"Educate yourself"

[MiriMollyMartha]

AIBU to hate this phrase? It seems to be everywhere recently as another way of saying "You are ignorant and uneducated unless you totally agree with me, and until you agree with me you will continue to be uneducated."

So rude. I also hate “if you think about it” it implies that I’ve made a snap judgement- and will change my mind when I “educate myself”

@HangOnToYourself

So you use an offensive term to justify your objection to a, possibly, offensive phrase?

I think it's used by people who are fed up of banging their head against a brick wall eg when talking to an anti vaxxer or climate change denier or otherwise uninformed person.

This. ^ The phrase 'educate yourself' almost always comes exclusively from liberal-leftie 'woke' types too. They're usually the one with a superiority complex, who think NO-ONE's point of view is correct except theirs.

@MiriMollyMartha YANBU.

Someone used it towards me on here once in rage and there was a 'fucking' in the middle somewhere.

Exactly.

As in educate your fucking self? Hope you were suitably rude back.

This is very true, I was told I was uneducated a few weeks ago for asking a couple to be quiet in the cinema they got thrown out for being drunk and abusive a short time later.

I was accused of this on here some time ago.
I was actually quoting a fact , not an opinion.

It's usually used as an insult by people who don't agree with you and believe that their 'belief' is the only way to think.

I don't want to start a bun fight but vegans seem to use that phrase a lot on MN.

It is so patronising and usually the person saying it is the one who needs educating, if only in manners.

Who exactly is "gammon"....?

Yes. Unfortunately a lot of people talk more than they listen or learn especially about topics such as covid and climate change. There is a lot of wilful ignorance on display.

Having said that, I haven’t seen the phrase used in here.

Gammon is name calling/ hate speech used to broad brush middle age men of a certain political persuasion, usually brexiteers, tories . I think the gammon part is to do with the high flushing that some people get in older age perhaps due to blood pressure/ rosacea There may well be individuals with such characteristics but they aren’t just a homogeneous mass without their own thoughts, differences and good/ bad traits. It immediately writes of the name caller in my view, as prejudiced and weakens any arguments they have.

I find that when I go away and 'educate myself', I invariably end up taking a different view from the person who invited me to do so.

It completely depends on the context.

”I think Kier Starmer is better than Diane Abbott”
”No, he’s not because XYZ. Educate yourself”

is very different from

”Oxygen as a compound is made from hydrogen atoms, and carbon is just two oxygen atoms. So, really, we need to reduce the amount of hydrogen we put out not carbon in order to tackle climate change”
”Fucking hell, educate yourself”

Its used by people unable to engage in a civil debate. Usually because they know they cannot string an argument together in a cohesive way when challenged.

Its passive agressive to avoid questions and scrutiny of what they believe.

Funnily enough most of the people told you to away and educate themselves on a particular topic that is very much to the fore at the moment did so and came back more confident in their opposition to it, all rather backfired somewhat.

"I would usually use this when somebody confidently says something totally misinformed or offensive, like the people that have told me tautism doesn't exist and/or is an excuse for bad parenting."

In that sort of situation the person is either trolling, being a GF or does actually need to educate themselves so quite reasonable to use it.

See also: “do better”. So patronising.

I also dislike the ever-widening definition of “hate”. It now covers what we used to call “polite disagreement”.

People have said this to me, I have gone away and educated myself and nearly always found their position to be made up entirely of rhetoric and devoid of facts, often directly contradicting the available data.

I think it’s generally patronising because it’s often used in a context where someone is genuinely unsure of something, might have done reading around the topic and then is asking for clarification on something. However, I think it’s also used in frustration at the wide eyed naivety of “oh I don’t possibly understand, could someone explain…” - usually on topics like racism, trans issues etc.

It sounds dickish in both examples.

Yes it’s highly patronising and usually delivered in a way that implies spittle is flying and eyeball whites are visible in the deliverer.

It’s low level Orwellian thought policing, grassroots totalitarianism. I can’t engage with people who communicate like this; so basic and bullying.

I assume people that froth with these kind of statements are ones I’d avoid and whose opinions I’d give a wide berth rather than seeing their usually hardcore stance as being my end goal.

Yes I hate it too. The people who say it are not educated themselves and adopt an odd stiff language which is supposed to be educated and superior but is in fact a dead giveaway about their ignorance.

I have only ever had this said to me regarding vaccines.

It was most definitely not said by an epidemiologist or virologist funnily enough.