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d-know
Trad climber
electric lady land
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Like I said before, let's get it all
out in the open. Tell us where you're
coming from. I can take a joke just as
easy as give one. Predominantly white
heterosexual males feel like they have
a free pass and act accordingly.
Like racism and misogyny, these topics
should be brought up so we can
deal with them in a
rational manner.
Joking aside.
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'Pass the Pitons' Pete
Big Wall climber
like Ontario, Canada, eh?
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d-know:
Before we can respond to your query, will you please fill out the following form:
P.S. I am predominantly white - or so my skin tone suggests. And I am mostly heterosexual, although this depends on how long I have been on the wall, and how cute my partner is.
"Well, hello thailor...."
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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How many PC liberals does it take to change a light bulb?
One; and this joke is not funny!
PTPC, he say, "Oh, my achin' butt!"
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d-know
Trad climber
electric lady land
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Well, instead of filling out your form
how's about I hurt your butt
with my caulk?
You like that joke Peter?
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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The longer this thread drags on, the thillier it getth.
The more riduckulous it seems, too.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 2, 2019 - 06:29pm PT
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The Fet, you tend to be a thoughtful person on this site, so I'll address you differently than many here.
But first of all it's lame to specify your own jokes as "good humor". And I really doubt anyone "fell over laughing" at this.
Well, "lame" is in the eye of the beholder. Sorry that I didn't rise to your desired level, but my goal was not to be "fall down funny," although it is true that others I showed the OP to were "caught off guard" and had their funny bone tickled pretty hard.
"About fell over" is a phrase rather than a literal assertion. So, don't get too persnickety on me here! Part of assessing humor and "lameness" is that they are both moving targets that are highly subjective. And particularly this sort of "stab at it" is definitely going to appeal more to certain political demographics than others!
Calling someone something as a "joke" is disparaging to people who are like that. Like calling someone gay. You insinuate there's something wrong with being gay.
Not necessarily. In this case, I actually was not being intentionally disparaging. Well, I WAS being disparaging toward the whole "correct pronoun" bit, but that is not being disparaging toward either AOC or trans people. My target really was, as Daffy Duck says, "pronoun trouble."
It's easy for people to think "disparaging" in broad strokes. No problem. But my target was actually pretty narrow.
And right on cue another righty fear joins in with "She might be borderline retarded". Not enough empathy to realize how using that word could really bring up a lot of pain to a disadvantaged person who has been called that.
See, this is an example of the whole PC garbage that I have no sympathy for. If somebody IS retarded, and they have been correctly diagnosed AS retarded, I fail to see how changing up the verbiage to call them "mentally disabled" or "mentally challenged" is oh so much less painful.
The issue is INTENT rather than particular turn of phrase. "Retarded" can be employed in just as "gentle" a sense as "mentally challenged." And "mentally challenged" can be employed in just as cutting and denigrating of a way as "retarded."
Personally, I do find AOC to be both stunningly ignorant and astoundingly naive. Those attributes can legitimately be combined into the catch-phrase "retarded," since nobody is intending the "strict definition" of the term.
Denigrating? Well, I guess, sure. I have no respect for AOC, and I personally believe that the Dems are going to rue the day that she was elected. I am honestly sorry for thoughtful Dems that are having a hard time making any sense of AOC's brash and thoughtless position-taking. I know quite a few such Dems.
So, seriously, I feel bad for Dems who are nothing like AOC but are saddled with her as one of the most brash and ever-present voices of the party. So, yeah, I would pretty casually say denigrating things about her, although my OP actually was not one of those.
Again I doubt there's any mentally handicapped people reading this forum, so no one to really be hurt by this, but it just shows the mentality of the person saying it.
No, it doesn't. It merely shows your INTERPRETATION of the mentality of the person saying it. And we should ALL be quick to realize that our interpretations of other people's "mental states" are about the most unreliable "sets of facts" that we believe!
Reminds me of a post years ago (on rec.climbing?) where someone use the term "rope n*gger" and they couldn't understand/admit why that is so offensive.
When the black community quits using "nigger" in their OWN entirely denigrating way to refer to each other, I'll have a lot more sympathy with this supposed offense! And btw, don't conflate the use/mention distinction in my full spelling of the "offensive term" just above. I see NO point in phrases like "the n-word," as though that meta-mention "cleanses" what we're talking about!
