6 ms·

I think you're illustrating that person's point. I'm a liberal, with-the-times person in a liberal, with-the-times city, and I cringe at the thought of ever utt

by samhw 4y ago

I think you're illustrating that person's point. I'm a liberal, with-the-times person in a liberal, with-the-times city, and I cringe at the thought of ever uttering the words "invalidate someone's lived experience". Aside from anything else, what the fuck does it even mean? I don't think it's a bad rule of writing to speak in simple, clear, plain words, not glutinous agglomerations of abstract verbiage which evoke nothing. (While we're at it, have you considered whether you might actually be a man made of straw?)

kelseyfrog 4y ago
> Aside from anything else, what the fuck does it even mean? I'm assuming this is a genuine question, so I'll answer with my genuine understanding. Invalidating someone's lived experience is the process by which someone more or less says, "that didn't happen to you", or "your interpretation of events that happened to you is wrong." Before we start to find edge cases like "they clearly left the door unlocked and believed it to be locked," no that's not what invalidating lived experiences pertains to. Invalidating lived experience pertains to social knowledge and interpretations usually of harmful events. Or in other words, overwriting someone's framing of the harmful events that happened to them. Broad categories include, "no, that wasn't racism/sexism/bigotry that you experienced", or "no that really wasn't abusive." You might think of it as a certain kind of gaslighting. Could there be a better name for it? Maybe? Signifiers are often detached from what they signify- it doesn't matter much to me at this point that this is the case. Let me be clear. I'm not here to discuss that this is or isn't a problem in discourse. Moving from, obtuse wording to, not-actually-a-problem is a kettle logic I don't wish to engage in.
- slowmovintarget 4y ago
  That phrase is often used to move goalposts when someone is using an anecdote to justify actions they've taken, or policy they're advocating. This can include leveling accusations at other people. It is a linguistic tactic that attempts to bypass debate through appeal to emotion. "You can't tell me I don't feel this way!" Correct, you feel that way, but your feelings don't magically turn assertions into fact. The objection of "invalidating lived experience" is the notion that one's feeling are facts when they are not. They are subjective impressions unsuitable as the sole grounds for action.
  - kelseyfrog 4y ago
    Really good example. Thank you. This is precisely the type of thinking that goes into invalidating lived experience. The mechanism behind invalidating lived experience is fundamentally a reality construction mechanism. It's goal is to construct a reality, namely by the person doing the invalidating. The reality being constructed is absent bigotry and abuse as a way of avoiding the task of confronting them directly. In short it says, "My reality is objectively true and yours is not" when the person doing the constructing hasn't the same personal encounters as the person being invalidated.
    - MockObject 4y ago
      Invalidation of Lived Experience is also what we do, and should do, to Targeted Individuals [0], people who boast of having diseases cured by crank medicine, and con game victims certain that they're beloved by overseas supermodels. Skepticism is a rational and healthy habit. [0] https://www.wired.com/story/mind-games-the-tortured-lives-of-targeted-individuals/ https://www.wired.com/story/mind-games-the-tortured-lives-of...
      - kelseyfrog 4y ago
        Great. In agreement, but help me understand how we went from lived experiences involving bigotry and abuse to crank medicine and con game victims? I added that boundary specifically so that cases like this wouldn't be brought up and used to counter-example. > Skepticism is a rational and healthy habit. Agreed. Veiled-skepticism is, however in the case of invalidating lived experience, a powerful gaslighting tool. Discerning between the two is an additional hurdle targets of bigotry and abuse see layered on top of them.
