It seems to me that the bolded section is a pretty good description of the way some people use the term “political correctness.” They use it precisely as a prefabricated phrase that discourages thinking about the issues involved, and that acts as an over-generalizing catch-all for a huge array of political and social practices.
Sure, there are aspects of what you call “political correctness” that are silly and that need to be addressed and corrected. But it seems to me that the term “PC” is too often used as a bludgeon by those who are not really seeking thought and understanding, but who simply want to impose their own sense of what is appropriate on other people.
Those constantly bewailing the dominance of “political correctness” might seem more coherent if they addressed particular issues and problems, explained what was wrong with them, and argued for a strategy to fix them. But the call to stamp out the bugaboo of “political correctness” tends to elide all distinctions between beneficial and harmful social practices, and fails to discriminate among a wide variety of political positions. Hell, the anti-PC crowd often don’t even feel the need to explain exactly what it is that PC encompasses, because of course everyone knows it when they see it. As LHoD suggests, it’s become merely another term of opprobrium rather than a useful analytical category or descriptive tool.
I think I’d rather be called something really rude instead of some irritating PC term if the rude term is what the person is actually thinking, but they’re patting themselves on the back congratulating themselves on their sensitivity by not using the rude term.
You know, here’s the funny thing - I would never use those words, simply because they are neither nice, nor accurate. Don’t you think it’s a little presumptuous of you to decide that because I am critical of PC terms, I must therefore use derogatory terms?
“African-American” is no more accurate than “nigger” in many cases - the phrase “African-American” only applies to those Americans of African background, but not ALL of them, as we learned when a white person of South African background was roundly chastised for describing herself - ACCURATELY - as African-American.
Who determines what terms are acceptable? I got mildly dressed down by a Paki of my acquaintance when I told someone else they shouldn’t use the term “Paki”, that it was offensive and he overheard. He come over and told me in no uncertain terms that I was nuts. The whole Oriental/Asian language evolution that bump mentioned is another example of the same type of occurrence, so who gets to determine what’s acceptable and what’s not? I have a friend in a wheelchair who will try to run you over if you call him “differently abled”, he’ll likely pull out a gun and shoot you if you said he was “handy-capable”, but if you call him a fuckin’ cripple he’ll likely buy you a beer. Is he being a jerk?
MHO is that “PC speak” is an attempt by middle class white bread wishy washy liberals to alter the language language to let them off the hook. These are people who want to be “liberal” and treat everyone “equally”, yet they don’t want to have to put forth any effort to do so or to meet any of those yucky poor people. Calling my friend “handi-capable” allows someone to justify what a great and wonderful proponent of equality they are-after all, didn’t they just say that my friend was “capable”?-without requiring them to do anything about it. PC speak reduces complex issues to bland, feel good, meaningless pap. It’s a way not to think.
Well, if this were merely a question of semantic accuracy, you would be correct. But do you really think that people weigh their decision on whether to use “African American” or “nigger” based on issues of semantic accuracy? Hell, if you want to rely strictly on issues of accuracy, we could get all Saussurean, throw our hands in the air, deny any inherent relationship between the signifier and the signified, and start calling black people “filing cabinets” or “lawn chairs.”
But more seriously, your argument about a white person being referred to as an African American fails to take account of the processes by which such terms gain social and cultural meaning, and also fails to examine the issue of possible alternatives.
Sure, a white person from say, Zimbabwe, is from Africa. And if that person becomes an American then i guess it’s not technically incorrect to call him or her an African American. But why not use the term “Zimbabwean American”? I mean, you’re the one calling for accuracy—surely Zimbabwean American is more specific and accurate than African American in this case?
And this needn’t necessarily apply to white people only. As i said in another recent discussion on this topic, on these very message boards, a while back i met a guy from Ghana who has lived in America for about 10 years and it planning to stay here for the rest of his life. He is black, but he does not refer to himself as an African American. He identifies closely with his Ghanaian heritage and his family’s history there. I guess he’s a Ghanaian American.
Most African Americans—as we understand the term—don’t have this sort of direct connection to a specific African nation, largely because so many of them are descended from slaves. Sure, we know, by and large, which parts of Africa most of the slaves came from, but given the amount of time that has passed and the amount of mixing that has occurred since then, it’s pretty unrealistic to expect African Americans to establish any firm connection to a particular African nation.
And this leads to the more general issue of the social and cultural importance of the term “African American” in the United States. This term has a weight that is specifically connected to the history of the nation, and that is not appropriately attached to a first-generation immigrant (black or white) from Zimbabwe or South Africa or Ghana or wherever.
Now, i don’t deny some white person from Zimbabwe the right to refer to himself or herself as an African American; nor do i deny that right to the Ghanaian chap, if that’s what he wants to do. But those people also shouldn’t be surprised if other people, including African Americans, prefer to stick with the historically resonant rather than semantically accurate definition.
Well, there have been two recent examples set on the nation’s college campuses.
Lawrence Summers, president of Harvard, suggested (among other things) in a speech that Harvard should perhaps allow ROTC back on campus after a thirty year absence and that men and women really were different (gasp!) which might account in large part for the underrepresentation of women in science and engineering. The faculty was immediately up in arms, demanding his resignation, if not his execution. Summers caved, of course.
