There's this famous scene in "The life of Brian" where they gather round to stone an old man to death because he said "Jehova". The judge, in speaking to the condemned, himself mentions the word "Jehova" and promptly gets stones thrown at him by all the wom---, uh, men in the audience.

This scene immediately comes to mind because in the film it is obviously ridiculous and everybody can see that. The judge had no other way to express himself without going through some weird verbal contortions. He could, I suppose, have said "Look, he said the J-word!" but that probably was too ridiculous a thought even for Monty Python. He wasn't using the word maliciously, he reported a fact, yet he was in the end seen to be no better than the convict himself.

I wonder if the person who reported the Times journalist to the editor-in-chief also said "Look, he said $badword", and was himself promptly fired.

My point is, every individual person who looks at that situation this way will probably find it comical or at least clearly not to be a firing offence. The Times itself has printed the word in question many times in its reporting, even in recent times. Do they now get to fire themselves, retroactively, as seems to be so en vogue these days? Of course not. Will they print apologies for printing $badword in their paper as recently as 2019? Unlikely.

It is also plainly obvious that "bans on words" that go so far as to be "bans on thoughts" can therefore never serve any good purpose and are a hallmark of totalitarianism.

So why does this keep happening? Why are people getting fired for Monty-Python-level "offences"? Has reality (once again) surpassed satire? Are people getting stupider, weirder, more irrational? Or is there something else at play here?

My point is, most individuals for themselves will recognise the behaviour here as "not horrible", not worthy of a career-death sentence, and judge accordingly, even if only preserve a modicum of nuance and differentiation in handing out sentences. Nobody will probably question the importance of having some steps available inbetween "You are innocent" and "You shall be put to death".

Nobody disputes that the reporter didn't use the word in any bad way; on the contrary, it was used to help and advise someone, a 12 year old student, on the matter: "Look here, young child, it's better if you don't say Jehova". Done. Stoned to death.

Even the editor-in-chief, Baquet, initially said the same in a staff memo: There was no bad intent, all is well. A sane, tempered reaction, level-headed analysis, case closed. Then a few days passed, some meetings happened, he changed his mind and the journalist got fired. Say what?

The more I think about it, the more confused I am, like I am missing a big piece of the puzzle here. Why does this keep happening? Why are people acting like they have been "neuralyzed", Men in Black-style? What an odd situation.