Caltrops - Biohazard: Code Veronica





	[quote name="Senor Barborito MetaFilter Post"]At some point in this thread it becomes necessary to speak up for the "emotionally and socially stunted". Since I've already made a point of standing up for Rape Haiku, I really don't have much to lose by making myself that sacrificial lamb. I apologize to those who cannot grasp the concept of meta-humor - of making racist, homophobic, or sexist jokes specifically because only an idiot would make them and actually mean them - thereby stealing power from the genuinely negative concepts that gave rise to the jokes which are being mocked. I feel bad that your inability to detect those rolling eyes behind my defense of rape haiku - both directed against women AND attractive young white men such as myself in prison cells everywhere - has forced you to sound so shrill and strident. It is not my fault, nor the fault of my friends and peers, that you lack this faculty. I have participated in several online communities with different sets of acceptable behavior, but I would hope that in all of them that at least 95% of the population could see the humor inherent in a passionately outspoken gay man joining an IRC channel and greeting my friends and I with "'Sup, faggots?" <b>I believe that absurdity, irony, and humor are transcendant forces above and beyond the real discriminatory power of labels, icons, and fear.</b> Where "nigger" divides, a heartfelt and friendly "fuck you" mends. Horror, shock, and the need to correct others must be met with laughter, derision, and invective. Ultimately, our every gasp of outrage is but a drop into an ocean of zeitgeist that determines language and thereby the true standing of women, homosexuals, and minorities. Shouting that it is not appropriate for me to employ the word "cunt" in the service of humor that specifically and consciously seeks to remove the discriminatory power of that term is not just disingenuous on your part, it is embarrassing. You may not ever realize it - but those standing about you in silent witness will cast their own quiet judgements on your unwitting pretensions even as you attempt to socially castrate me for thoughtcrime. The human instinct towards tribalism must be annihilated by casting down the stones of symbolism into a sea of meaninglessness - only thus will we free ourselves to judge each other as individuals. The term "fuck" is, as many have correctly observed, rapidly losing any power to shock or provoke. It is my belief that this same phenomenon is replicable across every divisive epithet in existence - and that destruction of pejoratives, my friends, is a goal I pursue with open and unabashed zeal. posted by Ryvar at 9:23 AM PST on December 9 [/quote]