[xmzx]

This is a very privileged, ignorant take.

He seems to be lumping in all outrage as the same. People being outraged at Nike doing something is the equivalent to voter rights being taken away because certain people of a certain race vote a certain way. These things aren't remote the same.

And his idea that political parties should "work together" often means you're negotiating the rights of people, who neither party member usually is part of, either to have more or less rights, and you're negotiating them like they're bargaining chips.

This author and so many people who aren't part of marginalized groups really can't grasp this.

[betwixthewires]

Sounds to me like you're deliberately missing the point to as to protect your own outrage. "Of course what they are outraged about is bullshit, but what I'm outraged about is 100% valid and reasonable." The article isn't saying there aren't things to be legitimately outraged about. The article is saying 1) being outraged doesn't fix anything, and 2) of course you feel strongly about what you're outraged about, but objectively there's a high chance you're overreacting to your own detriment and the detriment of those around you.

More to your view though, the history of politics is negotiating the rights of people, look at how the UN Declaration on Human Rights was negotiated.

Finally, this gatekeeping idea that basically says that anyone that disagrees with you cannot possibly understand, that is complete horseshit. Words like "privileged" and "marginalized groups" give away this completely wrong mentality. We all really can grasp it. We just disagree. We might have very good reasons to disagree, you just refuse to try to understand them. If you did maybe you'd find a way to show us how they're wrong.

[dagmx]

I agree with you 100%. This is the take of people who have little on the line, and don't face issues everyday, falsely lumping all matters of outrage together. They're now upset, outraged even, that their status quo is challenged, and write about how we need to chill out and slowly work towards change. Well, yes slow change works if they've got little to lose from it.

I'm honestly flummoxed by all the people in the comments here talking out against this supposed "outrage culture" without breaking down the nuance of what people are outraged about.

Are we talking about outrage over sexual and racial harassment? Is that not worth being outraged about?

Or are we talking about Hasbro making gender neutral Potato heads, and the end of sales of some racist Dr Seuss books?

Articles like this help people lump everything in together, and feel better about themselves for being above it all. It's a supremely privileged position.

[haberman]

> This is the take of people who have little on the line, and don't face issues everyday

This kind of narrative is an easy way to dismiss the opinions of people who disagree with you, but it bears little resemblance to the real world, where people of all kinds face issues that you may or may not know about, and people of all demographics actually do care about things like beloved Dr Seuss books going out of print: https://johnmcwhorter.substack.com/p/and-then-they-came-for-...

[dagmx]

I think you missed my point completely if that's the part you're latching on to out of context.

My whole point is that you can't dismiss outrage as a whole, and lump all issues together.

[haberman]

You want to a priori establish some outrage as virtuous and legitimate (ie. critiques around sexism/racism) while dismissing other outrage as silly and trivial (ie. critiques around pressure campaigns to censor culture).

Is it possible that there is some legitimacy in both complaints?

[dagmx]

I'm not saying either is trivial or silly though. I'm saying there's different values and things at stake. I never said one was invalid, that was your own take on things, and you're misconstruing what I said.

Is sexual and racial harassment the same level as the potato Head thing? No, of course not. But articles like this, put them all in the same bucket.

[haberman]

Sure, the article lumps together all kinds of outrage, some of it more serious than others. For example, it also lumps together outrage that someone would commit a micro-aggression like asking "where are you from?" together with much more serious issues like people losing their careers or reputations over questionable or downright false accusations of racism. These are clearly not on the same level, but it would be silly to get mad at the author for not introducing this distinction.

What does it say about this moment in time when a person can't even speak about certain human emotions like outrage as a universal human experience without being accused of things and called names?

[davmar]

100% spot on. i would like to be your friend IRL

[naravara]

Irrespective of how justifiable the anger is, the root issue that compulsive anger is both poisonous to mental health and that it gets in the way of critical thinking in ways that make it easy to be manipulated are both true.

Things don't need to be morally equivalent to have the same mental, emotional, and physiological effects. It is also possible to be mad about stuff and take productive action on them without regularly having to stoke the outrage fires. In fact that's critical to being able to think strategically about it.

[TeeMassive]

Sorry but being outraged never solved anything. "I'm angry look at me" never attracted any kind of widespread support. MLK understood this and his speeches reflected that with messages of hope, not anger, meanwhile the other radical part of the civil rights movement tend to swept under the rug and for good reasons. There are more ways, better ways, to impose political pressure and they tend to work best in practice with incremental practical improvements as opposed to bloody wars and destructive revolutions.

And it seems that you have a very binary view of the world. Us vs them. It's our way or tyranny. "They" can't understand, but only "we" can. All doctrines that view the world along a single dimension is prone to disastrous results. As for rights, they can be and will always be negotiated. They are not born out of thin air and the question of balancing them with responsibility will never truly be entirely settled.

