Author: Walter Koroljow
Date: 03:58:16 11/24/00
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On November 23, 2000 at 11:50:06, Ratko V Tomic wrote: >>This exact same metaphor came up a couple of years ago. It was >>used by Odell Hall, as he explains in a post further down. In >>the course of the discussion that emerged, one poster said that >>he personally objected to the use of the metaphor because it had >>unpleasant associations for him; indeed he had in the past even >>gone as far as to change his name because of problems with his >>step-father. > >So, for example, one should never say anything which implies car accidents, job >loss, or bizillions other things for which someone may have "unpleasant >associations." I have "unpleasant associations" any time I turn on TV news, so >when at it, let's shut them up, too? Having lived in a communist country once, I >also have lots of "unpleasant associations" any time I hear calls for censorship >in here. Why not shut them up, as well? Let me suggest a different model -- by the way, I am strongly anti-censorship myself. I think the issue is not bringing up the unpleasant, but laughing at others' misfortunes. For example, here are things I would not do: 1)Laugh publicly at a cripple who fell down in a funny way. 2)Use the phrase, "He beat me like he owned me" in front of a former slave. On the other hand, the legal principle that says that unusual sensitivity need not be taken into account makes sense to me. That is, you cannot get an injunction to keep your neighbor quiet just because you are unusually sensitive to noise. So I _would_ say to someone with an arm and a leg in a cast, "You roll like a cripple" when he had rolled especially poorly at backgammon (at least if he was winning). The case in point seems marginal. The adjective "red-headed" pretty clearly indicates the speaker's intent to be funny rather than unsympathetic. You could make a decent case that one must be unusually sensitive to be hurt by the phrase. My point is that these are all human issues and unrelated to criticising the state. Cheers, Walter
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