The "thing" about Political Correctness
It seems to me that those concerned with the potential negative effects of Political Correctness to the extreme, such as Jordan Peterson and various pundits, are responding to the effects of something, not the causes. That area of their concern doesn't really extend too far beyond academia. These pundits ought to be far, far more concerned with a rise in rightwing extremism, and their unwitting contributions toward it in the broader public.
The patriarchal backlash and the rise of the xenophobic right all over the world have been fomented by pundits (social media bots, call them - don't mean JP) sponsored by the parasitic rentier class (huge finance and real estate) to rouse the same people whose lives they’ve ruined to scapegoat those a rung below them by lobbying for government policies that continue to support "trickle down" (i.e., siphon up) economics.
British host of "Free Thinking", Philip Dodd referred to the obsession with PC fears as a merely "parochial" concern and also many of JP's critics (but please, let's not make this about him) point out that he fails to consider the socio-economic conditions that drive some men to feel disenfranchised, whether they have really been disenfranchised or because, as the meme has it, "when you're used to privilege, equality looks like oppression". (Or both. I recently listened to a radio program where a researcher interviewed Trump voters who had experienced a negative impact due to his policies on healthcare and other social benefits, and his conclusion was that they didn't want their tax dollars to go to minorities. Relative privilege, to be sure, but it's self-defeating resentment, plain and simple.)
Outside of universities, where tempering the extremes of PC would be a really good thing, the message to the general public merely sustains misogyny (per Kate Manne) and xenophobia, and ignores the real, historical socio-economic causes of the loss of power among some men (and their personal affiliates).
Is this an reasonable account, do you think, of the issues with Political Correctness?
Note: A concrete description of the behaviour and influence of the rentier class for those to whom it might seem a bit abstract.
The patriarchal backlash and the rise of the xenophobic right all over the world have been fomented by pundits (social media bots, call them - don't mean JP) sponsored by the parasitic rentier class (huge finance and real estate) to rouse the same people whose lives they’ve ruined to scapegoat those a rung below them by lobbying for government policies that continue to support "trickle down" (i.e., siphon up) economics.
British host of "Free Thinking", Philip Dodd referred to the obsession with PC fears as a merely "parochial" concern and also many of JP's critics (but please, let's not make this about him) point out that he fails to consider the socio-economic conditions that drive some men to feel disenfranchised, whether they have really been disenfranchised or because, as the meme has it, "when you're used to privilege, equality looks like oppression". (Or both. I recently listened to a radio program where a researcher interviewed Trump voters who had experienced a negative impact due to his policies on healthcare and other social benefits, and his conclusion was that they didn't want their tax dollars to go to minorities. Relative privilege, to be sure, but it's self-defeating resentment, plain and simple.)
Outside of universities, where tempering the extremes of PC would be a really good thing, the message to the general public merely sustains misogyny (per Kate Manne) and xenophobia, and ignores the real, historical socio-economic causes of the loss of power among some men (and their personal affiliates).
Is this an reasonable account, do you think, of the issues with Political Correctness?
Note: A concrete description of the behaviour and influence of the rentier class for those to whom it might seem a bit abstract.
Comments (210)
It is not only about the right to speak, it is about the right to listen. I don’t want people telling me what I can and cannot listen to. That is the pushback against PC. The witch-hunt mentality forcing the “far right” into the political spotlight clearly isn’t being instigated by the far right - there is a reaction against a culture of victimhood which has grown in momentum due, largely I’d say, to the phenomenon of the internet.
Things are going to be a bit messy for a while no doubt. The scales have been rocked and we’re just going to have to weather the storm until the younger generations mature and come to the political fore with a more direct understanding of the machination of political discourse online and how memes and propaganda therein are general nonsense.
Nothing has changed really. Everything has been amplified a little though.
JP is not the headliner for those in fear of an overly PC attitude. What a heavy PC tilt does is give voice to the extreme ends of the societal discontent. An attitude against misplaced vulgarity would make more sense than pushing for everyone to treat everyone like an innocent victim - even though we’re all innocent victims (as in we’re human and therefore we have some choice as to how to deal with upset).
People shouldn’t be forced by law to treat people in a manner that the government dictates. The law is a guide to civil interaction, it is not something we’re under any obligation to abide by if we feel strongly against it.
What has been exposed in the internet is how dark humour can be accessed by everyone more readily. People who don’t like it seek it out like perverse vampires looking to shut others down - something akin to me or you knocking on someone’s door and telling them we hate eating strawberries - and screaming this at them. Why should anyone give a fuck?
The other factor is the purposeful (or rather indoctrinated) use of hyperbole and misrepresentation in the sphere of media. There is a frenzy of competition for the next sensationalist slice of pie to dish out for “clickbait” and I doubt many take it too seriously. The problem is now that there is a lack of moderate journalism, and lack of distinction between professional journalism and amateur journalism, and the growing use of such mediums to control and pervert ‘news stories’ to suit. Most of us hav always been aware fo this and what appears to be the case now is that those naively assuming everything they heard as the truth now have the opportunity to find their own groups online. This will inevitably lead to a section of these people becoming more extreme and a section of them realising they’ve been duped by their own bias (with rational thought being the force that will win out eventually).
You continue to bring sense to these discussions.
Lets not forget the bad actors using social media to foment the chaos you speak of above. Russia, China and various opportunists use the far reaching power of the internet to create division. That fact is oft overlooked in all this, and I think it should be at the top of the list as far as the awareness of the public.
As deplorable as you view Farage it doesn’t matter when he is paraded on national television merely to have shit thrown at him that has mostly nothing to do with the problem at hand.
Just because we have people that are less than savoury attacking the poor line of questioning to put them it doesn’t make the line of questioning poor. There is a lack of nuanced debate on television now, and television does still have some clout. All we ever seem to hear listening to debate shows is “we’re running out of time” ... maybe having a debate show that last 2-3 hours would be a getter approach? Clearly there is a demand fro such as we’ve seen by the popularity of podcasts and youtubers (of which I listen to myself because I have the time to).
The only reasonable thing I’ve seen on the BBC is question time ... but it is still FAR too short a format - especially with the inclination of panelists to put one over their political rivals. It would make more sense to have panelists with some academic weight rather than pandering to the views of politicians. That said, I guess it’s better than nothing :)
All I can say in truth is that the average person in the street doesn’t much care for PC talk and neither do they accept impolite behaviour or hateful speech - there doesn’t need to be a ‘law’ protecting anyone in most societies (and once such “anyones” are able to stand up the ‘law’ to get them there should be removed).
Obviously there are many holes in this as it’s just a vague outline. The only human group I see that need ‘protecting’ to any degree forever are children - but not in a limitless sense! Other areas of the world do certainly have problems with other groups, and generally speaking, the west doesn’t massively suffer from the persecution of different groups of humans anywhere near like it has in the past.
I pretend to know what’s going on anymore than the next person. I have suspicions about how and why certain global shifts are happening, but I have no real idea solid enough to adhere to one theory over another - it’s almost certainly a combination of my theories combined with several dozen other theories I’ve never heard of and likely never will.
Inwardly I’m a chaotic rebel, an anarchist of the highest degree. Outwardly I step with caution, trepidation and an overwhelming sense of my own stupidity.
When it comes to manners I act as I see fit regardless of laws and in strong opposition to the dictates of law as my moral positioning comes first and foremost. We’re all going to do things we deem “bad” in hindsight, so I believe it is best to think about and set out a personal moral structure built as best as possible away from the whims and shaming of others - as my moral constitution plays out I’ll inevitably be steered by societal views, but I must remember that such pressures can also uproot my personal sense of what is “right” and “wrong”.
I’d rather suffer mistakes and live with shame than blindly follow ridden of any sense of possible guilt. Self depreciation is a gift and like any gift we can overdo it; that is essentially what I mean by the balance between the inward and outward regard.
Note: I despise religious institutions (but have interest in ‘religion’ as a regard towards the individual human condition) - just in case you get the wrong idea ;)
No wrong idea here. I follow a few of the discussion you’ve been in..these free speech ones are important. Some serious dogma to overcome.
I'm pretty convinced that the rise of the right as fomented by agents of global plutocrats such as Putin, Koch et al is to get the people they have ripped off to blame minorities. Neoliberal economic policies serve those plutocrats very well (but no one else). This is faaaar more dangerous than any extreme PC sentiments amongst undergraduate social science and humanities students and hardly anyone is saying anything.
But what I'm really trying to get at with the question is whether there is too much emphasis put on PC and not enough on the rise of the right, which is being fomented by Bannon and Koch bots, as we know (amongst whom we might include Farage). The academic discussion on PC is relevant within the uni but it serves to supplement the bad bots outside of it. In an era ripe for scapegoating there does need to be a consideration of what kind of speech will lead to the rise of malevolent social movements such as Proud Boys, etc.
PS there are links within my posts here to further information.
Yes, the subtext of (mainly) white male complaints and anxiety around 'political correctness', a term which is rarely well-defined, is the perception that the shift in ethnic demographics, from majority white to majority non-white that has taken place in the last few decades means the white majority will lose its status at the dominant ethnicity, and as a result, potentially lose social, political, and economic power; a privation that non-whites have had to deal with in for centuries. This holds equally true for ethnicity as it does for gender. Parallel to shifting ethnic demographics in the last few decades, women have increasingly gained economic, political, and social power, along with bodily autonomy. An outcome of gaining power is the ability to demand greater equality. An equality of wages and access to capital and sources of wealth accumulation, of representation (business, political, entertainment, etc.) of respect, and of power more generally, to that which has been enjoyed by White (men) for generations.
White identity, which largely exists invisibly in the background, begins to emerge as a reaction to these perceived threats, as you put it, "when you're used to privilege, equality looks like oppression", and as James Baldwin wrote, "an identity is questioned only when it is menaced". Suddenly, you can't slap a girl's ass, or say "bitch", or the N-word, or use an Indian accent, or dress as a Native American for Halloween, or in essence, leverage your now waning ethnic dominance and privilege, which you had otherwise enjoyed, to sub-humanize other ethnicity or genders without social repercussions.
Also, right does mean bad and left doesn’t mean good. The extreme ends are issues and it seems pretty clear to me that people get annoyed with the extension of the left into extremism and feel obliged to tilt to the right further - this allows recruitment into the extremes more easily.
Also, it is not a case of governments dictating free speech. People in the UK have been prosecuted for making jokes, and to repeat, I don’t want people demanding that I CANNOT LISTEN to what others say simply because they feel offended. That is the inherent evil lurking under PC.
People are reacting out of fear due to massive cultural exposure. Out of touch governments are then listening to the propaganda pushed on the internet without any real understanding of it. They think it reflects the views of everyone and then it snowballs.
