To think we should forgive old people their transgressions?

[lboogy]

Reading a lot of threads here about PILs and parents and how irritating they can be has made me think about forgiveness generally.

Obviously each circumstance is different but for gripes like getting bad presents, being ignored, having rude off the cuff things said should we be more forgiving in the knowledge that parents & in laws may not be around for much longer and wouldn't it be better to ignore/turn the other cheek. After all when we get to that age and much of our support system has died we'd need our remaining family to be compassionate /forgiving to us.

As I said, the 1960 and 70s were famous for their rigid conformity and respect for the older generation.......

It's do as I say, not what I did apparently.

I have seen TacoLover on other threads with er, intolerant views, so...

Anyway, I thoroughly agree that you never know what's going to be "unapproved" next. And yes, mark my words, something we do now without thinking will have us condemned when we are old and sitting in a nursing home. Perhaps eating meat will be outlawed, and young people will think it egregious that in our addled state we've forgotten and asked for sausage and mash or a shepherd's pie.

@Bertrand would you consider en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Town_Bloody_Hall as an example of rigidly famous for conformity )

I am off piste here but I love this film / documentary - the comment I always remember and so does my son ( 22) - the woman who when Norman Mailer says it takes balls to write - she asks him - what colour ink do you dip them in. Even he ( NM) had the grace to laugh.

Anyway I am off topic there - apologies.

I am galloping towards 70 but I would expect to be pulled up if I was rude, nasty or in any way obnoxious. That said I do think that it is easier to offend some people these days. I find I constantly have to think if something I say would upset someone.
Just touching on the n word, when I was young in the '50s my mother ran a catalogue agency. In this catalogue you could buy clothes that were advertised as n*** brown. Hard to believe isn't it?

That should be n*** brown. although i'm sure you know what I mean

ll

Interestingly, in around 1965, my mother explained to me very publicly why it was very wrong to use the expression “nigger brown”. She would be 99 if she was alive today. She also explained why we were boycotting South African oranges.

"However, I have noticed many of the current 60-70 year olds today expect respect unquestionably

I don’t think that can be pinned on an age group these days. Everybody seems to demand that their own personal feelz are all important in every interaction so they’re never triggered or offended or see anything that upsets them.

Everyone demands they are respected but they never seem keen to offer respect in return. It’s just a very individualistic society, people are very selfish and always put their own needs above the good of the community as a whole. From University students who are triggered by the Spice Girls to businessmen who have huge and dubious tax avoidance schemes).

(And I do genuinely know someone who claims to be triggered by the Spice Girls because Geri wore a Union Jack dress and said she admired Thatcher).

I will not be cutting the 71 year old man who has been unfaithful to me for the last 3 years any slack at all.

I'm 51 op. Can you let me know when it's ok for me to start being obnoxious please?

I have seen TacoLover on other threads with er, intolerant views, so...

Don't be deliberately today if you're not going to elaborate.. I'd like to know why I'm so intolerant. Funny how you're trying to make me out to be a hypocrite when all I've said is that I don't forgive people for being racist because they're old

I am of an age where you didn't get a Barclays account at university.

I’ve just been thinking about this. The people on here who are dogmatically insisting that people must think a certain thing and be punished if they don’t: they are probably the posters on here who will suffer the same thing purely because they are so dogmatically convinced the’re right.

Because the old people that some posters are censuring are exactly the same. They internalised ideologies which were perfectly acceptable in their youth and they’ve never been able to get beyond that and accept that the world has changed. I suspect many of the people on here who are so convinced they’re right will be exactly the same.

Because I can absolutely guarantee if you’re lucky enough to lead a long life, society and it’s dominant philosophies will be absolutely unrecognisable from that of your youth. I’m only in my 40s and it’s already changed hugely within my own memory.

Or that in the 1980s students were no platforming speakers they didn’t like?

