PC = Polite

[wring]

I agree w/Spiritus Mundi (big surprise, eh?). I had pointed out before that there is no agreed upon ‘P/C’ movement as such, so what happens is that anybody can complain about anything and others can attribute it to P/C as they see fit.

I did want to respond directly to grim’s points, as requested.

To what factors do you attribute the rise in “offense” based litigation and codes if not a growing acceptance of the PC movement?

you haven’t demonstrated a ‘rise’ in anything. There always have been moronic lawsuits and grievences. I suspect there always will be some. My suspicion is that it’s a convenient excuse.

Keep in mind, I remember being asked, seriously, in an interview ‘how would you supervise a male?’ (since I am female), being told ‘with your administrative and managerial capabilities, I’d love to have you as my secretary’ (I was applying for a managerial position) and surprise of surprises, the guy hired a male. Poetic justice, several years later, the male he hired joined forces with the rest of his staff who had tired of his sexist and racist remarks. He was fired. Was it PC related? Well, IMHO, he was fired for fostering a poor working environment with his staff, so it’s more job related than anything else.

Are you suggesting we should add “un-PC” speech (absent any activity currently considered criminal such as assault, theft, etc.) as an extra restriction on our first amendment rights?

I haven’t a clue what you are attempting to ask me here. I have a right to say anything I want in the confines of my personal life. PC/not PC. In my public life, my rights of free speech have curtailments (Fire in the theater, slander, inciteful comments etc.) In my work world, my speech is curtailed quite a bit - I cannot discuss politics with my clients for example. And in most jobs that I can think of, one’s rights of speech are curtailed in some way. I don’t see that P/C has caused this, it was in place forever as far as I can see. So, if you could possibly give me an example of what you consider to be restrictions on your right to free speech that is infringed because of PC, I might have an answer (keep in mind that any restrictions that your employer places on you would be considered by me as a condition of your employment, not PC related.

For example, you’re at a neighborhood BBQ. You are entitled to make racist and sexist remarks - and your neighbors are entitled to consider you rude. Would you be arreseted or subject to other punishments? no, (unless of course there were other criminal actions with it, or the setting was work related). So, again, I’m not seeing a reduction in your freedom of speech based on P/C.

Regarding your ‘employer has asked based on hypersensative complaints etc etc’. You don’t know that was the only reason. It’s the only one the article focused on. The guy who interviewed me in the example above, probably still thinks he was ‘railroaded’ based on some hypersenstive individual etc etc. There are often at least two sides to every story.

“how many one events” ? well, you’ve come up with, what two? perhaps stretching it a bit, 3? Over the entire nation, and over a period of years. Frankly that doesn’t even begin to compare to the number of racist/sexist/ idiotic/ situations where even just I have personally been harmed, and I’m not even a minority, just female. Multiply that by the number of folks in the work place who’ve made legitimate complaints, or more importantly, didn’t have to make complaints because folks became aware that their actions and words were harmful, rude etc.

Just for me personally, not even counting the referred interview incident, for example, for the 14 years I worked residential programs, my pay was 25% less than my male counterparts pay for exactly the same job title and responsabilities. The condescention I got from one supervisor, the unwanted sexual advances of another. the hostility I faced after my maternity leave (my job suddenly required that I work rotating shifts, including midnights, although less than one year before when I’d requested midnights, I was told I was too valuable to waste on midnights). In answer, no, I didn’t file complaints about these. So, it shouldn’t be a surprise that I find it a much more pleasant thing to have others become consciously aware of how their comments sound and may effect others.

I strongly disagree with your solution to the incident with the student and the professor using the word. I agree that her complaint is/was silly. However, it is not a professional nor proper attitude to take to tell the person making the complaint essentially “your complaint is too silly to be considered”. That’s not a practical approach, even on a strictly business sense.

(aside to december when the review of the book starts off with a statement like “The shenanigans of political correctness have been well documented” you should be able to notice they’re not entirely unbiased. “shenanigans”? “well documented”? as to the latter, even here, there’s been a small number of examples of ‘over the top’ behaviors associated. You see it as proof of a system gone haywire, I see it as a few kooks, but that the net effect for those who would have and did suffer under old style have benefited dramatically. I still see and hear of local stuff happening - a county employee won a ‘hostile environment’ suit when he was able to prove to a judge that his employers were made aware of the coworker who would comment on the “fuckin’ spic” as he walked past, daily. I’m fairly certain that the anti PC crowd here would find the behavior of the coworkers ‘poor’, and the fact that the supervisor made no attempt to alter that behavior as being ‘not good’. right? So, despite the examples shown of “PC gone mad”, problems still exist.

[Grim_Beaker]

Who is right? Impossible to say.

