Slashdot Mirror
John Cleese Warns Campus Political Correctness Leading Towards 1984 (washingtonexaminer.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Ashe Schow writes at the Washington Examiner that, "The Monty Python co-founder, in a video for Internet forum Big Think, railed against the current wave of hypersensitivity on college campuses, saying he has been warned against performing on campuses. "[Psychiatrist Robin Skynner] said: 'If people can't control their own emotions, then they have to start trying to control other people's behavior,'" Cleese said. "And when you're around super-sensitive people, you cannot relax and be spontaneous because you have no idea what's going to upset them next." Cleese said that it's one thing to be "mean" to "people who are not able to look after themselves very well," but it was another to take it to "the point where any kind of criticism of any individual or group could be labeled cruel." Cleese added that "comedy is critical," and if society starts telling people "we mustn't criticize or offend them," then humor goes out the window. "With humor goes a sense of proportion," Cleese said. "And then, as far as I'm concerned, you're living in 1984." Cleese is just the latest comedian to lecture college students about being so sensitive.
To summarize the summary [...]: people are a problem. - Douglas Adams
Also, fuck the fucking fuckers.
At least could you spell your yor etc to be consistent.
Thanks
If you don't learn how to deal with real people in real life how do you expect to be a function adult. They can take there PC bullshit some where else.
"Reached for comment, a representative of the Ministry of Silly Talks said that Mr. Cleese's talk wasn't very silly at all, and thus would not qualify for a grant."
He gets it. I disagree with him on a few topics. However, I would never dare to silence him. He has as much right to his opinions as I do. If you silence him I can be pretty sure I am next.
you cannot relax and be spontaneous because you have no idea what's going to upset them next
Truer words have never been spoken. I have worked with a few people over the years like this. You have no idea what will set them off. I have seen work places go from pretty fun joking around to people looking over their shoulders to make sure 'the right kinda people are around'. The very attitudes you are trying to squash out can become even more focused and harmful.
Complaints about stupid things aren't a problem because of the impact of the solutions. They are a problem because of the decision of responding to all complaints, regardless of their legitimacy.
e.g.: When someone complains about hurt feelings, the problem isn't that the solution will destroy criticism and humor. The problem is taking action based on the complaint without analyzing its merit.
And, if one decides to go even one step before that, the problem is that the constant erosion of the teaching of critical thinking creates a population unable to think critically, which in turn makes that population incapable of deciding which situations are problems that have to be dealt with, and which are nonsense that has to be ignored.
It's: [Eliminate the teaching of critical thinking.] -> [Population takes action over silly complaints.] -> [Illogical action has consequences.]
Don't focus on the last step.
their PC bullshit
These hyper-emo, coddled, oversensitive, thin-skinned babies are in for a shock when they enter the workforce and have to deal with the real world.
Are they all planning on living in their parents basements, communicating only via text messages, and hoping the app they wrote becomes a big seller so they don't have to really work for a living?
Seriously; Get off my lawn.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Are they all planning on living in their parents basements, communicating only via text messages, and hoping the app they wrote becomes a big seller so they don't have to really work for a living?
No.
The planning stage is long past.
I hear a lot of people getting attention for this claim, but I see very little evidence actually supporting the claim. Yeah, there are some PC nazis on some campuses for sure, just as there are soldiers of all other stripes around as well. But the comedians who make such a stink about reactions on certain campuses are, IMHO, taking a small sample set and extending it to all of academia. No college campus I have worked at resembles this in any meaningful way, and I've been on campuses in very blue states where it would seem reasonable to expect this to be a really big prevalent matter.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
In no way, shape, or form does any legal document, like the Constitution, Bill of Rights, Geneva Convention, et al, does it say "You have the right not to be offended". in other words "You do NOT have the right, not to be offended".
People are idiots, and that idiocy grows exponentially as the number of people in a group increases.
So, just to piss off the morons of the world.
It's "Merry Christmas" - not "Happy Holidays".
There can only be 1 (one) Winner, everyone else is just a loser.
Your child's "right" to have an education ends where your child's behavior jeopardizes my child's education, health or physical well-being.
Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one, and everyone else's stinks.
Your freedom of speech does not mandate that anyone has to listen to it.
To anyone who disagrees with anything above, fuck off you bloody wanker.
http://41.media.tumblr.com/34820a03fcc9dd4d8fed6a24fa83d0a1/tumblr_mnfa9wncda1qijxn4o1_500.png
over 20 years ago
You suck!
And Cleese? Seriously?
Remember that the identical arguments made for safe spaces on college campuses are being used against FOSS communities. They have every intention of setting themselves up to be the arbiters of what can be said and done, even outside of campus or a FOSS project. Calling these people Fascists is an insult to real Fascists because they've never been as petty and domineering in the minutia as SJWs.
Johnathan Cleese has also stated that "London is no longer an English city." due to mass immigration.
He seems surprised that civilization is a womb war.
Seastead this.
Nothing new here.
I have found lately that when I ask my liberal friends about this phenomenon (the erosion of free speech on college campuses by Generation Butthurt), they either feign ignorance or say that "it's no big deal" and quickly change the subject to whatever evil they think the Republicans are pulling lately. This is weak, and frankly I don't know how a true liberal would stand for such an encroachment on their own civil liberties. If these opposing views are so terrible, let them out there to be discussed and torn apart on the public eye, and force those espousing them to defend their viewpoints. Of course, that means you have to be able to defend your viewpoint as well, which is what this is all about.
