guys). It is anti-democratic because it eschews argument. It turns antagonism into hatred. And 50 years of false radical culture associated with identity politics have gotten us here.

Evil is not really a concept of the political. Injustice is a category of law and policing. Oppression may be a useful concept, though a rather crude one, but it is best not treated as a category of evil.