This is of course a garbage analysis that denies agency to those who are on the far right. If you become a white supremacist, neo-Nazi or what-have-you because of someone else then you were open to it to begin with.
In the more centrist area of politics both the right and left work off of each other on more equal terms. At the extremes no one has much inclination to defend oppression unless it is oppression dressed up as protection - that is the extreme left and there is a necessary push back against it. It appears to me to be a problem because leftist movements are slow burning. By the time they rise to prominence their task is almost completely fulfilled in exposing social problems. Sadly they then keep pushing and shifting agendas quite often disproportionately to each agendas meaning in the current sociopolitical climate.
You can call my view garbage if you want. There are plenty of liberals types who agree with this - I mentioned a couple in my first response. And you appear to be saying it is better not to allow anyone to be open to anything because people are inherently bad? I don’t think so. PC could easily be said to be right wing in some sense. It is telling you how to behave and what you can and cannot listen to. My mother generally taught me this along with my childhood peers. I can understand this for children (to some degree), but for adults? I am trying to be sensible here, not to enflame or entice.
The whole nonsense is about to shift into ageism I think. The irresponsible elders with the youth as victims. Probably the next -ism for the next generations coming through.
To be clear, you think Left political correctness, which you haven't defined or explained outside of vague terms, can lead to a push back into...Nazism. Weird how white hegemony hasn't lead to mass non-white fascist movements.
I’ve not mentioned the political ideology you mentioned above. I’ve no idea what you’re implying after that about non-white fascist movements, but I get the feeling this is going to be an attempt at discussing something serious that is going to fail before it gets started.
If you could rephrase that whole last response then there might be a point to pursue here.
Thanks
Then explain it. Provide examples. Why is it driving people towards far-right ideology (which includes neo-Nazism, white supremacy etc.)?
Quoting I like sushi
You say that "pushing hard left ideas that are disliked" has lead to the emergence of the far right. So why hasn't America's long history of white supremacy or modern far right movements lead to some sort of equivalent for people of color,or the Left in general? You've literally implied that political correctness enables the far right, so what equivalency does the far right enable? It's seemingly a unilateral dialectic.
On that logic,political incorrectness, obviously.
I don’t like to repeat myself on the same page, but the problem, as I see it, is when people are prosecuted for what they say and/or others are told they cannot listen to what others say (or severely inhibited from doing so). This is how the PC culture of the 90’s has morphed into something radical from a simple liberal idea.
This smell of sophistry. Care to rephrase? I am not sure what “literally implied” means. Either I literally say X or I imply X. I never actually/literally said PC enables the far right and didn’t imply it either.
I don’t really know how clearer I could be. If what I’ve written in this thread doesn’t satisfy you fully and I don’t understand why your asking me to say what I believe I’ve said clearly enough then so be it - by all means keep trying though and maybe I can clarify; if not I don’t really have much to add.
Prosecution is a legal term and I'm not sure who is being prosecuted by the USA government for stating 'non-political correct' views. This also seems like an incomplete definition given that China's CPC and other such governments do prosecute individuals for what they say, and censures content to limit what civilians can see, and I sincerely doubt we'd consider this 'political correctness'. So I'm really curious to understand precisely waht, in your view, is driving people towards extreme right-wing politics, which includes neo-Nazism and white supremacy. Is in not being able to dress as a Native American for Halloween? Is it being asked to call a transgender person by their preferred pronoun? Is it saying that Christopher Columbus was a bad person? What is it exactly? What are people saying that they are being *ahem* "prosecuted" for?
Quoting I like sushi
Quoting I like sushi
Hmm...
You also stated, "it seems pretty clear to me that people get annoyed with the extension of the left into extremism and feel obliged to tilt to the right further - this allows recruitment into the extremes more easily"
So the "extension of the left into extremism" is ostensibly into political correctness, so that's what we are talking about (as oppose to universal healthcare, abolishing capitalism, solving global warming, etc.) and being "annoyed" with political correctness drives people into the open arms of white supremacy. That seems reasonable to you? That people are so profoundly "annoyed" that they being white supremacists?
I’m not talking about the US because I’ve never been there.
I have nothing more to add because this will turn into me saying, I didn’t say this or that and you likely selecting more quoted that do nothing to back up whatever it is you think I am or what I’m saying. Not interested.
Bye
Sorry sushi, you're not really making much sense in terms of explaining the rise of the right as a reaction against political correctness.
Why rise against political correctness, if not for the idea that others below the historically more privileged in society are cutting into their slice of the power pie?
Why ignore the deliberate, documented efforts on the part of Bannon et al by means of social media bots and rightwing organizations devoting huge effort and money to trashing "the left"...? And their being heavily funded by the rentier parasites. Meanwhile extreme PC (when it becomes what it wants to protect people against) seems centred around some university campuses among some disciplines when members who, unknown to them (or not), have become members of Bannon's army come to give talks.
What on earth does left mean? Scandi style government? Or a respect for human rights, regardless of gender or colour? What's wrong with either? Where have people come to this idea that the left represents a taking away of freedom? Not having to pay all of my salary for medical treatments would give me more liberty. Tax breaks for the rich do not result in less oppression because fewer social services does not mean less oppression, except it might appear to be to men and their women of the lower classes who have become even less well off due to their own voting choices and are blaming those below them due to the influence of plutocracy championing news channels such as Fox News of the equivalent in other countries.
Do people really feel so oppressed by the stigma against making racist jokes or their refusal to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple that they would fear PC more than being shot up in a church or mosque? There's the sense of entitlement talking.
I don't know if I really understand any sentence you wrote there, and I'm not sure what any of it has to do with my comment.
The concerns you raise are real within the university.
Pundits can inadvertently fuel the distrust of PC and feed into the power agenda of less wholesome actors on the right. Pundits ought to start looking at the economic shift to neoliberal economics that has led to wage stagnation, a growing income divide and a ponzi cycle of real estate bubbles and collapses that have resulted in a larger underclass. They ought to consider that disaffected people tend to scapegoat "the other". The ubiquitous punditry against PC only serves to fuel the flames outside of the university. They're surrounded by wildfire but are trying to repair a dripping tap.
Inside and outside the university. It's unfortunately human nature to want to control other people in many different ways.
Quoting Izat So
I'm not saying anything about fear. So why bring that up?
I didn’t actually say that. I used the terms EXTREME and RADICAL alongside PC. I am not saying PC is inherently bad, but that the use of it in hyperbole is bad.
This is the thrust of my view:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=h3UeUnRxE0E
If people are brought into the eye of the law for “insults” then you can be sure that those demanding the right not to be insulted are going to find themselves pushing up against those that are apparently insulting them. Given the readiness to be insulted the accusations grow and more and more ridiculous cases rise to the surface. The dumb accusations then get confused with serious accusations, the “argumentum ad Hitlerum” then stokes the fire and before you know it the extreme left has conflated right leaning, or conservative views, with vicious comparisons to the far right. The far right jump in with relish and then make the already fuzzy boundaries more fuzzy.
Do you follow? I think Rowan Atkinson also manages to highlight the effect of the internet too AND just late last year the police department were asking people to report offensive tweets (posters were put up) so it is not like these things are unrealistic, although they should be.
It is a question of freedom of expression not entitlement. It is precisely the misguided sense of ‘entitlement’ to not be offended that is a serious problem being thrust around on social media and creeping into legislation.
If freedom of speech is not always a major concern then I don’t know what is - other than, as Mr. Atkinson put it, basic sustenance.
And to quote myself because it appears you missed this:
I heard someone mention something about Trump recently too I’ve been saying for the past few years; I think it was Sam Harris? That is that Trump says plenty of idiotic things yet people are still trying to construe some phrase of wording as being either ‘racist’ or ‘fascist’ when it is clearly, at best, a stretch. Whether someone is or isn’t this or that ‘-ist’ it doesn’t mean they are incapable of saying anything without being said ‘-ist’.
If that isn’t clear enough then that's fine too. I believe I’ve presented a reasonable enough account and if you find it unreasonable that’s fine. The PC movement when it started was basically just about asking people to think a little about the feelings of others in general discourse. Now people are pushing it as a part of law and playing with it in the sociopolitical sphere. I’m not keen, but that doesn’t mean I’m against polite speech and reasonable respect in day-to-day discourse. In politics and ethical debates these things shouldn’t be inhibited by demands on what can and cannot be said.
You might meanwhile find this effort on the part of one famous pundit to discredit certain university disciplines interesting. And this article makes me wonder why that same famous pundit made all the hype about the law. What was the motivation to "misrepresent", I wonder?
"Political Correctness", "the left", "the Right", are all a bit difficult to discuss because the terms are too fluid. We put the fluid terms in our squirt guns and aim as well as we can.
It seems to me that there is no necessary link between "the left" and "the right" these days. As American politics go, what I call "the left" (socialist organizations such as the Socialist Workers Party, Communist Party USA, Socialist Labor Party, et al) became moribund since... the 1970s -- at least 40 years ago. These organizations were based on Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, DeLeon, et al), had party discipline, had specific and stable views on economic and social issues, and published their views, and had larger and smaller participation rates over time -- the peak being the Great Depression, probably.
"The Right" has been a more or less consistent and cohesive interest group since at least the Great Depression. They generally occupied the conservative wing of the Republic Party, but have not always dominated it. There were once "liberal Republicans" too, and they were at one time dominant.
"The Left", such as it is today, is not a party -- it's a pronoun. The Right, on the other hand, is cohesive, organize, consistent, and in power. "The Right" opposed Social Security in the 1930s, Medicare / Medicaid in the 1960s, and enthusiastically helped end Welfare As We Know it under William Clinton. They did not disappear after Bill Clinton. They continued under Bush II, didn't disappear under Obama, and are here with Trump. Koch Brothers weren't around in 1934 but but they've been active in the last 20.
"The rich Right" knows what side of the bread their butter is on, and they work consistently and effectively to keep the butter as thick as possible. They are pretty successful. I doubt if "the rich Right" spends any time at all worrying about "the left", especially the pronominal left that is just a place holder for some disenchanted college students. Their hired political operatives might bait the academic non-entities to get them to act out, but beyond that, "who cares what they think?". Environmentalist are a manageable concern, and crazy crypto-fascist groups are annoying, but pose no risk apart from smelling bad. (The rich gentile folks in Germany had no particular problems with the Nazis. Nazis, Schmatzies. What do you all, Sieg Heil und Heil Hitler, want to buy these days?)
I'm fairly certain that most of the jabberwockies on "The Left" do not know shit from shineola when it comes to political and social analysis. The old leftists knew much more. Mostly they play word games. BORING.
Yup
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/06/trump-racism-comments/588067/
I certainly don’t regard these as the only factors worth considering and that there is any one underlying factor that is apparent in every nation (other than the internet playing an obvious role in amplifying certain views and ideas here and there).
