A lot of people don't get this. If I express my opinion, especially if I express it in a general way, not aiming my remarks at anyone in particular, some people feel compelled to respond as though I had personally accused them or pressured them. If these people weren't so insecure, they'd feel no pressure at all to respond, but they do, and they respond as though they'd been personally attacked, thus revealing their insecurity. This pattern repeats itself quite often, and it follows certain political alignments to a T every single time:
(rightie) General remark. (e.g., "Men aren't women.")
(lefties) Personal offense leading to personal rebuttal. (e.g., "Bigot!")
Sad. How can you teach people to feel secure in themselves?
Haven't had a chance to watch the video, but I never take anything you say personally, even when you mention me by name! We don't disagree on much (other than the necessity of adhering to grammatical rules), but I think having and sharing divergent views is important. Unfortunately, that kind of conversation on social media doesn't happen much these days. As you say, it devolves into personal attacks more often than not.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if the issue is as simple as you are making it out to be. I can't speak to your personal experiences, but let me try to tease out some of the implications of such a general remark.
ReplyDeleteFrom the perspective of the speaker, "Men aren't women" is a simple and non-controversial statement. As an opinion about the nature of people and gender, it might be stated thus: The distinction between men and women is a fixed one. The listener, however, has a different opinion, namely that the distinction is not fixed (and may not even be as distinct as the speaker holds).
Now, if things never went past the level of opinion, we'd probably be fine. I imagine people would still get offended, because that's just how people are. Take how people react to art. Art is highly subjective, and what someone likes someone else might hate. Does it matter if you hate what I like, or vice versa? Not really, yet people still argue about it.
This isn't really the point, though. The point is that opinions like "Men aren't women" never just stay at the level of opinion. Opinions become judgments: "Men aren't women... and yet you were born a man but decided you wanted to become a woman. That very desire is absurd, and your identification as a woman is invalid." No one likes to be judged, but if it ended there it wouldn't be so bad. The problem is that judgments then become actions. A given speaker may not act on an individual level, but others may, leading to discrimination. If some of those others have power and authority, that discrimination can become institutionalized.
Let's take, as an example, an opinion that you might be less inclined to agree with: "Women should act with propriety, particulary with regard to sexual matters." I think we can both agree that this is a rather outdated opinion to hold. Yet many people in certain cultures do hold it. This opinion then leads to judgments about women who are perhaps freer than the holder of the opinion would like. That judgment might then lead to action--in extreme cases, that action might even be murder (aka, "honor killing").
Yes, that is an extreme example. But trans people have also suffered violence at the hands of others who hold the opinion that "Men aren't women." I am of course not accusing you of such violence. I am just saying that opinions rarely exist in a vacuum. The extent to which they then lead to judgments and actions will vary based on the individual, but people reacting in the way the listener in your example reacted will likely have experienced the opinion-judgment-action chain for themselves. Is it helpful to label everyone who holds a different opinion a "bigot"? No. But, depending on what they have experienced, such a reaction might be somewhat understandable, if not laudable.