Nothing quite like a “you don’t understand history like me” rant that shows total ignorance of history, is there? The 1980s were the height of no platforming. I recall being at an NUS conference in about 1982 at which virtually every debate was interrupted with reference to standing orders on no platform, and while I was an under graduate in the early to mid 1980s the no platforming of speakers was entirely routine. its return is lamentable.

The claim that “islamophobia” is a post 9/11 issue is an equally ahistorical position; the Satanic Verses debacle and the backlash to it was hardly a niche issue.

Nope! Respect goes both ways regardless of age. 🙄

Or that in the 1980s students were no platforming speakers they didn’t like?

The funny thing about no platforming is that its those that were no platforming others that are being no platformed today.

YY Boneyback

As Joe Strummer sang at the beginning of the decade, “I believe in this, and it’s been tested by research, that he who fucks nuns will later join the church”. The “he who” is a nice public school touch, for the extra layer of “not so punk” irony.

Hmm. I think some things can be forgiven if they are representative of a widely acceptable view at the time. So I can forgive my grandparents saying things that are slightly sexist for example as I understand that if you were brought up with rigidly defined gender roles it might be hard to come round to thinking in the opposite mindset. However they are / were willing to listen to others viewpoints and understand things move on. Same with some language that is considered racist now, that were actually the most positive or least offensive terms at the time. I understand it can be hard to get used to new terms and they think the ones we use now will change again. However again if they are willing to listen and try and change that makes all the difference.

There are some people though that use age as an excuse to be rude. Making public remarks about other people's appearance or parenting or treating people differently because of race etc
has never been acceptable and it's not OK just because you're old. You should t be deferred to or appeased when you're being nasty without any reason to be, just because of your age

My Gran is late 90s. She was pretty with it and moved with the times until recently, with one exception. She is vehemently anti Japan and anything Japanese. She was in Singapore during the war and watched loved ones murdered in sadistically cruel ways and starved to death when there was no shortage of food. So while I think she is racist, I forgive her own inability to forgive and move on.

I understand that if you were brought up with rigidly defined gender roles it might be hard to come round to thinking in the opposite mindset. However they are / were willing to listen to others viewpoints and understand things move on. Same with some language that is considered racist now, that were actually the most positive or least offensive terms at the time. I understand it can be hard to get used to new terms and they think the ones we use now will change again. However again if they are willing to listen and try and change that makes all the difference.

This is it again though ffs! You’re absolutely determined that your views are right and as soon as you enlighten old people the scales will suddenly fall from their eyes. You’re asking for them to listen and understand, but you’re not extending the same respect back.

This is something that seems completely lost in our society, the ability to understand that somebody you fundamentally agree with is not proven wrong or a monster.

I read about George Bush Snrs funeral the other day. The Bushes and Obama’s politics are diametrically opposed yet they had forged such a close relationship Obama was one of the last people to talk to him when he died.

If more people could behave like that, we’d have far easier lives.

DS ( studied history at university ) is not for current views removing everything re other views ( e.g. Rhodes must fall) . Take it for what it is / was and move on to other views but do not delete it. That may not work as well for language , so a slightly tangential point.

@ReflectentMonatomism Have you read The Satanic Verses? It is not an Islamaphobic book. It is a novel with a dream sequence inspired by Islamic and pre-Islamic ideas. There are plenty of educated moderate Muslims who are not bothered by creative writing of this sort, but just like some Christians denounced the Harry Potter series, some Muslims denounced this novel. However, there is a fundamental difference between these two types of denouncing. No one has been murdered for being associated with the Harry Potter stories. By contract, the reaction by extremist Muslims resulted in a fatwa and the murder of the book's translator. It brought Islam into the headlines and made people from non-Muslim backgrounds wary about a religion that would encourage murder, because all they heard was that an important Muslim leader had made this announcement. It sounded a bit like he was the Muslim equivalent of the Pope, which is clearly not the case, but such nuances were lost in tabloid headlines. It is one of many examples of the damage that reductionism can do.