88% of Native Americans oppose political correctness.
As I've pointed out to you before, the study in that article doesn't define political correctness, leaving the term completely open to interpretation per respondent, making the analysis useless.
As I've pointed out to you before, the study in that article doesn't define political correctness, leaving the term completely open to interpretation per respondent, making the analysis useless.
Hahahahaaa!!! :rofl:
That's so funny, maw! Oooohhh, a proper defintion of political correctness is not used!!! Oh, that's a foul, a foul cries referee maw.
That's so funny, maw! Oooohhh, a proper defintion of political correctness is not used!!! Oh, that's a foul, a foul cries referee maw.
I didn't say a "proper definition", I said no definition was provided to those who were surveyed when they were asked a question about it. The article that @NOS4A2 provided even states: "But since the survey question did not define political correctness for respondents, we cannot be sure what, exactly, the 80 percent of Americans who regard it as a problem have in mind."
Do you think a definition would have been useful to provide if, as the survey points out, "82 percent of Americans agree that hate speech is a problem in America today"? Because for some, this would fall under political correctness. Given this, what does it mean when "88% of Native Americans oppose political correctness", do you think each and every Native American surveyed would agree with your meaning, and how do you know that? (I also don't see where in the survey is says 88% of Native Americans oppose political correctness, and it doesn't provide an actual sample size for that group).
As I've pointed out to you before, the study in that article doesn't define political correctness, leaving the term completely open to interpretation per respondent, making the analysis useless.
People have been speaking about, writing about, and have been warning us about political correctness for decades. Quibble all you need, but I wager most people understand the general sense of the term by now.
People have been speaking about, writing about, and have been warning us about political correctness for decades. Quibble all you need, but I wager most people understand the general sense of the term by now.
If people are discussing a term over the course of a decade and approaching it from varying angles and perspectives then yeah it would be valuable for the study to provide a working definition to respondents for clarification, especially given that 82% of respondents in this study said that hate speech was a problem.
If people are discussing a term over the course of a decade and approaching it from varying angles and perspectives then yeah it would be valuable for the study to provide a working definition to respondents for clarification, especially given that 82% of respondents in this study said that hate speech was a problem.
Hate speech is a problem. But political correctness was never about hate speech.
But political correctness was never about hate speech.
For you. Not everyone has categorically drawn lines between speech that is considered hateful or offensive or just unpleasant and rude, and where political correctness intersects between this and other types insults and expressions, which is why it would have been prudent for the study to have provided a definition, otherwise it allows people like yourself to interpret it in whatever way you want to interpret it, and, in your case specifically, a self-serving way.
Enai De A LukalJuly 15, 2020 at 02:43#4345620 likes
Lol. As per usual, the literal exact opposite of what you just said is the case. Political correctness is, in both definition and in practice, almost entirely about condemning and avoiding derogatory/hateful language and rhetoric towards particular (religious, ethnic, etc) groups.
Reply to Maw From where I'm standing PC used to be about the political parties not allowing certain subjects to even be discussed. Such as racism and communism in the USA.
Meanwhile, idiots have started to equate common decency with PC, thinking that it's a valuable political position to hold to be able to call people names, using slurs and even use hate speech because "free speech".
In all matters, context matters. PC in political discourse isn't wanted. Common decency in everyday life very much is.
. Given this, what does it mean when "88% of Native Americans oppose political correctness", do you think each and every Native American surveyed would agree with your meaning, and how do you know that?
Would they agree with yours?
Maw, let me give another example.
If people would be asked "Do you think extremism is a problem in our country?" without defining the term more, would you think the questionnaire is useless? I bet you and NOS4A2 will surely differ in your views about just what kind of extremism is really the problem, but does that change the real issue?
Is "spokesperson" rather than "spokesman" political correctness? Is "Happy Holidays" rather than "Merry Christmas" political correctness? Is "Japanese homosexual" rather than "Jap fag" political correctness?
Do I say that I'm for or against political correctness if I don't like "Jap fag" but don't care about "spokesman" or "Merry Christmas"?
For you. Not everyone has categorically drawn lines between speech that is considered hateful or offensive or just unpleasant and rude, and where political correctness intersects between this and other types insults and expressions, which is why it would have been prudent for the study to have provided a definition, otherwise it allows people like yourself to interpret it in whatever way you want to interpret it, and, in your case specifically, a self-serving way.
It’s just untrue that political correctness has anything to do with hate speech, and it appears that the only one who needs a definition is yourself.
I bet you and NOS4A2 will surely differ in your views about just what kind of extremism is really the problem, but does that change the real issue?
Yes, that undeniably changes the issue because then you can't say "80% of respondents agree that extremism is a problem" or any other aggregate judgements, because that binds myself and NOS4A2 together in an unsound and baseless way, since we don't agree on the actual content of the word 'extremism' given definitions that are detached from one another. Likewise, without a given definition of 'political correctness' we have no way of knowing if respondents are aligned in their interpretation of the word or if there are disagreements in its meaning, which is precisely why the article (eventually) states, "But since the survey question did not define political correctness for respondents, we cannot be sure what, exactly, the 80 percent of Americans who regard it as a problem have in mind."
It isn't a surprise that over 80% of a group dislike a nebulously defined pejorative. Does disliking political correctness entail anything about your opinion on any of the following:
(1) Censorship of hate speech in media.
(2) A cosmopolitan attitude.
(3) Equality of opportunity.
(4) Race/sex/gender indifferent hiring practices.
(5) Politeness.
...
I could go on.
When someone talks about "political correctness", they usually cannot articulate precisely what it is. It's usually an "excessive version of (undefined allegedly progressive blah)", and everyone dislikes unspecified undefined allegedly progressive blah when it is excessive.
The survey designers may as well have asked "Do you dislike things which you think are bad?"
It does not take any effort whatsoever to specify the term. I am immediately suspicious when a survey designer asks a loaded question because they're literally trained not to do that.
Do you like excessive profit motive from oil companies?
Nah. Its literally what the phrase means in English. As you can see if you check any dictionary or encyclopedia entry. And of course, the anti-PC dipshits real problem with political correctness is that they want to make bigoted categorical statements about particular groups (e.g. Muslims, etc) and basic decency- political correctness- looks down upon it. And hence your crybaby tantrums about the tyranny of political correctness, basic decency, and simple common sense. Which is of course why no one likes you or takes you seriously. When you stake out things like basic decency as partisan or controversial, you're only removing yourself from adult conversations.
This user has been deleted and all their posts removed.
Enai De A LukalJuly 15, 2020 at 23:40#4348170 likes
Reply to Maw its not even an opinion, its just a blatantly/trivially false factual claim.What poor NOS here is claiming political correctness has nothing to do with, is literally the very definition of political correctness, as well as how it manifests in practice in the vast majority of cases (obviously like anything else there can be abuses.. but these are exceptions, not the rule)
Yes, that undeniably changes the issue because then you can't say "80% of respondents agree that extremism is a problem" or any other aggregate judgements, because that binds myself and NOS4A2 together in an unsound and baseless way, since we don't agree on the actual content of the word 'extremism' given definitions that are detached from one another.
And here above is the illogicality of partisan wokeness clearly displayed.
So you are unsoundly and baselessly bounded together with NOS4A2 if you both agree that "extremism is a problem", because the two of you likely think that the extremism of the other side is a problem. With this same logic I guess to ask if "terrorism is a problem" would be wrong too, because you might be thinking of terrorism of the extreme right and NOS4A2 might be thinking about jihadist terrorism or terrorism on the left.
As if people wouldn't differ just on what "is a problem" or what "extremism" or "an act of terrorism" is. No, at the present you either have to have a unified World view about everything or otherwise it's meaningless.
No wonder that people hate the idea of seeking a consensus.
As if people wouldn't differ just on what "is a problem" or what "extremism" or "an act of terrorism" is. No, at the present you either have to have a unified World view about everything or otherwise it's meaningless.
Fill out this survey please:
Do you believe consensus building is always of vital importance in political dispute resolution?
(Yes/No)
Has there ever been a situation in which consensus building was not of vital importance?
(Yes/No)
Do you think that every human has a right to express their viewpoint?
(Yes/No)
Do you think Naziism is a viewpoint?
(Yes/No)
Oh, and if you wouldn't mind, please give me your employer's email address...
When someone talks about "political correctness", they usually cannot articulate precisely what it is.
If someone talks about "great art" or "great food", can they articulate what that precisely is? Will they have different opinions about it? Yes, absolutely. Do we have to cancel the use of these terms as we may differ on what exactly contributes to good art or a fine meal? No, we still can get the idea when talking about great art and great food.
Besides, political correctness is far better defined as those terms above: using language that avoids offending members of particular groups in society. Now I agree with you that many can understand it in a larger context, for example that in a dictatorship it's not politically correct to criticize the policies of the state. That obviously has a different meaning for political correctness, just as populism is many times misunderstood to mean popular, whereas the term populism has a very distinct definition.
