Post #1935824

2026-04-30 20:43 UTC

I think the terms most applicable to the situation you described are "bigotry" and "democracy" In your initial description, blue-haired Mike's misdeeds are considered by the town to be of less importance than Bob's bias against blue-haired people. No deception occurs -- the group is merely spending their time addressing an ongoing general ill rather than a completed special ill. This is *generally just fine.* Groups tend to rightly recognize that ongoing issues are of greater priority than completed misdeeds, and perpetuated bias is essentially always an ongoing issue. There isnt a specific word for a wrongdoer attempting to distract from their misdeeds by exaggerating someone's bias. It's either an easily addressed distraction (bob says "I'm sorry I contributed to anti-blue-hair bias when reporting Mike's misdeed" and the town moves on to the orphan robbery) or it's a persistent problem ("why are you wasting time on the hurt feelings of those worthless blue-haired freaks; somebody STOLE a COOKIE from an ORPHANAGE!")

Replies (1)

@Katana314@lemmy.world 2026-04-30 22:43

The reason I brought this topic up was because in some cases, it *isn't* easily addressed. One example that I think is often misunderstood is an interview with the developer of Battlefield V, being asked about the inclusion of female characters. The interview response generally targeted overt sexism and women-hatred that came online as a result. The response was long, but ended with the statement: "You have two choices: either accept it or don't buy the game." Yet, I saw this quote being forcefully pushed into a *lot* of other contexts, as though this was EA's response to everything from general historical accuracy criticisms, gameplay issues, pricing problems, etc. There was a small crowd of overt misogynists that could pull a lot of people to "their side", and weaponize the conversation, by making the general playerbase of the game feel like they were "being attacked". I saw the quote used by many people that I knew generally didn't care about avatar genders. Many afterwards never even came to realize there was a wave of Gamergate-style "Your body my choice" sexism, or desire by female gamers to be represented, in response to Battlefield's off-history inclusion efforts (hence the "no one even heard of the robbery" part of the example) So my point is these distractions generally are *not* as easily addressed as you believe. In many real-world allegories to the sample, the metaphorical culprit behind the orphanage robbery is never actually put in jail since the proper response would require societal reaction, but the actual reaction has built up two "sides" that are of equal size.

Open ##1935838