“Lived experiences” are only relevant in therapy, in a memoir, between family members or close acquaintances, or to the individual…
…and social policy isn’t any of those things.
But the phrase “lived experiences” is one of the mantras of the left – in particular, any movement that begins with the word “critical,” as in “critical race theory” or “critical legal theory.” The idea of paying attention to “lived experiences” comes at least in part from therapy, because hearing a person’s story (aka “narrative”) actually is important to understand what the individual believes is going on in his or her life. It doesn’t mean it’s objectively true, but listening to it not only is a guide to helping the client or patient, but it’s also a way to let the person know that someone is finally listening and trying to understand. “Narratives” can later be challenged, but they first must be heard.
“Lived experiences” ignore statistics; they are merely individual and should not be guiding public policy. But these days they are regarded as such a guide, and those who don’t agree are accused of “silencing” these important “voices”:
Activists, politicians, commentators, and others often say that we should judge policy issues based on the “lived experience” of members of various groups, particularly those that have been victimized by various types of injustices. Thus, if we want to understand and combat racism, we should rely on the lived experience of minority groups who are its victims. If the problem is sexism, we should credit the lived experience of women. Both left and right trot out victims of school shootings to use their lived experience to bolster their respective positions on how to combat gun violence.
In a recent article, philosopher Tim Hsiao highlights some of the shortcomings of this popular mantra:
“[A]re lived experiences really that special? No. Quite simply, appeals to ‘lived experiences’ are exercises in bad statistical reasoning….
“personal anecdotes do not invalidate statistical generalizations, which are by nature probabilistic….
“Lived experiences are often vividly used by progressive activists as evidence of widespread injustice, accompanied with a call for action and social change. Yet basing one’s entire case for widespread injustice and sweeping social change on lived experiences is, quite simply, bad statistical reasoning. Why should one’s personal experience of (say) racism carry any special weight?”
They shouldn’t, and it is a useful pretense by the left that they do. As the article points out, it’s not solely the left that does this. But it is far more common on the left, and the left is also inordinately fond of the jargon surrounding the practice.
About 10 years ago I attended a seminar for the faculty by a fellow from Yale who did one of the first “studies” of microaggressions. His “data” consisted of about 8 students who claimed they had experienced microaggression in the classroom. He went through all sort of r^2 and other correlation BS. During the Q&A I asked him how he could possibly justify any sort of validity with a sample size of 8 when normal practice needs at minimum an N of 1000? He said well the computer program gave me the answer. I then told him he whole study was worthless. I was not a very popular person in the room. He then reverted to the need to “value the lived experiences of the students.” Of course he was from the Yale school of Ed. Idiot.
‘as a black woman’
‘as a gay man’
‘as an immigrant’
blah,blah,blah I immediately tune out when this starts.
Can’t resist commenting on the way the Harry formerly known as Prince has become hooked on therapy culture: The NY Post notes that “the seemingly motormouthed royal” “. . . will ‘go deeper’ into his mental health struggles in yet another collaborative project with Oprah Winfrey. The redheaded royal, 39, announced on his Archewell site on Wednesday that he’ll follow up his and Winfrey’s Apple TV+ series, ‘The Me You Can’t See,’ with a town hall discussion titled ‘The Me You Can’t See: A Path Forward.'”
https://pagesix.com/2021/05/26/prince-harry-to-go-deeper-into-mental-health-in-oprah-town-hall/
A prime case of “lived experience” as a synonym for narcissistic self-indulgence.
This whole thing reminds of the funny scene in “Blazing Saddles” where the black actor, Cleavon Little (Who sadly died at 53), points the gun at his head and says ,” The next one who moves, the n******r gets it !”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7Q4fM5y_1I
These people are begging for help. Not the right way, though.
I agree completely. Lived experience is equivalent to medical clinical experience. Which is important but is used only to direct further study. It’s certainly not anywhere near the evidentiary information resulting from a well designed study.
The Left loves jargon, and the re-definition of words.
Their definition of “peace” is quiet through oppression.
Maybe it began with the re-definition of “gay”, but perhaps not.
In any event, they are quite skilled in the practice.
They love Black Lives Matter, but revolt at All Lives Matter.