Agreed. The broad definition that I have been using and the narrow one being used by the pro PC camp are not definitive of the term. This is illustrated by the differing dictionary opinions above, and pointed out by your excellent post Spiritus. So I think it’s fair to claim that the term of PC is currently so muddled as to have no general consensus as to it’s meaning. Perhaps we should invent a new term, just for this thread, which has as it’s definition:

new term here

1. deliberately inoffensive: marked by language or conduct that deliberately avoids giving offense, for example, on the basis of ethnic origin or sexual orientation

Now, if those arguing against PC can look at the more restricted definition that wring and I are working from and say, “of course I agree that’s a good thing” then we might have an interesting discussion about how to reclaim the label from extremists of both camps.

At this stage I have serious doubts that reclaiming the PC label (returning it to it’s original definition of being strictly about language modification) is possible. Even if I accept the narrow definition posited by you (Spiritus) and wring it’s clear that the popular media doesn’t as evidenced by all of the articles which claim to be about PC, but which according to the narrow definition, are not.

If not, then we can have an interesting discussion about why the more limited sense of PC is bad.

I’ll address PC’ness based on a narrow definition in a new post…

Grim

[Grim_Beaker]

I had pointed out before that there is no agreed upon ‘P/C’ movement as such, so what happens is that anybody can complain about anything and others can attribute it to P/C as they see fit.

The difference between what I see as Spiritus’ stance and your stance on the issue is that I perceive Spiritus to be taking the position:

“Obviously it’s impossible to tell whose definition is correct. Therefore the only reasonable thing to do is to restrict the definition of PC’ness for purposes of this debate, prior to continuing”

Whereas I’m perceiving that your stance is:

“Since there’s no PC movement as such anyone can complain and say it’s because of the PC movement when the PC movement is really only about modifying speech and action so as to not offend.”

Do you see the difference there? Spiritus is saying that we have agree to a stricter definition, even though a stricter definition of the term isn’t necessarily accurate, in order for all the debate participants to more effectively address the same issue. You’re saying (or at least what I perceive you to be saying) that, my definition is the correct one and the anti-PC people are mistakenly adding things to it. If that perception is incorrect then I apologize and ask you to clarify your stance.

you haven’t demonstrated a ‘rise’ in anything. There always have been moronic lawsuits and grievences. I suspect there always will be some. My suspicion is that it’s a convenient excuse.

I thought that the rise in litigation was obvious. I’ll try to rectify the mistake by quoting some information from the United States government on civil rights lawsuits. Here’s a link to their site:

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/ascii/crcusdc.txt

Between 1990 and 1998 the number of cases in which plaintiffs sought civil remedies related to discrimination in employment, housing, welfare, voting, or other civil rights issues more than doubled from 18,793 to 42,354.

Between 1990 and 1998 the percentage of civil rights-related complaints terminated by trial verdict dropped from 8% to 5%, while dismissals increased from 66% to 71%.

Of the civil rights trial verdicts won by plaintiffs, the percentage awarded monetary damages declined from 83% in 1990 to 76% in 1998.

The Civil Rights Act of 1991 extended what damages could be sought by plaintiffs in these types of cases by allowing claims for non economic compensatory damages as well as punitive damages. Non economic compensatory damages reimburse the plaintiff for losses such as emotional pain, suffering,
inconvenience, mental anguish, future monetary losses, as well as loss of enjoyment of life.

Over time, however, plaintiff winners were less likely to have been awarded monetary damages regardless of the type of trial. Among civil rights cases disposed of by jury trial, the percentage of plaintiff winners who received monetary awards declined from 91% in 1990 to 80% by 1998. Among cases disposed
of by bench trial, the percentage of plaintiff winners awarded monetary damages declined to 56% in 1998 from 71% in 1990

One stat that looks like it may have had a positive impact is…

The percentage of plaintiff winners among employment trial cases increased gradually from 24% in 1990 to 36% in 1998

I’m not exactly sure what can be inferred from this information. It is, however, clear that there has been a rise in litigation even though it isn’t clear what the specifics of those cases were. I do think it’s suggestive that the number of dismissals increased and the monetary award for plaintiffs who won dropped over that same time period.

I strongly disagree with your solution to the incident with the student and the professor using the word. I agree that her complaint is/was silly. However, it is not a professional nor proper attitude to take to tell the person making the complaint essentially “your complaint is too silly to be considered”. That’s not a practical approach, even on a strictly business sense.

In your opinion what would have been the appropriate response by the university administration?

