# What PC things today will be politically incorrect in the future? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 14, 2016, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-pc-things-today-will-be-politically-incorrect-in-the-future/752145 "2016-04-14T00:44:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2016, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-pc-things-today-will-be-politically-incorrect-in-the-future/752145/101 "2016-05-26T17:42:04Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > (bolding mine) What alternate universe are you posting from? Okay, I’ll pretend to take you seriously. What’s left? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2016, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-pc-things-today-will-be-politically-incorrect-in-the-future/752145/102 "2016-05-26T17:59:57Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Okay, I’ll pretend to take you seriously. What’s left? Those rights are still being fought for(and against) in many states-how could you _not_ know this? ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2016, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-pc-things-today-will-be-politically-incorrect-in-the-future/752145/103 "2016-05-31T16:18:42Z")
The Black Death and “yellow fever” might become unacceptable medical terms. ---
**Author:** ![Knowed\_Out](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/knowed_out/32/7380_2.png) [@Knowed\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knowed_Out)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2016, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-pc-things-today-will-be-politically-incorrect-in-the-future/752145/104 "2016-05-31T17:43:36Z")
In the future, genetic modification of embryos will be more common, so “Designer Babies” will be as ubiquitous a term like Millenials, Generation X, Baby Boomers, etc. This of course will offend the non-modified, especially if the Designer Babies call them “special.” ---
**Author:** ![El\_Zagna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d2c977/32.png) [@El\_Zagna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Zagna)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2016, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-pc-things-today-will-be-politically-incorrect-in-the-future/752145/105 "2016-05-31T22:19:15Z")
Football. I love football. I played in high school, and I am eagerly waiting for the season to begin, but it’s getting harder and harder for me to watch it without that nagging little voice in the back of my head saying, “This is a terrible thing you’re watching.” Attitudes about concussions and other injuries have been changing for a couple of decades, and are now under much greater scrutiny. Still, I don’t know how much of the violence you can take out of the game and still have it be football. I can easily see my g-g-grandkids looking back on the game with the same “how \*could \*you?” attitude. At the same time I can just as easily see them thinking, “What a bunch of sissies.” ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2016, 9:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-pc-things-today-will-be-politically-incorrect-in-the-future/752145/106 "2016-06-02T09:22:38Z")
Yeah, but if football goes, extreme sports like paragliding go, and climbing Mt. Everest will just stop. In terms of lives saved, that’s a good thing, but human endeavour is not just about being safe. I think the steps we are taking to make football safer are the right approach, and I think an even better idea is to do a better job of educating young athletes about money management so they can leave when they think it’s right. These athletes aren’t generally stupid about their bodies, they know when they should stop taking hits, but some of these guys live six figure paycheck to six figure paycheck if you can believe it because they can’t manage their money or trust the wrong people. We don’t really think much about banning extreme sports because these are people who are doing it totally voluntarily and often investing a lot of their own money into doing this stuff, whereas football players and boxers have a talent and often no other prospects. But I’m not sure that poor and healthy vs. rich and addled is such a clear choice either, so I don’t see us ever banning violent contact sports. If we did, it would be PC run amok, because all it would do is make sophisticated middle and upper class folk feel better about themselves while doing nothing to actually improve anyone’s life. ---
**Author:** ![Commodore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@Commodore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Commodore)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2016, 10:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-pc-things-today-will-be-politically-incorrect-in-the-future/752145/107 "2016-06-02T10:01:38Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > As far as terms go, any group that has had more than two terms to describe them is going to have new ones. The disabled are the best example. We started with cripple, then handicapped, then disabled, and now the patently ridiculous “handicapable”. I think we’ll settle on disabled. Same goes for the mentally disabled. We started with idiots, went with the more medical term retarded, “mentally challenged” and it looks like we may have actually settled on disabled. I hope. Mentally challenged had to go away because it became a running joke in the 90s that any disadvantaged group could be referred to as “challenged”. So little people were “height challenged”. If the gods of political correctness respond it anything, it’s ridicule, I guess. And that gets us to little people, who used to be called midgets and dwarves, and at least for now, are “little people”. I do not expect that one to last. > > Ah, can’t forget illegal immigrants. They used to be illegal aliens, then illegal immigrants, and then they tried “undocumented immigrants”, but that’s just baloney because most of them are quite well documented. So it looks like we’re tentatively going with “unauthorized immigrants”, while Latino activists just like to call them “immigrants”. > > The problem is that if something is kinda bad to be, then no matter how many times you change the terminology, it’s still going to sound bad if it refers to something that really sucks. Being black or gay is only a problem in that society mistreats blacks and gays. But being disabled, physically or mentally, is going to suck and cause major problems no matter how kind society is to the disabled. So it’s time to just quit it and settle permanently on “disabled”, because it’s what people with disabilities, handicaps, or