I like this? indefensible kid, but I could make a career out of explaining how wrong he is some of the time:
Sometimes when we back down from our positions in the face of outrage, we do more harm than good. For a start, we send to the world this message: outrage is a currency that can buy you out of seeing things you don’t like.
A comedian on television says something ‘offensive’. A viewer is outraged and complains to the station. The station censures the comedian and issues an apology. In this series of events, the only possible result is that the viewer (and the person who learns from the viewer’s experience) is given an incentive to display outrage in the future.
This leads almost inexorably to the situation that we now find ourselves in, where people think democracy is just about getting the greatest number of shrill voices to scream the same things you scream. It’s a kind of democracy, but so, in a way, is a pitchfork-and-torch-wielding mob.
What does any of that have to do with democracy? A TV station isn’t an arm of the government. An angry viewer isn’t a police officer. A comedian isn’t a politician. There isn’t a single democratic or even government institution in the story. This is about commerce.
Part of the problem is that he’s framing the issue wrong – let’s start over. An employee of a television station says something. A customer of the television station tells them that what he heard isn’t the kind of thing he wanted to pay for. The station apologizes, tells their employee to knock it off, and the customer realizes that more than being some voiceless? automaton? stuck listening to whatever dreck the station broadcasts, actually has a right to complain about the programming their viewership supports.
That’s not a problem – that’s the system working.
Let’s try it another way: you go into McDonald’s and try to order some Chicken McNuggets. The cashier looks at you like you’re stupid and says, “What did you say? Hey, I think this guy’s from Australia or some shit – he talks funny! We don’t have any shrimp on the barby, and no, I don’t want to see your knife. Learn to speak English, Crocodile Humper Dundee. Now what the hell do you want?”
You, being a paying customer, call over the manager and complain. The manager, realizing that for every person who complains there are 10 more who just resolve never to come back, yells at the pimple-faced kid with the attitude, promises you that you won’t hear any more of that shit, and gives you some free cookies. PROBLEM SOLVED.
Now go eat your cookies.
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