Political Correctness Debate - contd

Great Debates
41

My understanding as to why the term ‘Oriental’ is no longer considered acceptable is because it is eurocentric. It defines Asia and Asians in terms of Europe (by saying they are to the east of Europe) rather than in a stand-alone way. Why doesn’t this mean that the terms ‘Near East’ or ‘Eastern’ are unacceptable? And why is Oriental still a legitimate adjective for inanimate objects? You’ve got me.

aside
My only run in with a ‘PC’ issue as it were was at my college. A number of Asian students protested the fact that the college’s ‘Center for Near Eastern and Oriental Languages’ was so called, despite the legitimacy of the word ‘Oriental’ in that case.

42

"Why doesn’t this mean that the terms ‘Near East’ or ‘Eastern’ are unacceptable? And why is Oriental still a legitimate adjective for inanimate objects? You’ve got me. "

Actually, I don’t think the terms “Near East” or “Eastern” are what’s desired. It’s just that we don’t generally go around calling people “near Easterns.”

The preferred term is Asian and Asia is Asia wherever one happens to be located. As I said earlier, I think the point in emphasizing regional origin (Asian-American, African-American, native American), as opposed to oriental, black/Negro, Indian, is to encourage terms that apply to everyone (in the US) almost equally. We all have some kind genealogical origin prior to our identity as US citizens. Notice how the other terms, whatever else one might think about them, draw on an inconsistent range of built-in historical conceptions: with “Orientals” seen as coming from some foreign place; with “blacks/Negros” being seen largely in terms of skin color; and with “Indians” seen through the accident of an error made by Europeans hundreds of years ago.

“Oriental” may strike you as a “legitimate” way of characterizing certain Asian languages, but is it consistent? Was the English department at your college, or the Dept. of Romance Languages called the “Occidental Language Dept.”?

43

Succumbing to social situations that require the use of Political Correctness, is like reciting the Miranda Act: “You have the Right to remain silent. Anything you say could be used against you in a court of law.”

It is questionable, however, if the same persons who mistake “niggardly” with “nigger,” really care if you are using proper English or not…

44

Agis,

All social situations require some level of political correctness, or at least all that I’d participate in. I would not participate in a social situation where it was ok to refer to women as “bitches” or all men as “pricks” or all Asians as “chinks.”

On the other hand, I try my best not to associate with people who don’t know what niggardly means. They are nearly as bad as the people who use “bitch” to mean woman.

45

Wow, deja vu all over again. Just this past week my ex-GF who teaches Interpersonal Communication was formally accused of racism. She had been doing a unit on racial stereotyping and rattled of some examples, “Blacks are lazy and dishonest, Jews are…” etc. (She made a point of including herself, since she frequently gets stereotyped as a “dumb blonde”.)

Anyway, a student took the remarks out of context and filed a complaint. My ex strongly suspects that the student–an older black woman–is disgruntled because she is doing poorly in the class and was told she had to re-write a paper. Nevertheless, my ex is being forced to go through all this administrative BS and the complaint stays on her record regardless of the outcome. The student has since changed her story and acknowledged the context but says that her feelings were hurt merely to be reminded of these things. Nevermind how upsetting this whole thing is to my ex, who is quite liberal.

Just thought I’d throw that anecdote out there FWIW.

46

[quote]
Agis,

All social situations require some level of political correctness, or at least all that I’d participate in. I would not participate in a social situation where it was ok to refer to women as “bitches” or all men as “pricks” or all Asians as “chinks.”

On the other hand, I try my best not to associate with people who don’t know what niggardly means. They are nearly as bad as the people who use “bitch” to mean woman.

[quote]

Language is a descriptive medium. Every word has its proper application. The word “bitch” is part of our vocabulary. It allows us, for example, to differentiate between male and female dogs. It also helps us describe a certain type of woman. The same could be said about the word “prick.”

An individual who refers to women as bitches inappropriately is not to be confused with the PC tendency to make the word “bitch” inappropriate when applied to women.

It boils down to the simple question: Do we have the right to express ourselves even if that means expressing ourselves negatively? Or should we bow down to the moralizing pressures of artificial and hostile social constructs?

47

What is this? A thread on political correctness and no one has trotted out that old cliche: “I think it just means Plain Courtesy”? I’m amazed! :slight_smile:

My guess is that the number of left leaning people who have such an extreme position are relatively low when compared to the entire U.S. population. The same I would guess is true of right wing extremists and their numbers relative to the population. In any case they make fun targets. People love to point to the most egregious examples available to tar an entire ideology.

“Use of the word niggardly cost this person their job! Those liberal nutjobs want to censor our speech!”

“Those supposed Christians picketed Matthew Shepards funeral! All Christians are gay haters!”

etc. etc.

It is almost inevitable that as a movement or ideology evolves that there will be a subset of it’s proponents who distort it’s original meaning. This can have both beneficial and detrimental results. I suspect that both have occurred in the case of Political Correctness. My major concerns regarding political correctness are some of the negative side effects IMO which derive their origin from, or seem heavily affected by, the PC movement.

