I sat and watched a 20-minute video clip this morning, which a intellectual did their best to convince you that they were an intellectual, but by the end of the twenty minutes, you were firmly convinced that the fake intellectual was hopelessly lost.
The debate of this twenty-minute conversation was real 'harm' versus imaginary 'harm' (I know that wasn't the intention of the intellectual, but you couldn't help but notice this remarkable problem).
In the real world, real 'harm' is mostly represented by literally hundreds of scenarios. You could be walking in some woods, and find yourself facing a bear. You could be walking along a Florida canal, and be confronted by an alligator. You could be driving through the city of Birmingham....having car issues, and realize with a dead-engine that you are in the part of town at 10 PM, facing real 'harm' potential. You could be jumping off the side of some overhang into a lake....only to find a four feet depth of water.
Imaginary 'harm'? This is where someone says something....maybe ten brief words, which set you off and freak you out. Imaginary 'harm' could include telling a 8-year old kid that Santa doesn't exist, and they spend the next five years talking to some school nurse about this conflict in their life. Imaginary 'harm' could involve some customer service representative telling you 'no'....your complaint isn't going be resolved, and you spend at least twenty hours over the next month detailing your 'pains and suffering' from the encounter to just about anyone who will listen. Imaginary 'harm' can include someone who fell for ease of credit, and wakes up eight years later....wanting cry over $300,000 in debt but can't really show any gains or value from the purchases....but now want to spend countless hours dwelling on the terrible financial mess that they are attached to.
Somehow, society has allowed imaginary 'harm' to merge and it's seen as something now to require public attention. As days go by....fewer folks buy into the imaginary 'harm' chatter. I would even go to the extent of suggesting that intellectuals (who seem to say they are smart) seem to be the ones who mostly get pumped up for imaginary 'harm'. People in rural environments or small towns? They've faced real 'harm' in various ways, and can't really imagine 'harm' of a fake nature. It doesn't make any sense to them.
Where is this whole discussion going to in the future? Eventually, the imaginary 'harm' people are going to figure out that two-thirds of society just doesn't give a damn about their woes, sorrows, and suffering. Some might even reach a point of saying that life in the US has become like some Irish pub in Tralee, Ireland....where a dozen drunk Irish men sit around for hours...giving you some John Steinbeck-classic story over their life, their women, their failures, and their falls from grace. Eventually, real people get tired of the tales of woe and sorrow, and walk out of the pub. That will likely be the same scenario in America, where people just turn and face away from the imaginary 'harm' crowd....letting them know that these failures or falls from grace....just aren't worth discussing anymore.
