Let's talk political correctness.

Great Debates
101

Gorilla Man said

I own the book that he said it in. I believe it’s a compilation of routines he’s done live. Carlin’s point was that he was basically getting fed up with having to expand the names of things he was already used to and felt that there were terms for already. From two syllables to multi-syllable phrases.

How is what I am saying reverse logic? I am saying that you can call people who have shell shock as having “PTSD”, people who have been through trauma as “PTSD” but not that kids have shell shock because they’ve never been near an exploding shell. Your example is not like my example at all.

People who exhibit a certain cluster of symptoms based on a traumatic event are said to have PTSD. Whether it’s caused by exploding shells, child abuse or molestation or natural disaster. All I am saying is that it’s ridiculous to say that they have “shell shock” when the more descriptive and accurate term would be that they exhibit PTSD. How is that reverse logic? I guess you’d say that they all have “shell shock” and that would make more sense and not be ridiculous?

Athelas said:

So, what you are suggesting is that you alone should have ultimate authority on what people should be called? Seriously? Otherwise it’s an imposition on you? Interesting. Your analogy is not parallel. Who the hell are they to tell us how we should drive? Who the hell are you to tell them what they should be called? Oh, sorry, that would be putting their morality on you I suppose. I guess you’d better let them know what they are called.

102

Because I think it will be a waste of effort. But OK.

Your insistence that nothing more than an increase in volume among certain kids–the only claim made in your citation, with no indication that they are refusing to pay attention to the instructor or that they are being disruptive–is some sort of breakdown of discipline reminds me of the caricatured teacher in the “Brick in the Wall” video.

Your declaration that the recognition that differing cultures led to a breakdown in communication simply had to be an example of “blame” reminds me of Humpty Dumpty’s conversation with Alice:

Nothing I presented indicated that anyone needed to be blamed for anything, yet you insisted that it had to be a matter of “blame.”

Even here you insert a spurious reference to the silly accustion of “PC” where it was not needed.

In general, I agree that there is plenty of ideologically driven wooly-headed thinking. My specific problem with cries of “PC” are that, since the term has only two meanings–that of Right-wing ideologues blasting wooly-headed thinking on the Left and that of some truly ignorant people confusing the universal trend to euphemism as a political movement–actual cries of “PC” make an implicit assumption that only the Left engages in wooly-headed thinking.

If one encounters bad choices, regardless of its place on the political spectrum, it makes more sense to attack foolishness for its lack of wisdom. Engaging in name-calling, hurling “PC” around, is simply a way to implicitly pretend that all the foolishness is on one side of the political ledger and such name-calling gets in the way of actually examining issues for genuine problems or genuine solutions.

103

Which side of the road you drive on is not a moral issue. And that decision can’t very well be left up to the individual. Poor example.

Is it really all that annoying to keep track of current usage? The basics change every few decades. I’m trying to think of the most recent shift and nothing comes to mind since a general move from Oriental to Asian. But it isn’t a moral issue. And the custom certainly isn’t universal.

There is also a tendency to say “people who are handicapped” instead of “handicapped people.” And that includes whatever specific handicap a person might have. For example, style books of some of the publishing companies now say “people who are blind” rather than “blind people.” It’s a matter of style, I think, rather than political correctness.

People have always had the choice of being unmannerly in free societies. That hasn’t changed.

Look again at what he said. He says that that may be the cause.

I agree with you that the notion that the white teachers are ignorant of some of the traditional African-American religious services is silly.

The science of genetics is now bringing into question the concept of breakdown according to race anyway. How can there be a gap if there is no race?

Sarafeena, you mentioned that some that you knew in college referred to themselves as “leftists.” I have used that term here at the SD to describe myself from time to to time. I’ve also used liberal and Democrat. The terms really shouldn’t be used interchangeably. Not all Democrats are liberals. Not all liberals are leftists. I would suggest that because of its history in 20th Century America, the connotation of the word “leftist” has more to suggest of Socialism and Communism than simply being “a member of the left.” You won’t find that in the definition, but it is part of what it suggests – at least for my generation. That’s why a “leftist agenda” for me would be socialism.

I’ve honestly never seen an actual agenda – or list – except in a campaign ad. And I worked in politics quite a bit when I was younger. Everybody knows about talking points and platforms at the conventions. They don’t seem to mean a whole lot in the long run. I don’t think either party has an actual “list” that all members of the party circulated among themselves.

Nixon had an actual Enemies List. It included Paul Newman. That pissed me off.