Living as a coddled adult-child in your parent's basement until you are 27 is like being a plant that for some reason got covered up by a piece of yard furniture that you discover when you move the lawn chair. It's pale and wilted and you wonder if it will grow up if you expose it to the sunlight that it's been denied.
Except we are here talking about a life form that has been deliberately coddled, and that has preened and finely tuned it's sensitivity to normal amounts of sunlight, and considers it's pale whiteness and lack of growth to be a good thing.
To the last question, yes, they are planning on living in their parents' basement forever. To the degree that they've ever planned anything at all.
This became a big deal at Mizzou, where protests, a hunger strike, and the football team going on strike resulted in the chancellor and university president both being ousted. Now there were some legitimately offensive things that took place on campus like someone smearing a poop swastika on a wall. While such an incident should be handled by the university police, it doesn't seem like the chancellor and president need to get involved. Another issue was someone yelling a racial slur at the student body president off of campus. It seems like it's totally outside the jurisdiction of the university, yet it was another factor cited for the protests. The failure of the university to address the riots in Ferguson also was given as a reason. Sure, there are reasons to be offended by the actual incidents, but the protests because the administration didn't act quickly enough when really it probably wasn't their responsibility to get involved at all is totally absurd. My understanding is that one of the demands was for all students to have mandatory sensitivity training. In other words, you're presumed to be an insensitive bigot without actually doing anything bigoted at all. I'm ashamed of my alma mater and what's going on in there in the name of being politically correct. Are we so quick to be offended that we'll demand punishment from people who had nothing to do with the offenses at all?
I hate all anonymous shitbags. Log in, you filthy bastards.
1/6
Now try to find the other errors.
their PC bullshit
"collage kids"
They are going to manipulate it into giving them exactly what they want without ever having to work for it.
Not just financially, but socially, emotionally, and sexually.
Are you a straight man who does not want to suck on the cock of a transgender female? Well, you sir, are clearly transphobic because men are women too, don't you know.
Jimmy Carr replaced his previously shortest joke: "Venison's dear, isn't it?" (which doesn't work as well for Americans, because it relies on the British expression for "expensive" . . .) with the even shorter: "Dwarf Shortage". He followed up with "If you’re a dwarf and you’re offended by that, grow up.” Complaints have been filed with the broadcast regulators about his "discriminatory" "hate speech".
Arrest the witch!!!
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
>Most of the collage kids these days a whiny babies
>"collage kids"
Have you ever even been to "collage", Mr. mmiscool?
Mac
Looloolooooloooloollloollololol!
lose != loose
"And when you're around super-sensitive people, you cannot relax and be spontaneous because you have no idea what's going to upset them next."
It's spreading outside to everywhere else. And I'm becoming really quiet because people become so hostile.
Example: I was at a tennis clinic and all of us were picking up balls. It looked like were farmers harvesting tennis balls. When I said that, someone screamed, "Well you're NOT!"
WTF did I say wrong?
OR: I was in a night class years ago where we were discussing workplace violence. I just asked, "Is it really more violent or is it because of the web and 24 hour news making it seem more violent?"
Some guy in the class yells, "I WORKED at the building where there was a shooting and it IS getting more violent!!!!"
Yeah, I wonder why...
Or just last week, I was helping someone put Ubuntu on an HP Notebook. There was in issue with the WiFi. I just commented, "That's Linux. There's always some little thing like this."
Other guy, "WINDOWS IS JUST AS BAD!!!!!"
When making a small criticism about an operating system makes people go nuts, I just have to wonder if this entire society is just going crazy.
His insensitivity to people who "walk funny" is just intolerant and cannot be abided by.
Shame on you Sir!! I hope I find you soon!!
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
"I'm triggered by silliness!" cried a campus snowflake.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
As a general rule, people are most liberal when they're young, particularly in college. Those who don't go into academia or some other traditionally liberal profession tend to drift towards the center or become conservative as they age.
I agree that sometimes political correctness can get out of hand. LIke anything else, it's possible to take a good thing too far.
But I'm with the kids on taking on the kinds of issues most of us would shrug our shoulders at, but which are important symbols to their community.
These hyper-emo, coddled, oversensitive, thin-skinned babies are in for a shock when they enter the workforce and have to deal with the real world.
Sadly, the workplace is increasingly catering to SJW crybabies too. HR departments are becoming just as bad as UC Berkley.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
What the fuck are you on? None of those examples make any sense.
Weird. Used to be the college elites called nerds the loser basement dwellers. Now Slashdot nerds are the ones living in the "real world" and calling coddled SJW tumblrites the basement dwellers?
Some college students have been raised in an environment where unpleasant experiences are carefully avoided and so they are oversensitive. College should be a place for these students to grow up. But the extreme political polarization of our era makes that difficult. I see the biggest culprit in the 'oppression studies' focus on many college campuses. Everyone claims membership in some oppressed group, looks to take offense, and wants special treatment. Once you are looking for oppression, you are guaranteed to find it and along the way lose focus on the hard work necessary to succeed in our highly competitive global economy. Oppression exists and it is a terrible burden holding people back. But the PC response on college campuses mostly makes it worse.
I can't stand the political correctness and goody-goody attitude of so many students in so many campuses. It's ridiculous. And I am saying this as someone who hopes that will vote for Clinton or Sanders, and hope that the latter will be the candidate. Political correctness is not a left-wing thing, but a ridiculous, self-virtuous thing.
Slashdot improvement suggestion #18...a fucking edit button.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
I have a family member who went through a period in their life when they were hypersensitive to perceived slights. Some of the problem was real pressure to conform to other’s expectations that were unreasonable. But the inability to tolerate it and blow it off turned out to be caused by a hormone disorder.
