"You Can't Say That!" "Watch Me."
Many years ago, when I was a partner in a Madison Avenue ad agency, our client Swissair asked us to come up with an ad that asked affluent American Express holders to do their Christmas shopping in Zurich, Switzerland. I wrote “Merry Swissmas” on a sheet of paper. My Art Director Juergen Dahlen came up with a picture. It was pasted on foamcore, was run over to the Swissair offices and met with applause. Two weeks later, I had a lady from American Express on the line.
“Christmas! You can’t say that!”
“It’s Swissmas.”
“Come on, I know what you wanted to say.”
“So, what should I say?”
“You know. Happy holidays.”
“Alright. I’ll change the headline to Merry Swolidays.”
“You are kidding me.”
I picked up the phone and called Swissair. They could not believe it. Enraged, they called up Amex and called off the promotion.
This was some twenty years ago, and matters did not improve ever since. Says the American Thinker:
“Under the guise of being sensitive to “feelings,” political correctness has succeeded in effectively censoring any uncomfortable “truths” that do not comport with liberal orthodoxy.”
“Political correctness is an approved form of censorship. Based on emotional appeals at the expense of reason, political correctness mandates that inconvenient truths or facts be swept under the carpet. Or else. Free speech, guaranteed to all Americans under the First Amendment, is on its way to becoming moot.”
In fulfilling its mandate, TTAC steps on sensitivities all day long. Truth hurts, especially feelings. By now, TTAC must have hurt the sensitivities of just about any car owner, we have been accused of being biased against domestics and imports, our choice of pictures provides never-ending fuel for flames.
Would we listen to it, we probably would be flamed for delivering a bland appliance blog. If hurt feelings would stop us from writing, then we would have closed TTAC long ago. We won’t. Attempts to censor TTAC will receive the cold shoulder. Incessant attempts will be met with a ban.
While on the subject, allow me to draw attention to TTAC’s commenting policy.
The policy expressly disallows hate speech, “racism, sexism and homophobia.”
The policy also disallows ‘what not to write’ requests. TTAC editors choose what to write and what not to write, just like TTAC readers choose what to read and what not to read.
Likewise, the policy disallows interference with administrative actions: “Backtalk after an administrative action usually means a quick end to a commenter’s career on TTAC.” And: “If you write ‘I will probably get banned for this,’ you probably will.”
The policy disallows threats.
When a thread gets closed, it is because flames already were too high, and to avoid a spreading to other parts of TTAC. Hijacking of other threads in order to continue the flaming is disrespectful to other commenters, it also interferes with an explicit administrative action.
Several of these policies were ignored yesterday. A warning was issued, the FAQ was pointed out. After the warning, one commenter violated several of these policies in the course of four lines. This commenter is no longer with us.
This commenter threatened to complain to TTAC’s parent company. While anyone is free to complain anywhere, it should be known that TTAC thoroughly enjoys full editorial freedom. Nobody of TTAC’s owners has ever told us what to write and what not to write. Which sets them apart from some commenters.
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
More by Bertel Schmitt
Comments
Join the conversation
I could be the only Asian (complete with small slanty eye) commenting on this one. Let me do the stereotypical Asian thing, squeeze to the front and have my $0.02. :) I find that sometimes people need to be told something's an insult in order to find something offensive. Circa 2001 I was attending college stateside, and fresh from a racial studies class I enjoyed, attempted to explain to a younger Asian freshman that he shouldn't use Oriental to describe himself in a dating profile. He was not grateful. He was so effin pissed off at my warm reminder, he screamed several dozens of profanities my way, ruined my self-worth and possibly my future as an annoying body double for Michio Kaku. You may see why I'm no longer too bothered by what people call me, the reason being that, if people don't spontaneously want to respect or listen to you, no amount of language can give you respect. Not stepping on proverbial toes, doesn't mean they respect or agree with anything either. The reason some black people allow them to address each other as niggers, I imagine, is because that way they can be sure it's meant in fun and not to belittle. But how can you be sure? You can't be sure really, can you? That's why their rule may seem a little odd. I being Asian and gay, went to 4 schools from k-12 in different countries and was bullied at every single one. I'm not here to wiggle my ass and say I'm a survivor. Looking back, I would say some behavior is just human nature. What I'm thinking is this: what we as people do mainly is fight for some sort of intangible status. Struggle. Attempt to one-up each other, strike back protectively when we suspect the smallest of wrongdoing, hoping that'll make us appear a certain way. And language is just one of many tools for that. For the banned commenter, telling people what is offensive (but only in American English and nothing else?) may not do anything other than serve this ulterior motive. Thus he got madder and madder as others won't let him have his way. I'm not sure he cared about us lovely billions of Asians who may or may not understand all the American English insults meant for us. I quite enjoyed my time in the US. I learned much and was well taken care of, that I became a fairly passionate defender of certain American ways. Political correct terminology (e.g. calling store clerks associates, and flight attendants TALENTS) is not one of them. If you're a US-based commenter who might have found certain words mighty offensive, this slanty-eyed Oriental would suggest our times are better spent on really being good to each other, not arguing about what is offensive. I leave that to Nancy Grace. Thank you Mr. Bertel - I know my comments tend to be inane rants, but I always have such a great time @ TTAC. You guys gave me back my enthusiasm for cars.
Euphemism treadmill. No matter how hard you try to avoid offensive language, as long as there is offensive intent, there will be offense in language. Banning the words only shifts it to other words. This is the flaw of PC. It attempts to control people's thinking by controling their language (which does work--those with fewer words for different colors actually are unable to discern as many colors), but people are sneaky and invent new words for those that are removed, thus preserving the ideas that were intended to be squashed. Only the removal of the intent of offense and the receipt of offense cures the problem.