CLOSED: [2022-08-28 Sun 22:46]
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:CREATED: [2022-08-28 Sun 21:58]
:ID: 2022-08-28-woke
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- State "DONE"       from "NEXT"       [2022-08-28 Sun 22:46]
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This is a delicate topic and most likely, a certain percentage of my
readers will misunderstand my point although I try to explain myself
as good as possible.

I got several negative comments on my article [[id:2022-06-05-mastodon-cw-misuse][Please Don't Misuse
Content Warnings on Mastodon]] because I used the word "snowflakes" when
describing the phenomena that almost everything needs to get a content
warning on Mastodon these days: Before writing about your latest steak
experience in a restaurant, you need to add a content warning for
anybody who freaks out that humans are actually eating dead animals.
Before writing about photovoltaic, you need to add a trigger warning
for ... ah yes, I really don't know why somebody would need a content
warning for that. And I do see lots and lots of examples like that on
Mastodon. You should read the linked article above to learn about my
arguments why adding content warning for almost anything is killing
the great feature of content warning.

Technology can not solve social issues. The same way, I don't think
that language alone is able to solve social issues. If this is true,
we're back at "change the social issue and then the language will
follow" instead of "should we change the language to change the social
issue".

---------------

Now if you do tell me "but Karl, don't you think that this is going to
hurt people?" I will respond with a hypothetical story to explain my
point. I may have had a violent family member or teacher who used to
beat me up when I was a child. And before this person was going to
hurt me, he/she said "Oh, I think this is going to hurt you" with a
grin on his/her face. So without knowing, you may have hurt my
feelings, causing a bad flashback to my violent youth when you used
the phrase "don't you think that this is going to hurt people" above.
And now after I have told you my hypothetical story, I want to know if
you would never ever use that phrase "thinking that this is going to
hurt" again in order to respect heavy personal issues with all people
who might have been hurt as a child by a child molester using that
aggressive phrase before getting beaten up?

I hope that you would answer my question with something like: "No,
this is too far-fetched and if we would act like that, language itself
would turn into a large pitfall.

The main point here is: You give me *any* text you like and I do
find people who are triggered by something you were writing. There
is no end to that process. It always gets deeper and deeper. After
fixing some general things like banning the use of the n-word,
there is a fine line where we should stop trying too much.

As you now know, I don't think that we should continue using the
n-word. Yes, that should be common sense by now for most people. I
don't think that we should disrespect or suppress minorities. I can
only shake my head in disbelief when I read the bullshit of the right
and alt-right movement not only on so-called "Social Media". I'm not
one of those bigots who are "anti-woke" just because they are against
anything that is slightly related to "the left". But I do think that
to some degree, people who are triggered by something (too?) specific
need to deal with the harsh reality themselves. There will never be a
world where everybody lives happily ever after and no bad is
happening. Especially when this trigger was not meant to hurt the
reader on purpose. Some level of life's reality needs to be dealt with
by everybody. And I don't mean this in a harsh way.

The alternative would be horrendous because we'd need to find a common
level of agreement on any word, any phrase, any written text before it
is published somewhere. I don't see that this is possible. Chances are
that somebody always is triggered by something, giving a certain size
of a potential readers population.

In that sense, I hope that you now understand that I don't want to act
as an asshole, trying to insult as many people as possible. I just
want to speak up for a (subjective?) level of sanity. This level can be
discussed and we will have different opinions on that level, yes. So
far, I got the impression that many people who try to be everybody's
darling do not want to accept that there is a limit at all where we
should stop.

Now you have learned about my personal level of sanity. It's OK if you
disagree. But don't assume that I want to hurt people. You would hurt
my feelings. ;-)