Being an immigrant, I was asked what the nice way to ask someone what their ethnicity was, options being things like "where are your parents from" or "what's your ethnicity". All I could say was that if I wanted to be offended, there's no way to ask me that question. If I'm assuming good faith, I'll look past cruder wording like "but where are you REALLY from?" There's so much context, emotions, and personality transmitted in face-to-face interactions, there's really no blanket rules. We lose ALL of that in online discussions, especially when dealing with character limits well-suited to rob conversations of context.
The other thing is the ability to look back through history with perfect recall. People change opinions, or are emotional, dealing with something, etc. In real life you slip up once and maybe get a puzzled look or get told to shut up. Online, well you may never escape it. I think we're trending too much towards an absolute sense of right and wrong, and stifling the possibilities to learn and evolve as a human. The pendulum will swing back over time.
For another anecdote, a friend of my partner's recently changed genders. A month or two later I remembered that, and asked my partner to check in on them and make sure they're ok. They weren't, and were having suicidal ideations, but greatly appreciated having someone check in on them which I considered a win. My partner wouldn't let up and just had to know why I asked her to do so, but when I told her it's a studied correlation, she was pissed at me for "stereotyping"... Just feels like I never escaped being a child who was constantly on the verge of getting in trouble with their abusive parent.
Sorry, that just turned into a rant at the end.
On the contrary, thank you. It’s the very context you wrote about that’s often missing in online conversations. Your anecdote beautifully illustrates the absurdity trap too much well-meaning tolerance eventually trips.
I’m reminded of a Red Dwarf episode (Timewave, S12E03). A crew of a space ship decided to outlaw all criticism on board, going so far as too construct a machine extracting “the inner critic” from everybody. The Red Dwarf crew encounters them and wants to leave immediately after, because, quote: “nothing works here, especially the people.”
It’s quite straight-forward that the posts’ author struggles with mental health issues. By their own public admission (and accounting for preferred pronouns) it is transgender, hates its body and is rather inconsistent and confrontational. All fine by me. I don’t care how you find happiness or whatever else. But it should be entirely possible to remark upon those facts without experiencing retribution.
Yet somehow any remark regarding their mental health state gets self-censored by the first mention of insensitivity, no doubt fearing said retribution.
I worry about that.
That sentence says a lot about the current cultural climate (at least in the U.S. I'm guessing). Part of the abuse is that it's illogical or unpredictable, so you never know what triggers the parent/partner's anger, and when the pain/punishment will be delivered. It makes it risky to express any opinion - so the only sure way to not offend anyone is to stay silent. That stifles communication and discussion, except for narcissists who are illogically self-confident, often extreme on either side of the debate.
> Part of the abuse is that it's illogical or unpredictable
Yeah, doing some introspection (seriously, bath tubs are magical) I realised I've lost a lot of social confidence and skills. The previous issue was one contributing factor, as well as roughly 2 years of very minimal social interaction at all. Wonder what the long term ramifications on society will be.
Great rant, would read again.