        MockObject 4y ago
        > help me understand how we went from lived experiences involving bigotry and abuse to crank medicine There's no bright line between the two. Someone claims some experiences, and someone else disputes the claims. Bigotry isn't necessarily a factor, or, there might be disagreement on whether it is. "Invalidating lived experience" seems like a thought-stopping cliche, rather than any sort of argument at all. It is a fancy way of saying "you're wrong, and I'm right!" or "you're not allowed to say that I'm wrong."
- Wyoming23 4y ago
  Or to be more clear, it's a phrase which means that if a person feels victimized, their anecdotal personal account supersedes any empirical evidence. It's essentially a new form of religious anti-intellectualism, but without identifying itself as such. In the past, you might not have been allowed to say "no, God didn't appear to you in a vision" or "no, this event wasn't evidence of divine intervention". Today you're allowed to question someone's anecdote about religious experience, but you're not allowed to question their experience of victimization under a certain set of classes. History doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes.
  - kelseyfrog 4y ago
    It's very simple. I'm not sure why we're talking about visions. If someone says, "Such and such happened to me. I think it was abuse," consider stopping to think two times before responding with "No, that didn't happen." It's the very same thing already in the HN guidelines in the form of "Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine." I'm not sure why we're constructing parallels between religious interventions other than to ridicule having curious conversations instead of deciding for other people.
- samhw 4y ago
  > I'm assuming this is a genuine question, so I'll answer with my genuine understanding. I'm assuming you're a genuine person and not a weird 8-foot-tall android robot, so I'll bless you with the same provisional magnanimity. Here's my answer in all its glory: I am very tired of this line, to be perfectly honest. If you think it's not a genuine question, just say so; if you don’t think that, then I don’t need to hear about what you don’t think. Insincere insinuative rhetorical tricks at the start of a comment make me feel that you're not being genuine. In future, you can just check the question mark at the end of the line. Think of it as a ‘checksum for questions’, if you will, or a bitmask. > overwriting someone's framing of the harmful events that happened to them This is a very artful smooshing-together of "question someone's feelings" and "question the external events which [avowedly] caused them to feel that way". I have to say, I was nearly persuaded by the end of it. I obviously agree, as anyone would, that questioning someone's feelings is absurd (outside extremely specific edge cases, as you acknowledge, like malingering). I obviously do not agree that questioning the events claimed to have caused them to feel those feelings is in any way unreasonable. My general impression is that this is slangified verbiage used by people who want to be imprecise about the very straightforward concepts they are discussing, in order not to be pinned down on the dividing line between feelings and facts in these examples. As a wise man said, the great enemy of clear language is insincerity (not necessarily on your part, personally). I think we're unlikely even to have a productive discussion about this, much less to agree, but I figured I had to post some sort of response. > Signifiers are often detached from what they signify Signifiers are always detached from what they signify, or else they wouldn't be much use as a signifier.

