This question came about over a discussion my brother and I had about whether dogs should be on leashes when outside. We both agreed that yes, they should, for several reasons, but that’s not the point.
Let’s use a hypothetical to better illustrate the question. Imagine that there’s a perfume - vanilla, for example - that doesn’t bother you at all (you don’t like nor dislike it), but that is very upsetting to some people, and can even cause some adverse reactions (allergies or something). In this hypothetical, based on the negative effects, you agree that vanilla perfumes should be banned. Currently, however, they are allowed.
You’re walking down the street, and randomly smell someone passing you by and they’re wearing a vanilla perfume.
Would that upset you? Why, or why not?
My answer is yes, without a doubt. Even though the smell itself doesn’t bother me, the fact someone would wear that perfume and not only potentially upset others, but put them in danger, is upsetting.
My brother, however, would say no! He couldn’t explain his reasoning to me.
I know this is a little convoluted, but I hope I got my question across.
I’ll take “broad questions that can only be answered in context” for $200 Alex.
Seriously, ask me this question on 10 different days in 10 different ways and I’ll never give the same answer.
Even in the context of your vanilla perfume hypothetical I don’t have enough information to answer. How severe a reaction, what percentage of the population is affected, where is the perfume wearer at the time, why hasn’t it been banned and/or what makes me an expert who’s opinion is worth a damn, etc etc etc?
From what little info I have on the hypothetical (either directly stated or assumed via omission), no, I wouldn’t be upset. I didn’t see anyone being harmed, the perfume wearer wasn’t doing anything illegal, I am personally unbothered by the perfume, and I’ve got my own shit to deal with.
Eta: To make this more clear, I am an ex smoker, who fully agrees that bans on smoking in public areas make sense, but am in no way personally bothered by cigarettes. I also think smoking is more apropos to the question than a mystery perfume, as the harm of smoking and 2nd hand smoke is well established.
If you are smoking on a crowded street, I’ll be upset. But in an alleyway to get away from the crowded street, good on ya, you did what you could.
Smoking near children, get fucked. Smoking while walking home from the pub when only other pub goers are around, you do you. Context is key.
You mean empathy…?
Do I?
It would appear so?
You are empathizing with people with an allergy.
If you say so… It guess there’s a lot of unempathetic people around.
Yeah, a disturbing amount.
Last year on the 4th, I was walking home from the big fireworks show, and I saw a teenager on a scooter, who was briefly crouching down and not being safe. But he came up beside a lady and surprised her, and she swatted at him and tried to push him over, which would have crashed him into several people walking. More than just a startle response, and the kid stopped, looked back, angry - but he was a black teenager and there’s this white lady and her beefy white boyfriend/husband staring him back, so he turns and disappears back into the crowd.
And I’m instantly furious.
“That’s assault,” I told her.
“Mind your own fucking business” she says. Several other people are watching.
Thankfully my husband and her husband pulled us in different directions and the crowd separated us.
But I was so fucking angry, and that lady looked like she had started a fight or three in her life. Her boyfriend looked like he wasn’t happy to be there in that moment.
So yes, but it has to be something serious.
If I agree with the moral logic behind it, then yes - it’ll upset me even if I’m not personally affected. If I hear someone shouting slurs at a black person, I’ll obviously take issue with it, despite not being black myself.
On the other hand, if I hear someone say, for example, “this thing is retarded,” then even if society broadly considers that offensive, I still wouldn’t personally have a problem with it - because I don’t agree with the reasoning behind that judgment.
I get upset because of upsets me first and foremost. If others get upset and I don’t, it doesn’t change my feelings. If they share their reasoning, I can see their point of view. If it makes sense, I can empathize with them because I see how it has upset them. It still may not upset me. Sometimes they will present a view that is compelling that will then make me upset.
If they effect others greatly and only reason to use them is for convenience it actually does bother me to be honest.
Like if some stranger tells me they often commit drunk driving I see them as assholes even if they never almost hit me.
Interestingly, how nuch I care would depend on physical distsnce between us. I care less if they are in a different state and even less in a different country.
I rarely care about stuff people do outside the continent I am living in.
I’d say no, you can develop an allergic reaction to many things, doesn’t mean we should ban it all because of that or because it’s upsetting to some people. As for “upsetting” I think it’s everyone’s freedom to perfume however they want, if it’s something socially concerning like idk, smell of puke, then feel free to raise an eyebrow at their choice and vacate the premises (if possible, if it’s on a plane then yeah might need to get them to cover it up), but just because it’s generally unacceptable to use that as an aroma doesn’t mean it should be banned still, unless it directly causes death. Banning something should be a last resort.
