Jim Norton On Offending People, Apologizing To Steve Martin & Why He Likes Westboro Baptist Church
I hate the culture of being offended that is developing in the States, and exists full-blown in Canada. It's stifling our discussions and our creativity. Which is why I love quotes like this:
"Here’s what being offended is, it’s a phony sense of empowerment.
People have lost this ability to go, “Wow, I didn’t like that, that
bothered me. I won’t watch that again.” People have lost the ability to
just not like something and walk away. People now feel that if
they object to something, nobody else should enjoy it either. It’s
because we’ve seen enough people say they’re sorry, we’ve seen enough
people fired where people now feel that, “if I’m offended, I voice my
offense, people have to listen to me.”
It’s a really weird self-centered attention-seeking device people
use. So I never buy the offense. … I think 90% of it is a lie. People
say, “I don’t like stereotypes.” Bullshit. You don’t like negative
stereotypes. People don’t mind positive stereotypes. People don’t mind
positive assumptions. It’s only negative assumptions about them. So
their outrage is so arbitrary. And I’m embarrassed for us as a free
society that we actually want people punished for saying things we don’t
like. The liberals are bad and the conservatives are bad. The liberals
say things like “Well, that’s homophobic, that’s racist.” And the
conservatives say things like, “You’re attacking our religion. You’re
attacking family values.” Both sides are equally fraudulent when it
comes to supporting unpopular speech. It’s easy to support popular
speech. We’re supposed to stick up for things that do bother
people. The rest of us are supposed to rally around and defend people’s
rights to say what they want to say. That’s why I like the Westboro
Baptist Church. I think they’re repulsive people. I think their message
is repulsive. But I think they are good for society because it shows
exactly what we will tolerate in a free-thinking society. Even pigs like
that, and they are pigs."
Walking Away is a concept which is rapidly disappearing, as is supporting free speech in all its forms, even when you don't like it; especially when you don't like it. Hence why Canada and the UK don't have free speech, and the US is losing it, if it hasn't lost it already.
Article courtesy of Fark.com; Interview was between Jim Norton and Carol Hartsell, and published by the Huffington Post.
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