Ask them to name the things they can’t say anymore, ask them to list each one.
Don’t allow these bullshit euphemisms.

Make them say the things they “can’t” say.

They things they still say, in certain company.
No one who complains that they “can’t say ... things ... anymore” is prevented from saying anything.

What they mean is, now, if they say those things, they are perceived as the kind of people who say those things.

What they object to is simply personal accountability.
The real objection isn’t that there are suddenly so many things they can’t say.

The real objection is there are suddenly so many things that other people CAN say.

Things like, “what do you mean by that?” and “here’s why those words demean and hurt me.”
“There are things we can’t say anymore” is a phrase intended the skirt accountability.

Poll the exact things. Ask those questions.

“What things?”

Let’s see the demographics of Americans mad they can’t say n***** any more. Or f**.

And a hush fills the punditry.
Harder to write those “New Poll Offers Warning to Democrats About Identity Politics” pieces now, I bet.
The fact that polling doesn’t ask those specific questions, but it does employ accountability-evading terms like “political correctness” tells you a lot about the poll’s complicity in the dodge.

As do the articles analyzing the poll.
Why do we only see “Poll Offers Stark Warning to Democrats for Identity Politics in 2020” and not “Poll Shows White People Still Love Slurs?”

Both require the same amount of analysis. Both bring a worldview to data.

Thus can you detect the worldview of seemingly neutral parties
What happens then is that the person who made the hurtful comment misses yet another chance to learn and grow, and remains the less thoughtful person they’ve now chosen to be.

And proves the lie of the phrase “there are things you can’t say anymore.”
Telling someone “that hurts and demeans me” isn’t forcing them to do anything.

Nor does it represent intolerance—a badly misunderstood concept.

You’re asking the right questions, but you’re not seeking the answers.
"There really is no other way to see it" is a very intolerant expression, by your definition of intolerance.

But that's not intolerance.
Luckily, I've written plenty on tolerance, so here you go.
This doesn’t describe censorship, it describes criticism.

You’re free to make “you’re overreacting” your instinctive reaction to hurting or demeaning someone, but you’ll probably be criticized both for what you said and your indifference.

This is grade-school stuff.
There are hundreds of specials produced annually. Chappelle had four alone. Almost every mid-sized city has a club. There are thousands of podcasts. You can admit to a long history of assaulting women and still get booked.

Other than that, good point.

There’s always been the guy who thinks he’s funny and complains the reason people aren’t laughing is because everyone so sensitive. It’s not new.
This fundamentally misunderstands comedy:

• shock comedy and clean exist on a spectrum requiring skill/empathy at all points
• even “shock comics” want to please their audience
• the cringiest cheapest most pandering comedy around is bad shock comedy
Someone in my mentions straight up said that he no longer felt he could say “niggardly” or “sniggering,” the British variant on the word “snickering,” or the traditional use of “gay” meaning “happy.”

Very tough times i guess if you are President James K Polk or something.
The answers to this thread are just so endlessly self-exposing.

Would-be edgelords: the reason you have faced so little criticism in the past is because so many people justifiably fear for their physical safety when they commit the crime of speaking their minds.

You’re not being silenced.

And now, finally, neither are they.
1) Just from your comments, no I bet they totally wouldn’t be wrong.

2) Their reaction to your opinion is also an opinion. Maybe listen to it instead of dismissing it.

3) That opinion, right or wrong, isn’t silencing you.
The age of immunity from criticism for white boys is over.

This means more people are free to speak, not fewer.

That’s good.

Now us white boys can be as tough as everyone else has had to be forever.
When it comes to points of view that are best met with intolerance, I hope I will always be found intolerant.

All people deserve tolerance. Not all ideas.
I absolutely do tolerate conservatives. Though I must say, frequently conservatives do not understand what tolerance is, and as a result think I am being intolerant of them.

if you read what I’ve written, I have explained it pretty thoroughly.
I believe conservatives have the right to live with equal standing dignity & opportunity under the law, w/basic human needs met regardless of financial viability

That is tolerance

Uncritically accepting their opinions and actions that would withhold the same from others, isn’t
Every response I’ve gotten from people describing what they “can’t” say, without fail, actually just describes an aversion to criticism, and conflates their own intransigence—to consider the other person’s perspective, apologize, or change—with censorship.
Black people have had to walk on eggshells. Gay people. Trans people. Women. They have had to be careful what they said.

