Melania's Hat is Lovely, Regardless of Ideology

This is a response to a thread on a hobby interest group commenting on this article on MSN:
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/melania-trump-raises-eyebrows-in-africa-with-another-white-hat/ar-BBO0yBm?ocid=spartanntp

I believe the thread is public and can be viewed here:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/chapsoftheworld/permalink/10155901502051762/

I don't want another interest/hobby group to be lost to this divisive corrupting ideology going around ruining everything that is fun and enjoyable.



The 1st lady has caused no objective harm or damage to any individual. Also, to my knowledge, no one who was in her company has claimed to be offended by her choice of wear. If they were, and this was made known to her, it would be her judgement alone whether this would warrant making a personal apology to that individual. Those that claim offense *on behalf of* a group identity (somehow) are themselves judging the thinking of all individuals in that group of whome they do not personally know, ie a pre-judgement based on identity group. This is, at best, patronizing to all individuals in that group; all individuals have their own agency and can think and speak for themselves.

This nonsense is all driven by ideology. Mainstream thinking and group-think like that in the media and parts of academia is so often now driven not by objectivity but by intersectional ideology. Intersectionality is an extreme collectivist ideology that seeks to control thoughts and behaviour (hence 'Orwellian' references in the original thread) with the idea of a limited set of prescribed group identities which form an 'out-group' to be opposed and other prescribed group identities form an 'in-group' to be protected.

This is usually achieved with control of the linguistic territory (Orwell again). Eg 'harmed' or 'attacked' is redefined as 'causing someone to be offended'. Since offense is subjective, anyone can claim to have been attacked by anything anyone says.. or.. wears. Thus for anyone in the grips of the ideology, the 'truth' of the claim is not regarded as provisional on any objective measure of any damage, but rather on whether it is in line with the ideological in-group v out-group narrative (is the 'attacker' a member of the 'out-group' and is the 'attacked' a member of the 'in-group'? If yes then it is true, else it is false.). This thing with the hat is simply to confer 'out-group' status to the 1st lady. 'She is a bad person! Twitter outrage mob ACTIVATE!'

This is in opposition to the reality that we are all individuals made up of zillions of characteristics that make up an identity, (Eg tall, left-handed, Scottish, tweed wearer, book-worm, etc) that deserve not to be judged on whether membership of a prescribed identity group is the 'in-group' or 'out-group', but on our merits and character.