The Tyranny of “Ongoing Harms”
The Internet’s Favorite Way to End an Argument Without Having One
🍕 I’m JA Westenberg. I write essays about technology, philosophy, productivity, and what it means to be human. If you like ideas that take their time, you’re in the right place.
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The laziest rhetorical device on social media is the accusation of “ongoing harms.”
It’s a shorthand and a shortcut that lets the loudest people on the internet gain maximum attention by damning whoever they choose with a spot, without ever having to name the “harm” or identify the “harmed”; without having to prove a causality or even offer anything resembling a remedy.
It’s a way of sounding wonderfully morally serious without having to do the work of arguing something - anything.
If something is actually dangerous, you should be able to say so.
You should be able to describe the danger, who it affects, and what needs to change.
If there’s a Grand Piano about to drop from a third-story building, you should be able to point to it and say “look out.”
If you can’t do that, you’re not actually talking about harm at all. You might be talking about your own discomfort, a disagreement you can’t explain, anxiety, etc.
But they’re not at all the same thing.
“Ongoing harms” could mean almost anything, which pretty much equates to meaning almost nothing.
But of course, the ambiguity was always the point; the less defined the “harm,” the harder it is to contest, and the more ridiculous you look for opposing it without demanding a line be drawn around it.
The looseness of the word turns it into a flexible and malleable weapon that can be pulled out in any argument as a way of shutting it down.
It moves the burden of proof squarely onto the accused; suddenly, it’s up to you to prove you’re not causing harm; it’s up to you to prove your work is safe.
And because the harm has never actually been clearly stated, the best you can do is ensure nobody could possibly be hurt or offended by your words by stripping away every sharp edge and sanitizing it for every possible audience.
It plays on your own empathy to defang your every idea.
Only an asshole wants to cause harm, after all…
But I don’t think it’s hostile to ask: what exactly has been done wrong? Who exactly was harmed, and by what mechanism? What does ongoing even mean, and do you have any evidence to support the accusation?
Finally - who gets to decide when the Great Harm has been resolved?
I’d call these the minimum requirements for taking any argument seriously.
You can be uncomfortable, your politics can be rejected, and you can be reminded of all the things under the sun that you find distasteful and // or traumatic; but none of that constitutes a harm perpetrated against you and any category of people.
Mostly, it’s just living in the world, where there are people who are unlike you, who will disagree with you, and who won’t admire your ideas.
That’s the breaks.
If you’re angry, it’s your job to explain why. If someone has done something fucked up, it’s your job to state their crime. And if there is a wrong, you should be able to say what it is. If you can’t do those things, you haven’t made an argument worth the burden of answering.