BARBELITH underground
 

Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.


Underground > Head Shop >

Political Correctness - collation and discussion

  
  

Page: (1)23456

 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
13:13 / 27.07.05
(Mod hat: I'm afraid this first post is very long, summarising as it does a lengthy exchange elsewhere on Barbelith. If you are having trouble following it, you may want to skip for the moment to this second post, whhich pulls out three key statements, and then refer back here when you are feeling more grounded.)


Righty. The latest extrusion of Political Correctness into the life of Barbelith came when, discussing a Greenpeace advert in which a caricature Tony Blair is pumped with oil by GWB, Paranoidwriter expressed concern:

I think my gut feeling is that while the ad may contribute in a minor way to such negative stereotypes, we may be dangerously close to PC Hell on this one.

Flyboy then requested a description of what was meant by PC Hell. Paranoidwriter explained by example, providing an anecdote of PC Hell in action, or rather location:

I have a friend who is a very dry, intelligent, witty, and funny man, and the other week a few of us were watching something on TV which he didn't like. His response:

"This is hippy shit. When's the Fuhrer on?"

Those of us that knew him laughed, as we knew of his particular interest in WW2, Nazi Germany, and Totalitarianism (etc), as well as the fact that virtually everyday Adolf Hitler seems to get free airtime on British television. However, one person who was in our company seemed to take offence at my friend's comment, pulling a face and saying something acerbic (which I forget). Indeed, it was as though my mate had actually said:

"Hitler is great, nevermind all those dead Jews. I want to see him on the TV now, as I have no time for liberal drama TV shows."

This type of reaction is an example PC Hell. It is the use of something which was supposed to force us to address the language we have inherited through years of bigotry, fear, and ignorance, in such a way that it accuses innocent people of moral and often linguistic crimes they haven't committed, and / or forcibly silences people (which is never a good thing). It is akin to someone wrongly "playing the race card" (as the media call it).. Such PC finicky pedantry often belittles issues, side-tracks debate and therefore intellectual evolution, and is (IMHO) as equally counter-productive as (say) using deliberately risqué acts (etc) to get a point across in a propaganda film.


This did not, unfortunately, clear the waters immediately. There was some discussion about whether it was unreasonable to respond in fashion a to statement , whether that was the actual or hypothetical situation. Deva asked what I think was a key question on the no-silencing model:

My own feeling on the matter is that if you are too sensitive to be on the receiving end of an acerbic comment and an eye-roll, you probably shouldn't assume that everyone in the room with you is robust enough to take Hitler jokes in their stride - I mean, why is it "politically correct" to silence Hitler jokes, but not "politically correct" to silence reactions to Hitler jokes?

Paranoidwriter's next contribution restated the dangers of Political Correctness, and added the idea that Political Correctnes was a world-changing exercise (or rather, that it was not, or not completely):

The problem with your solution Haus is that the problem doesn't go away simply by telling people not to say something. You CAN be a racist (for example), and still have an up to date dictionary of PC terminology, and be fully qualified in the art of diplomacy. This is another reason why PC has partially failed as a World Changing Exercise. I'm not saying that it wasn't or isn't still needed to be encouraged, but is in no means a solution to the problems it aims to help. Therefore, when I say PC Hell I mean that it can get to the point where one is so fucking weary of some paper thin eejit picking on every phrase you utter and taking it out of context, you no longer have the desire to communicate. THIS IS VERY DANGEROUS.

Dangerous indeed. There followed alarums. We pick the trail up at PW's:

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!)

For my money, while not an insult, this appeared not to answer the question:

I mean, why is it "politically correct" to silence Hitler jokes, but not "politically correct" to silence reactions to Hitler jokes?

in any meaningful way.

However, the discussion moved onwards. I responded to this:

I'm skipping some of your early work, here, because I think it ties in with issues we'll come to later, but I'll summarise it as "Britain used to be a place where racism, sexism and homophobia were commonly expressed, and as a result of Political Correctness this is no longer the case. However, now that the heavy lifting has been done by Political Correctness, it is now counterproductive, and a process of polite and constructive dialogue with those who continue to harbour sexist, racist and homophobic views is the way forward."

I think almost every posit there is open to question, but I hope that's a reasonable summary.

So, back onto the topic of the Greenpeace ad:

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.

