Censoring lyrics, burning books, tearing down history. Where do you stop?
And there’s Peter Paul and Mary’s Puff the Magic Dragon–ahem! and not to mention
the indiscretion of Mr Yarrow-well documented-surely a factor as to eliminate all playing of said group publicly in any case --no?
D41
It’s all part of cancel culture, where the woke shut down any free thinker who doesn’t agree with their agenda.
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It’s the usual story of ‘offense by proxy’. I’m offended on behalf of someone else whether they’re actually offended themselves or not!
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Just been listening to some item on the radio on the way home and they were talking about someone reporting you to the police if they overheard you bad mouthing anyone else. Something about this being now classified as a hate crime and going on your criminal record! Oh for **** sake.
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Oh come, come. The Pet Shop Boys produced sublime electronic music from the mid eighties, not so sure about current offerings, but I still enjoy and frequnetly play their early albums - admittedly if you don’t like it I won;t convince you.
Same goes for me and all those ‘wanky’ guitar playing covers.
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As a gay man, I’m not particularly offended by the ‘faggot’ reference. I do, however, think the song crude, crass and vulgar and I really do wish they wouldn’t play it… at all!
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There are ‘00s of TV programmes about which I have similar feelings. Rather than advocate censorship, we should simply remember the ‘off’ button is our friend!
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Surely many of these offensive words existed before they became offensive? And isn’t Gay an acronym for “Good as You”, I’ve got loads of traditional music with the word “gay” used.
Context is the important thing here.
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The words are used by 2 characters. Just the same as Money for nothing was a rant by a character. Just as Andy Capp is a cartoon character. We don’t have to agree with the dialogue but we should never go down the slippery road of erasing it.
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You don’t have to erase it but you can learn to change. I find it a bit strange that it’s generally white privileged males that have never been subjected to racial, sexual or any other stereotyped prejudice that seem to get so outraged and scream PC gone mad when someone who has been dare speaks up.
As my friend Eels said “you can’t change what you’ve said but you can change what your saying”
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I’m always confused by the “slippery slope” argument. Where has the censure of (potentially) offensive speech been extrapolated into something truly harmful? The only examples I can think of are anti-blasphemy “laws” in some theocracies, but I can’t think of a significant example in what we’d call "progressive societies.
I’d add that violence such as the monstrous Charlie Hebdo attacks were not a consequence of a general societal opposition to the expressions the magazine chose, but was perpetrated by delusional nut-jobs.
Seems to be plenty of them.
Just Google ‘anti Charlie Hebdo march.’
Now there’s a good point should Google shut that down. There’s always some one who argue free speech.
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All this fuss & PC stuff about a typical Irish string of friendly insults between people who are acquainted, it goes on all the time, its a common & traditional thing in Ireland.
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It’s moronic.
But, they wrote it knowingly to be moronic. So that makes it more than moronic. Perhaps iconic.
Schrodinger was half Irish.
Since when did we judge society on fictional characters. We have made huge progress in recent years. I cannot imagine any form of public abuse that would go unchallenged. We no longer tolerate it. The only people who think they can get away with it hide online but we’ve got you in our sights as well.
Since about 2020 years ago.
Sights are on guns. Perhaps you meant “in sight”
I did not advocate censorship.
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Thinking along these lines might well have underpinned the sentiment that was in the minds of the Charlie Hebdo perpetrators…