It's usually an "excessive version of (undefined allegedly progressive blah)", and everyone dislikes unspecified undefined allegedly progressive blah when it is excessive.
might actually be a great definition about don't like, actually. Even that does tells a lot: progressive blah.
Besides, coming to Maw's argument that the fact that 88% of Native Americans don't like PC doesn't matter because PC wasn't defined, that people can have various understanding of the terms (as you pointed out), is a bit condescending. It reminds me of what one Native American commented. He liked the term "Indian" because it always reminds him how wrong white Europeans where about his people.
Yes. And it's entirely up to the survey interpreter to decide what is meant by progressive blah. Is hatespeech mitigating law progressive blah?
Headline demonstrating bias: "Liberals finally seeing the end of their worldview, 88% of Native Americans don't believe in political correctness"
Are race+gender non-discriminatory hiring practices part of progressive blah?
"Liberal narratives of inclusive hiring no longer desired by public, (blah high)% of people no longer approve of political correctness"
It's really really easy to twist that survey result however an interlocutor wants to. And that's exactly what's been seen in this thread. You're all approving of the vague statistic, Nos approves of it for different reasons, you think Maw dislikes it because it goes against their worldview, you think I dislike it because it goes against my worldview... That's not an us problem, that's a methodology problem. It's a shit question.
Is not seeking consensus equivalent to violent direct action???
For example, if there is some large accident and some political elected official makes a decision on the instant without going the ordinary parliamentary channels he or she usually should go through, is an example of "not seeking consensus" before acting.
Seeking consensus can mean that you simply try to get a bi-partisan ruling, you sit down with the opposition and make decisions with them and not just rely on that the opposition cannot vote your legislation down. Sometimes that kind of decision making works...like when deciding what to do when facing a pandemic.
I would like to live in a world where people seem as unaware as you are that questions can be leading or loaded, and intentionally or negligently made that way. When you answer "Approve/disapprove" or "Yes/no" to a question, if the question conjures a certain framing with its usual interpretation, a constellation of yes and no answers transfers the framing assumed by the interpreter to the respondent (or the broader sample).
"Should Scotland be independent?"
"Should Scotland leave the union?"
There was a fight over that one. There are reasons questions are asked the way they're asked.
Besides, political correctness is far better defined as those terms above: using language that avoids offending members of particular groups in society.
The framing assumed by the "political correctness" one is the interpreter's of the statistic. That goes against basic survey design principles; you should do whatever you can to make there be only one plausible interpretation of what the question concerns when its purpose is to elicit a binary choice on the matter.
"Should Scotland be independent?" frames the yes answer as positive.
"Should Scotland leave the union?" frames the yes answer as negative.
Do you believe consensus building is always of vital importance in political dispute resolution?
(Yes/No)
Has there ever been a situation in which consensus building was not of vital importance?
(Yes/No)
Do you think that every human has a right to express their viewpoint?
(Yes/No)
Do you think Naziism is a viewpoint?
(Yes/No)
If you say "no" to 1, that suggests you think alternatives to consensus building - power plays - are sometimes appropriate. The expected answer was no. I put the second one in in case you'd answer "Yes" to the first one, you're more likely to answer based on specifics if you're primed on specifics.
I was seriously expecting you to think that Naziism is a viewpoint, because it's a perspective someone can take on some matters.
If I changed the questions to: "Do you think every human as a right to express their belief system?"
and
"Do you think Naziism is a belief system?"
I'm guessing you'd answer yes to them now.
If you answer anything positive about Naziism - like approving of them expressing their viewpoints, which the questions engender -, and if you simultaneously believe that power plays are sometimes necessary in politics, a reader of those responses will often be left with the impression that the respondent (you) approved of Naziism in some way and approved of using power plays in politics. If you have that "approves of Nazi in some vague manner" priming, it's going to prime for interpreting power plays as violent.
The questions you ask on surveys can engender their answers by being phrased in a leading way. You can get that effect if you include a pejorative in the question - and make no mistake, political correctness mostly functions as a pejorative.
People responded saying they did not approve of (what the pejorative applies to), and what does it apply to exactly? Well, that's left to the interpreter. Just like someone who would read the above and conclude you were pretty far right and believed in violent direct action.
If you expect all of these common associations to have to follow a syllogistic structure (like you're demanding me to articulate), that's simply not how making leading questions works.
The purpose of a survey question should be to elicit someone's opinion on a matter, what that "political correctness" one did is leave any interpreter to fill in the blanks about what their opinions concerned as they like.
Or to put it another way; let's grant that it concerns something vague, now you're filling in the specifics in your head - against that it's acknowledged as vague! Bad question, bad usage of question. But it was designed to be used that way I imagine.
I would like to live in a world where people seem as unaware as you are that questions can be leading or loaded, and intentionally or negligently made that way.
I'm aware that questionnaires can be made (and often are) to further some agenda and the questions can be leading or loaded.
But then argument is about the conclusions you make from the questionnaire. You can make the argument that the conclusions are wrong. But just to throw away it as useless is a different thing.
So what conclusions do you draw from that bit of data?
What data exactly? The data that 88% Native Americans oppose PC, was it so?
First of all, the simple fact is that political correctness and progressive woke things aren't highly popular.
Just to quote NOS4A2's original article Americans Strongly Dislike PC Culture:
It is obvious that certain elements on the right mock instances in which political correctness goes awry in order to win the license to spew outright racial hatred. And it is understandable that, in the eyes of some progressives, this makes anybody who dares to criticize political correctness a witting tool of—or a useful idiot for—the right. But that’s not fair to the Americans who feel deeply alienated by woke culture. Indeed, while 80 percent of Americans believe that political correctness has become a problem in the country, even more, 82 percent, believe that hate speech is also a problem.
So answering your question: All I can draw that Native Americans are likely to be more conservative than progressives are (or the image of "progressives that uphold PC values"), even if they do vote for democrats btw (and hence the majority of them aren't politically conservative). As I said, your definition (PC = progressive blah) might actually make the point, even if many Native Americans do know the defintion of PC. And many likely know that the NCAI has been against negative stereotypes for a very, very long time.
NCAI campaign against racial stereotypes:
So basically it doesn't say much, but it does say something. And that's my point here. It's not useless, to be thrown aside. Perhaps you could say that the so-called "PC crowd" hasn't gotten the vast majority Americans excited about the utter importance of PC language, including minorities.
(Btw, this topic likely would be better in some other thread than Trump)
That's an awful lot of opinion to form from that statistic, eh? You even brought hats. What you've done is fit that statistic in with your previous conceptions, rather than used the statistic itself. You provided all the implicit characterisation of political correctness. Just as the respondents to the survey were asked to.
That is exactly the point I was making. That's all you can do with this statistic. And that's what you did.
The only reason it can "say something" is because you, or anyone else, have an interpretation of the term, but that doesn't make it useful in aggregate.
The Trump thread is and will be quite active even without going on sidepaths (which tells a lot of the World we live in). At least for few months, hopefully.
How about you address your dirtbag cherrypicking? You are dishonest, and when your blatant dishonesty is pointed out you just carry on as if it didnt happen.
You quoted half a sentence, and tried to pass that off as a legitimate point. It wasnt, it was a lie. You are a liar.
You owe ssu an apology, and everyone else as well since you and your dirtbag tactics make discourse more difficult on this forum.
Its staggering how self righteous you are considering how little ethic you show in discussion. Shame on you sir. You are the problem.
9 out of 10 Native Americans are not offended by the Washington Redskins name, and in fact many express admiration for it,
88% of Native Americans oppose political correctness.
Let's assume that's true. Do you think the name should not be changed? If so, why do you want the name to remain "Redskins"? If you think it should be changed, what is your complaint? If you don't care, why make an issue of it?
How about you address your dirtbag cherrypicking? You are dishonest, and when your blatant dishonesty is pointed out you just carry on as if it didnt happen.
You quoted half a sentence, and tried to pass that off as a legitimate point. It wasnt, it was a lie. You are a liar.
You owe ssu an apology, and everyone else as well since you and your dirtbag tactics make discourse more difficult on this forum.
Its staggering how self righteous you are considering how little ethic you show in discussion. Shame on you sir. You are the problem.
You made me to fill a questionnaire which you then explained in quite detail, so...
All I've done in this thread is:
(1) Say that the question was leading and uninformative.
(2) Try to explain why any interpretation of it suggested so far is fraught.
(3) Given worked examples on how questions can be misleading.
(4) Given a generic description of the error in survey design this question makes: it's a binary choice where almost all the information recorded in the Approve/Disapprove is determined by the framing brought to the survey by the respondents and subsequent interpreters rather than the survey designer's constraints placed upon plausible interpretation of the question's substantive content.
