quote:

constantly shifting boundaries of "acceptable language"

I don't think making fun of other people has ever been considered acceptable...

But again, this isn't just some random person in the supermarket checkout line. It was an official acting in an official capacity.

BTW re the question of whether a chancellor is an educational leader, I say yes. Besides the role in fundraising, in which the chancellor is basically the public face of the institution, students and faculty all know who the chancellor is. They look to that person to set the tone, and when there's a national event, tragedy or controversy, they look to the chancellor to speak out and give voice to the campus community. No one cares is the chair of the English department releases a statement. They want it to come from the chancellor.

So regardless of the chancellor's actual role or what they do on a daily basis, to my mind it makes the most sense to think of the person in that position as an educational leader.

quote:

Originally posted by ShiroKuro:

quote:

constantly shifting boundaries of "acceptable language"

I don't think making fun of other people has ever been considered acceptable...

I'm not so sure. It depends on the context. When we were kids, there were plenty of instances, observed by adults, that were not discouraged. Not over skin color, of course, but over gender, over nonconformity, over physical characteristics (tall, short, skinny, fat), over sexual activity (whether too much or none), over economic status ... the list goes on.

The world has evolved, but it was absolutely socially acceptable when I was growing up (socially acceptable in the sense that no adult would discourage it) to make fun of kids that were different in some way. And it's still socially acceptable in some contexts. You should hear the trash talking that goes on between players during an average high school football or basketball game (and no one discourages it at all).

well, acceptable to whom? it's never been acceptable to me. it's a cruel form of humor that is just a thin veil for hostility.

i don't enjoy comedy or entertainment that depends on this kind of "humor."

quote:

Originally posted by QuirtEvans:

quote:

Originally posted by ShiroKuro:

quote:

constantly shifting boundaries of "acceptable language"

I don't think making fun of other people has ever been considered acceptable...

I'm not so sure. It depends on the context. When we were kids, there were plenty of instances, observed by adults, that were not discouraged. Not over skin color, of course, but over gender, over nonconformity, over physical characteristics (tall, short, skinny, fat), over sexual activity (whether too much or none), over economic status ... the list goes on.

The world has evolved, but it was absolutely socially acceptable when I was growing up (socially acceptable in the sense that no adult would discourage it) to make fun of kids that were different in some way...

I agree with those who say it has never been acceptable to make fun of "misfits". I remember taking part in using cruel nicknames and feel ashamed to this day.

Also about the friendless "weird" ones I didn't stand up for. I'm sure at least one of them committed suicide much later.

However, "acceptable" in the sense that authority figures might not reprimand the bullies (even encourage them), I'm afraid so. In fact, about the girl alluded to above ("weird") one of my saddest childhood memories was when our fifth grade teacher baited her right in the classroom.

(Anecdote)
Merrie Smith ("Merrie as in 'Merrie Old England'" her mother taught her to say if anyone made fun of her name) was exceptionally tall for her age and being born to a moustached, menopausal mother didn't help her win acceptance.

Merrie probably only interacting with her rather eccentric mother, had acquired some of her quaint mannerisms.

Anyway, one day in class, our teacher Mr. Sergeant mumbled something and Merrie, thinking he was addressing her, said brightly;
"Excuse me, Mr. Sergeant, I didn't quite catch that."
To which he said, sardonically (drawing his words out so his wit could be best appreciated),
" Maybe that's because I didn't throw it yet, Merrie" ,
At which, the whole class burst out laughing.

Ouch, even now!

However, I don't know if an authority figure's tolerating (or even encouraging) ostracism of underlings proves something is socially acceptable. I admit it's an interesting debate, though.

Thinking of Hitler youth, making Jewish kids walk in the gutters and otherwise abusing them. It was certainly tolerated but does majority wrong-doing count as social acceptability? I'd like to think that even if it's only acted on or perceived by a minority, that wrong (morally WRONG) behavior is still wrong - and therefore unacceptable.

Or is it defined by a plurality?
*************

Also remembering FWIW Jr High teachers making jokes about things Jewish, if only calling someone (a gentile) "rabbi"to be funny, or laughing when a student did.

(Which happened in my school and much worse in my brothers' school.)

quote:

Originally posted by QuirtEvans:

quote:

Originally posted by ShiroKuro:

quote:

constantly shifting boundaries of "acceptable language"

I don't think making fun of other people has ever been considered acceptable...

I'm not so sure. It depends on the context. When we were kids, there were plenty of instances, observed by adults, that were not discouraged. Not over skin color, of course, but over gender, over nonconformity, over physical characteristics (tall, short, skinny, fat), over sexual activity (whether too much or none), over economic status ... the list goes on.

The world has evolved, but it was absolutely socially acceptable when I was growing up (socially acceptable in the sense that no adult would discourage it) to make fun of kids that were different in some way. And it's still socially acceptable in some contexts. You should hear the trash talking that goes on between players during an average high school football or basketball game (and no one discourages it at all).