Anti-social behavior should be shunned. There are varying degrees of harm which people tip the scale on, but I think minimizing harm is an admirable attribute, doing no deliberate harm reduction is sociopathic, and maximizing harm is sadistic.
I think the latter two traits are rare, but education on effects is just as rare.
Getting upset at someone for wearing perfume is utter insanity
You would notice that I wrote, as a condition of the hypothetical, that you agree with the banning. Hence, it is perfectly irrelevant if you think it’s crazy, in actuality. It’s a hypothetical. You know? A hypothetical - a make-believe situation, if you will - to illustrate the question. It’s when you imagine something that isn’t real in hopes that, that way, you could maybe distance yourself from other factors that could cloud your judgement if you were tackling a real problem.
It does seem, based on yours and others’ replies, that this particular hypothetical wasn’t very effective. For that, I apologize.
I will, however, point out that it is indeed normal to be upset at other people when they wear intense and obtrusive perfumes, or if they smell intensely of something. If you smell terrible - including strong or disagreeable perfumes - you won’t be allowed into many establishments, may be kicked out of public transport, etc. So no, it’s not utter insanity, it’s actually perfectly normal.
Then again, nobody was arguing about that! So, I guess that’s that.
There was a certain type of perfume that seemed popular back in the 90s, that would make me instantly gag and almost puke within seconds. I have no clue how anyone found that as any sort of pleasant smell.
To me I thought it smelled like a woman with a nasty yeast infection, trying to cover it up with potpourri. But it wasn’t even the women’s health causing it, literal potpourri smell alone causes me the same gag reflex, the stuff just smells nasty to me and I can’t be in the same room as that smell for long.
So yes, there are reasons to be offended by particular scents, even if others somehow find them pleasant.
Way to completely miss the point. Congrats, it’s actually impressive.
A dog without leash shows that the owner hasn’t bothered taking dog training classes or in the case of my country that they haven’t bothered learning the law. If they can’t be bothered to do that, I worry that they are not responsible enough to take care of the dog, and they shouldn’t be allowed to own a dog. Dog ownership ought to require a license or mandatory training.
The person using the perfume might also not even know about the issue, but in that case, I don’t think it makes sense to blame the consumer. There are simply too many types of products that are potentially dangerous when used wrong. Perhaps the seller ought to have warned about it, but I doubt that would make much difference. You can still be upset about it being produced. Lots of things are like that.
Sometimes you can blame the consumer and sometimes you can’t.
Nah. Only when I need to be upset to fit in socially. Would that hypothetical vanilla smell upset me? Nah. They probably bought it before it went illegal, maybe even hoarded it because they like it.
But if it was socially needed to be upset about that to gain something, I’d probably be. That’s why I agreed to have it banned in the first place, because the situation at that time made it socially useful.
I think I’m kind of autistic/sociopathic? Didn’t get testet yet lol
Yes absolutely. Thats called Solidarity and is a big part of what I stand for as a leftist. Its not all about me and not everything has to only bother me for me to fight it. Im a withe men. Sexim or Racism aren’t issues for me personally. Im lucky. But im obviously still against Sexim and Racism even tho only other people are suffering from it.
You know, sexism and racism would probably be a much better allegory than vanilla perfume…
Most people who have sexist or racist opinions don’t know their behavior is sexist or racist, most of it is conditioned socially.
So maybe the perfume analogy is good?
A person might not be aware is harmful, but there’s information about it, they just don’t seek it out. Maybe someone tried to explain their perfume is overwhelming, making it difficult for a small group of people to concentrate, but they’ve ignored them. When they see groups trying to get their perfume banned from public places they think those people are overreacting because they like the perfume. The perfume clearly isn’t hurting anyone because anyone who would be affected by it has left their workplace, or decided not to say anything because they keep getting ignored, and management thinks they complain too much, and they can’t lose their jobs. Socially, anyone who doesn’t like the perfume already avoids them. The perfume can’t be that big of a deal.
Those feel different. One is active hate towards others (that’s the point of it), and the other is doing/using something you enjoy that happens to negatively affect others. They may be adjacent, but not the same.
Neither sexism nor racism needs to be active hate towards someone. If you just absentmindedly select a white person for a job, you might not even be aware you did it nor do you need to hate the black applicant. Some biases are stealthily part of our psyche.
