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Why do people think things are offensive????
- Thread starter wfooshee
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Joey D
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I think the people that actually get offended over something and the way the media portrays it are two different things. There's probably a really small number of people who think Asian carp should be renamed, however I think that small handful of people suddenly appears to be a large group once the media gets a hold of the story and sensationalizes it.
But I do think there are some genuinely offensive things to people. I can completely understand someone being offended by a Nazi symbol or a Confederate flag. I think unless you lived through a period where you were affected negatively somehow it's hard to comprehend why someone would deem it offensive. Take the Confederate flag for example, say you're dad was killed by the KKK in the south during segregation and all you saw was a bunch of people in white hoods burning crosses and waving Confederate flags, my guess is that to this day that flag would offend you because of what it represents. Same goes for Nazi symbols, I know many Jewish people who are greatly offended by anything Nazi, but that's because they either lost a family member or were in a concentration camp themselves.
But I do think there are some genuinely offensive things to people. I can completely understand someone being offended by a Nazi symbol or a Confederate flag. I think unless you lived through a period where you were affected negatively somehow it's hard to comprehend why someone would deem it offensive. Take the Confederate flag for example, say you're dad was killed by the KKK in the south during segregation and all you saw was a bunch of people in white hoods burning crosses and waving Confederate flags, my guess is that to this day that flag would offend you because of what it represents. Same goes for Nazi symbols, I know many Jewish people who are greatly offended by anything Nazi, but that's because they either lost a family member or were in a concentration camp themselves.
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At the same time, context is important. There was a story in the UK media recently about a comedian, Jason Manford, saying he'd deleted some friends on his Facebook for sharing "Britain First" (a movement with a not so thin veil of xenophobia, anti-Islam etc) statuses.
Britain First had picked up on this and shared a photo of Manford in front of a Nazi cross, saying that he was a hypocrite given his apparent Nazi affiliations.
Manford then pointed out that the photo was taken on-set for a stage production of The Producers... hence the Nazi flag. The entire concept of the musical is that it's deliberately supposed to be in bad taste.
But The Producers is a perfect example of the Nazi symbol being used in a non-offensive manner. Or at least, a satirically offensive manner, and one which only the serially offended could possibly be offended by.
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University of California staff were recently made aware of new guidelines regarding so-called 'microaggressions' in order to be more able to avoid causing offense to people. Some of them are pretty obviously bad things to say or do, but some of the others on the list are pretty hilarious/ridiculous...
http://ucop.edu/academic-personnel-programs/_files/seminars/Tool_Recognizing_Microaggressions.pdf
As for swastikas in a non-offensive context...
http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/87132/1/87132.pdf
http://ucop.edu/academic-personnel-programs/_files/seminars/Tool_Recognizing_Microaggressions.pdf
As for swastikas in a non-offensive context...
http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/87132/1/87132.pdf
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It would certainly help greatly if the loudest anti-SJW weren't similarly quick to revise history themselves to suit whatever they happen to be arguing against at the time. Certainly, a decent portion of these movements are blatantly just white guilt run amok, with people of decent privilege just doing ultimately meaningless gestures that never affected them beforehand to make themselves feel better; but it doesn't help the idea that society collectively is getting too uptight if one of the arguments for such a sentiment is "Let's pretend the Confederate flag has nothing to do with racism even though it deliberately romanticizes/whitewashes something that in reality was pretty God damned racist."
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I've never understood why people push so hard to rename things since it's not like people will suddenly stop calling it by it's former name (How often do you hear Canadian Tire Motorsports Park called that instead of Mosport outside of people that have to call it that?).
Currently there is also a push to rename Lake Calhoun as it was named after a pro-slavery politician. Of course 99.9% of people had no clue who it was named after until they started trying to change the name, but that doesn't seem to matter much. I agree with an opinion column I read in the paper though, instead of changing the name of the lake, why not just change the "Calhoun" it was named after.
Currently there is also a push to rename Lake Calhoun as it was named after a pro-slavery politician. Of course 99.9% of people had no clue who it was named after until they started trying to change the name, but that doesn't seem to matter much. I agree with an opinion column I read in the paper though, instead of changing the name of the lake, why not just change the "Calhoun" it was named after.
