Chill out, or Martyrs Need Not Apply

Howyadoin,

I used to really enjoy the discourse on this board, and respected the fact that flamewars were an uncommon occurance here. The signal/noise ratio here is still among the best of any MB I’m involved with. It seems that in the past six months or so everyone is looking down the barrel of their Martyr Pistols, looking for a target to come into range.

Let it the fuck go, already…

Someone says something that could be remotely construed as taking a shot at somebody, and immediately the Offenderati swing into action. Everyone seems to have some favorite topic that sends them into the stratosphere (mine: Scientologists and their apologists). Before anyone calls me a hypocrite, I’ll cop to taking to the ramparts in a Pitting here:

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=161177&highlight=scientology

I’m still not convinced that this person wasn’t trying to practice moral relativism, but either way I took an offhand remark and burned it beyond recognition. I’m trying not to be so quick on the trigger, and it’s not easy with some of the trolls and other incendiary posters that love to stir up flamewars for whatever purpose.

Either way, the hue and cry goes up that “so-and-so doesn’t know what it’s like to deal with such-and-such, how dare they make a remark that hurts me deeply.” In most cases, the comment was not personally directed, although the hearty “Fuck You” in reply almost always is. :slight_smile: Those who rush to apply the retaliatory pummeling need to, dare I say, consider if they are jumping to conclusions about the character of people they probably will never even meet let alone truly know, and maybe count to 10 before they fire up the flamethrower.

I don’t intend to belittle the depths of suffering of people I don’t really know away from this poor simulation of reality.

Nor should people take the fall of every sparrow as a personal affront.

The people that post and lurk here take great pride in this institution of which they are a part. Pride, however, really does goeth before a fall. There is a sense of brittleness here that is becoming more prevalent. Perhaps the flaming is even becoming encouraged, as people use hot button issues to illuminate their online personae by revealing their real-life issues. In the rush to the battlements to defend one’s outrage, a lot of tolerance gets left behind.
-Rav

Couldn’t agree more.

DaLovin’ Dj

Quoth The_Raven, “Word!”

The problem is, nearly anything said with a litle spice to it will be offensive to someone, somewhere. And even if someone who would be offended isn’t around, there’s always someone salivating in the wings, waiting to be offended-by-proxy for the people not around.

I.E:“You wouldn’t make fun of hermaphroditic sea-otters who eat cous-cous if you had one as a pet once! I’m deeply offended for those people who did!”

So when exactly does someone go from being a minority with a legitimate beef against naked bigotry to being a member of the “offenderati”? The same response on my part has gotten me called both, so I’m interested in hearing the response.

I think I fit your bill the Raven . In the diaper post by our friend from down under I may have overeacted abit to mhendo . In a statement about “my brat.”

My take on becoming one of the “offenderati” (great word, by the way) is that you become one by taking offense fairly easily, by not giving someone the benefit of the doubt, by not looking at it as an opportunity to explain something to someone, and by responding out of proportion to the original slight - in short, by looking for a fight.

On the other hand, however, if I were a member of a minority that is slapped in the face on an almost daily basis, I can see where it would be very easy to develop a quicker temper on those hot-button subjects. I guess the bottom line is that we all have to be self-monitoring - you know yourself whether you were responding to bigotry, or looking for a fight. What other people think is their problem.

[reads featherlou’s post]
Ding, ding, ding …

We have a winner!

Revtim, the cous-cous eating hermaphroditic sea otters ain’t half bad either. As a chef who makes a deliberate effort to “spice” things up, all of the bloodlust I see throbbing in the veins of these indignant self righteous thin-skinned wahoos would make me laugh if it weren’t so tiresome.

THIN SKINNED WAHOOS?!?! :eek:
I am offended! :mad:

Sah! Pistols at dawn?

[Homer Simpson]
D’Oh! Why’d I have to challenge a guy who says “Sah”?
[/Homer Simpson]

hehehe… fit my bill…

Just don’t wipe off any of the Chap-Stick, eh?

-Rav

I have suddenly realised how homoerotic the word Chap-Stick is! And the idea that we should rub it on our lips!!!
I am now offended.

Ah, sweet sweet memories of the Bloom County/Outland “Offensensitivity” strip…

chapstick? You mean you don’t use a natural balm! What kind of earth-hater are you, earth-hater. “Who told you to use a balm?”

I am offended by the idea that you are offended by my easily offendedness, you insensitive bastage.

Uhhm . . . Dr. Strangelove?

Or, to quote Thurber riffing on Poe and bring the thread full circle,

CJ

Wow, Siege, nicely done on the fullcircleness. Sadly I must in form you that I am terribly offended at your insinuation that Thurber outranks Poe simply through some mindless acceptance that present day politcal relevance a better poet makes.

Alas for Lenore. She apparently would be better remembered if she were a Liberian militiaman in drag.

And then there’s Jin Wicked who is phenomenal artiste incidentally, who I would flame mercilessly for implying that being a “bastage” is a bad thing, an epithet of scorn. I wear my motherless status with pridse as is only right. Oh wait, maybe “bastage” has more to do with gravy…:smack:

Regardless, I’m upset.

So there. I’m offended and I don’t care to stop until I’m presnted with flowers or some similar token gift.

:smiley:

Moooooommmmm!!!

Pastor of Muppets is token again!

I am offended that there haven’t been more quotes from one of my favorite authors, given that The_Raven started all this nonsense!

The first poster who identifies the story wins…eh, nothing. But you’ll come off as educated – and somewhat strange and twisted. Not to say that’s a bad thing. So, here you go:
It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night. Object there was none. Passion there was none.

“The Tell-Tale Heart”?

"Nervous, I had been… very very dreadfully nervous I had been and am… but why will you say that I am mad? "

…or something like that… reading from an intoxicated memory bank :slight_smile:

What was it that obsessed him initially?

-Rav

You win! I believe Poe was obsessed with the old man’s eye:

He had the eye of a vulture --a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees --very gradually --I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever.

Ya gotta love Edgar; darkness at its best.