I’ve had this debate before and was unable to come to a conclusion. It seems to me that any criticism, no matter how valid, could be characterized as harassment.
What do you guys think?
Is there a heuristic for determining which one a statement is?
Does everything just exist on a continuum between the two?
Is this harassment?

  • ThannOP
    1·
    3 years ago

    There are articles on Wikipedia defining harassment, critique and logical fallacies.

    Interestingly the word criticism doesn’t appear in the wiki article on harassment =/

    Harassment, under the laws of the United States, is defined as any repeated or continuing uninvited contact that serves no useful purpose beyond creating alarm, annoyance, or emotional distress.

    This implies that only statements devoid of criticism could be considered harassment, but I think almost any statement could be characterized as criticism, so this doesn’t seem like a very useful definition =/

    • Salamander@mander.xyz
      2·
      3 years ago

      I don’t think this implies that. Criticism is not inherently useful. Unwanted criticism very rarely is!

      • ThannOP
        2·
        3 years ago

        Sometimes the people that need criticism the most, don’t want it ^>^

        • Salamander@mander.xyz
          2·
          3 years ago

          Yeah, fair enough. But the concept of useful unwanted criticism reminds of an argument that I used to hear as a kid during the ‘anti-bullying’ debate. The argument was that being bullied was not only helpful but even essential during a child’s development because it helped them to ‘toughen up’ to face the real world.

          • ThannOP
            1·
            3 years ago

            Yeah, in their mind, they’re serving the public interest.
            I guess this means you need to have scientific support for your claims if you’re going to make the “public interest” claim 🤔