The Unit of Caring

Anonymous asked: there's a big difference between trying to understand people and then talk to them, and just trying to understand people. liberals seem to only have been doing the latter (with varying levels of success). also it's not an exact parallel but you could compare it to the way people often talk about eating disorders

Oooooh, I think I see what you mean. Like there’s ‘hey, [audience presumed to contain none of the Problem People]’, here is What You Need To Know about [the Problem People] so that they can be prevented from [handing the launch codes to a dishonest self-aggrandizing asshole]/[influencing Our Children]’, and even though this technically involves describing What It’s Like To Be A Problem Person, it’s not doing so from a perspective of ‘here’s how to be an ally to them’ but from a perspective of ‘here’s how to contain/manage them’.

On the other hand, I don’t want to be an ally to people who want to deport my friends; the closest we’re going to realistically get is ‘we understand where the other person is coming from and that they are not a cackling villain’. 

• 23 February 2017
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