Please accept and publish the below as a reasonable and comprehensive response to Geoff Hiatt’s submissions.
The voicing of this, or a similar, point of view is necessary to ensure a certain squeaky wheel doesn’t get an unjust serving of grease at the cost of all our reputations.
“Anti-Too Long; Didn’t Read” summary:
A: Jokes don’t cause sane people to view rape less seriously.
B: Jokes are not advocations.
C: Hiatt’s accusations are probably libelous.
D: People are not responsible for other people’s unforced actions.
E: The form of Hiatt’s letters is appropriate; the content is not.
F: An apology is acceptable; censorship is not.
It was just a joke
Jokes aren’t meant to be taken seriously; why are you taking it seriously? Because you think other people will take rape less seriously if a college footballer tells a joke about it. Why do you think that? Why would a sane person take rape less seriously because of a college footballer’s joke? Do we have any evidence that sane people take rape less seriously because of jokes? I don’t take rape less seriously because of jokes. You don’t take rape less seriously because of jokes. None of the people I’ve seen in any of these threads take rape less seriously because of jokes. No one I’ve ever met in my entire life (even the insane people) seemed like the kind of person that would take rape less seriously because of jokes. Why are you afraid of this? What reasons do you have for believing this? Are they good reasons? Are they based on objective observations of sane people taking rape less seriously because of rape jokes? They can’t be, because such observations don’t exist. No sane person in the Laramie community has decided to take rape less seriously because of this joke.
It’s just a line form a movie
Again you respond with “People will take this less seriously if people joke about it (paraphrased)”. Again, I ask why you fear this consequence.
He didn’t say anything about rape; you are putting words in his mouth
You’re right, he clearly joked about rape. The part where you put words in his mouth is not when you accuse him of making a joke about rape; it’s when you say he advocated rape. Now, joking about rape and advocating rape are different things. You are a reasonable adult. You should know the difference. In fact, I would feel comfortable asserting you do know the difference. However, I don’t understand why you deny the difference and assert that they are identical. If it is because you fear that sane people frequently make a similar mistake and take jokes as advocations, then I am happy to inform you that your fears are unfounded—you can relax. A sane person would never do this, because telling the difference between jokes and advocations is actually a requirement for sanity. Also, because jokes and advocations are definitively not the same thing, asserting that someone advocated rape when they actually joked about it is libelous. It really, really is. I really think the college footballer could bring criminal charges against you and you would be convicted. Also, you set up this reaction as a straw-man argument. You misrepresented your opponent’s position. That’s bad because it lends illegitimate credence to your own argument, which it does not deserve. Which is bad because your position seems to be one of illogical fear, and convincing people to hold a position because of illogical fear is wrong. It is especially wrong when that position seems to advocate censorship. If you don’t think censorship is inherently wrong, you’re weird, but entitled to your position and you’re entitled to talk about it.
Why are you picking on a player instead of addressing the real problems, like irresponsible drinking?
This reaction in itself is just plain bad. It’s not worth defending. However, it prompted you to respond with some very important arguments of your own, primarily that “no one is responsible for rape except rapists (paraphrased).” I agree with you. In fact, I agree with you so entirely that I take a step further and assert that no one is responsible for the willful, unforced actions of any other person. The important thing to take from this is that even if jokes actually caused sane people to take rape less seriously, those people are immeasurably more responsible for that decision than the joker. Immeasurably. Alleviating those people of that blame and placing it on the college footballer is morally reprehensible. If a sane person decides rape is less serious because of a joke, that person is morally reprehensible and blaming a college footballer and his joke for that person’s decision is really more than just morally reprehensible—it’s evil. He did not coerce them into believing anything, and we all know it’s wrong to blame people for actions other people took.
Dave Christensen has nothing to do with this; why are you bringing him into this?
You make a pretty solid argument here, except that I disagree with you that Christensen is responsible for the actions of his players. Other people are not responsible for the willful, unforced actions of other people.
Saying the player should be reprimanded, or calling Christensen’s salary into question, is too extreme for a single remark
I actually think your response is fairly well-measured in it’s severity: the joke and your “formal demand for an apology” are both just words that probably won’t elicit anything more than other words. All in all, that’s pretty even. The joke probably won’t do anything other than make you ask for an apology and, in turn, make people like me illustrate that asking for such an apology and a censorship of future jokes is morally reprehensible and logically unsound. Now, I know you disagree with me that this joke was so harmless. I know that. I get it. I really, really get it. In fact, I get it so much, that I think that your demand for an apology is totally legitimate but only when based solely on how offended you are. However, you should understand that you’re only logically and morally entitled to an apology from the footballer (and maybe whoever put the chloroform graphic up) for how he has offended you. You are not logically or morally entitled to demand an apology from anyone but the footballer and the production team. This is because people are not responsible for other people’s unforced actions. You are not logically or morally entitled to demand an apology for the degradation of general societal morality. This is because you have fabricated this result. You really have. I’ll say it again, because I know you will have a hard time accepting this: no one in the Laramie community thinks rape is less serious because of this footballer’s bad rape joke–no one. Asserting that we as a community have done or will do this pure fantasy. You are not logically or morally entitled to request the silence and suppression of anyone’s words, no matter their content. This is because censorship is almost categorically evil.
Spencer Pittman
UW Alum
P.S.: If you were thinking of attacking the “assertion” that no sane person would take rape less seriously because of a joke, please defer my definition of sanity that entails the ability to delineate jokes from advocation or persuasion. By definition, it would be impossible for a sane person to do this because they would stop being sane the moment they did. If you cite an example of people taking artifice seriously and committing crimes based upon that artifice, I will cite the fact that they were insane. Does it feel kind of cheap to have to resort to that? A little; but at least it’s reasonable. I don’t think sane people would take rape less seriously because of jokes, and I think most sane people think that too. Oh, also, if it’s not evident, when insane people make the mistake of taking artifice as persuasion, that’s immeasurably more attributable to their insanity than it is to the artifice. Why immeasurable? Because every person that was exposed to the artifice and did not commit a crime because of it is evidence that the artifice does not cause crime. And one last thing, don’t attempt to get out of this one because I gave you the freebie that my assertion and definition are cheap tricks. Why? Because the assertion and definition also reflect reality more accurately than yours.