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by harimau777
2377 days ago
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One explanation that I read recently (https://aeon.co/essays/what-duelling-can-teach-us-about-taki...) is that taking offense may often be not so much the magnitude of the slight itself as it is about establishing that you are an equal and therefore have the right to take offense. For example suppose that a trans person takes offense at someone refusing to use their preferred pronoun. The issue may not actually be about the importance of the pronoun so much as it is about whether they have the social right to define the pronoun that is associated with them. I think that the failure to understand this dynamic could be one of the causes of polarization in America. For example: - Conservatives often criticize "political correctness" by mocking what they perceive to be overreactions to minor slights. However, that may be missing the point if the issue is not the magnitude of the slight but whether someone has the right to take offense at all. - Anger over removing the Confederate flag may not be about the flag itself so much as it is about asserting that Southerners have a right to be treated with respect. |
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This seems extremely generous, and doesn’t match my impression of supporters of the confederate flag I have seen or heard about, many of whom live outside the former confederate states and have nothing to do with the South culturally.
There is a demand to be heard/respected involved, but the demand as far as I can tell is for recognition of white racial superiority and white social hegemony as a legitimate political ideology (which goes hand-in-hand with an implicit threat to non-whites), rather than anything about geography per se.
There’s also a strong element of defiance of what is seen as a subversive culture of pluralism and mutual respect, along the lines of: “I know this symbol is offensive to you, but I declare my right to wave it in your face because you can’t stop me.” This kind of militant offensiveness is attractive to the same sorts of people who “roll coal” to stick it to environmentalists. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_coal