Grim

[december]

*Originally posted by wring *
**(aside to december when the review of the book starts off with a statement like “The shenanigans of political correctness have been well documented” you should be able to notice they’re not entirely unbiased. “shenanigans”? “well documented”? as to the latter, even here, there’s been a small number of examples of ‘over the top’ behaviors associated. You see it as proof of a system gone haywire, I see it as a few kooks, but that the net effect for those who would have and did suffer under old style have benefited dramatically.
**

Actually at the time of my prior post I hadn’t read the book and didn’t endorse it. Now I’ve begun reading it. It actually addresses something more serious than what many of us would refer to as “PC” – the politicization of public health research, and the the undermining of valid science. The word “shenanigans” is quite mild compared to the seriousness of the charges. Dr. Satel’s claim is that there is a “postmodern” group of public health researchers who are substituting politics for science. The politics they are promoting is anti-capitalistic and sounds much like socialism or worse. The title “PC MD” is catchy – PC rhymes with MD – but I don’t consider it descriptive.

The book reminds me of the horrors of Russian Lysenkoism, which was Stalin’s endorsement of a Lamarckian genetics. It hampered agricultural development to such a degree that millons of people starved to death. It also undermined Russian biology for decades, even after Stalin was gone, because Lysenkoists had gained power throughout the Russian scientific establishment and the were able to remain in power. Obviously, if anything like this is occurring in the public health reasearch field, then Aamerica has a serious situation indeed.

The Salon review posted earlier went out of its way to pan the book (perhaps because the book isn’t PC). The one valid criticism was that the problem may not be that widespread. My wife is an upstanding member of the Public Health scientific community. As a good liberal and a busy scientist, she won’t read this book. However, based on discussions, her view is that the problems Dr. Satel describes are real, but they aren’t that prevalent. I sure hope she’s right.

The silliest criticism in the review was that Dr. Satel’s evidence was “anecdotal.” This isn’t a science book; it’s a book about the practice and politics of science. Of course it’s anecdotal. At least there are a large number of anecdotes. Compare this criticism with those who believe that bias against gays is a massive problem, based on one single anecdote – the Matthew Shepard murder. IMHO it’s typical of PC to apply different standards of evidence depending on which side you’re on.

[wring]

easiest and quickest answer first, grim - the university should (IMHO) say “We will investigate your claim.” without commenting on the merits. After a suitable time, they could advise her that “we’ve found that the professor did use the term you indicated, however, he used it correctly and not in any manner indicative of any slur against any person or group of persons. In addition, the term itself is not generally considered to be a slur against any person or groups, therefore no corrective action is necessary”. This doesn’t admit wrong doing on the university’s part or the professor, but it also doesn’t open the U in for further suits from a nitpicking twit that ‘you didn’t take me seriously’.

Your stats (to me) show that there are still problems with discrimination (duh), doesn’t really demonstrate anything as regards to P/C. IIRC, damages are overall going down and dismissal overall have been going up, as lots of trends seem to be converging. But, you’re correct in that it’s difficult to make assesments of the information w/o more info. Civil rights infractions aren’t always a case of P/C behavior of any description, I think you’d agree. For example, it’d be a civil rights infraction to refuse to hire a qualified person who was a minority, and not an example of ‘you said the bad word in front of me and hurt my feelings’.

Case in point - the twit example, to me isn’t about P/C, it’s about a twit. But, to some one who regards P/C as the enemy, it’s about p/C.

RE: my point vs. Spiritis - I have a difficult time when some on offers an interpretation of my remarks and says ‘now, do you mean this or that’, so if you will allow me to expand on the point vs. claiming one or t’other of the positions you put out, I’d be much obliged.

I have objected to the inclusion of certain things into the category of PC - lawsuits and the like that were dismissed (that’s the ‘twit’ factor, no matter what, twits will act in twitish fashion.) based on the belief that I, as some one who thinks PC is a good thing generally, shouldn’t be called on to defend things that didn’t even pass ‘go’. IOW, just 'cause some one tried w/o success to make a mountain out of the molehill, I shouldn’t be forced to accept the molehill as part of my position.

just 'cause some one else calls it PC doesn’t make it so. (case in point the guy who interviewed me, got fired. I’m sure he contends it was PC related, I know, having spoken with reps from his co, that it was related to him ‘creating a hostile work environment’ by treating his professional staff in a less than professional manner.)

Now how that factors into the what you percieved as the difference between my stance and Spritis’ I don’t know.

This is my standard:

1. In private life, we are all free to be as rude and obnoxious to anyone we wish. Of course, others are permitted to choose not to associate with you.

2. In public, (as in on the streets etc.) again, as long as we’re not inciting a riot, not slandering people, not yelling fire in the theater, and willing to take potential consequences of our behavior, (ie others may again shun us, toss us out of the restaurant , be rude back etc, if we act in a rude manner) we’re free to be rude, whatever.

