Political Correctness

[DotCommunist]

Just because i am white and male doesn't give everyone the right to take potshots at me.

The same principle applies to any simplistic grouping.

It's best to deal with the world as individuals.

Yes it is best to do so. But thats not how it happens or has ever happened people have been dealt with within the societally normal prescripts, they still are. A demand for total parity must accept the massive lack of parity within our society. Not 'let's treat everyone the same' but 'let's acknowledge that inequality thrives and do something'

 

[Fozzie Bear]

Just because i am white and male doesn't give everyone the right to take potshots at me.

Indeed.

There are other reasons why people are taking potshots at you.

 

[Dravinian]

of course not. But....well stuart lee puts it more succinctly than I can

Its funny only if you read the review by Julian Petley because he goes to great lengths to explain how he creates a strawman argument and then knocks it down.

Then you listen to Stuart Lee do just that. In case you needed a real life example.

 

[DotCommunist]

Its funny only if you read the review by Julian Petley because he goes to great lengths to explain how he creates a strawman argument and then knocks it down.

Then you listen to Stuart Lee do just that. In case you needed a real life example.

Or, If ya want someone who can articulate the view with humor and style. Sadly the argument that Stu has mocked in his extended comedy version of this anti PC demolisher goes unheard.

 

[fela fan]

It says absolutely nothing like that.

I think we should get fela in on this thread again, and it would probably benefit from having Dravinian here too.

Well, i've just returned fridge, so how can i oblige? I do hope you're not making lots of misinterpretations about me...

 

[fela fan]

*penny drops*

Whoops!

That makes a difference, in that it means that most of the growth in infection rates are down to already infected people coming here and being diagnosed here.

Apologies for the misrepresentation

Interestingly this is not the reply of a politically correct person.

Politically correct people tend to be poorer listeners due to red flag words setting their emotions off, thereby not hearing the subsequent text.

I also like the term 'politically correct'. Because political people already know everything, they have strong views on what should or should not be, and because of this are rarely, or can rarely be, wrong.

Being correct in politics frequently means something different to the reality of the situation. And political correctness is all about trying to change people's usage of language, but fails on the whole because it fails to address the underlying issue: attitudes that form thinking.

Ok, we can stop certain language being uttered, but does it stop the thinking? And if the language is suppressed, how does that influence the thinker and how does it impact on their thinking?

 

[fela fan]

Politically correct people impose themselves on others, deciding what is or is not safe for other people's consumption.

Politically correct people have invested in themselves a higher sense of morality and altruism.

Far more important than trying to change language use is trying to change thinking and attitudes. Both of which need not be realised in language, but which can nevertheless have negative consequences for society.

If people realise the futility of being racist or being mysoginist, for example, and start to see all people as just being people, then they won't use language that can offend others. Such language will drop by its own accord since there will be no thinking that requires it to be uttered.

But, in the political world, people try to force change on others, hence political correctness as a tool to manipulate language usage in other people (which runs counter to freedom of speech of course). Hence we get so much antagonism in day to day social relations.

More fruitful is to have more debates about, and more exploration of, relevant topics - both in media, and amongst social groups of people.

 

[tarannau]

Fuck me, the triumvirate of ignorant knobbers is complete. The Fridge Magnet prophecy has come true.

Logic and reason is clearly beyond them, but at the moment basic comprehension of the the written word seems to elude Fela. He's off on his Orwellian language hobbyhorse yet again, despite the clear flaws in the OP and subsequent posts.

Far from PC sensitivities constraining debate, here's a grand example of some grandstanding turnip ranting on irrelevantly to attack supposed political correctness, not noticing that the OP was based on a ludicrous, misguided take on reality in the first place.

 

[fela fan]

Not 'let's treat everyone the same' but 'let's acknowledge that inequality thrives and do something'

yeah, and how are you going to do this something? Are you going to force change on others, ie the political route, or are we going to create conditions and the right climate where people make those changes by their own volition and free will?

It's politics that creates all these divisions and disrespect between different groups of people, be it race colour creed or gender. This is why political correctness is doomed to failure.