  1. Campus speech codes.

  2. Oversensitivy to perceived insults/discrimination/bias.

  3. Censorship.

As the PC movement gains or loses ground I think it reasonable to assume that those negative side effects will increase or decrease in number/magnitude. The answer? I think we need to police our own. In other words, self proclaimed Christians should be the people who are shouting the loudest against fundie madness. Republicans need to expose unethical business ties in their own ranks. In this same vein Liberals, in order to keep PC from being hijacked, need to be the ones who decry PC idiocy more passionately than anyone else. Unfortunately, I don’t think this will ever happen. People will almost always get more vocal about the “other side’s” faults then their own.

Grim

48

Well, whether or not I’m a liberal depends on how you define it I consider myself a centrist and they’re not mutually exclusive in my book). But I’m highly critical of the abuses of PC, in part because it’s very un-liberal. If race-based hypersenitivity has become the ‘new-othodoxy’ it is therefore a form of conservtism (albeit left-wing) and in the spirit of true liberal open-mindedness, it should be challenged.

49

If liberalism was truly about challenging the status quo then that would be so. In practice though Liberalism challenges the status quo of only certain specific policies/laws/situations. We don’t see many self-proclaimed liberals challenging Roe vs. Wade (a nearly 20 year old decision) do we?

Grim

50

Er, whoops… I mean “a nearly 30 year old decision”

Grim

51

I wholeheartedly agree with this statement.
Here is an example of PCness gone to far IMO:

I recall reading an article in the Charleston Daily-Mail perhaps 4 years ago that just made me shake my head in disbelief. A daycare in Southern California banned sand castles from being made on the daycare premises because sand castles encourage violence. I tried but failed to find a link to cite this information, but I swear this was reported (by the AP maybe).

Sigh. What has this world come to?

52

What exactly is “politically correct” about banning sand castles? Sounds just silly to me. Do you know of anyone who has some kind of political position on sand castles?

53

No one’s saying it’s politically incorrect not to get an abortion. Roe v Wade imposes no belief system in the individual–it rules out the imposition of a belief system. The simple legality of abortion is not a cultural orthodoxy. OTOH, there are social circles where the simple knowledge that you happen to oppose abortion (as opposed to you ranting about it) will get you vilified. In that case you have arguably been subject to a (left-wing) “conservative” backlash–in other words, PC. There’s liberalism at play on one level in your right to your own opinion, but if one’s opposition to Roe v Wade is religious-based, then that’s conservative as all get out and 30 years ain’t nothin.

To clarify my position on the definitions, let’s get back to the subject of race:

  • Color blindness is liberal and at the same time centrist.
  • Racism is right-wing, and conservative in the context of Jim Crow and its vestiges.
  • Affirmative-action is left-wing. The new racial conservatism is the brand of PC being discussed in this thread (speech codes, etc.), with its orthodoxy the belief in “systemic racism”.
54

The term “liberal” is unsatisfactory when trying to explain the moralizing dynamics associated with pluralistic or fractional societies.

If we analyze the chunks of the “tossed salad” that comprise the so-called “United States,” is is obvious that the different groups compete against each other for resources, power, territory, etc.

The more fracticious a nation becomes, the more hypersensitive its members become to the words and actions of individuals belonging to other competing groups.

Political Correctness attempts to alleviate intra-national pressures with 1) hypersensitivity training and 2) self-censorship.

In this regard, PC represents a considerable loss of freedom. PC limits self expression to “approved” norms - norms that keep getting more stringent as group friction intensifies.

55

Nice conspiracy theory, there, Agis, but who exactly is doing all of this stuff?

I actually agree that Americans are made to feel they should self-censor a lot: e.g., at work, where they could get fired or lose a raise for not saying the right kind of thing to the boss or whomever. Indeed, perhaps it’s b/c they feel so pressured in the workplace that such a big fuss is made (by some) about a simple courtesy: like calling someone “Asian” if it’s known or even believed that they prefer it to “Oriental.”

Yeah, big loss of the freedom, there. :confused:

56

It’s all fun and games till you’re locked up for saying a eight-letter word.

:smack:

57

Locked up for saying Oriental? What country do you live in?

58

It really depends on what definition of politically correct you happen to be using. I’ve seen one dictionary (www.dictionary.com) define it as:

while another (www.merriamwebster.com) defines it as:

while yet a third (http://nhd.heinle.com/) says:

Note that the first and last definitions all deal with holding certain attitudes about politics while the middle definition is primarily about euphemistic language. Obviously the term means different things to different people. It seems that most people posting in this thread see it as being associated with certain political views in addition to speech modification. Speaking carefully in order to avoid giving offense because you wish to is admirable. Being forced (via speech codes and the like) to avoid certain language by some self-appointed representatives to an entire group is IMO contrary to the spirit of the first amendment.

Grim

59

Mandelstam

Regarding a few things you said in your first post:

I think this may be true in only some of the cases. Some people, when saying this, probably mean “I think the good caused by political correctness is more then offset by it’s negative side effects”.

Logical, yes, but inaccurate according to PC’s common usage. A good analogy might be the word “fundie”. We could say that a person who holds strictly to fundamental Liberal ideals is a “fundie”. However this would be a poor choice of words as the popular usage of the word applies almost exclusively to conservative religious folk.