You seem consistently to be confusing "slating" with "silencing". It doesn't seem to me that any opinion expressed in this thread has affected whether that advert exists or whether it is available. If anything, it has increased awareness and the gross amount of discussion it is getting. Essentially: There's a link at the top of the thread. Click it. Advert still there. Likewise, your early example of "PC Hell" involved not one of your friends being "silenced", but one of your friends being criticised and compelled to justify a statement they made. You seem to be treating, as you seem to treat people on Barbelith disagreeing with you, as if this was some act of silencing.

It is not.

You left Barbelith, rather impolitely, and have returned without consequence or complication two days later. If you are being silenced, it is being done singularly ineptly. Since the moderators of Barbelith have the power to delete posts, and that power is not being exercised, I find your claims of censorship rely on a fundamental misunderstanding of the idea of "censorship".

The Open Source movement draws a distinction between free as in free speech and free as in free beer that might be instructive here. If somebody stands outside your door and screams abuse for five hours solid, it might be suggested that your right to live wiithout harrassment (a Civil Liberty, if you like) has a competing claim against their freedom to say what they want, how and when they want it. You're speaking of Civil Liberties as a capitalised monad as you are Political Correctness, which I think neglects to understand the complexities inherent in both.

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.

Could you explain exactly how "trying to silence Daddy" equals "indirectly support Daddy's views"? Only, it seems to me you have made an enormous and very unwise mental leap here, possibly based on the preceding enormous and unwise mental leap "censorship (in your rather broad definition of the term) only makes things worse in every possible way)". MIght one not instead say, for example:

his children knew both that there were people out there who didn't agree with Daddy, and that some of them were soft-soaping while discussing his racist beliefs, and therefore were demonstrating that whether or not to hold racist views was pretty much a matter of taste and certainly nothing to get too worked up about?

This may simply be a question of taste in one's approach, rather than right or wrong answers - you're assuming that your behaviour is the gold standard, which may or may not be true but is not self-evident, and I think that's a big hurdle to overcome but one which leads to a lot of very useful results.

Now, moving on to "PC".

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."

I'd raise a question, before we go any further, about the usefulness of the term "code of conduct", which seems to be, as ibis has mentioned, an uncomfortable straddle between the ideas of convention, guidance and law. For example, all-female selection lists for constituencies are described as PC, aren't they? Children not being allowed to play on the swings for fear of legal action? PC. Soft policies on immigration? Political correctness gone mad. Bakke versus the University of California? The first step down the road to our current lamentably PC universities. I don't think it's possible when constructing a definition of PC to ignore the many situations in which it is used that have at best a profoundly tangential connection to language or conduct and a strong connection to law or practice, which I think this definition is confused about. This leads us on to:

If I've been clumsy with my sentence structure (etc), and mislead you in anyway then I apologise. But couldn't PC (which we still haven't defined) be seen to have had an affect on all spheres of society, legal, governmental, the private sector, etc. I'm not a lawyer but I'll bet that at the very least employment law in the UK has changed since the 80's because of what we might call changes attitudes and the influence of PC.

Where "code of conduct" and "law" become confused to the point where I think this definition, before we move on to whether it usefully describes an actual phenomenon, is holed below the waterline internally. If you mean to include law into the idea of the "code of conduct", then PC describes pretty much everything. However, at that point we lose the idea of the "unwritten rules". Also, it kind of doesn't make sense. The reason employment law has changed throughout this century is not to recognise the adherence of all to an unwritten code agreed upon by the majority as intended to benefit society as a whole, but because employers were precisely not adhering to what was felt to be in the interests of society as a whole, because they were not compelled to do so. We can talk about the market, here, and the way in which it advances and retards the cause of social justice, but I think that would take us further away from our subject.

Which subject is, of course, political correctness. In the thread I linked to earlier, somebody defined political correctness as:

Because anyone who is being politically correct in the way I described probably has some insecurities about their own sense of other groups/creeds/sexualities/etc and should be concentrating on dealing with those issues - Unfortunately, it often follows that, in line with their own insecurities and the resultant benchmark they set for themselves, they arrogantly expect others to tow the same line, else these others are fair game for accusations of being racist/homophobic/etc. But that's just not fair, because 'hushing' the perceived problems of others in the way they do their own, isn't necessarily the best way to deal with these problems.

