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Sexist, racist language in classic literature.

KrisW said:
Nobody is stopping you saying what you want, because to be honest, nobody gives a shit what you say — or what I say. we don’t have millions of people watching what we do, and no kid in the playground tomorrow is going to parrot what I write on a hi-fi forum. Low level of consequences, high levels of freedom.

When you’re facing a wide audience, yeah, you do have a responsibility not to be a dickhead. It sucks, and maybe some would say it’s a diminution of a public figure’s freedom to be constrained in what they can say, but hey: I don’t get to swear at my employer’s customers to their face, and sometimes I find that to be a serious curtailment of my personal rights. If they weren’t paying me in return for this restraint, I’d be up in arms. But they are, so I sacrifice some of my rights in exchange for something of benefit.

People who think they can use their well-paid public platforms to say whatever the hell they want without consequence have not grasped that simple equation. Rights exist with Responsibilities.
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On fora of all sorts and most social meja platforms there are moderators which very much can and do step in to stop you saying what you want on occasion... sometimes for the best... sometimes not! The issue then of course is that the personal views of the mods can twist debate in a direction they are happy with/which agrees with their own views.

Obviously someone with a huge public profile needs to be rather more careful than most yes.

Someone mentioned Frankie Boyle up thread as an example of someone who manages to be offensive without causing real offence but he was in the cross hairs of some on several occasions and certainly over comments he made about Katy Price and her disabled son.... you can't please all the people all the time!
 
Don’t confuse social media/forums etc with “free speech”. They are businesses and their owners will always eject those who damage that business, just as a pub, club, shop or for that matter TV station will. The likes of Jim Davidson are “cancelled” from mainstream TV and clubs because they are totally unfunny, racist pricks, and no one wants to see them outside of a UKIP conference. Basically they add no value.
 
There is a serious point to be discussed here, but it's not really the 'free speech' one, IMHO. Article 10 of the HRA limits your right to free expression on various, entirely reasonable, grounds. And outside of those grounds, you're free to express yourself however you wish, but that doesn't mean you're exempt from any consequences of what you say.

People who express their feelings towards their employer, for example, may discover that this has consequences for them, but that's not the same as 'cancel culture', it's just that you don't necessarily get to vigorously slag your boss/employer off on Twitter and also keep your job.

Humour often relies on pushing boundaries for its effect, partly its that 'relief' thing that triggers the laugh. Fashions do change, and what was funny once upon a time might not be funny now; but sometimes you have to test the boundaries to find out where they are. I think Maureen Lipman's argument might be that those who make a living out of testing those boundaries might feel inhibited. There's a distinction between deliberately transgressing boundaries for the effect, and walking up to the line but not crossing it. A comedian who makes his career out of shocking and being transgressive is somewhat different to one who challenges the orthodoxy. We need the latter, but probably wouldn't miss the former. If the current zeitgeist affects the latter, we do perhaps need to examine this carefully.
 
Sue Pertwee-Tyr said:
There is a serious point to be discussed here, but it's not really the 'free speech' one, IMHO. Article 10 of the HRA limits your right to free expression on various, entirely reasonable, grounds. And outside of those grounds, you're free to express yourself however you wish, but that doesn't mean you're exempt from any consequences of what you say.

People who express their feelings towards their employer, for example, may discover that this has consequences for them, but that's not the same as 'cancel culture', it's just that you don't necessarily get to vigorously slag your boss/employer off on Twitter and also keep your job.

Humour often relies on pushing boundaries for its effect, partly its that 'relief' thing that triggers the laugh. Fashions do change, and what was funny once upon a time might not be funny now; but sometimes you have to test the boundaries to find out where they are. I think Maureen Lipman's argument might be that those who make a living out of testing those boundaries might feel inhibited. There's a distinction between deliberately transgressing boundaries for the effect, and walking up to the line but not crossing it. A comedian who makes his career out of shocking and being transgressive is somewhat different to one who challenges the orthodoxy. We need the latter, but probably wouldn't miss the former. If the current zeitgeist affects the latter, we do perhaps need to examine this carefully.
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I'll no doubt be on a hiding to nothing here and get zero agreement but I do have a bit of an issue with this (the bit in bold). I guess "it's like that and it's the way it is"... and always has been... but something just doesn't "smell right" about being "forced" to feign liking the company you work for or even the MD, CEO, whatever.

I guess if I expanded and took on a couple of staff and then saw one of them calling me a total tosser on social meja I'd be furious... But should I have the right to sack them over the hurt to my feelings IF they perform their job efficiently and at least manage a business like manner when at work??

I'm sure many/most of us will have been employed somewhere that the boss is a complete twat and pretty much everyone who works there hates him.... to the extent that it wasn't even possible he was unaware of how hated he is... and more likely than not he has even overheard through an open window people outside on a fag break calling him worse than shit... Is the line only crossed if someone says it to his face??

