Social Justice, Political Correctness, and the Left

Why is it the offended who has to change but not the offender?

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Probably more than that.

I think this thread was better when it was arguments and not memes. I suppose mocking a wrongheaded idea is a bit better than trying to protect yourself from even hearing it, but neither is nearly as good as making a cogent case about why it's bad.

Depends on what "has to" means. Nobody should have to, so if one side is talking seriously about whether or not force should be involved, then that's the side that's overstepping.

But if you mean "has to" not in the sense of coercion, but simply moral uprightness, then I think the answer is that it can't be generalized: asking which should change is like asking who wins "an argument." Depends on the argument.

It's possible to be genuinely offensive, and it's also possible to be unnecessarily offended. I acknowledge both possibilities, which is to say, I don't think anyone offended is automatically wrong to be that way and just needs to "get over it," and I don't think taking offense is sufficient, by itself, to demand someone change. Do you?

You mean like the rabid land piranhas who send showrunners death threats for killing off female or POC characters for example? I don't think you'd get on with them at all, ash. You're way too nice.

All I'm saying is that if we're going to complain about a statistically small group of individuals who have managed to rig institutions against the majority for their own self-serving agendas, then there are more likely culprits than "the politically correct people".

I'm talking about the lack of balance more than anything. I can acknowledge that all those potential outcomes are at the very least possible, but does that mean anything when one of those possibilities frequently gets treated as a certainty? All the memes/videos on the previous page are based on the premise that the offended party is automatically the one who is going about things wrong and should change their ways, mainly through the use of strawmen. The extreme caricatures in the videos encourage viewers to mentally connect the concept of "being offended" with the most extreme possible version by using the most obnoxiously and unjustifiably self-righteous individuals possible, whereas the Bill Lumbergh meme presumes to lump every "offended" person together as nothing more than a disturbance to be settled as quickly as possible (which makes the use of a character like Bill Lumbergh a bit ironic since he's a character whose concern with running an orderly office is what actually keeps it in disarray).

Anyway, people spamming content like this is symptomatic of a problem where anything one side throws out is okay because it's supposed to be a joke and anyone who tries to oppose them effectively loses because they're the ones who are "taking things too seriously". I've mentioned this before, but there's a serious problem with people who treat caring about such subjects as a weakness that can be attacked or exploited. It's why I quoted that Mitch Hedberg line about not being as good at tennis as a wall to illustrate this point. The wall doesn't care about how good you are at playing tennis because it doesn't care about playing tennis at all, let alone being good at it. It just wears you down by being an unthinking, immovable wall.

In this context, trying to take a more moderate "it depends" kind of view may seem like the ideal approach to take in order to avoid getting caught up in the extremes on either side, but the flip-side of that is that you risk settling for ordered compromise on issues that can't necessarily be resolved in such a manner, plus it throws which sides you do or don't argue with into sharp relief. Like the song goes, "if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice."

Were the people just waiting for the end of it more influential in the American Revolution than the most devoted Revolutionaries?:

Offence is largely subjective and will always be so.

The problem is when people try and tell others what they should and shouldn't be offended by and
people letting everyone know how offended they are all of the time.

Firstly, I take responsibility for my own actions. If they offend someone then I will apologise if I think I was in the wrong and alter my behaviour or I will explain my intentions and then carry on.

A lady recently told me that she was offended that I held the door open foe her as she was capable of opening it herself.
I explained that I would have held it open whoever was behind me. It had nothing to do with me judging her as incapable of opening the door (although if that was the case I would hold the door open )

I continue to hold the door open for people as I deem her offence to be misplaced.

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"I don't want to be a product of my environment, I want my environment to be a product of me" (Frank Costello)

I'm not really sure what you're talking about. I responded to the thing I quoted, about the issue in general. This makes it sound like you're just talking about this one thread.

Agreed. Note the first paragraph in my last post.

Ditto. See above.

And I'll add that I'm particularly annoyed with the "u mad bro" school of Internet arguing, and its implication that whoever cares less "wins."

Again, it sounds like you're talking about the thread and not the thing I was actually quoting. Please clarify.

This kinda sounds like that vague accusation you made in this post and then declined to expound on.

Regardless, there's not much "arguing" to be done with a meme, and as glib as that stuff can be, it's not a serious concern, for reasons I put in my two previous posts:

People being rude is not a fundamental threat to free speech. People being censored or silenced through force, is. Combined with polling that shows young people are shockingly open to restricting free speech, and that's a pretty good reason to focus on one more than the other (though certainly not the only one).