When I suggested the use of “Movement” and “Extreme” for the right, I was speaking only of how a propagandist would best choose words, but I failed to mention my main point. Sorry about the confusion. “Movement” would suggest a little of the Facist theme. “Agenda” is a Communist tie in and that’s why it’s so good to use against liberals.

We have had traditional kinds of propaganda used against us by the current administration constantly. That’s why so many Americans have supported the war.

If anything is “politically incorrect,” it’s old-fashioned propaganda. Is it even taught in schools how to recognize these techniques these days?

104

Wait, a group saying, “Don’t use term X, we don’t like be referred to that way,” is an external imposition, but you saying, “If I say something isn’t offensive to you, then you don’t get to be offended by it,” isn’t an external imposition?

Actually, that would be incredibly hard, requiring millions and millions of dollars in replacing road signage, repainting streets, and in some cases completely rebuilding our highway infrastructure, to say nothing of the enormous spike in accidents caused by people whose driving reflexes have been conditioned to drive on the right. Whereas, calling people by the term they prefer to be called by takes a miniscule amount of effort to remember a handful of terms, and won’t cost you a cent or put your life in any sort of jeopardy.

Incidentally, you really suck at analogies.

105

But that’s not what I’m saying. You are attacking a strawman here. What’s the point of responding to an argument that I didn’t make?

In general or in some specific instance?

Haha. I mean what I say – nothing more and nothing less. I never stated that the Right does not engage in “wooly-headed thinking.” This thread is about political correctness.

Are people on the Right infected by some version of political correctness? Perhaps. One example is that the Right likes to formulate public policy on the Randian assumption that all people are freely able to negotiate and contract with others. So they oppose minimum wage increases and consumer protection laws.

But still, it’s not quite the same. What if a university president stated that Congress should consider raising the minimum wage and strengthening consumer protection laws in order to help unsophisticated people in the lower class? It’s unlikely that he or she would be crucified for it. The fact is that we’re allowed to freely debate this issue.

Maybe a better example is creationism. Is it required teaching in some parts of the country? Would a school superintendant in one of those areas get fired if he or she publicly questioned creationism?

I disagree and I don’t mind stating that there is a lot of foolishness on the Right.

106

Here’s what he said (at least according to Nanette Asimov):

(bolding added)

He said “is” not “may be”

Thanks. That’s not exactly what I said, but basically I think that that white teachers are probably not as ignorant as O’Connell seems to be suggesting and that even if they were 100% non-ignorant, it wouldn’t have much effect on the achievement gap.

Maybe someone needs to tell O’Connell to cancel next year’s achievement gap summit?

107

One thing I’ll grant you, you’ve got quite the imagination!

Is it “PC” to suggest that cultural insensitivity may in some measure contribute to the achievement gap?

Daniel

108

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is a specific recognised medical condition. Using the term accurately outside of medicine is merely being accurate, not being politically correct. However, using the term to describe people who have not been diagnosed (whether or not some of them may actually have suffered PTSD) is inappropriate, and the medically-outdated but still meaningful non-medical ‘shell shock’ is better.

109

Which I why I made the Pink Floyd and Lewis Carroll references to disengage. You are often quite careful to say nothing while implying much. This allows you a bit of (im)plausible deniability. You quoted a point that referred to black and Latino kids clapping and being louder in a class, then made a big deal about discipline and further insisted I state whether I saw acceptance of that louder behavior (with no indication of actual disruption) as a sign of a “relaxation” of discipline and when I responded with an explicit set of conditions, you claimed that we obviously saw discipline differently while providing no explanation of the differences.

You passed up multiple opportunities to set forth an actual outline of how you would perceive discipline and now you want to pout that my reading of your implied statements is a strawman. As I already predicted, the effort was a waste of my time.

Both. In the larger context of your specific statements regarding the kids avoiding eye contact during discipline which is the specific context of the discussion to which these points were made trailing back up the thread.

Your habit of submitting single line pseudo-Socratic questioning frequently leads to this sort of impasse in threads, where after a while, even you cannot remember what point is being made to which question.

It does nothing to promote the discussion and you are just playing games.

110

These folks WERE socialists. My closest friend was one of this crowd, and she describes herself as a socialist to this day.

I have never seen such a list, either, and I don’t believe that I ever said that I had. But everyone knew which causes and sides of issues were the “right” ones to support…it was made very clear by action and words.

