Bad things are bad
The moral bankruptcy de nos jours – a comment right here on my post about Milo Yiannopoulos’s permanent banishment from Twitter –
I’m indifferent. I know little about the tweets aimed at Jones, but I do know that no one has a ‘right’ not to be insulted or offended.
Emphasis added.
It could be the anthem of the Sadistic Callous Asshole brigade – no one has a ‘right’ not to be insulted or offended, therefore I can and will devote all my leisure time to insulting people on Twitter.
The lack of thought of it – the crudity – the emptiness. Yes, no kidding, there aren’t laws against being mean and rude. We know that. We know that treating people decently in everyday life isn’t a matter for legislators or the police. We know that. It’s entirely beside the point. Yes you have the legal right to say horrible wounding things to your best friend or spouse or child or sibling or parent – but that doesn’t matter. You have the legal right to be mean and insulting to wait staff, sales clerks, bus drivers, janitors – but that doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter that you have the legal right. It’s a bad thing to do and you shouldn’t do it. Cruelty and sadism are bad and you shouldn’t engage in them. Deliberately hurting people is bad and you shouldn’t do it. Dani Mathers did an appalling thing by taking that picture and posting it online with a jeer, and it would be every bit as appalling even if there were no law against taking photos of naked people in locker rooms without permission. The law doesn’t cover everything that’s bad and wrong to do, so pointing out that you can insult people if you want to just lets the world know that you have the moral sense of a brick.
The existence of Twitter has taught us that the world is stuffed with people who are just ecstatic to be able to be sadistic to strangers in public with no consequences. Saying no one has a ‘right’ not to be insulted or offended just reiterates the problem. I’m sick to death of smug people telling the world that they’re not legally obliged to refrain from tormenting people.
Hear, hear! The idea that we should only refrain from doing things that are technically illegal is a truly impoverished version of morality.
It’s a little more complicated than that.
Dani Mathers posted a picture of a nude woman from her gym because she felt offended by that woman’s body. Charlie Hebdo killer shot journalists because he was offended by cartoons depicting Mohammed.
The issue here isn’t whether people have the right to not be offended, the issue is figuring out why you feel offended by any particular thing and whether the thing that you find offensive is ABOUT YOU.
A person’s body is no one’s business but their own, and even if looking at it makes you queasy, that doesn’t give you the right to violate their privacy and publicly belittle them. An insult aimed at a long dead prophet is not the same thing as an insult aimed at you (though neither gives you the right to murder the person issuing the insult, the right to take offense is another matter). Being personally insulted, harassed or threatened on Twitter is another thing entirely — that really IS about you, and you do have the right (moral, if not legal) not to be threatened or harassed.
The problem, as far as I see it, is carefully parsing where your “personal sphere” ends and public discourse begins. Unfortunately, it seems that careful and nuanced thinking is too much to demand of people, before they erupt into either being offended or offensive.
And the thing everyone misses is that Twitter, as a privately run business, is under no obligation to provide anyone with a platform if that someone commits an offense against common decency and their own standards (which, of course, should be made public so people know what actions will get them banned; they shouldn’t just arbitrarily ban you for saying something someone doesn’t like). This doesn’t really violate Milo’s right to say mean and ugly things, only his right to use a platform created and maintained by Twitter. Just like Ophelia has the right to have some say over what her platform is used for, Twitter has a right to have a say over what their platform is used for, and they are morally implicated in what they allow to happen.
This doesn’t mean that Twitter should just ban people outright for saying “offensive” things; it means that Twitter should endeavor to have their space be reasonably safe from gratuitous abuse. Controversy? Should be fine. Jokes? Sure. Links to Jesus and Mo cartoons? Absolutely. All these things might offend someone, but should be protected. Death threats and rape threats, as well as bullying, not so much. This is more than offense, this goes to the realm of actual potential harm.
Well the whole entire issue and everything about it is more complicated than this post, yes, but what I object to – what I detest – in John’s comment really isn’t. I’ve seen that claim a million times, and what’s wrong with it really isn’t complicated.
I don’t know if John’s conflation of being politically or religiously “offended” with being personally insulted and harassed was deliberate or obtuse, but either way it was dead wrong.
