Jokes and Fragility

Ricky Gervais:

How arrogant are you to think that you deserve to go through life with no one ever saying anything that you don’t agree with or like? I want people to stop saying “That joke’s offensive.” I want them to start saying “I found it offensive” because you’ve got to own your emotion, because that’s all it is. You’re just telling me how you feel about it. Yeah, there’s nothing intrinsically offensive about this joke. We shouldn’t hurt people’s feelings. Well, you can if their feelings are wrong. If you don’t like the facts, don’t change the facts. Change the feelings.

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Erich Vieth

Erich Vieth is an attorney focusing on civil rights (including First Amendment), consumer law litigation and appellate practice. At this website often writes about censorship, corporate news media corruption and cognitive science. He is also a working musician, artist and a writer, having founded Dangerous Intersection in 2006. Erich lives in St. Louis, Missouri with his two daughters.

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