The Power of Being Offended

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Political correctness. Being offended. How much power should these concepts have?

Examples of our culture being affected by groups being offended:

- Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. A character is called Nigger Jim, because he is a black slave during the days of slavery. The book portrays slavery negatively, yet people are still offended by the usage of the word. The word "nigger" has often been removed in re-prints of the book.

- The statue of David has often had its genitalia censored at exhibitions.

- The MPAA which gives ratings to movies. Censorship of art and movies due to content.

- Pressure groups are often offended by shows like South Park and Family Guy because of their "foul" language.

Regardless of what we might think of it, there is real power in being offended. It is possible to stop art/content from being seen by the world, and it is possible to re-write the history of art.

Why is it bad to be offended? Why should content creators have to answer to your feelings?
 
They are making a remake of the old british wartime classic 'the dambusters' about the use of a bouncing bomb to skim over lakes in germany which could bounce over the defencive nets they put in front of their dams

Anyway the lead pilot had a dog, a black labrador called 'nigger' which they are going to call 'nigel' in the remake

Nowadays nigger is a nasty word and i don't see any problem with leaving it out of the film but couldn't they just not have a scene in the film where he has to say his dogs name rather than rewrite history?

When we start re-writing things to suit some central authorities idea of what we should be doing it gets a bit sinister

I mean that was the job of the main character in the novel '1984'....Winston...he used to re-write papers into government doublespeak...basically editing language in a way that dumbed it down and destroyed its expansive and expressive power

He would get the paper, re-write it and post it on. By these means language got gradually watered down taking peoples ability to communicate away from them (words being our most important tool)

orwell who created this character and warned us of this possible dystopian future ought to know what he was talking about because he worked in the propaganda department of the BBC in the second world war

He would have come across the work of the fabian society who have links to the tavistock institute and also the frankfurt school

The frankfurt school played a central role in the pushing of political correctness onto society

So the homogenisation of society into a uniform grey drabness is basically the aim of those that believe in state socialism where the economy is controlled centrally by the state. To do this they have to mould us. Political correctness is the stick they use to beat us into line with. New 'hate' laws are then created and used to enforce it.

As i say i'm all for people coming together and overcoming their differences but NOT under a central authority. I would rather people came together and made the decisions together without any authority above them

But if you are interested in some of the forces that shape our society for example through the media and politics and psychology and language and so on i would strongly recommend looking at what people have to say about the following groups...and by 'people' i don't mean just the groups themselves as they will not exactly outline their hidden agenda to you in their public literature! I mean listeing to what their detractors have to say about them (as well as their supporters)

  • the fabian society
  • the tavistock institute
  • the frankfurt school
 
muir said:
They are making a remake of the old british wartime classic 'the dambusters' about the use of a bouncing bomb to skim over lakes in germany which could bounce over the defencive nets they put in front of their dams

Anyway the lead pilot had a dog, a black labrador called 'nigger' which they are going to call 'nigel' in the remake

Nowadays nigger is a nasty word and i don't see any problem with leaving it out of the film but couldn't they just not have a scene in the film where he has to say his dogs name rather than rewrite history?

When we start re-writing things to suit some central authorities idea of what we should be doing it gets a bit sinister

I mean that was the job of the main character in the novel '1984'....Winston...he used to re-write papers into government doublespeak...basically editing language in a way that dumbed it down and destroyed its expansive and expressive power

He would get the paper, re-write it and post it on. By these means language got gradually watered down taking peoples ability to communicate away from them (words being our most important tool)

orwell who created this character and warned us of this possible dystopian future ought to know what he was talking about because he worked in the propaganda department of the BBC in the second world war

He would have come across the work of the fabian society who have links to the tavistock institute and also the frankfurt school

The frankfurt school played a central role in the pushing of political correctness onto society

So the homogenisation of society into a uniform grey drabness is basically the aim of those that believe in state socialism where the economy is controlled centrally by the state. To do this they have to mould us. Political correctness is the stick they use to beat us into line with. New 'hate' laws are then created and used to enforce it.

As i say i'm all for people coming together and overcoming their differences but NOT under a central authority. I would rather people came together and made the decisions together without any authority above them

But if you are interested in some of the forces that shape our society for example through the media and politics and psychology and language and so on i would strongly recommend looking at what people have to say about the following groups...and by 'people' i don't mean just the groups themselves as they will not exactly outline their hidden agenda to you in their public literature! I mean listeing to what their detractors have to say about them (as well as their supporters)

  • the fabian society
  • the tavistock institute
  • the frankfurt school
Click to expand...

The Nigger/Nigel example is another great example of changing sensibilities in modern times.

The question is why we feel entitled to change how we speak to each other (and even history!) just because we are offended by what we are witnessing?

