A Culture of Offense

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True story. This morning, I went to a coffee shop for my breakfast. I've been binging on Kipling lately, and brought along the novel Kim, which despite having seen the film numerous times, I'd never read. Pretty good book, as I've come to expect from the man. Well, about a half hour and two cups of coffee in, a young lady asks me what I'm reading. When I tell her, she launches into a tirade about Kipling's sexist, racist pro-imperialist agenda, and how I should be ashamed of myself.

Most times, I would simply shrug it off as the young lady's personal brand of eccentricity. However, this is something I've been thinking about a lot lately.

If a book, written in a time when imperialism was the norm, supports that philosophy implicitly or explicitly, it is horrible, racist, and vile. If a book, written by males, for males, such as H. Rider Haggard's work, lacks strong (or any) female characters, it is dismissed as crudely sexist, even if it doesn't go out of it's way to belittle women. If a book, always a product of it's time, contains racial epithets, it is racist, regardless of whether or not the intention was to demean another race. Take this passage, for example, from the aforementioned Haggard's King Solomon's Mines:

Now, to my mind, that is a relatively enlightened quote, and regardless of the occasional use of the term "Kafir" (If you're South African, sorry. I included the whole word because most Americans have no concept of "the K-word"), it sets the tone regarding the author's and narrator's opinion of Blacks, who he seems to hold in high regard throughout the book. Yet, I have read many reviews attacking this very novel for rampant racism.

Another anecdote. My mother is an environmentalist and conservationist. I agree with most of her beliefs, except for a few. For example, I enjoy hunting responsibly. Well, at a dinner where a few of her friends were sitting around discussing the issue, the subject of hunting came up. After fifteen minutes of hunters being bashed, I merely said "Guys, not all hunters are bad. Sure, you've got guys flying around in helicopters machine gunning elephants, but consider that Selous & Roosevelt, two of the greatest early conservationists, were famous and enthusiastic big-game hunters! They just knew better than to massacre whole herds." I was about to say more, but was drowned out by accusations of being an apologist for a murderous, vile industry.

I am white. I am proud to be white. This does not mean that I hold any race in contempt, it simply means that I respect my own and admire my forebears. Yet that very statement, "I am proud to be white" is controversial in this day and age. A man can stand for Black pride, or gay pride, or Asian pride, but being proud of being white? Not cool, bro. It's the same story for being a man. I am proud and happy to be a man. Yet, it's difficult to admit this publicly, because someone will immediately assume that I'm speaking out in favor of "Get back in the kitchen".

Multiculturalism and respect are good things. I am immensely happy that I was raised alongside Blacks, for example, rather than above them, as I would have been deprived of some of my greatest friends. However, heavy handed indoctrination does not work. Censorship of "offensive" or "obscene" texts does nothing but deny us our rich cultural heritage. These approaches merely build a festering resentment and ultimately, even worse divisions.

I can't help but wonder what effect this will have on our society, or already has had. It seems to me that at some point, we became as spoiled children loathing everything past generations have done. The world is not black and white. Colonialism, for example, had many bad aspects (Racism (Which, interestingly, was highly diminished by the late 1800s), denial of self-governance, the damned expense), but many good as well (The birth of multiculturalism, the spread of quality infrastructure to poor regions, and most importantly, lamb biryani). We can acknowledge it's bad points and learn from the good, or we can wholesale split with it and deny that it ever happened. It seems to me, the first option is healthier. And for many colonized nations, they might learn as well from the western nations, in terms of infrastructure, education, and government that are so lacking in those parts of the world.

Why does it seem like a nuanced idea of multiculturalism, respect, and political correctness is beyond our grasp?

I get the same response from certain people when I read the Bible.

"You're an Atheist! Reading the Bible makes you a Troll!"

My cynical answer: Because nuance requires thinking for oneself, and that entails more effort than letting other people do one's thinking for them. As far as ideology is concerned, I believe most people are really looking for a path of minimum resistance. These days, there are all sorts of pre-designed "package deals" when it comes to religious and political dogma, which exist because large powerful organizational structures are counting on people taking the easy way. If you're a Republican, for example, you're expected to be pro-life, anti-gun control, etc. "Republican", "Democrat", "Catholic", "Protestant"... these are not things anyone could call themselves when they were born. They're labels which have evolved into easy boxes in which people willingly immerse themselves. They all have their little rules, they all have some sort of structure, and most importantly, a lot of people perceive them as being organized in such a way that they make sense. Political correctness is another such box. Are there still institutional biases against other genders and races and sexual orientations? Absolutely. No doubt. But the political correctness box doesn't leave much room for people to perceive the difference between being the unwitting benefactors of a tilted system, and being oppressors driven by malice. And that is by design-- a lot of this outrage is manufactured by interests who want to leverage it for political gain.