what have you, are. > > I actually think that political correctness itself will become politically incorrect. It’s just getting too stupid now, and I’m not even talking about the terms. It’s getting to the point where you can’t even talk about race or religion or sexuality without walking through a minefield. And then even if you don’t say anything wrong, if you’re a white person debating with a black person, then you’re “whitesplaining”. See, now we’re not even supposed to debate, we’re supposed to be told how it is with no argument. I predict that “whitesplaining” and it’s partner “mansplaining” is going to be retired really damn quick. There has to be a safe space for debate in this country, and the idea that the views you express are only valid if you’re the “correct” identity while expressing them is a cancer. Hopefully people one day may of out grown such childish nonsense as Political Correctness, as it was only created for morons in the first place. Remember only morons support Political Correctness. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2016, 10:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-pc-things-today-will-be-politically-incorrect-in-the-future/752145/108 "2016-06-02T10:08:22Z")
At the risk of getting too much into PC terminology myself, only morons support political correctness, which I’d define as saying nice things whether or not they have any relationship to reality because we value sensitivity over everything. But sensitivity itself is a good thing, as long as we aren’t deceiving ourselves or those we’re being sensitive to. “handicapable” or “differently abled” is a bullshit term. It may be sensitive and maybe even empowering, but if someone with a disability is just as able as me then they don’t need any help. That’s always struck me as the ironic thing about PCness. If we’re all awesome in our own ways, then everything’s peachy and we don’t need government or social action to correct injustices. But we do need those things, and we need them precisely because some people are inherently weaker than others, and people with disabilities are generally inherently weaker and disadvantaged compared to those who don’t have disabilities. So while “cripple” is just kinda cruel, “handicapped” or “disabled” accurately describes people with disabilities in a clinical, nonjudgmental way. Same goes for “undocumented immigrants”. It’s BS. Most immigrants have documents because they overstayed their visas. Many that crossed the border also have documents, fake documents and/or documents from their home country. Saying “undocumented” is just a way to redefine reality in a way that certain ideological people prefer. “Illegal alien” does sound insensitive, but untl we can come up with a better term that accurately describes these people’s situation, the best we’ve come up with so far is “illegal immigrant”. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2016, 10:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-pc-things-today-will-be-politically-incorrect-in-the-future/752145/109 "2016-06-02T10:40:14Z")
> [@Commodore](#): > > Remember only morons support Political Correctness. > [@](#): > > Borderline Deficiency (IQ 70-80), Moron (IQ 50-69), Imbecile (IQ 20-49) and Idiot (below 20). **Commodore** , what is it about an IQ of 50 to 69 that causes one to support politically correct thought? ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2016, 10:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-pc-things-today-will-be-politically-incorrect-in-the-future/752145/110 "2016-06-02T10:49:48Z")
Like your typical article from the Atlantic, it’s a long read, but a relevant and good one. > **[How Trigger Warnings Are Hurting Mental Health on Campus](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/the-coddling-of-the-american-mind/399356/)** > > College students are increasingly demanding protection from words and ideas they don’t like. Here’s why that’s disastrous for education. I can definitely say that I’ve observed some of the campus trends both as a former student and as an instructor. Apologies if the article has been previously posted. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2016, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-pc-things-today-will-be-politically-incorrect-in-the-future/752145/111 "2016-06-02T12:02:03Z")
Well, what’s going on on campuses is just ridiculous. It’s a very toxic type of groupthink and it’s authoritarian in nature. A lot of these students have been brainwashed into thinking no freedom at all would be fine as long as we were all equal and had “dignity”. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2016, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-pc-things-today-will-be-politically-incorrect-in-the-future/752145/112 "2016-06-03T00:39:37Z")
Meh. Like a lot of _Atlantic_ articles, that one is long on chin-stroking generalizations and short on actual facts or statistics. While I agree that there’s some degree of oversensitivity in modern campus culture (and there always has been; it’s just the subject matter that varies), I’m very skeptical of such alarmist blathering that we’re entering some terrifying new phase of repression and thoughtcrime. To engage in a little chin-stroking generalization of my own, I think the adjustment that’s happening nowadays in youth culture is largely centered around _the realization and acknowledgement that hurting other people is malevolent bullshit often hiding under fabricated justifications_. Being spanked or beaten isn’t good for children. Bullying and racial slurs aren’t “good-natured teasing”. Sexual assault isn’t flirting, and catcalling isn’t a compliment. Shunning or threatening gay or transgender people isn’t “protecting” society. Shaming people for their looks isn’t “encouragement”. Molestation isn’t a “private game”. Intimidating people isn’t “toughening” them. Bigotry isn’t patriotism. Refusing to acknowledge privilege isn’t “egalitarian”. Torture isn’t interrogation. Insulting marginalized groups isn’t “courageous”. And so forth. To a perhaps unprecedented extent in modern society, _people (especially young people) are calling into question a whole swath of fig-leaf excuses for various manifestations of cruelty and repression_, whose only ultimate reason is that the person(s) who inflict them on others enjoy it. Not surprisingly, this “consciousness-raising” is often exaggerated to the point of seeing cruelty and repression in very trivial phenomena. It will doubtless take a while to shake out the distinctions between resistance and resilience. But I think the basic underlying principle of _“don’t hurt people”_ is a positive and constructive one, and the current reactions along the lines of _“aw shut the fuck up you whining pussy babies”_ will not have equivalent staying power in the long run. ---
