Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion The Atlantic takes on post-secondary PC/coddling

I now live in WASP world - where I have found it very striking that my in-laws and my neighbors never say anything directly... everything is passive-aggressive. Example - book club with my neighbors, one other woman there is also from inner-city, working-poor background, the rest all upper-middle class WASPS. Fellow inner-city woman announces that she "hated the book we read that month" about which we had gathered to discuss. This did not concern me at all. It is after all a book club. The others talked about this for weeks, maybe months after... they were absolutely shocked and appalled that 'she would say such strong direct words with no regard for the others in the club who liked it or the person who chose it!' They found it very offensive and there was much discussion for how she could have phrased her opinion in a more palatable manner. I was quite perplexed.

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Hopefully extreme emotions of anger and hostility are not cultured within a person for such everyday disappointments as grocery store check out lane inconvenience or side dish of vegetables, as alluded to in this post.



The article makes reference to "common cognitive errors" and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), which may be useful for any individual to engage in meta-cognition or thinking about what one thinks, and why.



* The words "extreme emotion, anger, hostility" sourced from online definition of hate.

Women should be supportive and forgiving.

She goofed.

That statement itself is promoting an unhealthy stereotype - you should have put a 'trigger warning' at the top of your post. LOL

Some might, alternatively, suggest that a habit of AVOIDING such terms, even when accurate, merely leads to a more passive-aggressive culture. This kind of thing then becomes a metaphorical game of "chicken" with emotional regulation and verbal acuity with euphemism governing the winners, because the underlying hostility is certainly not kept in check. It's my own hypothesis that such passive-aggressive games which tamp down negative feelings and leave them few/no outlets probably play some role in explosive acts of violence (such as school or workplace shootings).

Such cultural norms result in hidden and covert violence and barriers which then become more difficult to confront effectively-- they don't go away because of papering them with "nice." However, if one complains of being the victim of such antics, one is labeled as "difficult" or "antagonistic" or even "inappropriate."

It's just more dishonest. The best example of this is the patronizing elements of racist culture in the early 20th century "Jim Crow" laws-- separate wasn't equal, and everyone knew it, but saying so was "rude" or "offensive." Because apparently if one was African American, it was more "appropriate" to be pleased to have racially designated drinking fountains, schools, entrances, etc. smirk Complaining was seen as "offensive." Offensive to those who maintained the status quo, to be sure.

It is also what lay under misogynistic cultural norms of "protecting" women from the harsher realities of life-- like literacy, current events, politics/governance, ownership of property, equal pay, workforce participation, engaging in male-dominated activities.... that kind of thing.

This. Of course, one can go too far in the other direction, but I'd never consider "I hated this book" to be too far. "I hated this book and anyone who likes it is an idiot"--that is too far.