You asked about why people push against PC. I told you why. You apparently “disagree” with the reasons people have been giving publicly for the past couple of decades - outside of academia as presented by the views of prominent comedians in the UK and journalists and writers the world over no doubt.
Very generally speaking it makes perfect sense that as the world opens up and we become more linked as a group of humans on a planet that some people struggle with, and defend, certain senses of personal identity. The older generations will inevitably bemoan the changes happening to some degree and the younger generations will inevitably push for the need to shake things up and dust then off to some degree.
I actually think all the perceived political turmoil we’re witnessing is a good thing. I imagine a more centrist attitude will arise out of this and then the whole bloody pattern of human indecision and stupidity will lead back into a more polarised view after that. I’m not greatly worried about the current state of the political world and understand that sadly some countries are going to fall into a more extreme political state for a while. Hopefully those that don’t have enough gumption to take note of their neighbours mistakes and plough on with making the political world part of everyone lives rather than waiting for huge global shifts to rouse the general populace into action.
The current climate of hostility and conflict taking place is a sign of democracy in action and open debate. If we lived in a world where everyone as fine with everything, or tat is what was being reported, I’d assume I was living in a dystopian society.
A rise in the perceived rise of the left or right maybe just that? Maybe it is simply a false perception of what has been pretty much the same since the end of WWII?
Personally I’m more fussed about what is going on in Brasil. That does worry more than a little, but I’m not hysterical about it just yet :) It does appear open efforts are being made to block the him so that’s something to celebrate - when it goes silent I’ll worry more!
Quoting I like sushi
There's where we disagree. The rise of the right is not precipitated by political correctness but by scapegoating. Resentment of PC - and PC has been around for decades - begins with fear and anger at being at the losing end of a widening income gap and ends with blaming minorities instead of the mafia plutocrats who are actively amplifying this on social media. You are looking at the effects, not the causes. Beware of Bannon and others of his ilk. It's a sad world when people are duped into thinking of social justice as a pejorative.
I didn’t actually say what you’ve inferred above. I said the extreme left enables the extreme right and that PC speech is a vehicle (and I’ve said already I don’t think PC is necessarily bad in and if itself). The issue is it’s creeping into matters of law and order and has been doing for a while. Now such things are being more openly voiced it seems the both left and right extremes are popping up more readily with something to latch onto - this is a good sign for me because it should be aired not driven underground.
Of course trolls shouldn’t be given too much time of day. That is another term thrown around too flippantly to discredit and undermine a genuine concern (be it valid or not!)
The media voice now is that of the people. Anyone can get involved and anyone has been getting involved. This has inevitably led to people speaking openly and frankly, and often misguidedly, about many sensitive topics. All VERY good I believe, but it’s a bumpy road and I really believe the next few generations coming through will understand the dynamics of online communication better having been exposed to misinterpretation and slander in their day-to-day life and having grown up understanding the power of words and hopefully this will lead to a more nuanced understanding of each other.
I don’t see the above happening if PC starts to dictate more and more how law and order is structured. It is not like people are saying we should all go around being purposely offensive and vile to each other, it’s just that they don’t wish to pander to people who feel upset or outraged by something someone says to the point where they believe they have the right to demand such people be gagged and/or live under the fear of legal prosecution - there are already laws in place for such things.
Just to remind you the police put up posters to report offensive speech used on social media in the UK. Of course they were quickly mocked and the posters didn’t stay up for long, BUT the point is they put them up in the first place.
I don’t need to beware of Bannon? I can see clearly enough what he’s been doing and what he has continued to do. I’ve listened closely to what he’s said in long talks. He isn’t really hiding much about his intentions and how he operates. I’m more concerned with the one’s quietly going about their business out of the limelight.
The light at the end of the tunnel makes things look brighter when Joe Cox’s husband comes out saying attacking politicians in any way is wring after the infamous milkshake incidents. Let the fools speak, and let the fools be questioned - both side are worth listening to, but certainly not at the expense of ignoring the moderate centrists (which is sadly something tat tends to happen too much because they just aren’t all that ‘appealing’ being moderate).
I think Stephen Fry put it well enough in the so-called “debate on Political Correctness” when he referred to the gaping chasm between most of us find ourselves in drowned out by the screaming few at each pole.
You did say that extreme PC is what gives rise to the right wing as I quoted you in my last reply. You might have changed your mind, or your initial statement might not have been clear. Of course I don't want to make you "the enemy". I have openly expressed my concern about extreme PC all along (although my concern is not nearly so great as yours seems to be). So tell me this - do you agree with the following, which remains my position:
It's not so much economic inequality as it is fear of economic inequality. We're no longer in recession, but the market failures of the last decade (eg: the 2008 eal-estate bubble) have caused many to doubt the path we're on (and both sides tend to disagree about what path we're actually on, let alone should be on).
"Loss of social status" ~ now you're on to something! The alt-right fears a world where "whites have their rights voted away by a vengeful new majority", and as "evidence" they magnify whichever leftist happens to be the radical du jour. The alt-right's focus on identity is actually a reactionary move (mirroring the identity focus of the extreme left).
Quoting Izat So
Indeed, reacting to extreme PCness is from whence they derive their initial emotional reassurance.
Quoting Izat So
But if extreme political correctness feeds the beast, then it's also a threat to democracy. If the alt-right would not exist without extreme political correctness to react to and provide their emotional justification, would we be better off without extreme political correctness? Maybe marginalizing the excesses of the left is actually the most effective way of marginalizing the alt-right's ability to recruit?
Quoting VagabondSpectre
I didn't say it was extreme political correctness that feeds the beast, it's the pundits' endlessly complaining how PC is a threat to freedom that inadvertently feeds it.
Quoting Izat So
So it's not the least surprising that Jordan Peterson has a large unsavoury following of alt right supporters.
This is not photoshopped. He did an interview with CBC's Wendy Mesley explaining it.
This was taken in New Zealand:
Quoting VagabondSpectre
If you've been listening, they would indeed exist without extreme PC, just as they existed in Germany after WWI because they felt they were losing ground to people who were "supposed to be minorities". If you expect privilege (especially if you don't have it), equality looks like oppression. All I'm saying about PC is that pundits are inadvertently fuelling the fire of the alt right. They're missing the point in a big way. Also look at the link I posted about Americans shooting themselves in the foot to maintain racial hierarchy.
For the umpteenth time, what creates the resentment that fuels the alt right in the first place is the siphon-up economics of the rent-seeking economy - the same ponzi scheme of the type that gave rise to the financial meltdown of 2008 and which Trump is keen to continue to champion and enable.
Islamaphobia is a terrible term. Secularism is good. You may be religious and believe it is okay for law and order to be dictated by the writings of some people centuries ago though?
Pepe represents what exactly? Do you have any idea what you’re suggesting? Pepe is a joke meme meant to poke fun at people on the left. It is spewed across the internet all the time and NOT racist.
Anyway, we can disagree and it appears you don’t want to budge in the slightest or understand that I have answered your OP and given reasons why there is a backlash (VERY clear reasons with clear evidence). Have you seen the ‘debate’ with Fry and Peterson on PC?
Nothing more to say, sorry.
Yeah, so did I. What of it? AND I don't think it's fundamentally the PC that are pushing the right, regardless of whether they "push the narrative into law and order".
Quoting I like sushi
No, it is not that innocuous, and in fact JP acknowledges its use in his interview with Wendy Mesley (linked in a previous post).
Quoting I like sushi
You're not budging at all. Actually you have not responded to this: Quoting Izat So
You have not really shown how growign income disparity combined with a propensity for scapegoating is not a more fundamental cause and extreme PC just the amplifier.
I have no intention of doing so because I’ve never made the claim that I believe the opposite. Income disparity has always led to identity politics on the the right and on the left - I certainly wouldn’t, and haven’t, discounted it.
I’ve answered the OP so let someone else try.
So in summary:
Quoting Izat So
Quoting I like sushi
Quoting I like sushi
Presumably on the right it would mean scapegoating.
Quoting Izat So
Quoting I like sushi
You might think that pundits are merely trying to temper a "heavy PC tilt" - perhaps Fry is the most reasonable exemplar - but given the fact other PC critics are latched onto by the right (vis Peterson's vanity shots), they are not so much tempering the PC as they are emboldening the right.
Quoting Izat So
The money is backing the right and we have more to fear from the right than extreme PC, as so much right wing violence and the relative absence of PC violence has attested in recent decades. Extreme PC just manages to shoot itself in the foot.
So that outlines our points of disagreement.
The below picture is not photoshopped. In the picture there is the now former (then acting) President of Finland Tarja Halonen (President of Finland 2000-2012) holding a flag with a very observable swastika.
But this shouldn't come as a surprise of a country with such devotion to the Swastika, just look at the flag of the President of Finland. Note the symbol in medal in the upper left corner.:
And if this isn't enough, here's the winner of the "Greatest Finn" competition alongside the second place winner. In the competition, Finns could vote for the greatest Finnish person ever and the competition was very popular. Everybody assumed correctly the winner, yet the 2nd runner up was a total surprise for the people who made the competition. Here's the "greatest Finn" on the left in front and the "2nd greatest Finn" on the right. In the middle is one famous Austrian born politician people might know from history, who has come to Finland all the way from Germany to celebrate the birthday of the (later elected) "greatest Finn", who in this picture is wearing the German Knights Cross and Iron Cross . And this photo isn't photoshopped, of course.
Pictures tell more than a thousand words. So make up your minds about Finns and how favourable they are to nazism or the alt-right from the pictures above... because the simple deduction from those pictures is in quite in line with your reasoning with JP and the "thing" with Political Correctness, Izat. Or basically how this issue is debated. :razz:
As usual (as we have had this discussion already), I would be agreeing somewhat or totally with "I like Sushi" and the differences between us would be minor.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Oh your are just too old, Bitter Crank. You seem to get your notions and definitions as how they were used in the 20th Century when these things were far more, dare I say, solid.
This coming from a 'toxic centrist'.
I didn't "deduce" - I read about the history of Pepe and listened to JP's interview with Wendy Mesley where he justifies his association with the image, knowing its association with the alt right. I know JP is not alt right, if that's what you're suggesting. But he is known to be attractive to some sects of the alt right.
So if we look up the history of the swastika vis a vis Finland we will not be "deducing" anything from the pictures but learning about how they happen to be there. Seems the Finns were concerned about the Soviets and allied with the Nazis insofar as they were fighting the Soviets, but were not forced to submit to nazi rule. It is still used as an air force icon. Meanwhile there is an active alt right presence in Finland that uses the German version of the Swastika, as in many places.
