I apologize for the few missed posts. I've had a lot happen this month and I didn't have a ton of control over my schedule. As such, I just wasn't able to find the time necessary to sit down and devote myself to writing a good post. For more on at least the biggest of those events, you can check out my other blog.
What I've been wanting to talk about, though, is PC and Outrage Culture. I had heard people complain about this kind of thing before, but until sometime last month, I had never truly come into contact with it. Unfortunately, my contact came in the form of my younger sister.
I'll start with the background. My youngest sister and I have never exactly had a "normal" relationship. She's five years younger than I, so we never shared a school, nor did any of our social circles overlap. She is, however, probably a lot more like me than probably either of us would be willing to admit regularly. While she's intelligent and fairly talented in certain respects, she tends toward shyness and the need for shelter due to being the youngest child and because of the way my parents' relationship played out after their divorce. To this day, I find it difficult to treat her as an adult even though she is only five years younger than I am.
That leaves me with how I came into contact with this society that I honestly believed couldn't really exist. My sister and I have always addressed each other by calling one another names. Up until last month, it was funny and playful, but last month I addressed her, "Hey hoe" on a text message, and that's when the dynamic suddenly changed. I literally received around 1000 words in response on why I shouldn't use terms like that because it degrades women and punishes them for their sexuality. I argued that the term hoe actually refers to a pieces of gardening equipment, so how does she know I wasn't making reference to that. She shut that down fairly quickly (which was correct but none-the-less annoying), so I made a simple argument that she either couldn't refute or, more likely, completely refused to hear. I said, simply, that if I was actually attempting to insult someone (which in this case I wasn't but it's always fun to get a rise out of her), why would I go out of my way to ensure that my insult wasn't too insulting?
At that point she shut down and I didn't hear back from her for a while, so I had to dig around a bit. I knew she had been keeping a blog, so I found it and starting reading through it. The first thing I noticed was it's location: Tumbler. I'm not anti-Tumbler for any particular reason, but most of the people that I had heard complain about this PC ridiculousness and the growing Outrage Culture seem to point to Tumbler as the source. Being a blog site, I never imagined it would be any different than just about any other blog site, and I've used and referenced quite a few in my time, so I never believed that Tumbler could create some horrific culture.
I still don't know if Tumbler is at fault, but I do know that within moments of scrolling through my sister's blog, I was staring straight into the face of the PC Outrage Culture. I clicked on her most recent post and the first two words in all caps, bold faced and underlined, were "TRIGGER WARNING!!" Then there was an entire disclaimer that said that she was going to talk about sex and rape and all sorts of other things that any normal person would have discerned from her title and, if she knew how to create one, her opening paragraph. The whole disclaimer really, really bothered me, especially since the post was intended as a review of the book, Fifty Shades of Grey.
I read on though, becoming more and more disturbed as I went. I had heard these arguments about the book being all about rape and the perpetuation of the rape culture before, but I never expected to see them all tossed together on a single page, and by my own sister. By the end of the post I realized that my sister was a Social Justice Warrior, and I wasn't exactly happy about it. I started digging around and tried to learn more about this whole subset of my generation that I never could bring myself to believe actually existed, only to find myself more and more disappointed.
I've come pretty far without defining a few terms, but that was all to give the necessary background. The PC and Outrage Culture is simple to define; this is a subset, mostly of my generation (millennials), who believe that whether you mean to be or not, just about everything you say or do could be construed as offensive to someone, and that people have a right (or perhaps a responsibility) to be completely outraged by these micro-offences.
There are many things about this kind of ideology that I have trouble with. For starters, generally the people who cling to this kind of ideology actually grew up with the internet, so it's not like they haven't been exposed to all sorts of violence, cruelty, etc. I mean, personally, I can remember not only playing Grand Theft Auto while my sister watched, but also watching her play Grand Theft Auto. How sensitive can people honestly be after growing up with all these things that should have at least introduced them to the fact that the world isn't always sunshine and roses? Are there honestly people that go around being outraged at the prospect of a book that is all about strange sex going somewhat mainstream?
What upsets me most, though, is that these people are generally the ones that go out and tout how "all about" free speech they are, until they decide they want to censor you. Again, going back to my personal situation, but my sister gets upset if I say anything to her about how much profanity she uses, but the moment I use the word "hoe" in a text message, I received a lecture about why that's wrong. This isn't an isolated event. If one were to make a post to any of these Social Justice Warrior's blogs asking them to shut up, one would receive in response how they have a right to free speech and can say anything they want. The next day, though, one would be apt to receive all sorts of hate speech from multiple SJWs with the intention of silencing one for rude and Outrageous behavior.
I tend to believe that the world is actually a fairly amazing place. I look at all the different peoples, ideologies, and cultures, and I'm taken aback at how, given all this diversity, human beings are able to come together and advance the welfare of all people. That's the reason Freedom of Speech was identified as a right that all people should not have infringed. Trying to be politically correct and avoid outraging someone with a micro-aggression will only silence people who may have good ideas to share. If people want to be outraged, at least find something worthy of outrage. Personally, I am outraged every time I hear of a dog being shot by a police officer with little to no cause, not because someone used the word "hoe" or gave me a strange look.
Most importantly, as a Culture, these people need to learn the difference between an argument and a screaming match. Dissent is actually a good thing: if everyone agreed all the time, we'd never have computers, television, motorized transportation, and a host of other innovations that have given the lives of every person they touch new meaning. Yet dissent to a SJW just elicits outrage and receives in response a call to arms. I've seen accounts go dark on Twitter due to an onslaught of "outraged" individuals voicing their contempt for some minor transgressions. I see the way arguments are made against books that don't fit into the standards of political correctness. Any dissent is considered a personal attack, and treated as such.
Let's come together and learn that arguments are not necessarily personal attacks. We can continue expanding and improving the lives of people everywhere, but only if we can sometimes agree to disagree.
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