This cannot surely be a joke?...
Can someone explain...
- Thread starter FoxEye
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This cannot surely be a joke?...
It’s amazing how egocentric some people can be.
Soldato
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People seem to be under the false impressiont hat it is the students getting offended.
In this case, the students are doing something what is deemed offensive by an older local generation. i am not particularly surprised, depending on where you go something seemingly inoffensive can become very sensitive for others.
In this case, the students are doing something what is deemed offensive by an older local generation. i am not particularly surprised, depending on where you go something seemingly inoffensive can become very sensitive for others.
Some of them were some of them weren't, the original plan was only to close the unprofitable ones thus safeguarding the profitable ones. If Scargill hadn't called an illegal strike in order to kick of his political career then many of the closed mines would still be operating today (albeit probably owned by China lol).
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Exactly, it's no different from people re-enacting historical battles or the like. Indeed, I believe there would have been plenty of WW1 survivors still around when the 4th series of Blackadder was first shown on TV. Fighting in the trenches was probably significantly more traumatic than a few picket lines and a couple of hits from a police truncheon.
well plenty of hipsters have been throwing WW2 blitz themed parties for years, presumably that was a rather more terrifying time (especially for people living in the cities of the UK) than the miners strike
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People have to remember that this move is not for the sake of policing political correctness, it is to stop the lads getting into a scrap with disgruntled locals who are offended. Sport team socials are rowdy to say the least and trouble is not uncommon. You can say the locals need to get over it but surely in this case it is best to just avoid the chance for conflict?
The university won't exactly be particularly harsh on the punishments. The rugby team where i studied face trouble each year during the opening few weeks. For public displays of nudity, pressuring new initiates into drinking way beyond their capacity and what is considered safe, encouraging situations in which they would sick everywhere and generally being nuisances in town (all which happened during my first year there) the first team captain, second team captain and social chair faced a 6 week ban from their union club. Big deal
The university won't exactly be particularly harsh on the punishments. The rugby team where i studied face trouble each year during the opening few weeks. For public displays of nudity, pressuring new initiates into drinking way beyond their capacity and what is considered safe, encouraging situations in which they would sick everywhere and generally being nuisances in town (all which happened during my first year there) the first team captain, second team captain and social chair faced a 6 week ban from their union club. Big deal
I recall there being places in Durham you didn't go if you wanted to keep your teeth, and that was without mocking the misfortune of the locals.
And I'm sure drunken rugby lads will be as well received as Blackadder Goes Forth has been...
Soldato
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Put it this way, could you count on rugby lads on a social to be well behaved after a few drinks?
If the answer is anything other than an unequivocal 'yes', then why let them choose a theme that you know will not be well received by some locals. Letting the rugby boys do it 'out of principle' is just irresponsible if people already expressed their heated discontent in advance.
If the answer is anything other than an unequivocal 'yes', then why let them choose a theme that you know will not be well received by some locals. Letting the rugby boys do it 'out of principle' is just irresponsible if people already expressed their heated discontent in advance.
You can’t see the difference between historical re-enactment and a bunch of rugby players using a tragic event in living memory as an excuse for a ****-up?
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You think historical re-enactments are anything other than an excuse for a ****-up in a field with some high-fetish sexual activity sprinkled in?
Do you get offended every time a "Hitler reacts to..." video gets posted? Do you get offended when mainstream comedians use the Nazis in a sketch, purely for the sake of a few cheap laughs?
You do? Or probably you don't...
And I like the way people are prepared to use potential violence against the rugby club players as a good enough reason to curtail their freedom of speech/expression.
Just the same as they do with religious groups. "Oh you can't be free to mock this deity/person, it'll offend the Buddhists and they might start beheading people. But if they do, we'll blame the people who took their sacred icons in vain and not the people who reacted with the violence. Violence it totally OK when you're offended by something."
It's a common theme. Freedom of speech/expression gets shut down to stop potentially upset people from being violent. And people think that's fine.
Yes. They might be doing what they do for fun but they know their history and take their hobby seriously.
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Rugby boys take their drinking/banter seriously. Top blokes all of them I bet!
Generally in British comedy we don’t kick down. Making funny of monsters from history or the government is considered fair game. Mocking their victims is generally not.
Despite this rule of comedy, we still consider dressing up as Nazis for a drinking session to be in bad taste.
I also fail to see how this is a freedom of speech issue. No-one is going to arrest them for holding a private party with this theme. Freedom of speech isn’t freedom from consequence.
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So if this ends up with a punch-up and someone getting seriously hurt, then that is fine. Even though you foresaw the potential of this happening due to early signs such as locals getting annoyed and knowing full well what a group of lads on a rugby social is like, it is fine because at least the rugby lot had the freedom to express... what exactly?
If they were doing it to portray a message or something, then fair enough, you can argue that they should be free to express that message. If the reasons to do this was just because they know the locals would be sensitive to it or just because they considered it edgy, then it is not too much to ask they pick a different theme.
It is not an example of people taking away freedom of expression, it is simply the university limiting the amount of damage they could receive from this, be it due to sensitive grumpy locals or because they needlessly went out dressed in a way that may provoke a fight. The university simply sees no benefit to allowing them to do it and a few negatives.
Freedom of expression? Afaik they are not expressing any message and the university is simply protecting themselves as well as the blokes from any repercussions to this 'expression'
If they were doing it to portray a message or something, then fair enough, you can argue that they should be free to express that message. If the reasons to do this was just because they know the locals would be sensitive to it or just because they considered it edgy, then it is not too much to ask they pick a different theme.
It is not an example of people taking away freedom of expression, it is simply the university limiting the amount of damage they could receive from this, be it due to sensitive grumpy locals or because they needlessly went out dressed in a way that may provoke a fight. The university simply sees no benefit to allowing them to do it and a few negatives.
Freedom of expression? Afaik they are not expressing any message and the university is simply protecting themselves as well as the blokes from any repercussions to this 'expression'
By this argument we should not be permitted to lampoon certain religions, as we know their adherents become angry to the point of violence.
In other words, the onus is always on us not to offend, thereby provoking violence (as you see it). And the potential for offence to be taken is reasonable grounds for banning certain kinds of expression.
You do know how easily people become offended these days... seems like we're making a rod for our own back here by pandering to it.
Also you note that the "expression" is essentially meaningless. Well that works both ways. Why should people get upset over something so utterly meaningless as a bit of dress up, given that there is nothing sinister going on here? Dressing up as Nazis could be sinister (in as much as we know Neo-Nazism exists). People dressing up as miners aren't expressing some kind of vile ideology. The act is meaningless and harmless, in every sense of the word, besides some ex-miners and their bitterness.
*****s really going to hit the fan when automating renders taxi and lorry drivers unemployed. Won't be able to make jokes about that for at least 200 years!
e: Also we should ban alcohol. It is known that intoxication can lead to violence and serious injury. We know this can happen, so letting it happen is wrong and alcohol should be banned.