You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.07 AVERAGE
3.07 AVERAGE
Thought-provoking, with an emphasis on 'provoking'.
I do consider myself something close to a free-speech absolutist, at least where comedy is concerned, but I would struggle to declare that sensibility as a political one. Partially this is because people who call themselves free-speech absolutists have often been recorded saying really weird and stupid things. I'm against censorship, but partial to self-censorship, something the author seems to know little of. This book is a culture war book, unfortunately -- you'd think I'd have learnt the lesson with my earlier foray into crypto-white nationalism -- but there are always things to learn from exploring the arguments of people you previously considered belligerent idiots. I still think they are, but I've learnt a bit more about the roots of their belligerence, although the idiocy remains a mystifying fact of everyday life.
Some people just really love arguing. I used to think I liked it, in a Socratic sense, with a mutual respect and objective in mind. Of course, then I read more Plato and discovered the objective is rarely achieved and the respect is often strained. I graduated university and decided to stop thinking about class and 'the Left' for a year or two, and it did wonders for me. I allowed previous convictions I believed essential to my identity to internally slacken. Politics, for me, was a game of choosing when and when not to listen. I didn't expect to change anyone's mind anymore; it was not a moral concern.
This book is moreso pro-arguing for its own sake than anything else. It's difficult to take Fox's claims about how sanctimonious and encroaching the left are upon reasonable society when her own opinions are so regularly inflammatory and insipid. The enemy of my enemy is not my friend -- she's not going to convince her opponents to change their ways, and I would cross the street to avoid anyone who was convinced by this.
One can't help but be drawn into the topic considering the pervasive nature of bad faith, misunderstanding and plain bad manners that defines so much of contemporary public discourse. Claire Fox is right - a lot of people are really annoying! She is also really annoying. I know I'm not annoying because I do as little as possible to contribute to these topics. If you want to know my solutions to discourse problems, I'd be inclined toward autocratic, indiscriminate mass murder. So I tend to keep my opinions to myself, as more perhaps should.
I do consider myself something close to a free-speech absolutist, at least where comedy is concerned, but I would struggle to declare that sensibility as a political one. Partially this is because people who call themselves free-speech absolutists have often been recorded saying really weird and stupid things. I'm against censorship, but partial to self-censorship, something the author seems to know little of. This book is a culture war book, unfortunately -- you'd think I'd have learnt the lesson with my earlier foray into crypto-white nationalism -- but there are always things to learn from exploring the arguments of people you previously considered belligerent idiots. I still think they are, but I've learnt a bit more about the roots of their belligerence, although the idiocy remains a mystifying fact of everyday life.
Some people just really love arguing. I used to think I liked it, in a Socratic sense, with a mutual respect and objective in mind. Of course, then I read more Plato and discovered the objective is rarely achieved and the respect is often strained. I graduated university and decided to stop thinking about class and 'the Left' for a year or two, and it did wonders for me. I allowed previous convictions I believed essential to my identity to internally slacken. Politics, for me, was a game of choosing when and when not to listen. I didn't expect to change anyone's mind anymore; it was not a moral concern.
This book is moreso pro-arguing for its own sake than anything else. It's difficult to take Fox's claims about how sanctimonious and encroaching the left are upon reasonable society when her own opinions are so regularly inflammatory and insipid. The enemy of my enemy is not my friend -- she's not going to convince her opponents to change their ways, and I would cross the street to avoid anyone who was convinced by this.
One can't help but be drawn into the topic considering the pervasive nature of bad faith, misunderstanding and plain bad manners that defines so much of contemporary public discourse. Claire Fox is right - a lot of people are really annoying! She is also really annoying. I know I'm not annoying because I do as little as possible to contribute to these topics. If you want to know my solutions to discourse problems, I'd be inclined toward autocratic, indiscriminate mass murder. So I tend to keep my opinions to myself, as more perhaps should.
No sé cómo aguanté a terminarme esta tremenda fachería
I believe this is what you'd describe as "going off on one". It starts out alright but rapidly loses coherence, particularly around the author's speculations on education, and becomes just a rant, really.
