Political Correctness

[Dravinian]

Yeah I dish out some (generalised) abuse -- and deserved abuse it is too,

I don't think that was aimed at you William. I think it is aimed at people like butchers and tarranau, who are usually more interested in scoring some group cred then they are engaging in debate.

One line attack sentences that don't really say anything, but require 5 minutes to explain how they completely misunderstood everything, most likely on purpose, to make an erroneous remark.

Those are the people I think Gmarthews is talking about.

 

[butchersapron]

If you have a point brother dravid, you don't need 500 words to make it.

I loke the dravinian/gmarthews alliance though - had to happen

 

[nino_savatte]

What I'd like to know is why Gmarthews finds it so hard to understand that the term "PC gone mad" is often deployed to control discussions and to eliminate any opposition. But this is par for the course for someone who has given high praise to the works of Ayn Rand. Randists are notoriously closed-minded and are entirely convinced that they are correct 100% of the time...it's their 'superior' logic, you see.

 

[William of Walworth]

What I'd like to know is why Gmarthews finds it so hard to understand that the term "PC gone mad" is often deployed to control discussions and to eliminate any opposition. But this is par for the course for someone who has given high praise to the works of Ayn Rand. Randists are notoriously closed-minded and are entirely convinced that they are correct 100% of the time...it's their 'superior' logic, you see.

Indeed, getting so obsessive about 'PC gone mad' is just as censorious and controlling a mindset/political attitude as the made up strawman that the 'PC' obsessives claim to oppose.

I didn't know Gmarthews had anything to do with Ayn Rand, but his insistence on getting so indignantly insistent that 'Political Correctness' is so dangerous, so all pervasive, so 'gone mad' and so universally rampant, shows a TOTAL lack of
1. Perspective and balance
2. Any awareness that the entire concept of 'PC'/'political corrctness' is, or should be, UTTERLY discredited amongst anyone remotely intelligent or perceptive.

Just look at the people who get so hysterical about 'PC' Gmarthews -- have a look at the people you're lining yourself up with politically and culturally, and have a look at what that defacto alliance makes YOU look like.

Do you ever question the truth of a 'PC' story Gmarthews, do you ever show any scepticism towards the versions of them that appear in the mainstream press or on the BBC?

Or are you just utterly gullible to lying Daily Mail propaganda and towards forthfoaming, borderline-insane and hardline Tory polemical pamphlets -- the rant in the OP that you praise so highly?

I notice that you've TOTALLY ignored Oliver Burkemann's article about the media myths and lies concerning 'banning Christmas', and the wider implications of those myths about 'PC' generally.

How convenient.

 

[XerxesVargas]

In my experience the "PC gone mad" brigade are angry middle aged men who are railing against the fact that their dodgy opinions are being shown to be just that, dodgy idiot opnions. They tend to start a lot of sentences with "I know you're not allowed to say this anymore..." and then go on to spout crap about "darkies" or "the gays" or somesuch. Its a symptom of their impotence in the face of a world that has moved on and left them unable to update thier prejudices.

 

[Pigeon]

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

Why, quite possibly!

 

[nino_savatte]

Indeed, getting so obsessive about 'PC gone mad' is just as censorious and controlling a mindset/political attitude as the made up strawman that the 'PC' obsessives claim to oppose.

I didn't know Gmarthews had anything to do with Ayn Rand, but his insistence on getting so indignantly insistent that 'Political Correctness' is so dangerous, so all pervasive, so 'gone mad' and so universally rampant, shows a TOTAL lack of
1. Perspective and balance
2. Any awareness that the entire concept of 'PC'/'political corrctness' is, or should be, UTTERLY discredited amongst anyone remotely intelligent or perceptive.

Just look at the people who get so hysterical about 'PC' Gmarthews -- have a look at the people you're lining yourself up with politically and culturally, and have a look at what that defacto alliance makes YOU look like.

Do you ever question the truth of a 'PC' story Gmarthews, do you ever show any scepticism towards the versions of them that appear in the mainstream press or on the BBC?

