# Is the tide about to turn against political correctness? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 8, 2015, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-tide-about-to-turn-against-political-correctness/721986 "2015-06-08T16:47:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Max\_the\_Immortal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6de8d8/32.png) [@Max\_the\_Immortal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_the_Immortal)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2015, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-tide-about-to-turn-against-political-correctness/721986/21 "2015-06-08T20:12:35Z")
What definition of political correctness are we using? I’m accustomed to a low-key “Don’t be a jerk to people with regard to race, gender, etc.” definition. And you should be living by “Don’t be a jerk.” already. I don’t think the tide is turning against that. If we’re going by some sort of offenderati caricature, I think the tide has been against it for a long time, despite the occasional story you see on the internet. Didn’t that Vox article [get trashed in MPSIMS](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=758901)? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2015, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-tide-about-to-turn-against-political-correctness/721986/22 "2015-06-08T20:19:09Z")
“Short of walking into a conversation, sandblasting the brick and installing track lighting, there is no surer way to announce one is from the 1980s than to mount an assault on ‘political correctness,’ the contemporary phrase for which is ‘not being a jackass.’” — [Tabatha Southey](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Political_correctness) ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2015, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-tide-about-to-turn-against-political-correctness/721986/23 "2015-06-08T20:30:58Z")
> [@Max\_the\_Immortal](#): > > What definition of political correctness are we using? I’m accustomed to a low-key “Don’t be a jerk to people with regard to race, gender, etc.” definition. And you should be living by “Don’t be a jerk.” already. I don’t think the tide is turning against that. I agree. To me, political correctness just means bigots shouldn’t feel safe just because none of _them_ are in the room. Nowadays you don’t have to be a specific target of some kind of bigotry to be offended by it. Bigots are confused by this: “Why are you upset? I wasn’t making a joke about you.” This widespread social disapproval makes bigotry less comfortable and that makes the world a better place. Except for the bigots. But fuck them. ---
**Author:** ![Stringbean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Stringbean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stringbean)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2015, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-tide-about-to-turn-against-political-correctness/721986/24 "2015-06-08T22:51:49Z")
Yo, if Tabatha Southey is against it, then we should heed. I mean, every time see her 2-bit crowning achievement of a quote, it just magically erases the near-inanity of modern political correctness and its cohort of whiny teenagers. Oh SHIT!!! I’m treading dangerously close to mounting an assault on political correctness! Back to the 80s where I belong!! ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2015, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-tide-about-to-turn-against-political-correctness/721986/25 "2015-06-08T23:01:55Z")
Yeah, that seems to be one of **BG** ’s favorite quotes. Given the context I expected her to be some 20 something lib blogger, but she looks middle aged. It’s funny because it seems to be implying people who complain about PC culture are conservative fossils like Rush Limbaugh or something, whereas the reality is a lot of people complaining about PC culture are young and lib. Some weren’t even alive in the '80s. So the quote makes\*\* BG\*\* seem out of touch to me. YMMV. I’d agree the right also displays hilarious amounts of PC culture (especially the religious puritans and America first crowd), but they’re increasingly irrelevant. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2015, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-tide-about-to-turn-against-political-correctness/721986/26 "2015-06-08T23:31:44Z")
I sure don’t want to betray my 80’s sensibilities! So I’ll hide them behind a quote from the 50’s (1750’s): “_Oui, mais il faut cultiver notre jardin_” ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2015, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-tide-about-to-turn-against-political-correctness/721986/27 "2015-06-08T23:42:09Z")
> [@andros](#): > > :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. I don’t see it as sexist–I mean, it’s true that when you get older, you get more interested in the opposite sex. Or same sex. If her mother had said, “Don’t worry about joining the math team–you’ll be too busy with clothes and makeup to impress the guys for that,” then yes, but pointing out that girls become interested in boys hardly seems sexist. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2015, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-tide-about-to-turn-against-political-correctness/721986/28 "2015-06-08T23:57:31Z")
