It is a meaningless phrase brought out when the speaker has no actual reasons. The phrasing is new, so we think of it as some deterioration of public culture proving that we would all be going to hell immediately, except for the handbasket shortage. Yet it is largely equivalent to the older "I just feel," and when you look at it closely, the more accepted phrase "In my experience" isn't much better. Older people have been saying for generations "When you've lived as long as I have..." We likely find it risible because as a newer phrase it is more frequently on the lips of people too young to have much Lived Experience. Also, it is usually said with an earnestness and passion that the speaker feels are proof of correctness. How dare you question my lived experience. It's irrefutable, because I have actually felt these things for a long time. You can't know what I have been through.
I suppose the alternative is "my inherited experience" or "my acquired experience." I see references to that sort of thing very frequently, though not by those terms, in discussions of policing.
ReplyDelete"Trauma resides in the DNA"
ReplyDeleteI don't use that expression, but I base much of my political beliefs on "lived experience," not on books read. Such as my conclusion that racism/prejudice/bigotry are to a large degree inherent in us- not taught- as we will always classify in-groups and out-groups.
ReplyDeleteOne combination of "lived experiences" and book learning would be my views on Latin America. The "progressive" view of Latin America didn't jibe with what I had observed there. My reading of Carlos Rangel's Del Buen Salvaje al Buen Revolcionario (The Latin Americans: Their Love-Hate Relationship with the United States), purchased in a Venezuelan cafe, gave intellectual grounding to my observations. More book learning followed.