**Author:** ![Commodore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@Commodore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Commodore)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2016, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-pc-things-today-will-be-politically-incorrect-in-the-future/752145/113 "2016-06-03T04:16:25Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > **Commodore** , what is it about an IQ of 50 to 69 that causes one to support politically correct thought? In general terms that people use the word, but sure I do know of people with high IQ that are a more easy brainwashed type or simple minded in some ways and great in others or they can be greatly lacking in common sense. Australia’s smartest man was interviewed by Pixie Ann, and he did not even catch on that she was just being a twit with him for a comedy show.☹ We are getting many stupid rules handed down from bureaucrats that maybe fine on paper, but if you were a police officer say and you only followed the book to the letter like a robot, such a one would be just hopeless not to mention just a good for nothing numbskull or something like a dog chasing it’s tail, but that’s PCness for you just madness added to foolishness. It’s for clowns not to mention a pox on society, did I mention Hitler’s Germany and the Communist used such crap as PCness on the people as a means of controlling the people. I remember asking my mum in 1970 why did the German people love to follow Hitler and she said that they were brainwashed and I thought what a load of BS how can you brainwash so many people, but now I know that it’s a fact that PCness is just the tool they used to get their demented ways across and it just turns people into trash. ---
**Author:** ![Giraffes\_Can\_t\_Dance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/5e9695/32.png) [@Giraffes\_Can\_t\_Dance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giraffes_Can_t_Dance)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2016, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-pc-things-today-will-be-politically-incorrect-in-the-future/752145/114 "2016-06-03T05:28:13Z")
Actually, I believe that the country will evolve into a less PC culture. People are growing tired of the sensitivity forced upon the honesty of man. A better question would be: What is currently appraised as politically incorrect, that will evolve into more acceptability? ---
**Author:** ![Giraffes\_Can\_t\_Dance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/5e9695/32.png) [@Giraffes\_Can\_t\_Dance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giraffes_Can_t_Dance)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2016, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-pc-things-today-will-be-politically-incorrect-in-the-future/752145/115 "2016-06-03T05:55:19Z")
As people study the math and begin to grow tired of all the gang violence in places like Chicago, I think this culture of blaming the police for the deaths of black men will end. It will cease being political incorrect to put forth accountability onto black men for the violence within their communities. Such a movement will be spurned on by people growing tired of innocent young black children being killed or forced into gangs, all at the hands of other blacks. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2016, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-pc-things-today-will-be-politically-incorrect-in-the-future/752145/116 "2016-06-03T06:25:19Z")
> [@Giraffes\_Can\_t\_Dance](#): > > Such a movement will be spurned on Truer than you know. ---
**Author:** ![Channing\_Idaho\_Banks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/channing_idaho_banks/32/250_2.png) [@Channing\_Idaho\_Banks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Channing_Idaho_Banks)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2016, 8:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-pc-things-today-will-be-politically-incorrect-in-the-future/752145/117 "2016-06-03T08:08:39Z")
I don’t understand how group bathrooms ever got to be so popular. Why shouldn’t there be a bunch of single use bathrooms? ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2016, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-pc-things-today-will-be-politically-incorrect-in-the-future/752145/118 "2016-06-03T10:41:33Z")
> [@Commodore](#): > > Australia’s smartest man was interviewed by Pixie Ann Pixies? You believe in pixies? ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2016, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-pc-things-today-will-be-politically-incorrect-in-the-future/752145/119 "2016-06-03T12:21:55Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Well, what’s going on on campuses is just ridiculous. It’s a very toxic type of groupthink and it’s authoritarian in nature. A lot of these students have been brainwashed into thinking no freedom at all would be fine as long as we were all equal and had “dignity”. What an epic statement, I particularly like the ironic scare quotes around ‘dignity’, as if that was a goal to be mocked. You summarized the reason what’s going on on campuses is a good thing. A four year college exists, in part, to challenge the students thinking and it is the larger society outside of the campus that possesses the toxic authoritarian groupthink. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2016, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-pc-things-today-will-be-politically-incorrect-in-the-future/752145/120 "2016-06-03T12:41:12Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > What an epic statement, I particularly like the ironic scare quotes around ‘dignity’, as if that was a goal to be mocked. You summarized the reason what’s going on on campuses is a good thing. A four year college exists, in part, to challenge the students thinking and it is the larger society outside of the campus that possesses the toxic authoritarian groupthink. Except that among these university protesters, there’s often simply another form of groupthink going on. It reminds me of what someone once observed - when people “rebel against conformity,” they’re often simply adopting a different form of conformity. They’re conforming to the Rebel group instead of the Authority group - but they’re still conforming to _something_. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-pc-things-today-will-be-politically-incorrect-in-the-future/752145.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-pc-things-today-will-be-politically-incorrect-in-the-future/752145.md?page=7)