Comment by zozbot234
6 years ago
"White fragility" is a kafkatrap: you can't object to "white fragility" as a concept without that being taken as a demonstration of "white fragility". There are sensible reasons to object to the "notion of (such) a concept merely existing" if you care about the standards of intellectual argument - as most people familiar with SSC would.
My point was not necessarily that white fragility exists, but that the mere suggestion of it existing provokes hostility. Thanks for proving said point.
The parent is clearly not being "hostile". At least I don't know of any definition of the word that includes calmly pointing out bad faith argumentation.
It is possible - in text, probable - to present a hostile front in a civil manner. What is objectionable about hostility is the bald-faced rejection of a premise. To accuse someone of not "caring about the standards of intellectual argument" based on the utterance of a single phrase is hostile.
This is not a matter of reasoned skepticism, it's knee-jerk ego defense; the above poster recognizes white fragility as a probable truth that traps him in a state of cognitive dissonance, and it makes him so uncomfortable that he has no choice but to respond. However, the response that truly rejects my initial premise would have been no response at all; the fact that he responded lends credence to that premise because its core holding was that it would elicit a response.
9 replies →