Lecturing Others on Issues in Social Settings

In My Humble Opinion
1

Back in December, I had some friends over for board game night, and one of them spied a honey mustard container in my kitchen from Chick-Fil-A. She’s bisexual, and gave me quite a lecture about how the company donates money to organizations that want to see people like her dead, she lives in fear because of people like that, and she even has a bug out bag in case she has to flee the United States suddenly. Admittedly, I was a bit irritated that a guest was lecturing me in my own home, and I figured escalation would likely result in my ejecting her from my home and ending a friendship, so I just let her lecture me for a few minutes before moving on.

Today at board game night at another person’s house, a player was wearing a Harry Potter shirt, and she lectured him for a few minutes in a smiliar manner. Unlike me, he didn’t just listen, but he got defensive saying “Look, I buy all sorts of stuff, and I don’t pay attention to the who is making the money or whether I agree with them,” but she wouldn’t let it go. Finally her husband got exasperated and asked her, “Can we not do this now|?” and she finally let it drop.

Obviously she cares very deeply about these things for good reason. But how far do you lecture people in a casual social setting? I’m not going to lecture someone for wearing a Harry Potter shirt, eating at Jimmy John’s (the owner likes big game hunting), or ordering from Amazon, but I’d speak up if someone was using racial slurs.

2

Do you understand why she was upset, and did you give any thought to what she said?

3

I covered that in the OP.

4

Some people live for recreational outrage. And with the right sensitivity level, you can always find something to be outraged about. Not to be branded a hypocrite, I’m frequently outraged about a wide array of things but I generally avoid lecturing people about them because that rarely produces a desired result. Although if I every got the chance to lecture Tucker Carlson on national television, I’d do it in a heartbeat.

Stranger

5

This sounds like a good question for Miss Manners, but I expect her answer to be something like “A guest should know well enough to act graciously when invited to a social function, lest they no longer get any more invitations.” It’s on your guest to behave and not be a boor, but not extending further invitations sounds like it would solve the problem for you as the host.

6

Whatever your opinions about what is productive and when, an LGBT person’s concern for their own safety in this country is certainly not “recreational”.

7

In the context presented in the o.p. in which there is no immanent threat, the aggressive and confrontational ‘lecturing’ is misdirected, ill-considered, and while describing it as ‘recreational’ seem be unduly trivializing, it is being done to take out that (presumably trauma-induced) aggression on a hapless target who, at most, has done nothing more offensive than demonstrating a lack of awareness about that particular issue or the source of that product. If the person in question wanted to sincerely challenge and perhaps change the opinion of the o.p. they would have pulled him aside or found some other opportunity to make a persuasive argument for avoiding that product. Instead, she apparently engages in this performative outrage so frequently that the o.p. reports her husband as intervening with a “Can we not do this now?” in a later engagement with someone else.

I fully understand the fear and anger about the treatment of LGBTQ+ people in horrific ways, and no just casual bigotry but institutionalized prejudice intended to foster hatred in a proto-fascistic movement, i.e. Ron DeSantis, and I welcome any opportunity for discussion on the topic of how this isn’t just vile and hateful behavior but it is literally laying the groundwork for tearing the fabric of democratic society apart at the seams. But I make the point about this being “recreational outrage” because I was exposed to this kind of behavior serially as a child, being lectured, taunted, insulted, and belittled by someone over issues I had no control over and often manufactured outrage of casual statements or interests and then being forced to apologize for ‘causing’ the angst because of my unwitting presence about which I could do nothing other than try to shrink away and disappear, which left me in fear of any interactions and ultimately destroyed my relationships with several people to avoid a conflict I could do absolutely nothing to mitigate or control.

In short, if you want to persuade people that they should change an attitude or boycott a product, being directly and immediately confrontational to someone not expecting an argument is pretty much the worst way to go about it. On the other hand, if you are looking get a feeling of superiority, dominance, or just take out your anger on someone else for an incidental ‘transgression’ like having a mustard packet in their kitchen, it’s the perfect approach. Just don’t get surprised if you aren’t invited back.

Stranger

8

So while acknowledging that LGBT people face an existential threat you are still doubling down with a long diatribe trying to justify calling this LGBT person’s behavior “recreational”? Nothing you wrote makes that highly inappropriate word a synonym for aggressive, confrontational, misdirected or ill-considered.

9

I’m LGBT+ and I’m totally with Stranger on this. There are many injustices in this world. Taking that out on your friends isn’t the way to fight them. The guest sounds like someone I would avoid at any party.

10

Depends what we’re there to do - if it were board game night, I might discuss it with you in a quiet moment, to feel out your attitude to bigoted chicken joints, if I didn’t already know. But I wouldn’t lecture you.

At more of a party vibe, I might say something more publicly, but still not lecture. I might mock, though, if we’re really good friends and I know you share my sense of humour.

But eating at C-F-A, or wearing a Potter t-shirt, isn’t the kind of thing that needs a lecture, like racial slurs do.

Hell, even wearing a MAGA hat wouldn’t rate that, in a casual social setting. Open mockery, though? For sure.

Are you suggesting the OP didn’t buy their own honey mustard, or the other player’s mummy still bought their shirts? This is projection.

11

I have to say, this person’s reaction seems both extreme and media-driven. I actually left the US because (at the time) policy on same-sex marriage meant I couldn’t sponsor my spouse for immigration. We didn’t “bug out,” but we did go. I would never in a million years eat at Chik-Fil-A, but—do you really think there are a lot of major fast-food chains whose owners and controllers aren’t anti-LGBT? Have we surveyed McDonald’s, Carl’s Jr, Wendy’s, and the others to check how progressive they are? I’m guessing they’re just less blatant about their dislike of gays.

