I don't know who fdrake is so no, why would you need my employer? — ssu

Either to inform them that some idiot doesn't think Naziism is a viewpoint or has Nazi sympathies and sometimes approves of violent direct action.

You're all approving of the vague statistic — fdrake

What I'm saying that many statistics are vague. Yet that vagueness doesn't mean the statistic is useless.

What I'm saying that many statistics are vague. Yet that vagueness doesn't mean the statistic is useless. — ssu

You go on interpreting the poorly designed survey question in accordance with whatever political worldview you think it confirms then...

? ? ?

Is not seeking consensus equivalent to violent direct action???

For example, if there is some large accident and some political elected official makes a decision on the instant without going the ordinary parliamentary channels he or she usually should go through, is an example of "not seeking consensus" before acting.

Seeking consensus can mean that you simply try to get a bi-partisan ruling, you sit down with the opposition and make decisions with them and not just rely on that the opposition cannot vote your legislation down. Sometimes that kind of decision making works...like when deciding what to do when facing a pandemic.

So what on Earth are you talking about?

You go on interpreting the poorly designed survey in accordance with whatever political worldview you think it confirms then... — fdrake

And now for the strawman.

How something is vague matters a lot regarding its usefulness.

So what on Earth are you talking about? — ssu

I would like to live in a world where people seem as unaware as you are that questions can be leading or loaded, and intentionally or negligently made that way. When you answer "Approve/disapprove" or "Yes/no" to a question, if the question conjures a certain framing with its usual interpretation, a constellation of yes and no answers transfers the framing assumed by the interpreter to the respondent (or the broader sample).

"Should Scotland be independent?"
"Should Scotland leave the union?"

There was a fight over that one. There are reasons questions are asked the way they're asked.

Besides, political correctness is far better defined as those terms above: using language that avoids offending members of particular groups in society. — ssu

The framing assumed by the "political correctness" one is the interpreter's of the statistic. That goes against basic survey design principles; you should do whatever you can to make there be only one plausible interpretation of what the question concerns when its purpose is to elicit a binary choice on the matter.

"Should Scotland be independent?" frames the yes answer as positive.
"Should Scotland leave the union?" frames the yes answer as negative.

Let's go through the questions I asked you:

Do you believe consensus building is always of vital importance in political dispute resolution?
(Yes/No)

Has there ever been a situation in which consensus building was not of vital importance?
(Yes/No)

Do you think that every human has a right to express their viewpoint?
(Yes/No)

Do you think Naziism is a viewpoint?
(Yes/No) — fdrake

If you say "no" to 1, that suggests you think alternatives to consensus building - power plays - are sometimes appropriate. The expected answer was no. I put the second one in in case you'd answer "Yes" to the first one, you're more likely to answer based on specifics if you're primed on specifics.

I was seriously expecting you to think that Naziism is a viewpoint, because it's a perspective someone can take on some matters.

If I changed the questions to: "Do you think every human as a right to express their belief system?"
and
"Do you think Naziism is a belief system?"

I'm guessing you'd answer yes to them now.

If you answer anything positive about Naziism - like approving of them expressing their viewpoints, which the questions engender -, and if you simultaneously believe that power plays are sometimes necessary in politics, a reader of those responses will often be left with the impression that the respondent (you) approved of Naziism in some way and approved of using power plays in politics. If you have that "approves of Nazi in some vague manner" priming, it's going to prime for interpreting power plays as violent.

The questions you ask on surveys can engender their answers by being phrased in a leading way. You can get that effect if you include a pejorative in the question - and make no mistake, political correctness mostly functions as a pejorative.

People responded saying they did not approve of (what the pejorative applies to), and what does it apply to exactly? Well, that's left to the interpreter. Just like someone who would read the above and conclude you were pretty far right and believed in violent direct action.

If you expect all of these common associations to have to follow a syllogistic structure (like you're demanding me to articulate), that's simply not how making leading questions works.

The purpose of a survey question should be to elicit someone's opinion on a matter, what that "political correctness" one did is leave any interpreter to fill in the blanks about what their opinions concerned as they like.

Or to put it another way; let's grant that it concerns something vague, now you're filling in the specifics in your head - against that it's acknowledged as vague! Bad question, bad usage of question. But it was designed to be used that way I imagine.

I would like to live in a world where people seem as unaware as you are that questions can be leading or loaded, and intentionally or negligently made that way. — fdrake

I'm aware that questionnaires can be made (and often are) to further some agenda and the questions can be leading or loaded.