At the time, I noted that what that was saying could be unfolded as:

If somebody calls an action I do not believe to be racist or homophobic racist or homophobic, they must be wrong, because I do not believe that action to be racist or homophobic. However, they cannot simply be, in my opinion, mistaken. They must be insecure about the fact that they are in fact secretly racist or homophobic. This insecurity is expressed through political correctness. So, anyone and anything that I call politically correct is in fact not just wrong, but also secretly racist or homophobic, and insecure about it.

This is not quite what you seem to be saying, but in some way's it's not far off. Instead of "secretly racist or homophobic", you're saying that challenging racism or other ism of your choice in a way you don't approve is actually indirectly supporting it - that is, that to do so is functionally advancing the cause of racism or homophobia - but the effect is much the same - the language of "hushing" above can be equated to the oft-repeated metaphor of the band-aid.

Now, you have subsequently created a distinction between "good PC" and "bad PC". Good PC, in essence, is the application of codes of language and conduct in a way of which you approve - for example, not calling people bent black bastards. So far so good. "Bad PC" is the application of etc in ways you don't approve of, such as "censoring" (scare quotes) your friend for his innocuous and humorous Hitler funny. However, the good PC must come from within - if you attempt to engage with somebody else who is calling somebody a bent black bastard in a manner that is not polite and respectful, you are in fact supporting censorship and thus indirectly supporting racism through your application of bad PC, just as you would be if you attempted to engage with somebody making an innocuous and humorous Hitler funny in a manner that was not polite or respectful. However the laws that have come into being as a result of PC have been important and useful protections of (not sure here - presumably either civil liberties or something else not infringing civil liberties) ...


Hang on. Let's call a halt for a second. PW, quick question. Until this thread, had you ever thought about something "Hey, what a great bit of Political Correctness there. That was really Politically Correct, in a totally bang-on fashion". Only I find - and we've been through this a good few times on Barbelith - that people often suddenly start speaking halfway through these discussion of Political Correctness as one might of, say, feminism - it has achieved lots of valuable and useful things, but is now in danger of going too far (just to be clear, the house in no way means this to reflect on or invite a discussion of PW's views on feminism).

However, feminism is a very different animal - one can, for example, point to feminist organisations, histories of the development of feminism through its proponents, feminist thinkers, books of feminist thought and so on. I would be surprised if one could do the same with Political Correctness. Indeed, many of the achievements of "good" Political Correctness might before this example have been attributed to, say, social justice or good manners or the development of a multicultural society, or any number of other lowercase elements. Indeed, the only books intimately involved with Political Correctness one might be likely to find are joke books presenting hyperbolic representations of Political Correctness gone mad.

So, posit:

It suits the right wing for Political Correctness to exist as a monolithic conceptual entity, and for that entity to be seen as something that menaces fluffy and good things like equality and freedom of speech.

Since the media is largely controlled by right-wing interests, it is pretty easy for the media regularly to tell us that behaviour that is disapproved of by the owners off the media is "Political Correctness gone mad".

There is in fact no central force for political correctness, nor any complete and coherent definition. It exists conceptually as a nebulous but vast conspiracy which can be blamed for any number of things that people would like to do not being entirely acceptable. It is surprising, however, just how many things that appear to be crushed under the hand of this numinous force are actually not only still done, but done all the time.

(bootnote: It is also interesting that the people who do these things can them both feel and claim that they have made a brave stand against Political Correctness, without actually being punished or risking punishment for it in any way. If Political Correctness were such a force in the land, for example, surely Garry Bushell or Richard Littlejohn would be regularly jailed rather than financially rewarded for their violations of it? Many people talk a lot about politically correct censorship, but seem singularly untroubled by it.)


To bring us up to date, this leaves us with three definitions of Political Correctness - the two ParanoidWriter and I offered as posits in this discussiion, and one added by Flyboy. These to follow in another post, because this is already hella long.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
13:29 / 27.07.05
So, definitions/explanations. First, PW:

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."

Then my posit:

It suits the right wing for Political Correctness to exist as a monolithic conceptual entity, and for that entity to be seen as something that menaces fluffy and good things like equality and freedom of speech.

Since the media is largely controlled by right-wing interests, it is pretty easy for the media regularly to tell us that behaviour that is disapproved of by the owners off the media is "Political Correctness gone mad".

There is in fact no central force for political correctness, nor any complete and coherent definition. It exists conceptually as a nebulous but vast conspiracy which can be blamed for any number of things that people would like to do not being entirely acceptable. It is surprising, however, just how many things that appear to be crushed under the hand of this numinous force are actually not only still done, but done all the time.

