This is the leftist inverse of Francis Fukuyama. We’re at the end of history, we’re all collapsing inevitably towards the cuddle puddle, get with the program or get on the boxcar…
Well obviously you can’t trust biased sources like Whedon. I’m sure he was really chased off the twitters by FemFreq and now he’s just whitewashing the situation.
Teiman
4863
Space programmers are better than tabular programmers, if only because infight between tabular programmers that =8 these that =4 and these that =next%8
Oh, you mean space programes, my bad.
Then they should be FIFO.
LMN8R
4864
Don’t worry. Conservatives and GamerGate supporters already derived pleasure (the literal definition of schadenfreude) by learning that Whedon was harassed off the Internet by militant feminists.
Reality has never mattered. Confirmation bias already did its job.
Naw, anyone with a sense of justice is obliged to be amused when someone who came to the knee jerk defence of unhinged lunatics ends up being attacked by the same lunatics for the same crazy reasons they were being attacked for before he defended them
I like how the rejection by egalitarians of the culture of trigger warnings, safe space, outrage culture, call-outs, privilege theory is now people trying to stop a “social inclusive movement like civil rights or gay rights”
flyinj
4867
Goddamn whiny sexual abuse victims with PTSD wanting to be warned about environments or media which might make them feel really bad.
The nerve of those people.
They really should just man up.
Menzo
4869
I do think we’ve allowed things to be taken a bit too far. The general idea appears to be that we are entitled to a life free of embarrassment, shame, offense, and weird feelings. I think it’s creating a generation of kids that don’t know how to deal with real life.
I get we want to make things better for every new generation, but how far is too far? Bad things happen to good people. It’s terrible. We should support those who are victimized, but at what cost? Should the entire world turn their lives upside down to make sure a rape victim isn’t “triggered” for the rest of his or her life? Or should we make a reasonable effort to help that person recover and then let him/her move on with his/her life?
I’m a liberal progressive, so this sort of thinking does feel odd to me, but I also get tired of having to accommodate everyone all the time.
There is a reasonability factor here. People going out of their way to trigger= obviously bad. However, some things are pretty unreasonable to accomodate, and what happens when doing something triggers somebody, and not doing it triggers someone else?
There’s also a need for any democratic society to cultivate a tolerance of dissent and respect for opposing views- this respect and tolerance is not being taught today.
Are we really at the point of “uphill both ways, bare feet in the snow”? History is cyclical isn’t it.
-Todd
I know this is frowned on but I really do feel that “helicopter parenting” coupled with the ubiquity of social media narcissism has trained a lot of people to completely distance themselves from reasonable debate.
magnet
4873
Nobody is entitled to a trigger warning, and you don’t have to accommodate anyone.
In truth, the general idea is that people - quite reasonably - try to avoid feeling embarrassment, shame, offense, and weird feelings. And they will flock to whoever helps them do that.
But if you don’t care enough to help your readers, then feel free to write however you want. Just don’t be surprised when your readership rapidly diminishes. After all, nobody is entitled to an audience either.
History certainly is cyclical. In this case we are seeing a repeat of the content warnings and attempts to remove “offensive” materials from public spaces and institutions in the name of shielding the vulnerable from trauma. It’s just that the last time it was led by hypersensitive moms and Christian Fundamentalists groups who wanted to “protect” their kids from ideas and content they didn’t approve of. Now its being done by hypersensitive Leftists who want “safe spaces” to protect themselves from being exposed to any content or idea that might traumatize them.
Exactly the same shit.
Perhaps, but didn’t anyone else here feel a sense of wild idealism or optimism in college, after high school, or at some point in their youth? Of course that optimism soon faces the reality of the job market and individual responsibility then turns to pragmatism, survival, and jadedness. What were seeing now is just a modern update of that.
-Todd
I don’t know how any of us survived the great content purge of the 20th century unscathed!
-Todd
magnet
4877
Why on earth would sane people expose themselves to content that they know will upset them?
flyinj
4878
Back in my day that’s EXACTLY what we did and WE LIKED IT.
It really seems like the issue is this new (and weird to me) belief and, it seems, activity where in communication “authorial intent” no longer matters, which is one thing in literary criticism but another in interpersonal communications. Now in the age of social media the intent of the speaker no longer matters at all; the context of communication lies only with the audience. Even if the audience is a million people listening on Twitter and the speaker is a well known celebrity, academic, or activist who cannot possibly take into account the myriad variations. Because of that even someone with a lifetime of social service in the work of a cause can be crucified for even a poorly chosen tweet, if some few of those millions in their own private context were offended, and whom don’t care at all who said it, why they said it, whether or not they actually meant what they said, or to give even the slightest benefit of the doubt to the speaker or put the offending statement into the context of the speaker instead of their own.
It’s as if we all live in tiny rooms seeing the outside world through shut blinds, and complaining whenever a shadow passes to slightly dim the light, and not thinking to ask why. Because obviously, if they cared, why should they be blocking their sun?
Come on. You’ve never read anything challenging? I get upset when I sit down with Paradise Lost and realize that the guy who wrote it is a whole lot smarter and wiser than me, even though he was stuck in the 17th century and his head was filled with useless superstition. Lots of people like tragedy. Most good novels are sad. Are we going to do contortions where tragedies evocative of a socially-salutary catharsis aren’t actually “upsetting?”
