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What is universalization?
Simply put, it's the assumption that everyone else has had the exact same experiences as you, and that what works for you will also work for everyone else.
The far-too-prevalent belief that because Joe Blow worked hard and pulled himself up by his bootstraps is one example of this. Another example is a woman thinking another woman is faking how horrible her periods are because she doesn't spend two days doubled over in pain from cramps. It's an extremely common thing to do.
Why is this bad?
It isn't true. No one else, not even a hypothetical twin sibling, has the exact same experience. A sibling may have the most similar experience, at least for 18 years or so, but they won't react to everything the same way.
The bootstraps myth, for example, doesn't include things like Joe Blow's luck in being raised in a city with good schools, or getting scholarships for college, or being (usually) a white male. If he were Jamal Blow, assuming they both started out life poor, Jamal would be more likely to be shunted to poor schools in crime-ridden neighborhoods and have to deal with the effects of racism, like his teachers assuming he'll never make anything of himself.
(The bootstraps myth is also a lie; class mobility in the US is at an all-time low, and income inequality has been increasing for decades.)
Telling your friend who's struggling with chronic depression that one time you were sad but you thought positively and got over it actively harms that friend.
Telling your friend who has a chronic illness or disabilities that if they don't cook food from scratch every night they're a failure actively harms that friend. Even if you don't say it in so many words, praising to high heaven people who have said those words endorses those sentiments, and it hurts your friend.
When you universalize your experience, people can feel like you're judging them for not being perfect by your standards.
But I don't mean it that way! I'm just sharing with them.
Think about how you're doing it, then. If you're talking about this new recipe you tried, and how good it was, that's probably cool. Or if you're talking about how you think it'd be cool to have chickens or something, that's probably cool.
But if you're blithely, naïvely assuming that because you can/want to do X, everyone else can/wants to also X, and don't understand why people are disagreeing with you/a link you posted, there might be a problem. They might have a good point about why they personally can't X, or how shaming people who don't X, is a bad thing.
Future installments in the privilege and slow food series: classism, ableism, and explaining that pointing out that there are some seriously judgmental shaming assholes in your movement doesn't mean (like these fools assume) that the person pointing it out thinks large-scale, factory farming is good.
(A guy wrote his master's thesis in 2005 on the exclusionary rhetoric of the slow food movement. This isn't a new problem.)
Simply put, it's the assumption that everyone else has had the exact same experiences as you, and that what works for you will also work for everyone else.
The far-too-prevalent belief that because Joe Blow worked hard and pulled himself up by his bootstraps is one example of this. Another example is a woman thinking another woman is faking how horrible her periods are because she doesn't spend two days doubled over in pain from cramps. It's an extremely common thing to do.
Why is this bad?
It isn't true. No one else, not even a hypothetical twin sibling, has the exact same experience. A sibling may have the most similar experience, at least for 18 years or so, but they won't react to everything the same way.
The bootstraps myth, for example, doesn't include things like Joe Blow's luck in being raised in a city with good schools, or getting scholarships for college, or being (usually) a white male. If he were Jamal Blow, assuming they both started out life poor, Jamal would be more likely to be shunted to poor schools in crime-ridden neighborhoods and have to deal with the effects of racism, like his teachers assuming he'll never make anything of himself.
(The bootstraps myth is also a lie; class mobility in the US is at an all-time low, and income inequality has been increasing for decades.)
Telling your friend who's struggling with chronic depression that one time you were sad but you thought positively and got over it actively harms that friend.
Telling your friend who has a chronic illness or disabilities that if they don't cook food from scratch every night they're a failure actively harms that friend. Even if you don't say it in so many words, praising to high heaven people who have said those words endorses those sentiments, and it hurts your friend.
When you universalize your experience, people can feel like you're judging them for not being perfect by your standards.
But I don't mean it that way! I'm just sharing with them.
Think about how you're doing it, then. If you're talking about this new recipe you tried, and how good it was, that's probably cool. Or if you're talking about how you think it'd be cool to have chickens or something, that's probably cool.
But if you're blithely, naïvely assuming that because you can/want to do X, everyone else can/wants to also X, and don't understand why people are disagreeing with you/a link you posted, there might be a problem. They might have a good point about why they personally can't X, or how shaming people who don't X, is a bad thing.
Future installments in the privilege and slow food series: classism, ableism, and explaining that pointing out that there are some seriously judgmental shaming assholes in your movement doesn't mean (like these fools assume) that the person pointing it out thinks large-scale, factory farming is good.
(A guy wrote his master's thesis in 2005 on the exclusionary rhetoric of the slow food movement. This isn't a new problem.)
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no subject
Date: 2012-08-26 04:08 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2012-08-26 06:27 pm (UTC)From:I should really get the rest of these written...
no subject
Date: 2012-06-26 04:36 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2012-06-26 04:59 pm (UTC)From:If you've had a similar experience, you may be able to help by saying something as simple as "I understand what you're going through."
You may already be aware of not giving unsolicited advice. A lot of the time, people simply want to have their problems validated, like "I'm sorry that happened," or "that sucks, they shouldn't have done that to you." Since he's your best friend, he probably already knows, but a little reminder like "let me know if I can do anything" can help.
The four most powerful words in the English language are "you are not alone."
(My point in the post was more that comparing being bummed over something to actualfax depression trivializes depression than that you shouldn't try.)
no subject
Date: 2012-06-26 05:07 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2012-06-27 04:42 pm (UTC)From:How did it go?
no subject
Date: 2012-06-27 04:50 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2012-06-27 01:05 am (UTC)From:--
Man on Poles :"I can't tell you."
Arthur: "Why not? I've come all this way."
Man on Poles:"You cannot see what I see because you see what you see. You cannot
know what I know because you know what you know. What I see and what I
know cannot be added to what you see and what you know because they are
not of the same kind. Neither can it replace what you see and what you
know, because that would be to replace you yourself"
--
For instance, to pick something that's recently come to my attention (and should have a long time ago), I'm one of the few people whose left eye is higher than their right on their face. We're not common. Most of the time it's something that is so far in the background of most people's experience that they don't think about it, but it probably has contributed greatly to the social awkwardness I feel, and (I think) accounts for the relative scarcity of faces I like. Someone suggested oxytocin, but I feel compelled to point out to them that no amount of oxytocin is going to change the geometry of someone else's face.
no subject
Date: 2012-06-27 01:09 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2012-06-27 04:47 pm (UTC)From: