What Does "Politically Correct" Mean?

Discussion in 'General Philosophy' started by spidergoat, Jul 29, 2016.

  1. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    Yes, we know. We have been pointing that out.

    But that leaves this kind of analysis, examples of which one could lift from essentially the entire faction that regards "PC" as being a legitimate category of bad thing,
    hopelessly muddled, and biased in its confusion.

    Because if you make a big deal out of "politically correct" only as applied to what you have been engineered and manipulated into regarding as leftwing interference with thought and language, you are complicit in the enforcement of the rightwing stuff. You are cooperating with and abetting the New World Order thought control, almost all of which is rightwing in origin. You have been led to see and discuss only what you have a name for.

    The left is not the powerful, media owning, well-financed faction in the US. Most of the actual thought control via language control, most of the cunning manipulations of the social engineers bringing in their idea of a New World Order (HW Bush's term during his campaign, no kidding - we can only hope the WWII veteran forgot where the term came from (http://ww2today.com/30th-january-1941-hitlers-new-world-order): ), is the doing of the authoritarian corporate rightwing media professionals. The likes of Lee Atwater, Karl Rove, Frank Luntz, Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, the entire frontline and writing staff at Fox News, have been dominating the US public discourse with the rightwing "politically correct" manipulations.

    And the people complaining about lefty "political correct" bad stuff? They're correct in a small sense, of course - Carlin is perceptive, insightful - but by missing the larger picture, they get the entire situation completely wrong. And that is to the benefit of those who benefit from an inculcated inability to reason - who by some chance are the same people financing the media so dominated.
     
    Last edited: Aug 3, 2016
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  3. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Apparently, then, it does not exist - since you posted "niggardly" below and you were not "controlled" for it.

    Heck, you can go out and call black people coons (or any other offensive racial slur you choose) if you like; you have the freedom to do that. Others might then call you (quite accurately) a racist; they have the freedom to do that. And people might end up avoiding you, firing you and refusing to associate with you; they have the right to do _that._

    Ain't freedom great?


    BTW your example about the pupil isn't correct; the pupil expands due to a LACK of stimulus. But I guess that wouldn't have had the anti-PC "zing" you wanted. A great example of someone who, desperate to "not be PC" ends up failing at what they intended to show, and indeed demonstrating the opposite of what they intended. Lots of that nowadays in the anti-PC crowd.
     
    Last edited: Aug 3, 2016
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  5. mtf Banned Banned

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    Considerable amounts of philosophical analyses have been produced to address the epistemological problems related to individualism.

    Of course, the self-help genre glosses over all that and relies on ego-based heuristics, which, granted, seem, to be effective for some sections of the population, but not for all and are not actionable for all.

    Thank you.

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    Such a doctor is not trustworthy. A doctor who himself evidently does not follow the advice he gives, does not invoke in his patients the sense that he is a medical authority. (So it's no wonder that people don't follow the advice of such doctors and have a growing distrust of doctors and medicine altogether.)
     
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  7. mtf Banned Banned

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    Point taken, but these details about the source of the term are not generally known all over the world.
    Here in Europe, I have the impression (and I'm far from being the only one) that political correctness is a specifically American phenomenon that has spread from the US across the rest of the world.
    My first association to "political correctness" is "Americans." Even the term itself, given how it is usually translated into European languages, sounds distinctly foreign.


    It appears, though, that the distinction between the left and the right is vaning to begin with.
    Also, there are important differences between US and European politics; the US left appears to already be on the right spectrum by European standards (and even the European leftists are becoming more and more like rightists).
    It could be that the left-right distinction will become obsolete in a not far remote future, and that will then affect the meaning of a number of other terms.
     
  8. Bowser Namaste Valued Senior Member

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    What ideas are they promoting in the media? Tell me it's not bias. Honestly, I hold both sides of the same coin responsible for much of this...BS. Where do you think Trump derives his following. Not from the establish right. No, it's those who are fed up with the same crud that comes from both ends of the rope. It's Trump's very unpopular speech that has gained his following. There's a counter culture growing.
     
  9. Bowser Namaste Valued Senior Member

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    I think we are entering a time of extremes, both left and right.

     
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  10. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    Yazata:

    To accuse somebody of kowtowing to "political correctness" is always intended as an insult to the person accused. It is typically used to deflect attention away from the lack of respect that the accuser has shown either to the person accused or some other person. I know this because I am able to put myself in the position of the "opponent" you mention.