There was some Leftist black dude I caught on-line yesterday, challenging his interviewer to come up with just one good product of “whiteness”. Maybe we should turn that around to you, Ja’maal, or whatever your absurd name is.
It is all the natural result of believing in the perfectibility of man, meeting only their vision, of course, which is the heart of Progressivism. And if you’re not with them, you’re against them.
Mike+K:
Of course Blazing Saddles, a wonderfully sardonic movie, could not be made today. Censorship? What censorship?
Mike K and Cicero:
Speaking of Blazing Saddles, the scene known as “The French Mistake” could not be made today either:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMK6lzmSk2o&ab_channel=bitchkitty
}}} particularly those that have been victimized by various types of injustices.
******************
** . NERDS . **
** >DEMAND< **
** JUSTICE!! **
******************
The most maligned class in all of human history wants justice NOW!!
}}} Speaking of Blazing Saddles, the scene known as “The French Mistake” could not be made today either
Face it. If you cut out all the parts of Blazing Saddles that “could not be made today” (Made, much less **released**!!) you’d have a 5m infomercial.
}}} ‘as a black woman’
‘as a gay man’
‘as an immigrant’
blah,blah,blah I immediately tune out when this starts.
Ah, there’s your problem.
You just need to respond appropriately, with seriously undeniable indignity.
“Well, as a formerly black gay female immigrant…”
…(spluttering indignation)…
“Well, YES, I’m a white man NOW!! I mean, who wouldn’t want to be a TOP?
Oh, did I forget to mention I also used to be a sub..?”
And do it with a completely straight face and DARE them to challenge you on it. Get In Their FACE about it.
They won’t know what the fuck to do except surrender faster than a Frenchman at a German Nazi Festival.
Lived experience is code for having been discriminated against in some fashion. Everyone will, at one time or another, feel discriminated against, left out, or treated unfairly. That is the universal experience of humanity. Yes, some people have experienced degrees of unfairness or discrimination that are unconscionable. But few of them live in the USA. There are laws in this country against discrimination based on race, sex, or religion. So, there are legal remedies for such acts. But the left doesn’t want to have to prove harm, only to claim it and be believed.
Prince Harry’s issues are not of the sort that are illegal. He was emotionally scarred by the sensational death of his mother. That’s understandable. He needs help from a competent therapist, not to use his angst to stain the reputations of his extended family.
I have lived the experience of a parent whose child died. It is a dreadful, emotionally scarring experience. Each parent who lives it suffers in their own way and succeeds in dealing with it in very different ways. Every time I hear of a young person dying, I know that there will be family members that will have to deal with profound grief and loss. It often triggers my own feelings because I know what they face. There is no way to set the death of a child right, as our society has tried very hard to do with racial, sexual, and religious discrimination. Unfortunately, many parents of criminals who have been killed by police blame the police. They want “closure,” which they believe will be provided by police “accountability.” And that has become a cause celebre in our society now. A black criminal’s life matters……….if he is killed by police. If he is gunned down by rival gang members,…………too bad, so sad. Yet the family is left to grieve in both cases. Basically, what is happening in our society when it comes to police arresting black suspects has become a bad example of how the grief of families can be used, in part, to claim our society is systemically racist.
The N-word: nerd.
The B-word: baby.
The F-word: fluck. Suburban dictionary edition.
The P-word: pride of lions, lionesses, and their [unPlanned] cubs.
The C-word: conservative. American philosophical edition is Pro-Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
“I feel it. Therefore, I know.”
Rene Descartes is rolling over in his grave…
Ultimately any philosophy or social theory that denies or subverts objective truth should never be used as a guide for public policy or for solving actual problems in the real world. If any subjective notion is to be regarded as true, if 1 + 1 can equal 5, than nothing useful can ever be accomplished. You can’t build functioning bridges, automobiles, airplanes, and microprocessors or perform neurosugeries without using objective certaintities of mathmatics.
This is the reasoning, or the excuse for reasoning, that gave the Supreme Court the empathy of a wise Latina who pretends to joke about legislating from the bench.
@RoyNathanson:
He’d do better to come up with more appropriate frame of reference and coordinate system if he’s going to be throwing a rotational hissy fit.
