Not to turn the attention away from the subject, but what is with the ageist remarks by the way? Dinosaurs, twenty-somethings? I think that once you pass 21 you should be mature enough to understand the difference between your left and right hand. — TimeLine

Yes, quite. But it happened to be a twenty-something in the example, so that's what I've been referring back to.

Your reply has given me some food for thought, but I think we're just talking past each other to a large extent. When you condemn a toxic environment, bullying, and so on, you're preaching to the choir. Obviously, no one would condone that. But what's what is more nuanced than you make it sound.

No one would doubt that 'nigger' shouldn't be used because of the history of disenfranchisement, isolation and racism associated with it... — fdrake

Yes they would, actually, and I am one of them. Why? Well, because once again, context matters. There's an episode of Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle that gets that point across quite well, which I'd recommend.

Also, regarding the use of the word 'nigger', I refer you, specifically, to the part about six minutes in, although the whole thing is worth a watch. (Interestingly, near the start of the video, he also makes a point regarding this 'just a joke' defence of which you speak).



It went to court. He won the case and received over £50,000 in libel damages.

Anyway, thanks for the reply, but not for the part where you get all personal. Other than that part, it was a good reply.

A coincidence, I was aiming for a mass liberal consensus that vanishes on contact with air. I had Stewart Lee's rant in approval of political correctness in mind when writing the post. It's exactly where I took the 'political correctness is an often clumsy negotiation towards a more formally inclusive language' sentence from. I find it pretty funny if you've interpreted him as more critical than supportive of political correctness; maybe he does achieve mass liberal consensus through ambiguities in phrasing.

I'm aware of the different ways blacks can use nigger. I also used the word in the post, it's pathetic to talk about the word saying like 'n-word' or whatever. As if that does anything. All I'm saying is that we have a paradigm case of an entire sub-category of discourse being shown to be toxic in casual racist remarks , we have a similar 'hoo hah' about it with the same kind of arguments being made against 'political correctnenss' as were made to defend racism. In the UK, the Daily Mirror was pro-fascist in the 1930s, here's what an article named 'Give the Blackshirts a Helping Hand' has to say about being criticised as racist:

(The presence of ethnic cleansing and racialised violence in Nazi Germany and its attempted spread through Europe) was nonsense, the Mirror said, the result of ignorance of the reality of "Blackshirt government" in Hitler's Germany: "The notion that a permanent reign of terror exists there has been evolved entirely from their own morbid imaginations, fed by sensational propaganda from opponents of the party now in power."

Exactly the same conspiratorial language is used in criticism of political correctness, which has never been an explicit doctrine of any government in Britain. People at the time will have defended the Mirror's right to free speech, even if they were backing a racist, fascist political movement. Don't believe the lies of a need for removing racial hate speech from our day to day conversations, the PC police exaggerate the effects. We're not for racism and fascism, we will:

"As a purely British organisation, the Blackshirts will respect those principles of tolerance which are traditional in British politics," the Mirror told readers, complaining that "timid alarmists" had "been whimpering that the rapid growth in numbers of the British Blackshirts is preparing the way for a system of rulership by means of steel whips and concentration camps".

From here. What's the matter? We can't even support the Blackshirts and downplay the presence of racial violence in Nazi Germany and its possible spreading to Britain under similar leadership! It's political correctness gone mad!

Every single time there is a generalised effort to mitigate hatespeech and discrimination within the way we talk, there is always a pushback defending the hatespeech in terms of freedom of speech and contextualisation. This completely missed the point, logically as well as historically.

Frankie was using the word to make an emancipatory point, critical of the treatment of non-white countries by British foreign policy. To claim that this is anything like the use of the word nigger in discriminating against blacks is the start of the problem.

The analogy is between someone using nigger, chink, rag-head etc as discriminatory in-group/out-group signalling and sexual language making women an out-group in the discourse with their laughable qualities like vaginas and clits. (like Jew noses and those silly turbans eh?) Not with someone saying the words in every single possible context. You've been saying you like context and that it's very important in matters like these. But really, the context is pretty clear, there's so much evidence that derogatory water cooler banter with attended casual sexism has a bad impact on women in the work place. Who cares if there's the occasional adapted woman who plays the game? What matters is the evidence of majority that don't like it, feel excluded and ridiculed by it - whether you lose your favourite water cooler jokes so that they can only be expressed in a safer context (say with your friends at home) doesn't matter.