I think that some of these hypersensitive people are just whiny babies who can’t handle an environment with a more diverse set of ideas. But for some people who get so overwhelmed that they need to run off and hide in a “safe place,” they may want to look into getting their endocrine levels checked (thyroid, adrenal, and various pituitary).
However, we live in a culture where we blame everyone else for our own failures, so it’s unlikely that most such people would ever even imagine that the problem originates in their own bodies.
As a decoupage kid, I hate collage kids.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/22/opinion/sunday/judith-shulevitz-hiding-from-scary-ideas.html
a place to recuperate. The room was equipped with cookies, coloring books, bubbles, Play-Doh, calming music, pillows, blankets and a video of frolicking puppies
Prosecuting outsiders to bond members of your own tribe seems to be an inescapable human need. Liberal activists who boo comics and ensure that anyone who dares to have a different personal opinion of, say, homosexuality loses their job are just bible thumpers and Saudi Arabia morality police going by another name. They have to continuously crank up the extremes of zero tolerance for anyone who deviates from their ideas about women, minorities, native americans and so on to bond with each other and maintain self image of superior human beings who have full right to bully and discriminate against savages.
For the record, I fully believe that LGBT and all other minorities including polygamists have a right to equal, productive lives, and so should a baker who doesn't want to make a cake for their wedding. It's just that activist groups who claim to support either side are actually just on a power trip to prop up their own self esteem and find a legitimate excuse to bully others.
as Ricky Gervais once said: Everyone has the right to be offended. Everyone has the right to offend. But no one has the right to never be offended.
They are going to manipulate it into giving them exactly what they want without ever having to work for it.
No kidding.. What the hell do you think Comrade Bernie Sanders is all about? To listen to him, his platform is freebies for everybody (err.. everybody *he* likes).. If he gets "elected", we are sooooooo screwed, FAR beyond how screwed we are already with Comrade Obama....
THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
On the outside Academia may look like 1984, but on the inside it looks more like Brazil. Curiously enough, in 1984, Brazil was ruled by a (capitalist) dictatorship.
Linux is for people who don't mind RTFM.
A lot of people are in college and they expect that college will open doors, provide a relevant education, take a personal interest in their future, &c. This doesn't actually happen because so many people go to college. So instead of coming to this place where they are taken seriously and prepared for a happy life, they get four years of learning how to deal with bureaucratic bullshit. No wonder they are hypersensitive and looking for enemies.
Great video that explains the situation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGTmwyKpz0o
Dawkins was deplatformed for twitting this satirical (and hilarious) video.
Feminists Love Islamists
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecJUqhm2g08
Please, everybody here, take an active stance and post that video on your twitter and/or facebook accounts. Let the feminists/Islamists know that there censorship efforts are counter productive.
I guess I'll have to come back in an hour or so when the real gems are posted.
Fwiw, I tell guys who are attracted to me that it doesn't mean they're homosexual. Unfortunately, you've just demonstrated that you're the transphobic one here.
I mean, seriously, I don't get it. You lash out at trans women for the actions of a demographic that hates them as much as you do.
As Martin NiemÃller sagely said:
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out - Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out - Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out - Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me - and there was no one left to speak for me.
Political correctness* stems from a perfectly reasonable idea: be nice to other people.
But as the Founding Fathers wisely intuited 240 years ago, to INSIST on that itself is at root a sort of social tyranny, which indeed then opens the slippery-slope question "according to whom?"
A multicultural society CANNOT function in which everyone has to constantly try to anticipate everyone else's triggers.
The only reasonable solution is a general promotion of freedom of speech and internalizing the idea that offense is self-created. This isn't to say people shouldn't be offended; in my view much of the progress of humanity has stemmed from people being offended at something or another. They certainly have the right to their offense. But when this offense fuels actions that are then designed to constrain other peoples' right to their own freedom of speech - there a line is crossed, and the corrosion of free speech begins.
(And for the pedants, yes, I'm aware that the Constitutional provision about free speech only applies to the behavior of the Federal government; I'm speaking more broadly in terms of cultural values.)
*the real comedy is that there are still people who ardently insist there IS "no such thing" (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/9/24/781372/-)
-Styopa
John is obviously right about people being hypersensitive, but him talking to people isn't going to do fuck-all about the problem.
And the problem isn't that we're suddenly oversensitive towards each other, or that some specific generation or age group perpetuates it.
No, the REAL fucking problem here is that humans can sue the living shit out of other humans for nothing more than being "offended", and those cases are winning in courtrooms. THAT is the real problem here.
And the fix is simple. Remove the element of reward (monetary gain) for being "offended", and you'll suddenly find humans aren't so damn sensitive towards each other anymore. Anything short of doing this is pointless and not identifying the real problem.
And yes, once again, we have our greedy, corrupt legal system to thank for this bullshit.
Very insightful video
Pat Condell - Dumbing Down University
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjN8xP0i6Ak
he's an anti-denti
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
All these comments filled with your micro-aggressions totals to over one mini-aggression.
I will report this site and its contributors to the nearest college student president. Then I'll be off to find my non-denominational, mono-gendered Yoda doll and vegan, cruelty-free GreenLube then proceed to sooth my hurt feelings.
Trolling is a art,
Come and see the violence inherent in the system! Help, help, I'm being repressed!
there isn't a problem. The tenor of college campuses has changed dramatically over the past 25 years, and if you are a comedian why would you risk a roll of the dice on a media circus? Safe space wasn't a natural part of the lexicon even 5 years ago...
