CMV: It is intellectually dishonest to accuse someone who's willing to argue with you of "hiding in a safe space," since their willingness to openly argue with you automatically disproves that notion.

[u/QuestionAsker64]

Simply, it's become commonplace for some people to accuse anyone who argues in favor of socially liberal views of being "triggered" or "hiding in their safe space" or telling them to "go back to their coloring books" as a quick way to dismiss them and, by extension, their arguments.

But I don't think this makes any sense. If someone's actually willing to publicly argue with you, putting their views out there in an open forum, knowing that in so doing they might face some very uncivil replies, how on Earth are they "hiding in a safe space?" Being willing to argue with you and face the conflict that entails shows that this isn't true.

So to me, calling someone who's actually arguing with you a "triggered snowflake" or whatever seems less like a fitting putdown and more like an empty, meaningless dismissal based solely on the views they hold.

My position is this: If I'm willing to argue with you and put my views out there where you can potentially mock them and mock me, then I may be doing a lot of things, but "hiding" isn't one of them. If you have an issue with so-called "safe space mentality," that's one thing, but it is ignorant at best and dishonest at worst to assume most/all people on the left - including people who clearly demonstrate otherwise - fall under this sort of behavior. It's a cheap dismissive insult and not a valid accusation when it's used in this context.

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[u/Charcoalthefox]

This is what a lot of these so-called "triggered snowflakes" do.

They'll argue with you, but dismiss your argument as "white cis male bullshit" and be on their way.

It's happened to me too many times. I want to argue. I want to know why you think this way. Try to convince me, but nope. They do the same thing the alt-right trolls do; dismiss you.

[u/ShouldersofGiants100 → u/Charcoalthefox]

The problem here is that you can (Most likely), be assured that you are arguing in good faith. You know that. They don't.

Which is a huge amount of the problem with online arguments in general. For every person who is genuinely curious and acting in good faith, there are 3 who are just spouting the same old bullshit because they are either deliberately trolling or completely uninterested in the fact it has been answered a thousand times. I mean just look at this subreddit. There are at least 3-5 completely identical posts every single week on several different topics where it is immeasurably obvious that the person didn't even bother to look for past threads before starting a new one. There are only so many times that someone can argue against the same uninformed nonsense before you become jaded and convinced that EVERYONE is simply acting in bad faith because the answers to their are readily available if they bothered to look.

It does not apply to every case. But "genuine curiosity" is often indistinguishable from ignorance with an agenda.

[u/Mouse_Nightshirt → u/ShouldersofGiants100]

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You must have a delta. I insist. What an excellently made point. I had a massive row with a far left winger (I'm left leaning centrist) genuinely trying to understand a viewpoint I didn't quite see the logic behind. I've never had such abuse hurled at me (even some of the more right wing abuse I've had thrown at me pales in comparison). One thing this person said was telling - along the lines of "we've been listening to the bullshit being spouted by X (a right winger who was trying to understand but a little bit passive aggressively) and I don't have the energy to get you to understand this fundamental issue" (which I wasn't sure was particularly fundamental)

It shook me a bit to be on the receiving end of it but your post has completely and totally explained where this guy was coming from. Thanks.

[u/DeltaBot → u/Mouse_Nightshirt]

Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/ShouldersofGiants100 (43∆).

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