3. In the work place, my employer has a right to expect that I would be polite to others, and make every attempt to do so. I would do this and expect this to be done as a condition of my employment, ‘appropriate behavior’ on the job. It’s non productive for folks to be rude to each other at work (from a production stand point at the very least)

If emphasis on PC language has helped to achieve a less hostile work environment, I see this as a good thing. What worrys me is the backlash, where folks seem to pride themselves on calling themselves ‘anti-PC’.

let me elaborate a bit, though please. Most of the participants here have demonstrated, even if they consider themselves to be ‘anti-pc’ to be at least anti rude as well. IOW, they would generally conduct themselves in a manner consistent with what I see as the goal of the ‘PC movement’ (generally treating other people as …people, with dignity and respect). BUT there is a hint of another side - the ‘I don’t see anything offensive about this term, I don’t give a shit that you do and therefore I’ll continue to use it in front of you just to make my point’.

And that, is what I would consider to be rude, non ok behavior. It’s different to me if some one treats you poorly, one isn’t required to ignore bad behavior on the part of others for fear of ‘being rude’ to them. But the generalized type of thing like “I’ll call 'em orientals ‘cause I think there’s nothing wrong with the term and those who feel otherwise are just bein’ thin skinned and they should stop”, I feel is something to be avoided.

Does that help?

(and in preview, see december’s posting. I’m going to call you on this one, with all due respect:

IMHO it’s typical of PC to apply different standards of evidence depending on which side you’re on.

that’s hardly a respectful tone to take with those of us here. I don’t believe that I’ve been rude or dismissive of you, even if I’m in disagreement with your point. And, it’s ironic that you’re using this statement to point out problems with using anectdotal information as indications of a chronic issue, at the same time as defending the book in question as “of course it’s anectdotal”. And especially ironic since in this entire thread, the only ‘evidence’ that the PC movement has caused unholy rancor everywhere is the few links to isolated incidents, most of which were dismissed cases and the like.

[Dangerosa]

May I suggest for the purposes of this thread -

Politically Polite: Choosing words so as not to give offense. Asian, Gay, African American

RPC (Rabid Political Correctness): Insisting others spell women with a “y.” Anyone who suggests their should be criminal penalties associated with not being PP. Organizational in nature. i.e. Antioch’s sexual contact policy

and

PC Kooks - Individuals so far out in left field who claim to be acting for political correctness, but acting alone, or primarily alone (I can find a couple of people wearing tinfoil on their heads, but they are all kooks).

[wring]

*Originally posted by Dangerosa *
**May I suggest for the purposes of this thread -

Politically Polite: Choosing words so as not to give offense. Asian, Gay, African American

RPC (Rabid Political Correctness): Insisting others spell women with a “y.” Anyone who suggests their should be criminal penalties associated with not being PP. Organizational in nature. i.e. Antioch’s sexual contact policy

and

PC Kooks - Individuals so far out in left field who claim to be acting for political correctness, but acting alone, or primarily alone (I can find a couple of people wearing tinfoil on their heads, but they are all kooks). **

I heartily concur. Put me down as a tin foil kook - (and as the OP, dont’ you have the right to define it for purposes of our conversation???)

[Spiritus_Mundi]

RPC (Rabid Political Correctness): Insisting others spell women with a “y.” Anyone who suggests their should be criminal penalties associated with not being PP. Organizational in nature. i.e. Antioch’s sexual contact policy

I will certainly accept your working definitions, but even here I see the Antioch College policy as less a response to RPC than a response to the perceived threat of date rape. Yes, some of the underlying issues of power relationships are the same, but doesn’t the policy place the same onus on women to obtain absurdly literal “permission” before elevating erotic behavior (“Is it all right if I crank your shaft?” or some such?)

It is silly, but it seems designed to combat something very diffreent than perceived injustices of group identity or distributions of power.

december

Compare this criticism with those who believe that bias against gays is a massive problem, based on one single anecdote – the Matthew Shepard murder. IMHO it’s typical of PC to apply different standards of evidence depending on which side you’re on.

Please tell me you are not saying that Matthew Shephard’s murder is the only evidence for bias against homosexuals in American culture. Frankly, I think you probably could find evidence that some PC advocates apply different standards of evidence based upon perceived disparities in power/available resources, but this “example” is weak. Extremely weak.

[Grim_Beaker]

A few questions about being PP (politically polite).

From an earlier wring post…

But, the “PC” movement is not simply about using the term ‘black’ vs. “negro” despite your assertion (or do you have proof of that?). For one, it’s about raising the level of awareness of the issues.

1. Is the PP movement about trying to avoid giving offense?

2. Is the PP movement also about raising the level of awareness?

3. If the answer to #2 is “Yes” - then what awareness is supposed to be raised? Is it:

3a. Awareness of past injustices perpetrated against the individual to whom you are speaking?

3b. Awareness of past injustices perpetrated against the group(s) (such as ethnic background, gender, sexual orientation, etc.) to which the individual is a member?

3c. Awareness of the appropriate level of respect which should be afforded to an individual by default?

3d. Awareness of the individuals preferred way of being addressed?

3e. Some other awareness?

I’m going to present 3 sentences which in my opinion share some similarities.

