Food for thought

Brick wrote:

OB1Shinobi wrote: when i was a kid one of the earliest lessons my mother attempted to teach me was that people words actually DONT have power over my life

in fact this is one of the most basic childhood lessons that there is, like not talking to strangers and looking both ways before crossing the road

'sticks and stones may break my bones but words shall never hurt me', right?

yes

and while its basically become a trite little platitude that people regurgitate without a care or clue in their heads, it is meant to encapsulate a lesson about socialization that we cannot effectively function without learning; arsholes exist! we are all going to have to deal with people who will judge, and misjudge, and even ridicule us

not only are there people in the world who are going to be impolite, but there are people who will deliberately hurt you in all kinds of ways, including verbal insult (matter of fact, verbal insult is actually the least damaging of the hurt that some people are looking to inflict)

exactly what methods you use to handle that will depend on a range of different factors specific to your own being and the details of the event, but the gist is that youre not always going to have everyone's approval or affection and you cannot let that experience break you

thats what i meant when i said that my mother attempted to teach me that peoples words dont have power over me

[quote="OB1Shinobi" post=277316...i see a huge difference between what we should consider the general standards of good taste, vs what we should demand as the official, legal limits of freedom of speech

its one thing not to go to a comedy show if you are offended by the jokes and another thing altogether to have the comedian arrested [/quote]

This is a very important distinction and I am glad that you are making it. I completely agree.

I tend to be more "PC" than most of my friends and family. By that I mean that the list of words that I avoid using, especially in public, is a bit longer than theirs.

It's honestly just out of a desire to not be openly rude to people, especially people I don't know.

Let's use an example. I never understood the concept behind using the term "that's gay" to describe something that you don't like or think is stupid. Seriously? Why equate gay with bad or stupid? I never use it, but it's not like it's hard for me to "censor" that out of my use of language.

I really like this quote from JamesSands earlier in the discussion.

JamesSands wrote: If you can't express ideas or intent for fear of offending someone - then yea, the system has more or less failed.

On other hand - don't be a dick* for laughs.

I have always said that there's nothing wrong with going out of your way to not be a ass to people. Quite frankly I believe that if a person were to be an ass to another person then they would have to go out of their way to do so, not go out of their way to not do so. But that's just me.