For a society obsessed with absolutes, we sure do hate 'em
Incomplete thoughts on a problematic response.

Four days ago, I wrote a piece entitled Actually no, you don’t get to dislike children. A bold claim, I know. But it’s something I feel strongly about — with good reason.
A day later, someone restacked it, calling me “intellectually lazy”…although they admitted in the same post they didn’t read my piece in full.
At the same time as I was experiencing an outpouring of thanks and gratitude in my own comments, the comments under that restack were calling me “grotesquely smug” and suggesting I should “fuck all the way off”.
Yet, despite my strongly worded essay being the hill I will die on, what fascinated me was that the real thing that riled the haters was…the title (I’m guessing they didn’t read much further than that).
You don’t get to tell me how to feel! they screeched.
And honestly? I can’t stop thinking about that particular response.
Because nowhere did these dissenters say “Hey, I disagree and here are my clearly articulated reasons why”. Instead, they burned with a passionate rage at the injustice of being told they were wrong.
In one sense, I get it. Being wrong sucks. Being disagreed with can suck. But I can’t shake the feeling that this total dummy-spit approach is a sign of a more insidious trend: the “I can like what I like” attitude.
On the surface, it sounds like a basic human right, doesn’t it? In fact, it’s a big conversation in the industry I work in — books — because amongst the romance community there are a bunch of, let’s say “acquired tastes” that people enjoy reading about in the spicier novels.
That’s all well and good when it’s between consenting adults. But two weeks ago, a Sydney author was arrested on charges of producing child abuse material. The material in question? Her (hopefully fictional) “romance” book that glorified lust across a very illegal age gap. I read her book blurb. It revolted me in the extreme. The book community was responsible for bringing her to the attention of the police and alls well that ends well, theoretically.
But in a world where “minor attracted persons” is even a phrase that exists…are we surprised? These days, the line between taboo and acceptable is very, very thin. Because “you can’t tell another adult what they can and can’t like!”. But if we can’t deal with being wrong — if we can’t all agree what is morally “wrong” at least most of the time — then we run the risk of blinding ourselves to basic ethics and morality in the name of “progress”.
To me, it’s a symptom of a much larger, much unwieldier problem: the shame movement. While its roots are in a positive place (in large part thanks to Brene Brown et. al.), it now seems we can scream “don’t shame me!!!” at anyone who disagrees with us. Especially when we may be legitimately, categorically in the wrong.
But crying “shame” is not a hall pass to being right.
What we should be saying is sometimes, we can’t like what we like. Because sometimes, it is just wrong. Sometimes it is shameful.
Most of us know this. Most of us know this to our bones. And while the examples in this piece may be an extreme parallel to draw, philosophy demands that if something is true, it must be true in every context. For this reason, the reaction of “how dare you police my feelings!!” makes me uneasy. In any context.1
Once upon a time, we used to say “there’s always someone being wrong on the internet”. My concern is that more and more, the internet has become a place where anyone can be “right”.
To be EXTREMELY clear for the haters who definitely aren’t going to read this: I am not saying the trolls are all sex offenders or going to become ones. I obviously do not believe this. What I am saying is the attitude is problematic because it, by proxy, allows others to make the same argument in far more nefarious contexts.