Calling people children for taking offense (Gaming)

by Kermit , Raleigh, NC, Thursday, December 10, 2020, 20:18 (1533 days ago) @ kidtsunami
edited by Kermit, Thursday, December 10, 2020, 20:31

On the other hand, maybe shitty jokes are just shitty jokes and we don’t have to accept “but it’s art!” as a defense.

On the third hand, saying the shitty joke should stay in isn't the same thing as debating whether the joke is shitty. The presence of a shitty joke may be more instructive about and reflective of its time than any high-minded abstractions about the bad old days. Include, if they must, a disclaimer that everyone is forced to watch like they now do with Blazing Saddles, if they think their audience requires it.

I'm not saying that anyone who dislikes the shitty jokes (I would guess I'm in that camp) or is offended by them is wrong. I am saying that sanitizing history to preserve a state of non-offense is a bad trade--one that infantilizes us.

I think that’s a silly way to think, honestly. If changing a couple of jokes to reissue a game can let a modern audience enjoy that game mostly intact without actually making people feel bad, we lose absolutely nothing by doing so. This isn’t sanitizing or erasing history—it’s the opposite. It’s recognizing past mistakes, owning them, and making sure not to make them again.

There are all kinds of ways of owning a mistake. One way, for example, is to leave it, and acknowledge it. I don't think that I or anyone else has a right to not to be offended. Being offended is not as bad as being thought of as a child who can't handle being offended.

Is a bit out there.

I see it similar to getting punched in the face. I've certainly been punched in the face, and in most cases didn't really care, sometimes I did; I think it'd be pretty... I don't know, bad, if someone called me a child because I didn't like getting punched in the face.

I am not calling someone who is offended a child. I would say that having the expectation that whatever offends me must be removed is unrealistic and childish. Moreover, what I’m saying specifically above is that coddling people as if they’re children needing our protection is one of the most disrespectful, damaging, condescending, and offensive behaviors we can engage in—if we’re talking about healthy adults (our current overprotectiveness of children could be its own discussion).

I don’t know if I want to touch your punching analogy. It seems to be related to a popular idea that words are the equivalent to physical violence, which is dangerous BS because it stifles debate and the exchange of ideas and encourages physical violence in “self-defense.”