Disgruntled manhood with a zero sum mentality reacts badly in the face of up and coming minorities and the increasing presence of women in the public sphere when their fortunes are insecure and they are not making expected gains in economic status. Resentment is a large part of the disdain for PC as well as the rise of the alt right. Disappointed expectations also explains the rise in suicides, the opioid crisis, and plenty of other social ailments. As has been said many times, when you have an expectation of privilege (reasonable or not), equality looks like oppression. Hence all the trumped up hoopla about PC.
And this opinion you have stated quite clearly: that basically those who criticize PC are basically enablers of the alt-right either purposefully or unintentionally, but they still do that. And that the extreme right is on the rise.
First of all I don't think that the extreme right is on the rise (just as the extreme left isn't either). What is on the rise is simply political tribalism, polarization in the political discourse and the portraying of the other side with obscene stereotypes that have nothing to do with reality in order to lure people into echo chambers supporting the 'cause' of one side or the another. Simply put it: nazism or neonazism hasn't any viability at all in US politics just like Communism. The idea is simply hilarious. Yet these astoundingly bizarre ideas are promoted as it's a great way to lure people in to support one side or the another. The reason for this is that two parties, a Centrist and a right-wing party, want to continue to dominate the political landscape in the US through this system of duopoly. Trump is no Hitler. Just as Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez aren't going to turn the US into Venezuela. Yet the lurid narrative 'America on the edge of peril' is willingly accepted. And there is widespread incapability to see this because your side is right and the other side is wrong.
And the criticism towards PC?
According to a Pew research poll, the majority of Americans (59%) say “too many people are easily offended these days over the language that others use.” That doesn't mean that the majority of Americans are racists or either feel sympathy or unintentionally advance the agenda of the alt-right. No, using the Occam's razor could give an answer that the majority is simply tired of walking on eggshells, yet don't see it as Trojan Horse for cultural Marxism as the extreme right does.
From one insightful article in the Atlantic Americans Strongly Dislike PC Culture:
WP - Right Wing Violence is on the Rise
The Rise of Right Wing Extremism in the US
Economist: Right Wing Terrorism on the Rise in the West
Right Wing Violence rising in the US
New Yorker: It is time to confront right wing terrorism
CBC: Extremist groups and hate crimes growing in Canada
"In the past 10 years when you look at murders committed by domestic extremists in the United States of all types, right-wing extremists are responsible for about 74 percent of those murders," Pitcavage says.
Extreme PC is relatively rare, in my experience, and I can't understand why anyone would be offended with social justice, unless they are in some sense feeling threatened by the rising fortunes of women and minorities. I have no problem with a charter of rights. I don't think people should be fired from their jobs because they lapse into assholeness from time to time however. And the evidence shows the right is more dangerous than the extreme PC front. Has Antifa shot anyone yet?
B-b-b-b-ut I can't make tasteless jokes anymore and that's the most important thing!
Let's look at terrorism at a glance. Here's how our times compare for example to the 1970's:
Just as with crime stats, the truth is that terrorism isn't on the rise in the long run. And to simply state the obvious: neonazism has no chance in hell to get political traction in the US. Yes, there is far right terrorism, anti-semitism, just as there are school shootings etc. Terrorism morphs to the lone nut type as obviously all the extremist groups in the US are quite well infiltrated by the FBI and other security organizations.
But of course you can find articles about rising far right extremism...
Indeed!
_______________
Now, some stats since Trump was elected:
"On Wednesday, the Anti-Defamation League released a report finding that attackers with ties to right-wing extremist movements killed at least 50 people in 2018. That was close to the total number of Americans killed by domestic extremists, meaning that the far right had an almost absolute monopoly on lethal terrorism in the United States last year. That monopoly would be total if, in one case, the perpetrator had not “switched from white supremacist to radical Islamist beliefs prior to committing the murder.”
"The number of fatalities is 35 percent higher than the previous year, and it marks the fourth-deadliest year for such attacks since 1970. In fact, according to the ADL, white supremacists are responsible for the majority of such attacks “almost every year.” The 2018 attacks include the one at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue by a man who blamed Jews for the migrant caravan, the mass shooting at a yoga studio by an “incel” obsessed with interracial dating, and the school massacre in Parkland, Florida, carried out by a student who wished that “all the Jews were dead.”
__________________________
"An analysis of the Global Terrorism Database by researchers at the University of Maryland published in 2017 shows a “sharp increase” in the share of attacks by right-wing extremists
the trend persisted in 2017, when most attacks in the US were committed by right-wing extremists
"Out of 65 incidents last year, 37 were tied to racist, anti-Muslim, homophobic, anti-Semitic, fascist, anti-government, or xenophobic motivations.
"That list includes an attack by neo-Nazi extremist James Fields against a crowd of counter-protestors in Charlottesville, which left one person dead. It also includes attacks against a gay bar in Puerto Rico, mosques in Washington, Texas, and Florida, and a vehicle decorated with Jewish iconography in New York.
"In the same period, seven attacks were linked to Islamic extremists, and 11 attacks were inspired by left-leaning ideologies.
"That right-wing activity is fueling a surge in terrorism in the US. Overall, the US had only six attacks a decade ago, but 65 in 2017. The number of fatalities is also increasing, in contrast to a global decrease in terror attacks."
Quoting Izat So
I don't think that neo-nazis are going to take over the US but the shift to the right and the direction it has been taking since Trumpspeak (and apologetic punditry) has intentionally or unintentionally normalized a lot of mean spirited scapegoating.
Quoting ssu
No, it isn't - except in the US since Trump and the largest proportion by far is right wing - hopefully whoever succeeds him will reverse the trend. And it's not likely to be reversed by pundits who appeal largely to those with expectations of privilege with their talk about the threats of political correctness to civil society.
In case you didn't copy, yes, agreed.
I did actually write a block of text after that line explaining my point. If I was more careful I would’ve said the rise of any extreme right view is due to the extreme left as much as the rise in the extreme left is due to the extreme right - I did amend this later by explaining that I see the extreme right as having immediate mobilization whereas the extreme left gains movement and only gets its voice heard publicly some time after the initial problem has abated (I could be wrong, but that is my informed opinion; the left being naturally more passive in their philosophical disposition).
As for being arrested for calling a horse ‘gay’ and other sensible arguments against inhibiting speech:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=h3UeUnRxE0E
The goes for yourself now. Nothing more to say (even if you choose to misquote or insult me) ... then again I remain hopeful that you may turn the other cheek and be willing to engage?
It could be interesting to actually turn this into a debate where those generally FOR PC argue against it and those generally AGAINST PC argue for it. I can put up a pretty solid fight FOR the question is can you put up a solid fight AGAINST?
I think it would be a useful exercise. I will start a thread on this if people here are willing to engage in it?
So you start a thread on Political correctness...
Again, notice the chart here. What it tells that acts of terrorism were more frequent also in the US earlier than now:
The picture World wide is different. But I assume this thread, as usual, isn't about the World outside the US.
And declining until 2016 - but it's been rising since Trump - actually since 2015.
Quoting I like sushi
Forgive me for stating the obvious, but I think Maw's cartoon was meant as a caricature of your view.
Quoting StreetlightX
And so should we all.
Yes, you were stating the obvious. My comment was apparently not so obvious? I was pointing out that it is a cartoon that could easily be construed by some (ie. Trump voters) as highly offensive. Meaning it is not a good idea to put laws on speech as who is the judge over what is or isn’t too offensive (this is clear enough in the speech given by Rowan Atkinson that StreetlightX preferred to mock than actually listen to apparently - I assume that because such a flippant remark seemed rather out of place given the actual points being made in that speech).
If you want to go for the debate idea let me know. Of not good luck and good bye.
How the "can't" is effectively enforced is what matters there, and it affects a whole lot more people than murders committed by terrorists.
How is it enforced? A few frowns, scowls, even a finger now an again, a cop you pissed off using it as an excuse to arrest you on a bogus charge?
Cheers.
Jobs/careers lost, ostracization, black listing, etc.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Quoting Izat So
Again these odd deductions: that if people think PC culture has gone too far / might go too far, they obviously (your words), obviously are feeling threatened by the rising fortunes of women and minorities.
Well, of course this is not actually odd, because what you said is totally in line with the leftist PC dogma how these issues are talked about. Nearly everything if not everything is because of the patriarchy and the whites in America losing their majority status. No other reason can be, not even for people outside the US, it seems.
Yet why is it so difficult to understand that 2/3 of even the American people don't belong either to right-wing Trump worshipping MAGA-hatters fearing socialism OR the woke progressive left seeing nazis everywhere? And that these people are basically fed up with the vitriolic debate the both extremes carry on in order to dominate the public discourse. Yes, the excesses of PC are just simply silly or just slightly annoying, not anything posing any kind of true existential threat to freedom of speach. It's not that free speech will erode away, it's that the Overton window of what is OK to be said publicly is made smaller by a small group of enthusiasts. It's basically just stupid. Yes, there's tons of far more important things to discuss, but this topic seems to be popping up again and again.
And if you haven't anytime seen what this PC culture is like, I've seen it even here in my country. It just sucks as it's so annoyingly hypocrite and simply makes things worse.
And when you ask in the OP if your conclusions are reasonable and if someone doesn't totally agree, like I don't totally agree with your long sentence filled up with a hodgepodge of leftist tropes all put together: "The patriarchal backlash and the rise of the xenophobic right all over the world have been fomented by pundits (social media bots, call them - don't mean JP) sponsored by the parasitic rentier class (huge finance and real estate) to rouse the same people whose lives they’ve ruined to scapegoat those a rung below them by lobbying for government policies that continue to support "trickle down" (i.e., siphon up) economics." then you refer to terrorism, notably right-wing terrorism, to be the actual issue here. And then you make this comparison: why is someone complaining about PC, about black listing or ostracism when there is terrorism.
Well, the thread was called: "The "thing" about Political Correctness", not "Reason why right-wing terrorism is rising".
And perhaps more to the point, again, per the article, the proportion of attacks committed by right-wing terrorists jumped from 6% to 35% from 2000s to 2010s, and this jump doesn't even include 2017-2019, but it ultimately bespeaks to the fact that right-wing terrorism is a rising threat within the USA, which despite your protestation otherwise, has not been well-monitored by US law enforcement.
It's false that ostracization, blacklisting, jobs/careers lost, etc. are rare.
While I dislike this kind of reaction to statements that are merely controversial, I don't think it's accurate to call this "enforcement". Mostly, it's just other people using their free speech in opposition, which in turn prompts a reaction.
If it were just speech I'd be fine with it. But it's not just speech. It's other sorts of actions.
The consequences should be speech.
But these actions are just decisions these people make as part of their freedom of action. It's not as if they follow a government mandate. It's not "enforcement" so much as avoidance of controversy.
Thus it's not about leftists imposing PC culture and more about culture, in general, not dealing well with controversy. A problem that's fairly evident on many levels and not limited to PC
Sure, as long as it's only someone saying that, yet they remain employed.
