# Define "Politically Correct" + Give 2 examples in your life worth raging at **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 15, 2018, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/define-politically-correct-give-2-examples-in-your-life-worth-raging-at/822993 "2018-10-15T18:03:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 12
**Author:** ![Chisquirrel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6bbea6/32.png) [@Chisquirrel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chisquirrel)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2018, 8:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/define-politically-correct-give-2-examples-in-your-life-worth-raging-at/822993/221 "2018-10-20T08:59:11Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > This is the problem I have with safe spaces and trigger warnings and cyber justice. > > If people are truly interested in raising awareness and mutual understanding, they wouldn’t demand that someone’s life be ruined for a misstep. Maybe sensitivity training is in order. But demanding that someone lose their job over an occasional off-handed remark or bad deed doesn’t make someone less racist; it almost certainly makes them even more resentful. The woman running for Franken’s Senate seat made a comment comparing Michelle Obama to Bonzo years ago. It’s recently resurfaced, as things tend to do when running for national office. Instead of apologizing, like any normal person would do, she and her staff have doubled down and cried about the press. Fuck her, and the Republican horse she rode in on. If someone acknowledges their mistake and does what they can to make amends and be better, no one is advocating their utter ruination (though the crying we’ve heard from righties about a certain NYT editor making fun of them is pretty hilarious). When you state that you will not apologize, and everyone else can get over it - well, feel free to sit on a cactus. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2018, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/define-politically-correct-give-2-examples-in-your-life-worth-raging-at/822993/222 "2018-10-20T23:18:04Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > This is the problem I have with safe spaces and trigger warnings and cyber justice. > > If people are truly interested in raising awareness and mutual understanding, they wouldn’t demand that someone’s life be ruined for a misstep. Maybe sensitivity training is in order. But demanding that someone lose their job over an occasional off-handed remark or bad deed doesn’t make someone less racist; it almost certainly makes them even more resentful. I agree. Some huge proportion–maybe 99%–of argument over “political correctness” is entitlement-gone-wild. It’s the expression “_when you’re used to privilege, equality feels like oppression_” come to life. It’s the outrage of the haves at the uppityness of the have-nots. But then there are those examples of someone saying something innocently, maybe something not remotely offensive except to the ignorant–and then being insulted and shamed and hounded for it. It’s these examples, of course, that the right seizes on. It’s these examples that the right pretends–quite cynically–to be representative of The Awful P.C.Left. It might be someone who uses the phrase ‘woolly-minded’ to mean imprecise or vague. It might be anyone who uses ‘niggardly’ for its original meaning (stingily, or meanly, or miserly) in a manner not intended to troll. Or the astronaut Scott Kelly, who certainly did not quote Winston Churchill as a means of trolling anyone—yet was treated as though he had. Some of the tweets replying to Kelly took the tack of providing information he might not have considered (about Churchill’s record on the Bengal Famine, and remarks about race). To my mind this is NOT political correctness–it’s just the provision of information that someone might well be happy to have. But of course it’s the tweets that scold Kelly and insult him and attempt to shame him that get the attention, and are (falsely) claimed to be representative of The Left. The provision of information is reasonable. _‘This phrase offends many because of the connection with \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_’_ or what have you. But the attempt to be “one-up” on someone who has quoted Churchill or used the phrase ‘woolly-minded’–to insult, to shame, to hound—that’s not defensible, in my view. That’s just plain bullying. It’s glorying in the exercise of power—we can make you resign! We can make you grovel at our feet! That’s not admirable in anyone, no matter if they’re on the political left or on the political right. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/define-politically-correct-give-2-examples-in-your-life-worth-raging-at/822993.md?page=11)