On your profile page you quote a staunch theist, and two atheists - I'm not sure what to believe!

"Philosophy is to the real world as masturbation is to sex" -Karl Marx

Alas, poor Marx - he always thought philosophy is better than the real world!

So, at risk of being extremely non-PC, here is how that pans out in respect of gay rights - that gay advocacy has appropriated the language of human rights, by equating 'being gay' with other cultural identities such as 'being black' or 'being Jewish'. So this enables gay advocacy to turn the opprobrium which used to be heaped on gays back against their critics, who are now portrayed as, and widely accepted to be, the enemies of human rights and natural justice, just like those who used to oppose racial integration. — Wayfarer

Exactly - now the religious people are oppressed because of the values they hold! What a sham! These politically correct, identity politics cronies, keep forcing down everyone's throats their lack of values - as if all of us should share in their mediocrity. Nietzsche's cry was right: be wary of the Last Men. Screw what they think of you - Saul Alinsky and his radicals never cared they were thought to be rude. They never cared they disturbed others. That's why they've won. We - religious people - have to do the same. Otherwise we cannot win in politics - not against these vulgar folks of no principles.

When money is doing all the driving the gun tends to do all the real talking making political correctness one of the few peaceful ways people have left to defend themselves. They killed Socrates merely for asking questions of those who agreed to listen because the Truth doesn't support money doing all the driving or the gun doing all the talking. He was showing peasants how to question their increasingly corrupt religious, academic, and political institutions which was simply unacceptable. That people today are inventing terms like "political correctness" and struggling to recreate his legacy merely reflects the economic inequality in the world today.

When money is doing all the driving the gun tends to do all the real talking making political correctness one of the few peaceful ways people have left to defend themselves. — wuliheron

Something needs to drive no? When you remove morality and virtue from its place, it will definitely be replaced by something. Money and guns are quite possibly the only contenders once virtue is removed.

I'm not arguing that money and guns shouldn't be doing the driving, merely that political correctness is one of the few ways of preventing them from escalating into total chaos. The black riots in the US are the direct result of the fact the money and guns are doing all the real talking worth listening too for them. Any animal in a zoo would do the same if their living conditions were inhumane trashing the whole place because they really couldn't care less anymore if it just makes it even worse. One zoo I visited the monkeys were so crowded they threw their feces at the visitors just to pass the time.

Any animal in a zoo would do the same if their living conditions were inhumane trashing the whole place because they really couldn't care less anymore if it just makes it even worse. — wuliheron

But I really don't understand this. It's not like your pain is any lessened if you trash the place and can't give a shit about it. It's like telling me that just because you can't get your hands on a good thing, you should take revenge on yourself and the world and drink poison. That is absurd. Why would any rational creature act like that?

I'm not arguing that money and guns shouldn't be doing the driving, merely that political correctness is one of the few ways of preventing them from escalating into total chaos. — wuliheron

Yes political correctness is there because we have removed the morality.

You're wrong, no zoo can still make money if their animals are unhealthy and fighting all the time. The US can talk all it wants about blacks being equal under the eyes of the law, but they know damned well they are not. They can talk all they want about them killing each other and trashing out their own neighborhoods, but they know the landlords own everything. During the Rodney King riots one of the first places they trashed was the Korean owned convenience stores that were always overcharging them.

In the ancient Roman empire the peasants, who were half the population, would routinely riot and storm the palace with knives and pitch forks whenever they starved in the winter knowing that kind of internal unrest is an invitation to invade the state. Claudius the emperor installed a sheltered harbor to ensure they could always bring food in come winter. The Chinese turned rioting into an art form and, to this day, can kowtow with the best of them, only to riot by the millions if for one second they start to believe nobody will prevent them from being seriously exploited.

Money can only do all the driving for any real length of time if it happens to agree with natural law.

You're wrong, no zoo can still make money if their animals are unhealthy and fighting all the time — wuliheron

Hah! Circus always attracts people. Why do you think the Romans put slaves to fight inside the Colosseum while they watched?

Money can only do all the driving for any real length of time if it happens to agree with natural law. — wuliheron

I agree with this, but this has to do precisely with the fact that we need to bring morality and virtue back.

We already have gladiators fighting to the death on football fields. They may not die as nearly as often on the field, but they certainly cripple one another all the time. However, going too far in that direction doesn't inspire people to invest money and the western half of the Roman empire collapsed.

Morality isn't the issue. In ten years of asking if anyone knows the simple distinction between a lynch mob and a democracy nobody, not even academics, have ever answered correctly. Likewise, I've discovered just by asking people that half the people online are suspicious of the common dictionary and like to make up their own definitions with very few of them even being aware it merely contains popular definitions. You can't have morality or a democracy if nobody can agree upon the meaning of the words.