We must be twins, Sarge. Same thing happened to me not long ago. A woman had both hands full so I held the door open for her. She said she was quite capable of doing it herself and asked if I did that because she's a woman (eh wut?). I said I would have done the same for any PERSON with their hands full. Wow. I've never bitten someone's head off for holding the door for me, whether that be a door in a building or the door of a taxi - I dont expect it because of my gender but when it happens I say thank you. I laughed with the shop owner about it and he said I just should have said OK and let the door close. I miss that guy.

"You don't have to hold the door open for me because I'm a woman."


"I didn't. I held it open for you because I am a gentleman."

I was talking about issues that have existed on this forum beyond what's just been mentioned in this thread. I'll reference other threads where exchanges on this very topic have taken place to prove that my points were not solely about this thread alone anyway.

If it's got to come down to picking either "coercion" or "moral uprightness" then my original point leaned more towards the latter. However, pointing out that such a concept "can't be generalised" is a vague response that doesn't account for the specifics. It's an "All Lives Matter" kind of response - sure, it's an inclusive and agreeable sentiment on paper, but in practice it ends up coming across as a deflection away from the real issue. It reminds me of this exchange I had with Citizen Rules a while back regarding PC culture - he claimed that "any actor should be able to play any role", I countered him with a fairly detailed response about some of the problems with that, he didn't respond for whatever reason. That also doubles as another example of how it's the "offended" party who gets considered wrong outside this thread - CR posits that PC types being offended by creative decisions is wrong because it "kills creativity", whereas I contend that being inconsiderate is liable to do the same (though, to be fair, the topic only went that way because Dani was actually asking a sincere question about The Danish Girl).

I'd have to search way back in the indexes to find all the examples (especially when they pop up within unrelated threads like the one linked above), but a couple of the most prominent controversial threads in recent memory were started out of the mindset that the "offended" party was the one who was wrong. I'm mainly thinking of FromBeyond's feminism thread and DAnconia's Halloween costume thread when I write that - obviously full of inflammatory rhetoric from both OPs, but other members did not necessarily find their perspectives inherently disagreeable. That's what I was getting at - I can hypothetically acknowledge every possibility, but in practicality I tend to have to acknowledge one more than the others.

That was out of frustration with the fact that, in that thread and others I mentioned earlier, I was having to juggle not just arguing with the "extreme" individuals but also having to take the time to calmly explain myself to the "moderate" ones like yourself while the extreme ones were effectively left to rattle off whatever they wanted as long as they weren't drawing attention by using personal insults against other members. I guess my problem was that I expected fairness from the people who were ostensibly in the "middle" of the argument, but when it turned out that my side ends up being more outwardly disagreeable to the middle people than my opponent's - well, that just made the process even more exhausting. That's why I originally dropped the "accusation" - because I eventually realised that it wasn't worth pushing for a multitude of reasons.

However, when you quoted the parts of my post where I explained in detail about why I did consider it a serious concern, you didn't offer any comment past "agreed" or "ditto". The point is that it can't just be shrugged off as "glib" - all humour has to come from somewhere and I pointed out how I saw them as extensions of flawed social constructs regardless of whether the people making/referencing them seemed to be aware of their greater implications.

The vagueness of this part is a point of concern, though - what exactly does this polling define "restricting free speech" as? Does it also account for said young people's political affiliations (or lack thereof)? Could this actually overlap with a different claim that this current generation is turning out to be more conservative than previous ones, thus implying that right-wing youth might be more in favour of the restrictions than the left-wing youth who would presumably support PC culture as well? In any case, I would say that the polling's definition would be key to understanding the results and what exactly is being threatened by these hypothetical restrictions.

You don't have to prove it; my question wasn't about that. I meant that I seemed to be talking about The Issue, and you seemed to be talking about The Thread (or, as it turns out, The Forum).

While I'm glad to learn coercion isn't necessarily your default position, it's pretty troubling how all your comments about political violence are so qualified and diluted.

What specifics? Here's what I was replying to:

"Why is it the offended who has to change but not the offender?"

It might be if I was presented with a specific concern and only gave you a general response, but that's not what happened. I can't deflect a point that wasn't made.

