What is the world coming to!

[AmateisGal]

But are there no other avenues, venues, ways open for the groups to express their anger, their opinion, their ideas? These are liberal colleges that have embraced diversity - are the students saying they have no avenue to express their opinions? Are they saying they can't bring their ideas up in the usual venues, in civil rallies, in op-ed pieces, in class discussion on social issues, and other appropriate ways to advocate for change in the usual manner? I don't think that's what is happening. I am not screaming "PC" and not listening; what I am saying is you have to sell your ideas like everyone else and you are wrong (yes wrong) for wanting to shut others down from having an opposing view. I can only speak for myself, but I don't hear people saying you don't have the right to your ideas or that they won't be listened to, but they are saying you can't stifle others; they are saying you have to use the same venues as others for getting your ideas out and you have to let others do the same. And here's another rub, they might use all the right venues and not convince enough people (that is IMHO what is happening) - the next step is not stifling others, but trying harder, sell your ideas harder. But you don't have right to stop others from doing the same. Just because my group can't convince enough people to adopt our ideas doesn't allow me to shut down the opposition and it doesn't mean I'm being treated unfairly or not listened to - maybe I was listened to and the answer is - we still don't agree.

Yes. See the piece I posted earlier from Princeton. THAT is the perfect example of how, IMO, you express yourself. You don't ground the other person into the dirt until they can do nothing but say "Ok, I agree with you!" because they are forced to. This is not civilized. This is not democratic. This is bullying and this is intimidation.

 

[Fading Fast]

So, imagine you're in a situation with someone like the one I mentioned above, and you direct her to the "handicap bathroom," and she shoots you the side-eye and says "that's offensive!" Do you then say, "well, we still talk about handicap parking areas, and most people that I know aren't offended by the use of the term, so I see no reason why I should acknowledge that it makes you uncomfortable until you have the mass of public opinion on your side." Or do you say "Sorry, ma'am, my mistake. The accessible bathroom is right over there."

As I've said before, Loungers tend to go on and on and on here about how much we lament the loss of "manners" in modern society, but do we really mean "manners as defined by white able-bodied Anglophone men a century ago?" Or do we mean "manners" as in going out of our way to not make anyone unnecessarily uncomfortable no matter who they are?

I think you are conflating two different things. On a day-to-day basis, on a one-on-one interaction, I think it is polite to do things you don't agree with at a societal writ large level. So, yes, I think that woman has to advocate to get the name "handicapped" changed as public policy - and get a critical mass of people to agree - but I out of politeness, I'm not going to make a political stance here and now and will call it what you want. Now, if the person want to then engage with me in an argument that it should be public policy, then I will argue with them and not consider it ill mannered since, to use a millennial term, she went there. I'd argue further, that if handicapped is he accepted word - then she is making her one-on-one interaction with you political (you did use a general-accepted-as-not-offensive word) - but again, for simple courtesy, I'd do what you do. To further the point, I don't like a lot of words that are used today in our politics (I think they bias the argument and are presumptive) and some of them offend me, but I use them as they are the generally-accepted ones and I don't force others into a political debate on a personal level (and if I did, I would expect them to debate me back).

 

[LizzieMaine]

The thing to keep in mind is that they're kids. Yes, I know they're in college, but emotionally and intellectually they're still adolescents, and that's how adolescents communicate. I imagine a lot of us here as teenagers were not quite the advocates of rational, intellectual conversation that we are today. Spot the kids twenty years and see how they turn out.

Frankly, I'm suspect of anyone that age who doesn't kick up a fuss and cause trouble over things they feel strongly about. An adolescent who doesn't want to roll up her sleeves, spit on her hands, and kick Power right in the groin has no red blood in her veins, and will probably grow up to be the kind of doormat Power just loves to wipe its feet on. And if anyone thinks that kind of language is too violent, I apologize.

 

[AmateisGal]

The thing to keep in mind is that they're kids. Yes, I know they're in college, but emotionally and intellectually they're still adolescents, and that's how adolescents communicate. I imagine a lot of us here as teenagers were not quite the advocates of rational, intellectual conversation that we are today. Spot the kids twenty years and see how they turn out.

Frankly, I'm suspect of anyone that age who doesn't kick up a fuss and cause trouble over things they feel strongly about. An adolescent who doesn't want to roll up her sleeves, spit on her hands, and kick Power right in the groin has no red blood in her veins. And if anyone thinks that kind of language is too violent, I apologize.

