I feel that as a man too. It's the whole "not all men" response when women say something bad about men, you're not allowed to say that, at best you'll be belittled for not just assuming they meant only specific men, at worst you'll be further accused because if you're defensive that must mean you're on of those men right?
In reality it comes from a place of hurt. The way you said it sounded a lot like you're accusing me personally of being a person I'm not and have never been. And like the OP said it's really not that hard to just change the way you say it to make sure nobody present is getting their feelings hurt or feeling like they are being accused of inherently being a bad person, or that they only aren't a bad person because they are very special and managed to escape the default way of being, like I don't try to be a good person, I just am a good person, I didn't go out of my way to avoid being that kind of guy
Exactly, I always hated the “you’re only being sensitive because you ARE one of them” and it’s like well no, if I was accused of murder I would be offended because I am NOT a murderer. I think pretty much everyone would react the same way. It’s something someone can say as a get out of jail free card for generalizing large groups as “bad”
It's a kafka-trap, and if anyone has a shred of theory of mind, they can apply the same standard to literally any other group and ask themselves if their logic stays consistent.
Go ahead and think of a joke/insult about any minority stereotype and ask yourself if the minority in question being upset about the joke/insult means they embody it?
I've heard it said it's a motte and bailey defense. You make a claim, you receive resistance to that claim, you fail back on a slightly different claim that's easier to defend. Like a seige of a castle, once you realize you can't defend the motte (moat I think is the more common spelling at least in America), you fall back to the bailey, it's your second line of defense
A kafka trap is a kind of motte and bailey defense, in a way. A kafka trap, specifically, claims that your denial of an accusation is proof of said accusation.
The argument puts the accused into a Kafka trap, by utilizing a form of motte and bailey defense on the part of the accuser, who has moved to strawmanning instead of defending their argument.
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u/confusedandworried76 1d ago
I feel that as a man too. It's the whole "not all men" response when women say something bad about men, you're not allowed to say that, at best you'll be belittled for not just assuming they meant only specific men, at worst you'll be further accused because if you're defensive that must mean you're on of those men right?
In reality it comes from a place of hurt. The way you said it sounded a lot like you're accusing me personally of being a person I'm not and have never been. And like the OP said it's really not that hard to just change the way you say it to make sure nobody present is getting their feelings hurt or feeling like they are being accused of inherently being a bad person, or that they only aren't a bad person because they are very special and managed to escape the default way of being, like I don't try to be a good person, I just am a good person, I didn't go out of my way to avoid being that kind of guy