Back in April, the Free Speech Union put together a spoof April Fools’ Day news article about how the Daily Sceptic was looking to recruit a team of sensitivity readers to, as we put it, help the editorial team create a “safe online space from which those with distasteful views can be excluded”, and be responsible for “developing untapped issues in the field of sensitivity (e.g., ‘Are verbs racist?’, ‘Is proper grammar fascism by other means?’, ‘Do linear narratives perpetuate colonial thought structures?’, etc) and bringing these to the attention of the editors”.
Even at the time, we were getting perilously close to the point at which satire might plausibly cross over into plain reportage. According to Steerpike in the Spectator, however, a particularly earnest group of progressive undergraduates at the University of Cambridge have now contrived to blur that distinction altogether.
This is the news that the legendary Cambridge Footlights, one of Britain’s oldest student comedy troupes, whose alumni include Germaine Greer, Sue Perkins, Stephen Fry, Richard Ayoade, Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Clive James and David Mitchell, is now recruiting for a new ‘sensitivity reading’ service to ensure “all student comedy” is as “inclusive as possible” and “to check for potential oversights regarding racism, classism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia and ableism, or any other kind of sensitive or upsetting material”.
The new “optional request for any student-written comedy” will involve a member of the Footlights Committee offering to vet submissions and conferring with the other members of their panel as to any necessary changes.
A briefing document for members seen by the Spectator stresses that this is “an opt-in service and is not at all compulsory” and promises that “this is not a joke deletion service… we would seek to maintain all the humour and hopefully we’re qualified to do this”.
It also asserts in bold that “this is not censorship”, and that “we are not trying to stop students pushing the boundaries on what is acceptable… we are only offering a second, uninvolved opinion on your work, specifically to check whether it comes across as punching up rather than down”.
Despite these nods to the importance of artistic creativity and freedom of expression, the invocation of the metaphor ‘punching’ up or down does rather suggest the document’s authors may well have other, more progressive priorities.
In the new woke lexicon, to ‘punch down’ is to make fun of any person or group who is in some way deemed to be less ‘privileged’ than the comedian. This, apparently, is the greatest crime a modern comedian can commit.
Of course, many comedians might well argue that what they’re swinging away at during their routines isn’t people, but abstract sets of ideas; not trans folk or Black Lives Matter protesters, for instance, but trans activist ideology and critical race theory.
It’s therefore interesting to consider the extent to which the metaphor of ‘punching’ up or down serves to reframe reality, forcing us to personify humour’s intended targets, and thus render the comedian either as an abuser (i.e., ‘punching down’) or a progressive campaigner (i.e., ‘punching up’).
In that sense, the Footlights Committee’s new sensitivity reading initiative won’t need to involve, as they put it, “joke deletion”, “censorship”, or any direct attempt to “stop students from pushing the boundaries of what is acceptable”, to end up having a chilling effect.
Because what budding young comic among Cambridge’s student body will want to be whispered about among friends and peers as a psychologically abusive, hate-fuelled, minority-victimising bully?
Dr. Frederick Attenborough is the Communications Officer of the Free Speech Union.
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Scapegoat for the corrupt and incompetent NHS…
It’ll be us tax payers paying for he huge compensation when she’s released…
I thought you were leaving DS?
That was posted before the multi parrotting of the bs narrative.
So stfu..
There’s absolutely nothing on this site that I can’t find on msm.. It’s nothing but pretence.. Day after day, week after week, year after year of nothing but parrotting of the forced narrative by the same old people, saying nothing new, all while the likes of you think you’re being a Sceptic…… Clueless
“So stfu.”
Your rudeness amply displays the thugish level at which you seek to engage with the members of this site but I can assure you it is not considered acceptable by the vast majority.
“There’s absolutely nothing on this site that I can’t find on msm.. It’s nothing but pretence.”
Which naturally begs the question, ‘why are you here?’
If you can find the same information in the Main Stream Media as DS provides then surely your shekels would be better spent in a local town centre boozer where perhaps opinions might not be so nuanced as are found here. That is not meant to wish you good riddance as I am sure DS Editorial welcome contributions from whatever sources, no matter how humble, but surely some self reflection is warranted, no?
The Daily Sceptic has developed over the four years I have been a member / subscriber and I believe it is a site which supports lively, informed, opinionated but always well mannered discussions. We do not all share the same opinions, fortunately but surely in these frankly dark and dangerous times the ability to talk freely but politely is to be welcomed and supported.
At least you have provided a degree of low level comedy via your postings but I really do think you should be looking elsewhere for people with whom you can vociferate. There must be outlets available somewhere.
Toodle pip.
Epic.
Evidently the kind of person whose picnic is totally devoid of sandwiches.
It’s the fact he’s literally spent money to come on a site he’s previously ( in different guises ) and continuously moans about, saying “I’m done” then just comes back with a different name time and again…What rational person goes on like that?
Thanks Mogs.
She’s as guilty as hell.
The transcripts I have read indicate that Ms Letby is wholly innocent but there are two or three doctors who appear to have been negligent and that’s a generous assessment.
And you know this how?
Her guilt was shown by the fact that she was always on duty when the babies died, except when she wasn’t… something a little inconsistent there.
Statistical rounding error…
Yes didn’t Norman Fenton carry out some analysis about various doctors and nurses attending the ward and basically showed anyone could have been responsible? Looks like a cover up to me of NHS incompetence.
The modelling shows that this could never happen – so that proves it.
(whatever it is)
Experts. Don’t you just love them. Poor Sally Clark all over again perhaps.
The NHS seem certain she’s guilty though –
https://www.england.nhs.uk/2023/08/commenting-on-the-verdict-in-the-lucy-letby-trial/
Ruth May needs to keep her trap shut.
The NHS are still pushing the bloody C1984 “vaccines.” So far I have received two text messages “inviting” me and a further email.
Two days ago I had to attend A & E. The tannoy is still pumping out messages telling people to wear masks, socially distance and wash hands – unbelievable given the damages the first two have caused.
One thing’s for sure. It’s quite certain that particularly with their jab rhetoric the NHS has caused and will continue to cause the death of thousands more than Lucy Letby ever has.