PC gone mad

It seems the full story here is that Damon used the word while telling a joke. And the emotional distress of merely hearing the word caused his daughter to run off and start writing a letter to her own father on the subject. Which he is somehow proud of?

I think if my daughter did anything such thing I would be going back to basics with her because I clearly failed in my intentions and goals when I was bringing her up and educating her.

I tell my children that all words have power. And they have power due to the context and intention in which they are used. No words have more power than any other - but some words make it incumbent upon us to be more cognizant of the contexts we are using them in. But words coming from a place of love, empathy, humour - have a different power than the same words coming from a place of judgement, hate, bigotry or malice.

And I have told them of many examples of such words - and given them examples of context. Like how many Black People happily go around calling each other ****. And I can use that exact word while telling a joke - or I can sit loudly listening to the latest episode of Joe Rogan where he is talking to Ms. Pat and the entire interview is simply littered with that exact word - without my daughter flouncing off to write a treatise because her emotional sensibilities are so inflamed at merely hearing the sound of it.

So I do not think it is an accurate summary of events here to suggest Damon got to 50 without realising one given word is a slur. Rather he managed to get to 50 before the "Jump to offence at every given opportunity PC thought police brigade" managed to break him down and start thinking that he needs to retire any given word from every single context and every single use and to feel like he is any less of an ethical and moral human being simply because that sound ever dared cross his lips for any reason at all.

I myself will keep using that word and all the others - if the context permits and requires and allows it - and if I deem it to be the best choice of word in that context. And if a joke I happen to be telling relies on such a word racial, sexual, or otherwise - then I will not let some PC botherers on Twitter make me remotely feel like I need to knee cap my own joke. And if it is a good joke and my 11 year old girl tells it to someone else - that's good too.

Poor media reporting though. You'd think they would at least have found out what the joke was so we would know if the joke was any good or not. Seems a better idea to me to lambast him for telling a bad joke - rather than the words in the joke. :-)

Sure - but similarly just calling someone out does not magically mean they are or ever were an arsehole either. The requirement to show on what basis they deserve to be called one would still remain. And that simply has not been done here yet in the case of the Actor in question.

So I would agree with a phrase like "Arseholes love to hide behind the word woke." but I would add "Other arseholes also love to hide behind others having used a word like woke".

At the end of the day the people to not be dismissed like tantrum children are the ones who stop hiding - express a position - and explain the basis for why they think that position is valid. Think someone is an arsehole? Let's actively hear why?

Hah never heard of Super Valu in relationship to him. Know bugger all about the guy myself. He was on Hot Ones this week though which I do always watch and he seemed - well entirely normal and fairly likeable. And that's pretty much all I know about the guy.

Jokes are weird in the sense of "hateful context" though. While it might seem a subtle difference - there is a massive difference between a joke or a specific word inside a joke being used to be hateful - and the joke or the word being predicated on the notion that the target is hateful or abhorrent.

Put another way - a joke being predicated on a stereotype or concept - even a hateful stereotype or concept - allows us to see the humour in that joke without for one minute requiring the teller or the listener to actively buy into that concept. Humour tends to stem from the human mind connecting disparate concepts in ways it might not have connected them before. Even if the concepts themselves are absolute nonsense.

So I can tell jokes predicated on the stupidity of Kerry men - the miserliness of Jews - the tendency of black people to shoot each other - or the predatory promiscuous nature of homosexuals without for one single solitary moment buying into the notion that any of those people actually have any of those attributes. And in fact the opposite is true. My knowing that they are ridiculous and unfounded stereotypes frees me up to enjoy the humour more so than otherwise.

So when a news paper article merely tells me that one single word - was used in one single joke - basically the news paper article has told me nothing at all. Certainly nothing upon which to make any moral or ethical conclusions about the person telling the joke or their levels of any actual bigotry. As I said - any reporter worth their salt would have before anything else whatsoever - tried to find out what the joke was. Without it - there is no story here.