I think there’s a specific phenomenon that occurs when the consequences of something not-well-understood are so awful that System Justification and Just World Bias immediately kick in really hard and interfere with any actual understanding of the process. So the moment you ask “What if X doesn’t really cause awful consequence Y?” then your whole community reacts with a weird combination of “What if you’re wrong and Y happens to you? That is so unthinkable! Better not risk it!” and “Well why don’t you TRY doing X and find out if you’re so smart? But don’t come crying to us when Y happens to you!”
The obvious gender-related scenario I’m thinking about is rape, but it’s also a large chunk of the premise of Guns, Germs and Steel. It happens to humans! So it would be great to have a name for this thing if it doesn’t have one already.
I think there’s a specific phenomenon that occurs when the consequences of something not-well-understood are so awful that System Justification and Just World Bias immediately kick in really hard and interfere with any actual understanding of the process. So the moment you ask “What if X doesn’t really cause awful consequence Y?” then your whole community reacts with a weird combination of “What if you’re wrong and Y happens to you? That is so unthinkable! Better not risk it!” and “Well why don’t you TRY doing X and find out if you’re so smart? But don’t come crying to us when Y happens to you!”
The obvious gender-related scenario I’m thinking about is rape, but it’s also a large chunk of the premise of Guns, Germs and Steel. It happens to humans! So it would be great to have a name for this thing if it doesn’t have one already.