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[–][deleted] 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

For efficiency's sake I'm going to try to respond to u/ccccccc and u/cybitch together as the points I want to address largely overlap between their comments.

First, I want to say right off the bat that I can't comment on disparities between the reaction to male-oriented subs and feminist-oriented subs on Reddit as regards "trans" issues. By the time that stuff came up I'd more or less checked out of Reddit out of disgust. You both could very well be right about that, and it's a significant data point that has merit. I just threw in the towel on trying to make sense out of those issues, much less speak sense to them, long before. So I can't speak to that, but don't let that come off as me trying to take the cheap way out and say those points don't count - they do.

But more to the point, even assuming those disparities exist, it sounds like we all agree that Reddit doesn't actually hate women. u/cybitch said, I think correctly, that Reddit's motivator is advertiser dollars, not hatred. So with us all pretty much agreed on that, I want to emphasize a simmering latent concern I've had for a long time that relates to this issue. There's been a gradual distortion and flattening of language and argument through hyperbole over the last generation or two, and it's come to interfere with the ability to have a rational conversation about charged political issues. You probably know some of the examples I'm talking about. Speech is violence. Viewpoints are violence. Now apparently silence is violence. Criticism is "harassment." Boorish jokes are rape, or "rape-adjacent." Statues are "white supremacy." Conservative viewpoints are "racism." An enormous amount of things are "racism." Disagreement is "hate."

First of all, these positions are just demonstrably wrong on their face according to any sensible understanding of these words. It undermines someone's credibility to just be so clearly wrong about things like this.

But more importantly, letting this subtle shift in the meaning of the words slip by unchallenged is having a disastrous effect on political discourse. It enables the use of fantastically disproportionate responses reserved for actions that are actually are violent, hateful, racist, etc. against attitudes, speech, and beliefs that come nowhere near what those words meant before hysteria poisoned our discourse. The suppresses our ability to talk to one another honestly or really even intelligibly, and without being able to do that, we can't come to any kind of agreement or resolution of any divisive issue. It immediately escalates discussions between people who disagree to accusations and counter-accusations rather than actually examining facts.

Moreover, this overdosing on hyperbole dilutes the meaning of the terms we use when they should apply. Going the way of Boy Who Cried Wolf, it's hard to get people to take allegations of racism, hatred, harassment, misogyny, etc. seriously when those terms have grown to include so many wildly disparate and innocuous thoughts and good faith speech.

So, for these reasons, I ask everyone, please - say what you mean and mean what you say. Ramping up hyperbole makes it less likely you're going to convince anyone who isn't already convinced. If you're put off by the tactics of the "trans" community in wielding labels like "transphobe," "bigot," and "hate" like weapons, be the change you want to see in the world and set a better example yourself.

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I agree that exaggerating things removes credibility and dilutes the power of import words and concepts. I feel better when it seems like everyone is judged by the same standard, that the rules apply evenly to everyone.

It seems like this very naturally happens in a lot of political contexts, people want their side to win. All women want to divorce-rape you and also are super dumb, everyone on voat is secretly a jew, black are never trustworthy to anyone who isn't black, bisexuals are all fake gays, etc.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I have indeed heard the “divorce rape” canard and do not endorse it. Not that this is really here or there, but I’ll add that that term is pretty clearly the result of the MRA crowd crudely imitating the successful tactics of feminism in use of hysterical exaggeration.

Anyways I had a point earlier on I wanted to make about how the preceding generation of Leftists is unhappy that their own tactics have been co-opted, dialed up, and used against them by the “trans” community, but we seem to have gone in a different direction and that’s fine. If people come away from this discussion less inclined to misuse language in service of wild exaggeration that is good enough for me.

Thank you for listening.