What I did do is make an educated guess about what you were asking, and explained my thought process when deciding between the two in various situations. Which is, like, the polar opposite of a deflection. If anything, I probably expounded more than was necessary, especially considering you (apparently) meant something else entirely.

What is this supposed to be illustrating? You didn't get dogpiled on. CR said something you disagreed with, and you disagreed with him. This whole paragraph could be "I once had a disagreement with Citizen Rules."

You realize that both of those members have been temporarily banned for starting threads like that, right?

If you're simply saying that most of the people on this forum think little of political correctness, then yes, that's certainly true.

I think it's pretty simplistic to think everyone can just be dropped onto an ideological spectrum and expect those in the "middle" to criticize everyone on either side of them.

You also seem to be conflating "extreme" rhetoric with extreme positions. Worrying about political correctness is not an extreme position, even though a lot of the people who worry about it try to sound as extreme as possible saying so. Similarly, the idea that we need to restrict this speech is an extreme position, and continues to be one even when the person espousing it is outwardly polite and willing to engage with people about it. Omaronthewitnessstand.gif

I feel the pedantic need to point out that I actually did, when I complained about the "u mad bro" stuff. But if you're saying that if I agree with you, I should say so to the people in question, well, this was literally the first thing I posted in this exchange:

"I think this thread was better when it was arguments and not memes. I suppose mocking a wrongheaded idea is a bit better than trying to protect yourself from even hearing it, but neither is nearly as good as making a cogent case about why it's bad."

Nobody's posted those since. So...what are you looking for? I should just write a few paragraphs anyway, expounding on why I agree with you about something that's not actually happening any more?

That's...not how any of this works.

If you're concerned about which speech is under threat, then you've already implicitly accepted the idea that some of it should be, or that you can restrict some without threatening all of it. But if any of it's threatened, all of it is.

It's kind of like I told you a dictator has seized power, and you asked me which things they didn't like so you could figure out if they were a threat to you. The threat is that there's a dictator, full stop, whether his whims align with yours or not. Similarly, somebody doesn't really believe in free speech if they're only concerned about it when they think it's their speech that's going to be restricted.

I've been thinking more on this point and I agree. People have a right to be offended but I draw the line at faux offence by weekend SJWs who are offended by absolutely everything and want to lecture in return. If I order a black coffee I dont expect someone to spit in my face that I;m a racist. That's ludicrous. Or another example, I think I asked you the other day why storms, hurricanes etc are named after women. You made a joke in reply pertaining to women having a stormy demeanor. If I had been butt hurt by that because I have ovaries then I fully expect you or someone else would call me a fragile snowflake.

I can't tell people what they should be offended about. I can't tell them how to receive what i say and do, I can only tell them how it was intended. Then I decide whether I should change my behaviour.

Some political correctness is however plain nonsense.

I agree, old man.

My attitude is there are way more important issues in the world for me to invest my outrage into than someone calling me an old duck, or a Skippy (which I didnt even realise was a slur here until an asian girl told me not to call whities that), or whatever other things get the overly sensitive offended.

OK here are a couple of examples that just sprang to mind. On imdb a guy referred to actresses in a show as 'the ladies'. On another board a really sweet young guy who had never caused any conflict in the three years I saw him there referred to actresses as 'females'. In both instances some women tore each guy a new one. Ridiculous much? Throwing terms at them like ...you know the drill... You Misogynist, You sexist Pig, How dare you, delete your comment or I;m reporting you.

*scratching my head*

Old man

OK here's an example just for an exercise and to discuss out of interest. Offensive or no? I will keep my opinion to myself for now so others can discuss without feeling like I am trying to lead the discussion. All PoVs genuinely welcome.�� Wht's your initial reaction?

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...=facebook-post

Tht's a thumbs up but sometimes it doesnt work

No takers? Have I scared people off because of my attitude towards muzzies?

OK here is my initial reaction.

I found it offensive. Not outrage offensive; just oh well that's typical of Saudis.

And it wasnt the all male panel with the female members of the panel in purdah. I thought that was atleast a start for such a male dominated culture. I bristled at the use of the word 'girl' for a women's council. Shows their mindset towards women having the rights of children (ie none) and no voice.

Anyone care to agree or disagree? It;s ok if you think I;m a fragile snowflake, or give me a thump on the back if you agree.

I'm deeply offended Dani. I'm a Muslim.

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