According to the National Science Foundation, one in five Americans insists the sun revolves around the earth but, what I'd like to know, is how many of them imitate Three Stooges see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil slapstick. Money doing all the driving ensures the lights are on, but nobody is home.

Okay - so what's your point? The fact that people can't agree what morality is, is part of the problem that we need to overcome to bring morality back. It's not an argument to say morality shouldn't be brought back.

There is no single morality and studies have repeatedly shown that even common sense is a myth. The only thing common about common sense is nobody seem to have much anymore. Murphy was an optimist.

"There is no single morality" is just a prevalent attitude, what inclines you to think that it's also true? You talked about "natural law" - that is a single morality.

Natural law concerns what Socrates called the One Truth or memory of God that none can remember in all its glory. Its the greater context that the unfolding truth determines everything and creation becomes a collaborative effort. Darwin should have said, sex is never about survival of the fittest, but the most creative. Everything that exists resembles the initial creative impetus of the Big Bang as the smallest pond can be the busiest place that can shed light upon the Big Picture.

Maybe "political correctness" is the secular equivalent of "cheap grace". Cheap grace doesn't cost anything. It's available to anyone who cares to learn the argot and recite it, and pretend. Costly grace (the real deal) requires substantial, possibly total, sacrifice. Cheap and costly grace are both available, one more conveniently than the other, and in a passing glance you might not notice the difference.

Political correctness is, like cheap grace, inexpensive--free, quite often. One can use the most sensitive language about oppressed and disadvantaged people without having to spend so much as a penny on them.

If we aren't willing to be financially inconvenienced much (if at all) it may be because our heart is not really into costly political correctness. I understand that black people have been systematically exploited and excluded from prosperity for centuries, but in fact I'm not willing to give up anything on their behalf.

What I recognize as unjust puts me into the category of politically correctness, but the amount of my own money I'm willing to spend on helping the oppressed puts me into the category of cheap grace.

I suspect that this is true for most (all?) of us.

So what the argument appears to be, is that any debate all is damaging, because, if there is something to be debated, then it must imply that there is some grounds for questioning marriage equality. And the marriage equality movement equates opposition with bigotry — Wayfarer

I am in favour of marriage equality, and I do not believe that being opposed to it is indicative of bigotry. I accept that most people opposed to it are opposed because of deeply-held religious views. Although I think such views are mistaken and harmful, I see no reason to judge the person that holds them. I'm sure I hold plenty of mistaken views as well, although I hope they are less harmful.

Regarding the damage of debating, let's start by acknowledging that debate is constantly happening anyway. Nobody with credibility in mainstream politics is proposing laws to outlaw debate on this issue, irrespective of the fact that they may see such debate as harmful. One needs a lot more justification than just 'harmful' to go so far as to legally ban an activity. What people are opposed to is creating an unnaturally large focus on the debate by making it the subject of a plebiscite, and maybe even pumping it up further by funding both sides with public money.

Would you agree that there are some subjects that it is harmful to debate? Would you for instance be happy to have a publicly-funded, national plebiscite on a proposal to decriminalise sex with children, or to imprison all Jews?

Assuming you'd agree that debates on those topics are likely to be harmful, the question simply becomes about where one draws the line as to which debates are considered harmful, rather than whether any debate ever could be considered harmful.

Most people would agree that a public debate on those two nasty topics is harmful and is best avoided (but not rendered a crime, in a country where free speech is still highly valued). At the other end of the spectrum, I think most would agree that a debate on whether to change the flag or the top GST tax rate (VAT or sales-tax rate for non-Australians) is not only non-harmful but potentially healthy. There is a big area in between, and different people will draw the line at different places.

In most cases, an accusation of 'political correctness' is simply a complaint that one's interlocutor draws that line at a different place to oneself.

I am in favour of marriage equality, and I do not believe that being opposed to it is indicative of bigotry. I accept that most people opposed to it are opposed because of deeply-held religious views. Although I think such views are mistaken and harmful, I see no reason to judge the person that holds them. I'm sure I hold plenty of mistaken views as well, although I hope they are less harmful. — "AndrewK'

The conservatives view homosexual acts as immoral. The progressives view such criticisms as bigotry. Good luck in finding a middle ground there.

As regards to gay rights, it was previously 'live and let live', but that is no longer sufficient. When gay marriage is legalised we will be obliged to support it, and all those who don't will be ostracised. Remember Brendan Eich?