You are right, but your argument would be clearer if you didn’t talk so much about laws and legal rights. John didn’t mention the law.
He didn’t mention the law, but he mentioned the absence of a right. He can only have meant a legal right, and a legal right implies possible laws. I don’t see what’s unclear about making a distinction between rights in law and moral rights.
Ophelia. That was beautiful.
All the internets.
I’ve been musing over lately whether there’s something about Twitter — aside from its negligent management — that makes it particularly susceptible to assholery. I’m leaning towards yes. I think Twitter combines a number of features that, although no single one is unique to Twitter, are perhaps only found in combination there:
1. Ease of access to valid personal contact information. Although in some ways it’s easier to find anyone’s contact information in the internet era, a Twitter handle may be the easiest. Finding a snail mail address, especially for a celebrity, may require a fair bit of detective work and in many cases may be beyond the average person’s abilities. Telephone numbers even more so, especially if you want a personal number and not just their manager/agent/place of business. Email addresses are variable, but famous people are likely to employ multiple addresses and the ones they really use are more closely guarded.
2. Chance of being seen/heard by the target. It’s relatively easy to screen mail, email, and phone calls. As I understand it, Twitter’s tools for screening your replies and timeline are rather crude. A harasser generally assumes that if they post frequently enough on your timeline, you’ll see them — and they’re probably right, at least until you block them. And even then, the harasser gets the satisfaction of knowing that your friends and followers are reading them, unless they too block. Plus the blocking itself is confirmation that you’ve been noticed, in a way that you don’t get otherwise — nobody knows when their emails are quietly filtered to a trash folder, or their voicemails deleted without hearing.
3. Ability to perform for the public. This is probably the biggest. Not only can you send your nastygram to your target, but all your pals and fans can see your oh-so-clever insults and pat you on the back. That’s harder to do in other media. In the pre-Internet era, you could resort to the “open letter” to a famous person, but that took effort, and you still needed to get your local newspaper or whoever to publish it, which limited how nasty you could be. Today, you can publish your open letter/email on your blog or Facebook page, but then you’re limited to your own audience. You can post a nasty comment on your victim’s blog or page, but those can be deleted or held in a moderation queue, denying you your moment of glory. But Twitter is perfect for the person who wants to hijack someone else’s audience for the purpose of being nasty to them.
4. Lack of gatekeepers/moderation/consequences This is already a long comment, and this one’s pretty self-explanatory.
Just to compare: 30 years ago, if you wanted to tell Bill Murray that Ghostbusters sucked — and, more importantly, wanted all your friends to see you tell Bill Murray that — your options were pretty limited. Plus, a lot of your friends would probably tell you you’re being an asshole. Now, it’s easy to tell Leslie Jones that Ghostbusters sucked, to do it where millions can see it, and reap the virtual high-fives from similarly-inclined people (while many of your meatspace friends just ignore you and think you’re a weirdo on Twitter).
Unfortunately, while Twitter could try to address #4, the first three seem like inherent functions of that network. I wouldn’t be surprised if Twitter dies off eventually because of it.
Or remains in a small corner of the internet, a festering cesspool where all who want serious conversation have departed long ago, and the jerks sit around and talk to themselves, much like in the old days when they’d get together in the corner bar and moan at each other about how terrible the world was that didn’t recognize their inherent worth.
Bill Murray is white, male, and straight. He is not a target.
And the original Ghostbusters starred men. Therefore, it did not suck.
I realize you were using that as an example, Screechy Monkey, but I think we should all remain clear and focused regarding who exactly the targets are, here.
So a better example would be, say, if you wanted to tell Sally Fields that Norma Rae sucked, or Shirley MacLaine that Terms of Endearment sucked.
A better example would be, if you wanted to tell Sally Field she was a stupid cunt, because she and/or her movie expressed values opposed to your own.
People aren’t telling Leslie Jones Ghostbusters sucks. They’re calling her a coon, a spook, an ape.
I don’t have to tell you, Ophelia. People didn’t harass you relentlessly just to express dislike of your blog.
I’m expressing it badly. But the problem isn’t just silly trolls saying “your stuff sux.” The problem is subculture(s) of harassers who overwhelmingly target women and people of color.
Exactly. The content of the insults matter.
