Political correctness

[John Dibble]

As an advocate for plain correctness, negative.

Good answer.

[John Dibble]

Either non-existent or very positive. What MODU is talking about, I believe, is non-existent.

Without a sense of a political mainstream, however, there would be no basis of political agreement as a memebr of a single nation. Complete anarchy would break out, with the country splitting up into different factions fighting it out. What prevents this from happening-- such as a common belief in the rule of law and the constitution, derives from certain things being politically much stronger and more accepted than others.

A person who criticizes the validity of the rule of law, or the constitution, and advocates the right of rebellion against the government, such as the Unabomber for example, can expect to come under intense critcism by many people who dislike the view. Opponents have decided to label this phenomenon "political correctness". It might be enlightening for them, however, to try to live in a society where no political views can be broadly accepted over others and see if they can maintain an orderly society wherein political disagreements are resolved with relative efficiency.

No offense intended, but are you sure you understand the topic? I don't think any of that stuff you said has anything to do with political correctness - political correctness is going out of your way to not offend some group of people or to make something easier on the ears, usually with the use of euphemisms. It is oft used to soften the hard truth of things.

Grab yourself a copy of George Carlin's "When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?" - he talks about the overuse of euphemisms in the country all the time.

Blacks are 'African-Americans'
Stewardesses are now 'Flight Attendents'
Employees are now 'Associates'
Janitors are now 'Custodians'
Used cars are now 'Pre-owned vehicles'
Merry Christmas became 'Happy Holidays'
In WWI it was called 'shell-shock', in WWII it became 'combat-fatigue', and now it's called 'post-traumatic stress disorder' - all the same condition, but we made names that don't sound as bad
Old person became 'Senior citizen'
Housewife became 'Stay at home mom'
And apparently now thanks to Hawkeye gym teachers are 'physical educators'
Oh, and let's not forget that garbage men are now 'sanitation engineers'!

Do you need more examples of this attempt to rape the English language through hyper-politeness?

Keep in mind though that political correctness isn't limited to euphamisms, there are certain politically correct things people have to do like 'support the troops' and 'love the country' before they're allowed to state their opinions on issues like the war and terrorism. (this is a right wing example, but there are left wing things like this too) Oh, and my absolute favorite "It's for the children" - I swear, say you're doing it for the children and you can get away with anything.

[John Dibble]

Many people would be offended by the views of a terrorist who advocated the overthrow of the government. The offense that the overwhelming majority would take imposes heavy indirect social costs on expressing such a view. The same phenomenon would apply to any political position which was sufficiently at odds with a majority that a social cost would be imposed. My example was only an extreme version.

So? I really fail to see what that has to do with political correctness in the sense we're talking about it. What you're talking about it plain common sense, what we're talking about it the sheer overuse of this type of thing. For instance, one aspect of political correctness can make it so that open criticism of a viewpoint or lifestyle(even extreme ones) is politically incorrect, even if those criticisms are valid.

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I'm not saying there's no incentive to be politically correct - politicians are that way to whore themselves for votes, for instance - but political correctness prevents potential truths from being spoken by our leaders simply because it might offend someone. For instance, if a white man(and some cases a black man) were to make comments regarding something he thought was wrong with the black community(not the race, the culture and community in general) many would consider it to be politically incorrect and he might even be labeled a racist. His criticisms might be aimed at getting attention paid to a valid problem with the culture and alleviating the problem, but because it's not PC he might be risking his political career simply for pointing out the truth! (minority issues are one of those that are really hit hard by political correctness)

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"Politically correct" describes more than just euphemisms - it's a category of behavioral changes, euphemisms included. As far as euphemisms go, they're ok occassionally but these days they are overused.

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And rhetorical devices are part of the whole PC package.


While I'm at it, I think I'll speak briefly about one of the worst places political correctness has gone into - our schools, especially in history class. Let's face it, history is filled with things that would be considered offensive by many, but hey, the truth isn't pretty, is it? God forbid we offend someone with the truth. So, in an effort not to offend people we dumb down our history books(sometimes even lie in them), ban many pieces of classic literature from literature class because it contains the word 'n' or some other such offensive material, and so on and so forth. Is this effort to not offend really worth the gradual decay of our education system? Don't you care about the children at all? End political correctness now - do it for the children.

[John Dibble]

Please note that what is "overuse" in your eyes may not be the same as "overuse" in someone else's eyes. Ted Kaczynski probably felt that the rejection of his "Unabomber Manifesto" was an exampled of " 'overused' political correctness"! Generally, whomever feels that a position they agree with is being punished indirectly will feel that the popular reaction is being overused in their case, but in other cases it will be merely “common sense”.

Why are you using one of the most extreme possible examples? The Unabomber Manifesto was rejected because Ted Kaczynski was BATSH*T CRAZY, it had nothing to do with political correctness. Calling people who've never even been to Africa 'African-Americans' is political correctness, the rejection of some loon's political and social ideas because reason dictates that it is wrong is not. I'm mainly Norse in heritage - do people call me Norweigan-American? No - I've never been to Norway, or Europe for that matter(I don't get called European-American either). Since I'm white and was born in this country, I'm just an American Why is it that blacks can't just be Americans too?

