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"A stalking ground for the sanctimoniously self-righteous" - clearly Mr Fry doesn't spend a lot of time looking in the mirror!

by alvah 9y ago

Avshalom 9y ago
As eevee put it https://eev.ee/blog/2016/02/15/everyones-offended-these-days/ https://eev.ee/blog/2016/02/15/everyones-offended-these-days... : >I love Stephen Fry, really I do, but this oft-repeated quote is bullshit and he is perfectly demonstrating why that is. What he’s really saying is this: everyone else’s feelings don’t matter, but his do, because he frames them as universal rules of discourse rather than feelings. >Look at his post again — that’s exactly how he words his point of view. “Too many people have peed in the pool.” “Now the pool is stagnant, …frothy with scum.” Fry’s feelings aren’t feelings — they are a universal and objective standard of behavior, which everyone else is violating. All those angry people, yelling that Fry has violated a universal and objective standard of behavior? Ah, they’re just perpetually offended, you see. Totally different.
- coldtea 9y ago
  There at least an order of magnitude more crap and less eloquence and content in the kind of comments Fry complains about than in the stuff he writes. The author has seen the average Twitter/Reddit/forum comments, I presume. Do they look anything like what Fry (or any talented writer for that matter) posts? So, yeah, Fry is right, what he complains is people actually breaking "universal rules of discourse".
  - obstinate 9y ago
    One can be a quite talented writer and still have regressive views. These two properties are orthogonal. Not saying Fry is regressive -- I honestly don't know his views -- just saying that the "rules of discourse" are not about how well you write, aesthetically.
  - alvah 9y ago
    Indeed I have, and I agree with this part of the point. However, for Stephen Fry to call out self-righteousness in others....pot, meet kettle!
  - watwut 9y ago
    IMO, the issue is not that they are not eloquent and not written by talented writer. Talented writer who just decided to be "nasty" is not all that much different in results. The issue is large group of people who decided to make your life on the service as miserable as possible. Whether they are talented writers or not, insults, spread lies, harassment and vivisected animals are the same. Talented writers are good at making people hate you. They excel at stating that you are just offended snowflake or whatever after they misrepresented what you said and intentionally made the the dogpile bigger.
  - Ferofluid 9y ago
    Give me a break, since when does sophistication count for anything? The most sophisticated /b/tard in existence could write a magnum opus about how he dominates you in every conceivable way, it still wouldn't count for anything based on the verbiage alone.
- ourmandave 9y ago
  Eevee also says: >I’m also not saying that what happened to Stephen Fry is okay. I’ve grumbled before about the dogpile effect on Twitter, and now I’m going to do it again. >Fry told a joke — outside of Twitter, even. Some people found it tasteless, and told him as much. Multiply by tens, hundreds, maybe thousands. No single person would think they’re doing anything outlandish, but in aggregate, they become a massive impromptu mob. >This is a glaring problem with Twitter, and a worse problem with Tumblr. And there aren’t many tools for dealing with it. You have only a handful of options here, and they all boil down to: slog through it or retreat entirely.
- sebastos 9y ago
  Right, everything is just feelings anyway, it's all just relative. Can't we all agree that nobody can know anything because we all have a different point of view? Who's to say my offense is worth less than yours?? Sometimes I wish these relativists would all just go live on an island somewhere together, endlessly policing themselves until they start to "get" what is so intellectually bankrupt about their whole paradigm.
  - skrebbel 9y ago
    You clearly didn't even read Eevee's post, yet you suggest he "just go live on an island". Way to go!
    - sebastos 9y ago
      You can tell that from all the way over there, eh? Anyway, what would it matter if I hadn't? (I have.) The pull quotes from the parent and the content of the grandparent reflect the attitude I'm criticizing perfectly, even if one of them pulled quotes out of context to support it. The attitude is that polite discourse is so nebulous and loose weave that Stephen Fry has no right to categorically state that his detractors are infringing upon common decency. After all, who's to say that his offense is worth any more than theirs? Well, I will say that. His offense is worth more than theirs. It is possible to say objective things about the way that people are arguing. As an aside, I didn't suggest anybody go live on an island. That's a deliberately uncharitable reading on your part, I'd say. I'm using that phrase as a rhetorical device to express an idea. The idea is: I wish they could live in the world they're trying to create for a few days so they could live out, in real life, everything that is wrong with their picture of How Things Should Work. My point is that I don't think society could function very well if everybody was paralyzed by an infinite relativistic regress of social concern that "my polite" may not be "your polite". Nobody is literally being told to go live on an island to fuck off, as you seem to be suggesting.

