That's true. I actually don't like the term African-American. I'm nowhere near from Africa; black works for me. I also don't like how the term Hispanic is used to cover Latin Americans; they have their own title. People from Spain are Hispanics. Kind of like that calling Dominicans Cubans or Mexicans Puerto Ricans and stuff.

I think I might agree with you. Usually most of the things anti-PC people have problems with are things such as hate-speech codes, which are sometimes found in the work force or on college campuses. They all vary to the extent that they regulate hate-speech but they usually are against hate speech toward women, racial and ethnic minorities, gay people, ect.

The thing is though, most people think of political correctness as being a liberal thing, but there is a such thing as conservative political correctness and it can sometimes be much more extreme than hate speech codes. The "politically correct" label is really only applied to instances aimed at preventing insensitivity to minority groups.

But, there are many other instances were groups of all political viewpoints have attempted to impose their views on everyone and restrict opposing views. A good example is anytime a book is banned or challenged. There were the people who tried to ban Anne Frank's diary for being, "a real downer". Another thread on this forum has links to an article about people who tried to ban this book because of its "homosexual themes".  If the main thing you noticed when reading that book is Anne Frank briefly talking about how she felt attracted to other girls, then I think you really missed the point.

Other examples include trying to keep the National Institute for the Humanities from funding gay-oriented art. (Or art that is perceived to be gay oriented.) A good example of politically correct behavior was when in 2003 conservative groups pressured CBS into dropping a program about Ronald and Nancy Reagan because it was too critical.

In other words, some people who complain about political correctness that encourages them to not be hostile to minority groups in society and how hate speech codes are a violation of freedom of speech might not have a problem with banning/challenging certain books, artwork, and documentaries that they find offensive. Those things don't usually get stuck with a PC label but in reality they are a different form of political correctness.

As for hate-speech codes, some of them may well be a violation of the First Amendment. That is a difficult issue to figure out, but I think that trying to ban art, books, and documentaries is obviously a violation of the First Amendment. It’s censorship.
My personal opinion on hate speech codes it that they might have a place on college campuses and the workplace because you don’t want to have minorities being harassed. Colleges and places where you work should have polices to prevent harassment. At my job meeting today, we were all instructed to go online and complete a long tutorial about preventing harassment in the workplace. However, the hate speech codes shouldn’t be really strict because of the danger of that people who get in trouble with them becoming martyrs. For example, some people who have gotten in trouble for saying racist things on college campuses have gotten excessive media attention and have been portrayed as victims.

Last edited by CausalityStar (05-18-2011 04:31:22 PM)

I have an issue with the very term Political Correctness, since when has politics ever been correct?

It should be termed something like 'Socially Aware Euphemism' instead for the better uses of this form of Newspeak and leave the ironic term 'Political Correctness' for the examples where it goes totally wrong.

I don't know what political correctness means, and I only hear conservatives using it, angrily, as if it's a slur. It's a conservative reconstruction of liberal discourse, an illicit move. American conservatives are always ultraconservative, and they hate anything racially or sexually tolerant.

In light of the above two posts... this is why I dislike the the "party" system in politics. They give people the ability to dismiss others at first glance without actually learning anything important, based on the sole assumption that since they belong to group X, they must automatically believe Y.

Yeah, real on-the-ground conservatives come in a lot of flavors.  But as for the ones who get elected to high office, I can kind of see where SxA is coming from.  There are still a few moderate conservatives in government, and a few conservatives who don't toe the party line and have some unorthodox opinions, but they're a minority.  In the last debate, Rick Perry, who was thought of as a Tea Party golden boy, said he thought that the children of illegal immigrants should qualify for in-state tuition.  The party establishment abruptly abandoned him and he's way down in the polls.  Real people have a diverse range of opinions, and I think we are better than our politicians are -- but when it comes to politics in practice, we can be pretty polarized.  :-/

Anyway, back on topic.  I would like to know what political correctness is, because I expect that my opinion of it depends on what we mean by it.  My best understanding is that it means, approximately, "self-censorship for the purpose of not gratuitously offending people."  Why don't I curse when I'm at work?  Political correctness; I don't want to gratuitously offend my coworkers.  Why don't I call Asian people "Orientals," even though the word is semantically accurate?  Because calling a person "an Oriental" is sometimes taken as offensive, and regardless of why that should be the case, I don't want to gratuitously offend people.

If that's what political correctness means, I like it -- but I wouldn't want to impose it on anyone.  It's been a journey to get to the point where I don't like to offend people for no reason, and I've learned a lot along the way.  I wouldn't want to frustrate anyone's similar journey by compelling them to speak respectfully.  It could stunt empathy instead of promoting it.  So I guess I disagree with the OP; I don't want to create a class of "proscribed speech," though I think political correctness is valuable.  That's in the public arena, of course.  In the intimate confines of IRG, rules against abuse still apply

On the other hand, some people use "political correctness" to mean that you self-censor so as not to offend anyone ever.  This is both impossible and a bad idea for reasons that I think are probably self-explanatory!

Last edited by satyreyes (10-04-2011 01:46:00 PM)

OnlyInThisLight wrote:

I think conservatives can have more variety in their political or social beliefs that we give them credit for.  I know conservatives who take no issue with gay marriage (My dad), those who do but find it morally wrong to prevent them from doing so and thus will not vote in favor of any gay marriage ban (My Mom), and so on. Some of why it appears as though the entirety of the politically right seem to be so extreme is because those assholes are the ones out doing the most atrocious -and thus newsworthy things.  Granted, what matters most is where people's votes are going, so this means it may be erroneous to (spend most of our time and effort) butting heads with and frustrating ourselves over the extremists when it's the less extreme, less heard of majority of conservatives whose votes will have an impact on policies.

Other than Bertrand Russell, who was very intelligent, Edmund Burke was the last true conservative worth reading.

Brief answer: The blatant racism of some sects of the Tea Party have proven that we need some form of political correctness.  But like anything, there are people who overdo it.

I am not an authority but someone who seemed to know what he is talking about once said that American Indians prefer to be described by their tribal name in their own language such as Hadenosaunee, Tsalagi, Tohono'O'Odham, etc. If you can't wrap your tongue around those then you can fall back on Iroquoise, Cherokee, and Papago. When generalizing multiple tribes they mostly prefer (American) Indians to Native Americans.

As for the main topic, PC is simply another word for politeness and respect. If it comes to mean shibboleths and code words and euphemisms then the Rightwingers have just as many as anyone else.

Decrescent Daytripper wrote:

"Someone in an office might get in trouble one day for saying something that someone was a bit unsure about because they couldn't decide whether it was sexist or homophobic or racist, it's a small price to pay for the massive benefits and improvements in the quality of life for millions of people that political correctness has made." - Stewart Lee

Also Lee: "There is a whole generation that has confused political correctness with health and safety legislation."

I can't really put my position better than to just post those and under them: "This."

^THIS^

I believe Lee also described PC as ''an (often clumsy) negotiation towards a kind of formally inclusive language'' that always summed it up for me. It might seem weird at first but it's definitely worthwhile.