I've been drinking so this will get fubar.
A friend (who I shan't name) reposted on facebook a rather charming quote by Richard Dawkins, to wit: "Atheists are a race. Anyone who mounts an argument against atheists is a racist, atheophobic bigot." With a comment to the effect that God should smite him. I replied that Dawkins is a dickhead but that atheophobia is as much of a thing as theophobia.
My friend said that atheism is dominant in society and that theists are sidelined. I countered that while this is true in the Left, in Queer spaces, and in the cold war USSR, it is not true of Britain as a whole.
We are in fact a pseudotheocracy wherein the state religion (C of E), whilst not the only lawful religion, nevertheless has exclusive powers within the legislative process. Literally, the head of the state religion, who is also the head of state, can lawfully veto any law without having to give grounds and is indeed above the law. Other than the fact that citizens are not mandated to be C of E we're pretty damn close to a textbook theocracy.
To add to that on a more personal note: as an adult I have been ordered on more than one occasion to attend church and to sing hymns on pain of spending time in the Glasshouse and ending up with a criminal record. Yes in Britain, yes in the 21st century! Do I need to go on?
My experiences were compared first to crying heterophobia and then to toxic masculinity. My friend then said that I was triggering them and that unless I agreed to disagree and to stick to that (basically to shut my mouth and never again say on facebook that atheophobia is legit a thing) then they would have no choice but to unfriend me for the good of their own mental health.
Go for it mate!
See the thing about what we might call "the safer-space discourse", terms like trigger warnings and such, is that they started out about sensible things. Rape, domestic violence, hate crimes. The kind of shit that fucks people up real bad. This is not a bad thing. We need an accessible society where people who've been traumatised by these events can rehabilitate themselves, that's all to the good. These days though you'll spend ten minutes getting chewed out for not putting a trigger warning on an article about spiders just in case it "triggers" the arachnophobes. Half of those times it won't even be the arachnophobes saying it, just a daft prick wanting a fight!
Trigger is a PTSD term by the way. If you've not been subject to the kind of violence that can cause PTSD then throwing the word trigger around like that is appropriation, but I digress.
These days also I see people using talk of triggering to play Oppression Olympics, or to shut people up whose views they don't like. I see people using it when they've said something stupid and can't think of any other way of defending it. I see people using it to score cheap political points.
I'm sick of it, fucking pack it in!
Safer Space Discourse is legit when there's a real need for it, like when discussing rape, domestic violence, hate crimes and the like. You need trigger warnings when you might actually trigger someone's actual PTSD and do them some actual mental harm. For all other purposes you can shove your trigger warnings up your arse, I'm done with 'em. Grow up and have some fucking integrity, the lot of you!
I'm going to sleep. Fucking internet liberals.
No comments:
Post a Comment