9 votes

On letting people enjoy things

2 comments

  1. Octofox
    Link
    What even is this. So if you tell someone to stop going on about how the thing you like is bad then you must be very insecure as well as brainwashed by marketing to like the thing? Thats quite...

    What even is this. So if you tell someone to stop going on about how the thing you like is bad then you must be very insecure as well as brainwashed by marketing to like the thing?

    Thats quite ridiculous. Its perfectly sensible to tell someone who keeps complaining about what you like to stop because its annoying. Of course people are free to write negative reviews on things, the problem comes when you are pushing them on other people who like the thing in some kind of attempt to get them to stop liking it. I think its kind of a natural human response to be somewhat upset by hearing the thing you like being called bad. I know a few times I have fallen in to that trap before thinking "Wait, this is simply one persons opinion which is no more correct than my own"

    2 votes
  2. The_Fad
    (edited )
    Link
    There was a time in my life (more recently than I'd like to admit) that I would've agreed with this article. I understand the mindset; the belief that there must be universal truths that are...

    There was a time in my life (more recently than I'd like to admit) that I would've agreed with this article. I understand the mindset; the belief that there must be universal truths that are inalienable and, if someone doesn't accept that truth, they must simply not be learned enough and need only be informed of the facts.

    It's a coldly "logical" view of the world that I think a lot of people raised on the internet have, and is (I think) one of the main causes of the predicament the world is currently seeing with regard to social upheavals and political discord. The young people following these otherwise unsavory leaders are doing so because they've been convinced that they're objectively right and anyone else simply hasn't been informed correctly.

    I suppose that in itself isn't a new concept (people have justified their own actions since the beginning of people, after all), but it's twisted by echo chambers and the fact that we have so much knowledge now at our fingertips. To grow up in a world where the correct (not "right", but "correct") answer is literally moments away gives you an expectation that everyone follows up on the same things you do. For every random factoid you check wikipedia on, or every journal article you read on a niche subject, a tiny piece of us as humans believes that enough other people have read the same thing and gleaned the same meaning that we can accept it as a universal truth, which is what births to idea that if someone doesn't agree with you they must simply have not had a chance to learn what you learned.

    When that rejection persists, that person must then be a "bad student". What do untrained teachers do when they encounter a student who refutes their teachings, or otherwise denies them that surge of good feeling that accompanies being "correct"? They retaliate.

    As always this isn't a justification of the behavior, only a take someone somewhere may not have known. It's a view blind to the reality of the human experience. It takes a concerted effort of self awareness to un-learn it, and for a lot of people they see no value in doing so, or in fact see it as a detriment if they did, because if they don't teach people what the truth is, then who will?

    2 votes