Is it just a Pprune thing?

[Flap62]

Having recently been locked out of a thread for a post which was deemed crass (fair doos, it's the moderators train set but I would of course argue my corner). I am puzzled about whether the creeping intolerance of anything which is deemed to be insensitive is something which is now commonplace or is it more apparent on this site?
Without repeating my "offence", my post made a remark which in no way denegrated the quite incredible efforts of our armed services and the sacrifices that some are forced to make. What i was perhaps alluding to was a previous post which I felt was , once again on these pages, tipping towards the overly emotional. I'm sorry if this is rather opaque but if my first post caused offence I would rather not have this thread pulled as I think this topic warrants debate.
The military has a long and established tradition of finding humour in the darkest of situations. This is never a bullying type of humour, but rather one which seeks to draw everyone together. One only had to watch any of ross Kemps Afghan dispatches or the recent Wounded programme to see countless examples of this. I increasingly find that anything posted on these pages draws a host of shocked replies, immediately demanding withdrawal. Many , if not all, of these replies coming from posters who are not connected with either the persons or incidents concerned but are willing to take offence on their behalf.
This over-sentimentality is increasingly evident on the mawkish posts which inevitably follow the crash of a light aircraft on the far side of the world killing someone we've never heard of! It seems to be a race to post condolences and cut and paste that poem about slipping the surly bloody bonds. If you knew the people fine, say something appropriate, if not try to mark their passing in your heart if you must but keep away from the keyboard.
This was especially evident on the recent thread on the Iranian airforce crash. There were several posts of the "fly to the angels dear friends" variety, which I would argue were considerably crasser than anything I might have posted, especially as the crash resulted in the deaths of members of the same military who have been killing our troops in Iraq for the last few years. I am not saying rejoice in their deaths but do we need books of condolence?
In summary, is the over-sensitivity which I perceive in Pprune common-place in the military now?
(Incidentally, is it just me or has the creeping intolerance also made Pprune a much less interesting, stimulating and amusing place to be?)

Apologies for any typo and grammar - really dodgy keyboard.

[Tourist]

100% with you on this Flaps

[Wader2]

The feeling I get is that it is better to post off-board for just the reasons you cite. You can also talk "face-to-face" tailoring your reply to one or two people and avoid being flamed by someone else.

[smo-kin-hole]

There seems to be an entirely new psychology surfacing on all the forum sites I've been on for the past few years. (Aviation, cars, bikes, religion,science, whatever...) The "Facebook" generation has gone to full disclosure. They don't have any sense of what is appropriate anymore or that what they post is going to be seen by thousands of people. Or to be more direct about it, they don't care.

There is someone with a mildly obscene name on a US forum who flames on the religion forum. Every third or fourth post is his. He does this all day long. They can't or won't get rid of him because they always seem to fall for his attacks.

I think this is only the tip of the iceburg. This site is a good deal more polite than most. Just look around. Pretty soon it'll be like being in a restaurant, hearing (or reading) all sorts of things you really, really didn't want to know about. Maybe we should get that rig from "Tommy"

"Put on your eyeshades, put in your earplugs, you know where to put the cork." But we're gonna have to take it.

[parabellum]

It may have something to do with the fact that Danny no longer owns the site, it has been sold to a commercial concern, so possibly they are calling the shots?

[sisemen]

The rot set in many, many years ago. Before I left the RAF I was serving at RAF ****** and a young techie decided to top himself in his car by means of the exhaust. Apparently he was having girlfriend problems. He was serving with *** Sqn.

One appreciates the close cameraderie on a sqn but, in days past, it was a case of auction the personal belongings, have a good few pints and then move on.

This didn't happen. I was honestly shocked at the mawkish "grieving" that took place within that sqn. The guy was relatively unknown - particularly to the officer cadre - and yet the sqn basically went into meltdown for a while because of it.

When I left to live in Australia I was again taken aback about the amount of national "grieving" with any Aussie killed in a theatre of operations.

Perhaps there is a lot to be said about the British "stiff upper lip" approach to bereavement, PTSD, etc etc etc

[Tankertrashnav]

It all seems to stem from that heap of rotting flowers and soggy paper outside Buckingham and Kensington Palaces after Diana was killed. A lot of us who couldn't understand the hysteria had to keep our heads below the parapet, and wonder why anyone could feel grief at the death of a perfect stranger. I naturally regret the death of a fellow aviator but we all understand that whereas most flying is pretty safe these days, every now and then a swift and brutal end can come to any flight. Like Flap 62 I'm not going to rush to send condolences on these occasions - lets leave that to the families and friends of the deceased.

[Jackonicko]

This propensity for public displays of mawkish sentimentality seems to me to have reached new heights following the out-pourings of grief and flower chucking that followed the death of the Princess of Wales.

Every road accident now seems to become the cause of some bizarre roadside shrine.

I do not begin to understand it.

Nor can I really fathom any reason for the way in which moderating on this section of PPRuNe seems to have become so much more heavy-handed and intrusive.

