[swatcoder]

“I thought everybody was dumb but it turns out they saw the same things in weird ways!”

Is wrong twice (ignorance), while still asserting superiority (arrogance).

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but said opinions can still be ignorant and arrogant.

It was going off-guidelines for them to say the author should be embarrassed but not for calling out the character of the essay itself. It’s genuinely very insensitive, uninformed, and misguided.

[_corvo_]

    “I thought everybody was dumb but it turns out they saw the same things in weird ways!”

I see superiority but ignorance? If anything, author is admitting ignorance here. Re-reading some parts and looking at other quotes, they're definitely coming across as arrogant.

    Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but said opinions can still be ignorant and arrogant.

I agree, my issue was that parent comment felt like an Ad hominem attack. Looking at rest of the discussion, I can see how a lot of the essay is insensitive. And it's a little bit of self promotion as well (author submitting their own article).

I still learned at least one thing that changed my world view slightly, so I wanted to argue against such a dismissal. Could be my situation, I'm wrestling with some of the religious beliefs with my family. If nothing, seeing utility of existing customs is an improvement over dismissing them outright as useless or uninformed.

[nopenotthat]

> If nothing, seeing utility of existing customs is an improvement over dismissing them outright as useless or uninformed.

Indeed. A lesson most learn before leaving high school in one form or another.

However the original post doesn’t even get that far: they commit the sane error repeatedly later.