While politics is the dominant default of society, then we will always have these inequalities and lack of respect between different members of the human race. Solutions need to be found outside of this ugly divisive mechanism.

[However i do recognise the need for language to help create the positive conditions i speak of.]

 

[fela fan]

Fuck me...

...not noticing that the OP was based on a ludicrous, misguided take on reality in the first place.

A thread is not decided solely upon the OP. The OP holds no special prerogative on the content of the subsequent thread.

The title is very clear. I am contributing to the thread based on the title and in reaction originally to other posters.

My posts offer you no insight at all as to how or whether i noticed the OP.

I hope you have a better day than you appear to have started it.

 

[tarannau]

A thread is not decided solely upon the OP. The OP holds no special prerogative on the content of the subsequent thread.

The title is very clear. I am contributing to the thread based on the title and in reaction originally to other posters.

My posts offer you no insight at all as to how or whether i noticed the OP.

I hope you have a better day than you appear to have started it.

Jesus, so you came up with that pompous pish as an deliberate irrelevance then, deliberately showing up your ignorance and hair trigger reaction to the very mention of political corrrectness. A cunning feat of self-exposure.

You don't really understand how the internet and modern life work, do you Fela? Fancy trying to make your words in some way relevant to the preceding posts eh. What a thought.

Having a lovely day myself. Cup of tea, day off, mates round later. You seem a little tense and shrill to me, flushed with a need to bibble nonsensical tosh for some reason. Hob nob?

 

[nino_savatte]

Just because i am white and male doesn't give everyone the right to take potshots at me.

The same principle applies to any simplistic grouping.

It's best to deal with the world as individuals.

Pitoyable.

 

[fogbat]

Politically correct people impose themselves on others, deciding what is or is not safe for other people's consumption.

Politically correct people have invested in themselves a higher sense of morality and altruism.

Far more important than trying to change language use is trying to change thinking and attitudes. Both of which need not be realised in language, but which can nevertheless have negative consequences for society.

If people realise the futility of being racist or being mysoginist, for example, and start to see all people as just being people, then they won't use language that can offend others. Such language will drop by its own accord since there will be no thinking that requires it to be uttered.

But, in the political world, people try to force change on others, hence political correctness as a tool to manipulate language usage in other people (which runs counter to freedom of speech of course). Hence we get so much antagonism in day to day social relations.

More fruitful is to have more debates about, and more exploration of, relevant topics - both in media, and amongst social groups of people.

What I really hate is the way politically correct people all make enormous generalisations

 

[DotCommunist]

I feel like change is being forced on me. I'm forced to turn my smile upside down and facepalm

 

[William of Walworth]

Just an example of a favourite myth annually trotted out byu 'PC Gone Mad' lunatics

Gmarthews and other 'PC gone too far ' obsessives, and anyone else : are you in any way under the impression that Christmas is under threat in the UK, do you think that in some places, overt celebration of Christmas gets 'banned' or discouraged?

This article is for you : The Phoney War on Christmas

Luton council, we are told, has banned people from celebrating Christmas. Birmingham has renamed the season Winterval. A Reading man has been told to take his decorations down. There's only one problem with the 'PC campaign' against Christmas - it's pure nonsense

Please read the full article. It was the subject of a fine Urban thread around Christmas 2006, but I don't apologise for resurrecting the link, because that article systematically drives a coach an horses through one of the most cherished beliefs of many 'PC' obsessives.

If these 'Now Christmas is banned' stories are so nonsensical (and you'd be hard pushed to argue that they're anything other than hysterical tabloid concoctions and lies, after reading Burkemann's demolition of them) then what about so many OTHER 'PC gone mad' standards in the mainstream media?

Apply the same proper degree of media scepticism to these stories, with a healthy awareness of the political agenda of those promoting them, and a healthy awareness of exactly which media outlets these stories invariably start being published in**, and 95% or more of them COLLAPSE if you're half way intelligent and sensible about what you choose to believe.