I’m pretty sure some people enjoy being sexist/racist and some even get off of watching people being sexist/racist. However, there are people in both groups who also understand it’s a problem and stand against it, except with consent in private.
Generally yes, For me it depends on how significant the discomfort is and how broadly it impacts people, but also, how much doing the thing really matters a lot to someone.
Like, there’s a point at which “ok someone else’s discomfort about this thing is marginal compared to how much it matters to a large number of people” at which point I get annoyed at someone trying to force other people to stop doing something that matters to them, even if I’m not doing the thing.
This makes sense!
t which point I get annoyed at someone trying to force other people to stop doing something that matters to them, even if I’m not doing the thing.
That’s why I said that, in the hypothetical, you already agree with the ban! Otherwise, you’d be upset that someone was infringing on someone else’s autonomy for no good reason - in other words, you’d be upset that someone is being upset. Which, yeah I mean it’s really the same thing, in reverse, I guess.
Eating an allergen loaded sandwich to yourself - A-OK.
Coating yourself in allergens and going on tour - No.
Banning an allergen because a small fraction of the population suffer - Also No.
For matters of personal preference, I would invite the offended to suck it up and deal with it. For anything with consequences beyond offense, each individual situation is nuanced and common sense should apply. Maybe don’t eat that PB&J just before meeting a bunch of people for the first time.
Banning an allergen because a small fraction of the population suffer - Also No.
Well, that’s why I said you already agreed with the banning, as part of the hypothetical. Dang, I really feel like quite a few people got kind of hooked on that… I asked this in a Discord server and several people just said “well I wouldn’t want it banned.”
Just out of curiosity - and some frustration - what do you think would be a good abstraction for asking this question?
Regardless, sounds like a reasonable answer.
Edit: Wait, now I’m confused.
Do you think coating yourself in allergens and going on tour is OK or not? And is banning an allergen because of a small fraction of the population OK or not?
Sorry, should have been clear. Lethal allergen tour = bad. Banning completely = also bad.
My main point was that there is a line between discomfort and danger. That line can move based on the situation, so it is awkward to abstract without getting down to specifics.
If say 5% of the population suddenly developed a tendency to go into anaphylactic shock on exposure to vanilla, then you could easily see it disappearing from fragrances altogether and becoming a non-problem in that regard. Yet it would still have culinary use and join many friends on the bolded ingredient lists on food.
There is a turnover point (that I cannot explicitly define) where the onus is on the afflicted to ensure their own safety, rather than the population at large going out of their way to ensure it.
I am fortunate to have no issues like this. In 5% Vanilla-Death-Land, the smell of the stuff would still give me pause, as I probably know someone who could well die from the idiot that just walked in the door honking of it.
If the same person instead just brought in a vanilla milkshake, I probably wouldn’t bat an eye.
No, not in general: too much unjustified outrage & self-absorbed idiocy in the world over unreasonable shit. Karens, bigots, culture warriors, pearl clutchers, holy wars. Too many people need to cool it & chill the fuck out.
There are also legitimate differences in the world, and we need to respect liberties to dissent & differ.
They need to be justifiably upset. Only then is it understandable. However, getting upset over it is not generally a good move: it may lead to poor decisions. Better to stay collected, acknowledge the problem, apply fair judgement to correct the matter.
I feel like you might’ve misunderstood the question?
When I said “upset” I didn’t mean that you would fly into a fit of rage, I didn’t even really mean that you would confront the other person (though those are things that you might do, I suppose), just that you would find that it sat wrong with you and you would feel that the other person was wrong to do it. Perhaps “upset” was the wrong word to use there, sorry about that.
There are also legitimate differences in the world, and we need to respect liberties to dissent & differ. They need to be justifiably upset.
That’s why I said that you already agree that the thing should be banned! The whole point is that you already think that they are justifiably upset, and that what the people are doing is wrong and shouldn’t be done.
Sorry… I did get some people before saying that my hypothetical wasn’t very good. I see that it’s caused some confusion for several people.
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Bans are rarely justified. Strong emotions aren’t a good reason to ban much. If there are minimally invasive alternatives, and we can let others be, that’s typically better.
Emotions aren’t a good reason for anything, really. I distrust feelings & prefer to understand & make sense of them before I allow myself to indulge them in myself or others.
Judgement of right & wrong can operate on reason, and it’s better that it does. If someone is (justifiably) upset over a wrong, then a wrong exists, and knowing that suffices & is better than feeling it.