Oh, I was a spitfire when I was that age, too - but I wouldn't have dreamed of cussing out the president of my university and demanding that he apologize, or going into his office and occupying it through intimidation, or calling for my professor to be fired because he said something in class that I found offensive or disagreeable. *That* is what these kids are doing now. And yes, those things that I mentioned have actually happened.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I think you are conflating two different things. On a day-to-day basis, on a one-on-one interaction, I think it is polite to do things you don't agree with at a societal writ large level. So, yes, I think that woman has to advocate to get the name "handicapped" changed as public policy - and get a critical mass of people to agree - but I out of politeness, I'm not going to make a political stance here and now and will call it what you want. Now, if the person want to then engage with me in an argument that it should be public policy, then I will argue with them and not consider it ill mannered since, to use a millennial term, she went there. I'd argue further, that if handicapped is he accepted word - then she is making her one-on-one interaction with you political (you did use a general-accepted-as-not-offensive word) - but again, for simple courtesy, I'd do what you do. To further the point, I don't like a lot of words that are used today in our politics (I think they bias the argument and are presumptive) and some of them offend me, but I use them as they are the generally-accepted ones and I don't force others into a political debate on a personal level (and if I did, I would expect them to debate me back).

That's your privilege, but for me, really, I have no team on the field either way. Fighting to maintain the status quo on an ever-changing language as a matter of some sort of principle strikes me as a battle that isn't worth the effort. I'm not going to run into the other room and don a string of pearls so that I can clutch them in anguish over "political correctness run amok" the way many around here like to do, because I just don't see any value in doing so.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Oh, I was a spitfire when I was that age, too - but I wouldn't have dreamed of cussing out the president of my university and demanding that he apologize, or going into his office and occupying it through intimidation, or calling for my professor to be fired because he said something in class that I found offensive or disagreeable. *That* is what these kids are doing now. And yes, those things that I mentioned have actually happened.

I used to get into ferocious arguments with my teachers in *High School*, and once broke into one teacher's room after school hours to cover the board with a blistering manifesto in blood-red chalk. To say nothing of the stuff I used to print in the school paper. That being so, it's probably for the best that I didn't go to college, or I'd probably have ended up in jail.

All that said, I'll wrap up with this. At no time in American history has any lasting social change ever been achieved by simply asking politely for it. You gotta break some eggs to make an omelet.

 

[HudsonHawk]

Her creator, psychologist William Moulton Marston, as has been well documented, was a lifelong bondage fetishist who lived most of his adult life in a menage a trois. Good old wholesome Golden Era values.

And if that isn't enough, her adventures were drawn for the first sixteen years of her existence by a man named "Harry Peter."

I've learned way more about Wonder Woman in this thread than I ever thought was possible.

 

[HudsonHawk]

And as another side thought I'm astonished that this story's gotten picked up and promulgated by supposedly respectable news organizations without any documentation whatsoever. Exactly what school did this? Where is the school? Who is the principal? Who posted the original photos? Who is the child? Who is her family? What kid even carries a metal lunch box nowadays? When I was a news director, I would've been fired on the spot if I had let something like this on the air without solid documentation.

I'm tempted to sit down here with Microsoft Word, make up a letter from a non-existent school board advising a non-existent parent that a non-existent child can no longer bring bananas to school because they could be pointed like weapons, and post it on Reddit. And I'm willing to bet folding money that within ten days Bill O'Reilly will have commented on it.

The other day I watched the documentary from a few years back on the Amazing Randi. Part of the story was the elaborate and way over the top hoaxes he ran over the years to demonstrate just how the media fails to vet anything, and the more sensational the story, the more eager they are to run with it without anyone even attempting to verify. It's a sad world.

 

[Fading Fast]

And I'll wrap up with this, if shutting down your opponent's ability to speak, the ability for them to express an opposite view is how you get your way, it will be a Pyrrhic Victory. They will have destroyed one of the greatest protections people (the radicals, the paint throwers, the blood-red chalk writers, the social changers, and everyone else) who want to change the status quo - not just now, but tomorrow, the next day and the next decade - have ever had. Break all the eggs you want, but I don't remember the past radicals who have advanced sustainable social justice position doing so by aggressively stifling opposing argument by fiat.

 

[Fading Fast]

I've learned way more about Wonder Woman in this thread than I ever thought was possible.