Or are you just utterly gullible to lying Daily Mail propaganda and towards forthfoaming, borderline-insane and hardline Tory polemical pamphlets -- the rant in the OP that you praise so highly?

I notice that you've TOTALLY ignored Oliver Burkemann's article about the media myths and lies concerning 'banning Christmas', and the wider implications of those myths about 'PC' generally.

How convenient.

Quite, it's another means of censoring folk. Marthews had a thread in the Philosophy forum where he was giving Rand head....I mean, praise. The line he takes tends to fit in well with the Randist method of debate.

 

[butchersapron]

The thing is, there's grounds to criticise what's become known as 'pc' from the left, about it prefering to sweep prejudice under the carpet rather than deal with the material inequalities and so on that produce these prejudices - but when you get idiots wanting to rant on about africans with AIDs under cover of being freedom fighters then frankly they can go fuck themselves.

 

[William of Walworth]

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.

You appear to be under the impression that I'm defending the sign. I am not, and neither is Michele Hanson, who makes a far better case against it than you -- mostly because she avoids the thoroughly tainted and discredited term 'political correctness'

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

You haven't actually read my posts have you?

Have you read my in-development theory about why some, a few, public officials might make idiotic, overzealous desicions, the decisions YOU claim I'm 'defending', the decisons YOU claim I say are immune to criticism?

The decisions you, and the Daily Mail, and Jeremy Clarkson, and Richard Littlejohn, and Nick Griffin, link together, however disparate, and label as 'PC gone mad'. Those RARE and disparate and separate and isolated decisions that in reality happen at random and on occasion, when they've not been totally made up or sensationalised out of next to nothing and blown out of all proportion. Decisions which are far rarer than the Maily Telegraph lies to you that they are, and which are not in any way part of any great liberal 'Political Correctness' censorship campaign at all, but which you remain convinced are part of an overarching ubiquitous conspiracy to silence and censor you and all straight talking right thinking folk in this land ...

Any idea how INSANE that obsession makes you look?

. 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'.

I said a lot more than bollocks, my posts contain plenty of serious contradiction of your claims, which you've ignored.

And bit in bold, do us a favour, you're not some martyr to terrible censorship nor some hero of bold thinking and free speech. You're 100% free to make your points, to say what you want and think what you want, but if you make highly dubious claims and and only answer other peoples' posts ultra selectively, dismissing any contradiction of you as mindless left wong abuse, then you can exopect to get some robust criticisms -- deal with them.

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.

My point Gmarthews, is that 'political correctness' is a tired old cobwebbed cliche, thoroughly discredited (or it should be) amongst anyone who isn't a barking right wing fruitbat.

Moreover, 'PC' is a concept 95% of which exists in the fevered imaginations of the Daily Mail editorial staff and their political associates, and amongst the gullible fools who believe their lies.

Stop recycling such a discredited and exttremist and right wing cliche-label so mindlessly in your efforts to describe what you're talking about and this sorry excuse for a 'debate' might just get somewhere.

 

[Pigeon]

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.

Bullshit. Amongst the other ill thought out tripe you've spurted on this thread was some nonsense about how Michael Moore could diss white men, and how that demonstrates a disparity of power, cos no one would talk about black people's behaviour in similar terms yadda yadda yadda. I held up the example of Chris Rock; you completely ignored me, as it didn't fit your idiot worldview.

 

[William of Walworth]

The thing is, there's grounds to criticise what's become known as 'pc' from the left, about it prefering to sweep prejudice under the carpet rather than deal with the material inequalities and so on that produce these prejudices - but when you get idiots wanting to rant on about africans with AIDs under cover of being freedom fighters then frankly they can go fuck themselves.

Yeah, I don't disagree really, apols for not allowing for this. There are fair criticisms to be made -- most effectively made (IMO) by avoiding the term 'PC' at all.