Sentence 1: “I’m offended by being addressed as black. I prefer to be called African-American”

Sentence 2: “I’m offended by the word niggardly. It sounds too much like a racial slur. I prefer that you use the word stingy”

Sentence 3: “I’m offended by the negative way you’re characterizing an African-American individual I know. I would prefer that you avoid speaking negatively about the individual at all. If you must say something negative use euphemisms instead.”

All three sentences deal with the speaker asking for a change in behavior because they are offended. The difference between the three sentences is one of degree.

In sentence 1 the person makes a perfectly legitimate request for a good reason. Essentially it’s a change in the form of the sentence without changing the content for a valid reason.

In sentence 2 the person makes a somewhat less legitimate request for a reason perceived to be good. Essentially it’s a change in the form of the sentence without changing the content because the person is more sensitive (unreasonably so?) to offense.

In sentence 3 the person makes an unreasonable request for a bad reason. Essentially it’s a change in the form of the sentence while changing the content for a poor reason (the reason it becomes poor is because truth is sacrificed in order to avoid offense).

For every 100 people who believe sentence 1 to be perfectly acceptable, there will be a subset of that group (we’ll call them group 2) who also believe sentence 2 to be acceptable, and likely yet a third subset (of group 2) who believe that sentence 3 is also acceptable.

This is one of the problems I see with PP. It seems to indicate a valid reason (that you’re offended), while indicating a valid response (request for behavior change). At the same time it does not include any consensus as to what is a reasonable degree of sensitivity to offense and what is a reasonable request of change in behavior or speech.

This, in my opinion, is one of the reasons why we get PC Kooks and RPC.

Grim

[december]

*Originally posted by Dangerosa *
**May I suggest for the purposes of this thread -

Politically Polite: Choosing words so as not to give offense. Asian, Gay, African American

RPC (Rabid Political Correctness): Insisting others spell women with a “y.” Anyone who suggests their should be criminal penalties associated with not being PP. Organizational in nature. i.e. Antioch’s sexual contact policy

and

PC Kooks - Individuals so far out in left field who claim to be acting for political correctness, but acting alone, or primarily alone (I can find a couple of people wearing tinfoil on their heads, but they are all kooks). **

Here are some other categories that are sometimes thought of as being a part of PC, rightly or wrongly. In particular, Dr. Satel seems to include all of these in her definition.

Politicized – choosing words and actions in order to further one’s political beliefs, while ostensibly promoting politeness, proper research, or other reasonable goals.

Anti-Capitalist – believing that capitalism is an evil system

Liberal – (no definition needed)

Communist – (no definition needed)

Post-modernism – seeking to overturn traditional academic thoughts and standards. Sincerely believing that Foucault makes sense.

Deconstructionism – A particular subgroup of post-modernism

[Tuckerfan]

Sorry to single you out for this, tuckerfan, but this point needs to be made. You used the statement that Dartmouth would treat gifts associated with Muslim or Jewish holidays differently than they treated “Christmas gifts” as a support for your belief that PC is hypocritical. Yet you admit you have no evidence to support the statement. It is nothing more than a conclusion drawn from your belief that PC is hypocritical. I see such tactics used again and again in ideological debates. Repetition, unfortunately, does not improve the taste. It is bad logic and poor rhetoric. Please tell me that you can see why. **

Okay, perhaps I’m a simpleton, but here’s the OP one the Dartmouth issue:

“Administrators at Dartmouth banned a campus group from giving Christmas presents to other students through the campus mail after the gifts had been bought, wrapped, and ready to mail. Scott Brown, the school’s dean of religion, stated that giving Christmas presents is an act that a large number of students will take offense at. Bad publicity forced Dartmouth to finally permit the students to send the Christmas gifts in January!”

Now where exactly in this post does it say that people of other religions were prohibited from mailing gifts on religious holidays? Please tell me, because if I’m missing it, I’d really like to know. All I see is a statement which says students were banned from mailing Christmas presents. I see nothing that says Jews were prohibited for mailing out gifts for Hannaka (my apologies if I misspelled that)! Nor do I see anything in that post to indicate that those gifts were marked “Christmas Present” or were targeted at non-Christians who might take offense at recieving such gifts.

Whatever you do is evil to somebody, the idea that you can totally structure a language so that it won’t offend anyone is absurd. I’m not against politeness (though rudeness does have its place, just ask George Carlin), what I am against is people telling me that its not okay to refer to one individual in a particular manner because he/she finds it offensive, but it is perfectly acceptable to refer to another group in a similar manner as to the one which is supposed to be offensive to the first individual. IOW: Why is the term “black” unacceptable when talking to an African-American, but the term “white” is acceptable when talking to a European-American? Both “black” and “white” are supposed to be related to skin color and both are innaccurate (I’m sort of pinkish yellow), yet only one is acceptable. It seems to me that the PC folks would want both color based terms striken from common use.

