Via Ken MacLeod and Kevin I found this blog post about the sorry state of those whose hobbies involve a love of railways. Apparently that sort of things is now socially unacceptable, at least in the UK, and anyone who has such interests can expect to be bulled at school, thought poorly of at work, and so on.

Yes, and the UK is also the only country I know where science fiction fans routinely ask for their names not to be displayed in online convention membership lists in case their bosses find out what an embarrassing hobby they have. It is a real fear.

But what interested me was the alleged cause of this situation for railfans. It certainly wasn’t always that way. My dad was a big railfan, and I don’t remember that being an issue when I was a kid. The article suggests that railfans may have been targeted because other targets were no longer acceptable.

We supposedly live in a liberal society which rejects bigotry and embraces a ‘live and let live’ philosophy. However, one cannot help but question what kind of a society this actually is when young people have to be warned of the likelihood of facing bullying simply for having a hobby. Perhaps, seemingly ironically, it may well actually be the growth of an institutionally mandated culture of tolerance and opposition to bigotry that has led to this phenomenon, or allowed it to emerge.

Human history contains numerous examples of minority groups and individuals being used as scapegoats, hate targets, and objects of ridicule. However, today, many of these outlets have been taken away. People can no longer freely bully, harass, and demean others based on things such as ethnicity and religious belief.

This goes back to what I was saying a couple of weeks ago about trans people being one of the few minority groups that are still regarded as fair game for “comedians”. It seems that someone is always needed to be the butt of jokes, and legislation removes one potential target then another must be created.

The article goes on to say:

Yet, it seems that this desire to bully and ostracise may well have roots in our evolutionary past and that the capacity to hate may be an essential component of what it is to be human.

I find that deeply depressing.

We can also tie this in to the current debate about the treatment of women online. One of the most common excuses provided when men are challenged about why they threaten women bloggers and journalists with rape and murder is that it is “only a joke”. And indeed I suspect that most of them don’t mean it, and do indeed find it funny to make such threats and watch the reaction.

People who actually mean it when they threaten rape and murder in response to women expressing an opinion clearly need help, and may well have got to that point due to suffering extreme economic hardship (of which there is a lot about these days). People who are otherwise sane but enjoy bullying others, including making threats of rape and murder, are beneath contempt. Its not a valid excuse, it just marks you out as an even bigger jerk that you have already appeared.