I believe the doublespeak we refer to as “Political Correctness” is one of the most damaging aspects of our society.
It has to do with etiquette. Historically etiquette has been used to seperate the upper classes from the lower classes. Political Correctness divides people who largely agree on things by seperating them along lines of a ‘shared’ etiquette that isn’t truly shared. How many discussions have you heard about what the appropriate name for black people is?
To be honest there would be nothing wrong with calling all black people ‘niggers’ if it weren’t for the intention that has been attached to the word. Now everyone has to walk on eggshells, and navigate an unfathomable idea of etiquette to actually discuss anything.
How about the alienation that comes from making it extremely awkward to talk to someone? I’ve found that the biggest barrier in speaking to black people in my life has been trying to adhere to this etiquette that white academic society expects of me, but the black people I am trying to talk to don’t care about.
I’ve seen so many people talk about how it’s not fair that black people call each other “nigga” but white people can’t. Actually I’ve heard lots of white people use the word “nigga”, to black and white people both. In a relaxed situation no one really cares.
The real important thing is intention. What is your intention? Is it to find out more about someone’s culture? Or is it to dissuade guilt? One of the reasons I think that UN aid falls apart so often, and why the culture of the Red Cross is so corrupt is that these organizations exist to absolve people of guilt. “I send money to the red cross, I am a good person.”, me personally, I would never send money to the Red Cross, I would find a grassroots charity that does the same work, because I know a greater percentage of my money is going to be applied directly to the problem I am sending the money to solve. I can find out about grassroots charities easily with the power of Google.
So what I am proposing here is that charity out of guilt is part of the problem and not part of the solution. This is because charity out of guilt is more about the person giving than it is about the person receiving, and it’s not an equal exchange. It’s the same sort of behavior as the friend who is being consoled by the friend in the hospital, rather than the person in the hospital being consoled.
I also hate PC. Using longer words because the word has now acquired a negative meaning is a snake biting its own tale.
Can’t say retarded as too negative, so next they are mentally handicapped, then that got negative and they became mentally disabled, but disabled is too negative so now we have handicap-able. This is a prime example of going to silly and ridiculous length in the name of Political Correctness.
As far a Red Cross, I only donate to the specific causes. Katrina, Tsunami and 9/11 are examples. I give most of my charity dollars and effort to local groups that I have targeted as my most important issues. (Environmental) I think it is fine to mix both. I give blood and they have a high overhead, but this is better than the pay for blood of the old days. The Red Cross has proven itself a better first responder than most government agencies around the world, so they do actually deserve support.
I also give money to support NPR and the local Public Radio station as I would hate to see the go away. I need these voices to counter the corporate news I would be stuck with otherwise.
No. Etiquette is nothing more than a system of agreed-upon protocols for social interaction. Different social groups have different etiquettes. Not knowing the local rules can get you ostracized or even beaten up, depending on whether you’re at a country club or a biker bar, but its not part of some grand scheme of upper class oppression.
Almost none. And I’m a bleeding heart liberal.
Is it really that hard to refrain from calling someone an offensive name? Do you find yourself walking on eggshells around your boss, fearful at any moment that you will accidentally call him a “cocksucker”?
Barring someone with Tourettes, is it really that unreasonable to expect a rational adult to not use certain words in polite conversation?
If your black friends don’t care, why are you doing it? Don’t go blaming us liberals for your behavior. That’s YOUR responsibility.
Friends can call friends whatever they want as long as everyone is cool with it. I can be out drinking with a buddy and say “Shut up, you fucking cocksucker!” to him and we both think it’s hilarious. But just try saying the same thing to a STRANGER in the same bar … .
If you and your close black friends want to call each other “nigger”, I don’t care. Go right ahead. It’s cool that you guys are such good friends that you can pass insults back and forth like that.
You’ve totally lost me. I’m not following how political correctness ties in with corruption at the Red Cross.
And Jeez, talk about ideological purity! Who cares if people are giving money out of guilt or out of a pure charitable impulse? The bottom line is getting help to people who need it. Why do you care what other people’s motivations are? What business is it of YOURS?
Uh, sure. I mean the only reason certain words are insulting is because we’ve attached certain meanings to them.
I’ve only experienced this on a limited basis. Today in Anthropology the instructor asked me to list as many races as I could. Remembering what they taught us in school many years ago I listed causcasoid, australoid, mongoloid, and I felt a bit awkward when I had to say negroid in front of the class. (Don’t worry folks, we weren’t learning outdated modes of racial classification just going over why our classifications aren’t biologically kosher.) My discomfort was essentially over the word negro, I’ve never had any problem when I just say “black.”
Marc
Sounds as though you hang out with way too many oversensitive whiny people. “Waaaaah! I don’t get to use as many insulting epithets as those other people do! It’s not faaaaaaair!”
And these people are complaining about PC? Puh-leeze. :rolleyes: In the grown-up world, don’t we have better things to worry about than whether our stock of opprobrious epithets is as big as somebody else’s?
I’m with Pochacco on this. Learning which terms to avoid and remembering to avoid them is just a normal part of civilized life, and not a big oppressive deal. Sure, a few PC-maniacs take the concept to ridiculous extremes, but reasonable people merely have to use a little common sense and sensitivity.
Fretting that Political Correctness is a terrible major destructive social force was rather silly even back in its heyday in the '90s, and at this point it’s just so over, dahling.
In my opinion it’s a long jump from not using the word nigger to walking on eggshells. The discussion of negro/colored/AA is a better example though.
I’d really like to know what sort of thing you’re talking about. Surely being told that you’re not allowed to say nigger or nigga isn’t that big of a barier to talking to blacks is it?
