unixronin: Galen the technomage, from Babylon 5: Crusade (Default)

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posted by [personal profile] unixronin at 12:03am on 01/07/2011
One of the albums is Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew, which is a masterpiece of the jazz fusion movement, a progenitor of hip-hop, and just all around badassitude set to music. However, one female student complained bitterly about the title, claiming it was sexist and contributed to a hostile work environment. This resulted in the entire curricula being redesigned. Think about it: this is perhaps the defining work of the modern jazz fusion movement, and we have to get rid of those MP3s because someone’s offended at the name?
I regard the professionally offended as one of the forces that, if not stopped, will bring down our society. They don't just readily take offense, they are offense kleptomaniacs. They will take any possible offense that isn't bolted down, and if they can tear or pry it loose, then it wasn't really bolted down. I suspect that they define themselves by what they can find to be offended by. The more you are offended by, the better a person you are, in some kind of warped, twisted way.
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posted by [personal profile] robhansen at 01:10am on 01/07/2011

I regard the professionally offended as one of the forces that … will bring down our society.

Preach it, brother. It is also worth noting that this trait is no respecter of gender: I know as many professionally-offended men as women.

However, I think it’s worth considering what would have happened if it had been a man who was complaining about a female instructor who was using Bikini Kill MP3s in class on the grounds that Bikini Kill is a fairly misandristic band. Would the instructor be able to say, “well, maybe, but it’s also one of the foundations of the Riot Grrl music scene and is culturally significant, and really, if you’re objecting over pillars of our culture aren’t you really making a mountain out of a molehill?”

My impression — and that’s all it is — is that the curriculum would not be redesigned as a result of the man’s complaint.

One of the major problems in civil rights reform is, how do we give effective tools to the justifiably offended and truly wronged, while still denying to the professionally-offended the use of those tools? As soon as you have an answer to that question, please let me know: I’ve been looking for an answer for years.

[Edit: corrected a word to ‘misandristic.’ The previous word was … comedically wrong.]

Edited Date: 2011-07-01 01:12 am (UTC)
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