[BEagle]

I don't think it's right to compare the mawkish comments made by some about total strangers with the national feeling about the death of Diana.

The latter resulted in the main from growing public outrage at the way the palace seemed to treat her following her divorce and, in particular, at the way they handled her death until mounting public anger caused a rethink.

Yes, I also detest the frequent posting of 'High Flight' every time someone buys the farm. But in this day and age, the old stiff upper lip attitude is somewhat alien to many.

Mind you, gone are the days of "Black 1 from 4", "Go ahead 4", "Roger - Black 3 has just speared in", "Bugger. OK, Black, renumber", "Black 2", "3".

[Mr C Hinecap]

I don't think it's right to compare the mawkish comments made by some about total strangers with the national feeling about the death of Diana.

Strongly disagree. The crippling grief demonstrated by swathes of the population were totally out of proportion and have continued almost unchecked with the Cult of the Celebrity increasing year on year. The more recent celeb funerals have reinforced my belief in this and the scenes in a certain Wilts town near Lyneham underline it. Modern heroes are more likely to have eaten bugs live on television than crossed a continent and discovered cures for diseases.

[cornish-stormrider]

Beags, I do agree with what has been said and as one of the guilty ones (sometimes) I shall try to reign it in. Most of the time I write some epitaph comment or huggy thing, read it, sigh, and delete it. best place for grieving over a mate is in the bar. I remember when young ***** hung himself at the block at ***************************************** (edited to hide names etc) I think it would of helped us get over it if we had a blinding beercall after the service and auctioned off his stuff (including the car etc).

I also remember the aftermath of a very sad cfit, that was a heck of a send off (good stereo too, nice and loud).

Dammit we are (and was) the Crab, it should be stiff upper lip, none of that touchy felly crap, huge wake beercalls, laughs and morale. And when Black renumber make sure no-one tells the mess man about his bar book...

[GPMG]

Oh Beag's, please don't tell us that your a Diana supporter?

The palace gave her fair treatment in my view. Why should the Queen give a stuff about a women that had quite obviously been with a certain Major and given birth to his child whilst supposedly married to her son.

Then sold her soul to the papers and basked in their worship with her new lover (son of greengrocer).

The national outpouring was a major embarrasement for any right thinking person, it was sad and pathetic. We were called off of an excercise on sennybridge in case we had to line the streets. Thank god that they gave the task to some Welsh regiment instead.

Watching the funeral procession out of London with the flowers being hurled by sobbing idiots it suddenly dawned on me how I suddenly needed a pint, so the rest of the troop was rounded up and we did something far more worthy of our time and effort, and we did it in Noah's in Guz.

[Grabbers]

Would now be good time to mention Jade Goody?

[Gainesy]

Just got tea down me nose you git.

[pigsinspace]

Would now be good time to mention Jade Goody?

Is she dead?

[sisemen]

Concur. Thoughts with the family.

Duncs

....and this would be a very good example of the kind of stuff we're talking about on a thread not too far from here,

(Sorry to pick you out Duncs but it happened to be the nearest illustration)

[The B Word]

What about "Freedom of Speech"? Isn't that a fundamental right within the UK - unless it is subversive or likely to enflame violence?



B Word

[RETDPI]

I think it was the disgustingly poorly scripted and patently insincere "People's Princess" monologue from "Call me Tony" that perhaps got many of us seriously thinking about the dilution of "British" values.


Words and phrases such as " Spin" , "Celebrity", "Dumbing Down", "Political Correctness", "Street Wise", "Human Resources ", "Minority rights", "Equal Opportunities" , "ASBO", "Cultural identity" , "Political Refugee", "Economic Migrant" and "Bonus Payment" amongst many others have all crept increasingly into our vocabularies over recent years.

I wonder why.

[Melchett01]

In summary, is the over-sensitivity which I perceive in PPRuNe common-place in the military now?

Good question - I hope not. Then again my unit seems to be a bit schizophrenic; we bend over backwards to make sure the younger guys and juniors are almost looked after and nothing upsets them. Possibly the bosses have gone a bit far. Constantly pandering to peoples' sensitivities seems to make them just that little bit precious and certainly not overly robust.

On the other hand, it's very much the law of the jungle amongst the JOs to the extent that a while back the then new boss thought that we were bullying each other. However, as a collective, we are an extremely tight-knit bunch and our 'under sensitivity' is often what keeps us going when times get tough.

This leads me to ask as a follow on to the original question - if there is over-sensitivity in the military, is it more visible within certain elements of the rank structure than others?

[The Helpful Stacker]

Perhaps there is a lot to be said about the British "stiff upper lip" approach to............PTSD, etc...

What, like the "pull yourself together you coward or you'll be shot at dawn" approach? Pprune eh? Just when you think you've heard all the arrse a million monkeys could type on a million typewriters some chimp comes out and dribbles some more over his. Are you only a 'real' casualty of war if you have a limb missing then, junior sub-editor chimp?