Self-censorship
Have you started censoring your comments on Facebook and other sites to avoid angering or offending your "friends"? I caught myself doing this today. My wife's cousin posted a dumb joke on Facebook. [Warning: trigger alert; can be considered misogynistic and/or body-shaming.]
Used to be you had to line up and pay money at the sideshow to see a fat tattooed lady. Now all you have to do is go to the grocery store.
I was going to respond "Hey, tattoos are cool. All the guys and gals on the cellblock have them." Not my best work, but I'm still recovering from the holiday weekend.
Then I started questioning and self-censoring myself. My niece has a bunch of tattoos. Will she get mad at me? My brother has tattoos acquired while serving time in prison. Will he think I'm looking down on him? How about some of my other Facebook friends? Will they be offended if they have tattoos? Is it even okay in 2019 to implicitly support fat jokes or tell tattoo jokes?
I canceled my comment without posting it.
And then I thought about C99%. This is a diverse and fairly tolerant community. We speak our minds here. While there are occasional minor squabbles, as seen in any community of humans, most of us get along and support each other even when we disagree. The only self-censorship generally needed is that which avoids violating site rules.
I can post comments or essays saying mildly positive things about Trump, who I despise, but who I think was exactly what Democrats deserved after their 2016 shenanigans. Others can post anti-Trump blasts or talk up their candidate-of-the-day without fear. There is no banning for supporting the "wrong" candidate, as experienced on other, oranger sites. One of the site FAQS even states "This site is a non-partisan site. It does not endorse any candidate. This site is issues-oriented and is about the interests of the 99%."
I feel free to speak my mind here, even when my opinion is in the minority. I believe others feel the same way. And for that we should all thank the owners and moderators and the wonderful community of people that have gathered here, including ourselves. They and we are awesome!!
Comments
You can't avoid some amount of self-censorship
I've turned off my filter at times in my life, and the results aren't pretty.
Some of those instances I regretted for years after.
True enough.
But stopping myself from giving a silly response to a silly joke made me realize just how much of a minefield modern life has become. Is it even possible to create an offense-free zone?
Such a zone would be highly undesirable.
There would be no Monty Python, no Fawlty Towers, no Led Zeppelin, if everybody followed the unexplicated rules of the liberal social justice warrior online brigade. Star Wars and Star Trek would be unrecognizable, would never have existed. I can't count the number of books, movies, tv, music, and artworks that would not exist. For one thing, about 65% of all blues written before 1980 would be gone. How much are we willing to flush in order to make sure nobody ever hears a bigoted word?
It's fine to criticize Led Zeppelin for being sexist. I don't think it's fine to silence their music. It's fine to criticize Star Trek (the original series) for its sexism. Yet how much poorer would we be if it had never been aired? As for Monty Python and Fawlty Towers, I don't think for a second that the Pythons were actually homophobic, esp. considering that at least one of them was gay--and I don't believe for a second that John Cleese and Connie Booth are racist against Spaniards (or, I guess, Catalonians, since Manuel is "from Barcelona.") But imagine trying to defend either of those shows from the current propriety police.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
My filter was off one day and I started a sentence I shouldn't
have. I gulped, and cut my sentence short, which happened to omit a very very important qualifer phrase. I knew on some semi-conscious level that I really f'd up big, and I mentally burried/numbed the memory for 4 months. Lost a friend for life over it. A freak occurence of word play. It was a doozie.
Don't worry, entrepreneur, you're not alone.
Most of my family members don't speak to me anymore because of exactly what you described. But I've spent too much of my life walking on eggshells around them, and now I don't care what they think. One of the benefits of being old, I guess
Hell is empty and all the devils are here. William Shakespeare
Thanks for the kind words.
I'm against body shaming
but I don't have problems with tattoos. Okay I don't care for them when every inch of a person's skin is covered with them like many pro basketball players have. I don't understand what the point of them are. What is the person saying with that many and you can't really see what they are because they blend together.
I have a tattoo on the inside of my ankle because I can see it and it's for me not really for the rest of the world. Bet no one can guess what mine is?
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Lemme guess...
Spike?
Oh so close
The colors don't show.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
as I walked home today I saw a man...
wearing shorts. His legs are all tattooed up. Ok. I wouldn't have seen them if the weather were colder. Doesn't matter. I noticed his arms, too, are completely covered in tats. Then as he got closer I saw so, too, was his neck.
And I thought "how odd for someone to wake up in the morning and think 'I need to get my neck tattooed today'". Because I'd be afraid, if it were me, that the tattoo artist would hit my jugular and my colorfully colored neck would start spurting blood.
Exactly
Who wakes up and decides to do that to themselves? The closer the needle got to my ankle and foot bones the more it hurt. I can't imagine how much it'd hurt to do it to my neck. How can anyone even see what's on the tattoos? Do people want others to stare at them to decipher what's on their body? Oh well to each their own I guess.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
I don't think people with all those tattoos
care what other people think, except for people with tattoos.
I like the joke, very funny! (I don't have any tattoos.)
This is a great site!
I self-censor myself even here
you wouldn't want to hear me ranting out loud. Tattoos? Like cell phones. Folks have lost their autonomy and follow what's supposedly just the coolest thingie on planet internet. Slaves of the intertubes. That is what we have become.
It's a careful balance
I don't self-censor much (don't do Facebook at all) but I do try to arrange my expressions according to my context. Of course to some people taking offense is a personal hobby so you can't ever not-offend those folks, but even generally speaking it's a skateboarder ride the rail trick to learn how to be true to your own self and yet not slam others without intention or cause. Sometimes we can ride the whole rail and stick the landing, but other times we're all going to trip, flip, and land right on our nuts/ladynuts. My typical approach: consider your context, speak your mind accordingly, and always wear your cup.
I ask myself if my comment adds to the conversation
...and provides some sort of insight. If the answer is no then I don't make a comment. Not really censorship just trying to evaluate before bloviating or knee jerking.
Interesting question.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”