If it was a question like the hate speech one @Maw brought up, I wouldn't be reacting like this, as hate speech has much more definite content.
Survey questions like that are like contracts with an audience of devils. You answer "approve", the audience brings whatever fine print they like and anything plausible is equally justified based solely on the question response (not also given the fine print/justification narrative for interpreting it in a given way).
Reply to DingoJones Let's not overreact shall we. "it doesn't say much" is sufficient to quote since that means it can still say something by inference. Logically ssu shouldn't have said "but", since it wasn't contrary to the first part but he should've said "and".
9 out of 10 Native Americans are not offended by the Washington Redskins name, and in fact many express admiration for it,
88% of Native Americans oppose political correctness.
— NOS4A2
Let's assume that's true. Do you think the name should not be changed? If so, why do you want the name to remain "Redskins"? If you think it should be changed, what is your complaint? If you don't care, why make an issue of it?
I once read a book about the Amos n' Andy radio show. In its earliest days, the white actors who portrayed (racially stereotypical) black characters were popular and respected among the black community. The acceptance of status quo is pretty common, but that doesn't mean the status quo should be perpetuated.
I once read a book about the Amos n' Andy radio show. In its earliest days, the white actors who portrayed (racially stereotypical) black characters were popular and respected among the black community. The acceptance of status quo is pretty common, but that doesn't mean the status quo should be perpetuated.
Yes. But it may be no argument was intended, and the poster merely wanted to express disapproval of the change of name from "Redskins" in some inoffensive manner--trying to be politically incorrect in a politically correct way, perhaps. I think the reaction against being "politically correct" is sometimes merely a half-assed way of justifying loutishness. If you think the name shouldn't be changed, say so and honestly say why--no doubt there are those who think "Redskins" is a perfectly acceptable name.
I think the reaction against being "politically correct" is sometimes merely a half-assed way of justifying loutishness.
That's often true, although sometimes it refers to comments that were truly intended innocently. e.g. my wife (a special ed teacher, not of the intellectually challenged, but still worked in those circles) jumped on me a couple years ago for referring to a student as "retarded".
As background, I volunteered at the "Houston Center for the Retarded" when I was in high school in the early 1970s - that's the last time I had personal contact with the intellectually challenged. But these days, "retarded" has become a politically incorrect term. I understand why, and have no problem with that - but I simply didn't know. I suggest that making such an error should be considered a faux pas the first time (or two). It becomes loutish when one refuses to accept that the term is inappropriate and proceeds to use such terms regularly.
Reply to fdrake" When someone talks about "political correctness", they usually cannot articulate precisely what it is. It's usually an "excessive version of (undefined allegedly progressive blah)", and everyone dislikes unspecified undefined allegedly progressive blah when it is excessive."
It is possible to try to articulate what “political correctness” is: there are various ways of defining and framing public discourses, resulting in the formation of public opinion and the promotion of
particular agendas. Surveys and polls are just a few of the possible technics to shape, retain, and narrow down what can be counted as a political issue or an essential societal domain.
As Foucault noted, discourses have always been subjects of intensive censorship and regulation. Being a function of effective discursive control,“political correctness” produces the mobilization of public attention and the enforcement of the desirable consensus. Simultaneously, a multitude of alternative perspectives is effectively marginalized and obscured. Bachrach and Baratz in their book“Two Faces of Power” proposed a concept of nondecision-making, so that specific issues are pushed aside and prevented from consideration. They write that if “there is no conflict, overt or covert, the presumption must be that there is consensus on the prevailing allocation of values…In the absence of such conflict… there is no way accurately to judge whether the thrust of a decision really is to thwart or prevent serious consideration of a demand for change that is potentially threatening to the decision-maker”.
The purpose of a survey question should be to elicit someone's opinion on a matter, what that "political correctness" one did is leave any interpreter to fill in the blanks about what their opinions concerned as they like.
Another function of ‘political correctness’ is the distribution and reactivation of preferable subjective positions that individuals should assume and confirm. Thus, while taking part in the survey, one can re-affirm herself as a voter, a consumer, an expert, etc. Therefore, surveys
maintain the continuum of articulable discourses, effectuate and limit the range of possible
opinions, and produce the necessary engagement.
That's why a definition, and other caveats, would have been useful :wink:
Sorry to repeat this, but I don't really understand what is your problem.
If I remember correctly, you yourself gave the example of an Amazon worker leading a protest and then getting fired. Another example would be someone tweeting "all lives matter" and getting fired. Is there really a difference? Isn't it obvious from both examples of how utterly arbitrary the firing of people can be and how insecure employees are in the US? If all it takes is what a person has said (or tweeted) or has participated in some political activity outside his work his work and the person gets fired, isn't that itself a real problem?
Same really goes for the question "is extremism a problem?". The fact that just what extremism isn't mentioned simply cannot be a counterargument if people agree with the notion of extremism being a problem (or not).
Sorry to repeat this, but I don't really understand what is your problem.
If I remember correctly, you yourself gave the example of an Amazon worker leading a protest and then getting fired. Another example would be someone tweeting "all lives matter" and getting fired. Is there really a difference? Isn't it obvious from both examples of how utterly arbitrary the firing of people can be and how insecure employees are in the US? If all it takes what a person has said outside his work and the person gets fired?
Same really goes for the question "is extremism a problem?". The fact that just what extremism isn't mentioned simply cannot be a counterargument if people agree with the notion of extremism being a problem (or not).
I have no idea what you are talking about anymore, whatever you are saying is so far removed from the initial issue that 'political correctness' isn't even mentioned here.
I have no idea what you are talking about anymore, your argument is so far removed from the initial issue that 'political correctness' isn't even mentioned here.
Yes, that undeniably changes the issue because then you can't say "80% of respondents agree that extremism is a problem" or any other aggregate judgements, because that binds myself and NOS4A2 together in an unsound and baseless way, since we don't agree on the actual content of the word 'extremism' given definitions that are detached from one another.
And the question is why it undeniably changes the issue? Because this is quite the same argumentation as you had against NOS4A2 originally: Quoting Maw
As I've pointed out to you before, the study in that article doesn't define political correctness, leaving the term completely open to interpretation per respondent, making the analysis useless.
The simple fact is that we can talk about extremism as a class combining various types of extremism.
Reply to ssu Listen. If within 48 hours you still can't comprehend why it is necessary for an 8,000+ person study to provide respondents with a definition for a nebulous and controversial term, when asking for their view on it, then there's nothing further I can do to help you out.
People have been speaking about, writing about, and have been warning us about political correctness for decades. Quibble all you need, but I wager most people understand the general sense of the term by now.
except that the discussion in this one thread alone makes it abundantly clear that folk have different ideas of what political correctness is. so folk might have "a general sense," of what it means, but they sure seem to have a diversity of general senses.
Not everyone has categorically drawn lines between speech that is considered hateful or offensive or just unpleasant and rude, and where political correctness intersects between this and other types insults and expressions...
but in a pragmatic sense, I also agree with this. which is just my charitable view that you don't have to agree with me.
Political correctness is, in both definition and in practice, almost entirely about condemning and avoiding derogatory/hateful language and rhetoric towards particular (religious, ethnic, etc) groups.
this is not a view I have seen expressed anywhere else, so my tendency would be to think this is not common. I'm not saying you're wrong, but this probably not the majority view.
in my experience, political correctness is used as a derogatory term. when someone says, "that is just political correctness," this is an insult. political correctness is the tendency to outlaw or ban the saying of things that meet both of the following: a) are perceived by the speaker to be offensive to or discriminatory of a particular group. b) would not be considered by that group to be offensive or discriminatory.
examples would include: telling schools they are not allowed to call a blackboard a blackboard anymore because black is discriminatory and offensive to people of colour. or labeling a field on a form "gender" when the distinction being made is between male and female. these types of criticisms have a tendency to trivialise genuine discrimination in a way that convinces other folk that discrimination is not real.
but that is just my experience, I'm not claiming to be an authority on the topic.
as for the survey, surveys should make their questions clear and unambiguous and explicitly explain any terms with the potential to be interpreted in more than one way so that all respondents are answering the exact same question. surveys that do not do that can be ignored.
It was originally a leftist political in joke, about strict discipline in adhering to one's organisation's line. Like how Leninist organisations approach disagreement (they are not pluralist in any way). This was in the 1970's I think. It marked a contrast between old left tactical orthodoxy and new left tactical pluralism.
Then people noticed that leftists were using it somewhere between an in joke and a weapon. So it became a slur towards the left. The left are those people that have to be politically correct. This is 1980's, when the old left was dying and globalisation + finance friendly ideology was sweeping the globe. In this context, it's a way of gainsaying left criticism or viewpoint as being against freedom of speech.
