“You can’t say that!”
Whenever I hear someone say that I can’t say something, it makes me want to say it. The idea that a word or concept is off limits seems paramount to the principals of a totalitarian social order. Yet, more often than not, people in a seemingly free and democratic society will not only choose to NOT talk or think about something, but insist that others follow suit. There’s even a Wiki page dedicated to brainwashing yourself into not thinking. How can a species tout the intellectual progression of scientific discovery on one hand and attempt to restrict certain areas of mental wandering with the other? In other words, why would someone willingly not think about something? Has not thinking ever led to anything? Did Alexander Graham Bell invent the telephone by not thinking about communication and distance?
I don’t understand people who are offended by anything or spend their lives in a state of perpetual outrage. Being offended is an initial reaction that emerges when surprise mingles with revulsion. Think about what offends you for five minutes. If you’re still offended, you’re also defective. Your mind has failed to break down the offending subject in any rational way and it will always be a scary monster that tortures your conscious and subconscious mind alike. If something exists, nature has deemed it permissible to exist. Nature will not adapt itself to a person’s feelings or sensibilities. In fact, a species doesn’t prove itself fit for survival until it adapts to nature. Only someone with a sense of entitlement would expect the world and all it’s inhabitants to change just for them.
As absurd as it may seem, there are such people. Completely ignoring the first amendment, they champion censorship causes and hail emotion over logic. My ears ring with promises that everything will be wonderful if we could just get all the bad words and ideas to go away forever. Words and ideas hurt. Nothing is sadder than a preventable tear.
Stripped of their crowd pleasing causes, the rhetoric of self-proclaimed altruists and humanitarians mirrors the tenets of the FCC. Stopsexistremarks.org is a site that spends tireless hours instructing other people how to think and speak. They’re gracious enough to outline paternally (maternally?) condescending propaganda on what is okay to say and what isn’t. Abandon what you think you know about manners and inhale their wisdom:
“Appropriate Challenge: Demanding that a woman politician explain her position on a key issue.”
“Sexist Remark: Calling a woman politician loud, shrill, unattractive, or pushy”
What if she is being loud? By that I mean what if her voice is reaching beyond decibels appropriate for two people having a serious debate? No, apparently it’s still being sexist, even when she’s literally talking loudly. And if she’s using her shrill, loud voice to force her opinions on you? No, it’s not okay to say she’s pushy. Never. All you can do is demand that she explain her position on a key issue. Then she can use her loud, shrill voice to repeat her pushy opinions and indoctrinate you into thinking just like her. Anything else would be sexist.
The Softening of Language
Words like nigger, faggot and retard are generally seen as socially unacceptable and never okay to say. No, not even if you’re referencing the words or quoting someone who said them. If you have a clever pun or joke involving the slurs mentioned above you can forget it. It’s not funny. There are never circumstances where those words can be uttered with comedic results. It’s simply not possible. Just forget it and don’t even think of laughing. Laughter is hatred and hatred isn’t funny.
Knowing that erasing an idea can take time, censors in our society have chosen to gradually wear concepts away by getting rid of the words that represent them. Ridiculously childish euphemisms such as “n-word” and “r-word” have plagued our lexicon in the name of compassion. You can still reference the idea, but not have to say the word. After all, what fun is conversation if you can’t feel safe and restricted? Now people can think and speak without the guilt!
Why someone would feel guilty for thinking or saying something is unknown to me. Perhaps they actually did something in their past that requires them to transfer that feeling of remorse onto every thought in their current life. Whatever the reason may be, it seems as though they don’t realize the context of the word is the driving force behind it’s meaning. Seriously, just say the word. You sound like a little kid that has to say “f-word” because you’re too scared to say “fuck.”
Banning Words
It has always struck me as hilarious that a majority of people condemn book burning, but give a hearty thumbs up to word banning. What do you think books are made of (besides paper, you literal-minded hole puncher)? Apparently, it’s okay to ban words if those words are used to shame a slut. Shame is another concept I don’t get. People have tried to make me feel shame at one time or another. When this occurred, I would laugh and declare all the reasons they should commit suicide. The only time I’ve ever felt shame is when I knew I did something that runs against my own thoughts or instincts. The feeling has never seized me in reaction to other people’s opinions. If you feel shame because of what someone else says then you are weak of mind and easily swayed by public opinion. Shame on you.
In the article linked above, the “writer” rants about the pill-popping, blubbering whale vagina Rush Limbaugh before the article devolves into a typical "life's not fair" power-cry session. This is probably because it’s more fashionable to whine about an out of touch DJ than it is to condemn rappers who use “bitch” and “ho” endlessly in their lyrics. The article’s writer even suggests that words are responsible for rape and that rape is smiled upon by that ominous and never seen boogeyman known as the Patriarchy:
“And where “slut” will maintain its power over us as long as rape and other forms of sexual violence go unpunished, as long as our reproductive rights are undermined and as long as our reproductive health options are limited (the very issue that forced Fluke to speak out in the first place).”