[andros]

**I see nothing that says Jews were prohibited for mailing out gifts for Hannaka
[/quote]

Jews do not traditionally exchange presents at Chanukah.

[andros]

#%^$#@ vB coding.

[system]

Well, a comment here. I have neither read nor heard of the book so can’t comment on this, although from what I know of bio-sciences, raising the specter of Lysenkoism is pure scaremongering. Rather unworthy.

However a few comments.

First in re Ed Said, well I’m not a fan of his nor even Orientalism wherein I think he commits many of the analytical sins he accuses western scholars from the mid-Nineteenth century forward. However, be that as it may, the intellectual argument is powerful, so powerful that I don’t believe ad hominem dismissals without having read the work are merited.

In re his bio, I don’t believe I have ever read Ed lied about his past, only that many have criticized how he has id’ed with the most oppressed part of the Palestinians while not necessarily highlighting his own privileged past. A sin of ommission as I don’t recall that he claimed, contra Maeglin actually growing up in the camps. On the other hand, I am not a fan of his, so perhaps I have overlooked something.

In any case, that does not go to his intellectual arguments at all (again I am not a fan of them but they do require attention) and only tangentially to Ed Said the political activist. Even there I have some respect for Ed Said as a generally honest, open-minded participant in ME politics who’s willing to attack his own side’s sacred cows, something rather lacking in the region. As well as in this thread. (I might add some stunningly bad logic as well)

Now about the Satel book

The silliest criticism in the review was that Dr. Satel’s evidence was “anecdotal.”

Silly, bloody hell. Criticism of easy charges in re medical science as “anecdotal” are in no way silly. It is easy to make charges, it is better to undertake proving them. Above all if one is going to write a book, some substantial effort. Ergo, I view personally speaking un or thinly documented anecdotal books about science issues in a rather uncharitable light, nor do I see them contributing much to good science.

This isn’t a science book; it’s a book about the practice and politics of science.

In which case it becomes all the more incumbant upon the writer – a psychiatrist, thus we may presume well-versed in the method as well as in research design – to document in a rigorous manner the problem.

If there is a problem it should be documentable beyond anecdote. I am certain there are issues, whether they are important or not is something which has to be investigated --if the author genuinely wishes to address problems. If one wishes to extract excessively political practices --frankly politics is part of humanity so we do have to realistic here-- or limit unfounded political decisions which may displace well-founded science, then one needs to make a ** scientific ** not a ** political ** argument. I hope you are aware of the difference. To substitute one political argument for another is to engage in the same sin.

Of course it’s anecdotal.

No, not of course it is anecdotal. Anecdote can often be smears. Hand-waving to get around the harder but ultimately more useful task of document. Difficult is not impossible.

Further, the complaint listed in the blurb seems nonesensical. Environmental conditions are serious risk factors for any number of diseases, as such it is perfectly appropriate to consider and to an extent address them as medical or public health issues. Although perhaps as a psychiatrist she doesn’t understand this.

In re the statement in regards to this statement, from the editorial r

When they have actually secured a place, Satel shows the harm they’ve done. She describes, for instance, how the Harvard School of Public Health teaches that racial discrimination causes hypertension among African Americans–in short, racism makes you sick. Yet there’s no credible evidence to back this startling claim, which may in fact divert attention away from behavioral steps that really can lower blood pressure…

appears to demonstrate a knee-jerk political reaction. As I have noted in the context of race threads, hypertension among African Americans is difficult to demonstrably connect to firm causes but suggestive studies in re the absence of hypertension problems among blacks of non-American origin and the subsequent emergence in US-born descendents is highly suggestive of a discrimination base. To say there is “no credible evidence for this startling claim” strikes me as someone adopting (a) charged political language without basis (b) and not open to the evidence. I don’t know what HSPH actually is teaching, I might guess from the sensantionalism that it may be more reaonable that this language here.

Further, I found the 8 Feb 2001 NEJM review rather damning in this regard, quoting from it:

[/quote]

In addition, Satel omits pertinent information that would weaken her case. Describing the success of politically correct nursing in the United Kingdom, for example, she claims that “by 1995 all the traditional nursing schools had closed,” that the new schools diverted students’ attention to social science and “race and gender awareness,” and that “patient care suffered” as a result. She neglects to add, however, that nursing education in Britain, which had been vocational since the 19th century, has recently been integrated into higher education, and that the effect on care of offering degrees in nursing is a controversial issue.

Finally, Satel invents data. For instance, “California has approved legislation requiring their public medical schools to increase the number of training slots for primary care physicians and decrease slots for specialists.” Not so: in 1993 and 1994, the California legislature twice passed and Governor Pete Wilson twice vetoed bills to achieve this purpose.

[/quote]

This sort of rhetoric is to me a non-trivial problem and from my point of view not helpful in terms of credibility.

