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by scubbo 2172 days ago
(disclaimer - I haven't watched the video, because a. it's a video, come on, and b. John Cleese's attitudes are already well-known to me from many other sources, interviews, etc.)

> If people can't control their own emotions, then they have to start trying to control other people's behaviour.

Yes, this statement is exactly true - but not in the way that John, and you, seem to think.

One interpretation - yours, if I may be forgiven for assuming - is "PC-culture only exists because people do not have a thick-enough skin to simply regulate their own emotional well-being. If they would only toughen up, then there would be no need for all this nonsense - we could finally express ourselves freely once again".

The alternative interpretation - and one that I really hope you can find your way to understanding - is "some people are subjected to so much pain, aggression, discrimination, and hatred - or, some other people witness so much of that pain in others - that, no matter how hard they try, they simply cannot suppress their responses to it - nor should they. Rather, they speak up about the injustices they see, and try to change them."

The classic anti-PC attitude of "toughen up and stop complaining" is so monumentally selfish and short-sighted that it feels like parody. If someone is stepping on your foot, the appropriate response is not to "control your response" - it's to ask them to stop stepping on your foot. If their response is "I'm not" - then you either need to educate them that they are, in fact, doing so (and you would know better than them), or take the initiative to physically prevent them from continuing to do so.

3 comments

I think there is probably a balance somewhere in between. Surely you can also agree that there are people at large currently yelling at people that they only imagine are standing on their foot. And the tone of response is important: see my previous comment about tact and manners. If everyone escalates the issue at the first opportunity, things get scary fast.
Precsisely. What has changed about the Internet in the past several decades is a huge chunk of humanity is on it, and what has changed about humanity in the past several decades is the Internet exposes them---bidirectionally and with fewer authority-figures as filters---to portions of the world they could not previously easily see.

The pressures to living in that new ecosystem are enormous.

The fix is not to demand everybody to trash their boots.