Constantly torn between
"this opinion/question/expressible point of connection I want to pose will mark me as a 'bad person' and therefore open me to harassment"
and
"I need to be 100% open and honest about my every thought and feeling or else I am lying, and that makes me a bad person".
And online discourse culture just amplifies that by like, a million.
Obviously, in putting it so plainly, neither thought is correct.
It's not healthy to avoid all connections because I'm afraid someone will accuse me of being a bad person.
It's also not healthy to put all my thoughts and feelings on display-- I'm allowed privacy.
Disagreements with someone shouldn't shake my very foundation of belief in self.
Especially when I agree with 99/100 points about issue X, but not point #100- I shouldn't feel like I can't talk about point #100 without being accused of disagreeing with points 1 through 99 and therefore "a bad person".
Idk. It's especially hard to talk about this issue without bringing up an example issue. But to bring up an example tends to steer the conversation to talking about that issue, and that's not the point.
I don't want to talk about Hot Button Issue #3. I want to talk about how the culture behind black and white Stances is harmful to me.
But I don't have good language for that.
Callout culture and purity culture touch on it. That fear of being Found Out to be Bad about something. Even though I am not bad?
The idea that once you're Found Out to be Bad you can never recover, never grovel enough, never apologise enough, never grow and learn enough, never be free from accusations and reminders.
People having to torch their online presence and start over and pretend they never were that person that made that mistake.