There is language designed—sometimes aggressively, usually subtlety—to tell them they don’t belong and should fear for their safety.

That is true silencing.
I think there is a dominant cultural narrative says you can believe anything you want about people, support any kind of policy to enforce against them, and you’re still above reproach, as long as you’re superficially nice.

And this superficial civility is seen as tolerance.
If you’re committed to such a dominant cultural narrative, then criticism is to be greatly feared.

But if you assume you are not above reproach, then reproach holds no terror. You have free yourself from criticism’s fearfulness.

in other words: if you bump someone, apologize.
Just apologize. Apologize and adjust.

And if your very identity involves bumping people and never apologizing, you might want to look into that.

What other, greater harms might you have interwoven into your identity?
Don’t fear *being* wrong.

Fear *staying* wrong.

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More from @JuliusGoat

Feb 21
Gay kids will die because of this, which is the desired purpose of the bill.
To those who scold that we mustn’t assume evil intentions into the actions of people who consistently pursue absolute evil with steadfast dedication and unshakable resolve: yes, we should.
I guess the ultimate answer to "you don't know what their true motivations are" is "who gives a shit what their motivations are?"

I care *that* you want to burn down my house. I only care *why* you want to burn down my house to the extent it helps me stop you.
Read 18 tweets
Feb 20
Father: *strangles my brother*
Me: help help my father is murdering my brother
Centrist Cousin: it’s that sort of us vs them thinking that’s tearing this family apart
Me: no look literally he’s murdering my brother right in front of us

Centrist Cousin: he’s never going to want to stop if you keep vilifying him with overheated black and white language; I’ve engaged many stranglers and learned a lot about the complexities

Brother: gkkk gkk gk
Me: Look he’s about to die, for real; I really think we just need to stop my dad from killing him right now

Centrist Cousin: that’s exactly the sort of judgemental escalating bad thinking on our side that we need to criticize, I refuse to let myself become just as bad as he is
Read 4 tweets
Feb 19
If you want to live in a modern enlightened society and you vote for Republicans, no you don't.
To be clear, that's any Republicans at any level for any position at any time, and honestly we may want to expand that to include Democrats willing to work with Republicans.

Shut the whole party down, out, and over.
If you want to live in a modern enlightened society and you vote for Republicans, no you don't.
Read 4 tweets
Feb 14
As a Wordle pro on the tour, I feel I should share the best starting word, which all the pros know. The word is XYLYL.
(My own personal favorite starting word is COCCYX, but if I show amateurs how to guess 6-letter words I will be banned from the Wordle Pro Tour and forced to sit next to Bret Stephens in the NYT cafeteria.)
Wordle is a game of constantly shifting strategy; I recommend you get the latest version of my strategy compendium, v14.
Read 6 tweets
Feb 13
I want to propose a different way of thinking about conservatism and progressivism.

I suggest we think about the two positions not as detectable ideologies themselves, but as situational orientations around an existing order.

getrevue.co/profile/julius…
Specifically with this order. The one that exists. This reality. The way our systems and laws are set up, the way they’re codified and the way they’re operationalized. What they claim to intend to do, and what they actually do.

“The way things are,” in other words.
Let’s think of conservatism as being, in its essence, an orientation that desires to keep the existing order just as it is, or to make slow and deliberate calculated minor adjustments, to the existing order.
Read 29 tweets
Feb 8
In BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S, Mickey Rooney played I. Y. Yunioshi, dressed up in buck teeth and a cartoon squint, a grotesque caricature of a Japanese person.

So I suppose in that sense “you wouldn’t be able” to make BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S today.

Which seems somehow preferable.
Now: what interests me is what it means to say *you can’t* make BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S these days.

It doesn’t mean you CAN’T. Unlike teaching, say,The Bluest Eye to Texas schoolchildren, there exist no laws to prevent Will Ferrell from putting in the teeth and playing Yunioshi.
So actually you *can* make BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S today, I.Y. Yunioshi and all, and throw in Long Duc Dong if you want.

You can if you want wear blackface and dance around in white gloves, like Fred Astaire in SWING TIME, if you want to.

If you want to.
Read 20 tweets

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