Eamon Holmes was on TV the other day, with an actor called Jonathan Wilkes, where they discussed an item in the paper which claimed a third of Britons don’t know where London, Birmingham and Glasgow are on a map. Wilkes (who is only famous for being the best friend of Robbie Williams) admitted he was probably ‘in that third’, prompting Holmes to label him ‘retarded’. Everyone laughed, and the programme went to a break. When the next segment of the show started, Holmes apologised… ‘Sorry to three or four of you who have got in touch this morning, because I used the word ‘retarded’ during the newspaper review. ‘You seem to take it personally or seem to say that I’m insulting all sorts of people who have all sorts of conditions.But obviously I would never want to do that or cause any sort of offence.`
And there it should have ended. Except now the story was on the internet….and scores of people could now be offended on behalf of other people’s children….and that is the point. Anyone watching it could see, in context, that it was a throwaway comment between 2 adults, and was laughed off. But now there were calls for his immediate sacking..that he was a disgrace, it was an attack on defenceless children, blah blah.
On Top Gear in February, Richard Hammond said `Cars reflect national characteristics, don’t they, so German cars are very well-built and ruthlessly efficient, Italian cars are a bit flamboyant and quick, a Mexican car’s just going to be lazy, feckless, flatulent, overweight, leaning against a fence asleep, looking at a cactus, with a blanket with a hole in the middle as a coat.` And again, scores of people phoned and wrote in, offended by the comment, even though they hadn`t actually seen it. Steve Coogan wrote an article condemning the show..(although forgetting to mention that he had labelled all Liverpudlians as `dossers and thieves` while he was on it, and in fact, his entire tirade he had plagiarised from another comedian ). People who hadn`t seen the show wrote in to voice how offended they were…and yet when the same show stereotyped americans, the french, germans, italians, japanese and the swiss etc etc…not a word was said.
Or how about the Salt & Light cafe, which was visited by the police because a woman complained she was `deeply offended` by a text from the bible shown on a TV screen, because it `incited hatred against homsexuals` even though the sound was off, and the DVD had been playing there for months. No action was taken.
She had just come across Rule 1. Just because you`re offended doesn`t make you right.
Now …I know that the entire concept of what is or isn`t offensive is highly subjective. Anybody can get offended over anything, but we’ve just become so oversensitive to everything. I sometimes get the feeling that people spend time preparing for the moment when they will be offended. They read magazines and books, surf the web and watch documentaries just waiting for the time that they will encounter a person saying something `offensive`. When this happens, they can leap into action with quotes, statistics, and historical examples, complain to whoever and then sit back, safe in the knowledge that they have `made a difference.`
Rule No.2 I`m Offended Does Not Mean It`s Offensive. I have long hair and a beard. I wear a leather jacket, t-shirts and jeans. I have Hep C. Occasionally, I have met people who put all these together and make an assumption…ie I`m a druggie. (They`re wrong, by the way) Very occasionally, I have seen people cross the street to avoid me, or smile at me in that `I`m-being-friendly-please-don`t-hurt-me way` . A long time ago, I may have taken offence by it, even though I could understand the reaction. I`ve been called `Jesus`, `St.Peter`. `Billy Connolly`, `junkie` and `druggie`. I`ve had security guards follow me around stores. I could get offended…but I CHOOSE not to. Some people are offended by the sight of a woman breast-feeding in public, or that a Happy Meal toy is gender-specific. There are always going to be differences of opinion, but people without a valid argument just seem to declare that they’re offended, and expect to gain victory. However, like I already said…just because you don’t agree with me, that doesn’t mean you have cause to be offended….and people will always have differences of opinion. Without that, what do we have? Blind conformity with some homogenized view of utopia?…a nation of `Stepford Wives`, or maybe Huxley`s Brand New World?
Something worth noting is that the threshold for being offended is also a very important tool for judging and ranking people. Missing an opportunity to be outraged is almost social death. By claiming to be offended, we can show everyone else just how much more sensitive, caring and intellectual we are.
To quote Polly Toynbee `The politically correct society is the civilised society, however much some may squirm at the more inelegant official circumlocutions designed to avoid offence.` So..if you`re not politically correct, you`re therefore a neanderthal racist homophobe. This is, of course, crap. Politically correct terms have two purported virtues: 1). It reduces the social acceptability of using offensive terms, and 2) It discourages the reflexive use of words that bring in a negative stereotype. The problem with this being that replacing a word doesn`t change the meaning behind it…`A rose by any other name, etc` If a school bully is taunting someone by calling them fat, then replacing it with `Obese` does nothing. The bully will now use obese with the same note of scorn in his voice. If that is now challenged. he will move onto `Person of Substance`, or some such.
There is, I think, almost a mainstream PC viewpoint of the kind which has almost had a stranglehold in most of the media for many years. Basically, it says that no-one must be offended. If someone IS, and he belongs to a minority, he must therefore be paid lots of compensation. And thirdly, (and most importantly), we must self-censor and not say what we think, or we will be prosecuted…of course, the decision of whether something is offensive or not is left up to the “victim”.