And finally, Flyboy's respponse to PW's earlier request for his opinion:

Political correctness is a myth. It is a pejorative term used to give the impression that people who act or speak out against racism, sexism, homophobia, or class snobbery a) have the whip hand, and b) are censorious, unreasonable, petty, extremist killjoys. It is a sophisticated linguistic weapon in the arsenal of newspapers, politicians and other propagandists. Many purported examples of political correctness turn out upon investigation to either be entirely reasonable (unless one favours sexism, racism, etc) or apocryphal.
 
 
Cat Chant
15:12 / 27.07.05
Okay. I'm slightly torn, here, because on one hand I'd like to suggest that the rest of the discussion should avoid focussing too closely on paranoidwriter's examples and on the original context of this particular iteration of the discussion, but then I just have a couple of things that I can't resist quoting/responding to - but am I feeding the troll within by doing so?

Oh, well, I'll do it anyway, because what I mostly want to do at the outset of this thread is to separate out two things which the term "political correctness" conflates, and I think the Greenpeace-ad-thread discussion provides a good example of this kind of conflation.

Paranoidwriter rightly says:

the problem doesn't go away simply by telling people not to say something. You CAN be a racist (for example), and still have an up to date dictionary of PC terminology, and be fully qualified in the art of diplomacy.

There's an old Onion article called Anti-Racism Laws Mutate Racism Into Newer, Stronger Form, which I remember but can't access because I'm not a subscriber (if anyone is, could they fish it out and link to it/quote it?), which basically said, in the humorous way of The Onion, that certain forms of anti-discrimination legislation and (institutional and non-institutional) policing killed off the easily-recognizable forms of racism but couldn't get rid of the "newer, stronger form" which resulted. And I think the point has been made a few times on this very board that policing racist terminology has a classist dimension, in that bourgeois, polite, forms of racism continue to flourish while more traditionally working-class, openly-declared (but sometimes not as deeply-rooted) forms of racism are identified as the problem.

I'd also like to add that, from teaching first-year undergraduate courses on post-colonialism and ethnic studies as well as from the Whiteness threads here on the lith (see here and here), I feel like there's a reluctance to talk about any race-related issues because of a fear of not having the right vocabulary. And, to me, that's immensely problematic. I mean, to some extent, boo-hoo, right? White middle-class kids (as my students and Barbelith mostly are) feel worried that they might not be the unquestioned masters of language, but that the words they use might make them answerable to others, might open them up to an ethical responsibility: that sounds like a good thing. But I think it's also a very bourgeois tradition of fear of fucking up, which is ridiculous because how will they learn? I've paraphrased Marge Piercy before on the board: You react to being accused of racism as if you were being told you had syphilis. It's more like being told you have a bogey hanging out of your nose: you thank the person for telling you, wipe it off, and get the fuck on with your life. I mean, I think this idea that political correctness silences people is kind of like that thing where "they must be terrorists because I was terrified of them". It's the fear of looking stupid that silences people, and that's their responsibility, not that of the people who are going to tell them when they're being stupid.

I really think that. Just the fear of looking stupid. Not the fear of being, for example, beaten to death for being black or gay. Which is why - and I'm sorry, paranoidwriter, I really don't mean to pick on you and if you feel like I am doing so, we can talk about the reasons why here or by PM - but which is why this example pisses me off so much:

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."

I told Tangent yesterday that I really wanted to just quote that back in a response with nothing but the words "Yeah, I didn't think you were gay." Because, you know, when a taxi driver says something homophobic to me, I have to decide whether to sit quiet and go through twenty-four hours of self-hatred (oh you are so cowardly and you have betrayed your brothers and sisters and non-gender-specific siblings), or to come out to him and risk being subjected to more abuse. To you, it seems, homophobia and bigotry are a teaching tool - either for you to learn about bigotry through discussion with bigots, or for you to teach anti-homophobic attitudes to homophobes. To some of us, though, they are a direct threat against our physical and mental integrity - in more or less direct or indirect ways, against our survival. And I'm sorry, but I don't really mind "silencing" the (fifty-year-old Guardian-reading) woman who hit me on a train for hugging my girlfriend in front of a child. I don't mind if she doesn't feel able to express the fact that I - whom she knows nothing about - should not be allowed to be around children, because my sexuality will harm them. I also don't mind if the person driving me from Point A to Point B doesn't feel able to express the opinion that I shouldn't be allowed to exist.