Volte face and I'm sure many of us have had a boss who would maybe call our team/work group to his office and give a Ferguson like hair dryer-ing of foul mouthed abuse to the team over something he's not chuffed about and it's kinda expected that everyone just stares at the floor and mumbles... Personally I won't stand for this and one got a smack in the mouth whilst at least another two were told where to shove their jobs, but that's me...
 
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Arkless Electronics said:
I'll no doubt be on a hiding to nothing here and get zero agreement but I do have a bit of an issue with this (the bit in bold). I guess "it's like that and it's the way it is"... and always has been... but something just doesn't "smell right" about being "forced" to feign liking the company you work for or even the MD, CEO, whatever.

I guess if I expanded and took on a couple of staff and then saw one of them calling me a total tosser on social meja I'd be furious... But should I have the right to sack them over the hurt to my feelings IF they perform their job efficiently and at least manage a business like manner when at work??
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The usual justification for dismissal would be bringing the company into disrepute. That's why I said 'vigorously slag off...on social media'. You've always struck me (no pun intended) as the sort of person who would end up self-employed because they just didn't get on with employers - my dad was exactly the same - but there's a difference, I think, between telling your boss what you think of him to his face but in private (or with few witnesses), and doing it to the world on social media. And even telling your boss what you think of them is likely to have consequences, perhaps to promotion prospects even if there's no grounds for dismissal. You'd have to check your contract as to what might constitute 'misconduct' and it's likely to be context-sensitive.
 
Arkless Electronics said:
But should I have the right to sack them over the hurt to my feelings IF they perform their job efficiently and at least manage a business like manner when at work??
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Absolutely. Why should anyone be expected to employ arseholes? A job isn’t a right, it is a competition and there are always plenty of non-arsehole options waiting outside the door for any good role. I’d only ever employ people that fitted with the attitude and ethos of the company department, and yes, as an IT manager I had to hire and fire a lot of people.

PS FWIW I’ve been sacked myself for not fitting too, and I have no issue with that. Actually got a surprisingly good payout there and I still don’t understand why! Basically a “you don’t fit here, here’s a cheque for £18k, now go away…” kind of thing. I’d only been there two or three months. It was a well paid job, but even so I wasn’t expecting that so didn’t question it! That was 1990s money too!
 
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Sue Pertwee-Tyr said:
Or

The usual justification for dismissal would be bringing the company into disrepute. That's why I said 'vigorously slag off...on social media'. You've always struck me (no pun intended) as the sort of person who would end up self-employed because they just didn't get on with employers - my dad was exactly the same - but there's a difference, I think, between telling your boss what you think of him to his face but in private (or with few witnesses), and doing it to the world on social media. And even telling your boss what you think of them is likely to have consequences, perhaps to promotion prospects even if there's no grounds for dismissal. You'd have to check your contract as to what might constitute 'misconduct' and it's likely to be context-sensitive.
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Tony L said:
Absolutely. Why should anyone be expected to employ arseholes? A job isn’t a right, it is a competition and there are always plenty of non-arsehole options waiting outside the door for any good role. I’d only ever employ people that fitted with the attitude and ethos of the company department, and yes, as an IT manager I had to hire and fire a lot of people.

PS FWIW I’ve been sacked myself for not fitting too, and I have no issue with that. Actually got a surprisingly good payout there and I still don’t understand why! Basically a “you don’t fit here, here’s a cheque for £18k, now go away…” kind of thing. I’d only been there two or three months. It was a well paid job, but even so I wasn’t expecting that so didn’t question it! That was 1990s money too!
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Yeah all the generally understood "way it is"....

It just strikes me as somewhat odd that there are so many human rights and employment rights that try to quantify and regulate... to remove the human element to some extent, and yet at the same time such "human condition" "loop hole" elements as perceived "losing face", "respect", "dissing", "whether you are subjectively regarded as fitting in" etc etc are somewhat tacitly allowed to over rule much of this! We're strange creatures us 'umans!

I've only once been in a position where I was required to hire and fire and I hated it! After only a month or so it really went pear shaped when the company bought out a local rival and I suddenly had about 200% more staff under me... for about two days, after which the management decided that the new staff should be under their original line manager and my staff under me, so we now had two bosses of the same dept each responsible for their own staff! Each set of staff made it as difficult as possible for the opposite boss... then I was required to sack one of mine who had a GF and a baby but had to be told which end of the soldering iron to hold.... on the same day just before xmas that a group of the other staff had gone out on a call out to a local customer, told them they didn't have the right parts, and then did their xmas shopping followed by a couple of hours down the pub all on company time! After a while I managed to get myself promoted sideways so the staff were entirely the other guys responsibility but I answered to no one but the MD... which suited me just fine!
 
