Inclusivity and hair color

[TarnishedPenny]

Blondes are awesome.

So are blonds! Cuties, all of them.

 

[AlinaX]

Like Dr Macartney...

 

[djrip]

Are blondes allowed to be scientists - or ex-scientists at least?

Em

I'll allow it.

 

[EmilyMiller]

are you an ex-scientist or a sex scientist? I'm asking for Science, of course.

Can’t I be both?

FWIW I have two papers in high-profile, peer-reviewed journals (no I’m not saying which - and no I’m not listed as E. Miller either), albeit as author 258.

But not bad for someone without a PhD.

Em

 

[Bramblethorn]

You are all, once again, talking about people who are part of those bullying minorities and not about reasonable people whose voice basically can't be heard due to the cacophony created by zealots on both sides. I am not saying censorship or anything like that. Actually, what some of those zealots are doing is censorship in a way.

No, it isn't. They're simply telling you that if you use certain words, some people will think you're a dickhead. But to certain folk merely being criticised for their speech is "censorship".

I am saying let common sense and first of all science rule instead. If you claim calling you a "librarian" (silly example, but I can't be bothered thinking of something better) is offensive to you, then go ahead and make some reasonable case - prove that word, which we used for centuries, is somehow offensive.

How on earth does one scientifically "prove" that a word is offensive, other than by observing that it offends somebody? This is a nonsensical idea. Science is great but not everything is amenable to scientific methods.

 

[EmilyMiller]

No, it isn't. They're simply telling you that if you use certain words, some people will think you're a dickhead. But to certain folk merely being criticised for their speech is "censorship".



How on earth does one scientifically "prove" that a word is offensive, other than by observing that it offends somebody? This is a nonsensical idea. Science is great but not everything is amenable to scientific methods.

What he said

 

[TarnishedPenny]

I suppose it’s like Rule 34 in reverse. If it exists (it being a word, a concept, a behaviour, an act, whatever) - if it exists, somebody on this sad planet will find it objectionable. Given instantaneous communication and planet-wide agora, such complaints can be aired and built and used equally instantaneously.

I see and hear things that offend me, but accept that my right to speak demands my acceptance of others’ own right to speak.

Even - maybe especially - when what they say offends me.

 

[muddie684]

How on earth does one scientifically "prove" that a word is offensive, other than by observing that it offends somebody? This is a nonsensical idea. Science is great but not everything is amenable to scientific methods.

You couldn't prove causality with the empirical method, however you could show correlation by paying a hobo to shout "You ... BRUNETTE!" at passerby's at random intervals regardless of age, gender, hair color, and then survey them further down the street. Both survey as observe and survey as ask questions.

Also, is the term "hobo" not politically correct anymore?

 

[Bramblethorn]

I see and hear things that offend me, but accept that my right to speak demands my acceptance of others’ own right to speak.

Even - maybe especially - when what they say offends me.

I don't disagree, but... where is the threat to free speech here? We're talking about an optional setting on a word processor telling Em that some people might be unhappy with the word "brunette". Not governments, monopolists, or armed mobs restricting speech by force. She's not trying to figure out whether she's allowed to say "brunette", just to figure out whether there's some nuance associated with the word that she wasn't aware of.

Freedom of speech protects, equally, the right to offend and the right to say "that offends".

It just seems weird to me that the threads most likely to provoke defenses of free speech are the ones where everybody's exercising it and nobody's calling for it to be restricted.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Fully agree, BT, but the thread had drifted from an optional setting on a common programme to cancel culture and scientific examination of offensive words.

 

[Bramblethorn]

You couldn't prove causality with the empirical method, however you could show correlation by paying a hobo to shout "You ... BRUNETTE!" at passerby's at random intervals regardless of age, gender, hair color, and then survey them further down the street. Both survey as observe and survey as ask questions.

