If you, like me, spend way too much time on Twitter, you’ve probably heard the story of Frederick Joseph. After being told to “stay in his hood” during an argument with a random white woman, Joseph spent the next few hours trying to get her fired (he succeeded), and publicly revealing her personal information to his 100,000+ Twitter followers. This, he claimed, was a lesson in “accountability and consequences.”
"Writing is tricky in 2021. No matter how well structured your argument, if a single sentence can be interpreted in a negative light, even if it requires spectacular mental gymnastics to do so, some people will dismiss the entire article or even an entire body of work."
This actually falls a bit outside of the overall theme of this article but it jumped out at me as something from my experience. At one time I was a technical instructor for my employer's avionics products with airline and support center maintenance personnel students. We issued a completion certificate which was required by aeronautical authorities, but we did not test.
Perhaps it isn't so far off the point of this commentary article after all.
One of the instructors suggested that we should test and another instructor who's degree was in industrial education said that we were not qualified to write tests (a skill of its own). Disagreement followed and he said, I want all of you to write a test (multiple choice) for one of the products you teach that I have not taken the class. He passed them all with flying colors and went on to explain that he had used a different method for choosing the correct answer on each test which had nothing to do with him giving technical thought to them.
Here's the point (finally). For one of the tests he chose the shortest answer for each question. He explained that the longer the answer, the more likely there would be something falsifying. A lesson I learned in the early 1990s and sometimes forgotten in internet "discussion." And when I forget, I sometimes get burned when someone latches onto the one thing, ignoring the larger body. Here, you can relate.
Perhaps related to the idea that a solution should be as simple as possible, but no simpler. Sorry about the length but I think the background provides justification, rather than just opinion.
"Here's the point (finally). For one of the tests he chose the shortest answer for each question. He explained that the longer the answer, the more likely there would be something falsifying."
Yeah absolutely. Economy of words is something that I strive for. But I think the problem is slightly different. It's more that people are looking for a way to misinterpret (or interpret in the most negative conceivable light) any argument that doesn't immediately and comfortably fit their world view.
The instant there's the slightest challenge to the opinions they already hold, the reaction isn't curiosity or self-examination, it's outrage. And a whole bunch of other motives and beliefs are immediately applied to the person who dares think differently to them.
I see this all the time. Even, occasionally, in people who know me well and trust me. There are a few topics where if I offer a view that's too contrarian, I have to spend the next twenty minutes reminding me that they know me and I'm not an evil bigot before we can even get to *why* I hold that view.
The self-infantilization trap starts young and it sets young people back, like kids who are running a race but have to start behind the kids who aren't inculcated with the victimhood mentality. I find it with feminism too (yeah, I say that like about every single comment I make here, but Jesus or Darwin, victim black people and victim white feminists have so much in common!) The irony is no one will admit they think like a victim, or find their tribe weak and helpless, but you can't focus on the future when you're still carping about the past. How convenient for those who'd like to retain the status quo.
"I find it with feminism too (yeah, I say that like about every single comment I make here, but Jesus or Darwin, victim black people and victim white feminists have so much in common!)"
😂 It's so true though! So much so that when I talk about one in my comments I often find myself using examples from others. Victimhood, whether it be feminists or black people or trans people is all an expression of the same disease.
Most infuriating is that most of the people claiming it loudest are those least affected by the *actual* problems these groups face. They're just along for the ride because it helps them justify their narcissism.
The basic assumption that people like Daniel seem to argue from (and for) is that because black Americans were once enslaved and horrifically abused as a class of humans, the abuse by a black person of anyone from the historical abuser class (whites) is nothing to get worked up about because it simply doesn't register on the scale of harm. They really seem to not see nor to care about equal treatment as an ideal and principle, but rather define equal justice as a balancing of the harm scale: if millions of black people suffered unjustly at the hands of white people, then it's no big deal—practically karma!—for a white person to suffer unjustly at the hands of a black person. They dismiss it as a problem because they think of injustice as a ledger and they are tallying the incidents and failing to see enough harm registering on the white side to warrant concern. It's a profoundly retributive worldview, which seems to be a consequence of a cultivated victimhood mindset.
"because black Americans were once enslaved and horrifically abused as a class of humans, the abuse by a black person of anyone from the historical abuser class (whites) is nothing to get worked up about because it simply doesn't register on the scale of harm"
Yep, I had a few conversations in the comments of my article with people arguing pretty much exactly this. In addition, there's this infuriating normalisation of the idea that a minor incident like this really is "traumatic" because...slavery apparently.
