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> Some kind of cultural apocalypse? I doubt it.

I don't believe there will be a cultural apocalypse necessarily, but I am afraid there will be a gradual degradation of our culture. I'm afraid we will move away from a society that tries to be meritocratic towards one that accepts all sorts of norms so nobody gets offended. That lack of social continuity would lead to everyone walking on egg shells all the time to avoid offending everyone, thus destroying any chance of a sense of community forming.

I'm also afraid of historical wrongs committed by my grandparents being used to further legitimize racism against whites and sexism against men, simply because of "white privilege". I'm afraid of a culture forming that says they're for "diversity," "equality," and "multiculturalism" while completely suppressing any person who varies culturally in the wrong way, or who questions diversity systems that were designed in a different time when blatant racism and sexism was much more commonplace.

> Social consensus actually determines most of how we react to it.

At one time, it was a social consensus that blacks and whites were segregated. At another time, perceived socialists were pushed out of the labor pool just because of their viewpoints on what a society should be. Social consensus is a terrible metric on whether or not something is right or wrong, and people who raise legitimate questions on the current social consensus(that only seems to reflect the cultures of the east and west coasts of America, btw) shouldn't be fired or forced out of the labor pool for discussing those norms in a polite, rational manner.

>At one time, it was a social consensus that blacks and whites were segregated. At another time, perceived socialists were pushed out of the labor pool just because of their viewpoints on what a society should be. Social consensus is a terrible metric on whether or not something is right or wrong, and people who raise legitimate questions on the current social consensus(that only seems to reflect the cultures of the east and west coasts of America, btw) shouldn't be fired or forced out of the labor pool for discussing those norms in a polite, rational manner.

This. Society changes fast relative to a human lifetime. Creating a society where PCness becomes the target metric is an invitation to return to the practices of casting people out based on hearsay and rumors like was done in the McCarthy days.

>what is it that we're worried about?

To give a concrete example in the US, the male/female narrative concerning who has power and who is a victim had led to a deafening silence discussing sexism in the justice system. One of the issues Hillary spoke about during the 2016 US election was how poorly the justice system treated women, she (or at least her campaign website) purposed a number of changes to make it easier on women.

So the victim narrative not only led to us ignoring an issues of sexism, but of making it much worse, because the actual victim of sexism in this instance isn't the victim according to the narrative. It also leads to an issue logical inconsistencies like how socially acceptable certain statements are.

Consider the following statement:

Men are over-represented in prison because they are more violent than women.

Now, switch from sex to race, keeping it inline with actual data, and measure how socially acceptable the resulting phrase would be.

I think of this as a significant harm. No, it isn't as bad as a world war or genocide, but it still leaves to countless lives being ruined.

Recent example coming to mind:

Emma Sulkowicz being 'made' (as far as fame is important for artists) by turning victimhood into an art project. It gained international acclaim although her victimhood was neither proven nor the accused found guilty. She started a witch hunt on the accused and was allowed to use this "performance" as her graduation thesis.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mattress_Performance_(Carry_Th...

Something that has been disturbing to me has been the rise of the phrase "freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences."

On some level, this is true. People can of course legally react in certain ways to someone's speech, such as deciding not to associate with them.

However, I feel like the phrase is a bit deceiving because it seems give the impression that "freedom" and "consequence" are unrelated. It's designed to give people the feeling that they are justified to impose more and more "consequences" (such as blacklists or even threats of violence).

Here's the definition of the phrase from the dictionary: "the right of people to express their opinions publicly without governmental interference, subject to the laws against libel, incitement to violence or rebellion, etc"

In this definition, "freedom" is directly identified with protection from a certain consequence, i.e "governmental interference." I think it should be obvious that "freedom" isn't really about the ability to move ones' mouth and make noises, but rather the freedom one has is DIRECTLY related to ones' protection from consequences. Extralegal actions to increase the "consequences" of certain types of speech directly reduce free speech.

This isn't a black or white thing, but based on what I've been seeing in social media, the possibility of some people internalizing the mantra "freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences" to the point that they justify violent action against speech they dislike doesn't seem implausible.

> what is it that we're worried about? What do we imagine will happen when everybody thinks of themselves as being victimised?

That resources that should be spent growing the pie for everyone will instead be used to fight over how to divide up the then-smaller pie.

When everyone thinks they're a victim, nothing really happen (except that it's freagin annoying to listen to).

When everyone thinks they're victim who is owned the world as reparation and shouldn't have to be a productive member of society, then that's an issue.

> I think at the moment the consensus is undergoing a major change

Maybe but some recent election results suggest that what people think in private is rather different to what they say in public.

I think at the moment the consensus is undergoing a major change and that feels uncomfortable for those who felt the balance was OK.

Blaming a vague fear of change strikes me a cop-out. A convenient, reductive, explanation that makes it easy for me to not even try understanding a perspective I don't share.

I don't think it's too hard to try and hypothesize towards "steal manning" the perspective against defining myself as, or identifying publicly as, a victim.

Perhaps it's just meant as a life skill for achieving personal success. Not that we will be "taken over" at a culture or even individual level. A perspective that says the world is hard, and no matter how many accommodation are built it, I am responsible minimizing the impact of life set-backs. I might recall the setbacks when an external system is willing to help alleviate them, but should prevent myself from wallowing in them. In the areas I have control over, it's a better strategy to dust myself off and keep going than let myeself become consumed by setbacks.

Or another possible take...

What do we imagine will happen when everybody thinks of themselves as being victimised?

A culture that becomes decreasingly well-equipped at psychological coping.

Victimhood has been used to justify aggression and heinous acts throughout history.

> What do we imagine will happen when everybody thinks of themselves as being victimised?

On an individual level, self-pity, even when justified, is not very helpful, and though the two are not exactly the same, one leads to the other pretty easily.