Maybe you should remember Stewart Lee's opinion on the best achievement of political correctness: 'one thing political correctness has achieved is to make the Conservative party cloak their inherent racism in more creative language'.

A coincidence, I was aiming for a mass liberal consensus that vanishes on contact with air. I had Stewart Lee's rant in approval of political correctness in mind when writing the post. It's exactly where I took the 'political correctness is an often clumsy negotiation towards a more formally inclusive language' sentence from. I find it pretty funny if you've interpreted him as more critical than supportive of political correctness; maybe he does achieve mass liberal consensus through ambiguities in phrasing. — fdrake

No, I know the episode well, and the discussion here made me think of that as well. But, as a reply to what I said, that's changing the subject. It's not a competition to see who can agree the most with Stewart Lee. The specific point I was making was clearly about the importance of context, not the importance of political correctness.

I hope you read more of the post than that. Getting personal about hatespeech and sexism is the best way to change people's minds, I've found. If the person you're talking to has a little respect for you, or at least thinks you're not a waste of space, then it feels pretty bad to be chewed out by them. Rhetorical strategy.

Still, I don't want to be remembered as a sexist grandpa.

It's not a very clever strategy if you want me to read what you're saying in full and give it careful consideration. Do you want my attention or do you want me to roll my eyes and walk away?

I can understand you rolling your eyes at the first post. The second one makes the case with less patronising and inflammatory language. Your call.

But "below the radar" the place was a mess of passive-aggression, subtle games of isolation and playing staff against each other, favoritism, and so on. — Bitter Crank

This is sadly many office space work environments. You put personality types of various stripes into the same office from various backgrounds, all with various principles, and you have a recipe for an uncomfortable 8 hours +.

It took a while to tease out how this all worked, and it wasn't till after I had left that the patterns of behavior became clearer. — Bitter Crank

You mean, you recovered from your PTSD? ;)

There was no less racism, sexism, gay and straight masculine chauvinism or feminine manipulation, etc. here than anywhere else, it was just deeply submerged. It might have been an easier place to work, and a less toxic one, if people had just come out with ordinary, run of the mill sexism, racism, agism, homophobia, etc. rather than the rococo cuckoo craziness that reigned supreme there. — Bitter Crank

So how is antinatalism not a good option in the face of the fact most newborns are destined for the neon fluorescent lights and dreary interpersonal dynamics of the office space? :D. Places like Google and such try to dress it up a bit, but it's the same wherever humans are coordinating in a managerial-type setting and coworkers of various beliefs and ethics. Also, being that this style has been around for about 100 years, and not much has changed since the child labor and 8-hour workday laws, we are stuck in this unimaginative mode of life for some time to come.

There are details on the radar screen which are addressed in social rules and regulations. It's much more difficult to diagnose and remedy details that are below the radar. It is not impossible, though, and remediation has helped. Putting more women into management positions, for instance, helps. As sex, and race problems work their way up the hierarchy, it isn't only males that do the evaluation. Details matter here too, of course. A ruthless, vindictive authoritarian woman in management is as bad as a ruthless, vindictive authoritarian man -- and yes, both types exist. — Bitter Crank

Yep, any race and sex, any person can be as vindictive and authoritarian as the next.

How wide a range of behavior can the radar screens encompass? How does "radar" detect and display the rococo craziness of individuals and organizations? I don't know. — Bitter Crank

When you dread walking in the door everyday. To walk into a cubicle office space environment and stay glued to an office building for 8 hours is madness. You have to readjust your brain that you are really going to devote your time and energy to this. Of course, the work place BS occurs in work settings of all stripes, not just the cube kind. Schools, hospitals, construction sites, coal mines, universities- you name it, there are probably awful politics, unhealthy interpersonal dynamics, and abusive power relations going on. But I suppose because it isn't subsistence farming and malaria, we should all be appreciative.

You mean, you recovered from your PTSD? — schopenhauer1

it was a sort of PTSD. And yes, the rococo craziness of the industrial office work space is probably a full and sufficient reason never to have children, if they have even a small chance of ending up there.

What's the big point that I have been trying to emphasise? Context matters. — Sapientia

I think this is absolutely the case, and moreover, I think context is exactly what is lost in the reactionary responses like that of the OP article and other cries of witch-hunting and so on. It's crystal clear that the context of the recent up-swell against the pervasive harassment of women (not just 'in the office' but also - and importantly - in the street as well) has to do precisely with its overwhelming social ubiquity. In a time and culture where women are routinely judged by their sex to the detriment of their life experiences, it is just that routinization that is being fought against. That is the context, and it is precisely that context which is lost in the reactionary attempt to shift the level of analysis from the social to the individual. That 'work banter may just be harmless fun' thus may be true, but it is also entirely irrelevant, insofar as it aims to displace the focus on a social problem - obvious to anyone who has contact with sunlight and air - onto a sophistic focus on atomized, localized and context-free cases.

