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How Americans Became So Sensitive to Harm

theatlantic.com

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Re: How Americans Became So Sensitive to Harm

#21

Post by Kristine1975 »

ansible wrote: post #12

They talk about the influence of academics, and yet we (as a people) seem to successfully ignore things like global warming... I don't know if that explains it. We have, indeed, become a nation of wimps, with little common sense. We fear now, much more than we used to. When I was a kid, we feared the red menace (Communism), but that didn't stop us from moving forward, or adhering to our ideals. Our independent spirit…

>Our independent spirit as a people.

Except for those pesky blacks: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws

Re: How Americans Became So Sensitive to Harm

#22

Post by Majestic121 »

EliRivers wrote: post #13
petewailes wrote: post #3

I suspect a large part of this is down to 1. People defaulting to the nuclear option constantly, in their reactions, and 2. People not wanting to accept that some issues are complex, and that a blanket approach doesn't work. The latter of these is the real issue. People love being outraged over the lack of women in STEM fields, and how those that are are treated, but few people talk about the lack of men in teaching…

While I don't disagree with the general thrust of your argument, as an aside, the lack of men in nursing roles (and teaching, especially to younger children) is seen as a problem and when you spend time in the nursing or teaching community it comes up a lot. Campaigns to attract more men into these professions have been running for a long time. While I'm here, speaking as a townie, I don't see any complexity in the f…

"While I'm here, speaking as a townie, I don't see any complexity in the fox hunting issue."

Well, that's the point the grandparent comment was making. The fact that there is multiple sides on this issue shows that it is not as black and white as you seem to see it.

The people hunting foxes and badger are not devils made of pure evil, so there must be a reason why they are doing it.

But the actual debate about hunting foxes does not matter here, the point is : the world is not as black and white as people see it.

Re: How Americans Became So Sensitive to Harm

#23

Post by jules »

EliRivers wrote: post #13
petewailes wrote: post #3

I suspect a large part of this is down to 1. People defaulting to the nuclear option constantly, in their reactions, and 2. People not wanting to accept that some issues are complex, and that a blanket approach doesn't work. The latter of these is the real issue. People love being outraged over the lack of women in STEM fields, and how those that are are treated, but few people talk about the lack of men in teaching…

While I don't disagree with the general thrust of your argument, as an aside, the lack of men in nursing roles (and teaching, especially to younger children) is seen as a problem and when you spend time in the nursing or teaching community it comes up a lot. Campaigns to attract more men into these professions have been running for a long time. While I'm here, speaking as a townie, I don't see any complexity in the f…

Now I'm wondering whether you are a vegetarian, or whether you pay others to kill animals for a few minutes of eating pleasure.

Re: How Americans Became So Sensitive to Harm

#24

Post by pvaldes »

petewailes wrote: post #3

I suspect a large part of this is down to 1. People defaulting to the nuclear option constantly, in their reactions, and 2. People not wanting to accept that some issues are complex, and that a blanket approach doesn't work. The latter of these is the real issue. People love being outraged over the lack of women in STEM fields, and how those that are are treated, but few people talk about the lack of men in teaching…

> The most outspoken people against both aren't from the countryside, have never kept cattle or been on hunts, don't understand (or want to think too much) about the issues involved, but know that badgers and foxes are cute.

You have your point, but is a common and too simplistic interpretation. We need to repeat this more: To have cattle or being able to shoot a rabbit is irrelevant and not a guarantee at all to understand science or modern biology. Seriously.

Radically new ideas (like for example that wolves will generate money and provide basic services valued in millions of dollars, or that if you kill the alpha wolf in a pack there is an increase, not a decrease to cattle damages, or that to cull badgers will spread faster the cattle diseases that you want to stop and thus is a questionable investment of public money)... all those knowledge is generated normally in universities, placed in big cities, after years of painfully slow research done by experts in zoology, chemistry, genetics...

And I'm talking of real experts. Some of the most fantastic environmental fails were incubated in the local pub by farmers and hunters that lobby to push the local silly politician hunting for votes. Or by people that do not understand how biology works. (Ask the Chinese people about the failure of the big sparrow cull in Mao times, for example).

Farmers are experts in breeding cattle. Point. Not more, not less. Basic concepts in biology are often terribly misunderstood or just ignored stubbornly by them for decades, and there is a big inertia in small villages to accept changes. For some reason, all people are instead ready to follow the local hero, with his myth based ideas, and often lose money by this.

Re: How Americans Became So Sensitive to Harm

#25

Post by pron »

I think this has much to do with the US infatuation with, and fear of, litigation (as well as the relationship between expert witnesses and the court system) as any psychological phenomenon. In other words, I think the explanation is sociological more than psychological.

Re: How Americans Became So Sensitive to Harm

#27

Post by pj_mukh »

jules wrote: post #17
pj_mukh wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're right about most of this, especially the fact that news media coverage is "bite-sized" and incomprehensive. But, I'd like to point out that the lack of women in STEM fields is about decision-making power and not necessarily equity. Women aren't fighting for equity in garbage collection jobs either. If women are to have equal say on the goings-on's of society they need to partake in the upper echelons o…

I think this is the difference between a collectivist and individualist point of view. You can view women as a group or tribe, competing against other groups or tribes, or you can view each person as an individual with one of the characteristics being gender. The last sentence of your comment is from a collectivist point of view. I don't think this view is helpful. One woman isn't really helped by another woman being…

Yes, what you described is a pure meritocracy and all things being equal, that would be GREAT, unfortunately, all things are not equal.

