Absolutely no way are people arguing here that being targeted for one's race, religion, sexuality etc, or being the personal victim of a targeted campaign of harassment and / or violence, is 'just as stressful and distressing' as being targeted by ads.
I do think being targeted for protected characteristics is stressful. But let’s examine two types of people: 1) a gay person with normal socioeconomic background, 2) a person with a normal socioeconomic background who becomes the target of group bullying.
Both people experience stress in their own way, only one of those people experiences distress due to a specific set of circumstances. Is the gay person’s lived experience of being discriminated against invalid? Of course not. Is it the same situation as the person who was the target of group bullying? Definitely not.
I am not trying to make any determinations about who has struggled the most, and is most deserving of sympathies. I am making a distinction between societal pressures and specific instances of harm.
You’re simply wrong, if you can’t tell the difference then you’re unqualified to even say anything on this. Not because you don’t have lived experience or something, but because you cannot use simple logic and reasoning.
No, you're simply focusing on the wrong things in the discussion's context. "There’s a difference between feeling targeted, and being targeted in actuality" - like, sure, obviously, there is a difference, they're distinct things. And it doesn't matter.
Now apply basic logic and reasoning to find out why.
Okay I did, now let’s enumerate some similarities and differences.
Here’s the setting: A is gay, and B is hetero. Both exist in a secular, democratic society where the majority religion has a damning view about being gay, but there are anti-discrimination laws in this society, and there’s a subculture that’s welcoming to gay people.
A lives a normal life, and has a mix of positive and negative experiences, but is otherwise never bullied, abused, harassed or emotionally or physically harmed on a personal level due to being gay, but has seen gay people be bullied and harmed on social media. A can move to a new town, and no one would know that A is gay, or maybe even care about that if they did find out because there are allies and other gay people. A can change jobs and not worry about being discriminated against because there are laws that protect against discrimination based on identity. A can make friends in A’s subculture or with allies.
B lives a normal life, but has an overwhelming negative experience when B starts getting bullied by C and D (two new people for this scenario). C and D take a personal interest in B, and want to make B’s life a living hell because B rubbed them the wrong way, let’s say. C and D use their network of friends to do the following: 1) they hack into B’s personal phone and computer to get private information, 2) they use that information to steal B’s secret cooking recipes and start selling a best selling chef’s book under their own names from those recipes, 3) they find out who are B’s friends or enemies, and use that information to either socially isolate B from their circle by saying socially negative things about B, or by using gossip from enemies to drive new people away from B, 4) they pretend to be “concerned citizens” and email B’s employers about B’s character, 5) every time B starts something new, they try to get into that new thing to undermine B, or somehow disadvantage B on a personal level, at the same time helping other people like B, 6) they use their network to spread gossip about B, and undermine B’s work or achievements. So B cannot make friends or relationships of any kind, and does not have a support network. B cannot find employment of the kind B likes, and cannot move to a new town because it won’t make a difference since B is being targeted on a personal level.
Now tell me, are these two circumstances the same? One is societal indifference/discrimination, and the other is targeted bullying, stalking and harassment. If you say, yes, then explain how.
If you don’t understand, then put this scenario in ChatGPT and ask who is experiencing more stress, or is it the same level of stress.
Putting the logical fallacies you just committed aside, now imagine that E is a schizophrenic who believes that everyone out there is conspired to bully, abuse, harass and emotionally or physically harm him due to being straight. E cannot make friends or relationships of any kind, does not have a support network, can't find employment, may receive some health care or not.
It really doesn't matter whether this feeling is imagined or not. Even merely a threat that never gets actualized may be enough of a stressor to cause serious issues.
I admit the scenario is contrived, but that’s to make a point. Feel free to construct your own scenario that’s not a non sequitur.
But the E scenario is also fallacious, doesn’t matter if E is schizophrenic if the conspiracy is real. Maybe E’s detractors would like others to think E is schizophrenic, or the symptoms they want to cast as schizophrenic are a stress response to the targeted harassment.
One could make a completely opposite point just by slightly editing your scenarios.
Make B be charming and charismatic enough that C and D's attempts get laughed off and backfire. Make A be so affected by having to live in secrecy that it puts a real strain on the relationship with the person they care about the most. Now surely it would be A who ends up under "more stress", right?
Except you can't even say that, because "level of stress" is not an objectively measurable quantity that exists somewhere in the environment. You can be stressed out by things I get excited about. Someone else will shrug out a risk that makes me terrified. You could be under distress because some lights have blinked too fast, yet it doesn't mean that these lights have targeted you with their harassment.
Sure, but what’s the point of these adjustments? You were making a false equivalency between two different circumstances, and saying that there’s effectively no difference between them. I presented a scenario where the difference between them is indisputable, that is person B has an objectively worse situation and potential outcome. Experiencing stress and being in distress are not the same. If you’re still having a hard time admitting this, then imagine you have a child. Which situation should that child live under, A’s or B’s?
If you still don't see the point of these adjustments, I'm afraid it may be beyond my abilities to teach you to see it. Each of the scenarios presented can lead to either experiencing stress or being in distress, ability to take it varies between individuals and there's no category of scenarios that always leads to "objectively worse situation" (whatever it means) as you're trying to present it, making it a distinction without a difference in this context as for whatever you'd try to argue, you can find an example from the other category that fulfills it too and that has potential to lead to the same outcomes when it comes to health.
I think some people fear that the political or social status of protected classes may diminish by admitting that someone could have a worse life than them despite not being of a protected class. It doesn’t diminish for me, so I have no problem saying that there could be instances where being a protected class isn’t as bad another circumstance for someone who isn’t such a person. It truly depends, everyone’s life is different, and there are indeed worse lives than others, even if it’s someone you normally wouldn’t consider as worse off.
Surely I must be misunderstanding this thread.