“if 1 + 1 can equal 5, than nothing useful can ever be accomplished. You can’t build functioning bridges, automobiles, airplanes, and microprocessors or perform neurosugeries without using objective certainties of mathematics.” Nonapod
That is the point, the goal, the purpose. If your agenda is the destruction of a society and way of life… what purpose is there in allowing that society to accomplish anything of value.
“The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation.” Vladimir Lenin
America’s ‘middle class’ is the bourgeoisie.
“Biden’s ‘Inflation Tax’ Targets the Poor and Middle Class”
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2021/05/20/bidens_inflation_tax_targets_the_poor_and_middle_class_145787.html
J.J. wrote in part, “Prince Harry’s issues are not of the sort that are illegal. He was emotionally scarred by the sensational death of his mother. That’s understandable. He needs help from a competent therapist, not to use his angst to stain the reputations of his extended family.”
I frankly consider that rubbish. His mother died in 1997, which was 24 years ago. Harry is as selfish and willful as she was.
He does not need a therapist. What will a therapist do and say to someone so childish that will do any good? Even if he has “angst” (“Fear” or “anxiety” in German), it has been 24 years since the acute event. He needs to try to be a man, not stay a dependent little boy. He is the worst sort of royal, catered to at every turn but unwilling to suck it up and act the part in recompense.
Meghan has him where she wants him, under her thumb, or in her nether regions.
And of course he’s in California, which is totally appropriate. It’s where Caitlyn Jenner lives, among other confused, willful loonies.
Compare him to his brother, William, who earns his keep in manly fashion. Prince Charles did the same for so many years sans complaint or therapist.
And there is this long piece on the subject:
https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/03/19/the-tyranny-of-lived-experience/
Cicero @ 5:24pm
I think his answer to the “one good product of …” should have been “I can’t … because whiteness doesn’t exist anywhere except in the warped and hateful minds of you and your fellow travelers.”
Notice that the oh so caring left studiously omits the ‘lived experiences’ of all those business owners who were righteously burned and looted out of their livings and responsibilities by proxies who posed as surrogates for George Floyd. Nor do we hear of the ‘lived experiences’ of the thousands of family members of slain urban gang members. Curious selection process the left uses.
“As a straight white male”….
…my ‘lived experience’ is prima facie unimportant and deserving of scorn.
More to the point, ‘lived experiences’ are only relevant to public policy as superficial pathos, when trying to sell the public on a particular policy. Conservatives/Republicans certainly rely on them (think of Trump with the ‘Angel Moms’) a fair amount too. But, they should never be the sole (or primary) basis for any public policy. Yet the left treats them as exactly that, particularly on racial/gender/orientation matters. How can one debate or argue against another’s subjective feelings (even if they appear entirely absurd and irrational)? One cannot; and that’s the point.
Just another useful rhetorical bludgeon.
You can’t outlaw these things. And in a mass media, social media universal suffrage mass democracy of Muh Feels…
All. That. Matters. Is. Who. Is. Wielding. It.
Anything else is urinating upwind.
“Lived experience” is another term for “anecdotal evidence”, which is rightly rejected by most reputable investigators.
“Lived experience” is another term for “anecdotal evidence”,
Diversity [dogma], not limited to racism, sex-ism, and ageism, treats people… persons in color blocs (e.g. racist designation “people of color”) and learns nothing from the experience. Actually, the minority leaders learn to exploit color judgments as leverage (e.g. diversity racket). While bias is intrinsic, prejudice is progressive: one step forward, two steps backward.
Yesterday they were saying that there was no objective truth out there because postmodernism said we cannot tell whether we were brains in a vat and all the objective information coming in through our sense organs is hopelessly made erroneous by the time our brains sense it. Don’t trust objective or subjective information was the message.
Now they are saying to trust your subjective feelings and information and that the objective world out there is less reliable.
What will they say tomorrow?
“What will they say tomorrow?”
That Democrats in Washington must be given more power. Details will vary, but that will be the bottom line. Always.