One of the more pernicious affects of censorship is you are never completely aware of the scope and degree what is being censored. Memory hole is apt as if you didn't have direct knowledge, you'd have no reason to suspect anything was missing at all.
I have heard several comedians talk about their acts not being well received on campuses and complain about hypersensitivity and censorship. And maybe there is some truth to that. But something I have noticed is all the comedians who are saying this (at least all I ones I have heard about) are old and, some at least, woefully out of touch with anyone under the age of 40.
Which makes me wonder if this is really a sensitivity/free-speech issue, or maybe just a case of these comedians not being suitable for a university-age audience. Maybe the religious/race/shock -based humour just isn't what a lot of college-age people want these days and the older comedians are being rejected because they are stuck in their respective ruts.
How many young, up-and-coming comedians do we hear from that are alienated from university campuses? Are there any comedians under 50 who complain university students are too sensitive?
You know it's bad when a hyper-leftist partisan like John Cleese warns about PC.
OK, so maybe college students will be offended by his comedy. So what? Is he afraid of being viciously attacked, of someone taking a shot at him or something?
If he (and Seinfeld for that matter) are merely afraid that people will say mean things about them, then that seems ratheroversensitive.
When politically correct people, SCREW themselves out of a job. Can't even tell jokes these days, without "offending" someone.
If you read TFA, you will find similar sentiments expressed by: Chris Rock, and Jerry Seinfeld.
I have already posted this by comedian Pat Condell.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjN8xP0i6Ak
Too bad George Carlin is dead, I would love to hear what he has to say.
Old guy to kids: you're all a bunch of whiny losers who will ruin everything. Why, back in my day ...
Play Command HQ online
Totally incoherent...
Maybe it is time to introduce people to Flyting, which Wikipedia describes as " a contest consisting of the exchange of insults, often conducted in verse, between two parties". This could help people develop a bit of a skin and learn how to handle uncomfortable situations?
There are probably alternative methods, but the end goal is the same: helping people develop a bit of a skin and teach them how to deal with socially awkward situations, in a socially acceptable manner.
Wikipedia entry: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Yeah, we rlly neeed a fuckng edt buttn.
Dystopia, doomsday, armageddon, have been on the precipice for thousands of years. The old guard feels it has a duty to criticize the upcoming generation. They are the product of those before them after all. Perhaps it is too difficult to look inward and see just how futile this comparative analysis is? No one ever heard their parents say "when i was your age..." and rolled their eyes? I find myself having these thoughts already and I'm only 30. Kids today just don't get it.
"Help, help, I'm being repressed!"
I have this as a macro in World of Warcraft to signal the other players that I'm being attacked by something.
Seems to me that people that are easily upset are a bunch of narcissistic idiots, middle class man-children that feel extremely entitled (to the wealth of their parents) and that grew up in a culture that continually glorifies violence (known as television, movies and law enforcement of the United States)
Such self-centered jerks have the requisite personality to be scammers, thieves and drug addicts. When you call their bullshit they'll make threats to you, that's how a scammer reacts when their would-be prey isn't buying in.
Such a person likely used to make threats to his parents during childhood / early adulthood to get whatever they wanted (be it jet ski vacations or not having to eat their beans)
That's why placating narcissists of that nature doesn't work at all. They'll just scam you or throw their tantrums or embarass you, treating you just like they did to their parents.
The use of Facebook (or perhaps other platforms easily tied into your real identity) doesn't help. The easily-upset idiot is rewarded (with social links, favors, even sex) for being narcissistic or adopting the right groupthink and having the right superficial behavior.
Nah, it's just a mental image slung around because it has stigma baggage. I spent a year or two in a basement, and liked it. It was definitely cooler than above in the summer. It was less noisy.
Basement dweller implies the stereotypical antisocial. I lurked the sort of online haunts they use, and they'd often lament their isolation, that they hadn't spoken to another person in weeks, and would mumble something stupid if they did anyway, if they didn't outright flee from social anxiety.
For some reason I have no social anxiety and no social appetite. Apparently when mixed with reasonable wit and diction that comes across as charismatic, and I get invited to loiter about with friends that I like, but have no craving for. I don't hate parties, I'm down for your movie night, yes I enjoyed myself, I just don't get the hype. Zero social network accounts. I had an unusual (and ugly) upbringing that I think warped my psyche a bit.
Point to make, I have some advantages that I wish I could divvy out a little, share with the basement dwellers. They haven't seen Outside in weeks, their phone has been silent - and I envy them for it. I maintain my daily life because momentum, because I help people with my work, but I don't actually WANT to live in parent post's "real world", I want to be the loser.
This is the room for an argument. If you want to be offended, you'll have to go next door to abuse.
Just NOOOOOOOOOO. A long uninterrupted no.
Proof read is better than an option to troll out edits.
If you can't control the argument, control the language used to make it.
It all starts out in primary school in the U.S. now.
No forms of ridicule or offbeat humor are allowed, else, it's "discriminatory".
It's the "pussification" of the American male but mostly female education bureaucrats and our stupid politicians.
I fart in their general directions.
For example, from TFA:
"[Psychiatrist Robin Skynner] said: 'If people can't control their own emotions, then they have to start trying to control other people's behavior,'" Cleese said. "And when you're around super-sensitive people, you cannot relax and be spontaneous because you have no idea what's going to upset them next."
So Cleese is essentially saying he's super-sensitive about super-sensitive people since he can't relax around them, and he wants them silenced so he can feel better. I thought the Brits were supposed to be masters of irony.