When I grew up, my dad used to tell me that whenever I saw something that made me question myself and the world, it would expand my mind. I completely agree with him today. I often see things that I know that I won't like, just to experience what it is. I think that it's good for you. How can people change the world because they feel bad? I just honestly don't understand.
 
vandyke said:
The Nigger/Nigel example is another great example of changing sensibilities in modern times.

The question is why we feel entitled to change how we speak to each other (and even history!) just because we are offended by what we are witnessing?

When I grew up, my dad used to tell me that whenever I saw something that made me question myself and the world, it would expand my mind. I completely agree with him today. I often see things that I know that I won't like, just to experience what it is. I think that it's good for you. How can people change the world because they feel bad? I just honestly don't understand.
Click to expand...

If you are a cowboy and you want to steer the herd of cattle you're driving towards the corral you have to create barriers

You on your horse act as a barrier and so do the other cowboys. They ride around the cows acting as a portable corral to steer the cows

The cows don't need to be steered and the perception of a barrier is largely an illusion. If for example the herd decided it wanted to go somewhere else and set its mind on it the cowboys would be pretty powerless and would get squashed by the sheer mass and energy of the herd but they control the herd through fear and shows of strength

The herd fears the cowboys and moves away from them and clusters together into one group to feel safe

The cowboys don't feel a part of the herd...they know where the herd is going to go though because they are steering the herd

The horses too are controlled by the cowboys. The spirit of the horse is broken when they are young and they too obey the cowboys

So it is with the mass of humans. The mass of humans don't know where they are going as a group. But there are powerful people who do know because they are steering the whole show. They use technology and they use fear and shows of strength and authority and they create barriers both real and imaginary

So a tank standing in front of you in the road is a pretty real barrier. But they also use non corporeal barriers. They can use guilt or shame and the fear that the thought of these causes. For example they can create a social norm...a perception of what is the right way to behave so that anyone who doesn't conform to that norm will then be shamed and shunned by the rest of the public

Political correctness is a non tangible barrier used to steer the behaviour of the mass of people towards an end goal. For the cows that end goal is a new pasture or a corral but for humans it is a new society
 
vandyke said:
Political correctness. Being offended. How much power should these concepts have?

Examples of our culture being affected by groups being offended:

- Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. A character is called Nigger Jim, because he is a black slave during the days of slavery. The book portrays slavery negatively, yet people are still offended by the usage of the word. The word "nigger" has often been removed in re-prints of the book.

- The statue of David has often had its genitalia censored at exhibitions.

- The MPAA which gives ratings to movies. Censorship of art and movies due to content.

- Pressure groups are often offended by shows like South Park and Family Guy because of their "foul" language.

Regardless of what we might think of it, there is real power in being offended. It is possible to stop art/content from being seen by the world, and it is possible to re-write the history of art.

Why is it bad to be offended? Why should content creators have to answer to your feelings?
Click to expand...

I think the problem here is a lot of people have trouble seeing past themselves. Many people see something and all they can think about is that's insulting me, that's rude, that's inappropriate. I think it stems from the desire to protect our children, and another part from the sensitivity that develops from first world countries, especially with advanced technology. We don't have much to worry about usually (food, water, medicine, housing), so when people have those taken care of they will find other things to worry about. In this case it is insults. Because people tend to complain and find insults a dominant problem (since the serious ones are taken care of), the politicians will agree based on public appeal. Think about it like this. If a politician has to be elected to be successful, then they will do what they need to be elected. If a large group of the public finds it insulting whenever certain words or images are used, they will likely try to fix that problem to gain public favor to gain votes. Often this results in restrictions or edits of original text.
Now where you call movie ratings censorship, I disagree. I call it restriction. For example, highly profane and explicit movies are still available, its just restricted to adult usage. I find this a good thing to do since children often are not psychologically mature enough for such things (I even think some adults are not either). Once a person is an adult, they are taking responsibility for themselves, and willingly take the risk present in exposing themselves to such material. This also explains why children can sometimes get into restricted movies when they are with an adult (this is to show the responsibility falls to the adult in charge). Without adult supervision, the protection in these maters is assumed by the government, and when an adult is present, the responsibility falls to the adult.
Now in the case of the statue of david and the huckleberry finn book, I think the same logic should apply to them as the movies. You would have warnings on books/art with mild-moderate content and restrictions on explicit content. As for where those lines are drawn, that's a matter of debate. I would personally put the book and the statue in the mild content category with just a warning that it has mild content. I do not think that you should edit them for the cause of not insulting anyone. It is art and it is not the governments right to edit such things in my opinion. However such restrictions/warnings I very much think should be in place. I do not think a 5 year old child should have access to videos on...I dunno....dominatrix sex or something.

I think content creators should not be effected by public feelings, they should create what they want. I think the government should warn in the case of explicit content so an authority figure can deem it acceptable or not in each individual case, and only restrict the extremes. No actual censorship.
 