I can see why you didn’t go into psychiatry, Cicero. Be a man is a great slogan. Sometimes it even works. But what about the humans that it doesn’t work for? How about the psycho who killed a bunch of people in San Jose? He had issues, probably of long standing. Most of the mass killers do. Harry’s emotional problems aren’t at that level and probably never would be. But in his own way Harry is getting even with his family, just not actually gunning them down. 24 years of festering unresolved emotional issues is not unknown. Even if it isn’t manly. As you well know, I’m not an expert on the subject. Maybe you’re right. All Harry really needed was for Charles to tell him to straighten up and be a man. But maybe Charles never got around to it.
“Lived Experience” translates as too busy collecting belly button lint to learn anything or to get a job. “Cuz!” “Cuz!” “Cuz!”
Too much effort required and much easier to just whine about what someone else did (even if they didn’t actually do anything).
Statistics can be manipulated to lie but with “lived experiences” the lies flow so much easier.
Well …to quote the brilliant HRC … “at this point what does it matter?”
To me the worst thing about it is not the substitution for statistics, but that it only counts if it advances progressive narratives. If your l.e. involves, for instance, seeing your mother shot down in her quiet residential street because she yelled at a carload of black kids to slow down (actual local incident), your l.e. don’t mean squat. In fact it would probably be racist of you to bring it up. On the other hand, if you’re black, any instance of a white person being rude to you is yet more proof of systemic racism. We all know the deeply dishonest drill.
I saw an example of this not long after Obamacare was passed. Two people were talking about how great it was, how it helped them to, for instance, retire a couple of years earlier than planned. They scoffed at the idea that it had hurt some people, whereupon someone else said that it had caused her insurance premiums to go up by some huge amount which she was struggling to pay. The first two were totally unimpressed. Iirc, one sort of shrugged it off–“well, there’s bound to be some pain for some people.” In other words, your lived experience don’t mean squat. Possibly the worst aspect of that exchange was that the people who were happy with it were quite well off, while the third was living on the edge of poverty.
And we’ve seen just how much the lived experience of various small business owners and employees thereof mattered in the pandemic.
“Yesterday they were saying that there was no objective truth out there because postmodernism said we cannot tell whether we were brains in a vat and all the objective information coming in through our sense organs is hopelessly made erroneous by the time our brains sense it.” dnaxy
The proposition that there is no objective truth is easily dismissed.
Challenge the advocate to jump off a ten story building. At the end of their fall, that sudden stop will provide undeniable proof of objective reality’s existence. When they refuse, they lose the debate. Whereupon they will slander you.
“When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser.” Socrates
“in his own way Harry is getting even with his family… All Harry really needed was for Charles to tell him to straighten up and be a man.” J. J.
Perhaps Charles gave credence to the rumors that he is not Harry’s biological father. If Harry does as well, then there might well be an emotional distance between them.
Perhaps Charles gave credence to the rumors that he is not Harry’s biological father.
Harry was conceived in December 1983. One of Diana’s bodyguards has on the record insisted she first met James Hewitt only in 1986. It’s a reasonable wager Charles could have reviewed Hewitt’s service records to discover where he was posted in late 1983.
Can’t resist commenting on the way the Harry formerly known as Prince has become hooked on therapy culture:
1. Look who his mother was; 2. Look at who his wife is; 3. Look at who her mother is. Vulnerable man, bad influences, wretched choice to pay attention to those influences.
He’s have benefited from a woman like his Aunt Anne.
This is a relevant comment on what “lived experiences” are good for.
https://www.thenewneo.com/2021/05/27/open-thread-5-27-21/#comment-2557059
J.J.:
Harry, formerly a royal, is a weenie. He is not a man in the manly sense.
Read Harvey Mansfield’s book on Manliness (2007).
Mansfield was probably the sole conservative on the Harvard faculty by his own estimate. Now emeritus, so Harvard has been made pure.
And Lo! another Mansfield wrote on the same subject (2013) !
My view is that men are made, made manly. See Parris Island. See standing up to bullies. See all the physical challenges of an active outdoors boyhood.
Boys do not become manly by playing video games.
Our secular society with its ADHD (predominantly boys who irritate teachers, and the teachers diagnose boyhood as ADHD, and get them to pay girlish attention on addictive medications), its feminism, its total lack of compass–see transgenders–has displaced, witheringly reduced manliness.