Also, there's something irredeemably pathetic in the sentiment expressed by some here that without the crutch of sexual harassment, they can't fathom how it is that anyone can get laid. Consider perhaps that this is total failure of imagination and an impotency of sexual prowess rather than anything even resembling an indictment on society.

Common sense be damned. — Ciceronianus the White

Blasphemy!

Blasphemy! — Sapientia

There's no "common sense" defense to claims of sexual harassment in the wonderful world of the law. Those who complain that "common sense" establishes that there is no actionable claim are mere fools at best. Those subject to the law should simply act prudently given the law or accept responsibility for the consequences of not doing so. And be damned if they don't.

There's no "common sense" defense to claims of sexual harassment in the wonderful world of the law. Those who complain that "common sense" establishes that there is no actionable claim are mere fools at best. Those subject to the law should simply act prudently given the law or accept responsibility for the consequences of not doing so. And be damned if they don't. — Ciceronianus the White

Yes, yes, I take your point.

"Kipnis also notes that the concept of sexual harassment has expanded to cover things like dirty jokes in the workplace. "So that's where it's both infantilizing and where it also overemphasizes female vulnerability," she said. "And I think women have been complicit in this by not being able to separate out being offended from being endangered. The whole issue of our sense of vulnerability to rape is the hinge there." -- Against Feminist Orthodoxy

(Y)

not being able to separate out being offended from being endangered. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

When I was a lad in days of yore, there were a thousand schoolboy jokes about the foolishness of the Irishman, always called Paddy,who always worked on a building site. And another thousand about a well endowed black man whose name I forget.

This was the time when there were places advertised for rent with signs, "no Irish, no blacks, no dogs".

To be the butt of derogatory jokes is to be subject to ritual humiliation, and is part of the process and justification of 'endangerment'. Jokes are fake news, that rely on, and so reinforce, the acceptance of the unspoken stereotype. Jokes have always been at the heart of prejudice, bullying, and systematic oppression, as a glance at German Nazi propaganda will illustrate. and accusations of hypersensitivity and lack of sense of humour are just as commonplace accusations in defence of oppression.

@jamalrob (N)

To be the butt of derogatory jokes is to be subject to ritual humiliation, and is part of the process and justification of 'endangerment'. Jokes are fake news, that rely on, and so reinforce, the acceptance of the unspoken stereotype. Jokes have always been at the heart of prejudice, bullying, and systematic oppression, as a glance at German Nazi propaganda will illustrate. and accusations of hypersensitivity and lack of sense of humour are just as commonplace accusations in defence of oppression. — unenlightened

(Y)

“Many a true word hath been spoken in jest.” ― William Shakespeare, King Lear

When I was a lad in days of yore, there were a thousand schoolboy jokes about the foolishness of the Irishman, always called Paddy,who always worked on a building site. And another thousand about a well endowed black man whose name I forget.

This was the time when there were places advertised for rent with signs, "no Irish, no blacks, no dogs".

To be the butt of derogatory jokes is to be subject to ritual humiliation, and is part of the process and justification of 'endangerment'. Jokes are fake news, that rely on, and so reinforce, the acceptance of the unspoken stereotype. Jokes have always been at the heart of prejudice, bullying, and systematic oppression, as a glance at German Nazi propaganda will illustrate. and accusations of hypersensitivity and lack of sense of humour are just as commonplace accusations in defence of oppression. — unenlightened

I am beginning to see a pattern. It seems like whenever you respond directly to me we get a straw man or something else that misses the point.

I think that the point Kipnis was making is that there's a big difference between a woman's boss telling her "Perform oral sex on me! I could terminate your employment, you know!" and a group of guys sharing a dirty joke at the water cooler.

Yes, one is an expression utilising a shared background of institutionalised prejudiced to furnish its acceptance and is acceptable, and one is an expression utilising a shared background of institutionalised prejudiced to furnish its acceptance and is not acceptable.

