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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   34303 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 15, 2025

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No, "microaggression" does actually have a meaning. It's supposed to mean those little things a privileged person does or (more often) says to marginalized people that add to their marginalization. It doesn't apply here; suggesting that e.g. black people were desperately trying to avoid responsibility for the Dylan Roof shooting would not be a microaggression.

The best illustration of a microagression I know of was in a Garfield comic, in which a television host asked his two-headed guest whether he had ever heard the expression "Two heads are better than one", to which the guest responded "Ever hear it eight gazillion times a day!?".

Man, this is also the best illustration of my take on the term - that it's just named wrong. It's close; it's very very close to being named correctly, but they just barely missed. What they mean is "microaggravator". An aggravator is something that is aggravating; it's unpleasant or irritating, particularly via the mechanism of happening over and over again. The micro bit is that it's, objectively, a small thing that is irritating, like the tag on your shirt being irritating.

Whereas to call it an "aggression" is just completely unsupportable. No one is committing a forceful attack, being hostile, etc., when they're too dumb to make a unique joke and say the stupid obvious thing for the gazillionth time. Not even a micro one.

I actually think it would be an affirmatively good thing if people talked about "microaggravators". It captures exactly the phenomenon that they claim to be pointing out, that sometimes people can find some things mildly irritating that you might not have realized, possibly due to different cultures or whatever. That seems perfectly fine. It's the bullshit move of trying to turn it into an aggression, a mini act of violence, alongside page after page of other nonsensical claims about what violence is, that, well, aggravates me. If "microaggression" is what they say it is, then using it that way is a microaggression against me, and they're literally committing a little act of violence against me every time they use that term that way. But really, it's just irritating to me; it's a microaggravator.

I disagree with the other commenters, microaggravation is a much better word for it. But I find that when it comes to newly invented political words, ones that are more inflammatory than accurate tend to rise to the top; such is the nature of the toxoplasma of rage.

You're trying to work out the definition based on the etymology. Words generally don't work that way, and especially so for ideologically invented terms like "microaggression." The function of the word "aggression" in there isn't to describe what happened, it's to provide negative affect for anyone listening to the term.

The defining portion of a microaggression is that the microaggressor genuinely has no idea that he's doing anything aggravating to the microaggressed-upon. Their failure to model the other person well enough to recognize that what they said would be aggravating to them is enough to describe as an act of (micro) aggression. Implicit in this is the belief that all of society ought to restructure itself so that people who have been deemed "oppressed" doesn't suffer any sort of annoyance from others that they judge as "oppressive," without limit. This kind of pattern might appear familiar, because it's one of the guiding principles of modern progressive identity politics that you've probably seen play out all over the place.

You're trying to work out the definition based on the etymology. Words generally don't work that way, and especially so for ideologically invented terms like "microaggression." The function of the word "aggression" in there isn't to describe what happened, it's to provide negative affect for anyone listening to the term.

This is what I'm explicitly against, ideology-based redefinitions that are clear perversions of the words, themselves, generally for the purpose of leveraging positive/negative affect for ideological purposes. War is Peace and all. No, sorry. We already have definitions.

The defining portion of a microaggression is that the microaggressor genuinely has no idea that he's doing anything aggravating to the microaggressed-upon. Their failure to model the other person well enough to recognize that what they said would be aggravating to them is enough to describe as an act of (micro) aggression.

I'm sure they genuinely have no idea that by doing this redefinition, they're microaggravating me. But if their definition holds, then again, they are committing a little act of violence against me every time they use the term that way.

This is what I'm explicitly against, ideology-based redefinitions that are clear perversions of the words, themselves, generally for the purpose of leveraging positive/negative affect for ideological purposes. War is Peace and all. No, sorry. We already have definitions.

Fair enough, but terms mean things based on how they're used, and the progressive identity politics crowd have done a pretty good job using this term (since they're generally the only ones who want to use it anyway). These people own the humanities and the media, so it'll be hard to keep them from redefining words as they see fit.

