Arsenal v Manchester United, 16:30 GMT (22/01, Sky Sports Main Event)

[HCZ_Reborn]

Right. Attitudes in society of course change over time, but I don't buy that there's a clear direction of travel towards the sort of degeneracy which would see paedophilia becoming either legal or fashionable.

Some things have got worse - the level of swearing has increased in society and that's reflected on TV. As a kid it was headline news if someone said "the F word" on TV. Now shows are littered with it, and "the C word" is becoming more common. I regard that as a bad thing although not everyone would agree. Society has become more sexualised, the lyrics and videos for music videos now just wouldn't have been allowed when I was young, the internet has meant that any type of porn is available to anyone at the click of a button, kids are exposed to that far younger than they should be and are far less innocent than they used to be. I think that's bad too.
But other "norms" have been disassembled in a positive way. Racism and homophobia were the norm when I was a kid. The punchline of many jokes was Paddy being thick or someone being gay. Those things are now frowned upon. One could argue some of that goes too far, but overall it's a bit lazy when the punchline is a person being of a certain race or sexuality.

In terms of child abuse, there's far more awareness these days. Youth groups have safeguarding policies in place to make sure children and adults are protected (children protected from abuse, adults from accusations).
Teachers are trained to spot potential signs of abuse at home, none of that was in place when I was a kid. I have to do mandatory training about it at work FFS and my role is literally nothing to do with working with kids and is unlikely to ever be so. I'd suggest we are further as a society from any of this stuff being acceptable than 30 or 40 years ago. Stuff like Minipops on C4, was thought "just a bit of fun" and now we look back on it thinking "yeah, that wasn't great". Not every chance in society is a step towards the last days of Rome.

What counts as progression and what counts as a step towards a dystopia is completely subjective of course. However I decided to approach what NQ said from the perspective of it being reasonable to not want our society to degrade into one where paedophilia is acceptable. Now do I think it likely that having women speak on football is a step along a long pathway to that rather hideous outcome? No I don’t. But I’m not going to assume NQ is just being controversial for the sake of it, it could well be something he genuinely fears happening and therefore I’d rather set out my stall for why I don’t agree rather than simply dismiss.
It’s not actually that uncommon a view, there is quite a lot of people who believe that permissiveness has been nothing but a way of laying the groundwork towards something which would horrify us. Now I am 95% sure that’s simply not the case, but the reason I’m not 100% sure is because we are currently entrenched in a battle over the expansion of rights that includes on one side of the argument a complete failure to acknowledge how this would trample on the rights of a larger group.

In terms of what is more acceptable, I think you’ll realise that I have little issue with foul language (though I accept it does not exactly make one more sophisticated and I definitely do not like the idea of swearing in front of kids). Conversely though if you ever read or listen to a linguist expert called John McWhorter who is especially interested in the advent of swear words or taboo words (almost every culture has developed this) you get a great understanding of the stock we put into language and the absurdity of inventing words only then to discourage people from using them down the line.

Language like attitudes are always evolving and I think for many of us as we get older there’s an attitude of stop the ride I want to get off. Without wishing just to placate people, I get it and it’s obvious to a degree that you get it.

What particularly irks me about current social change is the believed necessity of corralling others to believe what they believe. Maybe words like bigot and racist should have very little currency but the fact is they do when in a society where people on the whole want to fit in, don’t want to be accused of these things. And therefore it becomes a form of coercive control…you will only be accepted if you believe what we want you to. In fact that’s a cult mentality right there, now of course there’s nothing wrong with groups forming of people of shared beliefs but then you have the option of opting in or opting out without a fear of being ostracised by the whole of society.

I don’t in anyway need NQ to take a different stance on women pundits, one because I don’t really feel that strongly either way on the subject and two because his view doesn’t impact upon mine so when I asked him why he cares it was from a place of genuine curiousity

[IBK]

What particularly irks me about current social change is the believed necessity of corralling others to believe what they believe. Maybe words like bigot and racist should have very little currency but the fact is they do when in a society where people on the whole want to fit in, don’t want to be accused of these things. And therefore it becomes a form of coercive control…you will only be accepted if you believe what we want you to. In fact that’s a cult mentality right there, now of course there’s nothing wrong with groups forming of people of shared beliefs but then you have the option of opting in or opting out without a fear of being ostracised by the whole of society.

Love this. We are moving as society to a position where nothing can be debated freely. If someone expresses a counter opinion to the accepted 'norm' then they are hated and ostracised for expressing that opinion. This suppresses any sensible debate and therefore restricts constructive outcomes - that generally depend on listening to opposing views. There is very rarely a black and white situation, and by being siloed in one's own opinion, and listening only to those whose views coincide with your own you in fact become more extreme - while often (these days) congratulating yourself on your own virtuousness. A great (and rarely recognised) irony.

[HCZ_Reborn]

What particularly irks me about current social change is the believed necessity of corralling others to believe what they believe. Maybe words like bigot and racist should have very little currency but the fact is they do when in a society where people on the whole want to fit in, don’t want to be accused of these things. And therefore it becomes a form of coercive control…you will only be accepted if you believe what we want you to. In fact that’s a cult mentality right there, now of course there’s nothing wrong with groups forming of people of shared beliefs but then you have the option of opting in or opting out without a fear of being ostracised by the whole of society.