Arkless Electronics said:
I've only once been in a position where I was required to hire and fire and I hated it!
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I’ve always hated it to be honest. The corporate career structure thing is just bonkers to my mind. I was a good computer geek, stick me in a screwed up server room and I’d fix it and make it bullet-proof, put in place better and more robust IT strategies etc. I was genuinely good at that stuff. As such in conventional jobs I kept on getting promoted to management roles that included dealing with people, and I bloody hate that! I’m not good at it either as I can be remarkably blunt (I’m far better in print as I can think about things longer). I really do not have the social skills or fundamental ability to care about personnel management, yet I have interviewed and selected hundreds, fired a few, and made many more redundant (which I absolutely hated doing - I often had to choose which people too). It is a key reason I went over to contracting as I could stick to tech/geek roles and better avoid people. It was great not having to care about company politics too. Something really good about just not giving a shit beyond what was in the server room, plus usually being the only one on site who understood it so no one else trying to tell me what to do. It’s all a long time ago now, I last did any paid IT work about 20 years ago unless you count this place. That was an 8 week contract at a really posh London investment bank with the sadly missed Cliff Patterson from our photo room.
 
I think there’s some double standards going on here, as in ‘It’s OK for comedian A to be offensive because I find him funny, but if comedian B is offensive it’s OK to ban him because he’s not funny’.

Social media is the killer here, though. Some offensive jokes in a small club will remain unknown to most people, but if you put the same sort of material on Twitter, it’s out there for millions to see.
 
Joe Hutch said:
I think there’s some double standards going on here, as in ‘It’s OK for comedian A to be offensive because I find him funny, but if comedian B is offensive it’s OK to ban him because he’s not funny’.
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I think it is more than that in that it is a platform-driven thing. If ITV gave say Jim Davidson a show I bet it would generate far more complaints than likes and advertisers would pull-out. It just isn’t viable as that sort of “comedy” just isn’t welcome outside of a UKIP conference. I’d go as far as arguing 99% of situations classed as ‘cancel culture’ by whinging right-wingers really boils down to the act being so shit no one wants to pay to see it! Even student unions etc are commercial entities with budgets etc.
 
skito said:
It's utter nonsense to cite this as an example of being 'incredibly racist'. Language has moved on for all of us yes, but Glasgow is certainly not incredibly racist! How an abbreviation of Pakistani to its root word to save on mouthing extra syllables became a racist unacceptable term is another story. The whole Glasgow patois like others was and is full of slang and abbreviated terms and was for the most used in no more racist a manner than an American referring to us as a Brit or us referring to them as a yank. Yes the abbreviated P... has now been made a racist term and we should desist. Why have Brit, Ozzie, Yank escaped the charge of racism I wonder!

Having lived North and South of the border for years and travelled and worked in many cities in the UK I can vouch wholeheartedly that Glasgow is largely one of the most welcoming and least racist cities. Your unfortunate examples do nothing to change that one iota.
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I’m guessing your white & of a certain age?
 
Tony L said:
I think it is more than that in that it is a platform-driven thing. If ITV gave say Jim Davidson a show I bet it would generate far more complaints than likes and advertisers would pull-out. It just isn’t viable as that sort of “comedy” just isn’t welcome outside of a UKIP conference. I’d go as far as arguing 99% of situations classed as ‘cancel culture’ by whinging right-wingers really boils down to the act being so shit no one wants to pay to see it! Even student unions etc are commercial entities with budgets etc.
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I’ve sometimes wondered whether Mark E Smith really found Bernard Manning funny, or just said he did to wind up the self-righteous.
 
Tony L said:
I’ve always hated it to be honest. The corporate career structure thing is just bonkers to my mind. I was a good computer geek, stick me in a screwed up server room and I’d fix it and make it bullet-proof, put in place better and more robust IT strategies etc. I was genuinely good at that stuff. As such in conventional jobs I kept on getting promoted to management roles that included dealing with people, and I bloody hate that! I’m not good at it either as I can be remarkably blunt (I’m far better in print as I can think about things longer). I really do not have the social skills or fundamental ability to care about personnel management, yet I have interviewed and selected hundreds, fired a few, and made many more redundant (which I absolutely hated doing - I often had to choose which people too). It is a key reason I went over to contracting as I could stick to tech/geek roles and better avoid people. It was great not having to care about company politics too. Something really good about just not giving a shit beyond what was in the server room, plus usually being the only one on site who understood it so no one else trying to tell me what to do. It’s all a long time ago now, I last did any paid IT work about 20 years ago unless you count this place. That was an 8 week contract at a really posh London investment bank with the sadly missed Cliff Patterson from our photo room.
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Yep, yep and thrice yep... We're more alike than we'd probably care to admit! I was happiest at a job where I was one of a three man R & D team and eventually wangled my way to having my personal lab where I could shut everyone else out and just design and build and solder and debug etc.
 
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