A heady cocktail of retribution and weakness. It drives me absolutely crazy.
"Writing is tricky in 2021. No matter how well structured your argument, if a single sentence can be interpreted in a negative light, even if it requires spectacular mental gymnastics to do so, some people will dismiss the entire article or even an entire body of work."
This actually falls a bit outside of the overall theme of this article but it jumped out at me as something from my experience. At one time I was a technical instructor for my employer's avionics products with airline and support center maintenance personnel students. We issued a completion certificate which was required by aeronautical authorities, but we did not test.
Perhaps it isn't so far off the point of this commentary article after all.
One of the instructors suggested that we should test and another instructor who's degree was in industrial education said that we were not qualified to write tests (a skill of its own). Disagreement followed and he said, I want all of you to write a test (multiple choice) for one of the products you teach that I have not taken the class. He passed them all with flying colors and went on to explain that he had used a different method for choosing the correct answer on each test which had nothing to do with him giving technical thought to them.
Here's the point (finally). For one of the tests he chose the shortest answer for each question. He explained that the longer the answer, the more likely there would be something falsifying. A lesson I learned in the early 1990s and sometimes forgotten in internet "discussion." And when I forget, I sometimes get burned when someone latches onto the one thing, ignoring the larger body. Here, you can relate.
Perhaps related to the idea that a solution should be as simple as possible, but no simpler. Sorry about the length but I think the background provides justification, rather than just opinion.
"Here's the point (finally). For one of the tests he chose the shortest answer for each question. He explained that the longer the answer, the more likely there would be something falsifying."
Yeah absolutely. Economy of words is something that I strive for. But I think the problem is slightly different. It's more that people are looking for a way to misinterpret (or interpret in the most negative conceivable light) any argument that doesn't immediately and comfortably fit their world view.
The instant there's the slightest challenge to the opinions they already hold, the reaction isn't curiosity or self-examination, it's outrage. And a whole bunch of other motives and beliefs are immediately applied to the person who dares think differently to them.
I see this all the time. Even, occasionally, in people who know me well and trust me. There are a few topics where if I offer a view that's too contrarian, I have to spend the next twenty minutes reminding me that they know me and I'm not an evil bigot before we can even get to *why* I hold that view.
The self-infantilization trap starts young and it sets young people back, like kids who are running a race but have to start behind the kids who aren't inculcated with the victimhood mentality. I find it with feminism too (yeah, I say that like about every single comment I make here, but Jesus or Darwin, victim black people and victim white feminists have so much in common!) The irony is no one will admit they think like a victim, or find their tribe weak and helpless, but you can't focus on the future when you're still carping about the past. How convenient for those who'd like to retain the status quo.
"I find it with feminism too (yeah, I say that like about every single comment I make here, but Jesus or Darwin, victim black people and victim white feminists have so much in common!)"
😂 It's so true though! So much so that when I talk about one in my comments I often find myself using examples from others. Victimhood, whether it be feminists or black people or trans people is all an expression of the same disease.
Most infuriating is that most of the people claiming it loudest are those least affected by the *actual* problems these groups face. They're just along for the ride because it helps them justify their narcissism.
I mean, even Nikole Hannah-Jones is with you on this one… https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10035989/Nikole-Hannah-Jones-condemns-black-writer-got-white-woman-fired-confrontation-dog-park.html
Haha, I know, right?! I had to pinch myself when I saw that this was too much even for her!
The basic assumption that people like Daniel seem to argue from (and for) is that because black Americans were once enslaved and horrifically abused as a class of humans, the abuse by a black person of anyone from the historical abuser class (whites) is nothing to get worked up about because it simply doesn't register on the scale of harm. They really seem to not see nor to care about equal treatment as an ideal and principle, but rather define equal justice as a balancing of the harm scale: if millions of black people suffered unjustly at the hands of white people, then it's no big deal—practically karma!—for a white person to suffer unjustly at the hands of a black person. They dismiss it as a problem because they think of injustice as a ledger and they are tallying the incidents and failing to see enough harm registering on the white side to warrant concern. It's a profoundly retributive worldview, which seems to be a consequence of a cultivated victimhood mindset.
"because black Americans were once enslaved and horrifically abused as a class of humans, the abuse by a black person of anyone from the historical abuser class (whites) is nothing to get worked up about because it simply doesn't register on the scale of harm"
Yep, I had a few conversations in the comments of my article with people arguing pretty much exactly this. In addition, there's this infuriating normalisation of the idea that a minor incident like this really is "traumatic" because...slavery apparently.
A heady cocktail of retribution and weakness. It drives me absolutely crazy.