What, Why & How do we Know ?
Ricky Gervais can be a bit “Marmite” – love him or loathe him – but there can be no arguing with the fact he is one of our highest-level official court-jesters. Capturing this here for two maybe three reasons: “I love the new women, you know the new ones we’ve been seeing lately… the ones … Continue reading “The Exemplary Court Jester”
There are a number of rules of thumb that need to apply where rhetorical discourse involves potentially or deliberately offensive humour and irony – The Court Jester: [h/t Jack Klaff] Only if you’re not wearing the outfit and, anyway, you might not be kidding 😉 Essentially UNLESS you are appointed / recognised / claiming the … Continue reading “The Court Jester”
There are many posts here describing the idea of “The Court Jester” in the context of potentially offensive humour. There are some basic rules of thumb on the rhetorical use of humour here, but reality is invariably more complex when free speech meets the concepts of offensive humour and hate-speech. Charlie Hebdo was probably the … Continue reading “The Court Jester in Real Life”
Grauniad piece by David Mitchell, on my recurring topic of offence in free speech generally and comedy specifically – (ie The Court Jester. See also Frankie Boyle generally.) The David Mitchell example is in defense of the real case that led to Mike Ward being fined for offense! We need to separate case of the general public … Continue reading “More on the Court Jester from David Mitchell”
A theme of mine when people are banging on about humour as a “weapon” is that is does matter how it’s used. There’s no simple right to offend, sarcasm can be cheap, and the context matters. In days of old, the court had a jester so everyone knew it was the “fool” who spoke the … Continue reading “Boris – Court Jester or Politician. He can’t have his cake and eat it.”
This is the second of a three related posts. The first was #1 There is No Right to Offend. No-one has the right not to be offended, but any restraint on the freedom to offend is a matter of cultural tolerance and moral motivation, and categorically not any objectively-defined “right” with statutory limitation to giving offense. There … Continue reading “The Court Jester”
This is a version of my Rules of Engagement / Rules of Discourse page. Being updated to make it more explicitly obvious that these are also the rules of free-speech, more generally than lip-service to “freeze peach”. The mantra being parroted by followers of Elon Musk – topical in 2024 because he made it his … Continue reading “The Rules of Freeze Peach”
Often find myself in situations where “scientists” are quick to mock or otherwise reject and/or denigrate a seemingly “post-modern” opinion. A main thread of mine is urging sceptical scientist types to be more open to respecting & understanding alternative thinking – alternative to realist logical positivism and anything but objective facts – so that constructive … Continue reading “Defending the PoMo Position – Again”
Rarely was a program so well named. Exemplary dialogue handled by Evan Davis on BBC R4 Sweet Reason on “Offense”. The thesis being discussed was implicitly: Weaponised Offense Taking as part of Identity by Victimhood. Contentious topic on PC-Ness of free expression. With Jordan Peterson (white-male) and Dr Clare Chambers and Shaista Aziz (non-male / non-white) … Continue reading “Sweet Reason”
Rappaport’s first rule of any constructive dialogue that aims to increase knowledge is: You should attempt to re-express your interlocutor’s position so clearly, vividly and fairly that they say “Thanks, I wish I’d thought of putting it that way myself.” Clearly, it’s an extreme version of understand-before-disagree and maybe life’s too short to expect to … Continue reading “Rappaport’s Rule or Steelman”