Axes to grind for a pre-made audience who want to have a “PC” problem to fulminate about?

At least there are a large number of anecdotes.

You’re mentioned before you work with statistics. I do hope that you realize the utter inanity of this comment.

Compare this criticism with those who believe that bias against gays is a massive problem, based on one single anecdote – the Matthew Shepard murder.

This comment reflects such a staggering level of ignorance that I frankly don’t know how to respond, except perhaps that to argue from ignorance is perhaps the most foolish thing to do here.

IMHO it’s typical of PC to apply different standards of evidence depending on which side you’re on.

And the irony of this last comment in regards to the above is, well, almost more than I can bear.

By the way, an aside to Tuckerfan, Egyptians are generally identified as “Arab” or in the USA if some may so desire “Arab-American” because that’s how they largely self-identify. Across their whole color/phenotype spectrum (and it is stunningly diverse). It strikes me as your African American objection is somewhat silly in this regard, although it does highlight the inadequacy of American cultural terms outside of North America.

[wring]

*Originally posted by december *
**Liberal – (no definition needed)

Communist – (no definition needed)

Post-modernism – seeking to overturn traditional academic thoughts and standards. Sincerely believing that Foucault makes sense.

Deconstructionism – A particular subgroup of post-modernism **

Please elaborate. Are you now, after 3 pages of polite discourse simply insulting those who consider themselves liberal, or were you attempting to make a point?

It’s getting more difficult to assume that you don’t intend these as ‘damn liberals’ type of thing., especially since this is posted after my recent comments to you, or do you consider the ‘liberal’ position to be automatically suspect, ridiculous, the enemy, etc?

[Spiritus_Mundi]

Here is a snapshot of this facet of the overall debate:

tuckerfan
If Muslims, Confuscians, Atheists, Jews, etc. were to mail presents out to people labeled as a holiday gift (Say, Passover, Ramadan, Lunar New Year, etc.) would they be prevented from doing so? Probably not. Why? Because they are in a so-called “minority.”

Spiritus
Do you have information that Dartmouth actually has supported the exchange of gifts for Passover, Ramadan, etc. or is that diatribe based solely upon your perception of what would happen?

tuckerfan
Does anyone have any information that Dartmouth supported the exchange of gifts for any holiday of any religion? I don’t think so.

Spiritus
You used the statement that Dartmouth would treat gifts associated with Muslim or Jewish holidays differently than they treated “Christmas gifts” as a support for your belief that PC is hypocritical. Yet you admit you have no evidence to support the statement.

tuckerfan
where exactly in this post does it say that people of other religions were prohibited from mailing gifts on religious holidays? Please tell me, because if I’m missing it

The OP doesn’t. You said that they “probably” would not be. You used that position to launch into an attack on the hypocrisy of PC. I pointed out that you had not provided any support for your conclusion that minority religions would have enjoyed different treatment from Dartmouth. In addition, you have now apparently forgotten making the claim.

[wring]

grim what I think of as being “raised awareness” is the concept that one’s own culture is not necessarily replicated in all of those surround folks.

Case in point tuckerfan (not to pick on you tucker, just you illustrated the issue perfectly) for a person to hand to some one else a Christmas present, can, in fact be problematical, uncomfortable to those who are Jehovah’s witnesses, Muslims, Jews, atheists etc. and yet people continue to be surprised. IOW, he’s making the the common wrong assumption that other cultures and religions do things similarly, give gifts (and especially around late December) that it’s acceptable and routine. It isn’t. That’s why it would be not the proper thing to do.

my next question to you grim is that since you see/focus on those who take it to an absurd degree (ie your statement #3, and to a lesser extent, 2), are you really willing to risk preventing the rest of it (which you seem to agree with) from becoming the norm?

(by way of explanation - the #2 I can see in a very limited sense - I’ve specifically refrained from certain words when I suspected the audience would misunderstand it. For example, I suspect that if you used the term ‘niggardly’ in the average elementary classroom, your audience wouldn’t have a clue what it meant)

I don’t see why some one in the position that you seem to be in, taking the position that “PC is a good idea, which, of course, like any idea can be taken to ridiculous extremes.”

[_Uigi]

*Excerpted form original post by Tuckerfan *
**If one of the goals of PC is eliminate language which carries the baggage of racial stereotypes, then Egyptians should be referred to as Africans. Same with the Afrikaaners in South Africa.

PC is a nice idea, but what has been into practice so far is severly lacking IMHO. **

I’ll just go ahead and assume that the Canadians, Mexicans, and Eskimos won’t have anything to complain about if they’re all referred to (collectively) as “Americans”?

[december]

*Originally posted by wring *
**

*Originally posted by december *
**Liberal – (no definition needed)

Communist – (no definition needed)

Post-modernism – seeking to overturn traditional academic thoughts and standards. Sincerely believing that Foucault makes sense.