> [@marshmallow](#): > > I’d agree the right also displays hilarious amounts of PC culture (especially the religious puritans and America first crowd), but they’re increasingly irrelevant. I’d go the other way. While I see a fair amount of nonsense attributed to “Political Correctness,” (whatever that is beyond the desire to use a phrase that condemns “liberals” in order to shut them up), I see at least as much nonsense coming from the Religious Right and the Economic Right. There is probably a bit more Left Wing “Political Correctness” on college campuses, (as the pendulum has swung from the Right Wing censorship that often dominated college administrations up to the mid-1960s), but that college censorship is quite thoroughly balanced by the Right Wing efforts at censorship that I see emanating from radio shows and some pulpits that are manifested in attacks on local school boards or city and town councils. (Even the “Left Wing college” brand has gone through fits of Right Wing revival; following the WTC/Pentagon attacks, a number of schools dropped various courses regarding the Middle East and Islam–just as we needed to have more people educated on those topics.) I suspect that the anonymous author of the link in the OP is exaggerating or cherry picking his bad incidents, (possibly based on a change in his own personal views that he fails to realize have moved him away from his declared identification). Some of what he describes may be real. Our local school superintendent has discussed the rise in threatened lawsuits against the district based on imagined injuries inflicted by the voices of teachers. However, those lawsuits appear to be prompted by a sense of entitlement that crosses the entire political spectrum, not something that originates on the Left or Right. ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2015, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-tide-about-to-turn-against-political-correctness/721986/29 "2015-06-09T00:03:36Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > I don’t see it as sexist–I mean, it’s true that when you get older, you get more interested in the opposite sex. Or same sex. If her mother had said, “Don’t worry about joining the math team–you’ll be too busy with clothes and makeup to impress the guys for that,” then yes, but pointing out that girls become interested in boys hardly seems sexist. Yeah, I don’t get how that’s sexist as quoted. ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2015, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-tide-about-to-turn-against-political-correctness/721986/30 "2015-06-09T00:18:16Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > Note that the Kipnis case ought not be put in this category. To me, the case is not as important as what she wrote in her article. For example. she claims that, in a film class, university students can opt out of a seeing a film it they suspect it would disturb their equanimity. Now, I don’t think film classes need to be required. But, to me, being shielded against challenges to your deepest beliefs goes against the idea of a liberal education. > [@adaher](#): > > It seems like if there’s going to be serious blowback against this kind of nonsense, we’re reaching a critical mass now. I hope you’re right. But Northwestern making it about whether Kipnis is allowed to write what she wrote, rather than grappling with her diagnosis, makes me doubt it. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2015, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-tide-about-to-turn-against-political-correctness/721986/31 "2015-06-09T00:18:37Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > This sentence makes me feel unsafe. Nicely played, **Bricker**. Otherwise, what **Richard Parker** said. There has always been some form or another of “shame culture” seeking to wield power through social opprobrium, and we become alarmed when it’s the supposedly subordinate (younger v. old, student v. faculty, minority v. majority) doing so. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2015, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-tide-about-to-turn-against-political-correctness/721986/32 "2015-06-09T00:25:49Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#): > > To me, the case is not as important as what she wrote in her article. For example. she claims that, in a film class, university students can opt out of a seeing a film it they suspect it would disturb their equanimity. Now, I don’t think film classes need to be required. But, to me, being shielded against challenges to your deepest beliefs goes against the idea of a liberal education. Did she claim that? I thought she told an anecdote about how a student wanted to opt-out, and she (rightly) wouldn’t let her. I’m with you that students need to be exposed to diverse and even offensive opinions. And so are 99% of liberal arts professors and the vast majority of students. From my perch, the backlash looks bigger than the actual problem on a lot of these issues. Though, again, I do think there is a real problem in some students being quick to claim offense and some adjuncts being in such precarious positions that they cave. Obviously, that was not Kipnis’s problem. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2015, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-tide-about-to-turn-against-political-correctness/721986/33 "2015-06-09T00:45:12Z")
I think it hilarious when the various factionalized groups that hyper-prescribe appropriate speech come into direct conflict with one another. A really good example are the male to female transexuals advocating speech and viewpoints that contradict the viewpoints of the radical feminists. I don’t have any specific opinion on transexuals but I know that many radical feminists are way up there on the crackpot scale so any opponent of theirs is a friend of mine. I hope the generalized PC approach will just implode due to a devolution of infighting between the various groups most guilty of it. Contrary to what has been repeatedly claimed over the years and even in this thread, rational people don’t use the term ‘PC’ to refer to basic societal standards that promote civility and general equality. It is a term used to describe redefintion of common words, pressure to use new terms that were approved by a self-selected group that may not even be part of the group in question, censorship and finally, punishment for people that refuse to obey. Not being a jerk has nothing to do with it. It is the difference between keeping your yard neat and tidy or your own versus having a self-appointed representative from a home owners association nobody signed up for driving by your house three times a day to make sure that everything you do meets their approval. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2015, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-tide-about-to-turn-against-political-correctness/721986/34 "2015-06-09T00:48:52Z")