I've grown up around it, and I saw a classic case of the most galling denigrating use of the term just last week, where a black woman was trying to get her young son to get out of the car, and she said, "Git OUT of the car, little nigger, or I'm a gonna WHUP yo ass!" That's a quote, and I watched this whole thing just shaking my head.
Somehow an entire group of people think that it's legitimate for THEM to denigrate each other with that term, but even God can't save ANY other group that uses the same term in ANY way, even not in denigrating fashion! Absurd!
Now, that said, we shouldn't commit the fallacy of division. So, just because "a group" doesn't have the legitimacy to "be offended" by a term that the group ITSELF sweepingly uses in that very offensive way, certainly particular individuals in that group can legitimately be offended, both by their own and another demographic using the term in denigrating fashion.
So, the first question you have to ask in each use-case is: Was the term actually used in denigrating fashion, and was it used generally or particularly?
I simply disagree that some terms just ARE offensive by their very nature! That premise is universally believed by the PC crowd, but that idea has never withstood serious scrutiny. This isn't venue for such scrutiny, but I just don't accept the premise.
MB1 You admit you did this to troll, offend and get a rise out of people. I can think of better ways to entertain myself.
Well, I guess that if it had taken a huge investment of effort, that would be one thing. As it is, though, the bang-for-buck was pretty good.
Moreover, you are smuggling in a lot of presumptions about my motivations. All I'll say for the moment is, nobody has really nailed it yet, including you.
I'd let a lot of this slide if it was actually funny. As soon as I saw the post topic I knew exactly what it was going to be and you didn't disappoint or surprise.
Okay. So what?
Everything you are saying is a purely subjective evaluation. You're entitled to feel or respond however you want. But you, and others who have posted similar things, seem to think that you're making some objective assessment: "I didn't find it funny or valuable, so it wasn't funny or valuable."
To that, all I can say is: Whatever.
I'm surprised no one has yet said "Sorry I'm not Politically Correct". Code for I'm okay with being an as#@&%e and treating people poorly.
Actually, yet again, that's NOT what the statement necessarily means. True, many people might mean something like your assessment, but certainly not everybody or even, likely, the majority.
In point of fact, I utterly reject the trend toward thought-police, sweeping censorship, and the "cleansing" of language that has the SOLE (and utterly illegitimate) goal of "avoiding offense"!
Offense is a GREAT thing in a free society; I would go so far as to say that it is a necessary thing! A desire to needlessly offend or just denigrate out of actual hatred bears ill on the perp. But it is pretty hard, approaching impossible, to tease out the motives of a person enough to know when "giving offense" was intended to be valuable and when it was just mean-spirited.
Good luck with any such effort! Meanwhile, I value an "offensive" society FAR more than the level of insanity that the PC crowd is pushing toward!
EdwardT comes pretty close by equating the government not being able to stifle free speech to someone getting called out for being a d#@&%e bag. You're welcome to not be politically correct all you want. It just means you're an as#@&%e.
Again, not necessarily. We tend to call "as#@&%e" the people whose positions we don't agree with, while we call "brilliant" and "penetrating" and so on the people with whom we agree.
Up thread is a "very offensive" picture of Trump and Kim Jong-un. Is the "offense" built into that pic "worth" the political point it is making? Well, that depends ENTIRELY upon which side of Trump you are on.
I'm not on Trump's side, and I find that pic just lame rather than offensive. But that emotional response is grounded in the fact that I believe that the Dems are stumping for a caricature of Trump's actual relations with NK. So, the potential "funny" is lost for me in the fact that I believe that the POINT of the "funny" is a mistake.
That said, there are other similar pics of Trump that I find hilarious. Some others, I do find offensive.
As I said, "funny" and "lame" (and "offensive") say more about the recipient than some objective assessment that could in principle be made.
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Happiegrrrl2
Trad climber
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Some people just take longer for the lightbulb to click on.
5 years ago this forum had people making "homo jokes." Now, most know better.
3 years ago, I can imagine someone would have posted the "What do you tell a woman with two black eyes" joke. Now, only an idiot would think that's acceptable.
Now here we are on 2019, and while the great majority of Supertopo posters understand why MB1's "AOC transgender joke" is inappropriate, there are still a few who just can't grasp it.
It's got nothing to do with a political partisanship. Had you made the same "joke" about Sarah Sanders it would have been a low quality, bigoted attempt at humor.