Offense is an indirect - and I think manipulative - way of getting people to treat you with token respect.

When you are either too lazy or selfish to try to earn respect, you can always get offended at something so that people are manipulated into showing you deference.
 
Flavus Aquila said:
Offense is an indirect - and I think manipulative - way of getting people to treat you with token respect.

When you are either too lazy or selfish to try to earn respect, you can always get offended at something so that people are manipulated into showing you deference.
Click to expand...
I think it could be that, but to say it is always that doesn't seem realistic to me.....
 
There's a difference between 'offended' and 'offensive.' Just because you are personally offended doesn't necessarily mean that what someone said is offensive.

NSFW:

[video]http://blarceny.tumblr.com/post/67483125463/key-and-peele-offensive-boss-this-is[/video]
 
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I think that there is also the consideration of the social contract. While certain things were permissible in terms of race in say the 1920's they have become anathema in more modern times. Not because of some nefarious reason to pander to people's sensibility but in order to recognize the changing social climate of what is considered being part of one's society.

One of the unfortunate aspects of US culture (can't speak for other nations) is wide shifts in permissible behavior and acceptance of social responsibility. Actions tend to swing wildly back and forth from one extreme to another with difficulty finding a balanced middle ground. For example..consider prisons and treatment of prisoners. Go from the "anything goes and I can treat you as bad as I want chain gang era" to the "let the prisoners sue the government because they don't have TV".

You see lots of fringe groups putting forth agendas when there is social changes and you see the same with the idea of how to address race in movies and television. All cultures evolve and change.

So in one sense you have this evolving social conscious about equality in language and attitude. You also have a broadening of who has a voice with the advent of social media and the internet. So there are a lot of new voices and new ideas being expressed. So no, what people find acceptable is now vastly different than the middle-class affluent Caucasian standard of yesteryear.
 
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[video=youtube;3fvfsT3LNNM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fvfsT3LNNM[/video]

[video=youtube;IV5ekPKRiPc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IV5ekPKRiPc[/video]
 
I dont believe that being offended matters at all when it comes to speech or its restriction, people can be offended by a lot of things and I think they should work on that and adjust instead of thinking about how they can compell/coerce others, usually complete and utter strangers, into acting differently. It IS them who have the problem, ie feeling offended.

This is not to say that being offensive to others should have no consequences, sure, although I really dont see this in the way that a lot of totalitarian bullies mascarading as liberals or rights activists see it or saw the whole hounding of Firefox's boss out of employment and earnings. I think that that guy actually should have a legal case against those who dismissed him and anyone who had a part in that project, introducing it, furthering it, ramping it up. The fact that they all thought they were doing good or standing up for what they believe in or any other naive explanation should be no defence what so ever.

What I think should be regulated, has to be regulated, is when people prompt, perpetuate, spread or otherwise encourage hatred, especially if this is done with full view and knowledge of the consequences. JS Mill, the oracle when it comes to matters of personal freedom and liberty, knew this, its why he was a total defender of free thinking and free opinion and free discussion but had reservations about individuals protesting and decrying the corn laws outside the homes of those individuals profitting by them because it could or would encourage violence against them or their property.

So if someone says something you think distasteful or you simply dont like or perchance you are actually offended, you can choose to disassociate from them or ignore them, they get to deal with that as a natural consequence, to seek to go further and prevent them from saying it, directly through prohibition or legal sanction, or indirectly through loss of earnings, livelihood or business title and trade, that's wrong, plain and simple. That sort of thing itself needs to be policed.

Its alarming that people think persecuting people because they dont share your opinions or preferences is still valid, only the actors have changed and no one has learned anything from history. I think this is more than the usual cycle of intergenerational learning/mistake making too.
 
Its also interesting what is offensive over time, I think that has changed.

There was a time that if you wanted to interfer with someone and disadvantage them in some way you had to have a damn good reason, this is why bullying was thought to be an adolescent or childish behaviour rather than a mature and adult behaviour and bullying when it did occur among adults was given different names, such as intimidation, menaces, terrorism and often greater gravity, its not something that people would carry into later life.

So what was offensive was coercion, I would also venture that what was offensive was seeking to do control or compell were it was considered a frivolous or trivial reason.

That's not the case any longer and I think that's alarming.

The other big thing is that the coercion aims at a highly, highly conformist culture and social structure, involving the strict enforcement of the social attitudes, social norms and mores of vocal elites or minorities, more often their self-appointed enforcers. Its bizarre when this is often presented or promoted as being "non-conformist". In social scenes this is exemplified by people rejecting one scene and listing its faults, then volunteering to adapt to equal or more exacting expectations of conformity in their "alternative" scene. Since I was younger I always thought there was an underlying character structure which was channelled, so its no surprise when someone switches track from being a hardline memeber of the scripture union or christian prayer circle to being a hard line member of the goth scene. Its somehow worse when its politics and people switch between conservative and liberal and back again.

