The tyranny of ‘lived experience

Spiked ^ | 19 Mar 2021 | Brendan O’Neill

[Rummyfan]

Thou shalt not disrespect another’s lived experience. On the surface of it, this would appear to be the key commandment of the woke age. A person’s ‘lived experience’ carries an extraordinary amount of moral weight in the 21st century. Public debate is built around it. Policy, increasingly, is built around it. Policy, increasingly, is shaped by it. Journalism is full of it: column after column about the lived experience of systemic racism, transphobia, misogyny, mental health. Lived experience is the moral currency of campus life. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard student activists recount their ‘lived experiences’ — always oppressive, always tragic — and round furiously on anyone who dares to question said lived experience.

‘Lived experience’ is the great incontestable. No doubt may be expressed about a person’s lived experience. It is the truth and nothing but the truth. We’ve witnessed this over the past few days as people have been demonised, hounded and in some cases even sacked for having had the temerity to question Meghan Markle’s ‘lived experience’ of royal racism and mental-health problems.

[ASOC]

Guess they never had a chance to travel in Africa or South America to see real poverty 1st hand.

Or travel the old Soviet to see just how wonderful Communism is in ‘real life”.

[Secret Agent Man]

Just how upside down the world is.

The dumber you are, the worse choices you make, and have worse life experiences, the more you are celebrated

The ones who make decent choices, avoid unnecesary self inflicted problems, and have varying degrees of success, you are now hated and “privileged” and must have had everything handed to you