But then argument is about the conclusions you make from the questionnaire. You can make the argument that the conclusions are wrong. But just to throw away it as useless is a different thing.

So what conclusions do you draw from that bit of data?

So what conclusions do you draw from that bit of data? — fdrake

What data exactly? The data that 88% Native Americans oppose PC, was it so?

First of all, the simple fact is that political correctness and progressive woke things aren't highly popular.
Just to quote NOS4A2's original article Americans Strongly Dislike PC Culture:

It is obvious that certain elements on the right mock instances in which political correctness goes awry in order to win the license to spew outright racial hatred. And it is understandable that, in the eyes of some progressives, this makes anybody who dares to criticize political correctness a witting tool of—or a useful idiot for—the right. But that’s not fair to the Americans who feel deeply alienated by woke culture. Indeed, while 80 percent of Americans believe that political correctness has become a problem in the country, even more, 82 percent, believe that hate speech is also a problem.

So answering your question: All I can draw that Native Americans are likely to be more conservative than progressives are (or the image of "progressives that uphold PC values"), even if they do vote for democrats btw (and hence the majority of them aren't politically conservative). As I said, your definition (PC = progressive blah) might actually make the point, even if many Native Americans do know the defintion of PC. And many likely know that the NCAI has been against negative stereotypes for a very, very long time.

NCAI campaign against racial stereotypes:


So basically it doesn't say much, but it does say something. And that's my point here. It's not useless, to be thrown aside. Perhaps you could say that the so-called "PC crowd" hasn't gotten the vast majority Americans excited about the utter importance of PC language, including minorities.

(Btw, this topic likely would be better in some other thread than Trump)

That's an awful lot of opinion to form from that statistic, eh? You even brought hats. What you've done is fit that statistic in with your previous conceptions, rather than used the statistic itself. You provided all the implicit characterisation of political correctness. Just as the respondents to the survey were asked to.

That is exactly the point I was making. That's all you can do with this statistic. And that's what you did.

So what conclusions do you draw from that bit of data? — fdrake

So basically it doesn't say much — ssu

:clap:

That's an awful lot of opinion to form from that statistic, eh? — fdrake

You made me to fill a questionnaire which you then explained in quite detail, so... :roll:

Quote the full sentence, maw:

So basically it doesn't say much, but it does say something. — ssu

but it does say something — ssu

The only reason it can "say something" is because you, or anyone else, have an interpretation of the term, but that doesn't make it useful in aggregate.

Seems then you will have a lot of terms that aren't useful in the aggregate.

Thanks for creating a new thread.

The Trump thread is and will be quite active even without going on sidepaths (which tells a lot of the World we live in). At least for few months, hopefully.

How about you address your dirtbag cherrypicking? You are dishonest, and when your blatant dishonesty is pointed out you just carry on as if it didnt happen.
You quoted half a sentence, and tried to pass that off as a legitimate point. It wasnt, it was a lie. You are a liar.
You owe ssu an apology, and everyone else as well since you and your dirtbag tactics make discourse more difficult on this forum.
Its staggering how self righteous you are considering how little ethic you show in discussion. Shame on you sir. You are the problem.

9 out of 10 Native Americans are not offended by the Washington Redskins name, and in fact many express admiration for it,

88% of Native Americans oppose political correctness.
— NOS4A2

Let's assume that's true. Do you think the name should not be changed? If so, why do you want the name to remain "Redskins"? If you think it should be changed, what is your complaint? If you don't care, why make an issue of it?

Seems then you will have a lot of terms that aren't useful in the aggregate. — ssu

That's why a definition, and other caveats, would have been useful :wink:

How about you address your dirtbag cherrypicking? You are dishonest, and when your blatant dishonesty is pointed out you just carry on as if it didnt happen.
You quoted half a sentence, and tried to pass that off as a legitimate point. It wasnt, it was a lie. You are a liar.
You owe ssu an apology, and everyone else as well since you and your dirtbag tactics make discourse more difficult on this forum.
Its staggering how self righteous you are considering how little ethic you show in discussion. Shame on you sir. You are the problem. — DingoJones

You made me to fill a questionnaire which you then explained in quite detail, so... — ssu

All I've done in this thread is:
(1) Say that the question was leading and uninformative.
(2) Try to explain why any interpretation of it suggested so far is fraught.
(3) Given worked examples on how questions can be misleading.
(4) Given a generic description of the error in survey design this question makes: it's a binary choice where almost all the information recorded in the Approve/Disapprove is determined by the framing brought to the survey by the respondents and subsequent interpreters rather than the survey designer's constraints placed upon plausible interpretation of the question's substantive content.

