4 ms·

> They'll make comments about how people are "too soft" these days. Part of Dr. Haidt's point is that yes, people's psyche's have been made fragile by overprot

> They'll make comments about how people are "too soft" these days. Part of Dr. Haidt's point is that yes, people's psyche's have been made fragile by overprotection. I think he even tries to put some science behind that claim. Being a jerk isn't a good thing, and showing people respect is. But sometimes showing respect means expecting other people to demonstrate some resilience. It's how that resilience grows. Exposure therapy works for many things. Having resilience is especially important when other things are at stake, things like the truth. If we sacrifice our willingness to speak the truth for fear of causing others emotional pain, we sacrifice too much. Consider your fear for rollercoasters. I do not think it is right to mock you for it, nor to force you to ride one. Nor do I think you should be trapped by your fear, and I will laud you if you overcome it. I especially don't think that we should (hypothetically) remove all rollercoasters just because some people are afraid of them.

tdb7893 7y ago
Resilience is fine but there needs to be a line somewhere. At a certain point you have to decide what's okay and what's not okay. A good example is prejudice against LGBT people or people of different races. A ton of people are prejudiced against those people and all of their beliefs are "true" to them (so trying to silence their message will be supressing truth to them) but I think it's okay as a society to decide that those views aren't okay. You should always be willing to speak your truth but society is allowed to reject it. It'll be wrong a decent amount of the time but it corrects over time through things like the civil rights movement or the rise of feminism. Interestingly in my experience being unable to reject ideas as a society actually slows down that progress as you'll then just always be relitigating past issues. Edit: I guess the question to me is "where do you draw the line" and the answer seems to be pretty obviously "you let people draw their own line" in like 98% of situations. Generally by paying attention or just asking people it's been a pretty easy rule to live by and people seem to appreciate it.
- lliamander 7y ago
  > You should always be willing to speak your truth Pet peeve: there is no "your" truth or "my" truth. There is "the" truth. It has many facets, and can be difficult to grasp fully, but it either is true or it is not. My point is that people need to have the legal and social freedom to be able to say controversial things that might be true. That, in order to explore and discover the truth, we must risk offense. >I guess the question to me is "where do you draw the line" and the answer seems to be pretty obviously "you let people draw their own line" in like 98% of situations. Unless I've misunderstood you, "letting people draw their own line" sounds a lot like freedom of speech. More precisely, our freedom to hear the ideas of other people and draw our own conclusions should not be abridged just because someone may be offended by that speech. If you agree with that assessment, then you and I are fine. I will agree that not every thought is appropriate to voice in every circumstance. There is a need for setting bounds on "polite" conversation. However, not every is (or should be) polite conversation.

tdb7893 7y ago

Resilience is fine but there needs to be a line somewhere. At a certain point you have to decide what's okay and what's not okay. A good example is prejudice against LGBT people or people of different races. A ton of people are prejudiced against those people and all of their beliefs are "true" to them (so trying to silence their message will be supressing truth to them) but I think it's okay as a society to decide that those views aren't okay. You should always be willing to speak your truth but society is allowed to reject it. It'll be wrong a decent amount of the time but it corrects over time through things like the civil rights movement or the rise of feminism. Interestingly in my experience being unable to reject ideas as a society actually slows down that progress as you'll then just always be relitigating past issues. Edit: I guess the question to me is "where do you draw the line" and the answer seems to be pretty obviously "you let people draw their own line" in like 98% of situations. Generally by paying attention or just asking people it's been a pretty easy rule to live by and people seem to appreciate it.

lliamander 7y ago
> You should always be willing to speak your truth Pet peeve: there is no "your" truth or "my" truth. There is "the" truth. It has many facets, and can be difficult to grasp fully, but it either is true or it is not. My point is that people need to have the legal and social freedom to be able to say controversial things that might be true. That, in order to explore and discover the truth, we must risk offense. >I guess the question to me is "where do you draw the line" and the answer seems to be pretty obviously "you let people draw their own line" in like 98% of situations. Unless I've misunderstood you, "letting people draw their own line" sounds a lot like freedom of speech. More precisely, our freedom to hear the ideas of other people and draw our own conclusions should not be abridged just because someone may be offended by that speech. If you agree with that assessment, then you and I are fine. I will agree that not every thought is appropriate to voice in every circumstance. There is a need for setting bounds on "polite" conversation. However, not every is (or should be) polite conversation.