There’s also religious-like forgiveness too. Some incredible acts of forgiveness were accomplished by very religious people. Pope John Paul II immediately forgave the person who almost killed him.
If there are no consequences for "acting like a Karen" what is the social incentive to stop behaving like an angry toddler anytime you don't get your way? Now extend this to even more extreme behavior like people who say you should be killed just for existing because you're an abomination. Is the argument that we should just get along and there shouldn't be any social consequences for that? Such a view would be incredibly naive at best.
On the flip side clearly people's views do sometimes change, people make mistakes, etc. Changing minds and hearts is a process, not a one-time event, so complete shunning for any perceived slight is rather extreme and can be counterproductive.
Yes. But it's a problem when different cultures coexist and see each other's good behavior as bad. Societies that kill their "abominations" are also enforcing their social norms. And they may even be right to do so given the environment they live in and their desire to continue existing as a society. Modern western culture has the luxury of being very tolerant of diverse types of people because we're so wealthy and safe, but many societies or their members are closer to the brink and the presence of too many ineffective or counter-productive members is an existential threat.
Yes, sometimes it is in racist or exaggerating context. But, most often, Karen is used to shut up woman who don't want to be doormat or is telling you off for good reason.
The goal is and as when men do the same - make them stop or at least minimize. Or vent frustration, sometimes.
Respectfully communicating feelings about somebody being horrible and hurting people rarely achieves anything. Cause horrible people hurting people don't care about your feelings.
Visiting a rapist who speaks freely, or privately just to you, about how much he enjoys rape certainly begs the question of why you're doing what you're doing.
Employing such a person who says these things speaks volumes about your concern for the feelings of people who feel threatened or have suffered sexual assault in the past, especially on your team.
All of this boils down to how much legitimacy we're willing to offer people based on what we know about them. If you want to offer the worst of the worst people just enough legitimacy to have a human conversation once in a while, I think that's defensible. If you think one's reputation doesn't have massive reprecussions on which social groups you welcome them into I think you're naive.
Although I suppose I was referring to "history is written by the victor". America is a great nation, but had the revolution failed, it would have been a disgraceful insurrection instead.
Even now the American revolution is kind of a non-event to the British. It is of less interest to them than the French revolution, which led to the Napoleonic wars and ultimately the rather drastic reshaping of European nations. George III is the villain in the American version of the story, but he's mostly known in the UK for his long, sad descent into madness.
They had their own Civil War in the 17th century, and even that tends to be glossed over in British history classes. They've just got so much more history than Americans do that it's just unfathomable. They don't really spare a lot of thought for the successful revolution, and an unsuccessful one would have been a footnote.
What do you mean by "stop committing people to the garbage heap of humanity via religious-like shunning"? Do you have a social group in mind that does not enforce its own social norms?
The best modern-day example of how we should all live is probably Daryl Davis...
"It's when the talking ceases that the ground becomes fertile for violence. If you spend five minutes with your worst enemy — it doesn't have to be about race, it could be about anything...you will find that you both have something in common."
https://www.npr.org/2017/08/20/544861933/how-one-man-convinc...
I hear what you're saying, but I think Daryl Davis is an inexplicable exception, not the rule. I think most people know someone that has held onto truly shocking beliefs for decades, and hasn't responded to reason or compassion.
> held onto truly shocking beliefs
Can you see the extreme subjectivity in your comments? Why should your opinion of what's a norm or shocking be the ultimate judge? What if its your ideas which are actually shocking and violate the norms? For example, you should believe in a god because that's normal and if you're an exception, you need to be brought back into the fold of believers.
I'm okay with being extremely subjective and saying that's actually shocking. Claims that strong should be accompanied by at least circumstantial evidence. If you don't believe this is a real world view that people are trying to spread, look up Q-Anon.
To me, this does not seem logical (for the dictionary definition of "condone"). Would you mind explaining your reasoning?
I was pointing out that visiting a criminal does not directly imply that you condoned the actions that landed them in prison. However, if you know someone that is committing crimes, and you do nothing to stop them, then you do condone their behavior. I hope that clears it up?
I think the ironic and not obvious answer here is that we stop committing people to the garbage heap of humanity via religious-like shunning. That reaction is what gives bad ideas power.
People are complicated. You can’t boil them down to a true nature that is “good” or “bad”. That’s “us vs them”. Only ideas can be judged that way and history decides what the bad ideas are.