On college campuses across the country conservative students have held or tried to hold “affirmative action bake sales,” in which conservative students sell cookies, cupcakes and muffins at different prices based on the race and gender of the buyer. The point, of course, is to satirize affirmative action. All across the country, faculties and other students have used all sorts of dirty tactics to shut down the bake sales and all sorts of half-baked (pun intended) rationalizations for doing so.
You see, we’re not just talking about a lot of petty bickering over terminology here. We’re talking about a substantial faction of the left which, quite frankly, is intolerant of pretty much everyone to the right of Ted Kennedy and will do pretty much whatever they can to silence anyone who openly questions their doctrines. In my own college days back in the '80’s, during a class discussion of the Viet Nam war, I made the mistake of bringing up a number of atrocities committed by the Viet Cong. Some of the lefties in the class became so angry that I was worried about being assaulted when the class was over. You just weren’t supposed to talk about that stuff!
Of course, it isn’t simply lefties who are guilty of this kind of behavior. I recall, for example, an occult bookstore in a small town that was effectively shut down by harassment from fundamentalists. But dismissing political correctness as a “bugaboo” doesn’t merely ignore the problem, it denies the problem.
“Politically Correct” is such a loaded term that it’s a challenge to get past it. Most of the time when someone accuses someone of being PC all it means is “I’m not going to listen to you because I don’t think you’re listening to me.”
The most vocal people are often the least thoughtful people. There are so many threads on this board that follow a pattern where the first poster doesn’t care much about offending and says something that offends, then the next poster makes an admonishment without any acknowledgement of context and then a third poster comes and labels the second poster as being PC without even considering either or the first two positions and then, whoopee, it’s time for a 4 pager. Probably all three are talking a lot more than they’re thinking and when someone says something moderate or sensible it gets buried.
I guess I agree that both being PC and calling someone PC are things that people say when they aren’t in the mood to give thought to context or the particular situation at hand. And when I say “in the mood” I’m being charitable.
(bolding mine) Precisely. I don’t think, for the most part, that people weigh what they say at all - they simply latch on to a convenient term and lump everyone that remotely fits into that term. Referring to YOU, for instance, I would use any of the following terms: “someone I know from a message board,” “mhendo,” or “a person with whom I was discussing an issue.” Were you to identify yourself in terms of physical appearance or ethnicity or WHATEVER, I would use the term YOU use to ID yourself - if it was germane. In most cases, I don’t actually need to identify you by such qualifiers, your name will do just fine, unless I need to use a pronoun, in which case it would be helpful to know your gender.
I’m not “calling” for anything. I’m merely pointing out that the way we use words has an effect.
I wonder if some who oppose PCness just want to hang on to “nigger” or “fag” or “bum”. Not all of course. But is it so, so hard to refer to someone as “developmentally disabled” rather than “retarded?” I think that’s a way not to think.
For me what it boils down to is wanting the rest of the world to be happy. And if it takes some care and effort on my part, well, I’ll do that for my fellow human being.
No Xian or liberal or Orwellian agenda here.
Exactly. There have been examples. And you have addressed two of them them in your post. I’d be happy to discuss those particular instances on another occasion. So, my point to people like the OP is, Why not address particular instances, explain what is wrong with them, and offer ways in which the problems might be corrected, rather than offering simplistic, non-specific rants about “political correctness”?
You want to offer a critique of hate speech laws? Go ahead. I’ll be on your side.
You want to offer a critique of affirmative action? Go ahead. I might not agree with all of your arguments, but i’ll listen to them and tell you why i disagree.
You want to start a discussion about free speech on campuses? Go ahead. I’ll be happy to participate.
But when you begin with nothing more than a blanket dismissal of the nebulous idea of “political correctness,” you’re guilty of the same intellectual bullying of which you’re accusing those you don’t like.
It’s also interesting that you tack on the example of conservative political correctness as something of an afterthought. Because if PC does have the sort of meanings and strategies that you ascribe to it, then there are many occasions when conservatives are just as guilty of it as leftists and liberals. And yet the term PC seems to have become almost exclusively a weapon that conservatives use against liberals.
**jimpatro ** : "For me what it boils down to is wanting the rest of the world to be happy "
The question I have is: Might not their goal to be unhappy, or to sound unhappy? I’ve long suspected that the main goal of those disparaging others (often quite rudely) for using last year’s term instead of this year’s term is to present a front of unconscionable superiority.
If the goal were to correct people, to help them learn a more appropriate terminology, then it’s very poor pedagogy to confront them publicly, seek to embarrass them, divert the conversation onto style rather than substance. Better by far is to accept that we use differing terms and that the best way to teach is by setting a good example and speaking privately and courteously when offering style tips.
I think that worst of PC thinking is to jeer and castigate the users of last year’s term, until they begrudgingly come around to using this year’s, at which point this year’s term goes out of fashion, and next year’s term gets introduced and the whole cycle begins anew.
Political correctness evolved from good manners to tyrannical bullying when it spawned the sexual harassment and hate crimes movements. Criminalizing words and thoughts is antithetical to individual liberty.
Though this is the minority view, whether I get beaten down by a gang because they’re violent, they want my wallet or they hate who I am makes no difference to me…it’s all the same.
What’s infuriating about the term “political correctness” is when someone uses a nasty term, judges your reaction, and then says, “Oh, I should be more PC and say {fill in the blank with ridiculous double speak}.” GAH! There is a middle ground, you bozos!
“Prolix” means wordy. I have no idea why you’re talking about classes of society. Whatever…