A faux pas is one thing, and if we commit them, we hopefully learn and move on. But being called-out on a an unintentional slur is not censorship. It’s not an attack on our rights. We can, of course, choose to continue to use the same slurs because we’re offended that someone has claimed offense, or because we are now angry and choose to deliberately offend. Any reason at all. But that’s not how I want to behave.
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Not at all. Enjoying the discussion.
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Humour aside, there are certain laughs that are simply infectious and make you join in - I think it was the 4th in that clip and I started chortling irrespective of the content.
We really need to laugh whenever possible in the current climate.
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I couldn’t possibly disagree more. You need to remove he negative association with the thing itself, not the word. Changing the word just moves the insult around.
When I was a lad it had just become un PC to call other kids “retard”. So it was redesignated as “special”. Didn’t take long before the kids were bantying “Ha haaa. you’re special” . By the time I was in Uni, I was hearing the young siblings of friends call each other “Ha haaa. You’re differently abled”.
Changing the language didn’t really buy is anything as a society in terms of being more open minded and accepting of differences. And that’s precisely why. Linguistic swapping is low hanging fruit. But it totally avoids tackling the underlying issue. It’s a total utter cop out.
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Reductions in bigotry, discrimination and cruelty are definitely a worthwhile goal. But thinking that unfettered offense by way of language will “burn through” the issues is ridiculous. Language is a system of symbols of meaning. Creating an expectation that people will consider the offense they cause by the language they choose is hardly an imposition. I can’t fathom why you would think otherwise.
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I’ll nevertheless choose to do it. I’ll choose to avoid terms that I know have been used to cause offense. I won’t insist, nor even suggest, you do the same. You do you. If you are indifferent to the offense that a simple choice of language may cause, and refuse to take that into account in your choice of words, then I don’t know I have much to say. Carry on. But don’t be surprised by people’s reactions.
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One chooses to be offended.
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I tend to surround myself by a very diverse set of people with varying identities around such things as gender and cultural background. In fact as a middle aged white guy I’m actually in a minority among my social group in my part of the world. None of them are particularly fragile people given over to the modern woke linguistic fad so I don’t get any surprises. Well, other than when friends of different identities decide to sling amusing insults at each other over beers that is.
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As a standard issue straight middle aged middle class white man I am unsure about this. I suppose it depends whether gay listeners would be offended. Faggot is generally taken to be a perjorative term for gay men, so it’s different to simply rude or smutty words. I recall when Gang of Four’s wonderful At Home He’s A Tourist had to be changed on TOTP to replace the line ‘the rubbers you hide in your top left pocket’ which seemed quite pathetic. I’m all for free speech and really dislike the habit of say the Daily Mail blanking out the F word when quoting, yet at the same time spewing hateful articles and righteous indignation. It would be interesting to hear from gay forum members on this.
As to the song, I think it’s F…ing brilliant and I love it! I’m not a big fan of the Pogues but Kirsty was an absolute wonder and a brilliant songwriter.
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In my opinion it’s very bad news when a small number of people decide that art is offensive and that small number of people’s opinion determines policy for the majority, resulting in censorship for that majority.
What price Life of Brian, The Sex Pistols, Picasso, Goya and Courbet when their output is banned by those who feel we, the majority, should not watch, listen, appreciate because they happen to be offended, or are afraid that a small number of others may be offended?
I 100% agree that if some nasty piece of work walks up to another person and describes them as a ‘lousy faggot’ to their face, then that’s not a good thing. However, depicting a ‘conversation’ between two people using the phrase, within the context of the piece of work/art, is clearly a completely different position.
I would be more understanding if this is a little local station who happened to find it no longer to their tastes and chose not to play it, that’s their option. However, this is a national broadcaster, the biggest in the nation by far, supposedly operating for and with our interests at heart and the response by the public at large seems to echo my own feelings that they’ve got this wrong.
It’s like the Spanish Inquisition never happened.
Je suis Charlie and all that.
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We still enjoy faggots… fantastic … one of my faves along with steak and kidney pies…
The thing that gets me about all this ‘woke’ (an expression I didn’t know about until a month ago!) and PC stuff is how it seems to be largely driven by people that are offended on behalf of someone else. So ‘offended by proxy’.
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It really is a slippery slope… George Orwell is becoming increasingly scarily prophetic… and what is the consequence of this… double speak.
It’s the thoughts that count, not the language…
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Meat is murder. You are so #cancelled S-in-S 
Says the person who just had a giant hotdog
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Well you’re pushing the envelope a bit if you’re inferring that’s meat 
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Okay fair enough. I had a cylindrical mystery tissue sample with a high sodium value in a long bun.
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Whenever we were offended by a word, the retort was ditty about sticks and stones and life moved on. The more we discuss a particular word causing offence and censor it, the more effective it becomes as an insult.
In the case of this balad, the “offensive word(s)” are part of a dialogue between fictional characters and provide the listener a flavour of who they are. Art is often controversial, used to provoke thought and discussion, even though I suspect that was not the intention here since the dialogue would be common parlance for those characters at that time (and probably today).
Is anyone actually offended or are we worried that someone else could be? We seem more and more to apply extreme measures to “just in case” situations, rather than being pragmatic, looking at context and applying common sense.
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In case lawyers think you are referring to the performer and not the instrument
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which is why in English we have the slang word fag meaning a cigarette… which comes from the traditional english word faggot meaning a bundle of sticks or firewood
Fag is also a minor irk at private school who does odd jobs for a senior.
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