After that, because the political advocacy of the New Left was less about class structure (the unions were dying and being undermined by the globalisation of supply chains), left struggles were more about identity and socialisation issues; race, gender, sexual preference and discrimination against those groups. It marked a shift from class struggle politics on the left to what pejoratively gets called the "culture war", which is "fought" mostly on the terrain of discourse/speech acts.
That environment made it particularly fecund as a criticism of left "identity politics", because any anti-discriminatory intervention (like hate speech legislation) can be framed as against "freedom of speech". You see what they're doing now? You can't even say that you're ordering a chinky!
We're still in that environment, so it's still a useful pejorative for left activity that focuses on "policing" speech - or from a left angle, changing culture to be more inclusive by changing how we relate to each other socially.
So you get the bizarre situation where grumpy class focussed leftists find they dislike political correctness because it's proxied with identity politics and that allegedly filled the vacuum of class struggle, "fiscally conservative" (neoliberal) liberals dislike it because they don't want social changes to "freedom of speech", and anyone who appreciates its history as a leftist injoke and knows that it was an anti-hate speech legislation joke/weapon in its most common usage is going to react negatively to the ideological clusterfuck that's now its meaning.
Let's assume that's true. Do you think the name should not be changed? If so, why do you want the name to remain "Redskins"? If you think it should be changed, what is your complaint? If you don't care, why make an issue of it?
I don’t think it should be changed because I like the name and the logo. To me it evokes a brave warrior.
Exactly. People who dislike political correctness will say it's not about that. But when you ask them what it's actually about, it's just vague progressive blah they dislike. Absolutely devoid of content, except expressing a general distaste for socially progressive ideas. It's about as good as "SJW".
Exactly. People who dislike political correctness will say it's not about that. But when you ask them what it's actually about, it's just vague progressive blah they dislike. Absolutely devoid of content, except expressing a general distaste for socially progressive ideas. It's about as good as "SJW".
People who like political correctness routinely say it is about being respectful. But it comes in the form of intolerance and censorship rather than polite behavior. The euphemism and jargon creates an atmosphere where no one can speak plainly, directly affecting the groups they believe should be protected from certain language.
Reply to Azimuth
What's the bad side of being courteous towards other human beings? Nothing. What's the bad side of political correctness? Controlling language, cancelling events, virtue signalling, emphasising sex/race differences, imposing ideological stances on others, shutting down debates, it's a significant component of outrage culture.
It's less about the cases where someone being "politically correct" is being courteous, big deal, everyone should be courteous.
I don't think your circumlocution is society's fault. What do you want to say that you cannot?
It’s not so much what I want to say as it is my aversion to a prefabricated and emaciated terminology which makes differences on matters of principle almost unsayable. It leads to a conformity that does not welcome dissent.
Reply to fdrake
That's a question less to do with political correctness as an ideology and more as political correctness as a force that can exert influence over me. To which the answer is that it has none. See, I really don't want to hyperbolise the issue of political correctness, which I feel you're asking for with your question.
Political correctness is tied to identity politics in, where the sex/race differences are emphasised dramatically and some groups are privileged while others are disadvantaged. If you want to criticise issues that can be linked to disadvantaged people (everyone except white men) then be careful.
Whether it's Islam, immigration, "cultural appropriation", multiculturalism etc or equality of outcome, the gender pay gap, the experiences of the oppressed. Really, any topic that you want to talk disparagingly about which can be in someway linked to an oppressed group is going to come under scrutiny, why? Because you risk offending the disadvantaged peoples. I can't really believe that you're just totally unaware of this aspect of political correctness.
. I can't really believe that you're just totally unaware of this aspect of political correctness.
I know what people say it is. There's a whole constellation of terms.
Political correctness - PC police - social justice warriors - white knights - progressives - libtards - identity politics - pinkos - cancel culture - wokeness - snowflakes...
I generally think it's a good thing that people are antsy about saying things that are likely to make the marginalised feel bad, I just wish material benefits followed suit more often. I want people to hesitate to treat people badly, and when that concerns societal injustices that can in part be addressed by culture changes, I want people not to think and behave in ways that propagate the bad stuff.
I'm pretty sure anyone who believes anything political is going to have a similar ethos; they will strongly prefer it if you believe what they believe on substantive issues because of their expected consequences from those substantive issues.
But when I point that out, anyone who whines about political correctness is actually gonna agree with me I'd imagine. People who have political opinions have an image of society they want and an image of how they think people should act. Even people who just want everyone else to shut the fuck up and be less whiny bitches - which is all it is.
"Stop whining! I want to say what I like and not care what you think!"
If you wanna talk about whether political correctness (whatever it is) suffices as a political program for obtaining what adherents to political correctness (allegedly) want, that's a different thing.
I think for the most part anyone who dislikes "PC culture" wants to be less afraid to express their dickish tendencies, and to call anyone who dislikes 'em whiny bitches. Humans are gonna be foolish and short sighted regardless of our political opinions.
"STOP BEING A WHINY BITCH"
"STOP BEING AN ASSHOLE"
This whole thing in a nutshell. And some people get so, so irate about it. Feel they're persecuted because they can't say things they didn't even want to say in the first place. Keep on whining.
Good points made in the thread already. It's a matter of subjective views on an ideal that should be objective. Seems to me there's two groups of people who believe in it. Those who want to maintain and restore values (courtesy, politeness, equality, just general non-toxicity) and those who want to subvert or change them and society from longstanding, time-tested tradition (Christian holidays, ideal gender roles, importance of the nuclear family, etc.)
And as some replies suggest, then there are those just putting on an act. No one in government or any position of anything should be using slurs, bigotry, or anything that makes the place or group they represent seem like a toxic nightmare world. Now perhaps they'll go and be as PC as can be at work, then go home and use slurs in private. Not unexpected.
As was mentioned there's a big difference between using and not using hurtful racial or ethnic or other slurs compared to saying or not saying "spokesperson" or "Merry Christmas". There is free speech however. In and of itself it cannot be illegal for a random citizen. Now the stupidity is dangerous and punishable by social measure. See the FedEx driver who fatally assaulted a man in Oregon after being called the N-word. All charges were dropped. I'm telling you guys this equality thing is working.
Reply to fdrake
Identity politics has real meaning, political correctness has real meaning, as does the term progressive, the rest are just slurs and not real terms.
If you want to look at political correctness with rose-tinted glasses then the aim is to reduce racism, sexism and bigotry. It's the very process I advocate for dealing with these things, I want people to call others out on their racist and sexist views and insults because that's how it's stopped.
If you're going to describe PC as something different then you need to also accept that what is being criticised is not your version of PC but something else. Political correctness is deeply related to the far left and identity politics and that matters for peoples' perception of it. It also matters for how PC exists, how and where it's enforced.
I don't know why other people dislike PC, that's got nothing to do with me. I see that you're on the left and will characterise your political opponents in the way that makes them look the worst just as you will be characterised by your political opponents in the way that makes you look the worst. You'll say people dislike PC because they want to be assholes, they'll say you like PC because you're a snowflake. It's not less unsophisticated, juvenile bullshit just because the other side does it.
I'm not going to get into a debate about the public perception of PC and whether it's fair or not, of course, it's all politics.
Reply to ssu
No, I disagree, I think being courteous doesn't need a synonym, be courteous to be courteous. Even criticise others for being discourteous, that's fair. The problem with PC is that it's extremely political, unlike being courteous.
PC is more than just the concept of PC, it's about how it's implemented, by who, where and for what?
You'll say people dislike PC because they want to be assholes, they'll say you like PC because you're a snowflake. It's not less unsophisticated, juvenile bullshit just because the other side does it.
That's pretty much all this is though. Political correctness as a term is not like... premium grade lean steak discourse, is it? The World Spirit didn't pay any attention to college girls with pink hair talking about the pay gap in its ascension towards the absolute. It's a whole nebula of fluff and fat around shit everyone agrees is good. People who use political correctness as a pejorative do it in a manner that makes it indistinguishable from calling anyone liberal (in the American usage) or socially progressive a whiny bitch - give or take a pinch of close mindedness, a dash of "you hate freedom of speech" and add "all I want is a reasonable discussion" to taste.
You wanna actually have a reasonable discussion? Let's talk about how the use of political correctness as a pejorative is an in group/out group signifier, and thus a rallying feature of anti-social progressive identity politics and a lowkey way of virtue signalling. We, those who hate political correctness, are much better than those whiny irrational bitches who like it. That's how it works. Use political correctness as a nebulous pejorative and you're already playing that game you allegedly hate.
No, I disagree, I think being courteous doesn't need a synonym, be courteous to be courteous. Even criticise others for being discourteous, that's fair. The problem with PC is that it's extremely political, unlike being courteous.
PC is more than just the concept of PC, it's about how it's implemented, by who, where and for what?
You can obviously disagree with Azimuth's opinion about it, but isn't it genuinely the problem that people are offended, make a huge row and accusations when some is assumed to be political incorrect? All the dog whistles etc.