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
I don't think the use of catchphrases like 'snowflake', 'woke' and 'Karen' are at all useful in understanding how people experience life differently than we did in the past. This book is both challenging and informative, because it show how education and young people are changing and allows reflection on the effect on the way people interact, respond and ultimately survive well, into future. Questions about 'respect', 'resilience' and 'situational context' kept coming up.
claire fox can say all she wants how people are soooo offended nowadays but she wrote a whole book about how offended she is at not using slurs or whatever, i dont fucking care why shes offended. its so petty and stupid and shes genuinely a terrible writer. just a joke claire!
edit: i have a feeling this book caused a bit of a polemic on here which is why goodreads is so adamant about not displaying my review on my profile. honestly my first write up of this review was incredibly aggressive because i think entitlement and arrogance are two of the most vile personality traits to possess. claire fox literally wrote a book called 'in praise of elitism'. she embodies entitlement to other peoples lives despite calling herself a libertarian. no one can tell her what to say but she can tell everyone how to feel and when to feel it because she believes she has the right to police the neurological processes that make you human. it is self righteous and arrogant written with some of the most childish arguments ive ever read that essentially boil down to 'you cant make me care about other people because thats authoritarian.' do you even have friends like jesus christ
i was determined not to let this book get under my skin because i fully chose to read it knowing id hate it but the nonsense GR is putting me through is honestly outrageous lol. lemme get this straight: authors can get their terrible opinions platformed on amazon sites but i cant tell them how much they fucking suck? isnt that the point of a book review site? isnt that the point of this so often exalted unlimited free speech people like fox demand we all have at all times? mocking the dead at a funeral should be acceptable because what if i WANT to do it. your emotions make me sad, and we all know i am the god of this universe. i can really go on all day but i think rn im just angrier at goodreads for basically refusing to let me yell at a british politician via an angry book review.
edit: i have a feeling this book caused a bit of a polemic on here which is why goodreads is so adamant about not displaying my review on my profile. honestly my first write up of this review was incredibly aggressive because i think entitlement and arrogance are two of the most vile personality traits to possess. claire fox literally wrote a book called 'in praise of elitism'. she embodies entitlement to other peoples lives despite calling herself a libertarian. no one can tell her what to say but she can tell everyone how to feel and when to feel it because she believes she has the right to police the neurological processes that make you human. it is self righteous and arrogant written with some of the most childish arguments ive ever read that essentially boil down to 'you cant make me care about other people because thats authoritarian.' do you even have friends like jesus christ
i was determined not to let this book get under my skin because i fully chose to read it knowing id hate it but the nonsense GR is putting me through is honestly outrageous lol. lemme get this straight: authors can get their terrible opinions platformed on amazon sites but i cant tell them how much they fucking suck? isnt that the point of a book review site? isnt that the point of this so often exalted unlimited free speech people like fox demand we all have at all times? mocking the dead at a funeral should be acceptable because what if i WANT to do it. your emotions make me sad, and we all know i am the god of this universe. i can really go on all day but i think rn im just angrier at goodreads for basically refusing to let me yell at a british politician via an angry book review.
Could have been a good book if it had been more temperate, but as it is it's just an extended whinge on Fox's part. There's a very troubling subsection where she moans about how parents are being told not to shout at or belittle their children, and this is apparently some kind of catastrophe that makes kids "finger-wagging little know-it-alls."
The author's deeply aggressive character shone through every paragraph and made this book, which did raise some good points, an unpleasant read in places.
The author's deeply aggressive character shone through every paragraph and made this book, which did raise some good points, an unpleasant read in places.
