This.
The fact that someone can’t see those phrases you quoted as part of the problem ties right into what I said above about fish and water.
If we saw a picture of a bunch of kids playing in a polluted lake with garbage floating in it, no one would question that it makes us feel sad that those kids have no other place to play, or even outraged that those kids don’t even know what clean water looks like. But when that lake is society, and anyone dares point out the pollution and trash floating around us, and wonders why we can’t clean things up, we’re told that we’re destroying things. How dare we want a clean, healthy environment. A certain faction starts bringing more trash to throw in, because we’ve managed to take some out. They say that we’re cleaning up the right way, or that we’re cleaning up too fast, or we’re not respecting those who like catching sick from all the junk in our environment. That their kids have a right to be ill and throw trash at others. Some may even mock their kids if they see them picking up a piece of litter and throwing it in the garbage can instead of the lake. Others will say things like “well, not all of us have diverted our trash wholesale into the lake, so you complaining about the lake is insulting. And your cleaning efforts are making it hard for me to enjoy my swim.” Just because you (generic, not aimed at @TornPaperNapkin, or any other individual) occasionally only pee in the lake while others have hooked up their entire household sewer system, doesn’t make you innocent.
If you aren’t willing to be part of the solution, and you block the efforts of and attack the people who are, then you are part of the problem. #notall? Well, if not, then why all the defensiveness when we say #yesall?
