Let us start from the premise that in Western culture, “Emotions” are a hot potato, which everybody wants to get rid of. That’s because to be deemed “emotional” is to be considered to have lowly status and to need others to command you at their will. So everyone wants their emotions “validated” so they can be rid of them. To refuse to “validate” someone’s emotions is seen to indicate that one does not see oneself as being equal to the other person. One won’t take their emotions from them and pass them along to the next person. They’re stuck with these emotions and have no means to get rid of them (mainly because of not having learned any strategies to cope by being with oneself). I think it’s this seeming refusal to play along that upsets people. It’s also why many people seem to resort to projection, in order to get rid of their emotions. That’s a way of forcing you to accept the burden of their emotions whether you want to or not. The situation with the two people today was a case in point. I had a different perspective that was very much divorced from populist ideology, and this seems to have been offensive. Therefore, the two characters behaved as if I must accept the price for my independent views in being left to carry the hot potato of both of their emotions. Specifically, a philosophical position was imputed to me that I did not hold.
As regards US culture in particular, many who consider themselves to be advanced are always in a mode that they want to break free from religion and that this is the most radical thing for them imaginable -- the thing that takes the most courage; the really decisive act.
Unfortunately, their situation dominates their minds and interests so much that they can't even entertain the possibility that somebody like me had already broken free from a religious framework a very long time ago. It's like they're always trying to persuade me that I ought to do it.
I find this behaviour very presumptuous and one-eyed.
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