After finishing I Find that Offensive by Claire Fox, I find myself with mixed feelings. There are parts of her thesis that ring true— free discourse with respectful consideration of all viewpoints is a pillar of democratic society. I do think that this is essential, even when certain viewpoints are considered offensive. I can also see her point about the coddling of Millennial youth. Having been taught from a young age that we are valuable and unique, we readily believe it. I found the section in part II entitled "Culprit: student voice" especially resonant when Fox observed, "Fees turned what was once a teacher-pupil relationship into a service-customer one" (123). Although a close read of this point goes beyond the scope of this book, her observation acknowledges that the imposition of cripplingly high university fees has shifted the balance of power away from university officials. When students are courted as consumers, it follows logically that they expect to be catered to as consumers. This systematically undermines the authority of professors and administrators to act as moral arbitrators and disciplinarians to their students.
Back to my impressions of the book as a whole: Fox's declaration that "You all need to toughen up and make a virtue of the right to be offensive" (178) has some truth to it, but doesn't completely hold. She seems to generally dismiss emotional reactions to offensive speech, behavior and associations. I would counter that the ability to proffer objective and cool-headed responses to offensive stimuli is asking a lot in the immediate aftermath of an offense. Furthermore, I don't believe that infusing offended reactions with authentic human emotion automatically invalidates the reaction. President Obama's tearful condemnation of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting comes to mind.
Fox posits that instead of reacting to the offensive with histrionics, offenders should be challenged to a debate in which their ideas are thoroughly unpacked, and valid criticisms are entertained. This approach doesn't hold up when the "offense" is a dismissal of a person or group's humanity. Fox urges, "Whether you are Snowflakes or anti-Snowflakes, you need to learn the trick of turning subjective outrage into measured, passionate, coherent argument capable of convincing others..." (178). To my knowledge, the white supremacist rally-goers in Charlottesville, Virginia were not open to the suggestion of entering a Battle of Ideas with counter-protestors. Should the onus fall to women, people of color, Jews, queerfolk etc. to convince neo-Nazis and religious extremists that they are human beings, entitled to equal treatment in free society?
Back to my impressions of the book as a whole: Fox's declaration that "You all need to toughen up and make a virtue of the right to be offensive" (178) has some truth to it, but doesn't completely hold. She seems to generally dismiss emotional reactions to offensive speech, behavior and associations. I would counter that the ability to proffer objective and cool-headed responses to offensive stimuli is asking a lot in the immediate aftermath of an offense. Furthermore, I don't believe that infusing offended reactions with authentic human emotion automatically invalidates the reaction. President Obama's tearful condemnation of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting comes to mind.
Fox posits that instead of reacting to the offensive with histrionics, offenders should be challenged to a debate in which their ideas are thoroughly unpacked, and valid criticisms are entertained. This approach doesn't hold up when the "offense" is a dismissal of a person or group's humanity. Fox urges, "Whether you are Snowflakes or anti-Snowflakes, you need to learn the trick of turning subjective outrage into measured, passionate, coherent argument capable of convincing others..." (178). To my knowledge, the white supremacist rally-goers in Charlottesville, Virginia were not open to the suggestion of entering a Battle of Ideas with counter-protestors. Should the onus fall to women, people of color, Jews, queerfolk etc. to convince neo-Nazis and religious extremists that they are human beings, entitled to equal treatment in free society?
I don't disagree with Claire Fox as much as I thought I would. Some of her points are fair enough, mainly I agree with her on the fact that identity politics doesn't make you an authoritative voice on a given topic simply because of your identity. And that the continual recourse to 'victimhood' is tiring. That being said, she's a member of the Brexit party whose libertarianism extends to the belief that the government should not ban child pornography. It's clear we're in for an interesting time here.
The book's central thesis is sloppy and unconvincing, blaming 'generation snowflake' (her term, not mine) on Gen X parents being too controlling etc. But I'm more concerned with the fact that Fox is one of many intellectuals who maintains a pig-headed adherence to the Enlightenment concept of 'free speech'. She continuously begs the viewer to take her side by calling upon them to be logical and rational, but this only made me less convinced with her argument. Furthermore the extent to which speech is ever truly free is debatable, but that's another philosophical argument altogether.
