>I've rarely seen someone upset about social, economic or political issues that don't affect them.
I’ve seen it a lot, some of the most vehemently lefty Marxists I’ve known or met came from very well off backgrounds. Class guilt is very much a thing. I’m fact the dissociation between middle class socialists and actual working class people has become a significant factor in UK politics recently.
Don't those issues affect all of us? I'm not poor, but having a lot of people without opportunities around me leads to rising crime, homeless camp and it's genuinely disheartening. I'm vehemently in favor of UBI even though I'd be likely a net payer. I don't want misery around me.
I completely agree, I think the comment I'm replying to was taking a very narrow view of how problems in society propagate, but the ways we are all affected are very different.
Political and economic opinions do not have to be purely self-serving or beneficial to their holder. Do you think whites in the US who agitated for civil rights were uneffected by segregation? How about Germans who helped Jews hide or escape during the Nazi period? Society is more than just each individual, it is a whole which cannot be reasonably considered in the small.
The article talks about false personalization, giving the example of someone being wrongly upset about a friend not inviting them to a social event, misinterpreting something that didn't involve them.
Views on social issues inherently involve most people. If you hold, and exercise politically an opinion that as a result has a real, negative effect on me being defensive is reasonable.