Glenn Reynolds linked a very thoughtful post by Sean Kinsell, and the thoughtless comments Sean is getting do not endear me to the people making them. Anyway, I’m too tired to get into the details, but in a minor aside to a post, Sean attempted to explain why local Japanese might be uncomfortable about a nearby U.S. army base. That drew angry comments taking Sean to task for supposedly denigrating the military, with one actually suggesting that Sean charged the military with being likely to commit “atrocities” when he said no such thing. But because of such comments, Sean’s single sentence ended up requiring a long explanation which no one who is familiar with Sean would have considered necessary.
I left this comment:
Sean was not denigrating the military. I read his blog daily and he does not deserve the criticism he was getting here. I spent enough time in Japan to realize that there are huge cultural differences. They have virtually no crime by our standards, and see Americans as inherently more criminal-minded by their standards. Sean is simply commenting on a reality (of Japanese perception), and I didn’t see him as judging anyone.
The problem of being misunderstood is a good argument against blogging. I can’t tell you how many posts I have failed to write because of it.
In fact, were Sean not my friend, I wouldn’t have written this one at all.
MORE: I’d like to hope that there is no such a thing as “political correctness” on the right, but some of the comments to Sean’s post make me wonder.
Comments
2 responses to “Can’t say anything anymore”
Yes, I just also felt the need to post a comment there, and I didn’t get into it, but I do get the sense that there is something like PC on the right. To oversimplify, I’d say the left doesn’t want to admit that what the military does is necessary, but the right doesn’t want to admit that it is frequently dehumanizing and brutal. I thought it was very odd that some of the commenters focused on Sean’s talk about violent impulses being brought to the surface. What exactly do those commenters think soldiers do?
I’d like to hope that there is no such a thing as “political correctness” on the right, but some of the comments to Sean’s post make me wonder.
People are people.
It doesn’t matter what, people will misunderstand what you say to get angry.
Other people will get mad because you’re goring their bull and they need to stop you.
I always wonder if it would be better or worse if we really understood each other.
Gilligan’s Island probably had it right in the mind-reading episode. They soon came to hate each other.