I appreciate your nuanced response. I apologise for coming off as belligerent.
I guess my "so?" was that you seem to think that certain forms of "not understanding" are worse and more insurmountable than others.
Not understanding someone's military background? Can never be surmounted.
Not understanding someone's experience with racism? Can never be surmounted, and it's offensive to even try.
Not understanding someone's being from a different generation? Can be surmounted if you share traumatic experiences about sexual assault.
I guess my feeling about this is that either you can't understand anyone at all, the gap of understanding is always insurmountable.
Or you can learn to understand somewhat, by analogy and empathy. Never perfectly. But in this view of things there are not only "some" forms of understanding that are open to you this way. This "porousness" is available to everything. I can learn to understand a serial killer. I can learn to understand an octopus. And yes in the same way I can understand people who have had radically different life experiences to me. For example I have never been sexually assaulted. So you share more in common with a Black woman who has been sexually assaulted, than me, a white woman, who has not - in this particular regard. In regards to racism you don't, but in regards to the shared experiences, you do. Likewise a military vet who has never been in combat, will have less in common with someone who has than a civilian who also survived a combat zone.
None of us exist in bubbles. We overlap in our experiences. And the more experiences we share, the more we can empathise.
It will never be a perfect understanding, because no understanding ever is. But we aren't striving for perfection, at least I don't think we should be.
I understand your larger point about not centring yourself in stories that are about experiences you haven't had and can't relate to.
But I think that the message that "you can never understand" (such and such group of people) is maybe not super helpful?
Cause if you go to the extreme, yeah none of us can understand anyone.
But the reason we should listen to more people's stories is so THAT we can try and hear and thereby empathise and yes... understand. Because that's why they share their stories. In the hope we can learn to (imperfectly) understand.
