Having finally read this—here are things I agree with:
there is such a thing as too much attention paid to small harms, and this can trap people in increasingly convoluted rules aimed at preventing harms of a magnitude smaller than the harm caused by the convoluted rules themselves; arguably it’s not even possible to prevent harms that small, and trying to do so is more harmful than just being okay with the notion that sometimes you may inevitably slightly harm someone you care about
this dynamic can break “we”-ness by creating a “fault” rather than “fault analysis” mindset—but not necessarily just by creating an adversarial dynamic—it is just as bad, possibly worse, if the individuals place the fault on themselves. I’ve been in this situation where I want to be able to say “I find this thing that happened slightly unpleasant, and I want to tell you about that because I want you to know about my experiences, and maybe we can think about whether this is easily preventable in the future, but if it isn’t that’s really okay” and this gets taken as “I’m sorry for hurting you I will do better” which is not at all what I was trying to go for and which makes things worse for me
implicit disagreement about burden of proof breaks discourse in predictable ways, and it is better to make this disagreement explicit
different worlds
some of the pro-sensitivity people in the vignettes are unreasonable (most notably Alexis, Elliott, maybe Harley). in Alexis’s case I even agree that the primary reason they are being unreasonable is because the possible harm is too small to matter
it is often a good change for some individuals to try and go about their lives paying less attention to whether they might accidentally make someone uncomfortable. it is a change I in particular have been trying to make, for one.
Disagreements:
The reason Elliott is being unreasonable is primarily not because the effect of Finley taking off their shirt is too small to matter (though that’s part of it), it’s primarily because what the hell, Finley’s body belongs to Finley and not to bystanders, Finley gets to choose what to do with it.
More broadly—this essay suffers from not having a concept of sovereignty, of what is YOURS. Your body is yours, so you should be able to choose whether you wear a shirt or not. -- BUT ALSO, your body is yours, so people shouldn’t punch it unless they have good reason to believe you want them to. -- I just don’t think these situations are really parallel, because to me the sovereignty question is huge. (and I say this as a more-or-less-utilitarian, even; I just think that in general people are happier with more sovereignty over their bodies.) -- Having to make sure you dress in a way that never upsets anybody is a huge burden. Having to make sure you never say something that accidentally makes someone uncomfortable is a huge burden too (though people should take this on to some extent, without going overboard). Having to just not punch people is not actually a huge burden.
The autistic meltdown is not micro what the hell. You mention that it is within the bounds of culturally accepted behavior, but… I don’t see how that’s particularly relevant to your point? You focus on “Kelly’s objection is specifically to the disregard of autonomy, so they presumably would have objected even to a small disregard of autonomy, so this was a small objection” but in fact I do not think this was a small disregard of autonomy at all! You don’t have to believe that five-year-olds should be able to make all choices autonomously to think that it’s not a good idea to drag them into a thing they are incredibly distressed about! And I do think that incredibly distressing experience + being forced into a thing one doesn’t want with no apparent weight put on one’s preferences is a particularly bad combination.
I don’t think I agree with you about the pendulum model being the way things usually go. Or rather, I think that with any new change for the better, some people will overapply it, but I don’t think that’s necessarily the dominant dynamic.
You’re right that the people who most needed any given change are maybe not the best equipped to see when the change has gone too far or hurt someone—but neither are the people who didn’t need the change well equipped to see whether the change has gone far enough to meet its goal. I don’t really know if there are any individuals well positioned to see both—maybe people who are at the intersection of different competing needs, such that they personally have to be sensitive to the tradeoffs involved? But generally I think this needs to be a collaborative effort with input from people with different kinds of experiences—which I think is what you say too, I just think you’re wrong to say that people most helped by the initial change are uniquely unsuited to see when it’s gone far enough.
anyway I guess the gist is that I agree with you that there exists a threshold of magnitude of harm such that harms below that magnitude should be mostly disregarded because trying to account for them creates more harm than it prevents; however, I think I disagree with you pretty strongly about where the threshold should be, and also about what kinds of actions/behavior are and aren’t reasonable to expect in the service of preventing harm.
