Thursday, October 30, 2008

Fawlty Perspectives

It started with an unanswered phone call and a voicemail message that included all sorts of accusations and choice forms of language. The voicemail belonged to a 78 year old man. The accusations involved claims that one of the callers had slept with his granddaughter, which turned out to be true. That the pensioner would probably kill himself when he found out. There was more along the same intellectual baseline.

The fallout initially started with just two complaints. Within a week the call was being discussed in the House of Commons by the Prime Minister. The debate seems to go on wherever you go. I even got stopped by the Brazilian cleaner in the work kitchen yesterday and asked for my opinion. One of the two callers has now resigned and the other one. Well he couldn’t afford to resign. And suffers the indignity of being suspended.

My problem with the whole thing is that I find it hard to see where the debating points lay. There can be no opinion because the issue is cut and dry. There is no debate around comedians pushing the boundaries of acceptability, there is no discussion around the fact the granddaughter did sleep with one of the two callers.

It is not about accepting the prank in its intended context of humour. Just because Chris Moyles or one of his posse makes prank calls does not mean you can justify calling anyone and being generally abusive even if you laugh while doing it.

It is not about the fact the 78 year old man is a celebrity and therefore deemed outside the increasingly fuzzy boundaries of socially acceptable behaviour.

These two callers could have stood on a stage and said the same things without making their call. That would appeal to some, make some laugh or just confirm the opinion of these two held by a good many. And that would not have resulted in resignations or suspensions or the prime minister discussing radio shows. That is a benefit of a society underpinned by free speech.

The fact of the matter is these two people did call another human and treated him with utter disrespect. That broke a basic tenet of human behaviour. Nobody should be permitted to do this. There simply is no debate.

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