Reply to fdrake
I can dislike PC without liking the practices of other people who dislike it, I see what you're saying but PC has real meaning, that meaning to me hasn't been eroded by what you're talking about. There's clearly a lot of baggage around the term but I didn't join up with anyone by disliking PC and identity politics, I can think for myself.
PC is just a term for an ideology, closely linked to identity politics, generally held by the same people and I really dislike both but I didn't come to represent someone other than myself.
Reply to ssu
When we are talking PC, there's a specific kind of offence that is measured by a specific philosophy. It's not egalitarian, it's about identity politics and protecting the disadvantaged groups in society. It's about placing a priority on sparing people from getting offended or triggered rather than stopping actual racism and sexism. It's about acknowledging racial histories and the history of female disenfranchisement and seeing modern people in the light of those stories. And of course, assuming every second person is a racist and sexist even if they say they're not.
I don't think my interpretation of racism and sexism has a place, I think anyone besides the far left is not going to feel represented by it. That's the problem with it.
To be fair, the term “political correctness” is awful, perhaps ironic in the sense that it is itself a euphemism for routine bigotry. In that case I think criticism of the term is warranted.
Well before the use of the term, this vernacular of deference was rightly criticized by George Orwell, who described it as “intellectual cowardice”, a phrase which I think exemplifies this phenomenon better than “political correctness”.
And of course, assuming every second person is a racist and sexist even if they say they're not.
And this is the real issue here.
Before delving into the specific issue of political correctness, to make one important point I would like to broaden the definition of "political correctness" to meaning any kind of talk that is perceived either politically correct or incorrect.
In a totalitarian dictatorship it's totally understandable that public speech is "politically correct" meaning it doesn't question at all the rulers, as otherwise the person declaring criticism about the authorities would quickly vanish from the public domain. And "politically correct" speech is then fervent propaganda of the dictatorship. This is because totalitarian dictatorships are in open war against revolutionary/counter-revolutionary elements in the society, perceived or actual, hence the dramatic response is perfectly understandable. Every dictatorship is a dictatorship because there is this overwhelming perceived threat that has to be countered, at least in the mind of the dictator.
And with even democracies there are people who thanks to their role have a very limited Overton window. A high military ranking officer cannot simply use his "freedom of speach" and assume that he or she can comment certain issues like security policy or relations between countries "as an individual". There are people from other countries who's job it is to respond if the Overton window on some issue is breached in this way. They are called diplomats, ambassadors and spokesmen/-women. Nobody will believe that a general was just speaking his mind, especially if he isn't immediately fired or reprimanded.
If we have the above in mind, we can look just why something like political correctness has become so venomous and caused people to be fired, why the discourse has become so vitriolic and why people seem to hear dog whistles everywhere.
At first there needs to be a small group of people that think this is one of the most important issues in our time and are extremely dedicated to their cause. Something equivalent of just "being rude" wouldn't make it a thing like this. Then as a background there usually are bad racial/ethnic or minority relations and underlying problems that urge people to do virtue signalling. And then we have a globalized media and social media where certain issues are simply copied around the world at lightning speed. The ease that we can show our objection to anything is also notable all thanks to the social media providers.
Comments (89)
9 out of 10 Native Americans are not offended by the Washington Redskins name, and in fact many express admiration for it,
88% of Native Americans oppose political correctness.
Once again a few triggered politicos and grievance-mongers ignore the will and voices of their community.
As I've pointed out to you before, the study in that article doesn't define political correctness, leaving the term completely open to interpretation per respondent, making the analysis useless.
Hahahahaaa!!! :rofl:
That's so funny, maw! Oooohhh, a proper defintion of political correctness is not used!!! Oh, that's a foul, a foul cries referee maw.
I didn't say a "proper definition", I said no definition was provided to those who were surveyed when they were asked a question about it. The article that @NOS4A2 provided even states: "But since the survey question did not define political correctness for respondents, we cannot be sure what, exactly, the 80 percent of Americans who regard it as a problem have in mind."
Do you think a definition would have been useful to provide if, as the survey points out, "82 percent of Americans agree that hate speech is a problem in America today"? Because for some, this would fall under political correctness. Given this, what does it mean when "88% of Native Americans oppose political correctness", do you think each and every Native American surveyed would agree with your meaning, and how do you know that? (I also don't see where in the survey is says 88% of Native Americans oppose political correctness, and it doesn't provide an actual sample size for that group).
People have been speaking about, writing about, and have been warning us about political correctness for decades. Quibble all you need, but I wager most people understand the general sense of the term by now.
If people are discussing a term over the course of a decade and approaching it from varying angles and perspectives then yeah it would be valuable for the study to provide a working definition to respondents for clarification, especially given that 82% of respondents in this study said that hate speech was a problem.
Hate speech is a problem. But political correctness was never about hate speech.
For you. Not everyone has categorically drawn lines between speech that is considered hateful or offensive or just unpleasant and rude, and where political correctness intersects between this and other types insults and expressions, which is why it would have been prudent for the study to have provided a definition, otherwise it allows people like yourself to interpret it in whatever way you want to interpret it, and, in your case specifically, a self-serving way.
Lol. As per usual, the literal exact opposite of what you just said is the case. Political correctness is, in both definition and in practice, almost entirely about condemning and avoiding derogatory/hateful language and rhetoric towards particular (religious, ethnic, etc) groups.
Meanwhile, idiots have started to equate common decency with PC, thinking that it's a valuable political position to hold to be able to call people names, using slurs and even use hate speech because "free speech".
In all matters, context matters. PC in political discourse isn't wanted. Common decency in everyday life very much is.
Would they agree with yours?
Maw, let me give another example.
If people would be asked "Do you think extremism is a problem in our country?" without defining the term more, would you think the questionnaire is useless? I bet you and NOS4A2 will surely differ in your views about just what kind of extremism is really the problem, but does that change the real issue?
Quoting Benkei
Which people usually understand.
Do I say that I'm for or against political correctness if I don't like "Jap fag" but don't care about "spokesman" or "Merry Christmas"?
It's not a binary issue.
Many things aren't binary.
But in woke PC culture they are! :grin:
Actually in woke PC culture non-binary is a big thing. ;)
It’s just untrue that political correctness has anything to do with hate speech, and it appears that the only one who needs a definition is yourself.
Lies. This is just how the PC police see themselves.
Yes, that undeniably changes the issue because then you can't say "80% of respondents agree that extremism is a problem" or any other aggregate judgements, because that binds myself and NOS4A2 together in an unsound and baseless way, since we don't agree on the actual content of the word 'extremism' given definitions that are detached from one another. Likewise, without a given definition of 'political correctness' we have no way of knowing if respondents are aligned in their interpretation of the word or if there are disagreements in its meaning, which is precisely why the article (eventually) states, "But since the survey question did not define political correctness for respondents, we cannot be sure what, exactly, the 80 percent of Americans who regard it as a problem have in mind."
You can huff and puff all you want but that's ultimately just your opinion.
It isn't a surprise that over 80% of a group dislike a nebulously defined pejorative. Does disliking political correctness entail anything about your opinion on any of the following:
(1) Censorship of hate speech in media.
(2) A cosmopolitan attitude.
(3) Equality of opportunity.
(4) Race/sex/gender indifferent hiring practices.
(5) Politeness.
...
I could go on.
When someone talks about "political correctness", they usually cannot articulate precisely what it is. It's usually an "excessive version of (undefined allegedly progressive blah)", and everyone dislikes unspecified undefined allegedly progressive blah when it is excessive.
The survey designers may as well have asked "Do you dislike things which you think are bad?"
It does not take any effort whatsoever to specify the term. I am immediately suspicious when a survey designer asks a loaded question because they're literally trained not to do that.
Do you like excessive profit motive from oil companies?
Of course you don't.
An opinion that I can defend. Your opinion, however, lacks any such argument.
Nah. Its literally what the phrase means in English. As you can see if you check any dictionary or encyclopedia entry. And of course, the anti-PC dipshits real problem with political correctness is that they want to make bigoted categorical statements about particular groups (e.g. Muslims, etc) and basic decency- political correctness- looks down upon it. And hence your crybaby tantrums about the tyranny of political correctness, basic decency, and simple common sense. Which is of course why no one likes you or takes you seriously. When you stake out things like basic decency as partisan or controversial, you're only removing yourself from adult conversations.
And here above is the illogicality of partisan wokeness clearly displayed.
So you are unsoundly and baselessly bounded together with NOS4A2 if you both agree that "extremism is a problem", because the two of you likely think that the extremism of the other side is a problem. With this same logic I guess to ask if "terrorism is a problem" would be wrong too, because you might be thinking of terrorism of the extreme right and NOS4A2 might be thinking about jihadist terrorism or terrorism on the left.
