I understand that you or your kin can occasionally feel offended by some gross language. You know, it happens to me as well, and if I could learn to deal with it, and as you say, your wife could as well, everyone can. I can ignore it or respond kindly or rudely, whatever suits me best at the moment. It's my choice, and I don't want my choices to be limited either—it would be hypocritical to respond to a slur with a well deserved slur if I wanted to ban slurs altogether
The problem is that limiting free speech to get rid of the feeling of being offended (whether that was the speaker's intention or not) is wrong and dangerous.
It's the definition of a slur what bothers me most. Not only you can't read minds to decide what the intention was, but if you try, you inevitably gradually get to a place where even innocent humour is always offensive to someone and thus prohibited, where you get punished or intimidated even for offending someone unintentionally or where someone will misuse their claim of feeling offended to silence you.
I don't want to live in such a place. That's why I think it's way more important to learn to cope with offensive language that to get rid of it by the blunt force of the state or any other community power or social consensus applied by some authority. Let's just deal with it as individuals.
There is a very good article to the point here: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/britain-isnt-a-free-country/
volven
npub18t…fej4g
2024-09-24 06:36:12
in reply to nevent1q…nlxl
Author Public Key
npub18tv0azt0ss4rqdmx2qdk983n6fx0zqpgrgspe82v0t0n98cpk58s7fej4gPublished at
2024-09-24 06:36:12Event JSON
{
"id": "d8675df93645dfeb234402a2a835a4d3c2c82d222639f183a3690d305be71dae",
"pubkey": "3ad8fe896f842a303766501b629e33d24cf100281a201c9d4c7adf329f01b50f",
"created_at": 1727159772,
"kind": 1,
"tags": [
[
"p",
"3f289d3caf5e18dd3ea1c1f6860eab2d34684e23da5afa8651d40463cf35b9fc"
],
[
"e",
"d397a5636ef0f79b2d5e66322ca4588610a8a125ed2144acb689e3e6f6317022",
"",
"reply"
]
],
"content": "I understand that you or your kin can occasionally feel offended by some gross language. You know, it happens to me as well, and if I could learn to deal with it, and as you say, your wife could as well, everyone can. I can ignore it or respond kindly or rudely, whatever suits me best at the moment. It's my choice, and I don't want my choices to be limited either—it would be hypocritical to respond to a slur with a well deserved slur if I wanted to ban slurs altogether\n\nThe problem is that limiting free speech to get rid of the feeling of being offended (whether that was the speaker's intention or not) is wrong and dangerous.\n\nIt's the definition of a slur what bothers me most. Not only you can't read minds to decide what the intention was, but if you try, you inevitably gradually get to a place where even innocent humour is always offensive to someone and thus prohibited, where you get punished or intimidated even for offending someone unintentionally or where someone will misuse their claim of feeling offended to silence you.\n\nI don't want to live in such a place. That's why I think it's way more important to learn to cope with offensive language that to get rid of it by the blunt force of the state or any other community power or social consensus applied by some authority. Let's just deal with it as individuals.\n\nThere is a very good article to the point here: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/britain-isnt-a-free-country/",
"sig": "7fe39559524ae511edd752dae4f22cb1db692a0465f5901db7ffe82c8189e14fbcef52860644f88b5489d630c7d3a17eba95123c80911b4209d764cde8fd3f85"
}