135
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2025
135 points (98.6% liked)
science
20737 readers
80 users here now
A community to post scientific articles, news, and civil discussion.
rule #1: be kind
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
This is a privilege you have that others do not.
If, for whatever reason, you were under the threat of violence every day, do you think you could be calm and rational? If that threatened violence against you hanging over your head was perpetuated by members of a political party, would you be calm and rational about that party? If this was because of something you couldn't change about yourself, like being queer or black or a woman, would you be calm and rational? Do you think everyone could? Do you think a child could?
I know I couldn't. I see these people breakdown over and over again. For something they did not choose. Sometimes for not being calm or rational.
It is silly to expect people to act calm and rational in the face of overwhelming prejudice, in the face of threats to your self, family, and friends, in the face of adversity--or worse, ennui--to your situation.
Let me steal an argument from a video I saw. Pretend you are having a party, and someone comes up to you and says that your friend Amanda should be kicked out of the party, that she doesn't deserve to be here, that she is drinking too much of your beer, and that if she goes, everyone can have more beer. You like Amanda because she is your friend and you know she is kind and funny. Let's say you calmly and rationally debate this guy, but he adamantly repeats these things, over and over again. Do you think Amanda feels good at this party? Should you keep debating this loser? Or would you kick him out of the party, by force if necessary, because Amanda did nothing wrong? Now imagine this person says this about ALL Amandas. Do you think this changes the situation? What if someone else told you that this guy just really hates Amandas but he's cool otherwise, even though he really harps on how Amandas are ruining this party. Do you think Amanda likes that second guy? Should Amanda be calm and rational to either of those two people?
Don't play the privilege card on my.
I'm LGBT and not only the "already accepted" letters, some of the not as widely accepted too. I can still be calm even knowing that the party I'm talking about will put me in danger. This other person doesn't want to put me in danger and she doesn't think voting for that party would put me in danger. We disagree in that and I respect her thoughts. I don't feel like cutting social connection over making assumptions that are not necessarily true.
As I said. I'm a very calm person, and in later years politics have been pivoting away from my thoughts, and I don't get as heated about them as I used to.
And, as I also said, I can be mistaken too. I do think this party will put me in danger. Imagine I cut ties with this person and that they get power (they will in two years top anyway giving current situation). And they truly do nothing that put me in danger. With which face could I look myself in the mirror after that? I prefer to be careful. I think they are dangerous, I will not vote for them. But I won't start bashing people that vote them for reasons that so not directly imply hurting me.
For instance this person doesn't even vote them for anything LGBT related. She vote for them mostly out of spite for the current socialist party (which I can see more clear that in some aspect she was right, they were stealing from us).
So giving this situation I really don't think I could hate this person. And I think many would be in similar positions.
I absolutely will. Because you are ignoring yours. Being a part of a disadvantaged group doesn't mean you don't have privilege elsewhere. In fact, sometimes, that is the reason why you might ignore your privilege.
You are able to be calm with your friend because you do not see there is a danger. People like your friend haven't hurt you. But would everyone else do the same? Your friend supports people that will hurt people like you, but do they think they can stop those people from hurting you?
I would rather lose a friend who didn't want me hurt but supported people who would hurt me because that is not a logical view, no matter how calmly it is spoken.