Oops. I've upset myself now. Anyway, the point I wanted to make is that there is a very real problem about the lack of a vocabulary to talk about (for example) race in a non-racist way, and about people feeling silenced by their lack of mastery of a vocabulary, and about the policing of terminology. But that problem is vastly, vastly, vastly different from the problem of what to do about racism, homophobia, and bigotry in general, and conflating them through the term "PC" is unhelpful in the extreme. To go back to the very beginning of this debate: maybe the fact that the Greenpeace ad is kinda homophobic isn't the only thing that can be said about it (in fact, no-one on the thread suggested it was the only thing, of course), and the problems with the representation of homosexual activity therein are only part of one, itself partial, reading of the advert, which can be taken up, used, appropriated, re-appropriated, rewritten and passed around in all kinds of ways. And if someone was insisting that "it's homophobic, therefore we shouldn't even engage with it/discuss it, because it just IS homophobic and that's BAD", I can see how that might be a kind of silencing. But that didn't, in fact, happen.

Okay, this is long now and I'd better stop, because I could keep rewriting and adding to it forever. I just want to finish by saying that I really do want to talk about this fear of looking stupid, the policing of terminology, and the lack of a vocabulary for race in the UK, because I think it's important and here is maybe a good place to do it.
 
 
sleazenation
15:31 / 27.07.05
The reason I mislike the term "Political Correctness" is that is is all too often used to conceal lazy thinking and a broad range of unexamined assumptions.
 
 
sdv (non-human)
15:44 / 27.07.05
Given the length of the initial posts - which may contain the answer to this question... but let me ask anyway in case i missed it.

Are you thinking of 'political correctness' negatively as a concept used by social and political conservatives against those who are more 'liberal' and less comfortable with underlying meanings ?

or as a singularity which identifies positive social and political changes ?

steve
 
 
Cat Chant
15:47 / 27.07.05
Are you thinking of 'political correctness' negatively...

Who are you asking, sdv? Haus summarizes three definitions of "Political Correctness" - his, Flyboy's and paranoidwriter's - in this post, just up the page a bit.
 
 
Quantum
15:50 / 27.07.05
There was a time in the mid-to-late-eighties I believe when many schoolbooks, children's shows and public media were being rigorously edited to remove sexist and especially racist content. The right wing media found a few examples that seemed contrary to that mythical beast 'common sense' and kicked up a big hoo-hah about it, which is where I think the phrase first gained popular usage. If that's true then it would certainly support this notion-

Honestly, I think you're a patsy. You've been thrown a term that allows you to write off concerns that you don't want to engage with by the right wing, and you have uncritically picked it up and started using it. Essentially, you've been fooled by a linguistic bait and switch. (Haus responding to Oblivion here)

To provide some sort of objective evidence that the expression 'PC' is a weapon *against* affirmative action, try googling 'pro political correctness' or something like that. Go on, try it. I was astonished that every single site I looked at was rabidly against it.

For example in the UK you get things like; this petition against PC (Featured on "This Morning" 5 July 2005, ooh!) and this tripe, here's a sample extract but you have to see the site to believe it;
More seriously, there is an insidiousness to Political Correctness (PC). PC infiltrates every aspect of life and one has to be extremely careful about what one says and does all the time, which is an affront to human rights and freedom of speech. The sinister thought cops can get one into serious trouble these days (if you're white).

The closest I could find to any kind of support of PC was the encyclopedia definition-

political correctness
Shorthand term for a set of liberal attitudes about education and society, and the terminology associated with them. To be politically correct is to be sensitive to unconscious racism and sexism and to display environmental awareness. However, the real or alleged enforcement of PC speech codes (‘people of colour’ instead of ‘coloured people’, ‘differently abled’ instead of ‘disabled’, and so on) at more than 130 US universities by 1991 attracted derision and was criticized as a form of thought-policing.


It's pretty clear "PC" is a perjorative term, like the N-word, or many other words and phrases "PC" is opposed to. I hereby proclaim myself pro-political correctness, to reclainm the term from the political right wing. I am the sinister thought cops. It's good to be correct.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
16:02 / 27.07.05
I think that within this thread it is perfectly reasonable to address the most recent discussions of Political Correctness that have taken place on the board, Deva. I also think you have just expressd, far more ably and politely than I, something I wanted to pick up on. So yay you.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
16:16 / 27.07.05
I don't want to talk about board politics. I really, really don't.
 
 
sdv (non-human)
16:24 / 27.07.05
haus - the intro was 11 pages of A4 - without as far as my reading the printed paper a single theoretical justification for the different concepts being collapsed into 'political correctness'...

put the theory back in haus...

s
 
 
Quantum
16:28 / 27.07.05
without .. a single theoretical justification for the different concepts being collapsed into 'political correctness'...

