Three stories just this week make me think people have finally gotten tired of the BS:
Jerry Seinfeld doesn’t perform at college campuses anymore:
I’m a liberal professor, and my liberal students scare me:
And then there’s the Laura Kipnis case, where writing an op-ed about sexual assault drew a Title IX complaint that students were being “retaliated against” because she had an incorrect opinion. She was just cleared, but the whole proceeding, which amounted to a trial, is chilling to free speech:
Does the rise of ISIS mean we should be turning against religion?
We should not be turning against political correctness. We should be rejecting attempts to define political correctness by its worst extremes and we should be getting back to the real form of political correctness - society as a whole showing its disapproval of individual bigotry.
Perhaps, in the sense that the public, as informed by the media, is going to stop putting on its Very Serious Face every time some fringer stands up to define the conversation.
I don’t even think it’s “political correctness” per se; it’s just kids at that stage where they’ve got more autonomy without the emotional maturity to go with it. I think Seinfeld has nailed it - they just want to wield the power they have without fully understanding the implications of it. And it’s not just on the liberal side either - plenty of right-wing kids acting out as well.
Fortunately, while it’s a sizable number of today’s American youth, it’s not all and likely not even a majority.
:shrug: He can be old and cranky all he wants, but the kid has a point. That is kinda sexist. More broadly, it adheres to a number of potentially antiquated assumptions about gender and age norms.
It seems these days like being outraged is the new national pastime - we absolutely must have something to be offended by, and if nothing comes by on its own, we’ll invent a new offense to accuse someone of committing.
The offenderati have had their ranks swelled by an influx of young liberals claiming offense at violation of liberal norms. But the offenderati have always been with us. We’ve just become so numb to the Christian-right version and the 1970s liberal version that we barely notice anymore.
The problem is not the people claiming offense. They’ve been around forever even if the composition is changing. The problem is that it is easier than ever to mobilize marginal opinions (social media) and one particular group of those vulnerable to offenderari has grown substantially (adjunct professors).
[Note that the Kipnis case ought not be put in this category. The underlying claim was one of what conservatives might call “legitimate” sexual assault, and the retaliation claim against Kipnis for using her position of power to demean the student is probably meritless but neither frivolous nor one involving liberal “offense.” And the process worked as it should. The claim was dismissed. The only weird piece is that an expensive law firm did the investigation, but that’s because there was a conflict-of-interest with the Title XI counselor.]
I do think kids have more power at a younger age these days (and by “these days” I mean the last generation or so), lately exacerbated by the Social Media Amplification Effect. So it’s not new, but it’s worse than it used to be.
Political correctness is a pale shadow of patriotic correctness. How many of your Facebook friends are sharing posts that go along the line of “How DARE we call what Caitlyn Jenner did courage? THESE are the real courageous ones!” superimposed over a picture of US troops. We can never offer praise to anyone, because we praise the troops to the exclusion of all others. Armed Forces Day. Veterans Day. Memorial Day. Independence Day. Flag Day. Every day of the year, for that matter. All days where the correct thing to do is place your palms together, tilt your head slightly to one side, place your hands to the lower side of your face, and in your gushiest voice say “the troops” while looking dreamily skyward. Gotta stand for that national anthem at every game, with instructions from the PA to put your hand over your heart. Gotta force the kids to recite the pledge every day (ESPECIALLY the 'under God" line) while simultaneously posting lies on Facebook about how they don’t do this anymore for fear of offending anyone. Gotta whine about Pepsi omitting"Under God" from commemorative cans in 2002 (even though it wasn’t even Pepsi). Every time a celebrity dies, gotta whine about how DARE we think about them when we SHOULD be gushing over the troops. Most importantly, gotta constantly whine about political correctness.
Exactly. All politics is identity politics. The reaction against the new members of the offenderati class is mostly a result of the content of those opinions (radical feminist, generally) and not to the general phenomenon of using offense to silence and punish political opponents, which has long been an equal opportunity tactic.
True. Just look at the OP, and how outraged it is that people are trying to speak in a fair manner. Just look at Seinfeld, and how outraged he is that a teenager is (gasp!) snarky at her mother.
Outrage is indeed a national pastime, but I’m not sure you’re correctly identifying all the players.