There are commenters who note that the use of “ey” and other gender neutral pronouns hurts their head. You may understand this and still use “ey” as part of a larger attempt to accustom people to language that is ultimately more convenient, even if it’s worse in the short run. Which is a perfect example of what I was going to say:
When you do your harm minimization calculation, you really need to include the entire path over time, and not just the snapshot. It is often true that hurting people today makes them stronger in the future, resulting in a better outcome. It could be, for instance, that gay marriage today offends more people more deeply than it benefits, but that by pushing for its spread, many of the formerly offended people end up desensitized to it (see also any number of past civil rights issues). Or, if by showing the Brits enough pictures of salmon we could actually desensitize them to the pain, in the long run we may all be better off.
A big difference between the salmon and mohammed example is that you built into the first that Brits can’t adapt to the pain. But some people may be imagining a future, better world where everyone has free speech and nobody has a problem with it. And they imagine that the way to get there is by exercising that freedom now, even if it’s bad in the short run.
Personally, my feeling is that retaining offendability on some topics can easily confer benefits, but I am sympathetic to people who have not realized this, and I can understand why they would feel some compunction to wave their free speech rights in the faces of others, without necessarily being “bad” people.
There are commenters who note that the use of “ey” and other gender neutral pronouns hurts their head. You may understand this and still use “ey” as part of a larger attempt to accustom people to language that is ultimately more convenient, even if it’s worse in the short run. Which is a perfect example of what I was going to say:
When you do your harm minimization calculation, you really need to include the entire path over time, and not just the snapshot. It is often true that hurting people today makes them stronger in the future, resulting in a better outcome. It could be, for instance, that gay marriage today offends more people more deeply than it benefits, but that by pushing for its spread, many of the formerly offended people end up desensitized to it (see also any number of past civil rights issues). Or, if by showing the Brits enough pictures of salmon we could actually desensitize them to the pain, in the long run we may all be better off.
A big difference between the salmon and mohammed example is that you built into the first that Brits can’t adapt to the pain. But some people may be imagining a future, better world where everyone has free speech and nobody has a problem with it. And they imagine that the way to get there is by exercising that freedom now, even if it’s bad in the short run.
Personally, my feeling is that retaining offendability on some topics can easily confer benefits, but I am sympathetic to people who have not realized this, and I can understand why they would feel some compunction to wave their free speech rights in the faces of others, without necessarily being “bad” people.