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Fantastic thread! All of the elements that make ST special are there to see, especially reasoned discourse and collegiality...carry on!
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d-know
Trad climber
electric lady land
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Carrion.
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formerclimber
Boulder climber
CA
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At least they don't burn people offering some progress to society at the stake anymore but just make some jokes.
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HermitMaster
Social climber
my abode
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At least they don't burn people offering some progress to society at the stake anymore but just make some jokes.
Or, maybe they just have a sense of humor.
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Neander
Mountain climber
Reno, NV
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Well this thread is why supertopo has become stupidtopo.
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d-know
Trad climber
electric lady land
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If your going to start a thread,
play it out and roll with
the punches.
Some one might just
get knocked out.
What's it going to be,
wait till the ref
steps in?
Or find out how people
truly feel about others?
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 2, 2019 - 07:46pm PT
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There's no moral high ground on either side of the aisle. That makes it child's play to cherry pick the latest moral failing of your preferred opponents to, well, pick on.
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Contractor
Boulder climber
CA
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Perhaps it was the Obstetrical forceps when he was born again.
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d-know
Trad climber
electric lady land
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Keep making excuses for your excuses
madbolter1. You only dig the hole
deeper.
Nice try though and all the
best to you and yours.
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the Fet
climber
Tu-Tok-A-Nu-La
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mb1 I appreciate your willingness to be forthright and not shy away from a serious discussion.
See, this is an example of the whole PC garbage that I have no sympathy for. If somebody IS retarded, and they have been correctly diagnosed AS retarded, I fail to see how changing up the verbiage to call them "mentally disabled" or "mentally challenged" is oh so much less painful.
The issue is INTENT rather than particular turn of phrase. "Retarded" can be employed in just as "gentle" a sense as "mentally challenged." And "mentally challenged" can be employed in just as cutting and denigrating of a way as "retarded."
First of all there is no technical term "retarded". It is a dated and offensive term. Like calling someone "colored". Worse still is to call someone a "retard". It's painful for some people because they have been calling "retarded" or a "retard" to inflict pain, or know that's the purpose of those words. You can't gently call someone a "n*gger". Words have context and history, it's not just intent. It's not PC garbage, it's having empathy and being sensitive to words that hurt other people, especially disadvantaged people. I guess I shouldn't have assumed fear's use of the word, it may just be ignorance, which is understandable. http://therword.org/
I don't know much about AOC's policies/positions and I'm sure she's way to the left of me. But there are MANY Republican congressman at least as far to the right as she is to the left so she doesn't bother me and hopefully balances them out somewhat.
When the black community quits using "nigger" in their OWN entirely denigrating way to refer to each other, I'll have a lot more sympathy with this supposed offense!
I'm not going to base/modify my behavior and what I think is acceptable on the actions of any other group or person. I'll do what I think is right regardless.
You also have to take context into account. Black people have a history of facing slavery, lynching, and still a lot of racism in this country so for example you can't say "you should hang for that" like you would to a white person because the context would be totally different even if you didn't mean it that way.
Okay. So what?
Everything you are saying is a purely subjective evaluation.
Humor is very subjective, but good humor tends to have a surprise that is unexpected. The OP didn't have that, at least to me, it was too predictable and just seemed designed to denigrate. I guess it was funny if you like laughing at someone else's expense (which I guess most of us do). The pictures of Trump as Kim's or Putin's lover I find funny at least the first time I've seen them I guess for the same reason. But also because Trump has said so many misogynistic and "tough guy" things it's funny to seem him in the position of a woman.
In point of fact, I utterly reject the trend toward thought-police, sweeping censorship, and the "cleansing" of language that has the SOLE (and utterly illegitimate) goal of "avoiding offense"!
In this country we don't have thought police or sweeping censorship. You can say pretty much anything you want, you just have to suffer the consequences. I'd be extremely opposed to any laws limiting free speech. But if you say something stupid and get fired or booted off a forum that's on you for not being able to get your point across without offending people. I think it's a good thing we are reducing offensive language and I hope we continue down this path. I'm opposed to never talking about something offensive or having certain topics off limits, because then you will never truly deal with it, but trying to improve the brotherhood of man by not offending people is a good thing IMO. (Oops I should have said personhood of man to be entirely PC ;-) Although I appreciate a barrage of funny insults when warranted.
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