Finally your whole arguments relies on the Genetic Fallacy. I don't need to have had a third degree burn over 90% of my body to know it must hurt like hell. I don't ask my cardiologist if he ever had a cardiac arrest before I see him to know if he's competent. Most people will know what injustice feels like even if they didn't experience the ones based on race. This is such a juvenile argument.

[dagmx]

Please don't invoke MLK as a bastion of peace and hope. it's so contrite: "look at this well behaved person there. Be more like him"

Except MLK also called out the passiveness of people, he called out the folks who were moderates. He worked with many who were deemed troublemakers and are hero's today. He spoke with anger and rage many a time.

So when people point at MLK and Gandhi as "peaceful models to follow", it's just a dog whistle to sit down and behave, and not step out of line. MLK didn't make the movement for civil liberties by being polite and taking everything in his stride. Neither did Gandhi. This is just plain white washing of history to appeal to "order" that befits people who don't need to care.

And no, you can't simply just understand what other people are going through just by proxy. No, most people don't know what Injustice feels like until they experience it, many don't even know when they do. It's about a conscious shifting of minds, and understanding that other people go through life differently than you, so maybe instead of saying "I understand", it's okay to say you don't and that you're there for them. Because you cannot understand. You cannot understand unless you live it. You can only sympathize, but first you need to even acknowledge the depth of the problems.

[skinnymuch]

Thanks for your comments in this thread. Per your last paragraph. That’s why I’ve begun going through the idea of compassion over empathy. For many reasons including what you’re saying.

[TeeMassive]

I'll involve who I want the way I want even if it rustles a few "holier than thou" feathers. And MLK is cited as a model to follow, what are you talking about? Standing up to an angry mobs who wanted to kill him? Dude, we'd need some of that right now.

> He worked with many who were deemed troublemakers and are hero's today.

"Worked with", maybe (that's hardly arguable, and not because of their violence but despite of it), but he always stood for non-violence that's just a fact.

> So when people point at MLK and Gandhi as "peaceful models to follow", it's just a dog whistle to sit down and behave, and not step out of line. MLK didn't make the movement for civil liberties by being polite and taking everything in his stride. Neither did Gandhi. This is just plain white washing of history to appeal to "order" that befits people who don't need to care.

And no, they didn't just "sit down and behave", that's just not factually true if you read anything about the civil rights movement. You're simply conflating "peaceful" with "passive" which I never meant or said. And the idea of "dog whistles" is just BS. I mean, secret codes that people pass around as if they were part of a nation wide grand conspiracy is just frivolous. It's clear that it is used only because it's an accusation that's impossible to disprove, which easily shows how honest people using that term really are. And I'm not appealing nothing to befit nobody, that's just a trial of intentions at this point.

> And no, you can't simply just understand what other people are going through just by proxy. No, most people don't know what Injustice feels like until they experience it, many don't even know when they do. It's about a conscious shifting of minds, and understanding that other people go through life differently than you, so maybe instead of saying "I understand", it's okay to say you don't and that you're there for them. Because you cannot understand. You cannot understand unless you live it. You can only sympathize, but first you need to even acknowledge the depth of the problems.

Ooof, I wouldn't want you to be my dentist...

This is demonstrably not true. Empathy definitely exists in most of people, otherwise we would not be able to live in society and it would literally be the law of the jungle. The fact that most activist didn't even experience what they're fighting against just completely destroys that notion. I think this section of your post is more a reflection of your psyche than anything else but I digress.

[skinnymuch]

The person is rightfully saying you are describing MLK in a way in which he was not. At his core, his anger and his saying a whole lot of angry things as well as much more hyper leftist and radical thinking towards his later years are not discussed much if at all. Instead society presents this basic image of him. Which is what the OP and myself now are pointing out to you. MLK should not be invoked the way you did because it’s not correct.

Not because MLK is not a role model. The guy is amazing. The more I read of his outrage and radical thinking, the more I like him. Personally speaking.

—

The OP isn’t saying they ever sat down and behaved. They are saying that invoking the white washed versions of Gandhi and MLK are some ways to tell people either directly or indirectly to calm down, chill out, and relatively speaking, keep the status quo.

—

Empathy isn’t necessarily that helpful in these sort of situations. I appreciate Yale’s Paul Bloom’s idea of compassion over empathy.

[TeeMassive]

MLK's message was never about "I'm angry at you, I demand reparations" like we're seeing today and he NEVER advocated for violence or "positive" segregation. The idea that he's radical the same way we're seeing the radical anti-racists of today is simply ridiculous.

> The OP isn’t saying they ever sat down and behaved. They are saying that invoking the white washed versions of Gandhi and MLK are some ways to tell people either directly or indirectly to calm down, chill out, and relatively speaking, keep the status quo.

You simply reframed what he said. He made a big straw man making statements based on nothing and therefore I simply pointed out it can be dismissed with nothing.

> Empathy isn’t necessarily that helpful in these sort of situations. I appreciate Yale’s Paul Bloom’s idea of compassion over empathy.