 

[nino_savatte]

I noticed that Marthews hasn't commented about rightist PC: it's the sort of logic that insists that if you criticise Israel you are automatically a Holocaust denier.

 

[fela fan]

I see posters are now talking again about the pc they see in the papers.

The pc i talk about is the stuff i come across in my own life in my own experiences.

It's not about bans on christmas and the like, it's just that many british people do not like to hear certain words, and impose themselves on others in their attempts to have those words judged negatively and to have them not used.

The reason given when asked for one, is that such words are offensive to others. Not themselves, mind, but to others.

Oh, the wonders of language. It really is the currency of the powerful, and the self-empowered. It's a tool to control others, and it's a tool to avoid being controlled by others.

Governments themselves are always trying to control the use of language. They recognise the power of the medium...

 

[Pigeon]

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:

So a silly season story about some comments that there's abosolutely no indication anyone's going to act on demonstrates...well, what exactly?

 

[Pigeon]

when you get idiots wanting to rant on about africans with AIDs under cover of being freedom fighters then frankly they can go fuck themselves.

Amen.

 

[nino_savatte]

I see posters are now talking again about the pc they see in the papers.

The pc i talk about is the stuff i come across in my own life in my own experiences.

It's not about bans on christmas and the like, it's just that many british people do not like to hear certain words, and impose themselves on others in their attempts to have those words judged negatively and to have them not used.

The reason given when asked for one, is that such words are offensive to others. Not themselves, mind, but to others.

Oh, the wonders of language. It really is the currency of the powerful, and the self-empowered. It's a tool to control others, and it's a tool to avoid being controlled by others.

Governments themselves are always trying to control the use of language. They recognise the power of the medium...

Not sure where you're heading with this but let's be clear about something: when people start spouting off about "political correctness" there is always an underlining agenda for doing so. This isn't necessarily a practice that has been sanctioned by governments, rather it is employed by actors who believe that they have the interests of the state at heart and that their ideology is the only valid one. Examples of this would include soi-disant defenders of 'liberty' like Policy Exchange in the UK or the American Enterprise Institute or Heritage Foundation in the US.

 

[fela fan]

Moreover, 'PC' is a concept 95% of which exists in the fevered imaginations of the Daily Mail editorial staff and their political associates, and amongst the gullible fools who believe their lies.

Stop recycling such a discredited and exttremist and right wing cliche-label so mindlessly in your efforts to describe what you're talking about and this sorry excuse for a 'debate' might just get somewhere.

Oh my. 95% eh?

'Fevered'?

Just the daily mail?

You're assertions, disguised as facts in your choice of such emphatic language, are no different to the very tabloid you ridicule.

Amazing that.

Useful methods to advance the debate you apparently want.

 

[fela fan]

Not sure where you're heading with this but let's be clear about something: when people start spouting off about "political correctness" there is always an underlining agenda for doing so.

Well mate, it can't be 'always', because i talk about political correctness, and i don't have any covert agenda for doing so. If i did i'd be employing pc myself!

So even i'm the single lone person who doesn't do this, it means you will have to revise your use of 'always'...

But rereading what you said, perhaps i can find a way that you were right after all: if somebody literally 'spouts off', then perhaps your judgement can be considered correct.

But what if somebody, like myself, merely talks about the subject, discusses it in a rational mature way?

 

[butchersapron]

Is this an attack

of the people

who want

to post

like this

to pad out a single crude point

?

 

[fela fan]

So a silly season story about some comments that there's abosolutely no indication anyone's going to act on demonstrates...well, what exactly?

Oh dear pigeon. PC is not about actions, it's about language and the 'correct' use of it.

Just because that sign might not be changed, the talk about changing it is what counts towards something being politically correct.

 

[fela fan]

Is this an attack

of the people

who want

to post

like this

to pad out a single crude point

?

Referring to my post?

If so, it wasn't an attack on my part. Although apparently it was in your reality. Oh well.

 

[Pigeon]

Oh dear pigeon. PC is not about actions, it's about language and the 'correct' use of it.

