This windmill fight against blaming the victims seems to go out of hand.
I agree that sometimes we have to take care not to blame the victim, but let’s just not fall to the other extreme.
The topic where this comes up the most often is rape, so let’s take an example about rape:
When a woman is raped and the reaction of someone is that she deserved it, why didn’t she take better care, or that it could only have happened if she also wanted it… now that’s a clear case of blaming the victim, and we should fight against it.
On the other hand, when someone honestly gives an advice about how to reduce the risks of being raped, for example, avoiding a notoriously bad area of town during the night when alone, or that in an area there is a “secret” dress code how prostitutes show potential customers who they are and we should tell young women not to accidentally dress like that… now when people are offended and try to censor this information by claiming that it’s blaming the victims, it starts to get ridiculous.
What? How is it a violation of ‘cultural norms’ to say that smoking or other factors contribute to cancer?
This windmill fight against blaming the victims seems to go out of hand. I agree that sometimes we have to take care not to blame the victim, but let’s just not fall to the other extreme.
The topic where this comes up the most often is rape, so let’s take an example about rape:
When a woman is raped and the reaction of someone is that she deserved it, why didn’t she take better care, or that it could only have happened if she also wanted it… now that’s a clear case of blaming the victim, and we should fight against it.
On the other hand, when someone honestly gives an advice about how to reduce the risks of being raped, for example, avoiding a notoriously bad area of town during the night when alone, or that in an area there is a “secret” dress code how prostitutes show potential customers who they are and we should tell young women not to accidentally dress like that… now when people are offended and try to censor this information by claiming that it’s blaming the victims, it starts to get ridiculous.
I think his point is that the people who smoke get blamed instead of the companies who produce tabacco getting blamed.
As they rightly should.