    One problem is that, apparently, the "political" part of "political correctness" seems to have come to mean liberal politics in the United States - at least that's what I gather from this thread. So, when a conservative complains about political correctness, it is often a catch-all form of insult directed at people who espouse liberal values.

    Possibly some liberals believe that it is acceptable to attack Christians, or white people (in a racist way), or conservatives - not for what they do or say, but for who they are. This kind of thing is bad whatever side of politics you happen to be on. But the dismissal of concerns about people being attacked in that way as "political correctness" seems to be largely something that we see only from the Right.

    I can see a problem with out-of-control concern that somebody else might be offended or hurt by particular kinds of speech. There is a particular problem in the situation where person or group A complains that person B's words or actions are or may be offensive to group C. Person B is chastised, but nobody from group C is actually involved in the scenario at any point. A number of incidents of this type of silliness are outlined in the article linked above.

    The idea of "micro-offenses" also seems like a step too far to me, as I have said previously. We should ask whether a reasonable person would be offended before we censure somebody for something.

    Notice how I said "individualism" and you came back with "freedom, liberty and democracy"?

    Those aren't the same things. One can be communitarian and still have freedom, liberty and democracy. But Americans typically tend to lump those other things together with individualism.

    It's not just an American issue, but the issue is particular pronounced in America because Americans place a particularly high value on their personal freedom to do what they like, and the rest be damned. There are other less individualistic nations in which people agree to sacrifice more of their personal freedom for the benefit of the wider community.

    In fact, you think this is so important that it's in the First Amendment.

    Would it be fair to say that in part it may be because the government isn't involved in policing "free speech" that some people get so riled up when the people, in collectives, try to police it themselves?

    Really? How is this suppression supposed to work? In particular, what is the legal context?

    And their will in imposing "political correctness" is to achieve what end? And who are the main victims of this liberal oppression, in your opinion?

    Are you saying that what I wrote is not "politically correct"? Doesn't that undermine your own position?

    The people who I so rudely accused are free to respond to my uncharitable accusations, are they not? So where's the problem?

    I'd prefer not to get into a debate about gun control in this thread.

    My point in mentioning guns was about individualism again. The same kind of person who believes they can't trust the police to protect them from criminals and who, as a result, decides to arm themselves so they can take a stand individually, also tends to be the kind of person who believes that the oligarchical government/authorities/aristocratic elites who try to control our lives can't be trusted to police speech in any way.

    Once again, I point out that individualism is not synonymous with democracy, freedom and liberty. I think that some of America's problems can be put down to its rampant individualism. That does not mean that I think American democracy is a bad thing, or freedom.

    Do you think you have me pegged as an Australian labourite? Because I spoke of rampant individualism as possibly a bad idea, I must be an evil communist? Interesting.

    Australia is inarguably closer in geographic terms to Asia than to Europe or America. Australia's biggest trading partners are China and Japan. Culturally, for historical and other reasons, Australia has very close ties to Great Britain and the United States, but Australia does not consider itself a satellite nation of the US or Britain.

    I'm not a big fan of undemocratic regimes, in general, especially police states that oppress their citizens in various ways. I'm very much in favour of a free media, within reasonable limits. Is that too PC for you?
     
    Last edited: Aug 3, 2016
  11. PhysBang Valued Senior Member

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    Yes, you wrote this. You wrote this because you are happily going along with the racism of your contemporary culture. There is a big difference in how contemporary culture in the USA treats white people and black people and not because of black people. There is a big difference in how Christians and non-Christians are treated, and it's not because of non-Christians.

    Says the people who want to offend based on race, sex, disability or a number of other issues.

    Like, it seems, you.
     
  12. mtf Banned Banned

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    There's that "He that is not instantly and wholly with us, is wholly and totally against us" again.

    Where do people get the idea that not fancying political correctness inevitably, automatically means "wanting to offend based on race, sex, disability or a number of other issues"??
     
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  13. PhysBang Valued Senior Member

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    From people who use the term over and over again to excuse their offenses. This is an actual thing that happens. And then you get the wishy-washies who ignore all the shit that people actually do and say and happily allow all the systemic problems in society to keep going without paying attention to them. Yazata is at best a wishy-washy.
     
  14. mtf Banned Banned

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    That seems to be more of an American thing.