Why it's not useful? If seeing and recognizing injustice does nothing at the emotional level there would never have been a motivation to make things right. Even Bloom recognizes that. The idea that "you can't know if you're not it" just doesn't make sense and has plenty of counter-examples from every day life.

[skinnymuch]

You’re doing and have kept doing many of the things you claim others are doing. He is unlike “radical anti-racists of today”. Who are these people? They can be grouped into one? I’m not violent. Yet I fit the description.

For your last pt - no one said it isn’t useful. I didn’t. Your entire argument is based off a made up scenario.

—

I believe you’ve dug your feet in and can not accept you are not 100% correct and the rest of us are all wrong and do not know MLK or history. No point in continuing discussing when the intellectual discourse goes away and it becomes semantics snd minor bickering.

[dagmx]

Firstly, I think you need to reread what I said, because some of your responses are non sensical in context of what I'm saying. I'm not saying that MLK shouldn't be a role model. He's a great role model I'm just calling out your use of him as a purely hopeful idol. Many of MLKs most famous speeches and letters are full of outrage. It's only the white washed history of him that paints him as this one dimensional person to point to when people get "uppity".

Thinking that dog whistles don't exist speaks to your privilege. That in and of itself shows why you can't understand what other people go through. Because you don't believe that the things they go through exist.

[TeeMassive]

> Firstly, I think you need to reread what I said, because some of your responses are nonsensical in context of what I'm saying.

How? I directly quoted you.

> I'm just calling out your use of him as a purely hopeful idol. Many of MLKs most famous speeches and letters are full of outrage.

Of course if you speak in absolutes, there was outrage, I never made the purity argument. I'm simply pointing tout that it wasn't the message nor that the main point was to express outrage or complaining in hope of pity. MLK's message was appealing, the other radicals' are not, even to this day.

> It's only the white washed history of him that paints him as this one dimensional person to point to when people get "uppity".

It's your opinion that you backed up by nothing and therefore it takes nothing to dismiss it.

> Thinking that dog whistles don't exist speaks to your privilege.

Do you accuse anyone who disagrees with you of being "too privileged to understand"? This is just an empty accusation based on the quality of someone you don't even know. "Privilege" is a meme at this point. In fact, I think you are tool privileged to understand, prove me wrong.

> That in and of itself shows why you can't understand what other people go through. Because you don't believe that the things they go through exist.

Sorry you can't be taken seriously after that. I mean, people nationwide coordinating in a secret language? Maybe that just doesn't make sense?

[lordloki]

The whole concept of dog whistles is to build a strawman argument. There may be some small groups that use some coded language, but extrapolating that out to the entire population is a straw man argument. It basically allows you to alter what the other side says and demonize them for that interpretation instead of what is actually said.

The entire concept of dog whistles is pretty nefarious and only causes more division by causing one side to be able to assume the worst of the other side. It's also silly to assume that the people who actually think the things that you interpret the dog whistles to mean, are somehow afraid to actually say the things you interpret them as saying. Actual white supremacists don't talk in code, they say actual, clearly racist things. They don't feel the need to hide it.

I read a funny article recently that many minority groups supported the "dog whistle" policies, when it comes to securing the border. The author seemed confused that all the minority groups were racist against undocumented immigrants, or just not understanding that the policies listed in the survey were "dog whistles." The most likely explanation is the simplest, many Americans are against illegal/undocumented immigration.

[dagmx]

Minorities , are shockingly, still human and not exempt from tribalism and racism themselves.

Dog whistles are a thing, and well documented. Your characterization of it as a way to say it's not a thing feels to me like white fragility. It's akin to saying sexual harassment isn't a thing and is used by women to paint men in a bad light, as long as it's not overt.

[hypersoar]

Outrage absolutely played a key role in the Civil Rights movement. There's a reason Emmett Till stands out in American history; the outrage it stoked among white Americans helped bring treatment of black people to the fore.

Your take on MLK comes from the safe, sanitized version extrapolated from two sentences in a speech he gave that one time. The reality is that he was angry, radical, and extremely controversial. Universal adoration came only after his death, when he could no longer say anything that might make people upset.

[dagmx]

Thank you for pointing out Emmett Till. I think the closest modern day (and I know he wasn't even that long ago) equivalent to him is George Floyd. Not so much in the horror they both experienced, but in both cases (obviously Emmett was significantly more brutal though both were heartbreaking) , actually having the horror laid bare for people caused them to finally stop suppressing the outrage.

[skinnymuch]

Also thanking you for the Till mention. I need to do some more reading up.

[skinnymuch]

Your first paragraph is white washed. The “radical” parts of the civil rights movement weren’t swept under the rug. In comparison to what? Who MLK really was appears to be swept under the rug here.

As said in other comments, it does sound like you’re saying the, among other things, centrist / status quo wanting of people to sit down and be quiet.

[kemonocode]

Not all causes are made equal, and they're not necessarily important to the same degree for everybody. That's not being "privileged" or "ignorant", that's the patent truth.

[davmar]

yeah, this was my reading of the article as well.