This sort of thing, the culture, psychology and sociology involved in it, is only remotely signposted or telegraphed by the problems in places such as the US political scene or globally in the "clash of civilisations", it is a big deal though, its a problem which hasnt even been properly so considered as such, the symptoms get serious attention but not the disease.
 
you poor oppressed things, not able to offend anyone or everyone at will without somebody complaining about it.
 
Originally Posted by muir<br />
They are making a remake of the old british wartime classic 'the dambusters' about the use of a bouncing bomb to skim over lakes in germany which could bounce over the defencive nets they put in front of their dams<br />
<br />
Anyway the lead pilot had a dog, a black labrador called 'nigger' which they are going to call 'nigel' in the remake<br />
<br />
Nowadays nigger is a nasty word and i don't see any problem with leaving it out of the film but couldn't they just not have a scene in the film where he has to say his dogs name rather than rewrite history?<br />
<br />
When we start re-writing things to suit some central authorities idea of what we should be doing it gets a bit sinister<br />
<br />
I mean that was the job of the main character in the novel '1984'....Winston...he used to re-write papers into government doublespeak...basically editing language in a way that dumbed it down and destroyed its expansive and expressive power<br />
<br />
He would get the paper, re-write it and post it on. By these means language got gradually watered down taking peoples ability to communicate away from them (words being our most important tool)<br />
<br />
orwell who created this character and warned us of this possible dystopian future ought to know what he was talking about because he worked in the propaganda department of the BBC in the second world war<br />
<br />
He would have come across the work of the fabian society who have links to the tavistock institute and also the frankfurt school<br />
<br />
The frankfurt school played a central role in the pushing of political correctness onto society<br />
<br />
So the homogenisation of society into a uniform grey drabness is basically the aim of those that believe in state socialism where the economy is controlled centrally by the state. To do this they have to mould us. Political correctness is the stick they use to beat us into line with. New 'hate' laws are then created and used to enforce it.<br />
<br />
As i say i'm all for people coming together and overcoming their differences but NOT under a central authority. I would rather people came together and made the decisions together without any authority above them<br />
<br />
But if you are interested in some of the forces that shape our society for example through the media and politics and psychology and language and so on i would strongly recommend looking at what people have to say about the following groups...and by 'people' i don't mean just the groups themselves as they will not exactly outline their hidden agenda to you in their public literature! I mean listeing to what their detractors have to say about them (as well as their supporters)<br />
<br />
* the fabian society <br />
* the tavistock institute <br />
* the frankfurt school <br />
Click to expand...
<br />
<br />
The Nigger/Nigel example is another great example of changing sensibilities in modern times.<br />
<br />
The question is why we feel entitled to change how we speak to each other (and even history!) just because we are offended by what we are witnessing?<br />
<br />
When I grew up, my dad used to tell me that whenever I saw something that made me question myself and the world, it would expand my mind. I completely agree with him today. I often see things that I know that I won't like, just to experience what it is. I think that it's good for you. How can people change the world because they feel bad? I just honestly don't understand.
Click to expand...
I can't agree more!

I watch HBO, Showtime, Starz. I enjoy video games that are full of content that can offend the squeamish. I read books that go leagues beyond my comfort zone!

People are always confused. It's not about content that's offensive, and outside of society's comfort zone! That's where the confusion is. It's not about being opposed to hardcore content. It's about being hurt, feeling excluded, feeling like due to this content the popcultural image of you, your gender,your race, your sexual orientation, your country, etc is harmful to you and disinformative to others.

There's plenty of honest hardcore content and that's fine. What's not okay is scripting and staging offensive content with the intention to harm a target demographic!

What I'm saying is this. Censors, movie rating association, etc are ALWAYS more harmful than honest hardcore content!

What ruins society? Propaganda and heavy content regulation.
 
Every thing about the human mind and character stems from basic necessities. Every negative trait (more of an outcome really) has a positive cousin. Impossible to avoid. And perhaps the golden rule behind everything in the universe.
 
[MENTION=564]acd[/MENTION] posted a good comment once....something to the effect of: ''you choose what offends you''

I think there is a fair amount of truth in that

There are some things though that i think we can form some consensus on...that are 'negative' as such towards the sustainable harmony of a community
 
There's a test case on this being taken more or less in NI as a cake shop decided they wouldnt do a cake for someone with a print on it validating gay "marriage", the equality commission has progressed a case alledging discrimination.

I think its unfortunate that the reason the cake seller gave for not producing the cake was that their Christian values prevented them from doing the work.

That sort of thing is probably music to the ears of someone hunting a claim.
 
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