Forgive me, but I think you are being a little pedantic in your use of these words. I am not a “propagandist,” and so I am choosing words in a way that best describes what I am trying to say. Which is that, when you look at all the causes that someone on the left (or someone on the right) supports, they generally all support a general view of how the world should be, that the members of that group are trying to work towards. That, in my mind, is described properly with the use of the word “agenda.” It’s not meant to be anything sinister or even necessarily negative.

111

I love how this question comes so naturally to those without an ax to grind, an that brazil84 becomes disjointed by it, because he has no answer (“I dunno - vitamins n’ shit… We got drugs that make people taller, right?” Uh…no…).

athelas linked to a popular portal for a internet hate-group that’s tries to put modern scientific airs on old-fashioned anti-black racism (and it’s ridiculously constrained to anti-black sentiment). They claim that there’s plenty of scientific evidence for natural black stupidity that’s “covered up” by the media, and is banned and censored. There’s nothing being banned, or censored, of course (or else would they be able to share their documents so easily?), they’re just disappointed that enough people neither share their enthusiasm for the study of black stupidity, nor agree with their forced interpretations.

So who was talking about an “achievement gap” anyway? Why is this even a concept? When did black people ask for a report card? Of what consequence is an “achievement gap” to anyone, including individual black people?

112

It’s of consequence to members of a pattern-forming species whose members are prone to overgeneralize from patterns. I had a wonderful teacher tell me after a long day in a local school, “sometimes it’s really hard not to be a bigot.” She was exagerrating and voicing a fear about herself in the extremes of frustration. She teaches at a school in a highly segregated town, in which the majority of poor students are the majority of black students, in which it’s very hard to find black students who are academically on par with white students.

When you see this every day, even though you wear yourself ragged doing your best to treat students equitably and without regard to race, then yeah, you do start to wonder what’s causing it. When you see the kids themselves noticing it and forming scary conclusions based on what they see, then yeah, the achievement gap becomes a serious concern.

If a population isn’t succeeding because of some unchangeable characteristic, then you shouldn’t waste time trying to change it. But if there’s something going on that’s keeping that population from success, something that can be changed, why on earth would you ignore it?

Daniel

113

Because it’s none of your business, or anyone’s business actually.

114

If kids aren’t doing well at school, I kind of think it’s the business of a teacher to figure out why. You don’t agree?

115

Specific kids or an aggregate group that includes even those who are doing well?

116

Gorilla Man said:

I understand not using the term PTSD for those not diagnosed with PTSD. But why would I say that a kid has “shell shock?” What is meaningful about saying a kid who was abused has shell shock? I would probably say something like “this child needs to be evaluated to see if he has PTSD.” And in real life, I don’t go throwing the term out here and there. I only know a few kids who had PTSD, but it was George Carlin’s bit that made me think that maybe some things people label as being “PC” were just attempts at being more accurate.

Let’s look at something I have had trouble with: Indian vs. Native American.

Now, again, George Carlin comes in and says that they weren’t called “Indians” because the explorers thought they were in India and called them that, but that they called them “people of God” which somehow comes from “in deos” or some such.

Regardless, either account does NOT take into account what the people already living here actually called themselves. So regardless, they didn’t ask to be called Indians, it was imposed on them. Why not call them by their traditional tribal names instead?

Because I side with trying to be more accurate, I have a problem with the term Native American. Since the word “native” means “born in” that would mean that anyone who had been born in America would technically be “Native American.” Just like I am a native New Orleanian. So, when possible, I opt to call them by what they call themselves. Di Ne’ for instance.

117

It would depend on the context. Certainly I would characterize O’Connell’s statement as being informed by PC.

118

Whatever. Your posts seem like you are arguing with some demon in your mind rather than arguing with me.

That would be way off point. There’s no need to debate what is and isn’t disruptive behavior in a classroom.

The point is that each teacher has a standard of what is disruptive and what isn’t. If a teacher begins to tolerate behavior that he or she did not tolerate before, this is a relaxation of discipline. By my definition, anyway.

Again, it seems like you are arguing with somebody else. I’m just not saying what you seem to think I’m saying.

I suspect it’s you who are playing games, in your own mind. But you’re gonna have to push a lot harder to get me into a meta-debate.

119

Lol. That’s quite a paraphrase.

By the way, if you want to learn something, check out this article:

Uhhh . . . . yes.

120

Oh. Well then, alright. Now did the scientists who developed a treatment for especially short children need to frame their study by race before doing so?