**OK, the BBC often publishes such stories, usually but not always with a quote refuting them for 'balance', and with some token veneer of scepticism. But invariably, even the BBC version of these 'PC' stories started off somewhere else -- the Mail, the Express, a hysterical sensational headline in a local paper, some axe grinding agenda laden rent-a-quote Tory ...

'Political correctness gone too far' is all but a total myth, that anyone to the left of Genghiz Thatcher and anyone with brainpower above that of an amoeba should be embarassed to take seriously.

 

[Dravinian]

Gmarthews and other 'PC gone too far ' obsessives, and anyone else : are you in any way under the impression that Christmas is under threat in the UK, do you think that in some places, overt celebration of Christmas gets 'banned' or discouraged?

What if they are not? What if they are just concerned that Political Correctness isn't some big political conspiracy, but is instead created and driven by jobsworths in petty bureaucratic positions making jack ass decisions based on what "they" think is right without a second glance to commonsense.

What if that is your opinion of Political Correctness?

Are you wrong?

 

[nino_savatte]

What if they are not? What if they are just concerned that Political Correctness isn't some big political conspiracy, but is instead created and driven by jobsworths in petty bureaucratic positions making jack ass decisions based on what "they" think is right without a second glance to commonsense.

What if that is your opinion of Political Correctness?

Are you wrong?

No, the very phrase "Political correctness" was appropriated from Mao's Little Red Book by the US right to silence critics of its policies.

 

[trevhagl]

No, the very phrase "Political correctness" was appropriated from Mao's Little Red Book by the US right to silence critics of its policies.

That could well be true, trouble is a lot of people who 'use' the spectre of political correctness to further their cause are twats (Nick Grifin etc) - and thats from someone who liked the Macc Lads.

I think it's when people start nitpicking and lecturing others is when the problems start. Some people are that brainwashed by the Sun etc that they don''t even want the human rights/workers rights/health and saftey that THEY themselves will benefit from

 

[Pigeon]

You must have missed the first sentence of the quote, here it is again for your benefit

You fucking spanner!

 

[Pigeon]

Just because i am white and male doesn't give everyone the right to take potshots at me.
.

Lucky there's so much more, then!

 

[William of Walworth]

What if they are not? What if they are just concerned that Political Correctness isn't some big political conspiracy, but is instead created and driven by jobsworths in petty bureaucratic positions making jack ass decisions based on what "they" think is right without a second glance to commonsense.

What if that is your opinion of Political Correctness?

Are you wrong?

Here's a thought/question, which might tie in with yours : what if these petty people who do implement overzealous over petty decisons (and I don't deny their existence ever) are not part of some great Brigade of Political Correctness Liberal Thought Police, everywhere, but in reality more of matter of a very few incompetent twats in some places, far outnumbered by sensible people? What if the numbers in the twat catagory have been wildly exaggerated by the axe grinding, shitstirring 'PC' obsessed media, blowing up storms out of teacups and creating and perpetrating myths? What if peoples' concern is actually (in most cases) paranoia brought about by such wild exaggeration?

The feature about 'banning Christmas' myths shows pretty clearly how such myths can achieve such wide circulation and become be so widely believed, even when the vast majority of them are in fact bollocks.

Another thought : why might not a very few of the more stupid/out of touch public servants ('bureaucrats' ) become wrongly convinced that some minority might become offended if they don't implement some change or other?

Might that conviction not be at least something to do with the drip drip drip effect of repeated media tales of other, vaguely related 'PC' decisions implemented elsewhere, so as not to offend a minority? But that in fact never happened, or not in the way reported?

In other words, as Burkemann hints in his article, 'PC' myths can feed off themselves and become at least in some cases (where not absolute lies and sensatioonalism per se) self perpetuating.

Just a point -- controversial, agreed. I'd also agree that this self perpetuating theory, the theory that a lot of 'PC' (where it exists at all) is partly down to the Daily Mail and others' success in making 'PC'ism so widely believed, needs work .....

But the mainstream media has a lot of power to convince, a factor NEVER allowed for by the undersceptical, over gullible, often hysterical idiots who believe so ferevantly that 'PC' is 'going mad'.