Artists of any stripe know there will be critics, both professionals and just plain show-offs, who will denigrate their work. A thick skin is handy to have in the business.
But for actresses, they aren’t just criticized for their work, but their bodies. They are constantly called too fat and too ugly. Some develop eating disorders, some manage to find some narrow acceptable path, some fight back, some get married and drop out of the acting business, ostensibly for family life but likely so they can escape the no-win situation for anyone who can’t easily maintain the illusion of youth and the right kind of body.
Add race into the mix and it gets even more antagonistic. And in some ways, it’s probably easier not to end up with self-loathing, because you know exactly what is wrong with people making racist remarks. Yet the comments are probably far more frightening, because of the awareness that that hostility is out there, and you don’t know who is thinking those thoughts and if they will try to hurt you.
That’s really the difference between insulted and harassed, I guess.
When Jerry Seinfeld stated he would no longer perform at universities because of the oppressive PC atmospherics, I can understand his position.
As far as the future of free speech is concerned, it’s a case of death by a thousand cuts.
And just a note about both Twitter and Facebook: If you are willing ( foolish enough?) to splash shitloads of details and info about your private life all over the web and social media, then you should be prepared for reactions on the part of some that you may not find very pleasant. The only sure way to gain any amount of followers ( think of the money) on either platform is by callous and by spewing gratuitous insults. And that’s exactly what some people do.
I put my money where my mouth is here. I do neither Twitter nor Facebook precisely because my life is mine and it remains private.
If like that Kardashian lady, you decide to post pictures of your butt on Facebook, then you should expect that at some point someone will call you “fat-arsed”.
That said, even the most innocent and anodine of posts can invite insults.
A comment here claimed it’s OK to insult religions, but not people in a personal manner. However, for some their religion is so wrapped up in who they are that insulting their religion then becomes a barb aimed at their person, so where do we draw the line?
No, you don’t have a right not to be insulted.
It’s clear that commenter John is a callous person who often veers into cruelty. He doesn’t care about any of these issues except as a means to vent his spleen and downplay other people’s suffering. I wish we could have conversations about these topics without his self-serving derails.
You completely ignored my point, John, and talked about something else instead. That’s cheating. Don’t cheat.
In most social contexts, yes I do have a right not to be insulted. As I stipulated in the post, it’s not a legal right, but it can be a number of other kinds of right. HR can discipline employees for insulting other employees. Hosts can expel guests who insult other guests. Teachers can discipline students who insult other students (or teachers). Etc.
Your comment above is the comment of a proud, unashamed bully. You’re trying to write a bullies’ charter. You’re saying that people deserve to be insulted if they use social media. You’re saying women deserve to be bullied if they use social media. You’re saying – inadvertently, I’m sure, because we all know you’re no fan of Islamists – that Qandeel Baloch’s brother had a point, however overboard he went.
You and all the bullies like you really really need to learn the difference between “Political Correctness” and human decency.
‘If like that Kardashian lady, you decide to post pictures of your butt on Facebook, then you should expect that at some point someone will call you “fat-arsed”.’
So, if you post pictures of your black face on Facebook you should expect to be called a ‘coon?’
Or pictures of your butt might inspire your family to have you murdered?
There is a distressing parallel issue here: the eager ‘taking of offense’ by self-defined authorities and ‘leaders’ Is a real thing. The Trans-police campaigns against B&W or Alice Dreger ought to come to mind. The cartoonish levels of PC-dom are a real phenomenon, AND so is the use of ‘offense’ to justify murder.
What’s a clear legal difference between objecting to loathsome, organized harassment, and the attempts at preemptive censorship by Ken Ham or the Machete squads in Bangladesh? The emotional/political difference seems obvious, but nailing down the details could be devilish hard.
We’re talking past each other here. We’re not talking about criticism, or the occasional insult–or even the occasional bigoted insult.
We’re talking about organized (albeit loosely), sustained harassment, the content of which is sheer hateful bigotry. Harassment designed to drown out the voices of those harassed.
But Alice Dreger never led a campaign of harassment against any trans person.
I agree there a problem exists where some people shout “I’m offended!” at actual substantive criticism and then insist the offender shut up.
This isn’t that.