That sentence just kept going, didn’t it? This Just In: rape and sexual violence only go unpunished when the perpetrator has money and connections in the judicial system. In fact, this statement applies to all laws, including murder. The rest of us go to jail for our transgressions against the law. Also, if rape and sexual violence go unpunished, how is it that people get arrested and incarcerated for rape and sexual assault?
Returning to the point of this article, I doubt a rapist would decide to rape someone because they’re free to say the word “slut.” I don’t put on wooden shoes and dance around my apartment because I can say “clogs.”
Hate Speech
To me hate speech seems rude, but so do most people. Can we start banning human beings while we’re at it? I hate a majority of humanity because they’re utterly stupid. I can’t fathom how they’re still alive. Should I be banned from expressing my hate of them? This is the point where people would tell me that it’s not the same thing and hate speech is only attacked by anti-discrimination groups because it demoralizes and encourages violence towards certain groups of people. Really? What if stupid people got organized (unlikely) and starting lobbying against what they felt was hate speech? People, because they can’t think for themselves, would begin condemning those who spoke out against stupidity. I think it would sound something like this:
“Hey! You can’t call someone the s-word. Just because they’re brains function at a slower level and they don’t feel the need to think before they speak, does not give you the right to label them with that hateful word!”
Professor Waldron (I don’t know his background and based on his terrible writing I don’t care to research) even wrote a pro-censorship book entitled “The Harm in Hate Speech.” He epitomizes the essence of everyone I’ve ever heard who thinks banning words is okay as long as they’re unpleasant:
“Hate speech undermines this public good . . . . It does this not only by intimating discrimination and violence, but by reawakening living nightmares of what this society was like . . . . [I]t creates something like an environmental threat to social peace, a sort of slow-acting poison, accumulating here and there, word by word, so that eventually it becomes harder and less natural for even the good-hearted members of the society to play their part in maintaining this public good.”
What is public good? What defines someone as good-hearted? In addition to the illusory merits of “goodness” and the ominously vague usage of the phrase “public good,” Waldron states a point that has been repeated like a prayer in censor circles - hate speech leads to violence.
So what? Honestly, what doesn’t lead to violence? Animals don’t have slurs to debase each other (at least, none that we know of) and they manage to kill one another quite effectively. The projection of hate and shedding of personal responsibility is always practiced by people who wish to ennoble humanity above it’s status of a stupid, violent animal. That’s right - it’s not the person’s fault for being violent, the word made them do it! People only need a reason. The idea behind that reason can be anything and often means nothing. Acts of violence are committed based on race, religion, gender, etc. However, people also assault McDonald’s staff over a lack of chicken nuggets and riot for shoes. If hate speech were eradicated and made illegal, people would start attacking each other because the sun changes positions throughout the day.
A Look Towards the Future
What does the future look like in a society where you can’t say or do anything without offending someone? When the general consensus is that you can’t wear a costume or practice a free market economy by selling unpopular knick knacks, where do we go? Allow me to split the skull of a fawn, scramble it’s mind and drink from it’s memories. My own perceptions are sharpening and pointing towards the distant unknown. Now I click clackers tied to my fingers and chant the mantra of the long-bearded blind men of Kalar'ar. Yes, I see it now. The vision is washing over me and I can clearly visualize what lies ahead. Take a look into the future:
- Talking will not be permitted unless you write on a form what you wish to say and fax it to the nearest state office. Since mail will continue to suck in the future as it does in the present, your stamped letter of approval to speak may take some time.
- All slurs and hateful words will be banned from use. In addition, nobody can use a noun unless it has either a positive or neutral connotation.
- In addition to banning all slurs and hate words, it is also illegal to say any word that begins with the letter “N” and ends with the letter “R.” This includes words such as neighbor, nagger, nibbler and never.
- The word “no” will be banned, as it brings to mind rejection and hurt feelings, which are the inspiration for banning words in the first place. Incidentally, rape will cease to exist.
- Singing and dancing will require a permit and a thirty day waiting period.
- Any child (or adult) who notices that people have differences and comments on said differences will be taken to the nearest mental care unit. Once there, they will be surgically fitted with blurring glasses that make all citizens and objects appear as grayish blobs.
- All books will be made illegal and books found will be incinerated. Reading will take place on a portable computer screen where positive, socially approved words and statements float against a back-drop of clouds and rainbows.
- Anyone who suggests that they are not part of the “human family” will be banished to the out lands where they will live among or be killed by cannibals and mutants.
- People will no longer be able to regard each other’s genitalia without violating the law of censored words. As a result, sex will only be permitted to take place in absolute darkness. Commentary or analysis during or after intercourse will lead to incarceration for up to seven years.
- Using the word “hate” in any context will be punishable by death. No exceptions.
And there you have it. Keep your mouth shut and your eyes to the ground as you shuffle towards a brighter tomorrow. In the meantime, I’d like to say that if you are seriously bothered by a word or idea there is something wrong with you. If you feel persecuted because somebody in the world said something you’ve obviously had an easy and comfortable life. If your biggest problem is something someone said as opposed to something someone did, maybe you need some real problems. Human nature will never change. Compassion and understanding will never sweep the land. World peace will never happen. Censoring words and ideas will never make your fantasies come true. People will always say things that other people don’t like. Adapt. Live with it. Grow up.
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