It is a foolish path, but to call it “oppressive” is to tip your hand that you have no real notion of what oppression is if you’re worried about what amounts to a slightly different set of etiquette on a semi-anonymous internet forum.
This isn’t just a problem on the internet. I run into people in real life who think this way, often.
How many times have comedians or other entertainers come under fire for jokes or other bits they’ve done? It’s a lot. Comedians will all tell you that they can’t perform in places like New York the same way anymore, because half the things they say get booed from the crowd.
“Why should I care about Dave Chappelle, or anyone else, getting slammed for some offensive thing they said?”
Because entertainer’s acts are one of the ways that people come to understand the world around them. Their satire is an important tool for democracy to unravel the bullshit that surrounds them. It’s supposed to be the opposite of sterile.
And if “dirty language” means that you’re okay silencing those guys, along with everyone else, you are engaging in oppression on a far wider scale than you realize.
It is a foolish path, but to call it “oppressive” is to tip your hand that you have no real notion of what oppression is if you’re worried about what amounts to a slightly different set of etiquette on a semi-anonymous internet forum.
This isn’t just a problem on the internet. I run into people in real life who think this way, often.
How many times have comedians or other entertainers come under fire for jokes or other bits they’ve done? It’s a lot. Comedians will all tell you that they can’t perform in places like New York the same way anymore, because half the things they say get booed from the crowd.
“Why should I care about Dave Chappelle, or anyone else, getting slammed for some offensive thing they said?”
Because entertainer’s acts are one of the ways that people come to understand the world around them. Their satire is an important tool for democracy to unravel the bullshit that surrounds them. It’s supposed to be the opposite of sterile.
And if “dirty language” means that you’re okay silencing those guys, along with everyone else, you are engaging in oppression on a far wider scale than you realize.