| |
|
why is it "politically correct" to silence Hitler jokes, but not "politically correct" to silence reactions to Hitler jokes?
May I just type that I do my "best" to never silence anybody, whether they are PC or not PC; honestly! I think it's wrong either way (I'll come back to this later in this post; please be patient!)
Am I right in thinking we may need an agreed definition of PC?. I tried to both "do" and "not do" this yesterday because I knew that as I was explaining MY definition of "PC Hell" (including "PC" and "Hell"), it would probably take a post a great deal longer than this one if I wanted to be accurate. However, between us we could (and I believe, should) try and define PC. If this has been done before then I apologise and "please give me a linky?" (I am still in the process of reading through all the linked archives from earlier in this thread) Cheers.
Before I wrote this post, I decided to do a bit of research into PC and it's definitions, and the subject is indeed an emotive one. e.g. see this or this. On the Interweb at least there are many connotations attached to this phrase which are both negative and positive. e.g. Good: a code of language and behaviour, the aim of which is to not offend to any particular group within a society or the society as a whole; Bad: "a term used to criticise what is seen as misguided attempts to impose limits on language and the range of acceptable public debate".
Indeed, thinking of it, as you don't really know me or my opinions, PC is an emotive term which I was probably wrong to adapt in my earlier post. Although ironically I've spent so long thinking about all this, you might forgive me if I say that feel as though I've already been to PC Hell and back. And I'm only making things worse!
However, for those of us who still remember times which saw offensive language (etc) proliferating widely in the UK it is apparent what benefits PC has brought over here. e.g remember Gollywogs in children's books, mass gay bashing outside night-clubs, the fuss which was caused on 'Neighbours' when Charlene became a mechanic, etc? I for one am glad it is no longer generally acceptable to call someone a "bent black bastard" or anything as equally offensive. But people still say such drivel and the Law should be vary careful about getting involved.
For while the Law is supposed to protect us from the actions and language of bigotry, and although one could say PC is helping in some way to make a better society, I've heard many Legal experts argue the Law should be VERY careful when intervening with such cases as (again) such practice borders on eroding Civil Liberties.
For as I typed earlier, PC doesn't really deal with the problem of prejudice. It's another example of a Band-Aid on a festering wound. I personally have found myself in the company of others, who wrongly believed I was "one of them" and proceeded to use (and once, one even acted upon) their prejudiced thoughts. Indeed, sadly such "bigots" see "PC" as censorship (note that's not what I said earlier in respect of members censoring each other on Barbeilth!); and some even cite such censorship as "another example how "they" are taking over". Such bigots are without doubt (IMHO) wrong in their beliefs, of course, but they have a point about censorship.
In my opinion a society of any kind should be strong enough to allow ALL freedom of speech. For (IMHO), what is more important than preventing such texts (conversations, books, films, etc) is making sure that within the context of our actual society, they stand out like a sore thumb; to such an extent that no (or hardly any) citizens would find them acceptable and therefore propagate their use. i.e. eventually, if there are no longer any takers for prejudiced products the market will dry up.
Now, "propagation" is, I believe, one of the points Ganesh was making earlier in respect of this (viral) add. And of course, some viewers in our far from ideal society are bound to take the Greenpeace Viral Ad as a "gay joke" (etc). To a large extent this is the "artist's" responsibility. But even so (much as we are were doing here) it is far better to discuss why or even why not such "texts" are considered offensive, rather than slating them, deleting them, or any other such form of silencing. Indeed, when (for example) a prejudiced taxi driver says something homophobic in my company, I usually say something along these lines:
"Sorry mate, I don't want a row, but I have no problem with homosexuality and cannot therefore agree with what I think you've just said and meant. If you want to talk about this and / or your opinions of gay people, then that's cool, let's have a conversation, even if I don't agree with you."
Indeed, I said something remarkably similar once in the house of someone I had just discovered to not be as "open and acceptable" as I / they believed, whilst in the company of their children. The reason being that that even though the racist prat was spouting crap I didn't agree with, he was forced into a dialogue and so (at the very least) I understood his POV and his children knew both that there were people out there who didn't agree with Daddy, and that some of them weren't trying to silence Daddy and therefore don't indirectly support Daddy's views.
Of course, to some extent you could say that was what Flyboy was doing earlier when he asked me to define "PC Hell" ; and I sincerely thank him for doing so. However, as Flyboy failed to offer any opinion of his own on of PC (etc) or the issues surrounding the term, or even any indication of such, for me giving him a definition was made that much harder than it already is. (Please note: I promise this is not a dig at Flyboy, but a further explanation of what I meant earlier as well as to illustrate differing methodologies.)
I believe the way for a society to become an "Ideal Society" is to adopt "Ideal Rules", now. There can be no half-measures or grey Laws in the meantime. For example, in the UK our Government is slowly eroding civil liberties in the name of Freedom in an attempt to protect us from violence! But (IMHO) this can only breed civil mistrust, and as Tony & Co. appear to be largely ignoring the actual reasons behind civil unrest and terrorism (etc), more discontent is inevitable and so, therefore, is the likelihood of even more violence. The cycle doesn't stop unless you deal with the causes. (NB; "War is Peace"?)
Of course, you could say the same about offensive language, and that PC is one of many positive approaches the idealist can adopt. But on it's own it's worthless, and, even alongside other measures such as "intercultural dialogue", in the long run I believe PC would soon become extraneous and maybe even redundant. The problems aren't going to go away because we've silenced people.
All of which is why I believe in any discussion to do with PC/ offensive language/ etc, we are all always "dangerously close to PC Hell"; a place where open dialogue ceases to exist .
Which brings me back to:
why is it "politically correct" to silence Hitler jokes, but not "politically correct" to silence reactions to Hitler jokes?
I'm not sure if anybody here (or elsewhere) was silencing a PC reaction, and if I may steal a little more of everyone's time, let me explain now why I responded to Deva's question with "Wheels within semantic wheels?".
Earlier in this post, I talked about the many connotations attached to the term PC. For the sake of my argument, let us for now say the actual denotation of PC is: "an acceptable language and code of conduct agreed upon by the majority and intended to benefit society as a whole; relying on an unwritten set of "golden" rules which each citizen should use and encourage the use of, if they wish to adhere to aforementioned majority."
If this is an acceptable definition, then when someone adopts this behaviour they are obviously being PC if they choose not to make a (say) homophobic comment in today's western society. However, using the proposed definition, are they being PC or not PC by trying to enforce (note: not "encourage") their PC dogma on others? And are others being PC when trying to silence the PC advocator? I'd be interested to know what your answers would be to this.
My opinion: neither have anything to do with PC per se, they are both better described as examples of hypocritical "censorship". For although these questions are valid, any kind of yes / no answers aren't valid (IHMO); they're the product of a kind of false dichotomy (and that's not an subtle insult in Deva's direction either, I promise!)
(Hope all that made sense and wasn't tooooo looooooong! Bye for now.) |
|
|
