Being offended is fine, says legendary British funny man John Cleese, and expecting people to stop being offensive is pointless.

Sometimes when people are offended they want somebody to just come in and say ‘Stop that!’ to whoever is offending them – and as the former chairman of the BBC once said “There are some people one would WISH to offend.” I think there’s truth in that. So the idea that you have to be protected from any kind of any kind of uncomfortable emotion is one I absolutely do not subscribe to. …

A renown psychiatrist Robin Skinner said something very interesting to me, he said “If people can’t control their own emotion then they have to start controlling other people’s behavior.” And when you are around supersensitive you cannot relax and be spontaneous because you have no idea what’s going to upset them next.

I’ve been warned not to go to college campuses because political correctness has gone from being a good idea (“let’s not be mean, particularly to people who are not able to look after themselves”)… to the point where any kind of criticism of any individual group can be labelled ‘cruel’. And the whole point about humor, the whole point about comedy (and believe you me, I’ve thought about this) is that all comedy is critical…

If you start to say “ooh oohh we mustn’t criticize or offend them,” then humor’s gone, with humor goes a sense of proportion, then as far as I’m concerned, you’re living in 1984.

Food for thought.

Watch it below.