Yeah, but if somebody's told us that they find it offensive we already know that it's offensive to somebody. This method might help us figure out what percentage of people find it offensive, in one specific circumstance which might or might not be relevant to the original context, but that's not the question that was being asked.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Fully agree, BT, but the thread had drifted from an optional setting on a common programme to cancel culture and scientific examination of offensive words.

"Cancel culture" seems to be mostly about obfuscating that same distinction, though - reframing criticism of speech that offends somebody as censorship of it.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

"Cancel culture" seems to be mostly about obfuscating that same distinction, though - reframing criticism of speech that offends somebody as censorship of it.

Well, to be fair, there’s a difference between criticizing speech one finds offensive and making it impossible for the other person to speak. The former is hardly censorship, but refusing to allow another to speak most certainly is, IMO.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Well, to be fair, there’s a difference between criticizing speech one finds offensive and making it impossible for the other person to speak. The former is hardly censorship, but refusing to allow another to speak most certainly is, IMO.

Generally agreed, but almost all supposed "cancel culture" ends up being the former rather than the latter, or variations on "you can speak but that doesn't entitle you to somebody else's microphone".

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Generally agreed, but almost all supposed "cancel culture" ends up being the former rather than the latter, or variations on "you can speak but that doesn't entitle you to somebody else's microphone".

Aye, there’s the rub. Who gets to decide who ‘owns the microphone’? For, say, a university to forbid a campus group from hosting a controversial speaker is to my mind censorial.

 

[SimonDoom]

Aye, there’s the rub. Who gets to decide who ‘owns the microphone’? For, say, a university to forbid a campus group from hosting a controversial speaker is to my mind censorial.

Yes. A university has a duty to provide an environment that allows academic and intellectual freedom, and that necessarily means creating a forum in which people may express views that some find offensive. If you do not support the right of people who disagree with you to speak, then you don't support freedom of speech. That concept is MUCH less obvious on university campuses in the USA today than it was when I was a student. It's not even close. I know this from talking with my kids who've just gone through school, and also with friends of mine from college who are now university professors. Cancel culture is a real thing. It doesn't always involve things like firing or expulsion. It can manifest itself through the heckler's veto, or shunning, or badgering people, insults, calling people names, physical or verbal assaults. Mere criticism is not cancel culture. But when you take steps that make it very difficult for others to express different views, and to face negative consequences for expressing those views, whether those views are professional or personal, yes, that's cancel culture. It is real. It is happening. The intellectual climate is very different today from what it was 40 years ago. I think it sucks.

 

[MetaBob]

So Word has more options on the laptop for spelling and grammar. One that caught my eye was “inclusivity”. Now before I get flamed by one set of people and lauded by another, I’m pro-inclusivity. I’m pro-diversity. But…

They flagged “brunette” as not inclusive and suggested “brown haired”. Could I check with any - pause - brown haired folk out there whether or not they find “brunette” offensive?

I think Word is a bloated PoS and avoid it whenever possible, which is (almost) all the time. This is but another of many illustrations why.

Take any guidance MS Word gives you with a shaker of salt, thrown directly into its (virtual) face.

There, I said it.

I avoid Grammarly unless I'm doing final edits and it might catch something that even my suspicious eyes didn't after countless reviews. 95% of what it gives me is crap, but it does catch an occasional misspelling or or doubled word. Its free version, like MS Word, is keyed to business communications, where creativity is generally not a virtue.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Aye, there’s the rub. Who gets to decide who ‘owns the microphone’? For, say, a university to forbid a campus group from hosting a controversial speaker is to my mind censorial.

When one looks closely at those campus cases, though, the decision rarely turns out to be as simple as "we cancelled this because we don't like his views". Often it ends up being something like "wherever he speaks, he draws a crowd of supporters who are known for being violent, and we need to consider the safety of our students".

Lately we've had several book readings cancelled or forced to go virtual, because a violent group that doesn't like these events has threatened to attack venues if the events went ahead (something that has happened elsewhere) and police decided that they "could not guarantee the safety of the event". (Which does rather raise the question of what police are for.) The venue owners decided they couldn't accept the risk of holding those events in person.