 

[Gmart]

Lucky there's so much more, then!

I always try and maintain a balance on all the things I write. I might not always get it right, but I read carefully what most people say, and then think.

What you and tarannau are doing is just taking joy from being rude to people, with no relevance to the thread.

Fela's comments are clearly very well thought out.

Far more important than trying to change language use is trying to change thinking and attitudes.

A good point and the fact that you two simply dismiss this without comment, merely highlights your lack of interest in the subject. Ironically you are demonstrating what usually happens when confronted by someone who is PC obsessed and who has lost their grip on reality.

Let's take a topical one. Recently a charity has tried to get this image:

changed because it is seen by them as negative. Here's the article:

"Very few older people are hunched over, with a walking stick. They are assuming everyone who is old looks like that, and they don't," said Lizzy McLennan, a senior policy officer at the charity.

But the point is that the sign needs to be recognisable quickly by the driver, so that they can take care - so what is the point of changing the sign? At best it would cause confusion, and that just can't be safe.

So I want to discuss this, and to be honest Fela is the only person here to really engage with the subject, while most of the others just attack 'ad hominem'.

It is one of the saddest things about U75 that trying to have a decent discussion is often stopped by others

who are not interested in the discussion,

but who wish to 'sit and abuse' as their fun.

 

[butchersapron]

Fela's comments are clearly very well thought out.

`

 

[exosculate]

Well I think there are parameters of debate within the UK culture, which are now well established, especially within the public sector, that narrow down and restrict the sophistication/complexity of debate that is possible to take place, less one be accused of all sorts of fictitious (and lets face it aimed to silence) sins.

The left responses on here are just as kneejerk/blinkered as the nonsensical mouthpieces that people so so hate like The Daily Mail.

Well funny this thread is!

 

[William of Walworth]

The left responses on here are just as kneejerk/blinkered as the nonsensical mouthpieces that people so so hate like The Daily Mail.

False equivalence = bias.

Bias in faviour of lying scumsheets like the Mail -- in effect if not intention on your part, anyway.

Yeah, the 'left' (or some of them) do get exasperated, myself included, and no doubt very counterproductively at times, in reaction to this whole 'PC' mythology and all the widespread media fiction and stupid peoples' gullibility about it.

At least you make a pretty well expressed point about parameters of debate, I work in the public sector, and (unsurprisingly!) I don't agree really. But in NO WAY does making efforts to be non discriminatory and simply POLITE and COURTEOUS about or in dealings with marginalised or discriminated against groups amount to censorship, which is what you seem to be suggesting.

I'm aware of the dangers of inventing offence where none exists, and going OTT in trying (on occasions cackhandedly or overzealously) to avoid giving it. The danger of 'speaking up for' various people without bothering to interact with them and without even bothering to find out what they think first, certainly exist. Ignorant, non listening elitism etc.

Can happen -- though nowhere near to the hugely exaggerated, mythologised and plain lied about extent ranted on about by the Daily Mail and various other twattery-outlets. Part of whose agenda is to whip up bigots into a frothfoaming fury against things like the European Charter of Human Rights, the Race Relations Act, the Sex Discrimination Acxt, and so forth. And to offer such bigots a free pass to talk in exactly as much racist and bigotted language as they want and then use some made up, media-inflamed fantasy about 'political correctness gone mad' or 'left wing Guardianista fanaticism' as an excuse to carry on being stupid, offensive, plain rude bigots.

Any rationall case there might be against particular and isolated examples of counterproductiveness or overzealousness by soime public officials is totally undermined by lining up in (effective) alliance with lying bigots who claim that 'PC gone mad' is a national crisis.

It isn't. You are free to say what you think and think what you want, and so am I and so is everyone else. There is no 'brigade' of 'PC thought police' in any way constraining that in any kind of systematic way, in or out of the public sector.

And you're smart enough to be aware (really) that the VAST majority of people who feel the most pucefacedly indignant and angry about 'PC' are bonkers loons, far too eagerly prone (gullibly and stupidly) to believing second hand anecdotes in pubs, the vast majority of them originally sourced from the idiot press.