My personal attitude is that a rose by any other name smells just as sweet. Let's call it a microaggression and also acknowledge that microaggressions can be aggravating, they can be totally awesome and positive, they can be neutral, and anything in between, depending on the details. Just like how a White Supremacist can be a black egalitarian in treating individuals as individuals rather than representatives of their race, which means that white supremacists can be awesome people that we want more of in this society, depending on the details.

I'm sure they genuinely have no idea that by doing this redefinition, they're microaggravating me. But if their definition holds, then again, they are committing a little act of violence against me every time they use the term that way.

Absolutely. What did you think decolonization social justice meant? Vibes? Papers? Essays? No, it's righteous violence to take away the chains that people we've judged as the oppressors are using to oppress the people we've judged as the oppressed. See, they've already depicted themselves as the Chad and you as the soyjack judged that they're fighting for Justice and that the people they like really are The Oppressed, which means that your complaints about them microaggressing upon you don't count.

It's impressive what you can accomplish when logic, rationality, and reason are deemed as oppressive tools of white supremacy that should be discarded used selectively as needed to achieve the desired outcome.

Fair enough, but terms mean things based on how they're used, and the progressive identity politics crowd have done a pretty good job using this term (since they're generally the only ones who want to use it anyway). These people own the humanities and the media, so it'll be hard to keep them from redefining words as they see fit.

I can simply regularly point out that War is Not Peace, that There Are Four Lights. Maybe people will not listen to me. I'm just some guy on an Internet Forum. But as for me and my comments, we'll just point out what is true and not worry too much about what bad things nebulous people may or may not continue to do (if I don't do what... start shooting people? I'm not going to stop them). Yes, people will still do bad things. No, I will not call those bad things good things. Sure, they might persist in recruiting others to do bad things. What did you think the gospel of Christ meant? Vibes? Papers? Essays? Righteous violence against political opponents? That we're going to magically stop people from doing bad things by writing comments in an Internet Forum? Mostly, we try to hold on to some measure of truth, observe that the wickedness of man becomes great in the Earth, and hope to not have to suffer too terribly in the intervening time.

I think microaggravators and microaggressions are distinct, and separately meaningful concepts; oftentimes the former is mistaken for the latter, but equally, the latter has every incentive to disguise itself as the former. A microaggression properly understood is a deliberately microaggravating comment, knowingly pitched by the offending party as a subtle enough thing that it has inherent plausible deniability and affords them the ability to deny any ill intent while still getting the satisfaction of making the receiving party momentarily uncomfortable. This is clearly a thing people do, separate from the phenomenon of irritating people through genuine thoughtlessness.

I find that there is more incentive for people to disguise the former as the latter, as evidenced by the vast majority of the examples that people give for the latter are clearly just disguised versions of the former.

FWIW, Wikipedia explicitly disagrees with you, calling out in the very first sentence that it can be "intentional or unintentional".

EDIT: Some quotes from that Wiki article:

In contrast to aggression, in which there is usually an intent to cause harm, persons making microagressive comments may be otherwise well-intentioned and unaware of the potential impact of their words.

They are thought to spring from unconsciously held prejudices and beliefs which may be demonstrated consciously or unconsciously through daily interactions.

Because microaggressions are subtle and perpetrators may be unaware of the harm they cause...

I think that depends on how you define "intentionally". Certainly some activists emphasize the "unconscious" angle, but as your second quote block shows, the idea is still that the microaggression is stemming from genuinely-if-perhaps-subconsciously-held prejudices. I don't think a genuinely coincidentally aggravating turn of phrase would properly count as a microaggression even by the more expansive definition Wikipedia puts forward, although, of course, this is a hard thing to prove, perhaps by design.

I think that depends on how you define "intentionally".

