No, discourse isn’t dead. You’re not saying anything worth listening to.

Something that I keep hearing a lot about is how we’ve “lost the ability for reasoned discourse in our society.” I have to disagree. It’s not that we can’t have reasoned discourse, it’s that people are no longer willing to allow others to say things that are harmful or to entertain ideas that are oppressive.

It’s easy to have “well-reasoned” discourse when it isn’t your humanity, dignity, or well-being that is being treated like an intellectual exercise.

I am all for robust discussion, learning from, and challenging one another.

But most of the time that’s not what the “death of discourse” crowd wants. They want for folks who feel the weight of marginalization to sit back and treat reductive, dehumanizing, harmful, insulting, etc. ideas as if they have the same weight as their lived experience and societal critique.

On top of that, a lot of the ideas that people have about “discourse” are nothing but some majoritarian, occidental thought anyhow. In other words, a lot of people want to impose western, dominant culture ideas about how people should discuss stuff, and they don’t realize that their standards for discourse often benefit those in positions of privilege and power.

Discourse isn’t dead. Y’all just ain’t saying anything worth listening to. Stop trying to guild your turd of an opinion and listen to hear what people say instead of listening to respond and let those with the least privilege speak the loudest and longest.