Fear of being called racist is ruining conversation

And it is just driving real racism, not hyper sensitive wokism, underground.

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I’m in a bit of hot water at work for calling Hamas Nazis (with evidence) and stating I stood with Israel. The water moved north from my ankles a few months ago and is now under my chin. It’s a level of water that if you are at the ocean and about 20 feet offshore, you can stand still and keep your head up; you can still breathe, but if a boat goes by or a stray wind causes some churn and you drop your chin, you will taste salt and might get a little panicked.

For my single statement, I am charged with being a racist, an Islamophobe, a violent threat and a suspected future kicker of puppies. I am asked to respond; I am unsure what to do.

I thought that judgements have value based on the evidence underneath, the supports, not the colour of your skin or the tone of your voice. But it’s 2024 now; we’re a post-national, post-modern, post-reason, Michel Foucault rocks!, feelings, feelings, feelings kind of country, and I guess I am not, in HR jargon, a good fit for 2024. I still like to read, so I'm trapped in the eighties. The next thing I might say is that students should buy textbooks.

But seriously.

I didn’t know that if you didn’t mention or infer any stereotype of religion or race, one could be a racist or phobe variant. But it is now clear to me - if someone can’t use big boy words or sentences and throws word bombs with their fists tight and shaky, we cannot give them directions to an adult nursery. I will do better.

But these bad words are like little brakes that stop and paralyze discussion; they are designed to be a prosecution statement and judicial verdict rolled into one convenient package. They are, of course, the cheapest, most tawdry impersonation of intellectual discourse ever; people who rely on such words are no different than the person who cranks off the vilest fart to clear the room when the discussion isn’t going their way.

I’m not the first person to note the irony of living in a society where experts say that we are less informed than the pre-iPhone, pre-internet people were. We are even more tribal, no doubt, with help from the social media algorithms that keep feeding us more and more tribal propaganda. It might be healthy to have an automatic alert on everyone’s phone, like those cigarette cancer warnings, 'Social media wants your attention to make money, and that’s it.” But I read those cancer posts trigger the addiction part of the brain for those already addicted to smoking, so they increase smoking. But I’m sure that writing “Don’t Smoke” on individual cigarettes will work and will not just help the non-counterfeit cigarette paper printing industry. Just like when they put “Buy Coke” in those old film reels, it sent us scurrying off to the concessions, and sales went through the roof.

Occasionally, social media wants to change or censor opinion. But the concept of unelected corporate leaders teaming up with their favourite politicians to influence the public has some bad historical vibes; that type of corporatism is a classic symptom of what school of political thought? The first part of the word rhymes with bash, and the later part’s tail end is that glass triangle that breaks up light minus the P. Exactly.

But as I complain about the poor quality of intellectual discussions, I’d like to make some names for responders:

The Even Stephens - remind me of my grandpa when he had pushed past 85 and was starting to sour on humanity. He tended to resort to “lock them up” as a universal solution for both shoplifters and killers. It was an easy, quick solution. Today, those geniuses note that because nobody on two or three sides of an issue has a Jesus-like purity, they all then are the same, and everyone should shut up. The ‘Even-Stephens’ get all the benefit from looking somewhat informed, but they have all the cleverness of the art student who uses the largest paint roller to cover his canvas and goes home early after finishing his work called “night.” Big-mouthed tyrants love them.

The no-comment Puritan. This one differs from the one willing to say, “I don’t know enough to comment.” They are perpetually not commenting because their fear of being unfairly branded or appearing to stand for some values that not everyone supports is always greater than their impetus. Big-mouth tyrants love them.

The trip wire word bomber. They are the ones who don’t have the critical thinking ability or the self-awareness to peel back the layers of motive and intent in human activity. Their brains are just tripwires connected to their ears or eyes; they see any conversation going in any direction. As soon as it hits their outer cognition perimeter, their alarms start going off, and they start name calling, word bomb tossing, etc. Or they tell you to stay in your lane; that phrase has taken off. Big-mouthed tyrants hire them.

The Dodo. The listener, the reader, the one who says they don’t have enough information yet to have much of an opinion. They are a bit rare.

The Ostrich. They bury themselves in the social media and Netflix sands and have confused themselves with separating themselves from the world; they have pretensions of monastic purity but dedicate their entire lives to a pain-free existence of pursuing entertainment, which is not a higher calling. HR departments love them if they don’t do it on company time.

The Whataboutism Parrot - these folks are cousins of the Even Stephens. Their response always draws moral equivalency without any discussion of morality. They are more interested in intellectual preening than learning or discussing; they pride themselves in finding tiny contrary examples and walking away like it’s a microphone drop moment.

Others: The know-it-all, the chronic giver of advice because they have Google. My mother-in-law, who is starting radiation treatment for cancer, had the auto-dictate medical types tell her that she needed to swear off rice, bread, meat, dairy, potatoes and chocolate. I’m not sure what my mother-in-law ever did to them.

There is an opportunity to raise the standard of intellectual discourse; the internet, cell phones, and AI don’t have to be a curse. But they probably will be; we are good at turning stuff into curses.

The situation reminds me of my two dogs, Toby and Malibu. I try to take them to a proper dog park where they roam free every night or two and in the days during the summer. Even if the park is empty, Malibu uses her freedom to dart back and forth, full of energy and verve. But Toby barely makes it worth his while to come off the leach. He can’t break himself from sniffing day-old urine along the fence line and under the picnic table while lifting his leg to mark the same territory, day after day.

There’s a lot of Toby going around. But I still love them both.

Toby is the fat one.

Please subscribe and get at least three pieces /essays per week with open comments. It’s $5 per month and less than $USD 4. I know everyone says hey, it’s just a cup of coffee (with me, not per day but just one per month), but if you’re like me, you go, “Hey, I only want so many cups of coffee!” I get it. I don’t subscribe to many here because I can’t afford it.

But I only ask that when you choose your coffee, please choose mine. Cheers.

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