This post was brought on in part by some of the recent political debates about certain statements being “over the line” etc.
To piggyback on a point I once read regarding the contemporary loss of distinction between Patriotism and Nationalism and/Jingoism, I’ve been thinking on and off about what ever happened to the social category of “Taste”. I suppose it’s kind of a pre-90’s mentality–you know, back when The Simpsons was considered edgy–but it seems to me that the realm of social meaning and valuation that “Taste” used to occupy has been carved up between radical Free Speech advocacy and PC Speech Restrictions, and that conceptually we’re a far poorer society as a result.
Briefly, as a working definition I understand the “Taste” to encompass the degree to which an actor frames his actions/utterances in accordance with the accepted social norms of the particular context of the action/utterance. Radical Free Speech attacks this by claiming that social context should never impinge upon one’s right to express oneself however one wants wherever and whenever one wants, and PC Speech declares certain expressions and opinions as off-limits in any context.
May 3, 2008 at 11:44 am
[...] In an earlier post, I opined that a large problem for American society is that social space occupied by the concept of [...]