Where did I say I disapprove of the prank? — Baden
He embarrassed her for being a racist not for being politically correct. It makes zero sense otherwise. Don't you know the background? — Baden
Ok, well, I have no sympathy for her considering her background whatever his motives were. But it doesn't seem a very good illustration of why political correctness is a bad thing. I would say the principle of etiquette that frowns upon people shouting "nigger" for fun is pretty sensible. — Baden
You may have a point there. I still don't think the overall critique of political correctness is very powerful though. Attacks on it almost always tend to go for soft targets.
For example, I don't think it's appropriate to call children who have learning disabilities, 'mongoloids' or 'retards'. I, like most people, prefer PC terms. The children in question and their parents prefer it and I lose nothing by being PC. So, there's a harder target for you to attack. — Baden
And I think many who take up arms against political correctness probably feel the same way. Makes me wonder sometimes where the points of disagreement actually lie. Do we just define things differently? — Baden
In order to actually respect or tolerate the next person I need to understand their perspective. For me to do so the next person will have to be able to tell me their honest opinions however offensive these may be. — Ilya B Shambat
Given that, I suppose the most sensible way to conduct the debate is to avoid "PC is good" vs "PC is bad" type positions and focus in on actual real-life examples and see what's going wrong (or right) with them, and why. — Baden
Given that, I suppose the most sensible way to conduct the debate is to avoid "PC is good" vs "PC is bad" type positions and focus in on actual real-life examples and see what's going wrong (or right) with them, and why. — Baden
Actually I didn't think so. The point of power plays was just similar.First of all, my attitude is not PC. — Fooloso4
This brings up one important issue here. And that is simply that the whole debate around PC isn't the most important issue (which has come up already here). And this is something one has to remember.It has been my recent experience on another philosophy forum that any rational discussion of such things is impossible there because of a group of rabid anti-PC members who are too emotionally involved and convinced of the truth of their caricatures. — Fooloso4
With this in mind one seriously could ask why someone would get so emotional about it, really. — ssu
It is quite possible to deliver any opinion honestly and with courtesy. "Political correctness" is just another name for courtesy. Politeness. :roll: — Pattern-chaser
Exactly, many people feel threatened. And of course some who really feel upset about the apparent PC sillyness for example in academia, might adhere to the conspiracy theory that Cultural Marxists are doing this ideological flouridation scheme of the new generations studying in the universities. Few believe these conspiracies, yet these kind of even more outrageous ideas naturally lead to accusations that critical comments of the PC culture etc. are just 'disguised' attacks from racists. But as during the Red Scare era the conspiracies of flouridation, vaccination programs and mental health services being a communist plot can be dismissed, so ought the most bizarre ideas too. Yet there being those laughable ideas don't make the whole issue unimportant or prove the criticism wrong.Because there is more to it. Some people feel that their way of life is being threatened by those who are going to tell them how to live, what to say and do. — Fooloso4
Frankness involves honesty and directness, and being polite doesn't allow that in at least some conceivable cases. — S
The only thing that politeness prevents, while maintaining honesty, is personal insults. — Pattern-chaser
And that's its point and purpose. Address the message, not the messenger, and politeness will get you wherever you want to go, with complete honesty, but without conflict. Politeness avoids conflict. — Pattern-chaser
Few believe these conspiracies, yet these kind of even more outrageous ideas naturally lead to accusations that critical comments of the PC culture etc. are just 'disguised' attacks from racists. — ssu
The previously obscure far-left term became common currency in the lexicon of the conservative social and political challenges against progressive teaching methods and curriculum changes in the secondary schools and universities of the U.S. Policies, behavior, and speech codes that the speaker or the writer regarded as being the imposition of a liberal orthodoxy, were described and criticized as "politically correct".
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After 1991, its use as a pejorative phrase became widespread amongst conservatives in the US. It became a key term encapsulating conservative concerns about the left in culture and political debate more broadly, as well as in academia. Two articles on the topic in late 1990 in Forbes and Newsweek both used the term "thought police" in their headlines, exemplifying the tone of the new usage, but it was Dinesh D'Souza's Illiberal Education: The Politics of Race and Sex on Campus (1991) which "captured the press's imagination." Similar critical terminology was used by D'Souza for a range of policies in academia around victimization, supporting multiculturalism through affirmative action, sanctions against anti-minority hate speech, and revising curricula (sometimes referred to as "canon busting"). These trends were at least in part a response to multiculturalism and the rise of identity politics, with movements such as feminism, gay rights movements and ethnic minority movements. That response received funding from conservative foundations and think tanks such as the John M. Olin Foundation, which funded several books such as D'Souza's.
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During the 1990s, conservative and right-wing politicians, think-tanks, and speakers adopted the phrase as a pejorative descriptor of their ideological enemies – especially in the context of the Culture Wars about language and the content of public-school curricula. Roger Kimball, in Tenured Radicals, endorsed Frederick Crews's view that PC is best described as "Left Eclecticism", a term defined by Kimball as "any of a wide variety of anti-establishment modes of thought from structuralism and poststructuralism, deconstruction, and Lacanian analyst to feminist, homosexual, black, and other patently political forms of criticism."
Yet political correctness exists, it surely isn't imaginary. What I agree that this is more about conservatives against progressives, not the "alt-right" against "cultural marxists". The debate and the instance of PC and criticism to it simply cannot be just some weird marxists against neonazis.PC is the face of the conservative battle against progressivism. — Fooloso4
The only thing that politeness prevents, while maintaining honesty, is personal insults. — Pattern-chaser
Not thinking it through properly or lying to yourself? Which is it?
There can be a big difference between insulting someone and just saying something which they don't want to hear. — S
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