Lifted from the comments, a revealing choice of words:

Also, while there is nothing wrong… Again, a revealing tone, I think.

Consider this an open thread. Share ye links and bicker.

“They can strip a man to the bone in 30 seconds.” || She just wants to get in her room and eat and put this behind her. || Big fellah. || Facilities. || The word holding caught my eye. || Igor Sikorsky, 1945. || Captures something, I think. || A night at the opera. || Wrenches and ratchets. || New racism detected. || The cow-like reflexes kicked in. || Waardenburg syndrome – striking eyes but often accompanied by deafness. || Death Valley in bloom. || From above and below. || Bitesize. || Someone’s knocking at the door. || Discourse was attempted. || The alternative press, 1971. || Apocalypse early warning system. || For enthusiasts of quadraphonic vinyl. || Immortality, £1000. || The thrill of, er, moon clams. || Unladylike driving. || And it turns out ants make more noise than you’d imagine.

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I paraphrase, of course. Though not, I think, wildly:

The alleged harms of debate and the citing of statistics are not mere rudeness or a failure to flatter, but “lasting psychological damage.” Because statistics can do that, apparently.

What might constitute controversy in the minds of such implausibly delicate creatures is not made clear, though we are told that the terms “blind review,” “handicap parking” and “immigrant” were considered “harmful language” by Stanford University’s IT department. Which does rather suggest a kind of neurotic contrivance.

Humble, you say. We’ll get to that in a second.

You can guess where this one’s going.

And,

And what better gift to the world than imposing your own hang-ups and inadequacies on everyone else, quite emphatically, at every opportunity?

And then we arrive at this glorious conundrum:

The study, found here, informs us that those most keen to pre-emptively shut down discussion, including by vigorous means, also “rated themselves as higher in… empathy.”

The inversions of progressive “empathy” – and its routine departure from reality – have of course been poked at here before.

And regarding those claims of humility, nothing says, ‘I entertain the possibility that my assumptions may be wrong’ like forbidding any and all attempts at contradiction.

Consider this an open thread. Share ye links and bicker.

For all entertainment and cultural consumption:

I hate to break it to you, but everyone is “problematic.” Human beings are flawed. If they weren’t, literature and art would not exist. You’ve been duped by an ideology that will happily rob you of all joy and complexity in life and art. https://t.co/kLY3CGmnMo

— Joseph Massey (@jmasseypoet) May 3, 2026

Imagine the hours of fun. All that tutting and disapproval.

Update, via the comments:

The urge to achieve purity in such matters is, I think, a little odd. I look at my own bookshelves and I’ve long since become accustomed to reading things by authors whose political opinions – insofar as they’re known to me and insofar as I’d care to find out – may not be entirely congenial. Given the progressive dominance of cultural production, that’s kind of difficult to avoid.

Ditto TV and cinema.

And if madam feels a need to pre-emptively vet authors for ideological congeniality on every issue before investing time in their work, I’m guessing she may extend much the same filtering to friends, of whom similar conformity is presumably expected, and possibly family too. Which doesn’t strike me as a recipe for a happy life. Or one in which new things may be found out.

Bait. || Old boiler. || Balloon surgery. || Coming through. || Choices were made. || Something is missing. || Incoming. || Question asked. || How to glue Styrofoam to fabric, and answers to other glue-related questions. || Just like a guitar, but with really hefty magnets. || Rather more leg than I was expecting. || The progressive retail experience, parts 721, 722, 723, 724, 725, 726 and 727. || I suppose we could call this irony. || School science project of note. || It’s hers now. || She’s called coconut. || Testing weightlessness, 1958. || “What animal is chicken?” || What do you mean, it’s distracting and inapt? What are you, sonny, some kind of bigot? (h/t, Smallish Bees) || Suboptimal solution. || May encounter fog. || All the fun of the fair. || And finally, incendiary felines to burn down your enemy’s castle, 1584.

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