Today I had to face political correctness and censorship. Well, not exactly, but to me it was like it were, it’s fall into the same category. As it’s a theme I planned to discuss some day, I find this to be the perfect opportunity to do so.

Tonight, a friend of mine calls me, we catch up, give each other the latest news in our exciting lives, then she comes to tell me she had an argument with one of her close relations who posted on his blog, without her consent, a video of their vacations in a foreign country. She was outraged, talked about publicity and privacy right, about a total lack of respect, lack of common sense and poor education. [EDIT: I don’t question these principles in general, I just find excessive the fact she put them forward in this specific case.] I couldn’t comfort her, because on that issue, I didn’t understand, I would have done the exact same thing as my friend did, i.e. post without asking for her consent.

I don’t understand, because I consider that this video isn’t degrading in anyway (except the fact that she spends the first 5 minutes of the video blowing her nose, which I found somewhat amusing), and it doesn’t show her in an embarrassing or potentially humiliating situation; besides, most of the people who read this blog are close relations of hers and my mate, and to be interested in watching a 20 minute holiday video, you have to be a close relation of people appearing in the video! :)

So she was even more irritated after talking to me, because we were 2 against her. She even said, “apparently it’s a guy thing, so we won’t understand each other”. I don’t know whether not seeing where the problem is in posting a video of ordinary holidays without the consent of the people in it was a reaction typical of a man, but neither the blogger or I understand why we should have asked for her permission.

She asked me how I would have reacted if I were in her shoes. I answered I still wouldn’t see any problem. After our discussion, I remembered that one of my closest friends posted on her blog pictures she got from me or from my flatmate’s blog about my stay in Australia. Without asking for my consent. I actually thought it was nice, it even really touched me. A kind of tribute to me, in a way!

She talked about “one man’s freedom ends where another’s nose begins” and about respect, but to me this kind of reaction quickly leads to political correctness and censorship. From here on, I’m going to generalise my analysis. We don't all locate respect at the same level, as my little story proves. My mate and I, we don’t locate it at the same level as my friend does. So if no one assesses the same way the distance between one man’s freedom and another’s, then we can’t do or say anything anymore, by fear of violating the other’s freedom. Kind of like: “Well, I thought your freedom started 10 meters from the apple tree, but you counted from the hedge, that’s why I went too far, but how could I know that for you the hedge, not the apple tree, is where the limit starts???? At some point we’ll have to agree on a fixed limit, otherwise, we'll keep misunderstanding each other and making blunders.”

I don’t question at all the fact she is embarrassed (for some reasons I don’t get, but as long as these reasons seem legitimate to her, that’s the only thing that matters) that her image can be seen, even on a limited audience blog, that she dislikes the fact he didn’t ask for her permission, and that she wants the video to be removed (it has been removed, but I don’t know if my mate did it on his own initiative or if she asked him to). And this is out of respect for her that I’ve censored myself and decided not to make a more accurate account of this anecdote by giving her name, the name of my mate and the name of the location where they spent their holidays (for that matters, it’s not Sarko, Carla and Egypt).

According to me, it’s typical of a broader problem, the one I wanted to discuss for some time: we can’t do or say anything anymore in our so-called democratic society, supposedly open, by fear of upsetting someone.

In my opinion, the problem is that it’s a vicious circle.

There’s clearly nothing wrong in not wanting to hurt people, especially your close relations. But if we keep being afraid of people’s reactions, it increases their level of sensitivity in such a way that it becomes impossible to tell them anything, to make the most trivial remark without seeing them getting mad, being upset, feeling we are aggressive towards them, feeling their whole self questioned, feeling betrayed, or fuck knows what. Nowadays, no one is able to bear criticism anymore. I know it, I’ve been that way long enough, the smallest criticism and I started questioning myself entirely, which was unbearable, of course.

I consider that if we tell someone: you made a mistake, you shouldn’t do that, I find your behaviour completely selfish, I thing it shows you’ve been poorly raised, etc., these remarks shouldn't lead to the questioning of the whole person, just of the part criticised, in the given situation.

In my little anecdote, my friend told me it showed a poor education. Should I have insulted her because she questioned the way my parents raised me? And Should I have believed at the same time, that they messed up my whole education, since they messed up this particular point, and so that I’m actually a complete asshole, and so that she, in fact, called me an asshole? How could a friend call me an asshole and my parents incompetent?