The issue is controlling other people. That can easily happen outside of a governmental context. It's not as if it's okay to control people as long as it's not the government doing it officially.
Well, that's what "only speech" refers to, no?
It's "sucking dry" things like racist speech, too. It's just words. Non-speech actions would be another issue.
"Oh dear" oh dear.
But in order for it to be "enforcement" the people doing it must be doing it to actually "enforce" something. But I contend that, usually, the negative consequences are merely a reaction to the speech of other people, not an enforcement of their personal ideology.
An alternate view is that those are social evils.
Which doesn't have to be governmental. It can just refer to control.
It's definitely a reaction to speech. That doesn't make it not control.
Better to be silly than evil I'd say.
So we should overthrow the capitalist system in favor of anarchy (in the sense of "no gods, no masters, no employers”)?
Because if you have the problem with control as such, the above seems like the only logical conclusion. I think you're more concerned with the way the control is used though.
I'd overthrow the capitalist system for my own system, which isn't anarchist, but it certainly isn't capitalist, either.
I don't have a problem with all control, period. At the moment we're simply talking about certain kinds of actions in response to speech. I have a problem with that control.
I'm more or less a minarchist libertarian in many ways, but I also endorse some socialist ideas. I'm a very idiosyncratic sort of libertarian socialist.
From the OP
Quoting Izat So
Quoting Echarmion
You've got plenty of pundits out there shouting down political correctness. Social Justice has become a pejorative, thanks to their efforts. Their voices seem to be much louder in the culture at large than the voices of so-called SJWs. "Dark web" be blowed.
Quoting StreetlightX
Yes, they don't want to start having to take people into consideration when they open their mouths that they formerly did not.
Which is to say you have a problem with the motives of that control. I am just saying that to label that motive "enforcement" is not appropriate, since in most cases it probably has nothing to do with "enforcing" some view or agenda.
It's at least a view or agenda that someone shouldn't say what they said.
A discussion of terrorism and trends in terrorism would surely be interesting.
And your comment above just adds to my point that here you do have to put into context the present with a historical comparison. Of course the comparison of terrorism in Europe would be totally different. Then of course, you had in Europe actual terrorist organizations that basically were engaged in a low intensity conflict like the IRA in Northern Ireland or ETA in Spain among othes. (This actually shows the brilliant strategy of the UK of achieving dominance over the discourse in the media even today as the conflict is referred to "The Troubles", yet which killed more servicemen and police than the Falklands war or the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan it could be called an insurgency.) In the US you have this obnoxious "culture" of mass shootings were literally the person that typically kills himself too wants infamy in the media (hence the copycats). Hence a bomb explosion that doesn't kill anybody wouldn't be noticed... with the exception of it being perpetrated by jihadists, naturally. And right-wing terrorism has it's own culture of basically using individuals that aren't related to organizations typically making their attacks on moments of opportunity. If the attacks would be instigated by a cabal of people, the police could go against this far easily by portraying the people belonging to a terrorist organization (after all, franchising terrorism has already been invented).
Yet here's the issue.
There's simply a mismatch in Izat So's basic argument that people shouldn't talk about PC issues because...there's right-wing terrorism. What is the link? Does it mean that somebody talking about a PC climate is supporting/provocating/embracing right-wing terrorism? Is talking about PC climate some kind of a dog whistle or what? Which "right-wing" commentator, Joe Rogan, Rubin, Shapiro or whoever is doing that? If I remember correctly (correct me if I'm wrong), you made the example one mass shooter / terrorist having listened to Ben Shapiro. Well, a lot of people listen to Shapiro.
Perhaps it's very difficult for you to understand, but as an foreigner this feels to me quite similar to the way in the right all aspects of "leftism" are mushed up together to paint the worst kind picture. Even the tropes are similar: with the octopus tropes of the evil intensions of the billionaires and banks behind it all sponsoring the nastyness behind the curtain.
I think it just shows the political tribalism and polarization of the political field. I really that the American discourse won't creep into Finnish politics. There are small but ugly signs of it though.
SSU, you have misrepresentated my position. I do think people should talk about PC issues because I think that there are some problems with PC extremism. What I don't get is why pundits seem so much more concerned about the relatively piddling cases of political correctness gone bad than the rise of the right with its potentially deadly xenophobia and misogyny. Furthermore, the pundits, "thought leaders", inadvertently appear to the xenophobes and the misogynists to give them some legitimation. They can talk about tempering political correctness rather than trying to shut down Feminist Studies departments.
We agree on something. Perhaps it should be good to ask here what you see as a problem with PC extremism? Can you give an example?
Besides, I don't think that engaging in this discussion means that people wouldn't be worried about xenophobia or misogyny...or terrorism. Contrary to the belief of many leftists, the right isn't at all an unified front and there's absolutely no love or agreement with the traditional right and the far right. They really are two different animals, just as was were Western based social democracy and Soviet based Marxism-Leninism totally different in the 20th Century. The two were literally enemies to each other.
Quoting Izat So
Topics like immigration or wealth distribution are important topics to be debated even if with the first topic it is the far right and in the latter it is the far left that seek to dominate the discourse...as if they are the only ones critical about the subject. We shouldn't fall into this kind of thinking as it is the traditional way how the extremists seek to dominate the discussion and shut down, push out other moderate views. And naturally their opponents like this: what would be better for leftists to have the ability to paint the whole right with swastikas and for the right to paint the left with Soviet style hammers and sickles.
Besides, nobody is seeking to shut down Feminist Studies departments. The inability to understand that criticism is helpful and criticism, lets say about this subject, doesn't mean that you are appealing the misogynists. This is basically the problem with the dominant PC attitude towards debate: any criticism is seen as a veiled attack against the thing with the most sinister intentions possible. Political correctness actually promulgates conspirational views: someone saying one thing actually is actually saying something other.
Is it an arbitrary mechanism for selective interfacing, akin to military programs?
Is it the base of discussion, which like in architecture, determines the outcome of the whole structure of discussion?
Is it just the new buzzword to peddle the old under the guise of the new, like with 'bio' and 'organic?
What is it?
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2017/11/10/u-of-t-profs-proposed-website-would-target-professors-teaching-womens-and-ethnic-studies.html
Quoting Shamshir
The term "political correctness" has been around since at least the 80s. It's not new. It just means speaking more considerately about people who happen to be political minorities. The reason why PC speech is thought to be helpful is because we are all influenced by the discursive themes in our culture. This affects people's opportunities and liberty. So if minority people are being insidiously dismissed (or outrightly ranted against by racists with a legitimate platform like Trump) then this becomes the norm culture wide. There may be individual variations but averages will prevail.
Human brains coevolve with culture. Our brains have evolved so that we cannot fully realize our brains' design without thorough acculturation. (It is our external memory storage - our collective, cumulative memory per neuro-paeleontonogist Merlin Donald and others.) Culture changes when technology changes and we need to reorganize to be able to use it effectively. So today, we are moving to a global economy and an economy where most of the work that was done traditionally by women in the home is unnecessary and women are emerging with their voices into the public sphere. This is a public sphere that is informed by hundreds of years of public discourse narrated largely by privileged men with exponentially increasing availability of memes. It will take a while for us to overcome the holdover biases we maintain about the public good, power and who has the right to it. Right now we're going through a backlash. That's why IMO it makes sense to call out Peterson et al as SQWs - Status Quo Warriors. But we can't stay here.
Quoting ssu
Well, I don't think groups of people thumping on doors to drown out Peterson's talk does anything other than vindicate this fossil to his fans. I don't think it's right that professors should lose their jobs for not participating in a walkout. Things like that. Don't become the intolerance you profess to hate.
Meanwhile I think this is where we need to move away from in order to thrive as a species and not wreck the planet in the meantime...:
Lone Cowboy Individualism, Military style Tribalism and Nationalism (zero sum competition)
Domination of Nature
The sense of being entitled not to have to edit one's own pronouncements or check one's own behaviours, or to receive more than to give care, regardless of effects on the wellbeing of others.
Anti-Intellectualism
and where we need to move toward:
An understanding of our interconnectedness (individual human potential cannot be realized apart from society, culture, economics and technology)
Pluralism and Diversity enhances culture (not a zero sum but a win-win)
Environmentalism, Sustainable Development
A value placed on education and genuine expertise.
I did not mean it was a new word, but a new buzzword.
Epic is not a new word, but it's a new buzzword, for instance.
Quoting Izat So
But here there's a convolution.
If the cause of political correctness is to monitor exchange, and shape its path - then some side gets dismissed anyway and political correctness performs what it is battling against; making it redundant.
From one angle it would be politically correct to give everyone a fair hearing.
From another angle, it would be unnecessary, if some are clearly unfit to contribute; also politically correct.
Considering the fluidity of politics, where should political correctness take its stance?
Quoting Izat So
Doubtful. It's doubtful that any realisation or evolution of the brain is dependent upon culture, moreso it's the opposite. No amount of acculturation will fully realise the brain, rather acculturation is a side-effect of the current state of the brain. Realisation in full would require throwing away acculturation, at least species wise.
Here's an analogy: The brain is bread, and culture is the amount of salt and sugar within the bread.
That makes culture just a flavour, which does not determine the realisation of the bread, but is reversely determined by the (type of) bread.
Quoting Izat So
Not necessarily. Cannibals can turn vegan; that's a culture change, and it doesn't entail a technological change, but a moral reassessment. And higher grade technology, such as atomic, does not entail a culture change - the atomic bomb shows that the culture of warmongering lives on.
It's a moral question, not a technological one.
Quoting Izat So
Unnecessary to be done by women. But cooking, clothing and cleaning are still there.
If you could, do please elaborate on how women are emerging with their voices, as I don't see any difference from where they were before. Even during the recent time of Socialism women played an integral role.
Quoting Izat So
Privileged in what way?
Quoting Izat So
If by biases and power over the public good you mean tribal warfare, it won't take that long.
As to who has the right to govern the public - that would be the monarch. :up:
Quoting Izat So
I wouldn't call it backlash, but nostalgia. Similar to painting a masterpiece and then throwing it in the bin and starting over. Something that is sought to be overcome through Tibetan sand painting.
Clearly the path is forward, something that is the natural consequence of all this friction.
If you read that article, it would basically be a "review" website, where the reviews are focused on a particular, anti-SJW perspective.
Ah, your favorite JP. Let's look into this with a simple Google search:
(See Professor Abandons Plan for List of ‘Neo-Marxist Course Content’
So as I was saying: nobody is seeking to shut down Feminist Studies departments. And needless to say, even if JP would have gone with his website on the issue, it wouldn't be the same as shutting down Feminist Studies.
Nothing convoluted about trying to avoid racist and sexist language.
Quoting Shamshir Several researchers in the field would disagree with you.