Doesn't mean I am being critical of you.
"No idea should be above criticism, and no person is below dignity" - Maajid Nawaz
If you are so so triggered by simple criticism of your ideas, may I suggest that either A) you find a better spokesperson to represent your ideas or B) find better ideas that are so easily criticized. You don't have to be the person at the protest, I'm sure others will pick up the torch.
Offensive to anyone who likes comedy - his recent tour and material has been so poor that he only gets by on his past.
should read "functioning" or "functional" adult. and "somewhere" is one word, not two. snowflake needs to learn to write.
What the hell do you think Comrade Bernie Sanders is all about? To listen to him, his platform is freebies for everybody (err.. everybody *he* likes).. If he gets "elected", we are sooooooo screwed, ...
I can see that you pick a part of what GP said and spin it out to a different topic. Anyway, I will take on this.
I don't see that Sanders idea is wrong. I'm seeing it as idealistic. The problem with it is that it is impractical in the real world or at least with the current condition. So is it nice to hear about the idea? Yes. Would I want it to be implemented at the current time? No, because I don't see the idea is reasonable.
Speaking of Dice, I wonder what he's doing these days?
You're a fucking idiot
How is this "News for Nerds" you shitbags!
That's a low blow.
No, they are planning to get a job by schmoozing some stupid HR and then enrich the companies with their progressiveness from within and sue every fucking one if confronted with consequences.
Can't agree more.
I think John should just let the Rabbit of Caerbannog loose on the campus. We can all watch and laugh as we read for the Book of Armaments.
Everyone claims membership in some oppressed group, looks to take offense, and wants special treatment
I'm offended that you claim I'm offended.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
It featured a fantastic, humorous episode written by Darin Morgan about a monster who is bitten by a man and turns into one. Its a beautiful satire about an alien trying to make sense of human behavior (working 9 to 5, lying about sexual prowess, our love for fast food) and, at one point, he gets hit by a transgender which leads to an hilarious exchange with Duchovny trying to explain transgenderism to Darby.
So i've just found out that Slate actually run a story on their LGBTQ section titiled Did The X-Files use a transgender character for cheap laughs?. Why, yes. Yes they did. It doesn't matter that the treatment wasn't offensive at all, or that the entire episode was making fun of the human race as a whole, or even that it actually was in line with the transition theme that was the entire point of the episode. Some people got their panties in a bunch because a transgender character threw a punch.
Cleese is absolutely right here. Then again, he usually always is.
... Let's not go to the campus. It's a silly place.
Other people, all of you, can drop dead and I'd not miss ya. Sensitive? sfw. I don't give a darn what others feel think say or do. So what. GD people who think feelings, theirs, matter to others, me. they do not.
Yes, yes, flame away, but I feel that the world isn't PC enough given the changes in the way discourse is handled.
Before the Internet and easy-to-use social media platforms, people who had social issues could only offend a limited number of people within their local sphere of influence. By this I'm talking about the people who don't have a filter and just let their mouths run without thinking about how they sound or who they're talking to. I know many, and giving people like this access to Facebook, Twitter and the other social platforms just makes them worse. They also tend to pull in more people around them who are attracted to their abrasive style.
PC is required because the loud-mouth crowd is using the concept of free speech as a license to say whatever comes to their minds with no repercussions. If people would simply follow the golden rule of "don't be a total asshat to one another" we wouldn't need it.
The problem with a situation like this is that the loudest mouth wins, whether or not what they have to say is worth listening to. Look at people like Trump, angry conservative talk show hosts, or radical leftists for that matter, and you'll see how extreme positions affect the public narrative. Putting reasonable limits on what people can say to one another is a good idea in my opinion.
Someone really should tell Mr Cleese that 1984 was 31 years ago.
You are welcome on my lawn.
You realize that you are demonstrating an absolute lack of historic knowledge and understanding of the word "literally" as you are using it.
Because Hitler was not a real Fascist because his party was the National Socialist German Worker's Party, not a party based on the doctrines of the Italian Fascists or their peers in Austria.
As a matter of fact, I do believe that if SJWs got their way, most Americans would find being ruled Mussolini to be preferable to them because Mussolini was closer to Ron Paul than the average SJW in his need to micromanage every aspect of life in Italy.
See, but you're missing the point. It's not okay to joke about aspects of people's beings that they can't change, because that's the same sin that racism and homophobia are based on. If the dwarf COULD theoretically grow up, then it would be fine. That's why it's more okay to joke about people's political views than their religion (which is mutable, but nevertheless an ingrained part of their being) and joking about their religion is more okay than joking about their height, race, or sexual orientation.
I have heard Jerry Seinfeld make the same statement. Bill Mahr too I think. It seems that these days pretty much everything is off limits for jokes. About the only exceptions are political jokes (Dems making fun of Republicans and vice versa) and redneck jokes. Other joke types will get you branded as the following:
Jokes referring to ethnicity of any kind (other than white, or course) = Flaming Bigot
Gay jokes = Homophobe
Gender based jokes (unless it's jokes about white guys) = Anti-women
Any joke with the N word in it (unless you're black, then it's fine) = Racist
It still seems to be ok to refer to Scottish people as cheap and Irish people as drunks. But you can't refer to Mexicans or Puerto Ricans as lazy. That's off limits ( see Flaming Bigot above). Making fun of Eastern European accents (Arnold....I'll be back) or Russian seems to be acceptable.
It's all quite simple if you just follow the rules...
A lot of old white dudes itt getting angry that their safe space where they can tell dumb offensive jokes is being invaded by youths.