As far as the way my parents raised me, I think it has no place here. How could my parents have taught me to think to ask the consent of people whose image I publish on my blog when even now I’m sure my father still ignores what a blog is? They never thought to teach me what publicity and privacy right is, since it’s a very recent issue, which increased as the media developed, and especially since the advent of the Internet.

And I’m sufficiently self-confident not to shorten things and to consider that a criticism, that the fact she considers it was disrespectful of her, is a not criticism of my whole being, but only of one particular point, and that she doesn’t actually believes I’m a complete asshole (even though it may have crossed her mind after we hung up!).

During the past few years, I also learned that a criticism tells as much, and sometimes more, about the criticiser as about the criticisee; this is probably what makes me accept criticisms quite easily. It doesn’t prevent me from questioning myself and to ponder if the criticism is justified or if it is some kind of misinterpretation, and to wonder how to take this criticism into account in order, at least, not to do the same mistake again, or to improve myself.

“One man’s freedom ends where another’s nose begins?” Yes, but if the interpretation of this saying is excessive, it doesn’t leave room for criticism anymore, it doesn’t leave room for doing or saying anything anymore. Because whatever I say, whatever I do, the probability to hurt someone is extremely high with 6 billion people on Earth! And I refuse to be muzzled by fear of the one person out of 6 billions I could upset. This person also has to learn to receive criticism, to be contradicted. It doesn’t mean I’m right and the other person is wrong, but that he/she has to learn that other people think differently and that criticism doesn’t always imply he/she has to redefine himself/herself from A to Z.

Let’s talk briefly about racism. Yes, racism is bad, there no doubt about that. But how could it disappear in the USA, for instance, when the phrase African-American is used instead of the word Black? I find this to be worse. Black is not something to be ashamed of, it’s not a criticism, it’s a mere fact, Africans’ skin is black, and it’s as convenient to refer to someone by the colour of their skin as by the colour of their hair, their height, or their build, when pointing at someone in a group of people. It’s a simple distinctive, physical trait. But I find African-American to be discriminatory. The good side of such a designation is that is puts forward the heritage and the past of the individual, and the history of his/her family. The main problem here is that even after the 25^th generation of the family, people will still be referred as African-Americans, not as Americans; so, even after 25generations, the American nationality is still not given to the members of the family in question and people are still segregated.

I think we sometimes look way too much into words to find a discriminatory meaning, or that, to the contrary, we give words too many meanings, that they offend too quickly when we should get some perspective instead. In French, we have the word “nain” (midget) to describe “vertically challenged people”, i.e. people affected with nanism, a genetic disease. Well, why the fuck using this completely ridicule phrase “vertically challenged people” instead of the simple word “midget”? How is their daily life improved? Do they suddenly become taller? Do they stop being laughed at? Of course not! A 200kg bloke, well, he’s fat, that is it. Nothing more, nothing less. He may have genetic or biological problems, or he may be fat because he stuffs his face with 30 really greasy hamburgers everyday, it’s not the point, he’s fat, that’s a fact. Let’s call a midget a midget, a fat a fat, and a pussy a pussy, son of a bitch!

This reminds me of the article I posted on my blog about the 3 men who sued Wikipedia, because they were referred as homosexuals in an article. Well, I’m sorry, but homosexual is not an insult, it’s a word used to define a sexual preference. It’s by no means more of an insult than heterosexual. So there is nothing to be offended by. I’m in favour of going back to the roots, of clearing words of their connotations in order to rediscover their original meaning, which is most of the time less offensive than the connotations of the word.

Let’s never forget that an insult or a criticism, at least not or barely justified criticisms, and, to some extent, the legitimate criticisms too, tells at least as much about the criticiser as about the criticisee. Why? Because in most cases, a person who insults or criticises someone else does so in reaction to a word, a gesture, an event that comes into conflict with an element of their personality, their identity, the way they think. Therefore their whole being boils down to that very element, and they react and defend themselves violently, be it by use of force or verbally, or by the use of criticism, discussion, explanation, justification.

A person who calls another a fag demonstrates their intolerance and what they think about what is just a sexual preference. It indicates the person believes man is on Earth to reproduce and that a sexual behaviour that doesn’t enables/aims at the perpetuation of the species is a perversion and/or a disease. This kind of persons is completely oblivious of the fact they often have sex with their spouse for fun, not just to have other children! They are also oblivious, or maybe just ignorant, of the fact that homosexuality can be found in the human species for centuries, as well as in numerous animal species. In addition, as the human being can be characterised by the “sentiment of love”, the “reproductive theory” is in no way relevant to prove that homosexuality is a perversion and/or a disease. In some cases, calling someone a fag is even the proof of a repressed homosexuality. However, what does this “insult” tell us about the insultee? Just that he/she likes same sex people. Other than that, not that much... If the insultee reacts violently, it will show he/she’s sick and tired of being called that name everyday and that his/her homosexuality is the only trait of his/her personality that is consistently talked about, or that they still feel uncomfortable or don’t accept their homosexuality. Anyway, the act of insulting and the reaction to the insult tell many more things than the insult itself.

