On those who dish out what they can't take
In certain cases-- in my own life, for example-- it isn't me being hard to swallow... I'm not. It's my opponent being a lightweight. I'm a lightweight too... That's why I told my opponent first that I respected them as an equally infinitely permanently incrasingly-connectedly sentient being. And I put a trigger warning on whatever I wrote to them. So if they read it and got mad then it's their problem. Not their fault they had a need to read it anyway to make sure of whatever... or in the hopes of benefiting for it somehow or using it to help someone including as evidence for justice... but yes, their doing and problem.
They need and deserves reassurance, but it can't always or mostly or usually come from me at this point. They wouldn't trust me to be the one to deliver it anyway.
But when I can, I promise I always shake hands with whoever I'm debating with before attempting to punch them out. Sometimes in the past, due to my own traumas making me mistrust and feel a need to stay away from some people, I neglected to do this... the humanizing before attacking... the inoculating the person before letting the disease loose on them... for reasons that do NOT include guilt, shame, or fear on my part. Which many of them neglected or refused to do on their ends too for various reasons... often their own personal traumas that are none of my business that make them mistrust-- or, more toxically, resent-- certain others.
Acknowledging everyone's sentience including that of the opponent you might be dying to punch out is not just "good" or "important" or "nice" or "preferable" or "safe" or "popular" or "smart" or "polite." It's essential.
It's morally mandatory... not in a bad way, not in a "do it or else" way, not in a shame or guilt or fear or depression way, not in a "force them to do it" way... which is literally the "dehumanize them in order to make them force AKA fake humanizing someone else" way. The fact that it's morally mandatory to humanize one's opponent means we don't dehumanize those who don't think it is or should be seen as morally mandatory.
So as soon as we can in life without breaking ourselves or sacrificing our loved ones in the process, and first thing in every debate, we need to humanize our opponent... in front of them, to them, to their face, in a way they understand and that actually humanizes them-- AKA doesn't hurt or harm them and isn't "just words."
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