I am a communist and I read the Bible. Does that make me a troll?

Any book has to be taken in the context of the period in which it was written and everyone has some level of prejudice, so it's all a matter of degree and mainly what the book has to offer in terms of intellectual content. A writer like Kipling has stood the test of time so he's evidently had stuff that was worth hearing to say, which balances out the bad stuff in my opinion.

Tarzan would be offensive now,and Twain's The Innocents Abroad.I love the Innocents Abroad and will read it even if it ticks people off.Nobody is forcing them to read it.

Hmmm........I don't recall anyone being called a troll lately. Can you show the rest of the class where you found it?





What’s so offensive about Tarzan or The Innocents Abroad?

The original Tarzan has some remarks that are racist,it was wrote during the white man's burden era and Twain makes remarks about some of the cultures he visits,one that comes to mind is that he said Italians were fumigating,macaroni eating organ grinders.I'm quoting that from memory so it may be slightly off.There is a group that wants the N word removed from all Twains works since it may offend.Why don't they just put a fore-note in the book to educate people that during that time everyone used that word.

Oh, political correctness.
I thought it was something us right wing fanatics objected to.

Censorship is something that everyone should object to. The only problem with objecting to this particular style of censorship is that so many objectors object seemingly in order to be as offensive as possible and have an excuse for it. If someone's not being an obnoxious prat, then as both the liberal and the conservative supports personal liberty (supposedly), censorship should be unacceptable. This shouldn't be a partisan issue, and I'll thank you for not trying to turn it into one.



I agree. I've often been attacked by people who demand to know whether I'm right wing, left wing, or moderate, as though the three were packaged as sold at the market. Politics are complicated. I'm conservative on some issues, liberal in other. This is what disturbs me.

Almost every dictatorship, from the Church to the Soviet Union, has utilized censorship as a primary tool for the maintenance of ideological purity. Political correctness is another form of censorship, and as we see both explicitly (Mitt's not a true republican, the Tea Party is the true republican party, the GOP is, Obama's not a real liberal) and implicitly, we have come to value purity of thought far more than we do free thought. It's concerning.

The thing is, it's the "obnoxious" speech that needs protection most of all, and so is the most useful for demonstrating the evils of censorship and the necessity of true freedom of speech; no one is trying to censor pleasant and uncontroversial speech. That, and "offensive" is such a subjective word that it's impossible to apply universally, like you touched on by blanking out n****r but not kafir, as you didn't think your audience would have a frame of reference for the latter. Personally, I think the context is the most important thing, differentiating malicious use of racial slurs or other potentially offensive language from simple informative use, such as if I wanted to discuss the merits of the 1970's film The Legend of n****r Charlie, which partially inspired Django Unchained (another movie where people had a problem with historically correct usage of n****r). Uncritical people lose their mind over things like that, making a contextual judgment rather than applying a blanket rule seems beyond them.

I love Samuel L Jackson's reaction to a reporter's use of "N-word", it pretty much sums up my own feelings about it.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYYBJ8XRdh4[/youtube]

It happens almost every day at the coffe shop. There I am, reading the Bible, while wearing an Atheist t-shirt



And, BAM! I get called a T-word.

Too late; you've already said that I sicken you so in order to maintain my status as a sickener I'll have to continue to make you sick otherwise I've allowed you to pwn me.
Just for you I now embrace censorship to a fanatical degree whereas I did not before.

I guess it's a matter of context. It is anachronistic to change things from the time in which they were written. Maybe it's laziness. People don't want to take the time to learn the history and context of writing.
To censor, is to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Because something may not be acceptable now (which is a good thing, I think) doesn't change the fact that it was at one time.

Wow. See the power I have over this man? You see?! I AM THE MESSIAH!

Now, minion, I order you to post whatever you want without any sort of decorum or civility.

Sorry, doesn't work that way.