Well if your black friends don’t care, then what’s the problem? Just make sure that they don’t before using the word.
Yes intention is important. If you do something that causes someone discomfort, but that wasn’t your intention, then why continue to do it? That is, within reason of course. If there’s something that just has to be done, then do it. But there’s no real reason to call someone colored, or retarded or jap etc.
How fitting are the google ads right now? 1 for Diversity Training, 3 for Anger Management.
Anyway, I think most people, regardless of political leanings are more or less fed up with politically correct speech. It’s not that the original idea was bad, it’s what it has become. Like it or not, there are negative connotations associated with certain words (the reason I wouldn’t call a black stranger nigger is that connotation—it makes no difference if he uses it with his friend or you with yours—there was that whole slavery thing, remember? The words harkens back to those days, so I’d stray away from it).
mswas: But, if you’ll recall, I think I was called a benign racist, so I wouldn’t listen to me.
The OP lives in a country struggling with genuine racial inequality, poverty, crime, assaults on common freedoms by the central government, 40 million people with no health insurance, a staggering debt problem, terrorism, quagmire wars, and various other sorts of social strife, and he thinks political correctness is the worst problem ya got?
Really. isn’t the “I Hate Political Correctness” thing about ten years out of date? Didn’t this peter out in about 1996?
LOL, yes! What’s next, a Great Debate about whether Nirvana or Pearl Jam is more authentically grunge? Is Madonna’s SEX book porn? Are we prepared for the Y2K bug?
I can actually remember way back to the late 80’s when “politically correct” was a LIBERAL JOKE. It was the sort of thing you’d say when making fun of a more … strident … comrade. Who knew then that the right would take it seriously?
Congrats, Pochacco for the succinct post. I certainly concur with your viewpoint.
PC just isn’t a problem for me. Be polite, call people what they want to be called (within reason), and everything else just sort of flows. It’s a non-issue in my world. And my world ranges from regularly dealing with the scum of the earth to talking to or giving briefings to Senators and Representatives (State and Federal) along with advisors to our local Governor.
It probably was a joke, but at this point, it wouldn’t surprise me if someone DID try using it seriously. I have seen “differently abled” rather than just “disabled”, but that’s about the most extreme.
Well, it is advantageous in that, much like liberals who throw around “fascist,” when a conservative starts bitching about “political correctness,” you know they’ve pretty much run out of anything useful to say.
I really hope this was a joke thread that just wound up in the wrong Forum.
Being polite is one of the “most damaging aspects of our society”?
Etiquette was instituted or created to separate the classes?
People are walking on eggshells?
Come on!
If anything, our current society has been lessened by a diminishing of courtesy. (I think that that claim is also exaggerated, but it is more true than claims that courtesy is harmful.) This reminds me of all the folks in the late 60s and early 70s who used to rant on about how “dishonesty” was the root of all social evils, which, in 99.999% of the cases, meant that they felt a need to tell other people “honestly” about all the others’ perceived imperfections, but who got really bent out of shape when anyone pointed out their own foibles.
Every class establishes etiquette as a means to lubricate social intercourse. It is true that each class develops certain shibboleths to more easily recognize outsiders, but that is just as true from the “lower” classes to the “upper” as from the “upper” to the “lower.” (In the early 19th(?) century, a specific effort was made to teach British judges sufficient Cockney that they could query witnesses at trials who would refuse to talk to someone who was being “high and mighty.”)
As to the surface on which you walk, I have reason to talk to corporate officers and ditch diggers (literally) and people of all races and I do not find myself tip-toeing around when I am in conversation. If I am addressing members of a group and need to refer to the group, I simply take the time to see how they refer to themselves and use that language. I certainly do not go looking for the pronouncements from academia (who often get it wrong, anyway), before I speak.
Try volunteering at an environmental Folk festival. You will be amazed at what strident young, still in college PC phrases you hear. The older, (hippie) crowd largely ignores this and just uses the generic phrase accessible, but I actually got verbally attacked for using the phrase Handicapped.
I am a lifetime member of Monmouth County Friends of Clearwater (Clearwater is the environmental group founded by Pete Seeger that spearheaded the cleaning up of the Hudson River) I get a lot of very strident liberals and PC nuts. I generally avoid them but sometimes they pounce on you from ambush. They are suspicious of any Red Meat eaters / Beer Drinking members.
By the way for fun try being one of the few republicans in an environmental group. It was tough 10 years ago, now you don’t even mention it with Bush in office.
This is far and away the awesomest fun fact of the day for me.
For the first time in my life, this semester I’ve encountered people who use “politically correct” as a positive term. Two separate professors at my school (Western Carolina University for our home viewers) have chided me for not using politically correct language. My sin? Referring to black students as, get ready for this, black students instead of African-American students or (I shit you not) “Students of African-American Descent.”
I pointed out to one professor that Jonathan Kozol refers to black students, Jesse Jackson refers to black students, Manning Fucking Marable refers to black students. I gave her links. She breezily dismissed this, saying that just because they’d used these terms didn’t mean that that’s how SoAAD wanted to be referred to.
The upshot of all this is that it’s a petty fucking issue. So I’ve got one professor who’s ridiculous, and another who’s a fantastic professor but who’s self-conscious about her language use and has surrendered judgment on the matter to insane bureaucrats. Who the hell cares?
mswas, I wonder whether you could find a dozen homeless people, a dozen AIDS victims, OR a dozen rape survivors in this country who would agree with your OP. Hell, I’d settle for one.
I’m of the opinion that “political correctness” is little more than a bogeyman of the right. I don’t know of anyone who seriously uses PC in everyday speech; it only seems to get trotted out when a conservative wants to complain that it’s no longer socially acceptable to be a racist/sexist jerk.