Nobody with credibility in mainstream politics is proposing laws to outlaw debate on this issue, irrespective of the fact that they may see such debate as harmful — AndrewK

Get real, Andrew. Both Labor and Greens are claiming that the debate held for a plebiscite will cause 'mental harm' to 'LGBTI people' and 'maybe even suicides'. So canning the plebiscite and passing the law by an act of Parliament is tantamount to 'outlawing debate', or at least, preventing it.

But already I've said too much, I have to stay away from this subject.

the explanation is that the gays that don't take offense have a better self-image than the one's that do take offense. — Harry Hindu

I'd much rather live in a society where people are free to say what they think than one where we can't say what we really think. People who are easily offended are the ones who were raised in such a way that they end up having a depleted self-image and any speech that affirms that is offensive. — Harry Hindu

That is by the far the most pertinent comment to my OP yet, all the others have been slightly or majorly tangential.

And so we had the often totally illogical kind of revisionism that turned 'handicapped' into 'disabled' (despite many people's feeling that the latter was actually less accurate and more disparaging) and 'spastic' into 'suffering cerebral palsy' evolving eventually into the awful blanket term 'special' (a corruption of 'with special needs'?) Negro became black (?) or African American (??) and so on. You'll have your own opinion as to the true value of this but it was not long before PC started going mad! And always at the hands of the wise on behalf of the oppressed (or the seemingly oppressed) who still hadn't really decided whether they needed it or not. — Barry Etheridge

This outlines superbly my statement in the OP about the problem being with the people persecuted and not the people name calling.

I understand what you say about if you are using a term in a perfectly friendly, non-judgemental way, you are still, by definition, wrong. But, that doesn't change the fact the we wouldn't have this absurd and childish problem of just swapping names for other names if they cut the bullshit where it started and that is inside their emotional state.

It is just like Harry Hindu said "the explanation is that the gays that don't take offense have a better self-image than the one's that do take offense." These are the types of people have risen above the bullshit and separated themselves from their negative emotional consequences of being called a name and therefor are exempt. They are above, more developed and superior to the people that take offence

The psychological explanation for PC is largely the recognition of the desire for self-esteem among those who would be denied it due to their position in society — Baden

That is a pretty selfish commodity to have. A another function of the egotism the rots our minds in the present day and age. The need to have the feeling of "I am superior", "I am worth something" or even "I am above him, her, that". Yet some of the people on here talk as if it is something desirable in modern society lol, god help them.

It's impossible though. Self-esteem is something internal, not external. The fact they are seeking self-esteem outside of themselves is the problem, not the solution. — Agustino

Perfect!

The naturally stronger gangster is powerless against the weak lady, because violence is against the law.

Men are violent, it is part of our nature as men (self-preservation). The expression of that violence is anger, which cannot be expressed physically in most societies without repercussions that may be equally as physical. The sublimation of violence is found in language used by both strong and weak. — Cavacava

Men are violent? No, people are violent! I was saying that all that the law did in that scenario was change the situation around so that the old lady could become passively aggressively violent to the gangster (pointing fingers and raising her voice, scolding etc.) and make herself feel superior to him... yet she walks away without being touched... when in reality that is immoral and if it went down in the jungle she might not be alive.

So in that sense the law works for wrong means and likewise PC does too.

The repression of such expression, I think will lead to further sublimation, at least for the foreseeable future, or until such time as new norms become foundational (if). — Cavacava

I agree. It will be an ever-cycling loop of swapping out old non-pc terms for PC that end up being used wrongly and so need to swapped out again.

↪intrapersona On your profile page you quote a staunch theist, and two atheists - I'm not sure what to believe!

"Philosophy is to the real world as masturbation is to sex" -Karl Marx

Alas, poor Marx - he always thought philosophy is better than the real world! — Agustino

hahaha, thank you for you interest in me... I am feel so flattered and it really rubs my ego up the right way. Now I can go about my day feeling as if I am important and don't need to rely on political correctness to protect me from peoples insults about my life.

For the record though, atheists and theists can agree on many things, including social dynamics, but never religion.

making political correctness one of the few peaceful ways people have left to defend themselves. — wuliheron

It seems peaceful in principle but as I pointed out in my OP and further posts it ends up working for the wrong means and becomes a way for people to vent their feelings of inferiority by trying to get one up on everyone else. The constant cycling of replacement words is exemplified by that.

When gay marriage is legalised we will be obliged to support it, and all those who don't will be ostracised. — Wayfarer

Which is what you argue God does to evil doers, and is thus the most just way to handle them, wouldn't you then be saying by implication? It's their fault after all. You're really good at it being different when it's you.