I think that the point Kipnis was making is that there's a big difference between a woman's boss telling her "Perform oral sex on me! I could terminate your employment, you know!" and a group of guys sharing a dirty joke at the water cooler. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Yes, I agree that is her point, and I agree that some shit is smellier than other shit. There are grades of it.
But it all belongs in the toilet, and none of it by the water cooler. You can call that a straw man if you like, and it will indeed be a pattern, as long as people seek to justify oppressive, demeaning, and totally unnecessary behaviour.

"It's a fine line between, "You look nice today," "You look nice today" with a leering grin and an ogling chest-level stare, and “You look nice today” if you’re worried that not looking nice might cost you your job. Contextualizing a workplace conversation helps us determine what falls on which side of the harassment line, but it’s still a distinction that’s extremely difficult to articulate, and even harder to prove. A company can't control the actions or words of an individual employee. They can only set policies that create clear expectations of what is acceptable work behavior, and provide an easy, hassle-free avenue to address issues." -- Sexual Jokes And Lewd Conversations In The Workplace: Where's The Line?

I agree that some shit is smellier than other shit. There are grades of it. — unenlightened

No.

It is apples and oranges, not varying degrees of the same thing.

But it all belongs in the toilet, and none of it by the water cooler. — unenlightened

Your personal attitude towards it contributes nothing to resolving the issue.

It could, however, encourage the behavior that you detest. The fact that it gets people to respond like you are responding probably affirms the attitudes, beliefs, power structures, etc. that generate it.

If a joke is so bad that it harms people, it probably isn't a funny joke.

Something objective that can't be refuted is probably going to be a lot more effective than something subjective like "That belongs in the toilet". Try, "That is not funny. The punchline is based on a stereotype that educated people started seeing as false a long time ago".

You can call that a straw man if you like, and it will indeed be a pattern, as long as people seek to justify oppressive, demeaning, and totally unnecessary behaviour. — unenlightened

Saying that logic does not matter is not a good idea, especially if you want rational people to hear what you are trying to say.

Speaking of logic, I hope your use of the words "justify oppressive, demeaning, and totally unnecessary behaviour" do not refer to me. I brought up a point made by a woman who was arguing against something that she saw as harmful to women. We can only conclude that you think that it is "justifying oppressive, demeaning, and totally unnecessary behaviour" for someone to think critically, rationally and objectively about something and then share her concern about how it harms women.

If "justify oppressive, demeaning, and totally unnecessary behaviour" refers to somebody else in this thread, where is it? I haven't seen anybody trying to justify anything. I have seen people expressing frustration with laws that they believe make life miserable for innocent, harmless people.

Even if you do not see things the way that they do, a little empathy would probably bridge the gulf between you and them and give resolving the issue a better chance.

"It's a fine line ... — WISDOMfromPO-MO

It is apples and oranges, not varying degrees of the same thing. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Is it a fine line, or is it apples and oranges?

Saying that logic does not matter is not a good idea, especially if you want rational people to hear what you are trying to say. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Perhaps you can point to where I said that? But am I talking to rational people? If I was, I would expect them to respond to the historical examples, from Nazi propaganda and from my own youth, of humour being used to normalise oppression. You know, some logic or counter example to show that it does not do that in this case?

I brought up a point made by a woman who was arguing against something that she saw as harmful to women. We can only conclude that you think that it is "justifying oppressive, demeaning, and totally unnecessary behaviour" for someone to think critically, rationally and objectively about something and then share her concern about how it harms women. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Well you might conclude that I do not consider it critical, rational, objective thinking. If you did that, you might want to try and convince me, by expanding the argument, that it was those things. Given that this is a philosophy forum, it would be a fairly reasonable conclusion.

You claim logic and rationality, but instead of presenting evidence and argument, you criticise my attitude and rhetoric. And note, please, that while it is a good idea to pay attention to what women are saying about this, their positions vary, and just as there are strong pressures against making complaints about serious oppression, so there are about minor issues, and even against recognising them.

There is an argument that it is a mistake to put together what are sometimes called 'micro-aggressions', including the sort of thing we are discussing, and the more serious abuses of power, not because they are apples and oranges, but because they are motes and beams. There is some sense to this tactically, but there is also an argument the other way, which I tend to favour, of zero tolerance.

