When the same sex marriage debate was in full swing a few years back, something happened that literally changed my life. I called an old work colleague of mine a ‘homophobic cunt’. Actually, I didn’t just call him that, I took a photo he’d posted with some bullshit “I’m against same sex marriage” frame on it and I photoshopped it to say “I’m a homophobic cunt” instead. Which, come on, let’s be honest, is pretty epic. But it was part of an ‘a ha’ moment, that literally changed my life. For a couple of reasons.

First of all, I’m not actually sure if he’s a homophobic cunt. I mean, he’s definitely a cunt for worrying that much about who can get married. And if not a cunt, well, you know, narrow minded and discriminatory. But calling him ‘homophobic’ was potentially not linguistically accurate.

I’m pretty sure I also sledged his fucking bullshit religious beliefs because, well, they’re fucking bullshit. But in doing so, at times at least, I forgot about The Who.

No, I’m not talking about Pete and Roger. I’m not talking about My Generation. Not that The Who.

I’m talking about how useful it is to clarify shit by insert ‘The’ and ‘Who’ into sentences.

Let me demonstrate:

“Religious people can go fuck themselves” should actually be “THE Religious people WHO are against same sex marriage can go fuck themselves”. Because it turns out not all religious people were against that.

Or this: ‘Catholic priests are fucking pedos” should actually be “THE Catholic priests WHO do that shit are fucking pedos”. Apparently not all of them are. Apparently.

And it goes for all sorts of stuff. If I was up for having a horde of angry women burning down my house I’d say “Men need to stop raping women” probably needs to be “THE men WHO rape women need to stop doing that”, but I quite like my house not on fire. So in this instance, I’ll say that sometimes ‘the who’ is implicit. It’s implied. But that doesn’t mean it’s not useful to include it to make certain conversations clearer and more constructive at times.

On a day to day basis, and one of the things that prompted this thought originally, there was this: “Cyclists are flogs” which should no doubt be something more like “THE cyclists WHO ride like they own the fucking road are flogs” or some variation of that. Turns out not all cyclists are flogs, just like not all priests are kiddy fiddlers, not all religious people are cunts, not all anythings are anything.

Whether we’re talking about black people or brown people or first nations people or politicians people or protestors, they’re not all anything. Some of them maybe. Most of them possibly. But not all of them. Ever. That’s what’s technically known as a ‘global generalisation’ and it’s problematic.

It’s misleading. It’s dangerous. And it’s fucked.

So next time someone says something about an entire race, religious belief, skin colour, protestor etc, feel free to ask them if they can remember The Who. They’ll look at you funny, but whatever. Tell them about The Who, and narrow it down a bit. Get specific. Because generalisations of any kind have a tendency to, at best, be not all that helpful. And at worst, be quite harmful and possibly fucked up and destructive. And fuck. that.

 

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