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I honestly can't see much in the way of of hilariousness/ridiculousness there. Maybe a few I struggle to think happen a lot.
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Brilliant, ish. Reminds me of the American-to-British translation guides that genuinely did the rounds to help American colleagues work out what we were really saying.
I think some of them are hilarious, there really are dinosaurs around who behave that way!
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Well I suppose when you put it that way.
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I didn't mean to say anything otherwise...
Just wondering about the reasons behind people going to extremes in looking for something to be offended at, as someone brought that up few posts above.
Cause of the moment. Self-aggrandizement. Etcetera.
Why does anyone promote anything? Putting your face in front of an issue, be it the "fight against the conservative conspiracy behind global warming denial" or the "fight against the liberal conspiracy behind global warming alarmism" puts you in the limelight, and makes you attractive enough to people who already agree with you to ask them for money, or to sell them things (books, products, whatever) or to persuade them to vote for you.
Again, though... as stated in another thread: "You cannot find a cause so noble that you won't find a fool following it."
Thus, the shrill, shrieking voices on the opposite ends of the debate rarely have any relation to which side is actually right.
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Also, snip one thorn off the branch, and something else will grow to take its place. Words like "moron" and "imbecile" and "idiot" were once used to define people who were either slightly or (in the case of idiot) severely mentally retarded. They soon became insults.
Times changed, we started classifying ultra-low-IQ people by levels of mental retardation, which was a more Politically Correct way of speaking. And now that's the insult of the day: Retarded. Call a teenager an idiot, and they'll possibly ignore you. Call one retarded and you could get the finger, or a fist to your face.
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It was hilarious when they stopped us using the word "handicapped" and forced upon us the new term "persons with disabilities"... because as far as I know, nobody has ever used "handicapped" as an insult. And PWD doesn't prevent you from shortening the title to simply "disabled"... which means "completely incapable". Whereas "handicapped" means "can do stuff, but not as much as others."
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- Panama City, FL
That was my point. Renaming "Asian Carp" to "Invasive Carp" makes no sense at all. The other examples are intended to illustrate the silliness of doing so. (Unless I completely missed your point....)
It's not a glorification of the Confederate way of life, or of slavery, or of racism. It's a memorial to those who gave their lives during the Civil War. Yes, it's a memorial to those who fought on the losing side, but that town put up the memorial at some time in the past because that's where those men and their families were from. Removing the memorial is revisionist history, and degrading to the men it's there to memorialize. "Oh, let's take this down and forget that stuff ever happened, and we'll all live happily ever after because of it." Fantasy!
Germany has memorials to WWI and WWII soldiers. Do those glorify imperialism or fascism, or do they honor the ultimate sacrifice made by those men?
Famine's first question in his post I quoted was "What is?" referring to the "It" in my statement that it's about removing differences between groups of people. The "It" there is the changing of language to remove a perceived offense. My point, made nowhere near as eloquently as Famine's "reasonable person test," is that so many of these efforts are simply nonsensical. I defy anyone to produce any person, Asian or otherwise, who was ever offended by the term "Asian Carp."
Joel
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- Noob616
Absolutely not comparable. Germans do not display the swastika and go on about how it's a symbol of pride. They don't talk about old war heroes from WW2. There's graves and cemeteries but the tone of it is entirely different (it portrays fallen soldiers as victims of the regime itself) and it in no way glorifies the war or the cause. They are German war cemeteries. They are not Nazi war cemeteries.
The way people view the Civil war Confederacy and Nazi Germany is completely different. Think about the Dukes of Hazzard, the General Lee! There's no famous Mercedes or Audi called the Hermann Göring with a swastika painted on top. There are no statues and monuments memorializing Hitler, Göring, Goebbels and Himmler like there are for Robert E. Lee or Stonewall Jackson.
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What do Asians call invasive carp?