I'll throw one in since this is a techie site: "Microsoft Works"
Classical liberals, which America's founders were, were against strong government control and were for freedom and liberty for the individual. They were NOT libertines as many on the modern Left are (i.e. classical liberals were NOT advocates of any personal debauchery, they were arguing about the power and scope of government relative to the individual).
In the US, at the beginning of the 20th century an odd blend of Republicans like Teddy Roosevelt, Democrats like his younger cousin Franklin Roosevelt, and many then-pop-culture figures gave rise to "progressivism". The excesses of progressivism, however, eventually earned it a bad name and the American people rejected it, so by the 1950s most of the American Left had switched to the then-still-positive term "liberal".
As the hippie generation also called itself "liberal" however, while setting-off bombs, doing drugs, burning American flags, and wallowing in the "sexual revolution", traditional Americans were repulsed and turned away from the "liberal" label, embracing the "conservative" title, NOT as-in "conserving the role of the Monarchy" but in the sense of "conserving the small government, and traditional values vision of the founders". The term "liberal" in the US was thus abandoned to the Leftists who took over the Democrat party in about 1968. This is how the liberal/conservative terms in the US appear to be flipped from in Europe (though they really are not as neither side of the aisle in the US is for a Monarchy). The truth is that the Left and the Right are still the Left and the Right, but the Left in the US alternately switches between the terms "liberal" and "progressive" depending on which polls better at the time. Recall that in 2008 with Republicans attacking liberalism, Hillary publicly declared herself an "early 20th century progresssive" (a term that had lain in obscurity for decades). To a young-and-dumb generation, "progressivism" and "progressive" sound like "progress", and WHAT could POSSIBLY be wrong with "progress"??? Prediction: In 20 years, the Left will again be calling themselves "liberal".
The left, no matter what moniker they choose, are for big government intervening in all aspects of society and life and as a result the Left will always support political and social censorship. The modern secular left have doubled-down by adopting the old progressive core ideology of "the ends justify the means" so they are not stopped or deterred by any "God-given rights" nonsense.... particularly since they reject the idea of God. If there's no God, then there are no God-given rights to things like "free speech", life, liberty, self-defense, or conscience, which (if God-given) would be out of the reach of the vote of the majority...
The modern leftist will recognize no limits to the power of the masses and/or government to force people to bend to their preferred agenda. THAT is why all your "liberal" friends are so anti-liberal and appear to you to be schizophrenic; they're not liberal (in the classic sense) at all, but are in reality perfectly consistent leftists.
Don't mention the war!
It also makes them far easier to manipulate and cow with big, bad scary stories of pedophile terrorists around every corner, so unquestioningly trust your government to keep you safe, citizen.
*applies "You Found The Problem!" gold sticker*
But you seem to have not noticed that the vast majority of Christians did NOTHING to censor The Life of Brian. A few religious leaders, particularly in some places of Europe with "established" (state-run) churches, and the Catholic church (which still thinks of itself as the quasi-government it once was in Europe) pushed to censor it. In the states, there were individual preachers who spoke against it and urged people not to see it. There were, however, no instances in the US where people were fired from their jobs, kicked-out of college, or otherwise punished by Christians for seeing or speaking about that Monty Python flick. Just how many people have been punished in public universities and colleges in the US in the past decade because they said something that offended Christians??? Now, how many have been punished for saying something that crossed a line drawn by secular leftists???
All the modern censorship in the US where people are punished for speech are from the Left. Speech-muzzling "social justice warriors" are the love-child of the hard ideological secular left and the ivory towers multicultural left. They wage war against anybody who hurts somebody else's feelings... unless the feelings hurt are of white people or Christians or religious Jews. They'll insist that anybody like Trump who says anything about Muslims is a nasty evil bigot, and then they themselves will rant against Christians or religious Jews. They'll demand that nothing can be said about skin color, and then fixate on and rant about "white privilege". Oh, and before some idiot cites the recent publicized case of a teacher at a Christian college being booted over Islam, THAT was a normal matter of a person being fired from a private institution for opposing the core mission of that institution. That's something that happens in all walks of life/ideologies every day; something equivalent to a gay bath house firing an employee who joined pretending to be supportive of the business but then started using the facility to promote gay-to-straight conversion therapy. That's not the same as firing a person over something unrelated to the core of the institution.
I've decided to test what I’m fairly sure is the semi-automatic or automatic Slashdot system for identifying and dealing with vulgar and politically incorrect comments. So, with all due respect to those who don't like vulgarity and sexual comments:
1) Am I allowed to say "nigger dick" on Slashdot?
2) What about "I love nigger dick"?
3) Finally what about "I don't like nigger dick'?
If the term "nigger dick" is forbidden, what about "nigger"?, what about "dick"? What about “Negro dick” or Afro-American penis”? Is there any reason why Slashdot should not make public the list of forbidden words or subjects?
One insidious aspect of modern censorship is the secrecy. Traditional western censorship, such as that practiced in the 19th century Catholic and Victorian traditions, created a public record of what was forbidden so that the individual could know what the limits were and the society as a whole could argue about the process and maybe even try to justify or ridicule the results. The last gasp of that wholly honorable and intellectually justifiable system was the federally mandated "seven dirty words" you could not say on broadcast TV, a list ridiculed by Lenny Bruce. In retrospect the seven dirty words system was an attempt to act above-board, the way democracies are supposed to do things.
