MacynSnow wrote: ↑Thu Jun 28, 2018 4:56 pm
Our Society today is SO concerned with avoiding Offense that hardly anyone can tell a joke without getting arrested,wear a Tacky Hawaiian shirt without getting yelled at,or even laugh at a
Godzilla movies bad dubbing without being called racist.It's sad how far that Stick is stuck up there....
I swear on my favorite batarang, I once had a young woman in one of my university classes deliver a fifteen-ish minute lecture to me about how I had "internalized misogyny" because I referred to the United States Coast Guard personnel that were patrolling the Detroit River as "Coast Guardsmen" instead of "Guardsmen and Guardswomen."
The fact that "-men" in this use as a suffix is a gender neutral collective noun didn't seem to matter to her.
The fact that "Guardsman" is the traditional term for any person, especially military personnel, who is on guard didn't seem to matter to her.
The fact that "Coast Guardsman" is the legally codified term for USCG personnel didn't seem to matter to her.
The fact that, at the time we were speaking, I was an active duty Coast Guardsman with
five years of continuous service... Seemed to catch her (pun intended) off guard.
The Perpetually Offended Crowd is easily angered, incredibly ill-informed, and seemingly incapable of ever having a rational discussion with anyone who has a different point of view than the current liberal-progressive orthodoxy's doctrines. She
knew any us of "-man" as a suffix was sexist, I used "-man" as a suffix, ergo, I must be sexist. Providing her evidence contrary to this pre-programmed chain of thought caused something of a short circuit.
I think it’s a result of societal pressures to (a) never be accused of an –ism, (b) assuming any offense given is given as a calculated decision stemming from an –ism, and (c) taking offense at damn near anything. So we get this weird sort of obsequies more-inoffensive-than-thou doublethink and doublespeak. They're not passive aggressive, they're aggressively passive.
Today's Millennial youths and many of my fellow Gen-Xers have been raised in a society where expecting employees to show up on time to a meeting is an offensive act of –ism’ing, but meetings must still be held. Hence, they learn to cloak such a request in fifteen layers of obsequiousness. “Bob, hey, if it’s not too much trouble, we’re thinking about having a team-building confab this afternoon. Two-ish? If you have any thoughts to contribute, like about the Rockford stuff, maybe stop by?”
Older generations (and other youths who didn’t abosorb the same social mores) don’t obfuscate their language accordingly. “Bob, there’s a meeting at 2:00 PM. Be there ready to present on the Rockford file.”
Violating social mores seems uncouth to people who do follow those mores. Hence, the direct generations see the obfuscating generations as being weird; meanwhile the obfuscating generation sees the direct generation as being rude... and rudeness offends. Offense is a result of an –ism. Ism’ing is heretical.
So a movie reviewer who critiques
A Wrinkle In Time or
Ghostbusters too harshly offends the people who liked the movie (or the people who didn't like the movie, but, had been told they were supposed to like the movie, so they say they liked the movie). Any time an offense is given, it must have been done as a calculated decision stemming from an –ism. Ism’ing is heretical.
An artist who draws a too sexy cover for
Spider-Woman offends the sex-negative feminists, the fat acceptance crowd, and their fellow travelers. Any time an offense is given, it must have been done as a calculated decision stemming from an –ism. Ism’ing is heretical.
And so on and so forth.