    In some other parts of the world, political correctness is sometimes disliked because it is associated with dishonesty, indirectness, manipulation.
     
  15. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    cute butt!

    PC is censorship. Censorship sux.
     
  16. mtf Banned Banned

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    To the best of my knowledge, in most European languages, the English phrase "to hurt someone's feelings" doesn't exist; it can be translated literally, but it sounds awkward. We tend to say that something is inappropriate (thus making a reference to a general social norm), not that "it hurts someone's feelings" (which is characteristically individualistic, without reference to a general social norm).

    But the US discourse on this matter seems to be based on the idea that this or that could "hurt a person's feelings." And then the further discourse is build around this idea, including the idea of micro-offenses and trying to (re)establish a general social norm (by asking how a reasonable person would experience something).
     
  17. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Once you start trying to redefine words to support your argument - you've conceded defeat.
     
  18. mtf Banned Banned

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    I don't think so, but I'm beginning to understand why someone might think so.
     
  19. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    That butt is now sported by a senior citizen.
    The pic itself is at least 40 years old.

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  20. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    From the established electoral base of the Republican Party, the people who voted for W twice and voted against Obama twice. They are the heirs of the Confederacy, the White Citizens Councils, the all male and no Jew country clubs, the sundown towns and redlined suburbs of America, the date rapists and fag bashers of the greatest country on earth. All of those heirs reacted to being denigrated and coercively altered by whining about "politically correct" objections to their behavior.
    Nonsense. There's barely any left at all around here, even moderate. This entire discussion is taking place center to right, in the US.
    Nothing to do with "not fancying" - we're talking about reflexively getting angry with other people's requests for reasonable freedom from abuse, and denying the consequences of their behavior. And not "automatically". Don't strawman the situation.

    But after correcting that "politically correct" language of deception, we can answer: Where? - In the great majority of cases, those objecting to being corrected in their continually obnoxious and damaging offense? - From many years of experience, and the ability to remember stuff for more than a couple of weeks. This ain't the first rodeo with this stuff. Comes in waddling and quacking, experience tells us it's very likely to have webbed feet.
    Not here. Nobody here is worried about hurt feelings. So never mind the deflections, eh?

    The biggest, loudest, most inveterate, and most influential purveyor of politically aligned and "correct" language in the US is the camera front talent on Fox News. Their language management auxiliaries even provide them with memos instructing them on the appropriate terms, suitable for advancing the political agenda of their financial support.
     
    Last edited: Aug 4, 2016
  21. mtf Banned Banned

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    This seems to be US thing. I can't keep up with that.
    :shrug:
     
  22. C C Consular Corps - "the backbone of diplomacy" Valued Senior Member

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    That would be great if such was actually becoming the case in North America. The current manner of political cognition -- of people being myopically discerned as either of two types located along the respective spectrums of each, offers a blurry picture of a distinct person's views and beliefs, like some flyby Mars probe of the sixties. This in turn can cause the individuals themselves to slot themselves in simplistic ways without the bleeding borders and mixtures of opinions that might actually be revealed with a broader resolution (that is, with many more categories available for political cognition).

    There is the so-called "moderate / centrist" or pragmatic-behaving stripe that's disparaged by ideologues as "You'll get run over driving in the middle of the road" (actually not staying fixed there like yet another ideologue, but maneuvering as needed). But as long as that type is likewise accused of mutably pandering to only two flavors, any landscape of finer properties it might be loosely hinting at is similarly obscured.
     
  23. mtf Banned Banned

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    There seems to be less and less distinction between the left and the right. So in that sense, the distinction left-right could reasonably become obsolete. If it remains, it would seem to apply in some much more abstract sense, such as filling people's desire just to have an opponent.

    All-or-nothing, now-or-never, black-or-white thinking is sometimes a useful heuristic for making decisions. But it can also be a sign that the person is under considerable stress or that they have a psychological disorder or problem (such as in depression or narcissism).

    It is certainly difficult to have a conversation with someone who thinks like that. But maybe that is sometimes the aim of all-or-nothing, now-or-never, black-or-white thinking -- to reduce the cognitive workload, to reduce engagement with others, a kind of maintenance of personal boundaries between self and other, an attempt to reduce the stress the person is feeling. Or a desperate attempt to establish order in what is otherwise experienced as a chaotic world.
     

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