I… don’t want to for some reason, so I won’t. (Possibly the reason is that I don’t feel like my individual points are really important or distinct enough to merit being numbered? I do sometimes number my points for the specific reason you cite, it just doesn’t feel correct here)
Having finally read this—here are things I agree with:
there is such a thing as too much attention paid to small harms, and this can trap people in increasingly convoluted rules aimed at preventing harms of a magnitude smaller than the harm caused by the convoluted rules themselves; arguably it’s not even possible to prevent harms that small, and trying to do so is more harmful than just being okay with the notion that sometimes you may inevitably slightly harm someone you care about
this dynamic can break “we”-ness by creating a “fault” rather than “fault analysis” mindset—but not necessarily just by creating an adversarial dynamic—it is just as bad, possibly worse, if the individuals place the fault on themselves. I’ve been in this situation where I want to be able to say “I find this thing that happened slightly unpleasant, and I want to tell you about that because I want you to know about my experiences, and maybe we can think about whether this is easily preventable in the future, but if it isn’t that’s really okay” and this gets taken as “I’m sorry for hurting you I will do better” which is not at all what I was trying to go for and which makes things worse for me
implicit disagreement about burden of proof breaks discourse in predictable ways, and it is better to make this disagreement explicit
different worlds
some of the pro-sensitivity people in the vignettes are unreasonable (most notably Alexis, Elliott, maybe Harley). in Alexis’s case I even agree that the primary reason they are being unreasonable is because the possible harm is too small to matter
it is often a good change for some individuals to try and go about their lives paying less attention to whether they might accidentally make someone uncomfortable. it is a change I in particular have been trying to make, for one.
Disagreements:
The reason Elliott is being unreasonable is primarily not because the effect of Finley taking off their shirt is too small to matter (though that’s part of it), it’s primarily because what the hell, Finley’s body belongs to Finley and not to bystanders, Finley gets to choose what to do with it.
More broadly—this essay suffers from not having a concept of sovereignty, of what is YOURS. Your body is yours, so you should be able to choose whether you wear a shirt or not. -- BUT ALSO, your body is yours, so people shouldn’t punch it unless they have good reason to believe you want them to. -- I just don’t think these situations are really parallel, because to me the sovereignty question is huge. (and I say this as a more-or-less-utilitarian, even; I just think that in general people are happier with more sovereignty over their bodies.) -- Having to make sure you dress in a way that never upsets anybody is a huge burden. Having to make sure you never say something that accidentally makes someone uncomfortable is a huge burden too (though people should take this on to some extent, without going overboard). Having to just not punch people is not actually a huge burden.
The autistic meltdown is not micro what the hell. You mention that it is within the bounds of culturally accepted behavior, but… I don’t see how that’s particularly relevant to your point? You focus on “Kelly’s objection is specifically to the disregard of autonomy, so they presumably would have objected even to a small disregard of autonomy, so this was a small objection” but in fact I do not think this was a small disregard of autonomy at all! You don’t have to believe that five-year-olds should be able to make all choices autonomously to think that it’s not a good idea to drag them into a thing they are incredibly distressed about! And I do think that incredibly distressing experience + being forced into a thing one doesn’t want with no apparent weight put on one’s preferences is a particularly bad combination.
I don’t think I agree with you about the pendulum model being the way things usually go. Or rather, I think that with any new change for the better, some people will overapply it, but I don’t think that’s necessarily the dominant dynamic.
You’re right that the people who most needed any given change are maybe not the best equipped to see when the change has gone too far or hurt someone—but neither are the people who didn’t need the change well equipped to see whether the change has gone far enough to meet its goal. I don’t really know if there are any individuals well positioned to see both—maybe people who are at the intersection of different competing needs, such that they personally have to be sensitive to the tradeoffs involved? But generally I think this needs to be a collaborative effort with input from people with different kinds of experiences—which I think is what you say too, I just think you’re wrong to say that people most helped by the initial change are uniquely unsuited to see when it’s gone far enough.
anyway I guess the gist is that I agree with you that there exists a threshold of magnitude of harm such that harms below that magnitude should be mostly disregarded because trying to account for them creates more harm than it prevents; however, I think I disagree with you pretty strongly about where the threshold should be, and also about what kinds of actions/behavior are and aren’t reasonable to expect in the service of preventing harm.
I agree with almost all of this, disagree with a couple of minor things, have some other comments, and overall think this is a good comment.
But—could you make your bulleted list into a numbered list? This will make it a lot easier to respond to individual points!
I… don’t want to for some reason, so I won’t. (Possibly the reason is that I don’t feel like my individual points are really important or distinct enough to merit being numbered? I do sometimes number my points for the specific reason you cite, it just doesn’t feel correct here)