No. of Recommendations: 11
A couple of months ago I was on a cruise ship off the South African coast. One of the guest speakers was an investigative journalist who had held the South African government's feet to the fire. As she was explaining the challenges of working under a populist, egotistic president (Jacob Zuma) who had wrested power from the judiciary and who had associated with corrupt oligarchs (the Guptas). At that point, a handful of Americans loudly got up and left the auditorium. They then went to the ship's captain and complained that the speaker had maligned US President Donald Trump.
Since the speeches are all recorded, I re-watched it later in my cabin. Not only didn't she mention President Trump, but never mentioned the US (or any government other than South Africa).
A truly amazing story, thanks for sharing it.
Some people seem to generalize using categories that are too broad to be usefully correct. ("you're either with us or against us"?) Presumably they heard something in the speech that tagged Mr Zuma as being part of their own over-broad mental category already containing Mr Trump, and saw slighting of one as slighting of all.
Sometimes finer distinctions are required. As, for example, categories like Muslim, Resident of Israel, Palestinian, Jew, Israeli, Resident of Gaza, IDF soldier, Hamas member, terrorist, and so forth. Safest not to overgeneralize--that list alone probably covers over 100 non-zero sets of people.
(in case any of those is a trigger word for an overgeneralizer, please note that I did not say anything good or bad about any member or non-member of any of those groups)
Jim