Harry is not manly.
He’s a @#$%ing loser girly man.
JJ alludes to a point that there are things which can break a man and it’s not all cut and dried. There is nothing shameful about being broken by incessant blows of tragedy and misfortune. You can’t necessarily just ‘Man Up’ and ‘Deal With It’ — although it’s reasonable to state that there are minimal expected standards of conduct one should attempt to maintain. Harry fails at this.
Bleating on that Obese Abomination’s Menopausal Vagina Dialogues is taking it too far. I don’t care if his IQ85 Ho of a Coke-snorting Dumb Blonde Mother got herself killed banging some Arab Barrow Boy or if his father is some kind of closet case who gets off on horse-faced females… What he’s done is unforgivable. Still, given his likely real parentage, Breeding Will Out.
Harry is not manly.
He’s a combat veteran. Manliness is not what he’s missing.
Per Wiki, “In 2007–2008, Harry served for over ten weeks in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. He returned to Afghanistan for a 20-week deployment in 2012–2013 with the Army Air Corps. In June 2015, he resigned from the army.”
His ten weeks were as air-strike coordinator from the ground.
His 20 week tour was as co-pilot of an Apache helo.
I’ll give him marks for his 2nd tour, though the number of missions flown in the most armored helo ever made, with its formidable weaponry, is unspecified.
Being a veteran does not define manliness, however. It takes a bit more definition to qualify. Sitting on your ass doing a job from a desk does not a warrior make.
Cicero:
It does not appear that an “air strike coordinator” is a REMF job, i.e. those who never go outside the wire.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=air-strike+coordinator&t=brave&ia=web
I’ll save you some time on REMF:
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=REMF
Harry seems to have problems. Don’t we all, but I don’t know it all.
Cicero I agree that Harry is not presently comporting himself in a very manly way. And he may well be a “weenie” who has never been manly.
My comment pertains to the fact that he seems to have issues with his family. A family, which if we are to believe the tabloids is fairly dysfunctional.
What follows is all conjecture on my part:
Harry, being “the spare,” may have felt he was always second fiddle to William. He knew he was not as valued as his brother. He has probably wondered what his real role was, other than to stand by and wait. Maybe he got little direction or encouragement from the family. Maybe he had ambitions to be somebody in his own right. When he met his wife, who it turns out is an ambitious woman, it brought out the desire to break with the family and be something other than “the spare.” And now he is airing his issues on TV. IMO, he is being used by Oprah and his wife. All this juicy inside baseball about the royals will sell. Unfortunately for Harry, at some point people will tire of his inner turmoil and what will he be left with then? How will he make his mark? IMO, it’s a truly sad tale. How much better it would be for him and his family if he worked out these issues privately with a therapist.
Daniel Greenfield has a good take on “lived experience”:
Systemic racism is not a construct of rights, but of power. It’s not challenged with the equalization of rights, but with the assumption of power. The whole premise of lived experience is that objective metrics of civil rights can’t appease the emotional suffering of the oppressed. The nature of their oppression is so incomprehensible to anyone outside their lived experience that only those who claim to be oppressed can remedy their oppression by taking power.
from: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/05/marxist-lives-matter-daniel-greenfield/
And he may well be a “weenie” who has never been manly.
If that were true, he would not have enlisted in and prospered in the British Army.
My comment pertains to the fact that he seems to have issues with his family. A family, which if we are to believe the tabloids is fairly dysfunctional.
The royal family has some qualitatively peculiar problems derived from their odd living situation. There isn’t much to indicate that the sum of their problems exceeds in severity that of a normal-range family. The ringers are more-often-than-not people who married into the family, not people born into the family. (See Lord Snowden, Mark Phillips, Diana Spencer, and Sarah Ferguson). The Queen’s nephew and the Queen’s oldest grandson are currently in the midst of divorce proceedings; unless the newspapers are lying or misinformed, each man is the defendant in the proceedings (as is generally the case in mundane life). As for dysfunction, as often as not it arises from the conduct of the younger generation.
Harry, being “the spare,” may have felt he was always second fiddle to William.
Like any other younger brother. Most of us get along in life without marrying into Hollywood therapy culture.