I'm simply commenting on the dynamics and the politics of the debate. I haven't said anything about God or evil-doers, this is a thread about 'political correctness', and you can't deny that in this matter, 'political correctness' is a huge factor.

Read the link about Brendan Eich - he was fired as the head of Mozilla Corporation, which he had helped found, because it was discovered that he donated to Proposition 8 some years previously. That is an example of what I mean by 'ostracism'. Under anti-discrimination laws, many people will be required and obliged to support same-sex marriage, whether they want to or not; if they try not to support it, by, for example, not providing services to same-sex weddings, they will be subjected to legal action and even vilification.

Get real, Andrew. Both Labor and Greens are claiming that the debate held for a plebiscite will cause 'mental harm' to 'LGBTI people' and 'maybe even suicides'. — Wayfarer

I just don't believe that public debate, even if it is raucous or bitter, causes mental harm to the people who are the prospective beneficiaries of the debate. They might not like it, but that's just their tough luck.

There is, however, an outstanding good reason for not submitting questions of liberty and rights to the people as a whole: The people as a whole tend to be much more socially conservative than prospective beneficiaries of initiatives and referenda. This isn't at all surprising. The majority of citizens don't have the problems of minorities--gays, blacks, the mentally ill, and so on. Referenda aiming to extend legal protections to a particular group tend to be voted down. Not always, but frequently.

The bars to legal gay marriage were removed mostly by courts and legislators. This makes sense: judges are generally (but not always) independent of public opinion. It's easier to persuade legislators who number in the low hundreds than to convince citizens who number in the millions. Plus there is always the mechanical problems of this kind of voting.

The Equal Rights Amendment to the US constitution, giving equal rights to women, was introduced into Congress in 1923. Congress passed the ERA in 1972, and in 1982 the period of state ratification ended with 35 states ratifying, where 38 were needed. All of the states that declined ratification were in the old confederacy (except Illinois, Nevada, Utah, and Arizona).

I'm from an ex-Communist country, these "increased social capital" memes are bullshit. It is virtually impossible to change the inner attitudes people have towards one another on a mass scale. Even with a very limited group it's very difficult. All that will happen is that you get people to be educated to no longer display an inner attitude outwards - but you can never regulate that fully. If for example you're someone who hates black people - then I can take you and enforce all the regulations I want on you. You will not be able to curse black people, you will have to talk politely and respectfully to them, etc. but in your mind, you'd still think the same way about them. Nothing will have changed, except that you will have learned that success in your society depends on wearing a mask - just like your avatar in fact. That's really what political correctness is all about. A useless meme, there just for the show. — Agustino

Societies differ not only across nations but over time in terms of people's attitudes. Not only is that self-evident, it has been empirically demonstrated. What you seem to be doing here is taking the obvious truth that some people cannot be made to change their attitudes over short periods of time, and trying to derive the obvious falsity that there is no possibility of development in social attitudes.

But on the contrary - you will create a new class of power hungry totalitarians who will use the new rules to dominate the world around them, the very same way it had been dominated before. It really doesn't matter - those who seek to be powerful, will use whatever tools exist to make that possible. They will not care what it takes to be powerful - they will not care if they have to curse the "white man" or the "black man" to be powerful - they will do whatever it takes. — Agustino

I'm not claiming political correctness will rid us of the power hungry.

That is a pretty selfish commodity to have. Another function of the egotism the rots our minds in the present day and age. The need to have the feeling of "I am superior", "I am worth something" or even "I am above him, her, that". Yet some of the people on here talk as if it is something desirable in modern society lol, god help them. — intrapersona

Indeed, God help them! Thank goodness you are so above all that! Oops...

Anyway, you've confused self-esteem with arrogance, which, yes, is egotistical. The last sentence in your post is a good example of the latter undesirable trait. Self-esteem is more a matter of having the desirable ones of self-respect and self-confidence.

There is a sense we're going to end up talking past each other during this debate anyway as conservatives* tend to use the term PC exclusively as a pejorative i.e. they allow for no distinction between PC and excessive PC; PC itself just is an excessive form of social control. Of course, they present that view through the lens of a social reality that has already been constructed at least partly from progressive political forces. PC could only seem unnecessary in a society which has already been ameliorated by it (or its precursors).

*And some on the left. Slavoj Zizek is a notable opponent of PC.

Nothing will have changed, except that you will have learned that success in your society depends on wearing a mask - just like your avatar in fact. That's really what political correctness is all about. A useless meme, there just for the show. — Agostino

Well, if it causes you not to insult and belittle others because of your beliefs, that is all that can be expected from a civil code, and at least it will mean that outwardly, you are at least civil.