Just because that sign might not be changed, the talk about changing it is what counts towards something being politically correct.

Strange. I thought you were all about liguistic freedom?

 

[fela fan]

Strange. I thought you were all about liguistic freedom?

Well, i wouldn't quite put it like that. But i am about linguistic freedom yes.

 

[Pigeon]

Well, i wouldn't quite put it like that. But i am about linguistic freedom yes.

So why get a bug about your arse about people using their "linguistic freedom " to discuss whether a roadsign might get changed?

 

[Pigeon]

some people have more time than sense.

That'll be my question answered...

 

[nino_savatte]

Well mate, it can't be 'always', because i talk about political correctness, and i don't have any covert agenda for doing so. If i did i'd be employing pc myself!

So even i'm the single lone person who doesn't do this, it means you will have to revise your use of 'always'...

But rereading what you said, perhaps i can find a way that you were right after all: if somebody literally 'spouts off', then perhaps your judgement can be considered correct.

But what if somebody, like myself, merely talks about the subject, discusses it in a rational mature way?

 

[exosculate]

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.

I do not believe you understand what i am saying. You are equating the critique with giving permission for racism and sexism.

p.s - I can see the angry froth dripping from your post too btw.

 

[William of Walworth]

I do not believe you understand what i am saying. You are equating the critique with giving permission for racism and sexism.

No I'm not** . My main point is that the people who get most worked up about what they call 'PC', or what they're told is 'PC', tend to show extreme gullibility and underscepticism about media-propogated myths and lies.

**It's not my principal point anyway, that media-raving about 'PC' gives cover for bigotry and prejudice. But do you honestly think there's much serious 'critique' in circulation against so-called 'PC' that isn't heavily politically compromised? And that isn't reliant on stories/folkmyths/media lies/exaggerations? Plus see nino's points on this.

p.s - I can see the angry froth dripping from your post too btw.

I dispute 'froth' -- is that not rather sneerily dismissive of my critique? And as for anger, it any surprise, given the odious sort of politics adhered to by MOST people who get so aereated about 'PC'?

 

[Gmart]

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.

I am working on a ignore list and it is indeed helping. Now people like Butcher's Apron and Violent Panda and Nino Savette have to actually SAY something interesting, thus meaning that someone else feels the urge to quote them. Usually they say nothing even remotely interesting enough

I have been told that WoW should also be on my ignore list, but we shall see.

I love that I am here arguing against PC going too far - as the implication (for those of you who are not frothing at the mouth) is that being PC is good in general, but that a certain objectivity has to be maintained to avoid going too far.

Ironically I am being attacked by posters using the strawman fallacy, which is taking my moderate position and exaggerating it to an extreme to make it look stupid.

I read the Xmas article and I was happy to note that common sense came out on top of the forces I am trying to talk about. Good!

Chris Rock indeed goes on record about how stupid some black men are, but he doesn't publish a book entitled 'Stupid Black Men', and I suspect it would test the resolve of any publisher if he tried.

People in power are fair game apparently to be attacked because their group has historically had it so good - and the principle of that stinks!

Sure the Daily Mail and Sun etc make good money dramatising stories too far, even into strawman areas of exaggeration, but I am not particularly supporting these publications.

WoW thinks that 95% of PC gone mad stories disintegrate when looked at in detail, but I think that figure is just too high, and the implication that we should therefore ignore them is just laziness creating an agenda.

I have consistently argued against the continual usage of fallacies on these boards and I will continue to do so.

 

[tarannau]

Chris Rock indeed goes on record about how stupid some black men are, but he doesn't publish a book entitled 'Stupid Black Men', and I suspect it would test the resolve of any publisher if he tried.
.

So he releases a huge selling tour and DVD based around that material and it's supposed to be evidence of a double-standard?

Besides, you nugget, there's already a book called Stupid Black Men out there (check Amazon if you don't believe me). Do you actually engage brain before you post? Your post is a load of fatuous, reason-free nonsense.