Here's a reading list if you'd like to learn more:
Laland, Darwin's Unfinished Symphony, 2017
C. Everett, Numbers and the Making of Us,
Donald, A Mind So Rare, 2001
Seems a consilience is taking shape in the field now.
Quoting Shamshir
Well women couldn't vote. They were paid much less than men for the same job. If they married, their husbands became the owners of their property. They spent most of their time working in the home while men spent most of their time in the public sphere. Among the men, the privileged were wealthy landowners, the rich, the well connected, who set the laws, the norms of public behaviour and the stories about what women could and could not achieve given their "frailer" minds and bodies. Ideas deeply rooted in history often take centuries to be transcended, so the narrative is still mostly the old patriarchal one, but with the invention of the pill, factory produced food, labour saving devices in the home with the introduction of electricity - with these technologies - women came to occupy positions in public more and more. Optimistically and I think more realistically, the narrative will resume its progress after this backlash to rather primal patriarchal behaviours or we will just end up in a tribalized nightmare world. This short summary of Obama's recent talk in Ottawa seems pretty dead on vis the last point.
Quoting ssu
Quoting Terrapin Station
I read the article, listened to the interview blah blah blah and know this threat was withdrawn - but it was made. Women's studies and ethnic studies "have to go" - as ssu pasted above. The point still stands. If you want to get pedantically literal about it, sufficiently declining enrolment would result in the end of a department. And now far more to the point, which was that people can criticize PC extremism while seeing value in PC overall, rather than hammering away at everything and anyone PC to the glee of the growing band of xenophobes and misogynists everywhere.
BTW he also threatened to sue Kate Manne for her critical book review of 12 Rules in the NYT. Freedom of speech. Ha.
The thesis would have to be that a significant number of students taking the courses in question wouldn't take them if they knew the sort of information that would be in the reviews. Without knowing that information beforehand, however, they stay in the courses once they've signed up for them.
Irrelevant to the main point.
Quoting Izat So
Quoting Izat So
My point was just that the article didn't actually say that they were trying to--or thinking about trying to--shut down anything.
What does that have to do with the article about the website?
Sure. he doesn't like them. Again, the website was simply going to be a review site.
My point is that that wasn't what the website would have been. The article makes it clear that it would have just been a review site. That's my point because I want us to say things that are accurate. Not sensationalized falsehoods.
Nope, Terrapin Stations view is totally sound, understandable and I agree with it. And you were saying that there is a push to stop these fields. Well, not even that review website is up and as Terrapin Station explained, it's rather far fetched that this would mount to an academic subject to be erased away.
If you look how the article is written, it literally says that JP is saying that English literature, anthropology, sociology, women’s studies and ethnic studies as the types of courses have to go.
REALLY?
If something Professor Peterson would argue, it would be that postmodern neo-Marxist approach to these studies ought to go. That is the quite reasonable view of Petersons ideas. You can get when listening or reading Peterson. Yet to assume that he is advocating among things like English literature, anthropology or sociology to be stopped taught in university is a totally crazy interpretation.
Those are not seperate. Remove the "neomarxist" aspects of those studies and one fails to teach objective truths about the topic, society, its people and their relations. It would be like studying the weather without examaning the temperature, clouds or wind patterns
Having read myself sociology also I truly beg to differ.
Marxism is just a school in an academic field.
His videos show a histrionic man who makes non-sequiturs, tosses out red herrings and makes unsubstantiated statements about human nature going back to our primate ancestry, even our fishier ancestry. He thinks PC is going to lead us off the rails to Totalitarian Maoism or A Radical Feminist Revolution that will set civilization back years. If that's not sensationalist! There is just no doubt he would like to shut down women's studies and ethnic studies. He expresses his distain every chance he gets. It's very reasonable to think that given the mess of his ideas he is popular because his take on politics vindicates the regressive views of a lot of people.
The default that is not going to help us, however, is the position that treats society as some kind of covenant between independently self-socialized brains-in-boxes rationally maximizing their self-interest.
We aren't talking about Marxism, but aspects of social studies which Peterson labels "neo-marxist." I don't know what you take Marxism to be here, but the problem isn't Peterson's suggestion wouldn't follow a narrative we told about society, it's that it will would mean gutting the studies in question of their description of material social states and relations.
Your views about him were obvious even from the OP.
Quoting Izat So
Look who's talking about sensationalism.
No. Actually there is a lot of doubt. Just as he is unlikely to want to shut down English literature or anthropology.
Quoting Izat So
So please help me, Karl Marx, you are my only hope???
That really isn't how any academic field works, sorry.
Schools of thought have their natural lives and if they fall out of favour, typically with the last tenured proponent of the school dying of old age, it doesn't gut anything away. Only a totalitarian state like Stalin's Soviet Union can really make a political decision that Lysenkoism is now the correct way and hell with genetics.
You are giving a lot of influence to one Canadian professor.
Yes, and they are borne out to my satisfaction by a wealth of scholarly critique and observations of his videos.
Meanwhile, no one has yet answered this, the point of the OP, which has nothing in particular to do with whether or not JP would like it very much if women's studies departments were to close (which is not in the least doubt).:
Critics of extreme PC do have a point, but what I am concerned about is that they
also seem to be rejecting PC at large and
in doing so are inadvertently feeding into the deeply regressive political movements
in evidence throughout the world
(e.g., Farage, LePen, Hungarian leadership, Brazilian leadership, Trump, new xenophobic legislation in Quebec, etc.),
which ought to be much more of a concern to them
since it is far more deadly.
This is such a Steven Pinker-esque argument. The discussion is around the increase in right wing terrorism, and the charts provided clearly show this to be the case. This is an important societal problem to concern ourselves with, and not something to shrug at simply because there are less overall terrorist attacks compared to 40+ years ago.
But honestly, why is anyone talking about right-wing terrorism and not right-wing state power? The growth of the right-wing is not confined to a couple of murderous hicks but to murderous apparatuses of power that are growing all across the West. Has anyone here even noticed the results of the latest EU elections? Probably not because Americans are shit and ignorant. Brasil and Balsonaro? Turkey and Edrogan? India and Modi? Had everyone missed the enshrinement of conservative agenda into law all across the States itself? Right-wing terrorism? Try the terrorism rainined down upon immigrant families trapped in dog cages at the border, sanctioned by nothing less than government power. Try the terrorism enacted upon women's bodies by old White men in the South. Try the terrorism visited upon the poor by the utter destruction of social mobility via officially sanctioned legislation all across the world.
Should one be so lucky as to only have to deal with random and sporadic outbursts of violence and not the massive, suffocating power of the state.
It's quite convoluted, because you're 'avoiding' the problem, rather than going through it.
Quoting Izat So
That's fine. I maintain that the brain does not need culture to back up its feats, much as AI doesn't.
Culture is just a consequence of the realisation of the brain, rather than a prerequisite.
Quoting Izat So
Well see, I don't remember it that way.
I remember both boys and girls forcibly laboured for equal pay.
And when those boys and girls became men and women, on the off-chance that they worked the same job at the same place, they earned equal pay, again.
And though women didn't directly vote, forgetting for a moment that there was one political party, they would vote indirectly through their husbands, over which they had a strong influence.
I also don't remember men telling women what they could and couldn't do; I remember strong girls becoming wrestlers and frail girls working the arts, and all girls attending to the household.
The reason as to why women were integral to the household being - they filled it up.
A man would have a lady bring some beauty and order to his home, rather than live brutishly on his own.
Of course, I'm talking of my own personal experience. Maybe yours is different.
Be careful. The definition of ‘culture’ is not exactly a science. I would certainly grant that culture necessarily sprouts from social interactions. Such things are driven by the environment - that is NOT to say the basis of this is anything other than neurochemistry though.
In short, the environment plays into the cultural attitudes and humans have an extremely wide capacity for adapting to fit into alien environments, learning new habits and such. We’re extremely cooperative creatures and need to understand more fully the necessity of mistakes and the management of said mistakes. To believe we can do away with mistakes and retain ‘humanity’ is a suicidal attitude imo.
“Race” is common parse is a societal phenomenon and a complete misnomer. Scientifically speaking there is only ONE race of humans. Sadly the ignorance of the past in science has not been fully realised in society and has become so entrenched in political language that historians in the far flung future will likely be looking back and asking how we could’ve been so damn stupid with our use of political language.
Well sure, there's one contingent of humans, but there's plenty of human breeds, which didn't necessarily originate from the same ancestor.
Neanderthals lived alongside modern man; one could argue they still do.
Either way, I don't see anything unnatural or problematic with there being several races of the human species.
Why not? There were different groups of humanoids all wandering the earth; it wasn't one group that spread out. What's the problem with having some of these groups evolve in to the modern breeds?
Point being there are not subspecies of humans AND there is far more diversity within groups than between them. Meaning some people from Siberia are no different than people from the amazon genetically speaking, scientific speaking and in scientific terms of what “race” is defined as. Phenotypes are just that ... mere surface detail that can appear to appear or disappear within a couple of generations or less (depending on phenotype).
Sure, but DNA is still under scrutiny.
Maybe in time, when it's further understood - humans won't seem so similar. Maybe.
Quoting I like sushi
I personally disagree on the lack of subspecies.
I feel it should be pretty evident, at least anatomically - that there are.
And something that compels me, is again, the coexistence of neanderthals with many varied mutations of the Homo genus, one being Sapiens.
Quoting I like sushi
I'd disagree that they're not different; they're clearly different.
Yes, they're alike - but they're not identical, clearly.
So even if their makeup is the same, like say that of liquid water and ice, they're different - like liquid water and ice.
So even if they may share the same genetics, those genetics may be re-arranged every which way - to create a subspecies, that are strikingly similar.
Quoting StreetlightX
Yes, you are right, sadly. Bannon, Trump's former right hand man, is behind a lot of it. Koch brothers as well. But I am sure there are also many others globally. The plutocracy of the rentier class ... and the chest-beating chumps who support them like lemmings, politically and financially.
No one with half a brain should care whether you agree or not. The scientific consensus isn’t even a ‘consensus’, it’s and plain and simply fact of how “species” and “race” is defined in the sciences.
You can of course simply refuse to take my word for it or you can ask anyone who knows the basics of zoology and genetics whether I’m talking rubbish or not.
No one without one or a full one either, but that's irrelevant.
Quoting I like sushi
It's not a fact, it's the most recent assertion.
The fact about who discovered America changed several times, so like the above, it's not a set in stone fact, but I reiterate - the most recent assertion.
Mind you, there's several scientific interpretations of species and race.
Quoting I like sushi
It's not about whether you're talking rubbish, but whether it sounds convincing and to me it doesn't.
When I've asked geneticists if humans evolved naturally, most conceded that they probably didn't and were artificially mutated - which, and this is my assumption, leads to many human variations, some of which have survived to shape the modern day races.