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I'm saying people can be labeled as racist for making a 'politically incorrect' comment even if the comment is true, simply because that truth might offend some minorities. Quite often those doing such labeling aren't even of the race

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Reaction and perception are intertwined, you can't seperate the two. You react based on what you perceive. My complaint about poltical correctness is that the PC crowd is more worried about offending someone than the truth being told - the truth, no matter how offensive, is the truth and reason dictates that we don't dumb it down.

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It's somewhat based on intent - usually to prevent offense(quite often to someone who would have no reason to be offended if the original word was used).

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See above - intent of use matters. And btw, Bush is politically correct sometimes. (for example there's the "religion of peace", can't offend any Muslim voters now, can we?)

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Why then, if not to prevent offense, have our history books been dumbed down, the real truth hidden from our students? And why then do we ban classic literature in the classroom because it contains the word 'n' if not to prevent offense? If not for the politically correct goal of keeping people from being offended why do we dumb down our educational system in this manner?

[John Dibble]

(edit: Btw, I think what you're talking about with your Norwegian-American example is a double standard, which is a legitimate complaint. I also dislike identity politics, which I feel is divisive and destructive. But neither of those are the same as this overgeneralized, muddled term called 'P.C.')

Yes, it is a double standard - one that has resulted from the culture of political correctness.

Wait a minute, what truth, and whose truth?

No particular truth - it is dependent on the issue in question. See my example about someone pointing out a problem with the black community - undeniably there are problems, but if a white person tries to point it out it's often labeled as racist and politically incorrect by the people who adhere to the doctrine of political correctness.

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No, I don't see how you got that idea - people have the right to be offended, but they have no right to not be offended. Such a right is mutually exclusive to free speech. So long as people have free speech, someone is going to be offended.

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I never claimed to be all knowing, all I claimed is that political correctness gets in the way of the truth being spoken in many cases.

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Preventing offense is in itself not bad, but when it gets in the way of what really needs to be said it's a problem.

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Because there's no incentive to make it interesting. I don't think it's a matter of there being a brilliant curriculum beforehand, rather the school curriculum has always been somewhat more dull than it could be. The system is run by the government and the government is generally terribly poor at administrative matters.
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I'm not talking about interesting, I'm talking about accurate. I would think there would be incentive for our hitory and literature classes to be accurate.(literature class is usually historical in nature, talking about the big writers of various days gone by) And what is the incentive for banning works of literature that contain the word 'n', even if the works themselves are by non-racists like Mark Twain?

[John Dibble]

Yes, it is a double standard - one that has resulted from the culture of political correctness.

There's nothing 'correct' about either diction usage, John. No one is forcing you into any form of diction.

'Political correctness' is a term that has nothing to do with correct diction - it's a subjectively 'correct' behavior. I was pointing out that blacks getting to be called "African-Americans" even though most have never even set foot there is due to the culture of political correctness that has grown in these last few decades.

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I can't find one online atm, though I know it happens. Though one thing has been happening in Georgia where the Republicans are being called racists for supporting a voter ID law meant to decrease fraud, and quite ridiculously so.

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I never said they weren't - I really don't know where the hell you're getting these impressions. I said that there's people out there who are so god damn obsessed with trying to keep people from being offended that it is ruining our culture and politics for the reason of never offending anyone. Being un-PC is such a taboo that people are de-facto having their freedom of speech taken due to the fear of the ridiculous level of reprecussions. Some political correctness if fine and dandy, but the level of it today has become unreasonable.

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I went off on a tangent with the Twain issue that wasn't related to the innacuracy issue - still, I want an answer to why schools are banning works like Huckleberry Finn just because it contains the word n.

History textbooks are innacurate in how they portray things(until you get into college at least, they don't worry about offending people so much there) - not necessarily outright lies, but leaving out facts still distorts things. For instance, you'll hear a lot about the aggression of the white settlers against the Indians, but you'll rarely if ever hear about Indian aggression against the white settlers - the truth is aggression went both ways and both sides were provoking eachother, not that the Indians were just innocent victims as they are oft portrayed.

[John Dibble]

'Political correctness' is a term that has nothing to do with correct diction - it's a subjectively 'correct' behavior.

How can something be "subjectively correct"?

Notice the single quotes - 'correct' means 'acceptable' in this case.

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Then we agree for the most part - in my view it's just gotten to a point where one can't talk about certain issues without an unreasonable reaction. The fear of that reaction is, as I said, kind of a de facto ban on free speech.

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Well, 'politically correct' is just a phrase anyways - to the extent it's gotten I'd rather be incorrect.

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Yes, there's no denying conservative political correctness exists. I see it as a sad state of affairs on both sides.

[John Dibble]

"Political correctness" is a slur created by people who don't like the idea of being polite towards minority groups.

No, it's a term that was made for being polite to minorities when you really shouldn't be - they need the hard, brutal, honest truth. The kind of truth that makes people get angry, that makes people get up and do something.


Speaking of this issue, did anyone else see the MLK episode of the Boondocks last week? That's the kind of thing we need more of in today's world.