As if people wouldn't differ just on what "is a problem" or what "extremism" or "an act of terrorism" is. No, at the present you either have to have a unified World view about everything or otherwise it's meaningless.
No wonder that people hate the idea of seeking a consensus.
Fill out this survey please:
Do you believe consensus building is always of vital importance in political dispute resolution?
(Yes/No)
Has there ever been a situation in which consensus building was not of vital importance?
(Yes/No)
Do you think that every human has a right to express their viewpoint?
(Yes/No)
Do you think Naziism is a viewpoint?
(Yes/No)
Oh, and if you wouldn't mind, please give me your employer's email address...
If someone talks about "great art" or "great food", can they articulate what that precisely is? Will they have different opinions about it? Yes, absolutely. Do we have to cancel the use of these terms as we may differ on what exactly contributes to good art or a fine meal? No, we still can get the idea when talking about great art and great food.
Besides, political correctness is far better defined as those terms above: using language that avoids offending members of particular groups in society. Now I agree with you that many can understand it in a larger context, for example that in a dictatorship it's not politically correct to criticize the policies of the state. That obviously has a different meaning for political correctness, just as populism is many times misunderstood to mean popular, whereas the term populism has a very distinct definition.
Yet to say
Quoting fdrake
might actually be a great definition about don't like, actually. Even that does tells a lot: progressive blah.
Besides, coming to Maw's argument that the fact that 88% of Native Americans don't like PC doesn't matter because PC wasn't defined, that people can have various understanding of the terms (as you pointed out), is a bit condescending. It reminds me of what one Native American commented. He liked the term "Indian" because it always reminds him how wrong white Europeans where about his people.
I don't know who fdrake is so no, why would you need my employer?
Yes. And it's entirely up to the survey interpreter to decide what is meant by progressive blah. Is hatespeech mitigating law progressive blah?
Headline demonstrating bias: "Liberals finally seeing the end of their worldview, 88% of Native Americans don't believe in political correctness"
Are race+gender non-discriminatory hiring practices part of progressive blah?
"Liberal narratives of inclusive hiring no longer desired by public, (blah high)% of people no longer approve of political correctness"
It's really really easy to twist that survey result however an interlocutor wants to. And that's exactly what's been seen in this thread. You're all approving of the vague statistic, Nos approves of it for different reasons, you think Maw dislikes it because it goes against their worldview, you think I dislike it because it goes against my worldview... That's not an us problem, that's a methodology problem. It's a shit question.
Either to inform them that some idiot doesn't think Naziism is a viewpoint or has Nazi sympathies and sometimes approves of violent direct action.
What I'm saying that many statistics are vague. Yet that vagueness doesn't mean the statistic is useless.
You go on interpreting the poorly designed survey question in accordance with whatever political worldview you think it confirms then...
Is not seeking consensus equivalent to violent direct action???
For example, if there is some large accident and some political elected official makes a decision on the instant without going the ordinary parliamentary channels he or she usually should go through, is an example of "not seeking consensus" before acting.
Seeking consensus can mean that you simply try to get a bi-partisan ruling, you sit down with the opposition and make decisions with them and not just rely on that the opposition cannot vote your legislation down. Sometimes that kind of decision making works...like when deciding what to do when facing a pandemic.
So what on Earth are you talking about?
Quoting fdrake
And now for the strawman.
Quoting ssu
I would like to live in a world where people seem as unaware as you are that questions can be leading or loaded, and intentionally or negligently made that way. When you answer "Approve/disapprove" or "Yes/no" to a question, if the question conjures a certain framing with its usual interpretation, a constellation of yes and no answers transfers the framing assumed by the interpreter to the respondent (or the broader sample).
"Should Scotland be independent?"
"Should Scotland leave the union?"
There was a fight over that one. There are reasons questions are asked the way they're asked.
Quoting ssu
The framing assumed by the "political correctness" one is the interpreter's of the statistic. That goes against basic survey design principles; you should do whatever you can to make there be only one plausible interpretation of what the question concerns when its purpose is to elicit a binary choice on the matter.
"Should Scotland be independent?" frames the yes answer as positive.
"Should Scotland leave the union?" frames the yes answer as negative.
Let's go through the questions I asked you:
Quoting fdrake
If you say "no" to 1, that suggests you think alternatives to consensus building - power plays - are sometimes appropriate. The expected answer was no. I put the second one in in case you'd answer "Yes" to the first one, you're more likely to answer based on specifics if you're primed on specifics.
I was seriously expecting you to think that Naziism is a viewpoint, because it's a perspective someone can take on some matters.
If I changed the questions to: "Do you think every human as a right to express their belief system?"
and
"Do you think Naziism is a belief system?"
I'm guessing you'd answer yes to them now.
If you answer anything positive about Naziism - like approving of them expressing their viewpoints, which the questions engender -, and if you simultaneously believe that power plays are sometimes necessary in politics, a reader of those responses will often be left with the impression that the respondent (you) approved of Naziism in some way and approved of using power plays in politics. If you have that "approves of Nazi in some vague manner" priming, it's going to prime for interpreting power plays as violent.
The questions you ask on surveys can engender their answers by being phrased in a leading way. You can get that effect if you include a pejorative in the question - and make no mistake, political correctness mostly functions as a pejorative.
People responded saying they did not approve of (what the pejorative applies to), and what does it apply to exactly? Well, that's left to the interpreter. Just like someone who would read the above and conclude you were pretty far right and believed in violent direct action.
If you expect all of these common associations to have to follow a syllogistic structure (like you're demanding me to articulate), that's simply not how making leading questions works.
The purpose of a survey question should be to elicit someone's opinion on a matter, what that "political correctness" one did is leave any interpreter to fill in the blanks about what their opinions concerned as they like.
Or to put it another way; let's grant that it concerns something vague, now you're filling in the specifics in your head - against that it's acknowledged as vague! Bad question, bad usage of question. But it was designed to be used that way I imagine.
I'm aware that questionnaires can be made (and often are) to further some agenda and the questions can be leading or loaded.
But then argument is about the conclusions you make from the questionnaire. You can make the argument that the conclusions are wrong. But just to throw away it as useless is a different thing.
So what conclusions do you draw from that bit of data?
What data exactly? The data that 88% Native Americans oppose PC, was it so?
First of all, the simple fact is that political correctness and progressive woke things aren't highly popular.
Just to quote NOS4A2's original article Americans Strongly Dislike PC Culture:
So answering your question: All I can draw that Native Americans are likely to be more conservative than progressives are (or the image of "progressives that uphold PC values"), even if they do vote for democrats btw (and hence the majority of them aren't politically conservative). As I said, your definition (PC = progressive blah) might actually make the point, even if many Native Americans do know the defintion of PC. And many likely know that the NCAI has been against negative stereotypes for a very, very long time.
NCAI campaign against racial stereotypes:
So basically it doesn't say much, but it does say something. And that's my point here. It's not useless, to be thrown aside. Perhaps you could say that the so-called "PC crowd" hasn't gotten the vast majority Americans excited about the utter importance of PC language, including minorities.
(Btw, this topic likely would be better in some other thread than Trump)
That's an awful lot of opinion to form from that statistic, eh? You even brought hats. What you've done is fit that statistic in with your previous conceptions, rather than used the statistic itself. You provided all the implicit characterisation of political correctness. Just as the respondents to the survey were asked to.
That is exactly the point I was making. That's all you can do with this statistic. And that's what you did.
Quoting ssu
:clap:
You made me to fill a questionnaire which you then explained in quite detail, so... :roll:
Quote the full sentence, maw:
Quoting ssu
The only reason it can "say something" is because you, or anyone else, have an interpretation of the term, but that doesn't make it useful in aggregate.
Thanks for creating a new thread.
The Trump thread is and will be quite active even without going on sidepaths (which tells a lot of the World we live in). At least for few months, hopefully.
How about you address your dirtbag cherrypicking? You are dishonest, and when your blatant dishonesty is pointed out you just carry on as if it didnt happen.
You quoted half a sentence, and tried to pass that off as a legitimate point. It wasnt, it was a lie. You are a liar.
You owe ssu an apology, and everyone else as well since you and your dirtbag tactics make discourse more difficult on this forum.
Its staggering how self righteous you are considering how little ethic you show in discussion. Shame on you sir. You are the problem.
Let's assume that's true. Do you think the name should not be changed? If so, why do you want the name to remain "Redskins"? If you think it should be changed, what is your complaint? If you don't care, why make an issue of it?
That's why a definition, and other caveats, would have been useful :wink:
All I've done in this thread is:
(1) Say that the question was leading and uninformative.
(2) Try to explain why any interpretation of it suggested so far is fraught.
(3) Given worked examples on how questions can be misleading.
