Elise Matthesen

I've said this more privately, but I feel like I can't say it enough: I'm so sorry.

The thing about the people who are saying "everyone knew" is that I think they are more comfortable with the idea that some people are super-evil than with the idea that knowledge can be patchy and uncertain. "Everybody knew" makes the world horrible in a way that's more manageable: clearly none of the speaker's friends might be like your friends, everybody always has perfect knowledge of what their friends are doing, so they don't have to worry that they might have mistaken someone's character. They don't have to have the entirely human experience of finding out that their interactions with someone might be different from other people's interactions with that person. If "everyone knew," trust is never misplaced.

Whereas here in reality, it is. It really is, and you have to accept that you might be wrong, not morally wrong as in defending an abuser, but factually wrong about who someone is. I think that that's very uncomfortable for a lot of people--hell, it's uncomfortable for everybody! I am uncomfortable with it! I just...don't try to rewrite history to make it not exist. Which is I think what is going on with "everyone knew."