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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 17, 2023

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I feel like there is a "Central and non-central example" going on here.

Everyone agrees that the central example of Bullying is unequivocally bad, only that is relatively uncommon; negative social interactions among kids and teenagers aren't rare though. A lot of people are trying to claim bullying, for varying reasons. They might have had poor social experiences but that doesn't mean they were Bullied or even that they were (only) the victim.

Then there are the actual policies, do they help or are they making things worse and only providing an illusion of action and acting as a cover for not taking responsibility for the really horrible events by hiding behind policy?

The same dynamic extends to a lot of issues:

  • Parental abuse

  • Rape

  • Racism

  • Sexism

  • Etc. More or less anything with a claimed victim/abuser dynamic

A genuine but relatively uncommon issue exists and people immediately try to claim victimhood to gain sympathy or rationalize their own inadequacies (often to themselves)/bad experiences. Most claimed instances are so ambiguous that it's impossible to tell who's the victim and who's the abuser, or even if the event took place at all.

Sweeping policy is implemented but is so ineffective as to be possibly be counterproductive in regards to its stated purpose and has a lot of negative unintended side effects, which end up being the primary effect of the policy. Often with stated lofty goals just like the one in your final paragraph.

The cure is so bad that disease not only becomes harmless in comparison but even actively good in the minds of some people.