This is true but I think this statement only comes somewhat close to the mark rather then striking it true. Most people without a doubt would consider calling someone a racial epithet rude and offensive. That’s a pretty clear cut situation. The problem (as I see it) with PC’ness is that in practice it isn’t limited to self censorship. In practice it often involves people “policing” the speech of others. The following statements/words are probably of the sort that are made innocently all the time:

  1. Calling a woman “Mrs.” instead of “Ms.” upon first meeting them. This presumes marriage, and a heterosexual orientation.

  2. Saying “chairman”, “mailman”, etc… Makes the assumption that only a male can hold the position in question.

  3. Oriental. Seriously, I had no idea that this was considered inappropriate by some until reading it here (and this from someone who has a lot of Orien- …whoops! I mean, Asian relatives)

When these words are used without malice I don’t really see anything wrong with them. It seems to me too often that PC’ness concentrates on the format of the words rather then the meaning behind them and in doing so villifies those who often mean no harm and gives a pass to those who conceal a hateful message in an “appropriate” format. This is only a relatively minor issue for me in comparison with my biggest concern, namely the free exchange of ideas. In some quarters many people hold to definitions 1 and 3 from my previous post and discourage the exchange or presentation of ideas that do not support their ideology. While suppressing unpopular opinion isn’t a new phenomena it is my opinion that PC’ness has contributed to it, particulary on campuses.

My concern (and presumably the concern of others) centers around the concern that perhaps PC’ness has gone awry since it’s inception.

I absolutely agree.

Grim

60

I’m interested in replying to several posts, including one of yours Grim Beaker, but I’m very tied up now and also about to travel. So if I don’t answer for a few days, you’ll know why.

sqweels

First, I sympathize with your friend (the teacher whose student accused her of racism). That is truly annoying and I can imagine how it feels. IMO, though, your friend was a victim of a) racial oversensitivity or b) a student’s trying to take advantage of a situation or c) a student’s resentment resulting in racial oversensitivity (or perhaps some combination of the latter).

I don’t think we can call this a case of “political correctness,” though, since almost no one–especially people who care about racism–thinks that unjustified oversensitivity is a good idea–much less taking advantage of a situation where race is discussed to try to gain leverage with or express resentment at a teacher. In fact I’d go further and say that many if not most people on the left also think that justified oversensitivity is a bad idea. That is, I think many if not most people people that some berth ought to be given to what might be an innocent blunder–esp. before making any kind of public fuss.

We can’t in other words say that everytime someone calls “racist” (or “sexist” or “homophobe”) on unjust grounds that the problem is political correctness. Since almost no one thinks that unjust calls of this kind help their cause, there is nothing in the least “correct” about such behavior, politically or otherwise. As I said, above, to the extent that such episodes have any political content at all, they’re just politically inept.

I’d also have to say that given what I know of each situation, I’m more disposed to sympathize with the Chaucer student that the student you describe. The Chaucer student seems to have been genuinely confused; whereas the student you described ought to have been able get the right perspective, however she may have felt about either her performance in the class, or her feelings about hearing a stereotype mentioned for educational purposes.

Again, I see no purpose and much harm in confusing isolated cases of people acting oversensitively, resentfully, or what have you, with a “politically correct” trend or movement (or with left-wing “conservatism”).

Certainly one can say that we live in times when it’s possible for a student to complain about a teacher on this or other grounds. On the whole, though, I think it’s important that students have a means to expressing criticism of their teachers–even though some will abuse it. Don’t you?

I would add that I know several teachers who have found that their names had been reported to conservative groups for their alleged left biases, with a file kept on them, etc. etc.

“The simple legality of abortion is not a cultural orthodoxy. OTOH, there are social circles where the simple knowledge that you happen to oppose abortion (as opposed to you ranting about it) will get you vilified. In that case you have arguably been subject to a (left-wing) “conservative” backlash–in other words, PC.”

Arguably indeed. This seems like a very strange case to chalk up to “PC.” This is simply politics not “political correctness.”

Let’s say that a group of lefty feminists meets weeky to discuss people running for election. Someone mentions a candidate who turns out to be pro-life, and the candidate is nixed from their list. This is a reflection of these people’s active political commitment to women’s choice; not some dogmatic–much less “conservative”-- position.

It is no different from a group of NRA Republicans getting together to talk about a pro-gun control candidate in negative terms. Are these people being “politically correct”? No, they’re simply being pro-gun which is a predictable expression of their political preferences.

Vilification is, of course, a loaded term. If I meet you at a PTA meeting and learn that you’re pro-choice and proceed to “vilify” you I am probably rude and uncivil. I doubt very much that I am “politically correct” b/c I doubt very much that my fellow pro-choicers will thank me for acting so inappropriately. Same is true for the NRA member at the PTA.

*" - Affirmative-action is left-wing. The new racial conservatism is the brand of PC being discussed in this thread (speech codes, etc.), with its orthodoxy the belief in “systemic racism.” *

Affirmative action is indeed usually left-wing; though there are exceptions. I don’t really know what you mean by “systemic racism” so I can’t see why it is either conservative or PC.