The alternative to publicly acknowledged censorship is not no censorship; it is "Night and Fog" censorship, which we associate with the inquisition and the modern fascist and communist states. This form of censorship in essence says "We will not tell you what is allowed or forbidden. But if you cross the line you will find out and be harshly punished. There are no rules we must show you, there are only the results which you will see".
So in an attempt to make censorship decisions a matter of public discussion I put forward for the Slashdot censors and readership the "nigger dick" question. If this post is simply rejected I'll use that truly silly modern invention "the N word" to let the Slashdot community know what's up. If the offending words are simply covered up I'll congratulate Slashdot because publicly announced censorship is far preferable to "We don't censor you. But we strongly encourage you to learn to censor yourself". The capitalization or lack thereof is intentional. And as to my personal position on nigger dick... well we all have a right top our own opinions.
The author of the story submission doesn't appear to have taken into account the trigger warnings that should be posted for the video. What am I to do?
Donald Trump proves otherwise
http://saveie6.com/
My issue with Sanders isn't the world he would like to see, where everyone has health care or racial prejudice is a thing of the past, etc. My problem is his vehicle for trying to get us to those places. That's an important distinction.
It is his suggestion that we have to fight a class struggle and extract money from people who would prefer not to give it, or who simply *can't* afford it in order to make his ideals come true. That's socialism and while its end goals are not undesirable, it's always about how you get to those goals that matters. And it remains to be seen if socialism can actually do that for the USA, even if it was enacted "properly".
While I have little sympathy for a billionaire, history has shown me that when the revolution happens, the billionaires escape and live in exile in Paris and anyone who remains who has worked to get their head a little above the crowd gets that head chopped off. This is a concept which I have no sympathy for in the slightest.
If you think "PC culture" is ruining the country but income inequality racial bias in law enforcement have not, you are fucking retarded.
If you call yourself "anti-PC" and oppose "social justice warriors" while simultaneously complaining about private businesses choosing to say "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas" or defending the right of county clerks to not do their jobs if they think gay marriage is icky, you are a fucking retarded Nazi hypocrite.
1) Sure.
2) So does Milo.
3) Clearly anyone who doesn't like nigger dick is a cis hetero male misogynistic homophobic member of the Illumin... Patriarchy and they have to be silenc... no-platformed.
... are called children, and in the regular age range (which certainly does not go beyond 15 or so) they have a valid excuse, namely lack of maturity. These overgrown children that presume to call themselves "students", when they are anything but have no such excuse. On the other hand, they are destroying the change to grow and learn anything relevant in their sanitized campuses, so they will get what they deserve. The only problem are all those that do not have good opportunities to get an actual education someplace else.
John Cleese is insightful, as always.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
OK, so there was this time that one or more persons may have done something, and one or more other persons had a reaction.
Thank you very much, I'll be here for a duration. Try the soy based meal!
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
"If you were being a dick, apologize. But other than that, ehh, go fuck yourself."
This signature is false.
It seems that all of a sudden being "politically correct" has become a bad thing that must be prevented at all costs. The reason for this is evident for all who take the trouble to notice.
The anxiety and worry that stems from "political correctness" is that "political correctness" establishes a culture in which people who prey on others, who cause disruption through racism, sexism, hate mongering, sowing class or social divisiveness etc. are deemed inappropriate can themselves be castigated and ostracized. Political correctness creates a culture in which, if you have a distasteful idea or socially unworkable idea, you should keep it to yourself.
This anxiety and worry is rooted in the fact that humans do not resolve their differences and social norms in a purely rational fashion, but rely heavily on an emotional filtering of rational thoughts in order to preserve one's concept of oneself. This filtering may be more or less extreme in various circumstances, environments or contexts, even to the point of filtering out rational thought entirely. Consequently, humans have evolved to be particularly acutely tuned to the emotional states of others around them.
Consequently, it's not surprising that those with particularly odious ideas or "radical/extreme/deviant" ideas that they can't otherwise "sell" to their fellow humans will be loathe to see the development of such a culture. Being against "political correctness" means being fundamentally against the notion of strict social consensus, where one's bad ideas have equal footing with other's good ideas and where bad ideas can be still used to leverage selection against those who can be discriminated against for whatever reason in order to preserve perceptions of self-identity.
No we really don't need an edit button. Edit buttons provide extremely rich opportunities for abuse.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
I'm happy to see the tide has turned here on /. There was a time, not even 3 months ago, when slashdotters would be running to support these anti free speech SJWs. Kudos to all who've changed their opinion.
Truly great post. Posting anon due to mods.
You must have picked up an enemy, I don't think I have ever been mod bombed as bad as I have seen you get in this comment section.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Careful, you might get bombed by association ;)
It's times like this I wish I had a friend named 'The Professor'.
Found the humor teacher from Borat.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
The funny thing is, I wasn't in any way shape or form taking the piss out of them. (If I wanted to that, I would simply have posted this ;) )
It's times like this I wish I had a friend named 'The Professor'.
this kind of PC, totalitarian thuggery really is beyond the pale. how is it that students have become such hyper delicate fragile ephemera that can't bear any offensive idea whatsoever? where the fuck does this sense of self righteous sanctimony come from? ugh. fuck these imbeciles.
and alas, the nature of fragility is to shatter. so there's that. and thank god for that.
Without humour you are not human, and if you have dehumanised yourself you should not be lecturing humans about human rights.
Mind you I suspect that our soon to be, Go playing, robot overloads may not think much of your P C bullshit either because it slows down the flow of information.
Okay, Jesus was a fag. If that bothers you. If you're offended. If you think I shouldn't have said that. Welcome to the party, PC pal.
