It's a well-written monologue, with a fabulous delivery, but I think it fails spectacularly for this argument.
From what I just looked into, neither of the main people involved, including Damon, Affleck, Williams, Van Sant, Reiner or Goldman, had personally experienced those scenarios of fighting on the front lines and having a friend die in their arms, or of losing their spouse to cancer. But nevertheless, they had used their storytelling ability to write and deliver words based upon the stories of others in a way that created something that resonated with us, and that we still look back on fondly and use as an intuition pump almost 30 years later.
So while "having been there" clearly has some deep meaning, it's very unclear whether there's a particular limit to what one can effectively express (and use to affect others) without having been there oneself.
From what I just looked into, neither of the main people involved, including Damon, Affleck, Williams, Van Sant, Reiner or Goldman, had personally experienced those scenarios of fighting on the front lines and having a friend die in their arms, or of losing their spouse to cancer. But nevertheless, they had used their storytelling ability to write and deliver words based upon the stories of others in a way that created something that resonated with us, and that we still look back on fondly and use as an intuition pump almost 30 years later.
So while "having been there" clearly has some deep meaning, it's very unclear whether there's a particular limit to what one can effectively express (and use to affect others) without having been there oneself.