Good question. I'll think about it.
First thought is just
'If I see it, I'll know it'. Present me with a problem and I can tell you if it's a real problem or not. In my opinion it would be fairly self-evident.
That leads to my second thought of
'Well, it's not self evident to everyone, is it? Some people think it's a real problem'.
Which leads to my third thought of '
The problem can be subject to a 'reasonable/almost any person'' check'. In the first article it talks about the concept of 'trauma' and how conceptual change affected it. It used to be that for an experience to be considered 'traumatic' it would only be traumatic if '
almost everyone' would agree that it was indeed a traumatic experience. Another way to look at it; many countries have the concept of a 'reasonable person' embedded in their legal system (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_person). If any 'reasonable person' would consider x to be x, then x is x. If any reasonable person considers microaggressions to be a bullshit problem, then microaggressions are a bullshit problem.
Which leads to my fourth thought '
Shit, what if a 'reasonable person' isn't actually reasonable anymore'. Pretty much nothing is safe from concept change (except maybe hard, concrete realities). What if almost everyone gets sold on the idea of microaggressions being valid (microaggressions are now 'reasonable'). What if everyone decides it's a reasonable thing to no longer clap (it's 'anxiety-inducing' for some), and everyone starts jazz-handing instead. What if that becomes the new norm?
Which leads to my final thought (for now) of '
No, that's ridiculous, people won't just accept bullshit because SJWs tell them they should'. So, I guess I stand by my 3rd thought. We can distinguish actual modern problems from pathologized problems through an 'almost everyone/any reasonable person' check. For the purposes of that check, anyone with super-strong leanings, one way or the other (SJWs or Nazis), can be safely ignored. That said, I'm not saying the SJW camp can't ever identify a problem that 'almost anyone' would agree is a problem - I'm sure they could (and probably have). I'm saying that everybody else (reasonable people) would have to agree with them in order for the problem they raise to be recognised as a legit problem.
Last edited by Ele; Feb 10, 2020 at 08:13 PM.