IT’S TIME TO PLAY THE OUTRAGE GAME
In our current outrage era, it is impossible to conceive of any statement, any statement at all, that is completely incapable of causing offence. You can test this at home in a fun game with your children.
In our current outrage era, it is impossible to conceive of any statement, any statement at all, that is completely incapable of causing offence. You can test this at home in a fun game with your children.
Just come up with the blandest possible comments and invite your kids to express furious rejection.
You: “Let’s all enjoy some delicious ice cream.”
Kid: “Thanks for the type 2 diabetes, fascist.”
You: “It’s a nice day for a drive.”
Kid: “There won’t be any ‘nice days’ if we keep burning fossil fuels.”
You: “Kittens are cute.”
Kid: “You wouldn’t say that if you were endangered native fauna being hunted to extinction by feral cats.”
You: “I like the theme song from that old TV show Cheers.”
Kid: “Oh my GOD! That song LITERALLY celebrates a Nazi white supremacist monoculture where ‘the people are all the same’. HATE CRIME! HATE CRIME!”
Very young children might not be much good at this, but don’t worry. They’ll be blitzing it by the time they’re at university.
In fact, they will likely be proficient at the game’s more advanced level, where outrage depends not just on content but on the speaker’s identity.
To demonstrate how this works, consider the response from ABC Media Watch executive producer Peter McEvoy in 2004 when Fairfax leftist Margo Kingston used the phrase “nigger in the woodpile” during an on-air chat with Radio National’s Phillip Adams.
“It's not a racist slur,” leftist McEvoy declared, explaining why his tax-funded show declined to mention the incident.
“Media Watch is a program about the media and journalism that promotes a number of principles, including free speech.
“The phrase ‘nigger in the woodpile’ is a colloquialism, which means a hidden or unacknowledged problem. Some people may feel it's in bad taste, but we wouldn't pick up someone for using the term in context.”
God only knows what that “context” might be, but just three years later Media Watch slammed Alan Jones for using exactly the same phrase.
In his case, the conservative 2GB presenter didn’t receive a supportive “free speech” defence.
Instead, Media Watch said Jones was “testing the boundaries of acceptable community standards.”
Given how Media Watch has pursued Jones lately over his socky Jacinda Ardern comments, free speech is evidently no longer among the principles promoted by the program.
After exposing last week the terrifying fact that Jones called for PM Scott Morrison to deal out some political “backhanders” to his NZ counterpart, Media Watch host Paul Barry spent the rest of the week gloating on Twitter about all the businesses withdrawing their Jones advertising.
There’s something sick about a senior representative of an organisation with a guaranteed $1 billion in annual taxpayer cash cheering a hysteria-driven revenue reduction for the free press.
It is not as though anyone can do the same to the ABC.
No advertising means no market-based means of maintaining “acceptable community standards”.
Barry is a bully behind a bunker. Who the hell is prissy, purse-lipped, politically correct Pommy Paul to appoint himself our national politeness enforcer anyway?
As last week dragged on, Barry broadened his scolding to include a fig-leaf Twitter swipe against the ABC’s Adams, who’d referenced Peter Weir’s Picnic at Hanging Rock in a post about Pauline Hanson.
“Now that she’s climbed Uluru,” Adams wrote, “might I suggest Hanson climb Hanging Rock? And like Miranda disappear?”
Adams, who I’m aware is sometimes dismayed by the crushing humourlessness of his leftist comrades, was talking about a fictional character who vanished in fictional circumstances in a film made more than 40 frickin’ years ago.
But even this was too much for Media Watch’s manners man. “Seriously, Phillip?” Barry responded. “Not as bad as Alan Jones but all the same.”
Barry might qualify to represent Australia in the US, where the outrage game is played at Test level. A recent exchange during the Democratic Socialists of America conference showcased two outrage superstars at the very apex of their performative powers.
“Uh, quick point of personal privilege, um guys, I just want to say, can we please keep the chatter to the minimum?” audience member James Jackson requested, as seen in viral video.
“I’m one of the people who’s very, very prone to sensory overload,” Jackson continued.
“There’s a lot of whispering and chattering going on. It’s making it very difficult for me to focus.”
The conference chaircommie seemed happy enough to go along with this, but a man in a pink dress then denounced Jackson for using the word “guys”.
“Point of personal privilege! Point of personal privilege!” the angry attendee yelled. “Please do not use gendered language to address everyone!”
He/she/ze wins.
In the wake of that sensational sensitivity clash and other language controversies, Fox News host Tucker Carlson last week addressed speech suppression and why it matters even to people who aren’t dumb socialists.
“When we give up these battles over words, we give up autonomy,” Carlson said.
“If someone else can tell you what words you can use, that person is in charge of your mind. I've never understood why we allow that to happen.”
We shouldn’t allow it to happen. Language police can take their socks and shove ’em.
UPDATE. Coles caves:
Pathetic. @Coles gives in to the totalitarian bullies who want to silence mainstream conservatives. A good corporate citizen would ignore the online lynch mob & would instead stands up for free speech. https://t.co/c066J0jEJ3
— Rita Panahi (@RitaPanahi) August 29, 2019