Deconstructionism – A particular subgroup of post-modernism **

Please elaborate. Are you now, after 3 pages of polite discourse simply insulting those who consider themselves liberal, or were you attempting to make a point?

It’s getting more difficult to assume that you don’t intend these as ‘damn liberals’ type of thing., especially since this is posted after my recent comments to you, or do you consider the ‘liberal’ position to be automatically suspect, ridiculous, the enemy, etc? **

Wring – I didn’t mean you when I said PC applies different standards of evidence depending on which side they’re on. You’re the “polite” type of PC; I was thinking of the “politicized” type. I promise to be more careful in how I phrase things when using this abiguous term.

As for my comments about the categories above, what I said was:

“Here are some other categories that are sometimes thought of as being a part of PC, rightly or wrongly. In particular, Dr. Satel seems to include all of these in her definition.”

All I said was that some critics consider these characteristics to be a part of “PC,” and I provided an example of one such critic. In particular, Satel says that PC politics may be liberal, but are never conservative.

I think she’s right about the latter point. E.g., it might be PC to favor more government aid to some disadvantaged group, but it’s not PC to favor lower taxes. In fact, it’s not even PC to favor vouchers, a conservative program which arguably would help the disadvantaged. That’s just not how the term is used, in my opininon.

Spiritus wrote** Please tell me you are not saying that Matthew Shephard’s murder is the only evidence for bias against homosexuals in American culture. Frankly, I think you probably could find evidence that some PC advocates apply different standards of evidence based upon perceived disparities in power/available resources, but this “example” is weak. Extremely weak.**

I shouldn’t touch this one with a 10 foot pole, Since this is the Straight Dope, here’s an imprudent response.

1. As Spiritus says, one could identify other misdeeds by straights against gays. No doubt, one could also find misdeeds by gays against straights.

2. The MS torture and murder was a horrendous crime. Gay columnist Camille Paglia wrote that MS was looking for “rough sex” Even if she’s right, that doesn’t mitigate the horror.

3. Recently two gay men were convicted of torturing, gang-raping and murdering a boy named Jesse Durkheising. IIRC he was only 13 years old. That was also a horrendous crime.

4. IMHO both these murders were anomalies.

5. I would bet that if we checked the crime records we would discover that for every murder of a gay by a straight, we could find hundreds of murders
   of blacks by other blacks. Violence against gays is a PC topic. Black-on-black crime isn’t. (using PC in the sense of politicized)

C’bury wroteWell, a comment here. I have neither read nor heard of the book so can’t comment on this,
although from what I know of bio-sciences, raising the specter of Lysenkoism is pure scaremongering.

I accept the blame for unclear writing. I was trying to make a point about the various meanings of “PC,” and whether PC is good or bad (since that’s the topic). Thank you, C’bury, for deciphering at least a part of my poorly worded post.

C’bury said the Satel book is “scaremongering.” My wife, who often attends APHA conventions, also thinks that Satel exaggerated the problem. My point is: Whether or not Satel overstated the danger, her use of the phrase “PC” included something not unlike Lysenkoism. So, under her definition, “PC” isn’t good manners. She used the phrase to denote something very scary indeed.

[Tuckerfan]

*Originally posted by Spiritus Mundi *

The OP doesn’t. You said that they “probably” would not be. You used that position to launch into an attack on the hypocrisy of PC. I pointed out that you had not provided any support for your conclusion that minority religions would have enjoyed different treatment from Dartmouth. In addition, you have now apparently forgotten making the claim. **

No, I haven’t forgotten making the claim. I simply asked where it was stated that the minority religons were barred from mailing holiday presents as I thought that if it didn’t say they were barred, then I thought that it would be a reasonable assumption there was no prohibition against them from doing so. Which, to my mind, means that they were enjoying a benefit denied to others. (i.e. they can mail out holiday presents, but others cannot) I realize that Jews do not traditionally give gifts out at Chanukah, I was merely using that as an example since that happens to be a holiday which falls relatively close to Christmas that I’m vaguely familar with.

I also realize that for someone who doesn’t share the Christian belief of exchanging gifts, getting one can be an awkward situation, but one can politely refuse said gift, or accept it as he/she may choose. Its not as if the students were putting a gun to someone’s head and saying, “Take it, you heathen!” Does anyone here know who those gifts were intended for? I find it a little odd that people seem to be assuming that because these people were mailing out Christmas presents, they must be sending them to everyone on campus and not just to people they thought would want them.

’Uigi’ I have heard that Mexicans and Canadians and others are upset that those of us who live in the United States tend to think of ourselves as the “only” Americans!

BTW, I’m an athiest, but I give presents at Christmas time, simply because I know that it’ll make my Christian friends happy. Besides, its the polite thing to do!