(4) Given a generic description of the error in survey design this question makes: it's a binary choice where almost all the information recorded in the Approve/Disapprove is determined by the framing brought to the survey by the respondents and subsequent interpreters rather than the survey designer's constraints placed upon plausible interpretation of the question's substantive content.
If it was a question like the hate speech one @Maw brought up, I wouldn't be reacting like this, as hate speech has much more definite content.
Survey questions like that are like contracts with an audience of devils. You answer "approve", the audience brings whatever fine print they like and anything plausible is equally justified based solely on the question response (not also given the fine print/justification narrative for interpreting it in a given way).
Lol. Ok that made me laugh. Your a liar AND funny.
I once read a book about the Amos n' Andy radio show. In its earliest days, the white actors who portrayed (racially stereotypical) black characters were popular and respected among the black community. The acceptance of status quo is pretty common, but that doesn't mean the status quo should be perpetuated.
Yes. But it may be no argument was intended, and the poster merely wanted to express disapproval of the change of name from "Redskins" in some inoffensive manner--trying to be politically incorrect in a politically correct way, perhaps. I think the reaction against being "politically correct" is sometimes merely a half-assed way of justifying loutishness. If you think the name shouldn't be changed, say so and honestly say why--no doubt there are those who think "Redskins" is a perfectly acceptable name.
Ya, youre right for once Benkei. My apologies Maw, that was harsh and uncalled for on my part.
That's often true, although sometimes it refers to comments that were truly intended innocently. e.g. my wife (a special ed teacher, not of the intellectually challenged, but still worked in those circles) jumped on me a couple years ago for referring to a student as "retarded".
As background, I volunteered at the "Houston Center for the Retarded" when I was in high school in the early 1970s - that's the last time I had personal contact with the intellectually challenged. But these days, "retarded" has become a politically incorrect term. I understand why, and have no problem with that - but I simply didn't know. I suggest that making such an error should be considered a faux pas the first time (or two). It becomes loutish when one refuses to accept that the term is inappropriate and proceeds to use such terms regularly.
It is possible to try to articulate what “political correctness” is: there are various ways of defining and framing public discourses, resulting in the formation of public opinion and the promotion of
particular agendas. Surveys and polls are just a few of the possible technics to shape, retain, and narrow down what can be counted as a political issue or an essential societal domain.
As Foucault noted, discourses have always been subjects of intensive censorship and regulation. Being a function of effective discursive control,“political correctness” produces the mobilization of public attention and the enforcement of the desirable consensus. Simultaneously, a multitude of alternative perspectives is effectively marginalized and obscured. Bachrach and Baratz in their book“Two Faces of Power” proposed a concept of nondecision-making, so that specific issues are pushed aside and prevented from consideration. They write that if “there is no conflict, overt or covert, the presumption must be that there is consensus on the prevailing allocation of values…In the absence of such conflict… there is no way accurately to judge whether the thrust of a decision really is to thwart or prevent serious consideration of a demand for change that is potentially threatening to the decision-maker”.
Quoting fdrake
Another function of ‘political correctness’ is the distribution and reactivation of preferable subjective positions that individuals should assume and confirm. Thus, while taking part in the survey, one can re-affirm herself as a voter, a consumer, an expert, etc. Therefore, surveys
maintain the continuum of articulable discourses, effectuate and limit the range of possible
opinions, and produce the necessary engagement.
Sorry to repeat this, but I don't really understand what is your problem.
If I remember correctly, you yourself gave the example of an Amazon worker leading a protest and then getting fired. Another example would be someone tweeting "all lives matter" and getting fired. Is there really a difference? Isn't it obvious from both examples of how utterly arbitrary the firing of people can be and how insecure employees are in the US? If all it takes is what a person has said (or tweeted) or has participated in some political activity outside his work his work and the person gets fired, isn't that itself a real problem?
Same really goes for the question "is extremism a problem?". The fact that just what extremism isn't mentioned simply cannot be a counterargument if people agree with the notion of extremism being a problem (or not).
I have no idea what you are talking about anymore, whatever you are saying is so far removed from the initial issue that 'political correctness' isn't even mentioned here.
I'll recap the discussion.
So I gave this example:
Quoting ssu
And you answered:
Quoting Maw
And the question is why it undeniably changes the issue? Because this is quite the same argumentation as you had against NOS4A2 originally: Quoting Maw
The simple fact is that we can talk about extremism as a class combining various types of extremism.
except that the discussion in this one thread alone makes it abundantly clear that folk have different ideas of what political correctness is. so folk might have "a general sense," of what it means, but they sure seem to have a diversity of general senses.
Quoting NOS4A2
I agree with this.
Quoting Maw
but in a pragmatic sense, I also agree with this. which is just my charitable view that you don't have to agree with me.
Quoting Enai De A Lukal
this is not a view I have seen expressed anywhere else, so my tendency would be to think this is not common. I'm not saying you're wrong, but this probably not the majority view.
in my experience, political correctness is used as a derogatory term. when someone says, "that is just political correctness," this is an insult. political correctness is the tendency to outlaw or ban the saying of things that meet both of the following: a) are perceived by the speaker to be offensive to or discriminatory of a particular group. b) would not be considered by that group to be offensive or discriminatory.
examples would include: telling schools they are not allowed to call a blackboard a blackboard anymore because black is discriminatory and offensive to people of colour. or labeling a field on a form "gender" when the distinction being made is between male and female. these types of criticisms have a tendency to trivialise genuine discrimination in a way that convinces other folk that discrimination is not real.
but that is just my experience, I'm not claiming to be an authority on the topic.
as for the survey, surveys should make their questions clear and unambiguous and explicitly explain any terms with the potential to be interpreted in more than one way so that all respondents are answering the exact same question. surveys that do not do that can be ignored.
or do we need to take a survey on that?
Kaarlo Tuomi
I think it went through a few phases. AFAIK:
It was originally a leftist political in joke, about strict discipline in adhering to one's organisation's line. Like how Leninist organisations approach disagreement (they are not pluralist in any way). This was in the 1970's I think. It marked a contrast between old left tactical orthodoxy and new left tactical pluralism.
Then people noticed that leftists were using it somewhere between an in joke and a weapon. So it became a slur towards the left. The left are those people that have to be politically correct. This is 1980's, when the old left was dying and globalisation + finance friendly ideology was sweeping the globe. In this context, it's a way of gainsaying left criticism or viewpoint as being against freedom of speech.
After that, because the political advocacy of the New Left was less about class structure (the unions were dying and being undermined by the globalisation of supply chains), left struggles were more about identity and socialisation issues; race, gender, sexual preference and discrimination against those groups. It marked a shift from class struggle politics on the left to what pejoratively gets called the "culture war", which is "fought" mostly on the terrain of discourse/speech acts.
That environment made it particularly fecund as a criticism of left "identity politics", because any anti-discriminatory intervention (like hate speech legislation) can be framed as against "freedom of speech". You see what they're doing now? You can't even say that you're ordering a chinky!
We're still in that environment, so it's still a useful pejorative for left activity that focuses on "policing" speech - or from a left angle, changing culture to be more inclusive by changing how we relate to each other socially.
So you get the bizarre situation where grumpy class focussed leftists find they dislike political correctness because it's proxied with identity politics and that allegedly filled the vacuum of class struggle, "fiscally conservative" (neoliberal) liberals dislike it because they don't want social changes to "freedom of speech", and anyone who appreciates its history as a leftist injoke and knows that it was an anti-hate speech legislation joke/weapon in its most common usage is going to react negatively to the ideological clusterfuck that's now its meaning.
LOL. You just couldn't resist could you?
I don’t think it should be changed because I like the name and the logo. To me it evokes a brave warrior.
Lol, Im incorrigible what can I say.
Who is a Redskin.
An aboriginal.
An aboriginal, who is referred to as a "redskin."
I wouldn’t refer to the warrior as such. A “Redskin” to me is someone who plays for the Redskins.
Exactly. People who dislike political correctness will say it's not about that. But when you ask them what it's actually about, it's just vague progressive blah they dislike. Absolutely devoid of content, except expressing a general distaste for socially progressive ideas. It's about as good as "SJW".
People who like political correctness routinely say it is about being respectful. But it comes in the form of intolerance and censorship rather than polite behavior. The euphemism and jargon creates an atmosphere where no one can speak plainly, directly affecting the groups they believe should be protected from certain language.
I don't think your circumlocution is society's fault. What do you want to say that you cannot?
What's the bad side of being courteous towards other human beings? Nothing. What's the bad side of political correctness? Controlling language, cancelling events, virtue signalling, emphasising sex/race differences, imposing ideological stances on others, shutting down debates, it's a significant component of outrage culture.
It's less about the cases where someone being "politically correct" is being courteous, big deal, everyone should be courteous.
Same question to you as to Nos, what do you want to say that you cannot?