"A stalking ground for the sanctimoniously self-righteous" - clearly Mr Fry doesn't spend a lot of time looking in the mirror!

by alvah 9y ago

"A stalking ground for the sanctimoniously self-righteous" - clearly Mr Fry doesn't spend a lot of time looking in the mirror!

Avshalom 9y ago

As eevee put it https://eev.ee/blog/2016/02/15/everyones-offended-these-days/ https://eev.ee/blog/2016/02/15/everyones-offended-these-days... : >I love Stephen Fry, really I do, but this oft-repeated quote is bullshit and he is perfectly demonstrating why that is. What he’s really saying is this: everyone else’s feelings don’t matter, but his do, because he frames them as universal rules of discourse rather than feelings. >Look at his post again — that’s exactly how he words his point of view. “Too many people have peed in the pool.” “Now the pool is stagnant, …frothy with scum.” Fry’s feelings aren’t feelings — they are a universal and objective standard of behavior, which everyone else is violating. All those angry people, yelling that Fry has violated a universal and objective standard of behavior? Ah, they’re just perpetually offended, you see. Totally different.

coldtea 9y ago
There at least an order of magnitude more crap and less eloquence and content in the kind of comments Fry complains about than in the stuff he writes. The author has seen the average Twitter/Reddit/forum comments, I presume. Do they look anything like what Fry (or any talented writer for that matter) posts? So, yeah, Fry is right, what he complains is people actually breaking "universal rules of discourse".
- obstinate 9y ago
  One can be a quite talented writer and still have regressive views. These two properties are orthogonal. Not saying Fry is regressive -- I honestly don't know his views -- just saying that the "rules of discourse" are not about how well you write, aesthetically.
- alvah 9y ago
  Indeed I have, and I agree with this part of the point. However, for Stephen Fry to call out self-righteousness in others....pot, meet kettle!
- watwut 9y ago
  IMO, the issue is not that they are not eloquent and not written by talented writer. Talented writer who just decided to be "nasty" is not all that much different in results. The issue is large group of people who decided to make your life on the service as miserable as possible. Whether they are talented writers or not, insults, spread lies, harassment and vivisected animals are the same. Talented writers are good at making people hate you. They excel at stating that you are just offended snowflake or whatever after they misrepresented what you said and intentionally made the the dogpile bigger.
- Ferofluid 9y ago
  Give me a break, since when does sophistication count for anything? The most sophisticated /b/tard in existence could write a magnum opus about how he dominates you in every conceivable way, it still wouldn't count for anything based on the verbiage alone.
ourmandave 9y ago
Eevee also says: >I’m also not saying that what happened to Stephen Fry is okay. I’ve grumbled before about the dogpile effect on Twitter, and now I’m going to do it again. >Fry told a joke — outside of Twitter, even. Some people found it tasteless, and told him as much. Multiply by tens, hundreds, maybe thousands. No single person would think they’re doing anything outlandish, but in aggregate, they become a massive impromptu mob. >This is a glaring problem with Twitter, and a worse problem with Tumblr. And there aren’t many tools for dealing with it. You have only a handful of options here, and they all boil down to: slog through it or retreat entirely.
sebastos 9y ago
Right, everything is just feelings anyway, it's all just relative. Can't we all agree that nobody can know anything because we all have a different point of view? Who's to say my offense is worth less than yours?? Sometimes I wish these relativists would all just go live on an island somewhere together, endlessly policing themselves until they start to "get" what is so intellectually bankrupt about their whole paradigm.
- skrebbel 9y ago
  You clearly didn't even read Eevee's post, yet you suggest he "just go live on an island". Way to go!
  - sebastos 9y ago
    You can tell that from all the way over there, eh? Anyway, what would it matter if I hadn't? (I have.) The pull quotes from the parent and the content of the grandparent reflect the attitude I'm criticizing perfectly, even if one of them pulled quotes out of context to support it. The attitude is that polite discourse is so nebulous and loose weave that Stephen Fry has no right to categorically state that his detractors are infringing upon common decency. After all, who's to say that his offense is worth any more than theirs? Well, I will say that. His offense is worth more than theirs. It is possible to say objective things about the way that people are arguing. As an aside, I didn't suggest anybody go live on an island. That's a deliberately uncharitable reading on your part, I'd say. I'm using that phrase as a rhetorical device to express an idea. The idea is: I wish they could live in the world they're trying to create for a few days so they could live out, in real life, everything that is wrong with their picture of How Things Should Work. My point is that I don't think society could function very well if everybody was paralyzed by an infinite relativistic regress of social concern that "my polite" may not be "your polite". Nobody is literally being told to go live on an island to fuck off, as you seem to be suggesting.