Deep thoughts

[torquill]

My god, it's content.

I was watching Bullshit! last night, and it's had me thinking. Penn went on a big long rant about how easily offended people are, and how it's started limiting free speech. While I agree with him that people are awfully thin-skinned, I'm not sure I'm totally with him.

Society has started to assume that we have a right not to be offended, not to be uncomfortable. Unfortunately, that's in direct opposition to the First Amendment -- the more free speech is, the less we can protect ourselves from offense. You can't have it both ways; you can't have both as full rights.

There's also the problem of what the line is between offense and abuse. Where does harassment shade from simple irritation or discomfort to actual injury? Workplaces make for such hairy problems, but schools do too. Where do you go from saying "get over it" and start punishing the one doing harm? Who determines whether harm is being done?

I'm still mulling all this over. Comments welcome.

Comments

[luna-torquill.livejournal.com]

The show was mostly about how, say, some people don't like crude language in public. Do they have a right to silence the person who's swearing? What about someone on a soapbox saying that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated by the government, or even a hoax altogether -- many people find that highly offensive, knowing people who really died in the towers. Do we have a right to silence that speaker?

Where do we draw the line on what can be taught to students? Saying teachers must stick to fact is fine in some cases, but there are a lot of classes where it's the teacher's perspective, or the book's perspective, that's on display. If a student or parent is offended by a teacher's choice of reading material, do they have the right to ban it from the school so that no one has to read it?

At work, I was thinking mostly of the example of crude language or sexual innuendo. If it's a peer that does it, you can walk away, or tell them you would really rather they didn't say that around you -- in other words, you can stand up for yourself in some way. If it's your boss doing it, however, you have much less power to defend yourself and your sensibilities. Where should the authorities step in? Who decides whether it's some harmless jabber or a case of deliberate abuse? Documenting how often and when it happens can go a long way toward establishing intent... but what if the guy just has a habit of telling dirty jokes, and isn't singling out any one person?

How much power should we have over the words of the people around us, where "we" includes the government or other institutions? That's my real question. I suspect it's the same one that's been plaguing a lot of people for a long time.

[shadowwalkyr.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes, that question has been plaguing society for some years now, and I don't think we're any closer to a usable answer now than we were then.

According to current interpersonal communication theory, there are five parts to any communication. There is the Sender, the Message Sent, the Receiver, the Message Received and any Distractors that may get between the Sender and Receiver. Distractors may include actual distractions (such as another conversation), background noise, attitude of the Sender and Reciever, mood of the Receiver and so forth. Ideally, the Message Sent and Message Received will be the same. If it is not, it's usually because of a distractor. In the case of something such as sexual harrassment, current legal thinking is that the Message Sent is irrelevant; only the Message Received matters.

I can't be sure, but I think we've lost about twenty years of social advancement on this issue alone.

[tiggerypum.livejournal.com]

okay, yes I can see that, and yes, it clearly is not so easy to define - especially since people's expectations and tolerance levels are sometimes so radically different.

I think I need to check out some of these shows...