So if the insult or the criticism isn’t calmly received, it shows there is some work to be done on oneself in order to understand why taking it so badly, as well as an assessment of the insulter/criticiser in order to understand the reasons why they acted this way.

In order for the questioning to work effectively, it has to be honest; and this is a technique that requires a lot of experience, including being able to easily get some perspective on things, as well as a good knowledge of oneself and some psychological mechanisms. But how could one get used to honestly assess oneself when the whole world constantly spares you any criticism, any insult, and avoid to confront you with anything that you could consider as such?

Yes, Jews underwent an awful, despicable genocide during WWII. Yes, such a tragedy has to remain in everybody’s mind so we don’t see that happening again. But if Israelis come to behave like jerks, should we disregard this behaviour, because of their recent history? Should we forgive everything they do, as if we were trying to make amend for what they had to go through about 60 years ago? And how long are we still going to be complacent with China and not dare to upset this country that still hasn’t understood the meaning of human rights and that keeps killing Tibetans, just because of the hundreds of billions of dollars the Chinese market represents? Don’t say anything to them, Nazis tried to exterminate them 60 years ago; don’t say anything, they could bring us billions of dollars. Sorry, that’s enough, if they screw up, we have to tell them, that they like it or not, so they can move on and take their responsibilities!

It’s easy to cross the path of a black guy in the street and not call him a “fucking nigger”, or not to say to a co-worker “you’re a bloody asshole” (direct criticism/insult), but it’s harder to clear (in order to avoid to confront people to whatever they could perceive as an insult/criticism) every speech, every word, every tradition of what could upset an ethnic group, or people of the same confession or with a common identity (indirect insult/criticism). Most importantly, this behaviour is completely stupid and leads to extremes that would be laughable if they were not true (see the Santa Claus’ laugh story in my blog…). Christmas is a Christian tradition, it is thus silly to be willing to erase each mark of Christianity in it! Would we ask Jews to erase all trace of religion in the celebration of Hanukkah, or to Muslims to erase all trace of Islam in the celebration of Aïd El-Kebir (I’d like to give other examples, but my knowledge of both religions are limited)? Of course not, and that’s a very good thing! So if an individual, at home, doesn’t want to put a nativity scene next to the Xmas tree, wants to forget that Christmas is originally the celebration of the birth of the Christ, and that presents are a reminder of those the 3 Wise Men offered to baby Jesus, but that, instead, this individual wants to turn Xmas into a family reunion during which he stuffs his face with expensive food and gets sick, and during which he proves his love to his relative with gifts whose price is astronomical, good on him, but let’s not have him impose his views of Christmas to others, for after all he’s the one who’s changing the meaning of Christmas! Although, that’s already what Christmas has become in Western countries, so it might not be the best example. What? It’s obvious that I don’t like Christmas ???

If education has something to teach, it’s to be able to get some perspective, to be self-confident enough so as not to systematically take everything literally, so we can laugh “about everything with everybody” and not anymore, as Desproges (a French comic) puts it “about everything, but not with everybody”, and to welcome in a constructive manner criticisms, reproaches, insults, and everything that could irritate our ego. Political correctness doesn’t allow us to live enough experiences to practice how to receive criticisms and to be “contradicted”; we must be able to say things, even unpleasant ones, with a constant respect to the individual, which is a balance sometimes hard to find. It is often much easier to avoid saying a word that might hurt an oversensitive person instead of saying with sensitivity a truth that is hard to hear. And yet, it’s this path of respectful honesty, the hardest one, that is more useful and should be followed, not the path of political correctness and avoidance, the path of facility.

You understand why I don’t see why my mate should have asked for my friend’s consent to post this ordinary video on his blog! To me, it’s political correctness, and I can’t stand that!

Unanswered questions: Would I have removed the video after our discussion, be it on my own initiative or if she had asked me? What would I have chosen between the respect for my “fight” against political correctness and censorship, and the respect for my friend? I’ll get the answer when I am confronted to the event.

Fushichô

December 27, 2007