What you can't say

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

Very interesting article about taboos.

(This essay is about heresy: how to think forbidden thoughts, and what to do with them. The latter was till recently something only a small elite had to think about. Now we all have to, because the Web has made us all publishers.)

Have you ever seen an old photo of yourself and been embarrassed at the way you looked? Did we actually dress like that? We did. And we had no idea how silly we looked. It's the nature of fashion to be invisible, in the same way the movement of the earth is invisible to all of us riding on it.

What scares me is that there are moral fashions too. They're just as arbitrary, and just as invisible to most people. But they're much more dangerous. Fashion is mistaken for good design; moral fashion is mistaken for good. Dressing oddly gets you laughed at. Violating moral fashions can get you fired, ostracized, imprisoned, or even killed.

If you could travel back in a time machine, one thing would be true no matter where you went: you'd have to watch what you said. Opinions we consider harmless could have gotten you in big trouble. I've already said at least one thing that would have gotten me in big trouble in most of Europe in the seventeenth century, and did get Galileo in big trouble when he said it-- that the earth moves.

http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html

Be sure to check the notes, too, at http://www.paulgraham.com/saynotes.html

[Gringo]

1. What an appropriate post

for a board where the spectrum of what is allowable expression has narrowed such that I seldom feel the interest to post anymore. feh.

(add one more warning to my tally until they ban me)

[liberalhistorian]

2. I just celebrated my 39th birthday,

and as I look back, even twenty years ago a lot of the things I said and did would be unacceptable nowadays. It not only seems like a different time, but a totally different life in a totally different world. Come to think of it, maybe it was. SIGH.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

3. Found your spider hole already?

:evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin:

[FAndy9]

4. Excellent essay...

though I digress on the author on a couple of points, i belive he is pretty much right on the money. On every forum that this has been posted it's caused an uproar of posts and flames (as first seen on Slashdot). But i belive it is worthy of discussion, especially here.

So, as I put my flame suit on, I invite us all to express our own heretic thoughts here, in a logical manner, and with a level of discourse that will hopefully be higher than what it's been around here lately.

[IkeWarnedUs]

5. speaking of going back in a time machine - George Carlin version

s**t, p*ss, c*n*, f**k, c*cksu**er, motherf**ker and tits

[On the Road]

6. Thanks for Posting

(and I learned a new word, "diff".) It actually captures a lot of things I've thought about over the years and try to practice.

Breaking taboos was one of the big themes of the 60's counterculture, which is one thing that appealed to me about it, even though I was just a little young. Nowadays people tend to have a dismissive view of "hippies", but you cannot imagine the raw hatred and fear inspired by Haight-Ashbury types.

I wish DU were a more tolerant place as well. There's no reason for disagreement to degenerate into flame wars. The board has become unecessarily narrow -- not necessarily from the mods' point of view, but resulting from DU'ers inability to deal with the politically unthinkable.

Even when someone is cordial and reasonable, presenting a dissenting point of view puts a bulls-eye on you here. For example, I thought there was a lot piling on to Bobby Digital over the weekend, just because he confessed some conservative viewpoints and asked if he should be posting here. Not good -- I don't want DU to become another FR.

[Gringo]

7. I've been dogpiled on a few times

and I'd prefer being assailed by those who disagree with me over having this and that type of expression banned (candidate nicknames, etc.) It's so beyond the pale. DU has never struck me as especially uncivil, and nobody is forced to participate in idiotic flame wars. As far as I'm concerned, the only kind of expression that should be banned is clear-as-a-bell freeper disruption and over-the-top/profane personal attacks against posters. Outright lies, libel, racist statements should also be taboo.

When simply referring to a candidate by a nickname (none of them were especially mean) is banned, it's getting a bit ridiculous.