How Americans Became So Sensitive to Harm
theatlantic.com
How Americans Became So Sensitive to Harm
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Re: How Americans Became So Sensitive to Harm
#2> like saying the word “fútbol” instead of soccer
Hispanic folks: Is this in fact a thing that feels alienating to you? If so, would you be willing to explain why? It is the first time I've heard about it so I'd just like to confirm that Conor Friedersdorf is referring to a real thing.
Re: How Americans Became So Sensitive to Harm
#3I 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 it nursing roles. The former is seen as "a problem" and the latter isn't. I'd argue that both are issues, but one is something that political groups get behind and the other isn't.
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.
It's the infantilism of understanding; people wanting things to be black and white and easy to understand, where pretty much everything contentious, when you dig, is complex.
I suspect a lot of the blame for this is a combination of the short article and news industries, giving people the feeling of being informed without any of the substance to back it up, and the increasing politicisation of issues, where people hold views for reasons more tribal than rational.
Once you start believing that issues are simple, it's easy to fit everything into that framework and to wander round being outraged or offended or insulted by things. Because you can read into life whatever you want.
Re: How Americans Became So Sensitive to Harm
#4a tyranny of the minority backed up by politicians, government appointees, and judges, all who realize their power by separating people into groups to play off each other. Each new victim class further increases the power of government, the loss of privacy, and worse the loss of community and seeds of distrust and anger are set to drive people into different camps.
when the individual becomes so important that community suffers we have our priorities wrong.
Re: How Americans Became So Sensitive to Harm
#5I 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.
Re: How Americans Became So Sensitive to Harm
#6There seems to be a spectrum between whether you consider your feelings mutable and the world absolute or whether your feelings are absolute and the world needs to change to accommodate them. The ever-expanding harm movement leans heavily towards the latter.
If something makes you feel bad, then it must inherently be bad and must be changed. There doesn't seem to be any consideration that maybe it's your feelings that need to change, or even any acknowledgement that you can change how you feel about something.
It's definitely not always one or other other, but to be constantly at the mercy of whatever circumstances happen to exist at the moment seems like a very difficult way to live one's life.
Re: How Americans Became So Sensitive to Harm
#7I 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 balance things up, I'm from Suffolk which is as countryside as you can get and I don't know anyone who thinks its ok to hunt. I also don't know anyone who'd say they "kept cattle" rather than "kept cows", so I guess we're not from quite the same countryside? :)
Re: How Americans Became So Sensitive to Harm
#8a tyranny of the minority backed up by politicians, government appointees, and judges, all who realize their power by separating people into groups to play off each other. Each new victim class further increases the power of government, the loss of privacy, and worse the loss of community and seeds of distrust and anger are set to drive people into different camps. when the individual becomes so important that commun…
This seems a bit off base to me.
For at at least some of the cases discussed in the article, there is nothing minority about it at all. For example, the social pressure to disallow children's independence is by far the majority position now, as far as I can see. The "free range kids" folks and similar represent a minority that gets a lot of social disapprobation for wanting their kids to have the same sort of freedoms that were common place 25 years ago. Vague and unsupported concerns about "safety" are usually hand waved about.
What you say may be in play for some of these issues, but I suspect it is far too blunt a tool to truly explain much of it.
Re: How Americans Became So Sensitive to Harm
#9> like saying the word “fútbol” instead of soccer Hispanic folks: Is this in fact a thing that feels alienating to you? If so, would you be willing to explain why? It is the first time I've heard about it so I'd just like to confirm that Conor Friedersdorf is referring to a real thing.
The author appears to be referring to a previous piece: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/09/the-rise...
Re: How Americans Became So Sensitive to Harm
#10a tyranny of the minority backed up by politicians, government appointees, and judges, all who realize their power by separating people into groups to play off each other. Each new victim class further increases the power of government, the loss of privacy, and worse the loss of community and seeds of distrust and anger are set to drive people into different camps. when the individual becomes so important that commun…
This seems to be a commonly expressed concept, the idea that in large this phenomenon is strongly either caused or encouraged by a 'conspiracy' of the government.