If it was a question like the hate speech one @Maw brought up, I wouldn't be reacting like this, as hate speech has much more definite content.

Survey questions like that are like contracts with an audience of devils. You answer "approve", the audience brings whatever fine print they like and anything plausible is equally justified based solely on the question response (not also given the fine print/justification narrative for interpreting it in a given way).

Lol. Ok that made me laugh. Your a liar AND funny.

Let's not overreact shall we. "it doesn't say much" is sufficient to quote since that means it can still say something by inference. Logically ssu shouldn't have said "but", since it wasn't contrary to the first part but he should've said "and".

9 out of 10 Native Americans are not offended by the Washington Redskins name, and in fact many express admiration for it,

88% of Native Americans oppose political correctness.
— NOS4A2


Let's assume that's true. Do you think the name should not be changed? If so, why do you want the name to remain "Redskins"? If you think it should be changed, what is your complaint? If you don't care, why make an issue of it? — Ciceronianus the White

I once read a book about the Amos n' Andy radio show. In its earliest days, the white actors who portrayed (racially stereotypical) black characters were popular and respected among the black community. The acceptance of status quo is pretty common, but that doesn't mean the status quo should be perpetuated.

I once read a book about the Amos n' Andy radio show. In its earliest days, the white actors who portrayed (racially stereotypical) black characters were popular and respected among the black community. The acceptance of status quo is pretty common, but that doesn't mean the status quo should be perpetuated. — Relativist

Yes. But it may be no argument was intended, and the poster merely wanted to express disapproval of the change of name from "Redskins" in some inoffensive manner--trying to be politically incorrect in a politically correct way, perhaps. I think the reaction against being "politically correct" is sometimes merely a half-assed way of justifying loutishness. If you think the name shouldn't be changed, say so and honestly say why--no doubt there are those who think "Redskins" is a perfectly acceptable name.

Ya, youre right for once Benkei. My apologies Maw, that was harsh and uncalled for on my part.

I think the reaction against being "politically correct" is sometimes merely a half-assed way of justifying loutishness. — Ciceronianus the White

That's often true, although sometimes it refers to comments that were truly intended innocently. e.g. my wife (a special ed teacher, not of the intellectually challenged, but still worked in those circles) jumped on me a couple years ago for referring to a student as "retarded".

As background, I volunteered at the "Houston Center for the Retarded" when I was in high school in the early 1970s - that's the last time I had personal contact with the intellectually challenged. But these days, "retarded" has become a politically incorrect term. I understand why, and have no problem with that - but I simply didn't know. I suggest that making such an error should be considered a faux pas the first time (or two). It becomes loutish when one refuses to accept that the term is inappropriate and proceeds to use such terms regularly.

" When someone talks about "political correctness", they usually cannot articulate precisely what it is. It's usually an "excessive version of (undefined allegedly progressive blah)", and everyone dislikes unspecified undefined allegedly progressive blah when it is excessive."

It is possible to try to articulate what “political correctness” is: there are various ways of defining and framing public discourses, resulting in the formation of public opinion and the promotion of
particular agendas. Surveys and polls are just a few of the possible technics to shape, retain, and narrow down what can be counted as a political issue or an essential societal domain.
As Foucault noted, discourses have always been subjects of intensive censorship and regulation. Being a function of effective discursive control,“political correctness” produces the mobilization of public attention and the enforcement of the desirable consensus. Simultaneously, a multitude of alternative perspectives is effectively marginalized and obscured. Bachrach and Baratz in their book“Two Faces of Power” proposed a concept of nondecision-making, so that specific issues are pushed aside and prevented from consideration. They write that if “there is no conflict, overt or covert, the presumption must be that there is consensus on the prevailing allocation of values…In the absence of such conflict… there is no way accurately to judge whether the thrust of a decision really is to thwart or prevent serious consideration of a demand for change that is potentially threatening to the decision-maker”.

The purpose of a survey question should be to elicit someone's opinion on a matter, what that "political correctness" one did is leave any interpreter to fill in the blanks about what their opinions concerned as they like. — fdrake

Another function of ‘political correctness’ is the distribution and reactivation of preferable subjective positions that individuals should assume and confirm. Thus, while taking part in the survey, one can re-affirm herself as a voter, a consumer, an expert, etc. Therefore, surveys
maintain the continuum of articulable discourses, effectuate and limit the range of possible
opinions, and produce the necessary engagement.

