I don't think he's downplaying it, but he brought up a point that is often the reason why it's hard to reach a total solution. When presenting our point, we often rely on extreme examples that can be very easily made into black and white. We also often allow no compromise by insisting our point be taken in a vacuum and force others to ignore all relevant context.clakclak wrote: ↑Mon, 3. May 21, 01:11You can try to downplay things all you like Ketraar, but people face discrimination and suffer from it. Try to deminish their experience by claiming this is just about "hurt feelings", but at the end of the day it really is about more than that. It is about power and who wields it.
To draw a similar example with another quote relating to freedom of speech: Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. Don't know about others, but as someone who live in the US I'm getting so sick of that quote, because it's often taken way too liberally. Because if we are to take that quote literally, then not a single one of us deserve either, including Benjamin himself. Why? Because the fact by living in a society, we have ALREADY made that trade, to give up some liberty (follow rule and laws) in exchange for security, that's the whole reason why "society" is formed in the first place. So either Benjamin is a hypocrite, or people are just not understanding it correctly. You literally have to live by yourself in the wild to claim you didn't compromise the principal of that statement - absolute liberty with zero security. But does that means those of us who live in the confinement of society deserve none?
Another example that perhaps is closer to your "hurt feeling" point, the whole "don't blame the victim" culture.
On the extreme end, you can see the point if we're talking about ... say countries like Saudi, I heard that if a women got rapped, it's totally her fault and be punished while the rapper get to go free. But that doesn't translate 100% into other culture. For example, a woman decide to take a shortcut by going into a dark alley and unfortunately got rapped. Many decades ago, one of the thing people will say (and probably still say, just not openly anymore) is "the woman shouldn't walk by herself into a dark alley". When we say that (and by we I mean my people, Asian culture thankful are still pretty blunt about this) we are not trying to defend the perpetrator: I definitely want the rapper get caught, I wouldn't mind one bit if the maximum sentence is imposed on that kind of crime (and where I'm from that's the firing squad), hell if I can I would even insist on it. But when we say "the woman shouldn't walk by herself into a dark alley" it's not about blame sharing, it's about drawing lesson so the same tragedy isn't repeated. Many decades ago that statement is "common sense, conventional wisdom", today culture and political correctness try to censored it by making into "blaming the victim" because of the "hurt feeling".
A woman should be free and safe to go anywhere she like without the fear of getting raped ... is the statement you often hear from the "don't blame the victim" people ... and you know what ... I absolutely agree with them 100% ... if we are to live in a perfect world - a world where we never have to fear about anything because there is no bad guy. I remember saying this to someone specifically in another topic, I think it was you, but I'll repeat it all the same: we live in an imperfect world, you can not solve problem in our world by proposing solution that would only work if the world is perfect. Because beyond "nice feeling", it has little other value.
I think the phrase here is ... "the glass is half-full"? And you know ... sometime that's necessary. I watched some public hearing of the NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) on a few major incidents. And the comments from the public there are often "don't sound like they care, why asking these question, they're insensitive ...etc... ". The point is ... if you have a public hearing from the NTSB, then either the incident potentially can cause dozen of casualties if it had not already done so. The job of these people are not there to try and take something positive from a tragedy, but to look at all angles. The glass is half-full yes, but it's not about the feeling, but to ensure how the incident would not happen again.
But not that any reasonable person with an open mind had to worry.