That is censorship of a kind, but it's censorship by the violent assholes who make the threats, not the venue owners who are making those choices only under duress. I'm even less willing to call it "censorship" when it's the speaker's own supporters who make it unsafe to go ahead with the event, as is quite often the case.

Yes. A university has a duty to provide an environment that allows academic and intellectual freedom, and that necessarily means creating a forum in which people may express views that some find offensive. If you do not support the right of people who disagree with you to speak, then you don't support freedom of speech. That concept is MUCH less obvious on university campuses in the USA today than it was when I was a student. It's not even close. I know this from talking with my kids who've just gone through school, and also with friends of mine from college who are now university professors. Cancel culture is a real thing. It doesn't always involve things like firing or expulsion. It can manifest itself through the heckler's veto, or shunning, or badgering people, insults, calling people names, physical or verbal assaults. Mere criticism is not cancel culture. But when you take steps that make it very difficult for others to express different views, and to face negative consequences for expressing those views, whether those views are professional or personal, yes, that's cancel culture. It is real. It is happening. The intellectual climate is very different today from what it was 40 years ago. I think it sucks.

Some of those terms need unpacking, lest we fall into equivocation.

Almost forty years ago, a well-known author wrote a story which some folk considered blasphemous and which also said some pointed things about a certain national leader. In response, that leader put a price on his head, another government banned the sale of his book, numerous bombing attacks were made against booksellers who carried the book, some made the decision not to carry it for fear of violence, and several people associated with the publication of that book were murdered. The author went into hiding for a while. Eventually he returned to public life, but just last year he was seriously injured in an assassination attempt (by an assailant not even born when the offending book was published).

More recently, a well-known artist who'd made their name with a popular and widely-loved series started saying things about a minority group, which members of that group and their allies saw as bigoted and harmful. In response, some people expressed nuanced criticism, some insulted them, some stopped buying their work, and they started being referred to as "controversial" instead of "beloved".

Both of those cases might be called "negative consequences" that make it "difficult to express an opinion". But one of them is a genuine attack on free speech and the other is merely a robust exercise of the right of reply. It does the conversation a disservice to conflate the two.

Shunning people with views one finds objectionable is freedom of association. Insulting them or calling names is, mostly, free speech. (Exception made for insults that are defamatory in intent, e.g. labelling somebody as a "pedo" for reasons other than actually being a pedophile.) They may not always be courteous, or generous, or good choices, and they may not be comfortable for the person on the receiving end of those actions, but that doesn't make them a threat to free speech. We cannot simultaneously enjoy the right to offend and the right not to be offended by the replies we get.

 

[XerXesXu]

lest we fall into equivocation.

Kind of you to demonstrate how easily it's done.

 

[HordHolm]

Aye, there’s the rub. Who gets to decide who ‘owns the microphone’? For, say, a university to forbid a campus group from hosting a controversial speaker is to my mind censorial.

Depends. There's 'controversial' and controversial. Free speech is not and never has been an absolute. Its limits shift over time, and there will always be a debate. It's also an issue in which one's own freedom often seems more immediate than another's - to give an example that irritated me somewhat: some time ago a group of writers (JK Rowling and Salman Rushdie stand out in my memory from that group), academics, etc wrote an open letter complaining about 'no platforming' at universities. Fair enough.

However, out of the lot of them only Rushdie (to be fair to the man, he walks the walk) had the gumption to also stand up for the right of a particularly obnoxious Polish priest to come to speak in the UK. This particular priest is a real piece of anti-semitic shit, who is extremely inflammatory and whose rhetoric the UK government had decided would constitute a threat to public order. Now, personally, I was happy that dude was banned, but that whole group of writers (Rushdie apart) couldn't see the hypocrisy of complaining about their own speech being limited whilst standing by and allowing another's to be censored. It's one of the reasons John Cleese is turning into a very sad old man these days, which is a pity.