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> Those words can still do real harm to real people Pretty much anything you can say that has any form of content can do harm to someone. If we want to never e
by donkeyd 4y ago
> Those words can still do real harm to real people
Pretty much anything you can say that has any form of content can do harm to someone. If we want to never ever accidentally hurt someone's feelings, we need to stop talking about:
- Having kids. It's quite painful to those who can't.
- Parents. It's painful to those who don't have any, or have abusive ones.
- War. It's painful to veterans or people who fled war.
- Anything medical. It might hurt someone who's dealing with a medical issue in one way or another.
- Pets. It might be a sensitive subject to someone who just lost a pet.
- Stop asking people how they're doing. It's a sensitive subject to people dealing with burn-out or depression.
Where do we draw the line?
I've been personally affected, many times, by multiple things in my examples above, so please don't say I'm exaggerating with those examples. However, I really don't want to live in a world where we need to watch every word because it might make someone feel bad.
If anything, this type of thinking might even affect people negatively, because it pushes the idea that feelings should be repressed, in stead of dealt with.
- jamincan 4y agoThis is why we almost universally resort to talking about the weather when speaking with relative strangers. It's hard to be offended by overcast weather.
- donkeyd 4y agoI can see a future where we can't do that anymore either, because climate change will displace many people and weather will also become a topic that might hurt some people's feelings. While typing this, I realized we're there already. During summer, when talking about the temperature, people already feel the need to add their opinion about climate change to the discussion, which then becomes political.
- TeMPOraL 4y ago> While typing this, I realized we're there already. We definitely are there already. I can't comfortably talk about weather anymore, because after either side mentions anything interesting - such as it being surprisingly cold, or hot, or snowy, or windy - I feel tempted to say something about climate change. Being risk averse, I stop myself and say nothing, but this creates an awkward pause and ends the conversation.