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Now I finally realise why left-handed people were so often forcibly re-taught to be right-handed in school in 20th century. It always seemed so pointlessly crue

Now I finally realise why left-handed people were so often forcibly re-taught to be right-handed in school in 20th century. It always seemed so pointlessly cruel! But with only fountain pens available, it must have been the only choice. Edit: this also makes me wonder how the hell Ben Yehuda revived Hebrew without ballpoint pens.

ruste 6y ago
As a right-handed person imagining writing left handed, I think the minimal inconvenience of learning to write with the other hand sounds like it far outweighs a lifetime of smeared ink. I don't think it would cause me too much inconvenience to switch hands and I would hardly call it cruel.
- golergka 6y ago
  Thinking abstractly, it doesn't seem to be cruel indeed. But I'm not left-handed, and people I know that are and have experienced it have called it such; I'm not sure whether it's the practice itself or just the common everyday teacher cruelty, but having experienced the latter myself, I wouldn't want to have one more reason to be otherfied by them.
- garblegarble 6y ago
  >I don't think it would cause me too much inconvenience to switch hands and I would hardly call it cruel. As a left handed person, I'd recommend you give it a go for a few months, I think you'll find it a good bit harder than you might think - although you're probably not handwriting pages of text all day anymore, so whether it's a fair comparison I don't know. I certainly found it quite tortuous to be forced to do things with my less (forgive the pun) dextrous hand: it takes constant conscious effort, like a wasteful background process. And that's not to mention the psychological effect of, as a child, being scolded because the most comfortable & natural way of doing something is "wrong". Edit: Wikipedia has an interesting section on other consequences of forced conversion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bias_against_left-handed_people#Forced_use_of_the_right_hand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bias_against_left-handed_peopl...
- yencabulator 6y ago
  I would kindly ask you to not hold such an opinion on a topic you clearly say you have no experience of. Your argument is akin to asking homosexuals "just not be gay". You don't switch your dominant hand merely by attempting to use the other one; at best that makes you roughly ambidextrous.

ruste 6y ago

As a right-handed person imagining writing left handed, I think the minimal inconvenience of learning to write with the other hand sounds like it far outweighs a lifetime of smeared ink. I don't think it would cause me too much inconvenience to switch hands and I would hardly call it cruel.

golergka 6y ago
Thinking abstractly, it doesn't seem to be cruel indeed. But I'm not left-handed, and people I know that are and have experienced it have called it such; I'm not sure whether it's the practice itself or just the common everyday teacher cruelty, but having experienced the latter myself, I wouldn't want to have one more reason to be otherfied by them.
garblegarble 6y ago
>I don't think it would cause me too much inconvenience to switch hands and I would hardly call it cruel. As a left handed person, I'd recommend you give it a go for a few months, I think you'll find it a good bit harder than you might think - although you're probably not handwriting pages of text all day anymore, so whether it's a fair comparison I don't know. I certainly found it quite tortuous to be forced to do things with my less (forgive the pun) dextrous hand: it takes constant conscious effort, like a wasteful background process. And that's not to mention the psychological effect of, as a child, being scolded because the most comfortable & natural way of doing something is "wrong". Edit: Wikipedia has an interesting section on other consequences of forced conversion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bias_against_left-handed_people#Forced_use_of_the_right_hand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bias_against_left-handed_peopl...
yencabulator 6y ago
I would kindly ask you to not hold such an opinion on a topic you clearly say you have no experience of. Your argument is akin to asking homosexuals "just not be gay". You don't switch your dominant hand merely by attempting to use the other one; at best that makes you roughly ambidextrous.