Stephen Fry criticised for telling self-pitying abuse victims to 'grow up'

[Deleted]

Stephen Fry criticised for telling self-pitying abuse victims to 'grow up'

http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2...y-charity-mind

The mental health charity Mind has criticised its president, Stephen Fry, for comments suggesting he had no sympathy for child abuse victims’ “self-pity” if it meant restricting free speech.

Fry, who quit Twitter earlier this year after a backlash over a joke he made at the Baftas, was speaking to the US TV show The Rubin Report about campus free speech, safe spaces and trigger warnings on literature.

“In terms of how they think, they can’t bear complexity. The idea that things aren’t easy to understand,” said Fry, who has spoken openly in the past of his own mental illness. “They want to be told, or they want to be able to decide and say, ‘This is good and this is bad,’ and anything that conflicts with that is not to be borne.”

Using child sex abuse as an example, Fry said people who wanted warnings on disturbing texts needed to grow up.

“There are many great plays which contain rapes, and the word rape now is even considered a rape,” he said. “If you say: ‘you can’t watch this play, you can’t watch Titus Andronicus, or you can’t read it in a Shakespeare class, or you can’t read Macbeth because it’s got children being killed in it, it might trigger something when you were young that upset you once, because uncle touched you in a nasty place’, well I’m sorry.

“It’s a great shame and we’re all very sorry that your uncle touched you in that nasty place, you get some of my sympathy, but your self-pity gets none of my sympathy because self-pity is the ugliest emotion in humanity.

“Get rid of it, because no one’s going to like you if you feel sorry for yourself. The irony is we’ll feel sorry for you, if you stop feeling sorry for yourself. Just grow up.”

...

“As president of Mind, Stephen Fry has done a huge amount to raise awareness and understanding about bipolar disorder and other mental health problems. He has supported Mind in our campaigning activities over the last decade and has helped enormously to change public attitudes in the UK about mental health for the better.”



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In response:

No-one would listen to Stephen Fry if he was poor

http://www.theguardian.com/commentis...ng-safe-spaces

Free speech is under attack and here comes Stephen Fry to defend it. Bemoaning the “infantilising” culture of safe spaces and trigger warnings that has developed at universities in recent years, Fry launches into an extraordinary attack on victims of sexual abuse, saying: “It’s a great shame and we’re all very sorry that your uncle touched you in that nasty place – you get some of my sympathy – but your self-pity gets none of my sympathy.” It was a sustained attack. “Self-pity is the ugliest emotion in humanity,” he said. “Get rid of it, because no one’s going to like you if you feel sorry for yourself. The irony is, we’ll feel sorry for you if you stop feeling sorry for yourself. Grow up.”

...

He is allowed to, of course, because of free speech: for in 2016, an absolutist interpretation of free speech has become popular among the chattering classes. If only the overwhelmingly white, middle-class, Oxbridge-educated, male-dominated commentariat would take “freedom from prejudice” as seriously as it takes “freedom of expression”.

Free speech means something only if you have a platform with which to use it. These free speech fetishists don’t seem to realise that “free speech” is a privilege usually afforded only to people like themselves. To blithely assert that everyone enjoys the same right to free speech is like claiming that I have a right to buy a large house in north London because there is a “free market”. Theoretically it is possible, but life in our real world isn’t like that.

I have a platform now. Why? Because I had sex for money and put myself through university. Luckily for me, I fell in love with a nice, middle-class boy in my final year and gave up prostitution. After a few months, I moved to London to live with him. He was a banker.

Free speech isn’t under attack; platform privilege is. Stephen Fry, Germaine Greer and the rest of the commentariat are the free speech 1%, enjoying regular and ready access to platforms the rest of the population can only dream about. When you use such platform privilege to pour scorn on minorities and sneer at victims of child abuse, you’re not a champion of free speech – you’re a bully.

[medievalman1]

The mental health charity Mind has criticised its president, Stephen Fry, for comments suggesting he had no sympathy for child abuse victims’ “self-pity” if it meant restricting free speech.

I feel like the above bolded section is the most important part of Fry's comments.

[caervek]

Fry said people who wanted warnings on disturbing texts needed to grow up.

Agree with Fry 100%

[Tradewind]

That comment pool is fucking cringe worthy.

[Hawthorne Wipes]

I agree with him in the message, but the way he examplify it is stupid.
You cannot simply tell an abused child to "grow up".

[Tradewind]

I agree with him in the message, but the way he examplify it is stupid.
You cannot simply tell an abused child to "grow up".

Pretty sure that's exactly what he did.

[Super Friendly Kitty Cat]

Agree with Fry 100%

Of course. You like most people are rational human beings who possess normal mental faculties.