If all people got equal encouragement, inspiration, and opportunity (from the moment of birth) then we could simply focus at the moment of judgement (which btw, is also currently biased [1]). So that is basically what STEM advocates are working on, making sure women and other disadvantaged minorities have equal encouragement, inspiration and opportunity (specifically to learn) so we can claim to have an equitable meritocracy.

[1] http://advance.cornell.edu/documents/ImpactofGender.pdf

Re: How Americans Became So Sensitive to Harm

#28

Post by alex_hitchins »

willvarfar wrote: post #7
petewailes wrote: post #3

I suspect a large part of this is down to 1. People defaulting to the nuclear option constantly, in their reactions, and 2. People not wanting to accept that some issues are complex, and that a blanket approach doesn't work. The latter of these is the real issue. People love being outraged over the lack of women in STEM fields, and how those that are are treated, but few people talk about the lack of men in teaching…

> As a different example, you could look at the issue of badger culls it fox hunting in the UK. The most outspoken people against both aren't from the countryside, have never kept cattle or been on hunts, don't understand (or want to think too much) about the issues involved, but know that badgers and foxes are cute. So I'm guessing you are from the countryside and you think its ok to hunt foxes and badgers? Just to…

>I don't know anyone who thinks its ok to hunt

For fun or for necessity?

Re: How Americans Became So Sensitive to Harm

#29

Post by pron »

jules wrote: post #17
pj_mukh wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're right about most of this, especially the fact that news media coverage is "bite-sized" and incomprehensive. But, I'd like to point out that the lack of women in STEM fields is about decision-making power and not necessarily equity. Women aren't fighting for equity in garbage collection jobs either. If women are to have equal say on the goings-on's of society they need to partake in the upper echelons o…

I think this is the difference between a collectivist and individualist point of view. You can view women as a group or tribe, competing against other groups or tribes, or you can view each person as an individual with one of the characteristics being gender. The last sentence of your comment is from a collectivist point of view. I don't think this view is helpful. One woman isn't really helped by another woman being…

> You can view women as a group or tribe, competing against other groups or tribes, or you can view each person as an individual with one of the characteristics being gender.

This distinction results from a poor understanding of what you call the "collectivist view". This approach does not view a social group as a constructive set -- a tribe as you call it -- but as an empirical, emergent set. The idea is that certain shared experiences that arise in society create a correlation of viewpoints and goals. Note that this isn't a statistical construct alone but also a social construct. If social dynamics give rise to certain shared experiences, then the shared experience would likely give rise to certain shared views and goals. Once again, this is not a philosophical question, but an empirical one. It either really happens or it doesn't.

Either women statistically have common goals or they don't (they do). This isn't a tribe also because a single person can be part of many such correlative social groups. A woman could be working-class and share goals with other working-class people (men and women).

In other words, I don't think that there is a difference in philosophy, but a difference in a philosophy vs. empiricism. One side says that philosophically every individual is on his own (based on the premises that the people holding this view seem to accept), while the other groups says, well, maybe, but in practice there are clear group dynamics that arise and can be seen empirically.

> One woman isn't really helped by another woman being in the government.

How do you know?

> The tribal point of view does the opposite: rather than de-emphasising characteristics irrelevant to the situation at hand, it amps up those characteristics in a tribal us-vs-them conflict situation.

Nah I think that that's just the common description among those who oppose the liberal view, and is usually a result of failing to notice what the demands really are. It's not us-vs.-them but a group that is empirically and statistically found to have opposing interests to those of another group. What you call "tribal conflict" is either empirically found to be real or it isn't; I don't think it can be argued against based on some philosophical notion.

Re: How Americans Became So Sensitive to Harm

#30

Post by manyxcxi »

estefan wrote: post #5
petewailes wrote: post #3

I suspect a large part of this is down to 1. People defaulting to the nuclear option constantly, in their reactions, and 2. People not wanting to accept that some issues are complex, and that a blanket approach doesn't work. The latter of these is the real issue. People love being outraged over the lack of women in STEM fields, and how those that are are treated, but few people talk about the lack of men in teaching…

The problem is that we're meant to believe everyone's opinions are equally valid. Empirically, it seems to me, some people are just manifestly stupid and/or incompetent.

> some people are just manifestly stupid and/or incompetent

Some are. Even more are just plain incorrect for all the many reasons human beings are incorrect.

At least in the states, we've spent the last 30 years making people believe that simply because you feel it is so, it must be.

That's got to be a huge factor in the degradation of discourse in the same time period- if instead of coming from the classical position of some attempted mutual understanding, people are essentially following their own religion of self.

If what I feel is always correct, then you disagreeing with me means that you are wrong. Thus, I can't listen to you anymore or even attempt to see where you're coming from. This leads to the same types of responses you see when you are saying things that might make someone doubt their religion. You get the hyperbolic, emotional, even physical responses that go nowhere. Now look at the outbreak of safe spaces, refusing to let people speak that have a non-popular opinion, etc.

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