I mean, please try? Sketch out some plausible definitions that reconcile your presented distinction and what is in the Wiki article.

the idea is still that the microaggression is stemming from genuinely-if-perhaps-subconsciously-held prejudices

Possibly so. That's a far cry from your distinction that:

A microaggression properly understood is a deliberately microaggravating comment, knowingly pitched by the offending party as a subtle enough thing that it has inherent plausible deniability and affords them the ability to deny any ill intent while still getting the satisfaction of making the receiving party momentarily uncomfortable. [emphasis in original]

You call out both deliberate and knowing as primary parts of your definition. You possibly even require specific intent behind the statement (plausible deniability and satisfaction from the receiving party's discomfort).

I don't think a genuinely coincidentally aggravating turn of phrase would properly count as a microaggression even by the more expansive definition Wikipedia puts forward, although, of course, this is a hard thing to prove, perhaps by design.

I think this is pretty obviously not true in the case of the Wiki definition. I think you either need to just say that Wikipedia (and most purveyors of the term) are just wrong on this... that many of the things that they think are in the category of "microaggression" should be properly understood to be in the category of "microaggravator" (namely, the ones that lack at least some of your qualifiers of deliberate, knowing, intent of plausible deniability, and/or satisfaction from the receiving party's discomfort)... or you need to do some actual work to reconcile things.

A microaggression properly understood is a deliberately microaggravating comment, knowingly pitched by the offending party as a subtle enough thing that it has inherent plausible deniability and affords them the ability to deny any ill intent while still getting the satisfaction of making the receiving party momentarily uncomfortable.

No, this is a misunderstanding of what microaggression means. A microagression, by definition, requires no intent or deliberation on the part of the aggressor. The fact that it's made with good faith effort to be decent or positive is the defining factor that makes something a microaggression. An act similar to a microaggression, but made deliberately with intent to have plausible deniability is generally called "being passive-aggressive" and has been considered rude generally long before the concept of microaggressions were invented.

The key thing about "microaggressions" is that they're entirely dependent on the mind state of the person who believes they've been micro aggressed upon, and, as such, provides unlimited leeway by which people who have been labeled "oppressed" can accuse anyone else of being oppressive via microaggression.

This is why, eg a classic example of a microaggression is a woman grabbing her purse more tightly when a black man walks into the subway car, which is a microaggression regardless of if she noticed that he had entered, noticed he was black, or if she was holding her purse closer for independent reasons. If the man perceived that action as being an act of stereotyping him as a potential mugger based on his race, then the woman has certainly committed a microagression on him.

It doesn't apply here

Sure it does, if you consider the Right marginalized and the Left privileged. Sure, "enemy's tools, enemy's house" and all that but one side being completely and knowingly self-serving in the implementation of that concept does not reality deny.

The issue isn't the oppression calculus, it's the micro in microagression. A microagression, by definition, is a behavior that, to a neutral and fair observer, looks indistinguishable from an entirely innocuous, possibly even positive, action towards someone, which is judged only and purely by the person receiving the action as being bigoted in some way. If it were actually identifiable by an unbiased party as being an act of aggression, it would just be aggression, not a microaggression.

Misleadingly misattributing the murderer's political ideology to one's political enemies is something that people would tend to recognize as an aggression, which disqualifies it from being a microaggression.

Yes. Kimmel's words were not a "micro" aggression, they were a full-on macro-aggression, legally, if someone said to your face they would be "fighting words" under classic constitutional doctrine. Imagine your friend had just been murdered, and one person asks you how you are doing but you don't want to talk about it so you say, "Great" and then change the subject and talk about an addition to your house, and then another person says in front of everyone there, "look at this guy, he's not grieving like he lost a friend, he's grieving like a four-year old who lost a goldfish." You would want to punch that guy straight in the face, and legally, the guy who said that would been committing incitement to a breach of the peace.

Are "fighting words" even still a thing? Or does that only apply when protected classes allege the victims of their mob violence used a gamer word?

It's the vestigial stub of dueling culture that used to exist in the United States. Legally consensual murder being made illegal brought up the concern that mouthy shits would push the line anyway, so intentionally aggravating bastards is considered to be a mitigating circumstance for a crime of passion.

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