What taboos are there amonst my friends?
Jul. 5th, 2013 01:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackBecause many things that are a bit outré in traditional society have wide acceptance among my friends, I tend to think of us as more accepting and less judgemental. And I think we are, somewhat, because many people make a genuine effort to be accepting of ideas even if they disagree with them.
But I think, like everyone, I've also trained myself not to notice when I'm not discussing something because it might be awkward, because your own taboos are often invisible to you. My subculture has taboos, just like every other.
It's hard to say what's a taboo, and what's just "people don't like it because it's wrong". People I know don't have much tolerance for factual assertions that seem spurious, so where's the dividing line? Maybe things that make people cross not just confused?
What ideas would I feel uncomfortable expressing, even if I believed in them? (Most I disagree with, but I think maybe the instinctive level of disagreement is too knee-jerk and often excludes some people.)
* "Bike helmets should be worn"
* "There are times windows is more convenient than linux"
* "I drink no-alcohol beer"
* "I drink decaff coffee"
* "I like Twilight"
* "I like Dan Brown"
* "I'm an observant member of a religion"
* "I support the conservative party"
Almost none of those apply to me -- but I'm embarrassed to consider which of my ideas might be taboo, because, by definition, that would create a giant argument of people telling me I'm wrong.
Which other ideas do you think might be taboo in this subculture?
Also see:
http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html, where he says "if you're not hidebound by peer pressure, you must have some beliefs which are unpopular in your social group, not just unpopular to wider society"
http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/06/30/the-lottery-of-fascinations/ says "he wishes people he knew were as accepting of people who don't like maths as they are of gay people"
But I think, like everyone, I've also trained myself not to notice when I'm not discussing something because it might be awkward, because your own taboos are often invisible to you. My subculture has taboos, just like every other.
It's hard to say what's a taboo, and what's just "people don't like it because it's wrong". People I know don't have much tolerance for factual assertions that seem spurious, so where's the dividing line? Maybe things that make people cross not just confused?
What ideas would I feel uncomfortable expressing, even if I believed in them? (Most I disagree with, but I think maybe the instinctive level of disagreement is too knee-jerk and often excludes some people.)
* "Bike helmets should be worn"
* "There are times windows is more convenient than linux"
* "I drink no-alcohol beer"
* "I drink decaff coffee"
* "I like Twilight"
* "I like Dan Brown"
* "I'm an observant member of a religion"
* "I support the conservative party"
Almost none of those apply to me -- but I'm embarrassed to consider which of my ideas might be taboo, because, by definition, that would create a giant argument of people telling me I'm wrong.
Which other ideas do you think might be taboo in this subculture?
Also see:
http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html, where he says "if you're not hidebound by peer pressure, you must have some beliefs which are unpopular in your social group, not just unpopular to wider society"
http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/06/30/the-lottery-of-fascinations/ says "he wishes people he knew were as accepting of people who don't like maths as they are of gay people"
no subject
Date: 2013-07-05 12:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-07-05 02:21 pm (UTC)Srsly, you're just not paying attention. You know lots of these people, and many of them quite often talk about what they were doing in church the other day, just in casual conversation like. You're not noticing the lack of arguments.
Also I don't think anyone has a problem with decaff coffee; no-alcohol beer hasn't come up but I think people would just think it odd rather than wrong; and understanding of guilty pleasures certainly stretches as far as Twilight even if it maybe doesn't reach all the way to Dan Brown.
no subject
Date: 2013-07-08 03:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-07-08 03:21 pm (UTC)But if I'm saying anything positive about either, I do feel the need to watch my language to see if it might trigger an immediate denunciation, which is some amount of censorship.
See sonic_drift's comment on LJ for someone who thought the taboo against supporting the conservative party was much stronger than I hinted (although it obviously varies by group).
no subject
Date: 2013-07-08 03:18 pm (UTC)I'm not sure how I'd rank them :) I think Twilight is better than Dan Brown (because it supports a demographic who are often marginalised) but also worse than Dan Brown (because Dan Brown's message seems to be "yay, intelligensia", which is good even if the writing is sometimes bad, but Twilight's message seems to be "wait until someone stalks you, then fall in love with them" which is potentially dangerous if it spills over from fantasy to reality.)
no subject
Date: 2013-07-05 09:50 pm (UTC)