by samhw 4y ago

kelseyfrog 4y ago

> Aside from anything else, what the fuck does it even mean? I'm assuming this is a genuine question, so I'll answer with my genuine understanding. Invalidating someone's lived experience is the process by which someone more or less says, "that didn't happen to you", or "your interpretation of events that happened to you is wrong." Before we start to find edge cases like "they clearly left the door unlocked and believed it to be locked," no that's not what invalidating lived experiences pertains to. Invalidating lived experience pertains to social knowledge and interpretations usually of harmful events. Or in other words, overwriting someone's framing of the harmful events that happened to them. Broad categories include, "no, that wasn't racism/sexism/bigotry that you experienced", or "no that really wasn't abusive." You might think of it as a certain kind of gaslighting. Could there be a better name for it? Maybe? Signifiers are often detached from what they signify- it doesn't matter much to me at this point that this is the case. Let me be clear. I'm not here to discuss that this is or isn't a problem in discourse. Moving from, obtuse wording to, not-actually-a-problem is a kettle logic I don't wish to engage in.

slowmovintarget 4y ago
That phrase is often used to move goalposts when someone is using an anecdote to justify actions they've taken, or policy they're advocating. This can include leveling accusations at other people. It is a linguistic tactic that attempts to bypass debate through appeal to emotion. "You can't tell me I don't feel this way!" Correct, you feel that way, but your feelings don't magically turn assertions into fact. The objection of "invalidating lived experience" is the notion that one's feeling are facts when they are not. They are subjective impressions unsuitable as the sole grounds for action.
- kelseyfrog 4y ago
  Really good example. Thank you. This is precisely the type of thinking that goes into invalidating lived experience. The mechanism behind invalidating lived experience is fundamentally a reality construction mechanism. It's goal is to construct a reality, namely by the person doing the invalidating. The reality being constructed is absent bigotry and abuse as a way of avoiding the task of confronting them directly. In short it says, "My reality is objectively true and yours is not" when the person doing the constructing hasn't the same personal encounters as the person being invalidated.
  - MockObject 4y ago
    Invalidation of Lived Experience is also what we do, and should do, to Targeted Individuals [0], people who boast of having diseases cured by crank medicine, and con game victims certain that they're beloved by overseas supermodels. Skepticism is a rational and healthy habit. [0] https://www.wired.com/story/mind-games-the-tortured-lives-of-targeted-individuals/ https://www.wired.com/story/mind-games-the-tortured-lives-of...
    - kelseyfrog 4y ago
      Great. In agreement, but help me understand how we went from lived experiences involving bigotry and abuse to crank medicine and con game victims? I added that boundary specifically so that cases like this wouldn't be brought up and used to counter-example. > Skepticism is a rational and healthy habit. Agreed. Veiled-skepticism is, however in the case of invalidating lived experience, a powerful gaslighting tool. Discerning between the two is an additional hurdle targets of bigotry and abuse see layered on top of them.
      - MockObject 4y ago
        > help me understand how we went from lived experiences involving bigotry and abuse to crank medicine There's no bright line between the two. Someone claims some experiences, and someone else disputes the claims. Bigotry isn't necessarily a factor, or, there might be disagreement on whether it is. "Invalidating lived experience" seems like a thought-stopping cliche, rather than any sort of argument at all. It is a fancy way of saying "you're wrong, and I'm right!" or "you're not allowed to say that I'm wrong."
Wyoming23 4y ago
Or to be more clear, it's a phrase which means that if a person feels victimized, their anecdotal personal account supersedes any empirical evidence. It's essentially a new form of religious anti-intellectualism, but without identifying itself as such. In the past, you might not have been allowed to say "no, God didn't appear to you in a vision" or "no, this event wasn't evidence of divine intervention". Today you're allowed to question someone's anecdote about religious experience, but you're not allowed to question their experience of victimization under a certain set of classes. History doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes.
- kelseyfrog 4y ago
  It's very simple. I'm not sure why we're talking about visions. If someone says, "Such and such happened to me. I think it was abuse," consider stopping to think two times before responding with "No, that didn't happen." It's the very same thing already in the HN guidelines in the form of "Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine." I'm not sure why we're constructing parallels between religious interventions other than to ridicule having curious conversations instead of deciding for other people.
samhw 4y ago
> I'm assuming this is a genuine question, so I'll answer with my genuine understanding. I'm assuming you're a genuine person and not a weird 8-foot-tall android robot, so I'll bless you with the same provisional magnanimity. Here's my answer in all its glory: I am very tired of this line, to be perfectly honest. If you think it's not a genuine question, just say so; if you don’t think that, then I don’t need to hear about what you don’t think. Insincere insinuative rhetorical tricks at the start of a comment make me feel that you're not being genuine. In future, you can just check the question mark at the end of the line. Think of it as a ‘checksum for questions’, if you will, or a bitmask. > overwriting someone's framing of the harmful events that happened to them This is a very artful smooshing-together of "question someone's feelings" and "question the external events which [avowedly] caused them to feel that way". I have to say, I was nearly persuaded by the end of it. I obviously agree, as anyone would, that questioning someone's feelings is absurd (outside extremely specific edge cases, as you acknowledge, like malingering). I obviously do not agree that questioning the events claimed to have caused them to feel those feelings is in any way unreasonable. My general impression is that this is slangified verbiage used by people who want to be imprecise about the very straightforward concepts they are discussing, in order not to be pinned down on the dividing line between feelings and facts in these examples. As a wise man said, the great enemy of clear language is insincerity (not necessarily on your part, personally). I think we're unlikely even to have a productive discussion about this, much less to agree, but I figured I had to post some sort of response. > Signifiers are often detached from what they signify Signifiers are always detached from what they signify, or else they wouldn't be much use as a signifier.