Maybe I'm in the wrong here, but the alternative seems counterintuitive to me.
Bye
Nice. So what's your problem with that?
Quoting Maw
So why then the ferocious attempt to link terrorism and political correctness? What's the link?
Let's rewind Izat So's basic argument:
Quoting Izat So
Quoting Izat So
So the basic argument is that the topic is somehow wrong, because ...there's right-wing terrorism.
Well, it's like make the argument that why people are talking about terrorism because global warming, climate change is a far more important topic effecting absolutely everyone.
Pinker's modus operandi is take a typically a downward long term trend, and presenting the current state of this trend as acceptable, or that solutions to these problems would be a mistake etc. In this example, a downward trend of terrorist attacks from the 70's to the present is used as an argument to downplay the increase of right wing terrorism (despite, as I've shown deaths have remained fairly consistent)
Quoting ssu
Well I'm not making Izat So's argument, I'm saying that the context offered in the graph you provided is irrelevant to the concern of rising right wing terrorism. But to Izat's point, the concern over political correctness is largely overblown as I've shown multiple times in a handful of threads.
You might be confusing me or Maw with I like sushi here.
Quoting ssu
No. For the third or fourth time, here is the position:
Quoting Izat So
And here is how it has been addressed by critics.
Critics of extreme PC do have a point - No one disagrees, as far as I can tell.
Critics of extreme PC seems to be rejecting PC at large and in so doing are INADVERTENTLY feeding into deeply regressive political movements - MAW's cartoon and my posting of JP with Proud Boys and Pepe, the mascot of the alt right, and the proud islamophobe provide evidence, regardless of how JP et al might feel about them. The point is JP has APPEAL to those groups, whether or not that is his intention (but if he has any sense at all, there is no way he should be surprised).
Farage, LePen, Hungarian leadership, Brazilian leadership, Trump, new xenophobic legislation in Quebec, etc. ought to be much more of a concern to public intellectuals than threats to free speech on the part of PC defenders since it is far more deadly, so the question is why are they far more motivated to attack PC and thus to inadvertently appear to be defenders of the right wing, as opposed to taking a stand against rightwing extremism because it (not PC) is becoming horribly normalized the world over!
Quoting Maw
By far.
There's something else going on here as well. For lack of words is a misunderstanding of nuance in favour of a pedantic reductionism. (Both in SP and in various comments to this thread esp. TS who I suspect might actually know better and is small p politically driven.) But if we have to get scientific, I'd say SP had forgotten Gould's "punctuated equilibrium" and I'm pretty sure the coming punctuations are going to hurt badly.
I don't think that's true in the USA. Today the administration announced that all visa applications, including those simply for tourism, will have to include all the applicant's social media accounts for the prior five years.
Meanwhile the US Navy is hanging a tarp over the name of one of its destroyers because the President does not like John McCain.
It's difficult to say concerns about PC are overblown any more.
Well that depends on from where you are looking at the problem. Maybe from your view PC is overblown by the far right. But for people outside the USA looking in, it's the other way around. Can you imagine there are now 14 million people applying for tourist visas in the next year who have to go over their social media accounts and delete anything that might jeopardize their application? Do you have any idea how difficult it is to get a visa to the USA already? It's rejected for any reason without appeal or even explanation in most cases.
Two days ago an op-ed article in the NY Post argued that a "cesspool" of political correctness and "identity politics" have taken over US colleges and universities across the US, and that the only viable solution may be to get rid of universities altogether. Now in America, this will largely be laughed at because it's ludicrous on multiple levels, but if you look at what Bolsonaro is doing in Brazil or what Viktor Orban is doing in Hungary, you can see that the stage is being set to defund key university departments that are not "politically correct" for right-wingers, such as sociology, gender studies, philosophy, and other departments that act as an intellectual bulwark against the far-right.
So while concerns about left-wing political correctness are certainly overblown, right wing censorship certainly is not.
Mostly I'd agree, but one does have the the left wing trying to censor Fox. Last week Tucker Carlson called for war on Mexico, ok maybe this is new to most people, but Trump did say he'd support it in 2015, which most people wrote off as a joke. So now the left again wants Carlson fired. War with Mexico may appear lunacy to the more educated, but one can't stop them talking about it either.
Once they start circling the wagons, the worst thing to do is gallop around them shouting war whoops.
People overseas should be able to say Trump's an idiot and not be concerned they lose a tourist visa application. It's a vast over-reach of authority by the nationalists, in my opinion. Carlson can say what he likes. Similarly, if people overseas want to say Carlson's a jerk, or America is a pit of evil because of what Carlson says, they should not be penalized for it. That's my opinion.
To me, it's just as revolting as CIA black sites overseas using 'extended interrogation techniques' because they wouldn't be able to do it if they were located in the USA.
oops https://hungarytoday.hu/orban-meets-jordan-peterson-in-budapest/
This may be coincidental.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmillennialism
"It is worth remembering that Mr. Peterson can be more accurately described as a previously obscure Canadian academic who believed, erroneously, that he would soon be forced by law to use gender-neutral pronouns and who refused to bow to that hypothetical demand. The proposed human rights policy that made Mr. Peterson famous is now Canadian law, and no instance of “compelled speech” has occurred as a result of it or resulted in criminal charges, as Mr. Peterson feared. On the issue of legal requirements for pronoun use, things remain the way Mr. Peterson wanted them — the same.
"Mr. Peterson was taking a stand not against power in that instance but on behalf of it."
Quoting Izat So
Nope, you couldn't resist being yourself! :grin:
Oh that evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil Jordan Peterson!!!
Not surprised re Weiss. The IDW does often "stand not against power but on behalf of it".
Taking a stand on behalf of power is probably the crux of this whole overblown anti-PC BS.
Not in this zealot's case.
I for one support ethnic diversity among terrorists. We're so used to them being just Muslims, and it's about time we had some proper integrated white nationalists reclaiming what's our own. The fall of Isis signalled the need for a renovation in terrorism, and only the white neckbeard can provide.
Edit: (yes, this is a joke. Yes. The majority of domestic terrorists come from working class disgruntled white right wingers.)
Edit2: (yes, far right terror is also a thinkpiece distraction, state terror is the major problem)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in_Great_Britain
And of course there's the generally under presented cause of many mass shootings in the US (and Canada). https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/may/21/santa-fe-mass-shooting-misogyny
Coincidentally, this excellent article on the hypocrisy and myopia around the IDW and 'free-speech' advocates was just published today.
What strikes me about a lot of this activity is the pure pedantry of it all. I don't know about you but 80% of speech is subtext and as you said about Pinkeresque there is what we might call pedantic occlusion everywhere, if you get my drift. Occlusion of potential narrative elements seems more prominent with both mainstream proponents of anti-PC and the extreme PC, with the voices of anti-PC being 100x louder and with currently far more deadly outcomes.
I think people believe that truth is whatever fits neatly into their brains. They believe truth is familiarity. The US is a weird case - should be a very open-ended society but maybe it got ahead of itself and a sizeable portion of the population had a reaction formation (an overzealous defence of something they don't really believe in but don't want to admit to themselves they don't really believe in). What they really mean by free speech is shut up other people.
The problem with political correctness is its censorial undertakings. These undertakings help the far-right because when censored they can claim “free speech” and they will be defended on free speech grounds. If they claim power they might use their persecution as reason to persecute others. For instance, when Hitler was debating Otto Wells regarding the Enabling Act, he justified his suspension of civil liberties by saying that his own civil liberties were routinely suspended and his speech “verboten”.
The trend of PC’s emancipated terminology brings us to a consensus that does not welcome dissent. It makes differences on matters of principle almost unspeakable. This deadening of our language leads to a culture of euphemism and dog-whistle.
This is partly true. Sure, you can find examples of this, but on the other hand you can find the opposite too. There is great open discussion also. And is this REALLY such a big problem is a valid question. And where I disagree with (for example Jordan Peterson) is that this trend would be a well thought agenda pushed by some (Marxists) leftists. It isn't. Nobody has planned this. It's not even the woke left that actually make this any kind of problem. The left has been all the time like this. It was worse when there still was the Soviet Union. Hence to think that this is a big issue is wrong. The World is far more conservative than it looks to be.
The real problem is simply three things:
1) The vitriol of the social media and the low standards public discussion (when everybody can participate so easily) have changed public discussion. After the 2016 election the hate mongering continued and has basically turned ranting and character assassination into the new norm. Without the historical firewalls of newspapers (which picked just what would be an opinion worthy of print), the public discourse has turned very ugly. Algorithms pick the most aggressive, most outrageous views. This creates the 'toxic' environment.
2) Far too easily we are put into our own echo chambers.
3) People and organizations are so afraid of public accusations that they self censor themselves and start being PC, even if they wouldn't otherwise give a damn.
Quoting Izat So
How so? Small youthful journalists do have an effect on just what is talked. Both sides here see the other side as shiller, louder and more powerful.
Quoting Izat So
Yet you seem not to get it that your paranoid fear of the right, when it comes to Jordan Peterson or whoever, is misplaced. These commentators (like Peterson etc.) denounce the far right, right wing terrorism and racist attacks etc. That seems not to matter to you at all. Perhaps there is this absolutely ludicrous idea that "They have to say that, but they don't mean that", which is ridiculous.
Being anti-P.C. spans the entire political spectrum, at least in America.
Americans Strongly Dislike PC Culture
Warning To Democrats: Most Americans Against U.S. Getting More Politically Correct
The far-right is a greater threat than the PC crowd, but they both employ the same censorial tactics, and so we can oppose them for the same reasons.
Notice how neither of these polls actually define Political Correctness, rendering the analysis meaningless.
Most competent people can figure out what words mean on their own accord.
The report itself says that the political correctness is "hard to define" and then goes on to not provide a definition for respondents. If there's no standard definition provided to all respondents then it's open to interpretation per participant because it's an indeterminate phrase.
I think you’re right about this. Political correctness is not limited to any sort of political party or persuasion, manifests in many ways, and all sides practice variations of it (though in the hidden tribes study only 30% of American progressives believed political correctness is not a problem, deviating from the norm who mostly think it is).
I think Orwell, always prescient, touched on political correctness before the term “political correctness” came into use. He described it as “intellectual cowardice”, which he saw as a problem.
https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/the-freedom-of-the-press/
Your virtue-signalling doesn’t find any currency with me, unfortunately. It might curry favor and advantage in your world, but looks pathetic and self-serving in mine.
For the same reason you know what words to use and in what order to place them. We could quibble about definitions and may be justified in doing so, but there is a general consensus on what words mean and how they could be used, hence the dictionary.
Correct. Usually the over the top PC arguments are caused by a huge overreaction to something where the 'outraged' people who are there to 'defend' correct values have quite a conspirational view of something valuable being attacked indirectly or in a hidden views. It is all about dog whistles and hidden meanings. And the normal response would be "You cannot be serious!", but the current climate makes us more likely just to be mute.