Where are the mods when you need them?
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
According to the Hartford Currant, some Yale students signed a petition that called for repealing the First Amendment.
"I think the constitution should be one big safe space, right?" Ami Horowitz tells one student.
"Hurting people's feelings ... should not be protected speech," he says to another.
Horowitz got 50 signatures in less than an hour.
I thought the edit button was labelled "preview".
This comes up again and again. A group of people grab a cause that falls under the umbrella of political correctness to bludgeon everyone else over the head with it.
Sort of like religious people declaring that you can't be moral if you don't have god in your life - it's just a cultural power play. It has nothing to do with what's right and what's wrong.
When I was a kid (ages ago) everyone knew "sticks and stones can break my bones, but names can never hurt me." Seems that nowadays a word is as damaging as an actual weapon. Crazy. I just don't get it.
Over 500 comments and over 90% of them are completely clueless.
This is just clickbait, not news. Comedians say dumb things all the time.
As a great American philosopher once said
"Comedy should provoke!
It should blast through prejudices, challenge preconceptions!
Comedy should always leave you different than when it found you.
Sure, humor can hurt, even alienate, but the risk is better than the alternative: a steady diet of innocuous, child-proof, flavorless mush!
Demand to be challenged. To be offended. To be treated like thinking, reasoning adults.
And raise your children to be the same.
Don't let a comedian, a network, a Congressional committee, or an evil genius take away your freedom to laugh at whatever you want."
-Duckman
The BIG problem is that "modern faith" requires unconditional acceptance of certain dogma in a large proportion of current religious organisations.
Not all adherents are like that, but the general principle is to "take things on faith".
Questioning religious dogma and authority is openly discouraged.
Even the word "Satan" originates from the idea of "questioner", someone who does not blindly swallow the creed.
Sagan was quite right - open-mindedness is not characteristic of political or religious discourse.
For better or for worse (I am prepared to acknowledge a plurality of outcomes), we are surrounded by the "faithful".
Full of faith. Oblivious to (not ignorant of, nor even necessarily contrary to) logic.
So it's dead easy to offend, something you can do even whilst remaining silent.
Therefore, legislating or even moralising to encourage active suppression of dissenting views is pure insanity.
Welcome to the human race ... get used to it, or go find yourself another planet.
I always wondered about "Road Works".
I mean, obviously it does NOT work properly at the moment at all, otherwise there wouldn't be a fucking sign!!!
Replace vague interpretations of the words "heresy" and "blasphemy" with "sexism" and "misogyny", replace "kafir" with "cis male/ or just male", twist a set of moral and ethical principles in order to justify dictating to other people how they should think and lead their lives, invent subjective and relative moral/ethical principles and overblow them while using them as tools to suppress other people [like Islamic fundamentalists dictate what people should wear, or feminists dictated what a scientist who sent a probe towards a comet should wear],
and you get Feminism.
A secular vehicle for religious moralism. There are also other such secular vehicles these days among the "progressive" collective, but none stick out and are as clear as feminism.
Feminism is the most legitimate proof of the Horseshoe theory.
Feminism is to Egalitarianism what Westboro Baptist Church is to Christianity. Hell, Feminism operates in the same way a religious fundamentalist group does, the only thing missing being AK-47s and bombs.
And Feminism teaches women to be infantile, oversensitive, and refers to loss of emotional control as "empowerment". When you grow up, it is expected of you to lose that emotional imbalance stemming from hormonal imbalance in the teenage years. Yet for some reason feminists never grow up out of that. They are the femchildren equivalent to the manchild. They patronize women rather than empower them more often than not, to the point that women made a "women against feminism" twitter storm.
Bah.
My son was bullied in elementary school. If you think it's pussification to try to stop that, I don't like you, and I don't want you in any position that makes decisions about children.
Ridicule me and I'll consider you a jerk and think no more of it. Get a bunch of people together to ridicule me, with the possibility of physical violence, and I'm not going to be nearly as blase about it. Get a lot of kids to ridicule a seven-year-old, and it is going to hurt. Badly.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
The absurdity of the vocal minority can only be countered by being unequivocally more absurd and more vocal. The time for meekness is not now. Speak out and speak up!
"1984" was a dystopia based on what George Orwell saw happening on ultra-corrupt socialist states. It's natural to expect that ultra-corrupt, leftist-ridden public universities would work the same way. I don't have anything with people freely choosing to become brainwashed in those awful places that rips students off of their money and all the IP they could produce, but there should be an option to go for people that just want to study real sciences, without the completely anti-scientific marxist creed and post-modernist bullshit attached to it.
It's a tragedy that so many brilliant people become total brainwashed morons once they get into higher education. They are so deluded, they even think that being liberal is a sign of intelligence and education, and not a result of falling prey of the corrupt sect that luctuates in those places. They even think of the forced shift in their world views as "having matured", when they actually become extremely immature people with the mentality of a 3-year old toddler, and totally out of touch with reality.
John Cleese and a lot more "humorists" are reaping what they sowed decades ago. Now it's too late for regrets, so suck it up and live in the society you helped to create, which according to the "mouse utopia" experiments is on the way to its self-destruction.
Maybe we are whiny babies. I personally dislike people in general, and that includes other college kids. People are loud and they spread their germs everywhere. What you say is totally correct. However, it's not easy to get over something like social anxiety once you have it due to circumstances beyond your control (aka your parents).
No need to add "Works". Shortest joke is simply: "Microsoft"
is for retards.
To put a witty saying into 120 characters, jst rmv ll th vwls.