Similarly, you see lots of people saying “Home Depot is Bad! I’m shopping at Lowe’s!” in a way that is performing their own ideological identity more than demonstrating in-depth research into the company’s current policies.

Even Rowling, with her outspoken transphobia—I’m pretty sure that every author I read during my childhood (other than Louise Fitzhugh) was what would now be called transphobic. There’s a lot of trans-positive YA literature now, which is amazing in a very good way, but I’m guessing that there’s a lot of transphobic popular authors. That is not to excuse Rowling, but to point out that the outrage really does seem recreational.

I think Stranger is right that this is probably a trauma-induced overreaction, so one I’d react with compassion, but still annoying and inappropriate. You don’t make things better by policing your friends.

(Confession: I have also berated friends for Chik-Fil-A, which I now regret.)

12

I’m pretty sure Ursula Le Guin never was…

13

I’ve been in a smiliar situation where I lectured a friend and that discussion ended the friendship. She was going on and on about homeopathy, and, for reasons I don’t quiet understand, I decided I needed to chime in about how useles it is except maybe as a placebo. As we continued to speak, the conversation became a bit more heated, she made some comments about me blindly accepting the medical establishment, and when she said she treats her child with homeopathy I said, “If your child has a serious illness and you’re just treating her with homeopathy that’s child abuse.” So I’m a little hesitant to get into heated conversations with people lest the friendship ends.

14

It sounds to me like this person goes through her day looking for occasions to express her outrage regardless of the setting.

If she can’t set aside her anti Chik-fil-A stance long enough to focus on removing the funny bone or deciding whether she wants to buy B&O Railroad, she should do everyone a favor and not participate in game night.

I would not invite her back after those two incidents.

mmm

15

I don’t like being around preachy people in social settings, even if I agree with what they’re saying.

16

I’ve never berated friends over CFA, but when someone suggested we eat there I said I wouldn’t and explained why. This was years ago and it generated some serious discussion, as two friends had no idea.

We ended up eating Mexican.

17

Two anecdotes – one more on-point than the other:

A friend wanted me to meet his new girlfriend. Dinner at her house. Everything was great, the conversation was good. The new GF was a highly successful corporate attorney.

After a couple glasses of the grape, she went on and on about how her past boyfriends “always wanted me to move away with them … until they found out how much money I made.”

Beautiful, pricey house with an ocean view in an upscale coastal community in San Diego.

Then she began talking about how women who needed government assistance should probably just be temporarily sterilized (think: Norplant) until they can become self-reliant. She saw this as rather an ultimate act of kindness and charity and swore that it shored up her liberal creds.

I suggested that affordable, accessible, high-quality day care and jobs that paid a living wage were probably a more traditionally liberal position. She got indignant.

I mean indignant.

I mentioned that – while I was unaware of her history – the view from the ivory tower in which she now lived had become pretty skewed.

Friendship: nuked.

–

A longtime, very close friend wanted me to meet his beloved (after I’d lived in another town for a while and come back ‘home.’

Dinner at our place. Wine.

His GF was telling my wife and me a story about a coastal condo where she had previously lived. She got word that an elderly resident had fallen in arrears on her HOA dues. GF hired an attorney to figure out how she could “take the house away from” the elderly woman in financial jeopardy. It was a coastal community and there was much money to be made if she could get her hands on the unit.

I asked a number of pointed questions, trying to be sure that I fully understood the situation and wasn’t misinterpreting.

Nope. I wasn’t.

I did NOT say anything at the dinner, but a week or so later, getting together with my old dear friend, I told him that I simply had to talk about the incident. It barely rang familiar to him, but … I was pretty shocked. This friend is (was?) one of the kindest, most thoughtful people I’ve known. I mentioned that he or I would have tried to help the elderly condo resident get current and keep her house. Never in a million years would we have shifted into avaricious and predatory mode.

Fast forward just a wee bit. Friendship: nuked.

I think I’ve learned to keep my mouth shut. As I said here recently:

  • When people don’t ask my opinion, they really don’t want my opinion
  • When people DO ask my opinion, they generally still don’t want my opinion

I admire the woman’s (in the OP) passion and commitment and I honor and acknowledge the potential existential threat that bigotry represents to her and others, but you have to pick your battles, know your audience, and choose your moments.

Nobody wants to keep inviting over the guy who’s always in a new multi-level marketing gig, and will NOT refrain from selling anybody and everybody he encounters. It gets old.

A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.
– Winston Churchill.

I do NOT mean to castigate this woman. I just understand that – as legit as your issue is, as high as the stakes may be, as important as the cause can truly be – sometimes, ground is lost rather than gained.

18

There’s something called “tact.” Your friend clearly doesn’t have any.

19

Yeah it’s easy to jump on the bandwagon and make noise about mustard packets from CFA But I bet she’s oblivious about most of the other hundreds of corporations that got failing marks in supporting human rights and goes on blithely purchasing their products.

https://www.phillymag.com/news/2019/04/01/chick-fil-a-boycott/

Short version: If you are going to boycott Chick-fil-A, you might have to reconsider shopping at Bed Bath & Beyond, Acme (Albertsons Companies), and H&M; eating at Outback (Bloomin’ Brands) and Taco Bell (Yum China Holdings); living in Toll Brothers McMansions; feeding the kids Dole bananas and pineapples; using ADT for your security company; and buying spark plugs at Pep Boys, which is headquartered in Philadelphia.

20

I don’t think accusing your host of participating in a conspiracy to kill you based on a fast food condiment package to be recreational, it’s just the kind of rude and malicious behavior the people she’s complaining about engage in.