Dinner
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I guess you missed the part where I said it was NOT a glorification of the Confederate way of life, or of slavery, or of racism, but a memorial to the men who gave the ultimate sacrifice. I would see these men as victims of the society they grew up in, as well. Certainly differences exist, major among them the fact that the Confederacy no longer actually exists. I see no difference between removing this memorial and removing, say, the Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor. Do we really want to say, "That never happened?"
If my reference to German memorials is misplaced in this context, your comparison of Confederate generals to Germany's leadership is also misplaced. The Confederacy may have been intent on the subjugation of an entire race, but it was most definitely not bent on their extermination. Nevertheless, the Confederate military leadership were well-trained, well-respected men, and still serve as subjects of study at the military academies. They are NOT portrayed in the same light as Hitler, et al. It is worth pointing out that Stonewall Jackson was respected by the black community (such as it was) of his day.
AOS-
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Probably better than Tilapia ANY DAY.
Joel
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Well no, what you were talking about was German war memorials and asking rhetorically if they're memorializing fascism. I explained how because of the entirely different context of the situation, it's not reasonable to compare current Confederate war memorials to German war memorials from WW1 or WW2, and how German war memorials do not glorify fascism while it could be argued Confederate memorials are at the very least glossing over the whole slavery thing. Comparing Confederate memorials to the Arizona memorial is even more bizarre, I don't know how you don't see a difference between the two as they're not remotely comparable situations.
Was not comparing the men themselves or the conduct of the Confederacy to Nazi Germany. I was outlining how there is a vast difference between a Confederate war memorial and a German war memorial. Confederate war memorials are specifically in memory of Confederate soldiers who died, and generally are presented with a tone of reverence, while German war memorials are presented in a tone of shame and respect for the lives lost on both sides of the conflict at the hands of a group of truly evil men. A German war memorial presents German soldiers as victims of Nazi Germany, while a Confederate memorial presents Confederate war dead as victims of the Union.
The reason I brought up Lee and Jackson is not to say they were as bad as Hitler, but to again outline the vastly different context in how the wars are treated. Confederate generals like Lee and Jackson are household names, and are considered to be great men who are held in high regard, while in Germany, the leaders of the Nazi party are not memorialized, glorified, or remembered in good terms in any way. There is an ongoing glorification of the Confederacy and its leaders in America that simply does not exist in Germany towards Nazi Germany or its leadership.
I can understand your viewpoint and I genuinely believe you when you say you don't fly the flag to glorify the Confederacy or slavery, and I can understand why you'd believe a Confederate war memorial is about respecting those who paid the ultimate sacrifice. But I simply disagree on the broader cultural context and I entirely disagree that it's unreasonable to be offended by Confederate war memorials.
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- Carbonox
"I believe the most qualified person should get the job."
Damn, only a horrible person would ever say something like this.
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Well, yeah. I simply don't understand the lengths people will go to to find ways that a term might be able to be twisted into something someone thinks means something bad about them. I'm sure the legislature of Minnesota had nothing more productive to do than to make it law to do a giant search-and-replace on the state's statute books.
Actually, I don't fly that flag at all. While I don't view the Confederate flag as a de facto expression of racism, I do view it as an expression of, for lack of a better term, redneck. Which I'm not. I don't own a pickup truck, I don't hunt (or even fish,) nor is the highlight of my week a Friday-night beer binge full of episodes of "Hey, watch this!"
(How's that for offensive generalizing???
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"I believe the most qualified person should get the job."
Damn, only a horrible person would ever say something like this.
The guidelines are pretty pointless - it says that microaggressions are 'slights, snubs and insults, whether intentional or unintentional' but that 'context is critical'... well duh...
As others have alluded to already, one man's context differs from another... but if a professor says something like "I believe the most qualified person should get the job" not intending any offense whatsoever and is simply stating his own opinion, how on Earth can it be considered an "insult", "hostile", "derogatory" or a "negative message", simply because someone in the room might happen to think "Hey,this guy thinks that people of color are given extra
unfair benefits because of their race! That's offensive!".
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I don't know what's more alarming... the possibility that the person who wrote the guide thinks like a passive-aggressive troll... or that your adminstrators think that you all think like passive aggressive trolls.
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