By accepting the concept of 'political correctness' as any kind of real problem, you end up allying yourself with thoroughly odious lying (or plain stupid and gullible) twats.

 

[William of Walworth]

It is one of the saddest things about U75 that trying to have a decent discussion is often stopped by others

who are not interested in the discussion,

but who wish to 'sit and abuse' as their fun.

You haven't read either my posts or my link to that Oliver Burkemann article, have you, Gmarthews?

Yeah I dish out some (generalised) abuse -- and deserved abuse it is too, because it's aimed against gullible stupidity, and against unwillingness/inability to question media myths. I also engage with the actual subject, and among other things I offer a theory -- needing to be developed further no doubt -- about why these 'PC' stories and myths are so widely believed AND about exactly why the vast majority of them are little more than myths.


Incidentally, on that Age Concern story, Michele Hanson, who is in her late 60s, last week offered in her Guardian column what I thought was a very well argued case against that charity's misplaced indignance**. She didn't use the words 'political correctness' once, and also showed better understanding of why AC had got annoyed by those signs She also acknowledged that AC do a LOT of valuable work generally as advocates for older people and she didn't dismiss them as a bunch of stupid 'PC' fanatics.

**Signs don't worry the old, being ignored does

She made a far better and more cogently argued case than you did, because she knows that the whole idea of 'PC gone mad' is an utterly discredited concept for anyone halfway intelligent.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

It is one of the saddest things about U75 that trying to have a decent discussion is often stopped by others

who are not interested in the discussion,

but who wish to 'sit and abuse' as their fun.

That wouldn't be connected with every single example you've posted in this thread being utter bollocks, by any chance?

 

[yield]

Fela's comments are clearly very well thought out.

`

Worth repeating.

That wouldn't be connected with every single example you've posted in this thread being utter bollocks, by any chance?

Unfortunately Gmarthews idea of a "decent discussion" seems to involve people agreeing with him.

And to think he claims to be a teacher.

(((children)))

 

[Gmart]

She made a far better and more cogently argued case than you did, because she knows that the whole idea of 'PC gone mad' is an utterly discredited concept for anyone halfway intelligent.

You can describe me as unintelligent if the ad hominem fallacy is your game, I have no fears there. The fact remains that changing the sign would cause confusion at best, and might even cause death as the motorist wonders as to what on earth that sign was. Whether that organisation has merit or not is neither here nor there. Changing the sign just because some people are a bit concerned that it might portray the Elderly in a negative way just shows that some people have more time than sense.

If you have an answer as to why the PC line should be immune to criticism, then prey tell.

The story above shows that there is always another side to a story and that anyone who is interested in discussing the issue should recognise this instead of being abusive:

That wouldn't be connected with every single example you've posted in this thread being utter bollocks, by any chance?

For you to describe my posts thus is laughable. At the worst my posts are pointing out something which you think is wrong, but which I have the right in a free society to discuss. You should just ignore it, but you feel the need to abuse me by describing my posts as 'bollocks'.

You have not bothered to describe why it is impossible to be too PC, and why the PC line should be immune to my criticism - in fact you are just as evasive as the usual poster on U75.

 

[Dravinian]

It is one of the saddest things about U75 that trying to have a decent discussion is often stopped by others

who are not interested in the discussion,

but who wish to 'sit and abuse' as their fun.

Thing is these people are very easy to spot. I have almost all of them on ignore now. It makes discussions so much easier.

How to spot them?

Simple really, they are the idiots who only ever type one line sentences in reply to topics, no matter how complex, how deep or how far into the debate you are. They will write one line.

I give people a few chances, obviously sometimes you say all you want in one line, but if a poster keeps posting just one line sentences, then I put them on ignore.

I have shit loads of one line twats on ignore and it has made debating on the forum soo much easier. I really, really strongly suggest you do it, you will find all of a sudden the only posts you see are people engaging in debate....and I will say there are some very good debaters on this site.