Oddbean new post about login | logout If someone doesn’t like you, that doesn’t mean you are oppressed. No one has any obligation to like you, or even be nice to you. And if you angrily demand that they must like you or refer to you in a specific way, you only prove them justified in their feelings.
what if someone verbally bullies you in a public space? is that just free speech that someone can only defend against by free speech, the only way being hurtling hate back, btw
That's not the only way: just walk away.
So stop using the public space because someone there needs to be exerciseing their freedom of speech?
Lol. No. You could just ignore them. I live in the city. I do this all the time.
I think it's rather easy to think that the solution to bullying is that we simply ignore it. Are you going to totally discount the emotional impact that can have, especially on a demography which is in minority?
I didn't discount that. If the person was a stranger, then they just really are not worth your time. Ignore them!
Fair. What if the person is your classmate, and you have to interact with them regularly? would the solution be to quit the school or to make the person shut up and be nice to people around?
If I was in your position, I would just ignore everyone who bothers you and focus on your bloody schoolwork.
fwiw, I'm not in school, and plan to become a parent someday soon. If I get to know my child faces emotional abuse on a daily basis, I wouldn't expect or want him to ignore it if it is affecting his health and ask the school authorities to ensure a safe environment for people there for education. Same goes for public spaces. Creating a safe environment for each individual is a necessary building block for a society, which includes emotional safety which we all know by first hand experience can be disturbed by someone verbally insulting us for no good reason. Individuals do owe each other to be nice to each other unless they are trespassing their private property, because that's the only place they can create their own rules.
Depends on the situation of the case, but being screamed at or prevented from going about your day is not merely "being disliked." It becomes an issue of what they are physically doing or threatening you with. These issues are not related. I'm talking about people who literally *do the bullying* because they claim that someone who said something bad about them should have their lives destroyed, fired from their jobs, or literally put in prison. This is happening in the modern world at an alarming rate because people have suddenly come to think that having rights means that everyone else should be killed, caged, or stolen from if they ever feel uncomfortable or unwelcome. Neither are things that anyone is obligated to receive from anyone else.
Doesn't mean we hate you neither. Many folk have difficulty discerning any difference between hate and dislike. 🤷♂️😏
Or indifference.
When I was in college (before victimology was a big deal like now), a black girl wrote an editorial complaining that she was mistreated because of her race. Her example was that someone on the bus grabbed their backpack, swung it onto their back, and it bumped her. She said it was because of her race. I can pretty much guarantee that it was an accident and the person responsible was so self-absorbed, they had no idea she was hit. I wouldn't have thought anything about it. Some people are oblivious. Some people are rude. Some people are both. It doesn't mean they are racists or personally attacking someone. If you want to find a grievance, you can find one, but that doesn't make it real. I am so over the victimology culture. They need to grow up.
I would say that the person who wrote that article is even more self absorbed than the person who accidentally hit them with their backpack. It’s extremely easy to do that entirely by mistake, especially on a cramped bus. The person who went out of their way to judge, paint this innocent person as full of hatred and evil, is a potent level of arrogance and total concern with dragging anyone they can through the mud for their own benefit. That’s exactly what a shitty (and funny enough, racist) person does, they project hatred and guilt onto entire histories, personal judgements, and the meaning of someone’s very existence over tiny interactions or completely arbitrary characteristics of that person. It would be similar to me claiming you abuse your children by your profile picture because of some historical connection to sunflowers and abused children. It’s literally that fucking stupid.
i'm so acutely alert to these things i have a whole repertoire of ways that i move in certain situations of confined spaces and public transport people are so infested with blindness and fixations it's like being awake walking through a crowd full of sleep walkers
GM It's non of your business how others perceive you or your expression, it's always more about them than you. Focus on connecting your mind to your heart & authentically expressing the wisdom that arises from this connection. You have no greater purpose here than that expression. ❤️💚🧡 nostr:nevent1qqsq4qt7ke47ztajqhes6p6t4g4j03a72ylyzcfenvxdw7k3rqhahwcpr9mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumn0wd68ytnrdakjuct49upzpw08v4rt5pj9dmfsrk0990zflfywwznt7g5zheap4eefgasjqg7uqvzqqqqqqy68j63w nostr:nevent1qqsq4qt7ke47ztajqhes6p6t4g4j03a72ylyzcfenvxdw7k3rqhahwcpr9mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumn0wd68ytnrdakjuct49upzpw08v4rt5pj9dmfsrk0990zflfywwznt7g5zheap4eefgasjqg7uqvzqqqqqqy68j63w
What if they are interviewing you for a government job and you can feel their hatred the moment they see you? Cuz I just went through that... Five times.