Various institutions have undertaken zero-tolerance policies, for example, in the military, in the workplace, and in schools, in an effort to eliminate various kinds of illegal behavior, such as harassment. Proponents hope that such policies will underscore the commitment of administrators to prevent such behavior. Others raise a concern about this use of zero-tolerance policies, a concern which derives from analysis of errors of omission versus errors of commission. Here is the reasoning: Failure to proscribe unacceptable behavior may lead to errors of omission—too little will be done. But zero tolerance may be seen as a kind of ruthless management, which may lead to a perception of "too much being done". If people fear that their co-workers or fellow students may be fired, terminated, or expelled, they may not come forward at all when they see behavior deemed unacceptable. — wiki

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_tolerance

When I say I favour zero tolerance, though, I mean I favour it in terms of discussing and responding. I wouldn't want to see anyone lose their job over a joke, but I don't either want to leave unanswered, the suggestion that jokes are harmless; they are not.

If a joke is so bad that it harms people, it probably isn't a funny joke. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

What determines if a joke is so bad that it "harms people"? What is the working definition of "harm" you are using?

"It's a fine line between, "You look nice today," "You look nice today" with a leering grin and an ogling chest-level stare, and “You look nice today” if you’re worried that not looking nice might cost you your job. Contextualizing a workplace conversation helps us determine what falls on which side of the harassment line, but it’s still a distinction that’s extremely difficult to articulate, and even harder to prove. A company can't control the actions or words of an individual employee. They can only set policies that create clear expectations of what is acceptable work behavior, and provide an easy, hassle-free avenue to address issues." -- Sexual Jokes And Lewd Conversations In The Workplace: Where's The Line? — WISDOMfromPO-MO

This citation from Forbes article titled Sexual Jokes And Lewd Conversations In The Workplace: Where's The Line? is from 2012. I would be curious as to what the *updates have been in the years since, most importantly through the year 2017, which is quickly ending. If I were a betting person, I would place all my chips on a Revised Employee Manual for 2018.

But am I talking to rational people? If I was, I would expect them to respond to the historical examples, from Nazi propaganda and from my own youth, of humour being used to normalise oppression. You know, some logic or counter example to show that it does not do that in this case? — unenlightened

Your expectation is itself irrational, since rational people can decide not to respond to a point, yet remain rational - especially if that point is itself irrational, as it would be if it was an appeal to extremes or an association fallacy, as these comparisons seem to be. A rational person can acknowledge that humour can be used to normalise oppression, as in Nazi Germany and elsewhere, whilst rejecting your implications in raising that here. Rational people are still people, and people can get tired of bullshit.

I wouldn't want to see anyone lose their job over a joke, but I don't either want to leave unanswered, the suggestion that jokes are harmless; they are not. — unenlightened

Who is it that you think has made this suggestion, and where do you think that they've suggested it? If a rational person were to read, say, the title of this discussion, or that quote from the Forbes article, that is not what they'd conclude.

Who is it that you think has made this suggestion, and where do you think that they've suggested it? — Sapientia

It's right there in the same post in the wiki quote I am discussing.

If people fear that their co-workers or fellow students may be fired, terminated, or expelled, they may not come forward at all when they see behavior deemed unacceptable — wiki

It's right there in the same post in the wiki quote I am discussing. — unenlightened

No, I would like a straight answer, please. Can you confirm whether or not you think that anyone involved in this discussion has made that suggestion? And, if that is what you think, then can you name those who you think have made that suggestion, and provide quotations where you think that they have done so. And, if that is not what you think, then will you concede that you're attacking a straw man?

You've had a straight answer. Don't be so paranoid. Having espoused zero tolerance, I wished to clarify that my zero tolerance was a social matter more so than a formal legalistic one. I can confirm that I was not imputing that to anyone else on the thread as is completely obvious, because it would be idiotic, given that I am the hardliner round here.

You've had a straight answer. Don't be so paranoid. Having espoused zero tolerance, I wished to clarify that my zero tolerance was a social matter more so than a formal legalistic one. I can confirm that I was not imputing that to anyone else on the thread as is completely obvious, because it would be idiotic, given that I am the hardliner round here. — unenlightened

Cutting through the you-know-what, I take that to be an admission that no one here has actually made the simplistic suggestion I was referring to, namely that jokes are harmless, which means that addressing that alleged suggestion instead of what is actually being argued is to attack a straw man. Don't worry, Mr. Hardliner, I get it: it is easier, and provides you with an illusory sense of having injured the opponents you face here where the debate is taking place. But is that what a rational person would do?

Well you are certainly acting injured, but it brings me no satisfaction, at all. Funnily enough, I had thought that at least the second half of my post you are so exercised about was quite conciliatory. Ah well.