The Culture of Critique

A huge chunk of the problem with getting any proper conversation out of anything is that there are people who conflate very real, social critiques (like racism and sexism) with the sentiment "you are ontologically evil therefore you, and everyone who associates with you and your work should be forever tormented".

From there two problems occur:

1. People disguise their hatred and sadism and harassment using the language of social progress.
2. People who hear genuine critique become incredibly defensive or dismissive of it.

Like.

Conceptualizing prejudice as beliefs (and then viewing beliefs as immutable worldviews) is such a misrepresentation of what it actually is: patterns of harm thoughtlessly replicated.

These things are pointed out because recognizing that they exist IS the way to break it - turning thoughtless action into more intentional and meaningful ones.

But we can't progress to that until we scrub out the ideas of thought crimes and thought heroics and ontological moral values out of our collective asses.