When I was a fine art major, a Christian woman in my life drawing class was able to earn her grade by doing only face portraits of the model, but still sat in front of him in all his starkness. Please don’t tell me that today she’d be demanding he cover his oppressive rape tool in tighty whities like the models were when my grandfather studied at Chouinard in the 40’s. Especially after women protested to be admitted to life drawing classes in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2015, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-tide-about-to-turn-against-political-correctness/721986/35 "2015-06-09T00:56:41Z")
\*\*Is the tide about to turn against political correctness? \*\*The tide not only is turning, but has turned against the use of the phrase “political correctness” to change meaning to suit the particular complaint and the whim of the usually intolerant person using it. Very rarely do actual politics have jack shit to do with whatever feigned outrage the phrase is lobbed upon. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2015, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-tide-about-to-turn-against-political-correctness/721986/36 "2015-06-09T01:01:36Z")
Many people think, “If we don’t talk about problems, the problem will go away.” It won’t. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2015, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-tide-about-to-turn-against-political-correctness/721986/37 "2015-06-09T01:02:12Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > I hope the generalized PC approach will just implode due to a devolution of infighting between the various groups most guilty of it. Contrary to what has been repeatedly claimed over the years and even in this thread, rational people don’t use the term ‘PC’ to refer to basic societal standards that promote civility and general equality. It is a term used to describe redefintion of common words, pressure to use new terms that were approved by a self-selected group that may not even be part of the group in question, censorship and finally, punishment for people that refuse to obey. Not being a jerk has nothing to do with it. It is the difference between keeping your yard neat and tidy or your own versus having a self-appointed representative from a home owners association nobody signed up for driving by your house three times a day to make sure that everything you do meets their approval. That’s what a lot of people say about the term. I generally find it more instructive to look at how the phrase is actually used, though. ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2015, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-tide-about-to-turn-against-political-correctness/721986/38 "2015-06-09T01:04:36Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > Did she claim that? I thought she told an anecdote about how a student wanted to opt-out, and she (rightly) wouldn’t let her. Re-reading, maybe the truth lies in between. She cited this article: > **[Opinion | In College and Hiding From Scary Ideas (Published 2015)](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/22/opinion/sunday/judith-shulevitz-hiding-from-scary-ideas.html?_r=0)** > > Universities, rather than being forums for free expression, are encouraging “safe spaces” to protect delicate sensibilities. Then Prof. Kipnis wrote: > [@](#): > > The triggeree was a minority student, though not the minority targeted in the film. Still, I could see what might be upsetting. In the other case, the connection between the student and the film was obscure: no overlapping identity categories, and though there was some sexual content in the film, it wasn’t particularly explicit. We exchanged emails about whether she should sit out the discussion, too; I proposed that she attend and leave if it got uncomfortable . . . > > I had an image of her in a meeting with a bunch of execs, telling them that she couldn’t watch one of the company’s films because it was a trigger for her. She agreed this could be a problem, and sat in on the discussion with no discernable ill effects. I’m reading between lines. But it sounds to me like, in the case of the minority student, he or she totally got away with avoiding the alleged trigger, while the non-minority student was given a choice, and choose to miss the film but attend the classroom discussion. Someone could say this means Kipnis herself is the problem. But I can’t see her making such allowances if her colleagues weren’t. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2015, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-tide-about-to-turn-against-political-correctness/721986/39 "2015-06-09T01:05:26Z")
What are professors supposed to do in debates where one side or the other is guaranteed to be offended? ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2015, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-tide-about-to-turn-against-political-correctness/721986/40 "2015-06-09T01:17:27Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > That’s what a lot of people say about the term. I generally find it more instructive to look at how the phrase is actually used, though. Funny, same here. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-tide-about-to-turn-against-political-correctness/721986.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-tide-about-to-turn-against-political-correctness/721986.md?page=3)