"The History Man" by Malcolm Bradbury - A satire on college SJWs 40 years before they were a thing.

[Ginger Piglet]

So I'm reading this right now and, like I said in the subtitle, it's about a radical professor of sociology at the University of Watermouth (obviously a stand in for the University of Brighton) in 1972 and how he tries to out-radical everyone else.

It's pretty good. All the elements of SJWism are present and sneered at - the trying to be more oppressed than thou, the poseurishness (one student's lesbian partner Maureen, when the student decides to leave her, chimps out about how leaving her and experimenting with men is reactionary and internalising her own oppression), victim mentality (a group of anti-fascists lament that they aren't repressed enough), pseudery, and being triggered - the latter of which, an accusation that the protagonist triggered a student, is what drives the plot.

Needless to say, I rather like it.

 

[Kitlen]

Harrison Bergeron is also a critique on SJWs before they were a thing, but more showing a harsh dystopia rather than a satire. Funny thing is, Vonnegut wrote it (if I recall correctly) to make the idea of SJW like ideals seem like they'd never come true and it was ridiculous to fear them. Little did he know.

 

[AnOminous]

Harrison Bergeron is also a critique on SJWs before they were a thing, but more showing a harsh dystopia rather than a satire. Funny thing is, Vonnegut wrote it (if I recall correctly) to make the idea of SJW like ideals seem like they'd never come true and it was ridiculous to fear them. Little did he know.

No, he was definitely viewing it as something that could and probably would. Vonnegut always had a darkly pessimistic view of the world. It was sort of a reworking and amplification of a similar minor theme in Sirens of Titan.

 

[Kitlen]

@AnOminous
Do tell me about this Sirens of Titan, I haven't read much of his work but damn, Harrison Bergeron got to me. I'd love to see him write even a tiny bit more on the subject.

 

[AnOminous]

@AnOminous
Do tell me about this Sirens of Titan, I haven't read much of his work but damn, Harrison Bergeron got to me. I'd love to see him write even a tiny bit more on the subject.

I'd say Sirens of Titan probably heavily influenced Douglas Adams. It's mostly not about the same material. It's basically SF, like a lot of early Vonnegut, although Vonnegut had little social connection to the general SF scene.