Last week two retailers in Australia and New Zealand (Target and Kmart) refused to sell Grand Theft Auto V anymore because, they claimed, it’s sexist (?), or has sexist messages (??), or promotes sexism (???).
Now, Grand Theft Auto fans are calling for these retailers to stop selling the Bible (because of it’s obvious misogynistic contents). They have a Change.org petition going on, and I understand them, but I think this is a misguided way to answer to the ban.
Target and Kmart acted out of fear of being labeled as promoters of misogyny or something. You know what would hurt them even more? If people stop buying there. It’s as simple as that — don’t go back to Target or Kmart until they stop pandering to self-righteous pseudo-feminist ‘activists’ who pretend they get to decide what ideas you consume.
I claim the right for anyone to read, play, watch, listen to and see as many offensive and discriminatory messages as they see fit, because: a) It’s up to people what ideas they want to be informed about. b) People should have access to bad ideas.
I was asked once if I thought Mein Kampf should be sold in book stores. Of course I do, not because I regard anything in that piece of garbage as nothing more than delusions, but because I don’t get to tell people what they can or can’t read. Welcome to Free Speech 101.
In the marketplace of ideas, people should be able to have access to any idea — it’s time we stop treating them like idiots; they won’t be convinced of a bad idea by the mere exposure to it because, well, ask any Biologist: we have these organs called brains and they do this little marvelous thing called critical reception of messages.
By reading the Bible is how a great number of atheists quit Christianity because they were exposed to the Bible’s bad ideas and found it to be an immoral book, with discriminatory messages. That’s why we atheists want more people to read the Bible, not because we think it has anything good, but because we rely on people embracing 21st century morals.
Video games won’t make people go on a killing spree, and they are certainly not brainwashing machines, turning everyone into chauvinists.
There was a time when feminism was regarded a bad idea, but people got to make up their own minds and saw it is important and right for women to have the same rights as men. Fortunately, the Target and Kmart of that time were brave enough to let people choose for themselves what ideas were bad and what ideas were good. Shame on their nowadays comrades.
(Image: Ferino Design via photopin cc)
