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Comment by coldtea | Hacker News Reader

They actually do the opposite: they boast of the harsh conditions of their childhood, not as victims but as survirvors/tough self-made people. And of course their traumas/tough conditions are made up to be actually hard (to the point of absurdity).

So in both cases, they do the opposite of what I claimed people commonly stoop to today:

(a) presenting lesser, irrelevant issues and "slights" as "traumas"

(b) focusing on how traumatised they were by those (that is, playing the victim, not taking pride in overcoming them or at least pretending to be a tough survivor like the four Yorkshiremen).

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I understand that you are now saying that you accept people talking about their traumas, if you personally agree that they have suffered, and if you personally understand and recognise what they are saying within your own narrative: one of overcoming and having power, as these four successful parodies are claiming.

But that's not the reality of trauma for many people. Some people are never going to be quaffing wine in a fancy restaurant and reminiscing with their aged school-chums. Some people will suffer evident psychological harm that they may never fully recover from.

The four yorkshiremen's tales centre on a factual recounting, not touching upon feelings or harm done or how the situation was dealt with. [it was presented in this way with the effect of parodying this attitude.]

I think this deserves the pushback you are getting. It has damaged generations, to not be able to talk about their subjective experiences of objective harm.

I think your attitude is selfish (in the sense that you're making it about yourself). It does you no harm for people to tell their stories, in their own terms. Why not let folks be?

>I understand that you are now saying that you accept people talking about their traumas, if you personally agree that they have suffered

Whereas there are people who don't do that? Who are OK with people talking about their traumas if they thing those people are faking it/overblown them?

You dressed the description up to make me sound like some exception. But I think everybody (except perhaps the totally indifferent) only accept others talking about their traumas if they believe those other are genuine and talk the truth. Else, they consider them hypocrites or liars or opportunists, and so on. Isn't that the case?

Let's make it perfectly clear what I mean:

(a) I'm totally fine with people talking about their real traumas as traumas

(b) I'm also totally fine with people talking about their real traumas as things they brushed off/soldiered through

(d) I believe many more overblow or make-up traumas to play the victims, score sympathy points, get a leverage, etc.

(e) I don't like the latter category - I consider them hypocrites, and I think they cheapen real trauma for everybody

(f) I use my own opinion to consider who belongs to (a) and is legit or who belongs to (e) and is thus a hypocrite. What's the alternative? Taking whatever everybody says as necessarily true even if I have doubts about their honesty or history?

(g) who am I to judge other people's stories? Well, I'm the arbiter of my opinion. Shouldn't I judge for myself (including whether another is a hypocrite or not)?

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