I feel like previous generations had a "callout bullshit" culture. They had a sensitivity to being fooled. And when someone tried to fool them, they'd say, "get that bullshit out of here. you can't fool me." It's not so much that there was more of an attitude of skepticism. I'm not sure if people were more or less skeptical than they are today if you control for what kinds of things to expect them not to be skeptical toward. But there was an attitude that conveying skepticism was okay.
We've replaced "callout bullshit" culture with "callout traitors" culture. So long as a claim is oriented in the right trajectory, say pro-LGBT, it is to be accepted. If someone from the former "callout bullshit" generation says, "that pro-LGBT statement is nonsense", it gets trumped by the current generation's calling out the treachery.
I remember seeing a bunch of memes floating around that said the life expectancy of a trans woman of color is 35 years. To me, that's didn't only seem wrong but it reeked of utter bullshit. I did some digging and found out... yeah, I was right and it's totally wrong.
A good rule is that when a claim strikes you as "hard to believe", don't believe it without exerting some skepticism. This is one example, but the rule is all over my friends and family feeds.
This kind of lie stirs up a lot of fear, anxiety, depression, and hate. It's important to understand there's a psychological price to the spread of this kind of misinformation. Nonetheless, it serves a certain narrative. If you undermine the narrative by pointing out a lie in it, it's like you're some kind of narc. And the sad thing is one can completely buy the narrative and just not like the lies being used to justify it. No matter how noble a cause may be, it is possible to overserve it.
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| “Trans women of America have a life expectancy of 35 years. That is not acceptable.” -Patricia Arquette |
(No links post last month because blogger hates me and links are not working. I'm still figuring out what to do about that)
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