: Re: To what extent should we fear giving offense? Recently we have seen multiple questions on various aspects of political correctness. They have sparked some measure of disagreement, which is what

@Sue2132873

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Claiming offense is the new Heckler's Veto, and it only succeeds if you willingly give in to it.

Storytelling is in part about telling our own truths. If some people are bothered by it, then so be it. And, this is okay because our art form is self-sustaining or self-constraining.

We write to reach out to others, if our work is so poor and ideas are perceived as vile, then we won't be read. The audience will put down the work and never finish it. And excellent work with wonderful ideas might be embraced and enjoyed -- if we are lucky and fortunate.

But excellent work with vile ideas is a challenging proposition. For example, I find it hard to imagine something written well enough that I would enjoy reading about graphic details of an act of brutality. Or, similarly, regardless of how well or badly a story was written, I don't think I would find the divisive racial theories of a story's protagonist engaging.

But, that said, and to try and put this idea together, censorship is never the answer to bad ideas. More ideas, discussion, debate, more writing, more words, are the best solution to dissolve the bad ideas in our world and promulgate new better ideas.

The censor succeeds when self-censorship starts.

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