We are watching now, what some comedians and commentators are saying on TV, and we are entertained for the most part. The statements they are making cause no ire at all, they’re just banter, nobody is upset by them… but we have come to realise that in 10 years time we may see someone, from 10 years time, get very upset about how the person they perceived as being the victim should have felt according to their, ten years hence person, sensibilities. We notice it so much that now, ten years or so before, we spot those statements that will likely be unacceptable to ten years hence person/s.

I’ve very likely said the statement that will get me sacked sometime, the rules seem to change all the time now, and everything recorded or witnessed could be your undoing. The sensible person does not commit themselves to print, email, or video, the sensible person speaks one to one with no chance that it could not be misconstrued, misunderstood, and they could not claim later to have been misquoted.

I have never really been in any trouble for the things I have said or done, not anywhere that mattered anyways. For some folks it is our workplace where we are most social, something we cannot control, where we have to participate. I am no fan of people, you’ll have guessed that by now if you read my blog, so in my varied working life I have likely said more in work than I have outside of it. This is likely only because of necessity though.

I once made the very true, and neutral, preference statement that I was not sexually attracted to dark skinned women, in response to a rather crude statement made by a, well I’ll say friend, and was thought, because of his subsequent accusation, to be a racist by the group he relayed that information to. The same “friend” could at the time, and probably now, often be caught misquoting and misinterpreting the words spoken by members of his social circle. He calls it embellishing, I say bullshit, and I think it can be more harmful to speak a leading lie about someone’s perspective, than to let them face the reality of what they have said. Since people often have a reason for what they state, but should not have to spend time explaining the context in which they have been misquoted.

I once relayed a story that someone had told me, and I was treated as if I was putting my perspective forth, which of course wasn’t the case (unless you think the newsreader actually performed the bombing?). That one was stupid and easily dismissed. Another time I replied to a strongly opinionated religious zealot, who had decided to tell me all about their deity and their faith, stating that I felt it was “all just nonsense”. Because they had initiated the conversation I didn’t get into any trouble for the upset my perspective seemed to cause them. Upset is a tactic, you could choose to be upset by anything said if you want, that does not mean you get to be positioned as correct in a subjective matter. I tell the truth of my opinion or the truth of facts I have learned, hopefully based on experience and intellect, when someone asks me what I think. Again I maybe could get into trouble for that one, and I have, but my offerings can only be honest as I do not favour placation.

Will this blog get me in trouble in the future? Maybe it will. I don’t think I have done anything other than offer a perspective, ask the odd question, point out where some logic is shaky. Have I upset some people? Maybe, but that’s their problem to solve, I have invited everyone to respond to me.

The question for you to ponder is this… can a statement be unoffensive in it’s time and setting, but become offensive at a later time when viewed by an audience that is under differing social conditions, and what, if anything, should be done if the answer is Yes? I’m tempted to leave it there because I don’t have the answer, all I can say is that from my point of view I see no harm that can come now from a joke told by Frankie Boyle in 2007 that people found rather funny at the time. I also can’t see any harm now from the slap I hit the schoolgirl on the arse when I was a schoolboy, of course this sort of thing is frowned upon now, but her and I are friends on Facebook, it doesn’t seem to have made her think I was the devil.

It’s possible I have taken too shallow a look at this subject, I’d be thrilled to have you point my errors….

Paul S Wilson