Mr. Shetterly has a very short and realistic explanation for how social justice warriors are created. They call attention to an injustice, blame the injustice on the group it appears to favor while assuming this will magically lead to action by the other person to not only stop the thought patterns they disapprove of but also act in a way the social justice warrior or SJW wants.

Language policing of others for using racist/sexist/phobic language is a short cut to actual social improvement because it lets someone feel good for criticizing others but not actually doing anything else; it readily descends into bullying. The author explains the social justice warriors using calls of “privilege” and “racist” as a heckler’s veto wrapped in an aura of “justice”. Merit and logic are irrelevant – the value of the opinion and its inviolability are related to the number of identity chits the speaker or writer has.

William Shetterley gives an excellent analysis of the eight symptoms of cults and their relationship to Social Justice Warriors. For example, those who question the group’s stereotypes of themselves or “the other” are directly pressured or pushed out. The shared illusion of unanimity through the silencing of dissent in the group is created via self-censorship and quick, angry condemnation and thought-terminating cliché to end all debate. Self-appointed mind guards protect the group from adverse information; too many SJWs apply this concept to the entire internet.

Question global warming model accuracy and their deviation from real world observations and the revision of actual historical climate data, and you’re not engaging in scientific debate; instead, get labeled a “denier”. Question whether affirmative action is unnecessary today or whether the emphasis should be on improving impoverished schools both those in inner cities and full of poor whites and be labeled a “racist”. Question the supposition that all rape victims are believed, despite evidence to the contrary for a number of cases from the Duke lacrosse case to Lena Dunham’s case blaming a mustached Republican who did not exist, and you’re considered a rapist yourself.

Like all religions, it has a founder as well as disciples and holy book. Derrick Bell, Kimberle Crenshaw, Tim Wise and Peggy McIntosh’s book “Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.” It has its articles of faith like all whites are inherently racist, all men are sexist. The social justice warriors engaging in these activities know that their economic privilege is forgiven and thus feel entitled to their economic privilege.

The author brings up the fact that cults can be secular, such as therapy cults. According to the book, “The Culture of Cults”, therapy cults promote a secular belief system, based on quasi-scientific or quasi-scientific principles.

The author of “How to Make a Social Justice Warrior” says that they pursue ideological perfection, crating a guilt and shame milieu by holding up standards of perfection that no human being can accomplish. People are punished and punish themselves for not living up to the group ideals. He thoroughly details how social justice warriors are similar to secular cults.

Mr. Shetterly states that social justice warriors believe in the Sapir-Whorf theory of linguistic relativity. Words affect thought, so if we make everyone use the right words (and ban the wrong ones), the world becomes wonderful. For example, eliminate gender-specific terms like salesman to eliminate sexism. This theory goes to insane extremes like demanding the terms brown bag lunch get renamed due to “racism”.

One of the strengths of the book is short and straightforward evidence for many statements. For example, he gives less than one page on the proof that Sapir-Whorf theory of correcting society by correcting the language as utterly and completely wrong. The Sapir Whorf theory is disproven by nations with gender neutral languages like Iran and Turkey but low gender equality, as well as the Global Gender Gap having three nations with a natural gender language in the top five with the lowest gender gap. In summary, Iceland has gender equality but a gendered language, while Iran has a genderless language and a poor record on women’s rights (and human rights).

The book contains an excellent list of very legitimate reasons to be psuedononyous.

The dictionary on the thought terminating clichés of radical social justice warriors shouldn’t be necessary, but it is valuable. For example, the term “internalized misogyny/racism” means you disagree with the SJW, so they say you’ve internalized the evil view and have been blinded by it, just short of calling you a traitor. Check your privilege and your privilege is showing means your social identity will be held against you if you disagree with identitarians. A TERF is a trans-excluding radical feminist, a feminist who thinks cis-women and trans-women have different social identities, so feminist groups can or should exclude trans-sexuals. Or, given how most transgenders are men (80%+) and don't have the surgery (fewer than a quarter do), transgenders entering women's spaces are overwhelmingly biologically intact men in women's clothing demanding privilege over women.