[Albion] Am I a dinosaur/out of touch/or offensive?

[Beach Seagull]

I don't think so tbh. Pretty much everyone has marked you as a dull troll, so will probably just ignore it. You've had better efforts, in truth. You need to be a little more subtle, if you can.

The above post is simply my opinion. I am not bullying you, should it differ from your own

 

[wellquickwoody]

I refer you to my learned friend.......

 

[Icy Gull]

How has he nailed it ? He didn't mention Worthing council.

I'm not sure that the OPs incident is worthy of debate really. It should be obvious to anyone that he was unnecessarily rude to the clerk. And that's all really.

Not really, the lady seems to have been a bit “computer says no” and to us older bods it’s worthy of quip as it’s a ****ing annoying modern thing. So I’m with the OP, so many youngsters take offence too easily to what was obviously a bit of a put down quip.

 

[Easy 10]

I still find this scene hilarious. Guess that makes me a dinosaur.

 

[Uh_huh_him]

The world has moved on... I am becoming more aware of it every day.
It is a good thing, but yes finding yourself and your opinions less and less relevant to the current zeitgeist is quite alarming.

I was quite surprised at the recent controversies following Stephen King and Terry Gilliam.
I got what they were saying and could see their point of view. Not necessarily agreeing with it, but didn't find them particularly controversial

 

[marlowe]

You could have easily made the same quip without using the word Nazi which was not advisable in this situation given that you had no idea who you were talking to. The lady in question might have been Jewish and she may have had people in her family who suffered at the hands of the Nazis, so in that situation a little more judgement should have been used, especially as the implication of your comment was that you were excusing her for her actions.

There is nothing wrong with using Nazism as a basis for humour as long as it is done in the right context. It is also still perfectly acceptable and not as taboo as is perceived as the recent oscar nominated film Jojo Rabbit demonstrates.

 

[Beach Seagull]

I don't think so tbh. Pretty much everyone has marked you as a dull troll, so will probably just ignore it. You've had better efforts, in truth. You need to be a little more subtle, if you can.

Hey 'voice of reason' would you be able to define who 'pretty much everyone is' please? Who exactly is 'everyone'. Looking forward to you providing clarification on this.

 

[Publius Ovidius]

On another tack...the scene In Blackadder Christmas Carol, where Baldrick is talking about the lack babies due to infant mortality to be Jesus in the school nativity.

Paraphrasing. ...so what did you do...we used a dog...... and later, kids can’t wait till Easter when we nail up the dog!

That has been airbrushed out of a lot of YouTube and iPlayer copies of the episode as it was highly offensive to Christians and animal lovers!

 

[Uncle Spielberg]

I still find this scene hilarious. Guess that makes me a dinosaur.

We are both relics now mate

 

[timbha]

Attention seeker and attention seeking family

 

[ConfusedGloryHunter]

A person could interpret "like the Nazis, you were only acting under orders" to be the same as saying, "had you been at Auschwitz you would have unquestioningly followed orders", which is closely related to "you would obviously love to get involved in genocide, you raging Nazi". Given you had just been resolving a minor conflict with some awkward jobs-worth (who had, none the less, been flexible enough to agree with you) probably suggesting they would have made a good Nazi was not the most diplomatic move.

The problem I think you have is that the "just following orders" joke has been around at least since the Nuremberg trials and, being just an old joke, you thought it was OK to use it, but whilst it is "just a joke" the joke is primarily an insulting dig at the person who is just following orders by comparing them to Nazis, so maybe you forgot this aspect of the joke when you said it?

To answer your question then: yes the joke was offensive, which made you at that time accidentally offensive and yes using the joke (which is about 75 years old) with a 20-something makes you an out of touch dinosaur. The first is a minor thing that you could maybe apologise for and become inoffensive once more (if this is what you would like to be) and the second is just life, most of us on NSC appear to be out of touch dinosaurs. Welcome to the club.

 

[MattBackHome]

Not sure if it really needs pointing out that there is a smidge of a difference between Harty joking that someone acted like a Nazi and that Fawlty Towers episode.

 

[kevo]

Yes to all your questions.

 

[The Oldman]

I do not think I would ever use the term “Nazi” in a jocular way. I remember the horrors of concentration camps too well . Nearly 80 I do not think I am a snowflake .

Having said that if I was the woman in question I would have just ignored the comment and put it down to a crude attempt as a joke.

 

[Dick Knights Mumm]

Not sure if it really needs pointing out that there is a smidge of a difference between Harty joking that someone acted like a Nazi and that Fawlty Towers episode.

Just a smidge.

 

[Uh_huh_him]

I recently called out my Mum's partner for using the term "Play the White man"
He was very taken aback that anyone would see this term as offensive

I don't think it was particularly "woke" of me to take offense at this term.

 

[beorhthelm]

comparison to the Nazis is inherently offending, there's no nice thing there. i dont know why we throw around so loosely.

 

[Bold Seagull]

I refer you to my learned friend.......

I'm a bit of a Fry fan, what's interesting is his assertion that the human condition lends itself to prefer to be right than to be effective.

In this thread, was the OP right to use the language they did in addressing someone they'd never met or spoken to before, most likely no. Was the person who received the language right to be offended by it, probably no as well. Neither is correct, and that is the point Fry is essentially making. He is not relieving any of us of our sense of decency or judgement, but the route to no one using offensive language or action isn't to identify everything that is. It's a big distinction. If you think Fry is saying you can go around saying what you want and no one should be offended, that really is missing the point.

 

[Wellesley]

Not offensive at all. Even if she has no sense of humour, there was no need to take it further. Dear oh dear oh dear oh dear oh dear oh dear oh dear. AAAAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHH!!!

 

[Easy 10]

We are both relics now mate

Yet its still shown on Fawlty Tower repeats, and the BBC DVD boxset (which I have). Quite surprising it hasn't been cut/airbrushed from the episode in this day and age.