Hang on hang on hang onā¦ is Jamie Wall a nice young man who broke his neck swimming on holidays years ago and now gives inspirational talks?
So OK, thereās no argument as to why āspaā should continue to be used. So we should aim to not use it. Maybe the difficulty comes in strategy. Maybe itās a bad thing to try and back somebody into a corner if they use a term like that. Maybe explanation and persuasion is the best strategy.
Jamie Wall has a disability, doesnāt he? So I imagine his personal experience as being in the general category of people that āspaā is used to make fun of, means that he is particularly attuned to such words.
I donāt really know what peopleās problem with so called āwokeā culture is. It seems to me to be broadly very much a good thing. Sure it can occasionally go too far, because people can be over zealous - but a focus on social justice which at its heart is about actually allowing people to live their lives without having to suffer unjust prejudice seems a lot more focussed on real rights and freedoms than the so called āfree speechā crusade, which to me appears to be a transparently bad faith crusade to allow people to say hateful things about the non-ascribed characteristics of others.
The āfree speechā crusade is about kicking down and being proud of kicking down. It seems far more focussed on taking away or denigrating peopleās rights in the real sense, using the trojan horse of āfree speechā to mask its real intentions.
The strong impression I get is that people with what could be broadly termed left or liberal views are bigger victims of so called ācancel cultureā than people with what might be broadly termed right wing views. It seems to me that many or most of those on the ārightā who have been ācancelledā have uttered some really horrible views or opinions.
The people who most loudly complain about so called ācancel cultureā are generally curiously quiet when somebody with left or liberal views gets cancelled.
The continued attack on tenured academic posts in the US seems to me to be the biggest example of cancel culture there. And thatās overwhelmingly an attack on left or socially liberal ideas.
What I really donāt understand is this bogus crusade where people who are not the victims of hate speech try and claim they are victims because society has broadly decided some terms or opinions they want to use are hateful. The people on the wrong end of kick down jokes, slurs or hate speech are the victims.
Well actually I do understand that bogus crusade. Itās a bogus ālook over thereā strategy. Itās a circus. To distract from right wing politicsā failure to have any real answers to the real challenges facing humanity or peopleās real lives. The whole right wing culture war thing is total bollocks.
You may be confusing him with Jack Kavanagh
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He had an lump on his spine that was found after an injury. Lost power in his legs. Awful, awful stuff.
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And text based communication, very hard to say something without it being taking in the wrong context. This has split over into speech or the interpretation of the direct words spoken.
Also some people just get off on correcting others. Cunts of the highest order
āSpaā was always used as a term to make fun of somebody. It was generally used unthinkingly, but comparing somebody to a disabled person was the joke. At least for those who knew what it meant, and quite an amount of people who used it when I was a lad didnāt know what it actually meant. Most people used it because disabled people for most people were out of sight, out of mind. And out of habit. Itās one of those words that when itās explained to people, it seems entirely logical and reasonable that you shouldnāt use it. And yet it has endured. Why? I donāt know. I guess the people who were the butt of the joke were marginalised enough in society that they didnāt have the voice to object to them being the butt of this widespread, everyday joke that was an intrinsic part of young peopleās vernacular.
@Mac Jack Kavanagh is who I was thinking of, an outstanding young man.
The likes of Kavanagh and Walls have a right to be offended but it should be explained to them that very few people connect that word with actual disabled people.
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Itās a word. The intention is to insult an able bodied person, not the disabled person. Iād imagine it initially caused shock and started to get used more commonly.
Itās generally used almost endearingly too.
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Where! I saw him up in the Phoenix Park today renting out bikes not a bother to him. Should I take this to the celeb spots thread?
I genuinely havenāt heard anyone use the term spa since I was 14.
Itās funny how this goes
Someone says something iffy
Someone gets offended
Some other knob gets offended at that knob getting offended.
What an awful, depressing circle.
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Who?
Itās a jokey slag against the able bodied person. But much more pertinently, itās a making fun of physically disabled people in general.
You know yer wan, the blondie Rangers fan on that video recently who was singing āIād rather be a Paki than a Timā. See how sheād get on if she tried to claim that it was an insult to Celtic supporters, not people from Pakistan.
Hard to believe people are trying to defend this
Are you not allowed to say anything so, in any context that may be offensive to anyone at all?
Iām sick of this discourse to be honest. Itās so fucking boring
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Most young lads who used word āspaā would never call an actually disabled person a spa.
I think there is a difference because of that.
Spa meant somebody who was annoyingly stupid.
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The depressing spectacle is when some people claim they are a victim because somebody else quite reasonably explains why you shouldnāt use a term that makes fun of other people based on a non-chosen characteristic.
It seems fairly clear who is the victim and who isnāt.
Nobody is claiming Keaney is a victim. The point is that somebody who misspeaks or uses a poorly chosen word or phrase with no malice can face cancellation if the mob decides to turn their ire on them. Thatās a crazy state of affairs.
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But if someone is disabled and someone uses a term in a context theyāve no part in, why should they get offended? Theyāre actually generalizing themselves
Ah here. This is just the cliched, nonsense āwhere does it stopā rhetoric.
None of this is particularly hard to understand and nor is it any significant inconvenience on anybody.