It’s not so much what I want to say as it is my aversion to a prefabricated and emaciated terminology which makes differences on matters of principle almost unsayable. It leads to a conformity that does not welcome dissent.
Which prefabricated and emaciated terminology?
That's a question less to do with political correctness as an ideology and more as political correctness as a force that can exert influence over me. To which the answer is that it has none. See, I really don't want to hyperbolise the issue of political correctness, which I feel you're asking for with your question.
Political correctness is tied to identity politics in, where the sex/race differences are emphasised dramatically and some groups are privileged while others are disadvantaged. If you want to criticise issues that can be linked to disadvantaged people (everyone except white men) then be careful.
Whether it's Islam, immigration, "cultural appropriation", multiculturalism etc or equality of outcome, the gender pay gap, the experiences of the oppressed. Really, any topic that you want to talk disparagingly about which can be in someway linked to an oppressed group is going to come under scrutiny, why? Because you risk offending the disadvantaged peoples. I can't really believe that you're just totally unaware of this aspect of political correctness.
Perhaps the divide ought to be done with a) being politically correct and b) condemning others for not being politically correct.
Nobody has a problem with a), being courteous toward other human beings, as Azimuth put it.
It’s largely euphemistic language.
I know what people say it is. There's a whole constellation of terms.
Political correctness - PC police - social justice warriors - white knights - progressives - libtards - identity politics - pinkos - cancel culture - wokeness - snowflakes...
I generally think it's a good thing that people are antsy about saying things that are likely to make the marginalised feel bad, I just wish material benefits followed suit more often. I want people to hesitate to treat people badly, and when that concerns societal injustices that can in part be addressed by culture changes, I want people not to think and behave in ways that propagate the bad stuff.
I'm pretty sure anyone who believes anything political is going to have a similar ethos; they will strongly prefer it if you believe what they believe on substantive issues because of their expected consequences from those substantive issues.
But when I point that out, anyone who whines about political correctness is actually gonna agree with me I'd imagine. People who have political opinions have an image of society they want and an image of how they think people should act. Even people who just want everyone else to shut the fuck up and be less whiny bitches - which is all it is.
"Stop whining! I want to say what I like and not care what you think!"
If you wanna talk about whether political correctness (whatever it is) suffices as a political program for obtaining what adherents to political correctness (allegedly) want, that's a different thing.
I think for the most part anyone who dislikes "PC culture" wants to be less afraid to express their dickish tendencies, and to call anyone who dislikes 'em whiny bitches. Humans are gonna be foolish and short sighted regardless of our political opinions.
"STOP BEING A WHINY BITCH"
"STOP BEING AN ASSHOLE"
This whole thing in a nutshell. And some people get so, so irate about it. Feel they're persecuted because they can't say things they didn't even want to say in the first place. Keep on whining.
And as some replies suggest, then there are those just putting on an act. No one in government or any position of anything should be using slurs, bigotry, or anything that makes the place or group they represent seem like a toxic nightmare world. Now perhaps they'll go and be as PC as can be at work, then go home and use slurs in private. Not unexpected.
As was mentioned there's a big difference between using and not using hurtful racial or ethnic or other slurs compared to saying or not saying "spokesperson" or "Merry Christmas". There is free speech however. In and of itself it cannot be illegal for a random citizen. Now the stupidity is dangerous and punishable by social measure. See the FedEx driver who fatally assaulted a man in Oregon after being called the N-word. All charges were dropped. I'm telling you guys this equality thing is working.
Identity politics has real meaning, political correctness has real meaning, as does the term progressive, the rest are just slurs and not real terms.
If you want to look at political correctness with rose-tinted glasses then the aim is to reduce racism, sexism and bigotry. It's the very process I advocate for dealing with these things, I want people to call others out on their racist and sexist views and insults because that's how it's stopped.
If you're going to describe PC as something different then you need to also accept that what is being criticised is not your version of PC but something else. Political correctness is deeply related to the far left and identity politics and that matters for peoples' perception of it. It also matters for how PC exists, how and where it's enforced.
I don't know why other people dislike PC, that's got nothing to do with me. I see that you're on the left and will characterise your political opponents in the way that makes them look the worst just as you will be characterised by your political opponents in the way that makes you look the worst. You'll say people dislike PC because they want to be assholes, they'll say you like PC because you're a snowflake. It's not less unsophisticated, juvenile bullshit just because the other side does it.
I'm not going to get into a debate about the public perception of PC and whether it's fair or not, of course, it's all politics.
No, I disagree, I think being courteous doesn't need a synonym, be courteous to be courteous. Even criticise others for being discourteous, that's fair. The problem with PC is that it's extremely political, unlike being courteous.
PC is more than just the concept of PC, it's about how it's implemented, by who, where and for what?
So is your issue with cancel culture or political correctness?
That's pretty much all this is though. Political correctness as a term is not like... premium grade lean steak discourse, is it? The World Spirit didn't pay any attention to college girls with pink hair talking about the pay gap in its ascension towards the absolute. It's a whole nebula of fluff and fat around shit everyone agrees is good. People who use political correctness as a pejorative do it in a manner that makes it indistinguishable from calling anyone liberal (in the American usage) or socially progressive a whiny bitch - give or take a pinch of close mindedness, a dash of "you hate freedom of speech" and add "all I want is a reasonable discussion" to taste.
You wanna actually have a reasonable discussion? Let's talk about how the use of political correctness as a pejorative is an in group/out group signifier, and thus a rallying feature of anti-social progressive identity politics and a lowkey way of virtue signalling. We, those who hate political correctness, are much better than those whiny irrational bitches who like it. That's how it works. Use political correctness as a nebulous pejorative and you're already playing that game you allegedly hate.
You can obviously disagree with Azimuth's opinion about it, but isn't it genuinely the problem that people are offended, make a huge row and accusations when some is assumed to be political incorrect? All the dog whistles etc.
I can dislike PC without liking the practices of other people who dislike it, I see what you're saying but PC has real meaning, that meaning to me hasn't been eroded by what you're talking about. There's clearly a lot of baggage around the term but I didn't join up with anyone by disliking PC and identity politics, I can think for myself.
PC is just a term for an ideology, closely linked to identity politics, generally held by the same people and I really dislike both but I didn't come to represent someone other than myself.
When we are talking PC, there's a specific kind of offence that is measured by a specific philosophy. It's not egalitarian, it's about identity politics and protecting the disadvantaged groups in society. It's about placing a priority on sparing people from getting offended or triggered rather than stopping actual racism and sexism. It's about acknowledging racial histories and the history of female disenfranchisement and seeing modern people in the light of those stories. And of course, assuming every second person is a racist and sexist even if they say they're not.
I don't think my interpretation of racism and sexism has a place, I think anyone besides the far left is not going to feel represented by it. That's the problem with it.
To be fair, the term “political correctness” is awful, perhaps ironic in the sense that it is itself a euphemism for routine bigotry. In that case I think criticism of the term is warranted.
Well before the use of the term, this vernacular of deference was rightly criticized by George Orwell, who described it as “intellectual cowardice”, a phrase which I think exemplifies this phenomenon better than “political correctness”.
https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/the-freedom-of-the-press/
And this is the real issue here.
Before delving into the specific issue of political correctness, to make one important point I would like to broaden the definition of "political correctness" to meaning any kind of talk that is perceived either politically correct or incorrect.
In a totalitarian dictatorship it's totally understandable that public speech is "politically correct" meaning it doesn't question at all the rulers, as otherwise the person declaring criticism about the authorities would quickly vanish from the public domain. And "politically correct" speech is then fervent propaganda of the dictatorship. This is because totalitarian dictatorships are in open war against revolutionary/counter-revolutionary elements in the society, perceived or actual, hence the dramatic response is perfectly understandable. Every dictatorship is a dictatorship because there is this overwhelming perceived threat that has to be countered, at least in the mind of the dictator.
And with even democracies there are people who thanks to their role have a very limited Overton window. A high military ranking officer cannot simply use his "freedom of speach" and assume that he or she can comment certain issues like security policy or relations between countries "as an individual". There are people from other countries who's job it is to respond if the Overton window on some issue is breached in this way. They are called diplomats, ambassadors and spokesmen/-women. Nobody will believe that a general was just speaking his mind, especially if he isn't immediately fired or reprimanded.
If we have the above in mind, we can look just why something like political correctness has become so venomous and caused people to be fired, why the discourse has become so vitriolic and why people seem to hear dog whistles everywhere.
At first there needs to be a small group of people that think this is one of the most important issues in our time and are extremely dedicated to their cause. Something equivalent of just "being rude" wouldn't make it a thing like this. Then as a background there usually are bad racial/ethnic or minority relations and underlying problems that urge people to do virtue signalling. And then we have a globalized media and social media where certain issues are simply copied around the world at lightning speed. The ease that we can show our objection to anything is also notable all thanks to the social media providers.