There is a difference between children's behavior that is arguably socially acceptable because it is tolerated by adults and adult behavior considered socially acceptable in a professional setting.

quote:

Originally posted by piqué:
well, acceptable to whom? it's never been acceptable to me. it's a cruel form of humor that is just a thin veil for hostility.

i don't enjoy comedy or entertainment that depends on this kind of "humor."

I defined how I was using the term "socially acceptable". Regardless, it's a general term that isn't limited by what any individual personally finds acceptable.

As for whether it's just children (in response to Mary Anna) ... the same would be true of professional sports.

I'd also point out that the trash talking, even at the white collar level, is common enough that the woman who was the first president of an NFL franchise titled her book "You Negotiate Like a Girl". It's a riff on the commonly heard taunt "you throw like a girl". Or, "take a hit, you sissy". Or, "man up". Until the last decade or two, "man up" would have been said to people on a factory floor or in a white-collar business setting without anyone blinking an eye.

And this isn't limited to men. Women make all kinds of sexist statements about men when they are out with a group of women. You can argue that "bar talk" isn't a professional setting ... except that women reject that argument when it's a bunch of men from work out on the golf course. They claim (rightly, in my view) that a lot of business gets done on the golf course, in bars, etc., and that women should not be excluded, because it's partially a business activity. And plenty of trash talking goes on in those settings. Gendered and ageist and ableist taunts? Absolutely.

I feel like this discussion is getting farther and farther removed from the question of just how inexcusable the chancellor’s fake Asian speech was.

As Quiet said, context matters.

The chancellor didn’t trash talk in a bar. He didn’t do it as an athlete in a locker room. And he didn’t do the fake accent in the 1980s.

He did it as a university chancellor, in 2022, in a public (and live streamed) graduation ceremony.

He should have known better, but he didn’t.

These are the contextual details that are most relevant IMO.

Those are all very reasonable contextual points.

If I may be permitted another digression, this also demonstrates the risks associated with comedy. Comedy doesn't work if it's bland or innocuous. I suppose a speaker can rely on pre-planned jokes if they screen the jokes really carefully, but anything off-the-cuff can cross the line. I'm not sure that most people, myself included, are quick enough mentally to think of the joke, decide if it's any good, and then also consider whether it crosses any boundaries in real time. If I were in this guy's position, assuming he keeps it, I'd stay away from impromptu humor in the future.

Agreed, comedy is hard and that goes double for public speaking.

The fact that some adults would not correct certain behavior in their children has never defined what is socially acceptable in society, for children or adults.

Would Brett Kavanagh’s parents have scolded him for the sexual assault he attempted when he was a teen? Probably not, ‘cause boys will be boys. That doesn’t bear on whether it was socially acceptable then for two boys to get a girl alone in a room and attack her.

We were talking about what was socially acceptable at one times in terms of, using SK's terminology, "making fun of other people". But you'd rather argue on the more extreme ground of physical assault. If I carried the playground metaphor forward to physical assault, while adults at one time tolerated children making fun of other children in ways that would not be acceptable now, they would intervene if one child was beating up another.

So, I reject your analogy, because it has absolutely nothing to do with what we were discussing, which was making fun of someone because of their language, or accent, or gender, or physical characteristics.

But, if you'd like to have a discussion of historical standards with respect to physical assault, we can do that. Go back to a certain iconic picture at the end of World War II of a sailor in New York grabbing a random woman on the street and kissing her to celebrate the end of the war. Did anyone at the time claim that that kiss was assault? Did anyone question its appropriateness? Here's how the Washington Post described it in 2019:

quote:

WWII’s most iconic kiss wasn’t romantic — it was terrifying

Women feared it, the law forbade it, so why did Americans romanticize the drunken assault?

And here's the line that makes my point:

quote:

Girls who grew up in the mid-20th century, after all, had been taught to politely suffer unwanted advances — catcalls, pinching and so on — and to interpret them as flattery.

https://www.washingtonpost.com...ntic-it-was-assault/

Looking back, it was horrifying. It was assault. But, at the time, it was socially accepted, and that picture became one of the defining images of the end of the war.

However, the more appropriate analogy is catcalling, and that happened all the time without intervention of authorities in the 1940's and 1950's.

Acceptable then, not acceptable now.

There's no catcalling any more?

And I thought it was me.

quote:

Originally posted by piqué:
There's no catcalling any more?

And I thought it was me.

One of my Facebook friends, a woman cellist who lives in Europe, made the mistake of posting, “I was catcalled in five different languages today.”

So the inevitable responses were: “Miao?” “Miaou?” “Meow?” “Miau?” etc.

quote:

Girls who grew up in the mid-20th century, after all, had been taught to politely suffer unwanted advances — catcalls, pinching and so on — and to interpret them as flattery.

Not all of them were unwanted. I have a friend who lived in Italy when she was a teenager (because her father, who worked for Union Carbide, was assigned to a position there). She said the Italian men would pinch her butt, but Americans, at least by that time, did not do so. She missed the attention to her as a woman.

We don't always remember that social norms vary by time and place when we judge something by our particular set of norms.

Big Al