It’s tragic that we are now living in a world where we are all being mentally conditioned (and often encouraged) to take offence at innocuous remarks, words or names, if they don’t exactly match 100% with our own world view, or the specific religious, cultural or racial outlooks that associates with it. What makes it all faintly ridiculous is that, quite often, the very people we are so desperately trying not to offend don`t see any offence whatsoever in the very things we are tormenting our tortured, liberal consciences about, Christmas being a prime example. In 2009, Dundee had the Winter Night Light festival, instead of Christmas….Or how about the BBC`s guidance that asserts that the staff should use the abbreviations BCE and CE (Before Common Era and Common Era) since BC and AD infringed its protocols on impartiality, and should not be used in case they cause offence to non-Christians. Southwark council had planned (until the residents complained) to change the name of Guy Fawkes night to `The Colour Thief: A Winter Extravaganza Celebrating the Change of the Seasons.`…Who was going to be offended…Catholics?
But of course, this is just a form of control, which is where the nature of `Offence` becomes insidious and darker. On one side of the coin, there are people who are deliberately offensive. `I am an equal opportunity Offender..Ha ha`.At low-level, they`re just boring. At higher levels, its done to illicit a physical response, tears, anger..fists, even. The other side is …`I am offended, therefore you must stop and/or change your behaviour`. Uncontrolled immigration was going on for years under Blair, but any discussion never happened, for fear of causing offence by being deemed `Racist`..groups, institutions or organisations could be deemed `Racist` `Islamophobic`or `Homophobic`..and as Mark Twain once said, `To the man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.`
I just wish we could take more real offence at things that are worthwhile getting offended about, (and there are many things out there that are truly offensive) and less imaginary offence at unimportant matters. Perhaps we should spend less time going out of our way to look for and inventing offence just so we can become `victims`, or as a crutch for our low self-esteem.
No Offence
The information about Hep C. aside, this was an enjoyable and thoughtful tapestry. Polly grasps the nettle whilst Twain pleads to the Mjöllnirs.
Sabre – It is obvious that your posting will have ‘offended’ someone, somewhere – but I hope you won’t be offended if I say it didn’t ‘offend’ me.
Unfortunately, ‘potential offence’ is now so deeply ingrained that any public official who fails to report something that later turned out to have ‘offended’ someone, risks their whole career.
BTW – I fail to see how using ‘CE’ and ‘BCE’ will avoid ‘offending’ professional offendees – as they are based on the same putative date (mis-calculated by Dionysius Exiguus about 1500 years ago ) for the ‘Incarnation of Christ’. (Enny-fule-noe we should be counting from Archbishop Ussher’s date for the creation of the whole Universe)
First to be offended by the offensive post…
“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”
― George Orwell
About time you worte another post!
‘She had just come across Rule 1. Just because you`re offended doesn`t make you right.’
I cannot stress how much I agree with this!
@MTG What do you mean by ‘the information about Hep C aside’? There is just a statement right, no information as such? And what do you mean anyway?
Very nicely written piece SW. I constantly find myself getting in trouble for being particularly un-PC, I just can’t help myself though. People are such goddamn babies these days, but that’s what 13 years of nannying Fabian bullshit gives you. I actively encourage my children not to be offended, but equally ensure they know damn sure that respect is given where it’s due. They know it’s wrong to take the piss out of someone because e.g. they have red hair, just as they know that negativity based on skin colour is totally unacceptable too.
However, if they call each other a retard or spaz, I don’t sit there lecturing them about how that might offend someone, somewhere who was born with a disability through no fault of their own. I don’t exactly encourage it either – they know that in some, limited circumstances, it could cause someone to be a bit upset, and so they wouldn’t be insensitive if, say, someone in a wheelchair was passing by.
It’s about balance isn’t it, or what once was referred to as common sense.
Anyway, I am of the (fairly strong) opinion that a particularly severe financial and economic storm is on its way. When people are faced with getting back to the basics of survival (yes, I do think it’s going to be that bad), I’m fairly hopeful that stuff like this which has somehow become ingrained into our daily lives will quickly be forgotten as incidental and unnecessary.
I could be wrong, but I interpreted that (ie: the ‘Hep C aside’ comment) as meaning that bit was the only bit of the post that MTG didn’t enjoy reading – as in, ‘sorry to hear you have Hep C’
an enjoyable bit of Fry and Hitchens (Christopher) on the subject:
Thanks P`Ed…hadn`t heard this. 🙂 I DID have to force myself not to use this, however…
In the late `70s, I used to spend one day per month at the local psychiatric hospital. We would anaesthetise the patients (all children), and then clean and/or repair their teeth. All of us did it for free…just doing it because it was `right`
In the late 80`s, I applied for another job, and I recounted this at the interview. I was told off, (in the interview) for using the term `Mentally Sub-Normal`. The CORRECT term was `Mentally Handicapped`…but, in the 70`s, there were nurses qualified as RNMS (Registered Nurse for the Mentally Subnormal)
Then came mentally retarded, mentally challenged..I`ve even heard of developmentally disabled.
I just got really annoyed…what I had done, why I had done it..what qualities this might show as a worker were completely ignored..because I had used a `bad` word…
Common sense indeed…
EDIT
Meant to add…nurses are now RMN…Registered Mental Health Nurse
(Note… its now HEALTH, sounds better)…the patients are the same, the job is (more-or-less) the same…but the title sounds positive…