The rebuttal piece was written by a juvenile crimininal, transexual person who characterize those that enjoy the freedoms and protections of free speech has having a "free speech fetish". The articles author is just degenerate trash.

[lazypeon100]

Pretty sure that's exactly what he did.

I mean, you can, but not sure if you're going to get the results you're looking for anyway.

[thilicen]

Fry knows what's up.

[Rixis]

Read the first half of the post and I don't see an issue. People are being to frightened about damn near everything these days it seems. Safe spaces, censoring content that offends them, that sort of thing, it's all getting rather tedious to read about.

[Super Friendly Kitty Cat]

Bleh. Kill it with fire. Nuke it from orbit.

[tehealadin]

Guardian comment section is often filled with utter shite. She most likely missed the point of what he was saying, though it is possible she got it, didn't like it, brings out the victim card. I think Fry could have made his point a little better, and probably gave more room than is needed to his critics to attack it.

I feel safe spaces have a place- I have been on courses where we would be covering some harrowing stuff and they were always prefaced with a small warning, and people were told that if they needed a time out if some of the content gets too upsetting then they can take one. And on one, I have to admit, I felt like I could use it, we were covering something that had personal significance to me, something I thought I could deal with, but I ended up really struggling, I didn't take the time out, but came close to it.

However, I would never demand content gets changed- I cannot move the world to accommodate my problems. To expect such is infantile. And if you feel that content on an academic course needs to be played with to fit your sensitivities, you probably shouldn't be on the course.

His skin colour or sex has nothing to do with anything. His status means more people will listen, so what? The author didn't actually tackle the point he was making, and goes straight for the privilege. Fair enough in disagreeing, but argue why. And if you disagree with a person because you don't like their skin colour, or class, then this isn't a strong platform. And to then shoot down the core of your argument, "no one would listen to him if he was poor", talking about platforms etc, whilst writing for a massive publication that will be seen by a significant number. What is boils down to is "he has a platform, so should use it to say things that I agree with".

I also loved this part

To blithely assert that everyone enjoys the same right to free speech is like claiming that I have a right to buy a large house in north London because there is a “free market”.

She doesn't seem to get how rights work.

[Templar 331]

When you use such platform privilege to pour scorn on minorities and sneer at victims of child abuse, you’re not a champion of free speech – you’re a bully.

I'm reminded of this ironic thread seeing as the author of these two articles are women.

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...ernet-comments

Totally agree with Fry on this. It isn't healthy to keep victims in the "victim stage" of abuse. Though I wouldn't like someone constantly telling me to "get over it and be happy" either, the first one is more damaging.

[greeeed]

I agree with him in the message, but the way he examplify it is stupid.
You cannot simply tell an abused child to "grow up".

He was talking about an adult person who got trigger because he/she was abused when he/she was a child.

It like adult getting trigger by watching Anakin Skywalker killing the kids in Star Wars movie

[Deleted]

He was talking about an adult person who got trigger because he/she was abused when he/she was a child.

It like adult getting trigger by watching Anakin Skywalker killing the kids in Star Wars movie

To be fair, almost everything about the prequels trigger me

But that's the point isn't it - the triggering is subjective, that's on me

It's fine for one person to be sensitive to specific subjects that the majority is not sensitive about - but to ask others to be sensitive to the same degree as well is infringing on their freedom and their rationality

[Deleted]

I agree with him in the message, but the way he examplify it is stupid.
You cannot simply tell an abused child to "grow up".

Whether or not its helpful is one thing, But getting over (as in growing up) is the sole possible positive outcome.
Letting what happened to you define you is not positive.

- - - Updated - - -

She doesn't seem to get how rights work.

Or understand that, were we to find that there is a problem with the free market, our solution would be to help you be able to buy said house in London.
(which is what they do for people in London)
Which really screws her over, because the solution to the problem of not everyone being able to speak, is making everyone able to speak, not restricting the speech of those who 'can' -

[Strangebrew]

100% agree with Stephen, i like him, dude's cool.

[endersblade]

This just in, the overly sensitive world is shocked and amazing when someone famous calls out a bunch of emo twits. At 11, join us as we probe into the world of a man who gets offended because the wind doesn't blow in the exact direction he wants, and a woman who is irate with a grocery store for selling 'chocolate' milk, which she finds to be racist.

[Independent voter]

Being polite like grandma said to be is a very good strategy. Why offend people needlessly? And if you do offend people a lot they will tune you out and your words will be censored by them completely.

Save your outrage for a worthy cause, offend people then. Don't push buttons just because you can.

[Wyrt]

People who treat anything that's not rape as if it was rape is horribly offensive to actual rape victims and belittles what those women/men actually went through.

That awkward moment when the word police are more offensive than the people they're trying to police.