That's why a definition, and other caveats, would have been useful :wink: — Maw

Sorry to repeat this, but I don't really understand what is your problem.

If I remember correctly, you yourself gave the example of an Amazon worker leading a protest and then getting fired. Another example would be someone tweeting "all lives matter" and getting fired. Is there really a difference? Isn't it obvious from both examples of how utterly arbitrary the firing of people can be and how insecure employees are in the US? If all it takes is what a person has said (or tweeted) or has participated in some political activity outside his work his work and the person gets fired, isn't that itself a real problem?

Same really goes for the question "is extremism a problem?". The fact that just what extremism isn't mentioned simply cannot be a counterargument if people agree with the notion of extremism being a problem (or not).

Sorry to repeat this, but I don't really understand what is your problem.

If I remember correctly, you yourself gave the example of an Amazon worker leading a protest and then getting fired. Another example would be someone tweeting "all lives matter" and getting fired. Is there really a difference? Isn't it obvious from both examples of how utterly arbitrary the firing of people can be and how insecure employees are in the US? If all it takes what a person has said outside his work and the person gets fired?

Same really goes for the question "is extremism a problem?". The fact that just what extremism isn't mentioned simply cannot be a counterargument if people agree with the notion of extremism being a problem (or not). — ssu

I have no idea what you are talking about anymore, whatever you are saying is so far removed from the initial issue that 'political correctness' isn't even mentioned here.

I have no idea what you are talking about anymore, your argument is so far removed from the initial issue that 'political correctness' isn't even mentioned here. — Maw

I'll recap the discussion.

So I gave this example:

I bet you and NOS4A2 will surely differ in your views about just what kind of extremism is really the problem, but does that change the real issue? — ssu

And you answered:

Yes, that undeniably changes the issue because then you can't say "80% of respondents agree that extremism is a problem" or any other aggregate judgements, because that binds myself and NOS4A2 together in an unsound and baseless way, since we don't agree on the actual content of the word 'extremism' given definitions that are detached from one another. — Maw

And the question is why it undeniably changes the issue? Because this is quite the same argumentation as you had against NOS4A2 originally:

As I've pointed out to you before, the study in that article doesn't define political correctness, leaving the term completely open to interpretation per respondent, making the analysis useless. — Maw

The simple fact is that we can talk about extremism as a class combining various types of extremism.

Listen. If within 48 hours you still can't comprehend why it is necessary for an 8,000+ person study to provide respondents with a definition for a nebulous and controversial term, when asking for their view on it, then there's nothing further I can do to help you out.

People have been speaking about, writing about, and have been warning us about political correctness for decades. Quibble all you need, but I wager most people understand the general sense of the term by now. — NOS4A2

except that the discussion in this one thread alone makes it abundantly clear that folk have different ideas of what political correctness is. so folk might have "a general sense," of what it means, but they sure seem to have a diversity of general senses.

Hate speech is a problem. But political correctness was never about hate speech. — NOS4A2

I agree with this.

Not everyone has categorically drawn lines between speech that is considered hateful or offensive or just unpleasant and rude, and where political correctness intersects between this and other types insults and expressions... — Maw

but in a pragmatic sense, I also agree with this. which is just my charitable view that you don't have to agree with me.

Political correctness is, in both definition and in practice, almost entirely about condemning and avoiding derogatory/hateful language and rhetoric towards particular (religious, ethnic, etc) groups. — Enai De A Lukal

this is not a view I have seen expressed anywhere else, so my tendency would be to think this is not common. I'm not saying you're wrong, but this probably not the majority view.

in my experience, political correctness is used as a derogatory term. when someone says, "that is just political correctness," this is an insult. political correctness is the tendency to outlaw or ban the saying of things that meet both of the following: a) are perceived by the speaker to be offensive to or discriminatory of a particular group. b) would not be considered by that group to be offensive or discriminatory.

examples would include: telling schools they are not allowed to call a blackboard a blackboard anymore because black is discriminatory and offensive to people of colour. or labeling a field on a form "gender" when the distinction being made is between male and female. these types of criticisms have a tendency to trivialise genuine discrimination in a way that convinces other folk that discrimination is not real.

but that is just my experience, I'm not claiming to be an authority on the topic.

as for the survey, surveys should make their questions clear and unambiguous and explicitly explain any terms with the potential to be interpreted in more than one way so that all respondents are answering the exact same question. surveys that do not do that can be ignored.

or do we need to take a survey on that?



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