Me too - another very cool thing about FL

 

[HudsonHawk]

I used to get into ferocious arguments with my teachers in *High School*, and once broke into one teacher's room after school hours to cover the board with a blistering manifesto in blood-red chalk. To say nothing of the stuff I used to print in the school paper. That being so, it's probably for the best that I didn't go to college, or I'd probably have ended up in jail.

All that said, I'll wrap up with this. At no time in American history has any lasting social change ever been achieved by simply asking politely for it. You gotta break some eggs to make an omelet.

I was almost kicked out of high school twice: once for being accused of being a communist and the other for arguing with my literature teacher over the context of D. H. Lawrence's The Rocking Horse Winner. They run a tight ship down in Texas.

 

[AmateisGal]

And I'll wrap up with this, if shutting down your opponent's ability to speak, the ability for them to express an opposite view is how you get your way, it will be a Pyrrhic Victory. They will have destroyed one of the greatest protections people (the radicals, the paint throwers, the blood-red chalk writers, the social changers, and everyone else) who want to change the status quo - not just now, but tomorrow, the next day and the next decade - have ever had. Break all the eggs you want, but I don't remember the past radicals who have advanced sustainable social justice position doing so by aggressively stifling opposing argument by fiat.

I agree 100%. I see a lot of attempts to stifle free speech on college campuses - and that is what concerns me the most. It should concern all of us.

 

[AmateisGal]

I was almost kicked out of high school twice: once for being accused of being a communist and the other for arguing with my literature teacher over the context of D. H. Lawrence's The Rocking Horse Winner. They run a tight ship down in Texas.

While I don't agree with them trying to kick you out, I think both of those are valid free speech arguments for you to have. It' s good to have those things - to challenge your teacher and to challenge others' ideas. In fact, a representative democracy *should* have those conversations; we should always challenge each other's ideas, etc. IN fact, we're doing that right here on this thread. But I'll say it again: that is *not* what is going on in the college and university communities. It is all about, as Fading Fast said earlier, shutting down your opponent and their freedom of expression; it is a bullying technique, and it is dangerous.

 

[HudsonHawk]

While I don't agree with them trying to kick you out, I think both of those are valid free speech arguments for you to have. It' s good to have those things - to challenge your teacher and to challenge others' ideas. In fact, a representative democracy *should* have those conversations; we should always challenge each other's ideas, etc.

Well, in Texas, they don't think much of either communism or masturbation. Even less so when discussed in public schools.

But in seriousness...I agree with you. The stifling of ideas is never a good thing.

 

[AmateisGal]

It should be available online. I chanced across the U of C student newspaper the other week, and both the Wall Street Journal
and New York Times have made mention of it amidst campus coverage to put some perspective down.

Thanks, Harp. I will check it out.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Well, in Texas, they don't think much of either communism or masturbation.

Probably the first time those two words have ever been used together in a sentence. Except, of course, in Texas.

 

[Harp]

Probably the first time those two words have ever been used together in a sentence. Except, of course, in Texas.

Used in English at the Marinsky Opera in St Petersburg, Russia. Even Tchaikovsky would have blushed.

 

[LizzieMaine]

And I'll wrap up with this, if shutting down your opponent's ability to speak, the ability for them to express an opposite view is how you get your way, it will be a Pyrrhic Victory. They will have destroyed one of the greatest protections people (the radicals, the paint throwers, the blood-red chalk writers, the social changers, and everyone else) who want to change the status quo - not just now, but tomorrow, the next day and the next decade - have ever had. Break all the eggs you want, but I don't remember the past radicals who have advanced sustainable social justice position doing so by aggressively stifling opposing argument by fiat.

I just don't see that happening. Whatever happens on campus, and however it happens, the internet is alive with every opinion under the sun, and you'll find young people running the gamut from ultra-Randites to ultra-Marxists, and every point in between. Any opinion that can be *genuinely* suppressed by a gang of shouty nineteen-year-olds probably isn't held with much conviction to begin with.

And as long as well-heeled right-wing think tanks finance the publication of the Princeton Tory and similar papers, there's no chance of "opposing viewpoints" being stifled.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Used in English at the Marinsky Opera in St Petersburg, Russia. Even Tchaikovsky would have blushed.

In Soviet Union, party is life of you!

 

[Harp]

In Soviet Union, party stimulate you!

Russian ladies are always a surprise.