[creep]

That all depends on the majority social opinion of what defines a slur.

The problem arising at the moment is aggression. Social opinions are being divided from every angle, almost systematically, categorizing and sorting the world's thoughts, behaviors, and opinions. And we can think of these categories as tribes, and we see a sort of competition. Since each person belonging to a subset necessarily feels a connection to their category, they seek validation. Since these categories are highly specific there will inevitably be conflict between them, differences in definition, and the seeking of validation paired with such differences will arise in aggression when confronted with another "tribe".

This is not about social courtesy at all. It is a sort of social warfare that would not exist if it weren't for the very specific divisions.

A group of 100 people can get along just fine with a certain mindset-- that is, each person sees everyone else as individuals, unique and variable. To keep the peace in such a situation, each person must understand they do not hold the truth for anybody but themselves, and they also must be willing to listen to others when they speak. But a group of 10 philosophers from differing schools of thought will likely be in for many heated arguments. Our social atmosphere at this period of time is like the latter case, and there is no agreement or moderation to be had. Each "school of thought" has its axioms, which cannot be violated if one is an adherent.

[camgunz]

I think this is fundamentally wrong. I think we haven't placed enough emphasis on understanding other people, histories, experiences, and cultures, and at this point in our history we're being forced to confront that fact. For example, when women say, "hey we're sexually harassed basically all the time", or when Black people say, "hey racism is insidiously intertwined in our culture", and we ignore them, we're failing to respect their experiences.

This isn't warfare at all. It's just hard for us to understand an experience that's so different from our own. I had a girlfriend once who used to walk to work and she'd get catcalled basically every time she did it. She told me about this and at first I didn't believe her because it was so outside my experience. No one catcalls me! And no one catcalled her when we were together.

People just want to be respected. They want to be believed. They aren't waging class warfare or social warfare. They basically just don't want to catch shit all the time.

We'll (probably?) get past this. We just have to work a lot harder at listening and respecting other people.

[creep]

Everyone deserves respect. But not everyone can be accommodated in speech. As a woman, I understand the cat-calling issue. It's annoying, and is often disrespectful and uncomfortable. I do often feel unsafe. However, I do not vilify men, and I do not try to pose this issue as a "man's problem". This, for me, is not a men vs women issue, it is cultural and often personal and individual. Some women like being catcalled, most men do not catcall. So, I deal with it on a personal level with my peers.

I specify these points because I do see an "us vs them" mentality in our current social atmosphere, and this is why my comment above illustrated competitive groups.

However, going back to my anecdote above, safety is important in society and we should all work towards allowing others to feel safe. However, when it comes to speech everything goes gray. So, necessarily, some people wish to sort it and make speech black and white. But it's not so. If a man yelled to me on the street, "Hey, beautiful!" I don't feel unsafe, but I will ignore it because I'm not interested and the dude will probably get the hint. If a man comes up close to me at night and says, "hey, you're sexy, where you going?" that man has something else going on and he probably can't be fixed by society screaming at him that he sucks for being a man. But then there's the in-between-- broad daylight, walking down the street, bro yells, "Nice ass kiddo what's your name, where you going?" I'll probably feel uncomfortable (the statement is too sexual and probing), maybe I'll go to the other side of the street. BUT I'm not going to insist that men stop vocally noticing attractive women! Societies always have a sexual component, people will always express sexuality. So it's case by case.

[CoongLiu]

I find your concluding statements intriguing, and suspect I'm missing part of your point.

From my interpretation, your initial thesis is that speech should, for valid reasons, be curtailed so as to spare certain groups the very real trouble of dealing with, say, racism. Seems reasonable - my main disagreement would be that such a protection would be better applied universally (apologies if I have misunderstood, and you do too).

In your closing statement, you highlight that people just want to be respected and believed. I think most people would agree that's fairly accurate.

Unfortunately, the second point often intersects the first. In that often people will seek to silence others, usually with honest intentions. This part, the idea of good intentions, is where the wheels come off. By way of analogy, look at something like religion. How many arguments and wars, personal and multinational, have, if nothing else, used differing opinions to promulgate hate?

It feels almost impossible, in my eyes, to bridge that gap. One persons well meaning censorship, is another persons disrespect.

I likely have a coloured view of this, based on a few sour personal experiences, which I've seen mimicked elsewhere. For one example, I've been abruptly and sharply belittled for offering my thoughts on the impact of rape. I was told that I shouldn't comment, and it's not something that relates to me. I actually took it quietly at the time, but later, quietly, shares with the person that I have, in fact, been a victim of rape. Twice (over twenty years apart).

If we are talking about being believed and respected, I felt anything but. But simply because I didn't fit the stereotype, I was belittled and shamed. It was effectively discrimination, but noone found issue with it, because it was perpetrated by an acceptable person.

I guess the point I'm getting at is that it would be great if people could just not he assholes (sorry for the language) and forego the need for censorship at the same time. But reality, at least for me, seems to be the ideas are mutually exclusive to some extent