2 ms·
I can't speak for seibelj, but I don't think you that telling people to stop being offended so easily amounts to telling disadvantaged groups to buck up and be
by iamsohungry 11y ago
I can't speak for seibelj, but I don't think you that telling people to stop being offended so easily amounts to telling disadvantaged groups to buck up and be quiet. Personally, I want people to start a conversation with me if I do something that hurts them. But I also have the basic expectation that people take the time to understand and consider what I am saying before they get offended.
I also don't think that "I reject your understanding of your experience, so your perspective is invalid" is an unreasonable thing to say. Sometimes people don't understand their experiences, and as a result, they misjudge the nature of reality.
The recent controversy at Yale over cultural appropriation in Halloween costumes is a good example: there were students saying that they couldn't go to class because they didn't feel safe after a professor made an argument that avoidance of cultural appropriation had to be balanced with free speech. I do reject that understanding of their experience; they experienced nothing that indicated they should feel unsafe. Nothing about the professor's measured statement of disagreement indicates danger. Their perspective on that topic was invalid.
People's feelings aren't always valid; everyone is wrong some portion of the time. And that's true of disadvantaged people, too. If we accept the rule that every opinion from an underprivileged person is correct, we're opening ourselves to all sorts of wrong ideas. And if we discard all dissenting opinions from privileged people, we're closing ourselves to all sorts of correct ideas. Truth is not solely given to the disadvantaged.