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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.
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".
You correctly pointed out that there is a strong motivator, but I think you missed the mark that it is money via lawsuits. After all, only tiny minority of such cases ever go that far, and it is typically against college administrators overreach and overreaction.
I think real motivator is that victimized is a coveted social status. When group concept of privilege mutated and misapplied to become highly socially disadvantageous label applied to an individual, it is natural that maintaining social standing now demands negation or qualifiers of such label privilege. How you do that? You invent slights, blow trivial offenses out of proportion and proceed to claim to be oppressed by this or that -ism based on these.
I blame Social Sciences for creating this monster. They invented and promoted the idea that in order to have a valid opinion, one must necessary experience things first-hand. If you didn't, then you are privileged, and should just act as you told. Nobody likes doing that, so everyone suddenly jumps on the victimhood bandwagon just to not get silenced at every turn.
Fortunately one of the requirements is that you not be a member of a criminal organization.
That's not true, they allow political parties. If ever there was a band of thieves they qualify.
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.