Show transcript
Screenshot of a Tumblr post by indigosfindings:
imagine if someone just like started addressing you as Dipshit, like youre just talking about your day & they say “no way Dipshit, that’s crazy.” and then maybe you say to them that you would prefer not to be addressed as Dipshit & their response is “well in my major metropolitan area ‘Dipshit’ is not considered an insult. im not saying i think youre stupid when i call you Dipshit, i call my mom dipshit all the time” so you say Thats cool but please dont call Me that. and then they just repeat that it’s something they say daily, they call all of their best friends & lovers dipshits & are called dipshit in return. “my grandma calls me dipshit at the dinner table, it doesnt mean anything.” so you say Yes i understand that your friends & grandma arent bothered by being called Dipshit but i am, & i would prefer if you didnt address me as that. and they say “it’s literally not possible for me to stop calling you dipshit, and it’s not reasonable for you to ask me to, dipshit.” anyway this post is about nothing in particular
that’s solved by them not looking at me.
That’s exactly what I’m saying here. The one that doesn’t want to be called dipshit should remove themselves from the situation where they’re called dipshit, i.e. cut the person out of their lives.
I’m not offended, I’m just saying that policing someone else’s speech is the same as asking them to leave your general vicinity, i.e. not particularly reasonable.
It isn’t wrong to police certain speech, unless you think it’s okay to threaten harm to people. We put limits on what is allowable, regardless of what you think. We judge people for what they say. All you’re arguing is that the person calling people Dipshit should be allowed to call people Dipshit… And they are? There are no laws about calling people Dipshit or anything. Hell, you can yell slurs at people in most places. That doesn’t make it right. It doesn’t make them not a horrible person.
You keep looking worse for wanting to call people anything you want without being judged. Do you get that yet?
Of course it is okay to threaten harm to people. “Policing speech” is exactly that, “threatening harm to people”. If you police someone’s speech, the implied threat is something like “if you don’t change your speech, I’m going to make your life harder/remove certain benefits from you/reduce your social status”, all of which is “harm”.
