It still exists in colleges and during the interminable corporate awareness classes. (and of course at Environmental festivals)
Jim
Aside from the usual “sexual harassment training” and “cultural sensitivity” classes (which all boil down to “don’t be an asshole at work”), I’ve never seen any instances of political correctness in a workplace, at least of the “You must refer to these ethnic groups as ‘<blank>-American’” stereotypical PC-ness.
Did you see my post, immediately above yours? Until this semester at college, I wouldn’t have believed it either–and I previously majored in political economy at a college dominated by unreconstructed Marxists.
Daniel
I am happy for you, my company is apparently 10 years behind the times. We probably had some incident I am not aware of, because we had the whole PCism class just last year and the Tool Room was made to take down tool calendars of Models in Bikini’s. Pretty much the same one I went through a dozen times in the late 80’s and 90’s.
I may be wrong about the colleges; I am guilty of extrapolating from a small sample.
Jim
You definitely need to fuck with this woman. Wait til she uses “gyp” or “welsh” or anything else and make a big fricking deal out of it with marching students of something-american descent chanting “one two three four we don’t want your racism anymore”. Extra points if the rhymes scan badly.
Antioch?
Evergreen.
And I think there’s about zero chance of either professor using a word like “gyp” or “welsh.” They may be really out of touch in these areas, but they’re pretty consistent, at least.
Daniel
Or if you’re attending an evangelical church, say something during fellowship hour about what a great President you think Kerry would have been.
IOW, political correctness is alive and well in many different environments. There are both left and right varieties of it. It’s just that nobody’s bothered to write books about right-wing PC; it’s alive and well, but those of us on the left mostly have more important things to worry about.
Well I disagree that this topic is dead in the water. However, I feel like getting an honest debate about a problem that was never solved which people view as a “trend”, isn’t going to be possible.
Try talking about a free market in a room full of ‘progressive lefties’ and you’ll know exactly what I mean.
I still maintain that engineering the language to suit an agenda leads to denial, and therefore is one of the worst problems in our society. You may think that engineering newspeak doesn’t rate as a problem, and I hope for you that this is true. I think it is the subtle lingual cues that is seperating us.
However, I will go look for a more nuanced discussion elsewhere.
Erek
You posted. Other people responded. And then you declare you’re taking your ball and going home? Cute.
The agenda, as has been pointed out 5 times already, is to be more civil to your fellow man. I can’t see that as being a problem.
How about another board. Where everyone agrees with you and you can live your life free from the thoughts of others that challenge your own view of the world. May I suggest Hannity?
For some reason I view engineering the language to suit one’s propaganda as causal to all of the things you’ve mentioned above. Everything you have described is a symptom. Without a clearing of the propagandized language we have accepted, we can’t possibly hope to adequately address those issues.
If people do not think that the feudal aristocracy invented rules of etiquette in order to keep the serfs in line, then we possibly can’t have anything to talk about, because that was an integral part of the tradition.
I heard some great quote about it that I wish I had handy, about how the customs aren’t supposed to make sense, they are supposed to confuse the the lower classes.
Erek
I cut all the chaff from your post. I’ll adress this part. The agenda is to be civil, certainly, the methods are NOT WORKING. The answer isn’t ‘redefine the language’ the answer is ‘just be more civil to your fellow man’. There isn’t more than that, and building it more than that only causes further problems, like confusing people as to what the proper forms of etiquette are. Because as has been pointed out in this thread, the etiquette is based on fads.
Erek
There’s a certain irony in someone objecting to political correctness then, when his own objection is objected to, declaring that he’s going to go find somewhere else where he won’t meet with so many objections.
Yes, it’s a problem. So is the military’s insistence on referring to “operations” instead of “attacks” or “gaining control of an area” instead of “killing 16 soldiers and 20 civilians.” Personally, I’d rather focus on the military’s inaccurate description of its own acts: these seem to me to be the greater problem.
Daniel
Which might have been a clearer point if you had not muddied your presentation with:
- Errors of fact regarding the source and use of etiquette;
- A decided Right-wing bias to your presentation (attacking “PC” while ignoring the attacks on civility and attempts to shape the language that emanate from the Right);
- And your odd self-hijacking attack on various charitable groups (that are hardly above reproach, but that are certainly not part of “shaping language”).
How about showing us some concrete examples of the grave real-world harm political correctness is causing? So far all you’ve given us is that you feel uncomfortable talking to black people for fear you’ll accidentally give offense, and some incomprehensible stuff about it causing corruption at the Red Cross.
Unless you’d like to talk about the dangers of euphemism in general, perhaps? Are you similarly worried about such usages as “stress position” and “collateral damage”?
Aggressive disagreement with a particular position is not “political correctness”. Can you give some specific examples of how these “progressive lefties” attempted to enforce a speech code on your economic theories? Were you told terms like “trickle down” and “regressive tax” were offensive to their ears? What is the politically correct term for “corporation”?
As I said, if you want to talk about the dangers of euphemism in general there might be some space for an interesting debate. For example, how do you feel about the coded use of the term “family values” to mean “opposed to homosexuals”? But if you’re just going to ride the old “why can’t I say ‘nigger’ isn’t this a free country” hobbyhorse then I’ll think you’ll find the discussion has largely moved on.
That’s pretty weak.
Hmm. This is pretty incoherent, isn’t it? Can we all pretend I didn’t post this?
Daniel
Brother, I suspect you have got it worse. At least the old line liberals won’t call me Satan or ignore all arguments and say it is a “Matter of Faith”. 
Post what, I don’t see a thing.
Jim
Tell you what: why don’t you think long and hard about what those reasons might be, then get back to us. Because that’s the silliest goddamn thing I’ve ever heard.
Do you have anything vaguely resembling evidence to back this up? Because what I just said about your last paragraph? That’s no longer the case. This is now the silliest goddamn thing I’ve ever heard.
I think you’re going to need a slightly more hefty reference book here than Bartlett’s Familiar. Next time, try showing up with an argument. All you’ve got here is a conclusion, with precious little to support it.
The use of “liberal guilt” probably should’ve tipped everybody off. I’ve never heard anyone who was interested in starting a discussion (instead of a harangue) use that phrase. Likewise, I have never heard anyone say “handicapable” in earnest. If I didn’t post to this board, I would have had precisely one conversation in my life about what black people should be called, and zero about any other group. (That one conversation was short, too.) I see it portrayed in television comedies all the time, but not in reality. I don’t like euphemisms at all, but mswas seems to be badly overstating all of these problems.
Political correctness is not a new problem. It’s an old joke. There’s nothing wrong in principle with calling people what they want to be called. It goes too far sometimes, but what doesn’t? We’re at a stage now where anytime somebody doesn’t like or understand a term, especially if it’s recently coined, they throw their arms up and yell “Political Correctness! Political Correctness!”
I don’t know when or in what situations you talk to black people. But not knowing if I can say “nigger” or “black” has never caused me a problem in talking to any black person. One of the reporters I work with is Latino or Hispanic. I don’t know which one of those things he actually is, I don’t know which country he or his family is from, and none of it has ever been a problem in our communication.
I don’t know what you think “white academic society” expects of you, but I have a feeling it’s largely in your head.
Ah, mainstream liberal thought.
I can really only imagine one person using this word.
The only thing that matters is, is he a Mexican or a Mexican’t?
Daniel