My main issue is that the particular 'attacks on free speech' she cites just aren't very good ones? She heralds some student who fought against attending a compulsory consent workshop as though he is the one in the right. Which... he isn't? I can't believe universities are attempting to reduce campus rape statistics by providing education on consent, god bless this young martyr who defiantly refused to go and had a lie in that morning instead. A true hero, his rationalism is so overwhelming I do believe the SJWs all dropped dead on the spot because of it.
I also think the book would have been better had she avoided the negatively connoted 'Snowflake Generation' or 'SJWs', although I suppose I may just be an SJW who needs a safe space. I would just say that language holds a lot of power, both communicatively and in the broader construction of society. Fox seems to believe the fact that people are now more aware of this is a bad thing, and would rather we allow language to run rampant.
A lot of Boomers get triggered over tattoos, piercings, abortion, people's weight, gender identity, sexuality and race. Essentially if you don't conform to their individualistic worldview then your very existence is 'wrong'. But of course 'generation snowflake' is the one stifling freedom of expression.
White people should never say the n-word, straight people should never say the f-word and you shouldn't purposefully misgender a person. Read a better book than this. Read any book not written by an out of touch old person whose intellectual complacency prevents them from thinking about the nuances of the younger generations' concerns with derogatory and offensive language!
The book's central thesis is sloppy and unconvincing, blaming 'generation snowflake' (her term, not mine) on Gen X parents being too controlling etc. But I'm more concerned with the fact that Fox is one of many intellectuals who maintains a pig-headed adherence to the Enlightenment concept of 'free speech'. She continuously begs the viewer to take her side by calling upon them to be logical and rational, but this only made me less convinced with her argument. Furthermore the extent to which speech is ever truly free is debatable, but that's another philosophical argument altogether.
My main issue is that the particular 'attacks on free speech' she cites just aren't very good ones? She heralds some student who fought against attending a compulsory consent workshop as though he is the one in the right. Which... he isn't? I can't believe universities are attempting to reduce campus rape statistics by providing education on consent, god bless this young martyr who defiantly refused to go and had a lie in that morning instead. A true hero, his rationalism is so overwhelming I do believe the SJWs all dropped dead on the spot because of it.
I also think the book would have been better had she avoided the negatively connoted 'Snowflake Generation' or 'SJWs', although I suppose I may just be an SJW who needs a safe space. I would just say that language holds a lot of power, both communicatively and in the broader construction of society. Fox seems to believe the fact that people are now more aware of this is a bad thing, and would rather we allow language to run rampant.
A lot of Boomers get triggered over tattoos, piercings, abortion, people's weight, gender identity, sexuality and race. Essentially if you don't conform to their individualistic worldview then your very existence is 'wrong'. But of course 'generation snowflake' is the one stifling freedom of expression.
White people should never say the n-word, straight people should never say the f-word and you shouldn't purposefully misgender a person. Read a better book than this. Read any book not written by an out of touch old person whose intellectual complacency prevents them from thinking about the nuances of the younger generations' concerns with derogatory and offensive language!
I couldn't stand this book. I bought it as an opportunity to see the other side of the argument to which I typically stand. Boy, did that not work out.
Fox purposefully misinterprets multiple events to fit her point and fails to grasp concepts like 'privilege' and 'gaslighting'. Fox also calls sopporting GamerGate a 'perfectly legitimate opinion' with no context attached.
This book didn't offend me, it pissed me off. Fox's seething disdain for 'Generation Snowflake' drops off the page. It infected my day and wasted my money.
Minor point - Claire Fox didn't popularise the term snowflake, no matter how much she attempts to plug that line. You can look to Fight Club for that one.
Fox purposefully misinterprets multiple events to fit her point and fails to grasp concepts like 'privilege' and 'gaslighting'. Fox also calls sopporting GamerGate a 'perfectly legitimate opinion' with no context attached.
This book didn't offend me, it pissed me off. Fox's seething disdain for 'Generation Snowflake' drops off the page. It infected my day and wasted my money.
Minor point - Claire Fox didn't popularise the term snowflake, no matter how much she attempts to plug that line. You can look to Fight Club for that one.