Listen for this phrase and you’ll hear it everywhere. 'I feel like,’ gives you an out. You’re not stating a fact but giving an opinion, which cannot be refuted with logic. “I feel like” masquerades as a humble conversational offering, an invitation to share your feelings, too — but the phrase is an absolutist trump card. It halts argument in its tracks. “It’s a way of deflecting, avoiding full engagement with another person or group,” Democracy is premised on civilized conflict. The greatest advance of the modern age has been our ability to argue about society’s most pressing questions without resorting to physical violence (most of the time). Yet the growing tyranny of feelings in the way Americans talk — about everything from how to fund public education to which presidential candidate to support — exerts a subtler kind of coercion on the public sphere. You cannot disagree.”
At www.nytimes.com