From the perspective of the right-wing and conservatives, Political Correctness can be seen from issues like defending "family values". Jerry Falwell attacking the British childrens TV show 'Teletubbies' and accusing one of the characters being gay because of the color purple and other 'gay symbols' is a good example right-wing PC outrage. The denial of the producers of having any sexual innuendos in a program intended for toddlers doesn't matter. It just "shows" how vast the "conspiracy" is when it's started at such young age.
And phenomenon won't go anywhere, it will likely just become worse.
There is another component to PC that should be addressed, and that is the use of euphemism and a kind of bureaucratic "broadcaster-speak" to alleviate offense. As an example Good ol' George Carlin, an enemy of political correctness, brought up the point that many soldiers with "post traumatic stress disorder" might have been given help a lot sooner if they had left the malady as "shell shocked". I think it's a good point that political correctness will disguise reality in favor of making palpable, like taking a hard-to-swallow pill by eating it with ice cream.
That's completely fair. We should worry when the far-right or the far-left adopt legitimate criticism to further their extremist agendas. But I'm afraid of lions more than I am of political correctness. That doesn't mean political correctness isn't a problem that humans beings face.
But censorious PC has brought down nobel laureates, tenured professors, Harvard presidents, comedians, actors and musicians, politicians left and right, not to mention the countless others who have neither the fame nor power to defend their names. They were all innocent of anything evil save for stepping beyond the bounds of an unforgiving linguistic orthodoxy, for speech and thought crimes. So I do not think it is a distraction, though some might use it as such.
I’m not so sure of that. Political correctness is a tool of the privileged, not of the economically marginalized. According to its biggest critics it derives from the halls of higher academia, some of the most privileged institutions in the history of the universe. It also manifests in corporate censorship. According to the Hidden Tribes poll it is only progressive activists who actively defend it. American Indians are one of the biggest opponents of political correctness, while having some of the greatest poverty and unemployment rates in the country.
The stigma and how the mentally ill and traumatized get treated by society at large has a lot to do with their sometimes antisocial behaviors. Medicate them and shove them out the door is the cheapest way to deal with them, as this is truly a greedy, almost Satanic society (whether or not you believe in Satan as a being).
Here is one thing I'd like to point out.
PC "deriving" from higher academia and "manifesting" itself in corporate censorship is the wrong way to think about it (in my humble view). The conspirational view is that the leftist academia teaches PC to the students and these SJWs then occupy positions in the corporate World. I would disagree. It's not an agenda of higher academia, just as higher academia isn't infiltrated and taken over by "cultural marxists". This narrative misses the point and paints a picture of intent. The whole thing is far more unintentional without any objectives and agendas. Sure, there are SJWs, but these really are a small 'youthful minority' as izat so describes them. And perhaps this is something that many people don't get: many things in the World happen without a culprit pushing it to happen. Phenomena are just the end result of many different things coming together without active coordination by some individual entity.
Let's think about corporate censorship. Corporations typically handle public relations with a PR department, which usually isn't part of marketing, but a tool of the corporate leadership. The way these departments and spokesperson view this is seeing that their most important objective is to avoid scandals or issues that might send the stock price going down. If you ever have listened to PR people making their case (for their existence), it goes along these lines: public relations and interaction with stakeholders is important to avoid problems. Without taking care of these relations, the corporation is in trouble (hence you need the PR department).
This opens the door for 'PC culture' because there's people who's JOB is to engage with the community. And who wouldn't think their job was important? Hence you have what NOS4A2 describes as 'corporate censorship'. It doesn't derive from an ideology. Corporate leadership has usually outsourced PR and media relations to 'media' people, just like states have created diplomats to handle the delicate interaction with other states, because those relations are important: if everything goes really wrong, people die. (Hence the need for diplomacy and diplomats)
Let's then think about the academia. Yes, it's mainly liberal, but few are truly Marxists. And how I describe Marxists is that they really say that they are Marxists and genuinely believe in Marxism. Here too the PC attitude emerges unintentionally. Nobody thinks that promoting racism or discrimination is a good thing. Hence the window of discourse is and can be moved, because just defining what is 'racism' and what is 'discrimination' can differ. Add virtue signalling to the picture and that's all you need. You'll get a 'Keynesian Beauty Contest", where the judges don't pick the most beautiful contest they themselves believe, but think what the other stupid judges desire and pick that contestant, even if they don't consider themselves the most beautiful.
Quillette has a nice article on some books one should read which will annoy politically correct people--books like Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell or The Good Earth by Pearl Buck. The books the article recommends are all great reads.
So, Celeste Ng writes, “It’s difficult for me to explain how much I hate this book [The Good Earth].” And then she goes on to mention, among other things, “the weirdness that arises from a Westerner writing about a colonized country.” Ms. Ng was born in Pittsburgh, PA, grew up in Shaker Heights, OH, and attended nothing but exclusive American schools, including Harvard University. Ms. Buck, on the other hand, was taken to China by her American missionary parents when she was five months old. She was raised largely by a Chinese nanny, spoke Chinese before she spoke English, and spent most of the first 40 years of her life in China.
Why, then, would Buck not be entitled to write about China?
The author notes that if Gone With the Wind had been written by a man, it would have ended the search for The Great American Novel. Since a woman wrote it, it was consigned to the 'romance' category.
It is a terrific read.
I don’t believe “political correctness” is any intended consequence or agenda. The phenomenon, if we can even call it that, is so amorphous that it’s difficult to put a finger on (ironically, “political correctness” seems itself a euphemism) or to blame any one ideology.
You’ve brought up “cultural Marxism” in reference to my posts many times even if I’ve never mentioned it. For the record I don’t believe in it, nor have I read anyone who espouses the theory. So I don’t think we can completely blame academia. The faculty of any university is not monolith. But given the prevalence of political correctness on any given campus, and the general lack of life experience of the students, it appears this sort of culture is at least learned there.
There is, like you said, an element of public relations in it, as is evident by the use of euphemism and self-censorship. On the one had there are companies, academic institutions, broadcasters and bureaucracies that employ politically correct language to protect their public image by avoiding offence and stigma. On the other hand there is always a censorial group of human beings ready to pounce on anyone who runs afoul of their preferred way of speaking. This relationship seems to set the conditions.
The problem is that individuals don’t often have a public relations department. Recall the lady who made an unfortunate joke about Africa on Twitter just before flying there, only to realize she had been fired from her job before landing. People took offence, found out where she worked, and to save face the company fired her. As I recall some Twitter-users actually went to the airport to film her coming off the plane, her life ruined. Political correctness claims another scalp.
In the sense that this behavior doesn’t allow clarification, follow up, or even redemption, which is often necessary in plain conversation, there is mob mentality and cruelty in it. And of course there is the censorship. This is why it should be opposed, no political affiliations required.
Carlin’s claim was certainly counterfactual and thus cannot be proven to be the case, but I think his general point about how the jargon buries any humanity behind sterility is valuable.
Here’s the bit in a video as he does it more justice (trigger warning)
I know already your viewpoint (that you don't believe it) and I agree with you.
What I'm commenting is that this is the wrong way to criticize PC culture, because it's nonsense. In fact, in this forum I think we do discuss matters with genuine Marxists (if there are any) or hardcore leftists, and they have nothing to do with "Cultural Marxism".
Quoting NOS4A2
Luckily these are individual occasions. I'm not sure if these kind of incidents are an epidemic. More this shows just how easily people can be fired in the US.
Don't you get tired of doing this when confronted with a better argument?
Just curious but why is the “cultural Marxism” theory nonsense? I’ve heard that it is an alt-right conspiracy theory, but upon taking a further look I find books and articles on it written by non-right-wing, even Marxist professors and academics.
Some examples:
Cultural Marxism and Cultural Studies
Cultural Marxism in Postwar Britain: History, the New Left and the Origins of Cultural Studies
Jameson on Jameson: Conversations on Cultural Marxism
Marxist cultural analysis as per the Kellner study you quoted is not anti-PC "cultural Marxism".
"In contemporary usage, the term Cultural Marxism refers to a far-right antisemitic conspiracy theory which claims that the Frankfurt School is part of an ongoing academic and intellectual effort to undermine and destroy Western culture and values.[49] According to the conspiracy theory, which emerged in the late 1990s, the Frankfurt School and other Marxist theorists were part of a conspiracy to attack Western society by undermining traditionalist conservatism and Christianity using the 1960s counterculture, multiculturalism, progressive politics and political correctness."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_School#Cultural_Marxism_conspiracy_theory
It's a dumb right-wing meme used by people who understand nothing about Marxist theories of society and culture or even Marxism in general.
On the one hand we have marxists and academics using the term “cultural Marxism” to describe the critique of culture, and on the other we have it is a dumb right-wing meme. Is criticism of the academic use of the term possible? Surely one can criticize it without invoking Jewish conspiracies and gay agendas.
What's relevant to the anti-PC stuff and this thread is the dumb right-wing meme. Obviously, it's possible to critique, say, Frankfurt School theories of culture.
Lol. Fair enough. Yeah it seems too odious to touch. But the prevalence of left-wing academics and their influence on the growth of political correctness I think deserves a fair hearing.
Yeah, that's a different thing. Judith Butler had been very influential in the area of identify politics, for example.
a deeply distressing or disturbing experience.
Traumatized...
subject to lasting shock as a result of a disturbing experience or physical injury.
I don't think those words are depersonalized, the long diagnostic phrase is, but not that term and its family of related terms.
Shell shock was fine, in terms of blunt description. But it could confuse people when the soldiers did not go through the types of trauma associated with artillery. And it was good that they noticed, after studying Vietnam Vets that women who had been raped had very similar patterns.
We do walk around with a lot of daily psychological blather. I don't think the whole DSM diagnosis should be the general way we talk about it. I think trauma and traumatized are fine. Or 'got fucked up by his experiences in the war but he's working on it'.
But we can't really blame professionals for having jargon. I wouldn't walk around saying I got a nasty avulsion doing a slide tackle in my sunday soccer game. I'd say I scraped the shit out of my calf on artificial grass this weekend. But the doctors can have their nice abstractions.
I like your nuanced take on it here. Well said.
Being Marxist and being 'left-wing' are totally different. Somebody advocating for social security and a welfare state doesn't make him or her to be a marxist. Marxists (especially old school Marxist-Leninists) didn't get along at all with social democrats. PC is more of a phenomenon, not a conspiracy lead by some cabal.
Quoting Maw
About nothingburgers: let's then talk how ALL the conservatives (starting from Jordan Peterson, Roger Scruton, etc...) who people on the left see as advocates of the alt-right and white supremacy.
Same thing.
No one said otherwise.