Offensive Speech and Context - And Salad!
Nov. 7th, 2015 12:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stormdogIt's amazing how large a pile of salad you can put together at just 254 calories. I'm still using tasty things from my care package from J; this time it was some fried onions, along with the chow mein noodles. The kitchen scale I ordered has made prep time and cleanup faster too since I don't have to use and wash measuring cups. I've found a yogurt based blue-cheese dressing that's half the calories of typical blue cheese dressing and is *so* tasty. I'm not sure if I can find it at the nearby grocery store, but it looked like they had something equivalent when I was there.
I was thinking of going out for a walk today, but it's raining. Instead, I will be exercising on my bike trainer in the lovely surroundings of my basement laundry room.
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My potentially unpopular opinion of the moment:
From the Washington Post:
Anesthesiologist trashes sedated patient — and it ends up costing her."
I'm uncomfortable about this incident. But I've been in a position where I made rude comments (Or really comments that might be perceived as rude, though not by me if I was the receiver; you know what I mean? These things are subjective.) about other people that they will never hear as a way of fostering camaraderie and staying relaxed in a tense situation. Being in the light and sound booth during a live theatre performance, for instance, where the techies might make jokes about how an actor always misses that cue, or can never seem to find his props. If I was worried that there might, at any time, be a recording device in the booth that would let the rest of the folks involved in the production listen to all the booth chat at their leisure, it would be really unsettling. It's not the kind of environment I would want to work in.
This issue feels very similar to me. The particular things that an anesthesiologist says during surgery might be offensive on their own merit. An anesthesiologist might be a complete asshole. Or zie might have just be saying 'funny' (and thoughtless and unexamined) things to other people to lighten a deeply stressful situation and keep people's head on their jobs rather than worrying about the fact that a little mistake could kill someone.
I don't believe it's possible for any group to communicate in ways that would not give legitimate cause for offense to another group if they heard that communication out of context. That doesn't mean that that communication is *necessarily* wrong or deserves criticism. Sometimes, maybe often even, it does. But not always, and not always publicly for that matter.
Reading the article, some of these things clearly cross the boundaries of acceptable conduct and deserve an official response. In fact, they were really pretty awful and unacceptable and deserve official sanctions. I guess I'm just wondering where the line is. Maybe I crossed a line as a theatre tech too? I'm inclined to think not, but I also think it's possible. Comments that feel good-natured may not always be taken that way.
I guess what I mean to express is not that this behavior should be ok, but that a culture of paranoia that leads to having to police behavior as though you're constantly being recorded is not ok. I don't know exactly how to reconcile those things.
----
I've written with far less than perfect clarity here, partly because I'm still working through this situation in my head. I caused some upset and offense, particularly over on Facebook, and feel bad for having done so.
This situation in particular is definitely a case of reprehensible behavior that should not be ignored. This is vary far from ok. But I can imagine other situations and actions that could be seen as categorically similar but where the question of acceptability is not as clear. I'm not sure how to determine where that line is, and I think it may be impossible to do out of context.
I was thinking of going out for a walk today, but it's raining. Instead, I will be exercising on my bike trainer in the lovely surroundings of my basement laundry room.
---
My potentially unpopular opinion of the moment:
From the Washington Post:
Anesthesiologist trashes sedated patient — and it ends up costing her."
I'm uncomfortable about this incident. But I've been in a position where I made rude comments (Or really comments that might be perceived as rude, though not by me if I was the receiver; you know what I mean? These things are subjective.) about other people that they will never hear as a way of fostering camaraderie and staying relaxed in a tense situation. Being in the light and sound booth during a live theatre performance, for instance, where the techies might make jokes about how an actor always misses that cue, or can never seem to find his props. If I was worried that there might, at any time, be a recording device in the booth that would let the rest of the folks involved in the production listen to all the booth chat at their leisure, it would be really unsettling. It's not the kind of environment I would want to work in.
This issue feels very similar to me. The particular things that an anesthesiologist says during surgery might be offensive on their own merit. An anesthesiologist might be a complete asshole. Or zie might have just be saying 'funny' (and thoughtless and unexamined) things to other people to lighten a deeply stressful situation and keep people's head on their jobs rather than worrying about the fact that a little mistake could kill someone.
I don't believe it's possible for any group to communicate in ways that would not give legitimate cause for offense to another group if they heard that communication out of context. That doesn't mean that that communication is *necessarily* wrong or deserves criticism. Sometimes, maybe often even, it does. But not always, and not always publicly for that matter.
Reading the article, some of these things clearly cross the boundaries of acceptable conduct and deserve an official response. In fact, they were really pretty awful and unacceptable and deserve official sanctions. I guess I'm just wondering where the line is. Maybe I crossed a line as a theatre tech too? I'm inclined to think not, but I also think it's possible. Comments that feel good-natured may not always be taken that way.
I guess what I mean to express is not that this behavior should be ok, but that a culture of paranoia that leads to having to police behavior as though you're constantly being recorded is not ok. I don't know exactly how to reconcile those things.
----
I've written with far less than perfect clarity here, partly because I'm still working through this situation in my head. I caused some upset and offense, particularly over on Facebook, and feel bad for having done so.
This situation in particular is definitely a case of reprehensible behavior that should not be ignored. This is vary far from ok. But I can imagine other situations and actions that could be seen as categorically similar but where the question of acceptability is not as clear. I'm not sure how to determine where that line is, and I think it may be impossible to do out of context.