Love this. We are moving as society to a position where nothing can be debated freely. If someone expresses a counter opinion to the accepted 'norm' then they are hated and ostracised for expressing that opinion. This suppresses any sensible debate and therefore restricts constructive outcomes - that generally depend on listening to opposing views. There is very rarely a black and white situation, and by being siloed in one's own opinion, and listening only to those whose views coincide with your own you in fact become more extreme - while often (these days) congratulating yourself on your own virtuousness. A great (and rarely recognised) irony.

This is to say the least a very meaty subject. On your point of people becoming siloed….yep I think to some extent we are all guilty of it despite even having the intention of being a heterodox thinker. The internet and social media has definitely gone some way towards facilitating this, and ironically the rise of multiple options of information sources has resulted in us trying to find that which confirms our biases.
The real problem is us, and for some reason now more than ever we attach so much meaning and weight to what our opinions are that they become indistinguishable from personal moral values. So in an attempt to understand someone who will act angrily to their opinions being criticised, it’s because they’ve absorbed these opinions in such a way that any disagreement feels like a personal attack.
Why that is? People who are Christian will tell you that it results from the vacuum created from society becoming over time a less religious one. Now actually as a non believer i think there probably is some truth to that, even though I think it’s not the complete picture and as always it’s more complicated.
But i can see some logic in thinking that a society where values were governed by an upbringing where your assessment of right and wrong, desirable or undesirable was at the very least heavily influenced by the teachings of the Church…it’s not unreasonable to suggest that the rapid diminishment of the relevance of an institution like The Church of England or the various other denominations has left people scrambling around looking for some sense of certainty of belief to attach themselves to.
We don’t deal well with uncertainty, even when it exists all around us.
And thus we kind of see the rise of a kind of Millenarianism…call it Wokeness, call it Social Justice (although Social Justice feels too broad a term) is a belief in a postmodernist theory that believes that everything needs to be torn down because learning, language, institutions and structures are symbols of oppression meant to favour white men in perpetuity. And this has heavily influenced the Trans debate (in my view) that ideas of defining people by biological sex are simply co-opting people into a repressive way of thinking and true liberation can only come when we abandon classification in favour of self identification.
Very simplistic overview and I don’t think everyone views Trans rights through this prism but it certainly appears to have come from marrying Transgenderism and what’s called Queer Theory.
The problem is institutions are now starting to adopt sociological theory as a dominant worldview…and with that comes the expectation that you’re either with us or you’re an oppressor.
It is the new religion for many, and critique is akin to heresy. Because you’re not attacking an ideology you’re attacking people…a very powerful way to disincentivise skepticism.
However I do accept that you’re referring quite generally to the practice of people being unable to cope with disagreement and this clearly does not explain all cases of that.

[Letters]

What particularly irks me about current social change is the believed necessity of corralling others to believe what they believe. Maybe words like bigot and racist should have very little currency but the fact is they do when in a society where people on the whole want to fit in, don’t want to be accused of these things. And therefore it becomes a form of coercive control…you will only be accepted if you believe what we want you to. In fact that’s a cult mentality right there, now of course there’s nothing wrong with groups forming of people of shared beliefs but then you have the option of opting in or opting out without a fear of being ostracised by the whole of society.

Love this. We are moving as society to a position where nothing can be debated freely. If someone expresses a counter opinion to the accepted 'norm' then they are hated and ostracised for expressing that opinion. This suppresses any sensible debate and therefore restricts constructive outcomes - that generally depend on listening to opposing views. There is very rarely a black and white situation, and by being siloed in one's own opinion, and listening only to those whose views coincide with your own you in fact become more extreme - while often (these days) congratulating yourself on your own virtuousness. A great (and rarely recognised) irony.

It is an irony that "bigot" now means "not subscribing to the proscribed way of thinking". Anything deviating from that is now bigotry or hate speech. It's pretty tiresome and prevents any sensible debates about complex issues like trans rights.

[Niall_Quinn]

So all roads that deviate from the norm ultimately lead to paedophilia being legalised and acceptable?

Didn't read the rest of it after you framed the argument like that. But feel free to try again.

[Niall_Quinn]

What counts as progression and what counts as a step towards a dystopia is completely subjective of course.

That's a non-sensical statement, or an apology. "Progress" is the enhancement of the human condition and circumstance, from our perspective at least. It's VERY easy to spot the difference between good and evil and if you can't even manage that much then never claim to be moral. Morality is the thought behind the action that's the reaction to evil. Evil is not in the eye of the beholder. It is the harm caused to life and private property. It's so simple that it amazes me when sentient human beings dare to debate it. Are you alive? Yes or no. You will say yes without a thought. So exists good and evil. It doesn't need to be analysed because the former has beneficiaries and the latter has victims. Simple.

[HCZ_Reborn]

Didn't read the rest of it after you framed the argument like that. But feel free to try again.

I won’t but thanks

[Niall_Quinn]

Might be the wrong thread for this, in some ways. Although Utd are undoubtedly evil and a blight on humanity.

[Niall_Quinn]

I won’t but thanks

Always your choice.

[Niall_Quinn]

I won’t but thanks

Remember what I was saying about the NPC wankers? Hard work, isn't it?