You realise Haus is positing 'PC' as a term used by the right against the left? That ze's not trying to justify the correption, but in fact oppose it?
 
 
Tryphena Absent
16:30 / 27.07.05
Isn't the point here that political correctness as a phrase doesn't mean anything. It's a finger pointing device whereby instead of addressing an actual issue someone can be dismissive. So in real terms there's theory that would be important to it were it an actual phrase but it doesn't bear any meaning to identity issues because it's empty. What is the theory and how does it specifically relate?
 
 
Tryphena Absent
16:31 / 27.07.05
Quantum to even begin addressing the term there have to be recognisable entitites within it, even with its use as an opposition. As someone opposed to the right wing meaning I can say it means "nothing" but the dismissal inherent in it is actually dismissing something.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
16:34 / 27.07.05
sdv: If you're having trouble with the first post, I suggest you skip to the second, read it, and then tell us what you think about it, with reference to whatever theoretical underpinnings you feel are appropriate. I'm afraid I can't make font sizes smaller or posters less loquacious.
 
 
Quantum
16:48 / 27.07.05
Quantum to even begin addressing the term there have to be recognisable entitites within it, even with its use as an opposition (Nina)

'Recognisable entities signified by the term PC'? Do you mean we have to find out/decide what the expression points to, as in cases of PC? Instantiations of PC-ness?
 
 
Quantum
17:06 / 27.07.05
It does mean something, in the same way the N-word does. It may be loaded, inaccurate, pejorative and derogatory but it's common language. If it's featured on Good Morning and in the Encyclopedia it counts as meaningful, surely?
 
 
*
17:55 / 27.07.05
Sounds to me like PC doesn't mean in the sense of pointing to an identifiable referent, but it certainly means in the sense of signifying something about the interaction/communication event. That is, it is language which does something masquerading as language which describes something— incidentally, like much racist, homophobic, classist, etc. communication. Calling someone a filthy faggot purports to describe them, but in fact it has no identifiable meaning and instead does something actively to the communication event and to its participants.
 
 
Quantum
18:29 / 27.07.05
So the literal equivalent of 'Euw!' then? An emotive response signifying no actual referent, just sense (to utilise the Fregean linguistic model you appear to be using)?

I'm not sure that's right. If it were, statements of positive affect ('You lovely lesbian') would purport to be meaningful but would in fact be the literal equivalent of 'Yum!'.
 
 
m
18:48 / 27.07.05
For me, PC describes dogmatic, sanctimonious, and humorless behavior when coming from the left. It's much akin to calling someone on the right a square or a prude, and is characterized by an overeagerness to be offended by others and an affection for pedantic speech making at the drop of a hat.

Now, that's always been the way that I've understood it, but I also think there is another sense of the term that is used by right-wing talk show goons to describe any person or policy that is inclined to address racial, social, or economoic inequalities at all. This sense of the term is used in much the same way that the word 'radical' is used to describe any political position left of Richard Nixon.
 
 
*
18:53 / 27.07.05
Quantum: Well, not quite that vague, just close to "good" and "bad" which also purport to describe the object but actually (in most cases) describe the speaker's emotional state with regards to the object. And yes, I think what is true of "filthy faggot" is true of "lovely lesbian," in that they are both instances of language which does more than it means. There is of course a serious difference in the intention and the result. Also, in the instance of "filthy faggot," filthy is commonly used as an adjective to refer to the whole class of faggotry, not just the particular one under discussion (by those people, understood to be examples of jackassery*, who are inclined to use that language at all). I am not sure if, in your example, "lovely" modifies the entire class of "lesbian" or just the particular example.

Anyway, this is growing threadrottish. My intent was to clarify the ways in which political correctness does and does not "mean something". Thanks for the link, by the way; I haven't read him but I'll do so.

*please note that this is language designed to do: to separate the speaker in the minds of the listener/reader from the objects under discussion and express disapproval, rather than language designed to mean: to describe any objective property of the objects.

M: Alright, but what qualifies behaviour as sanctimonious, dogmatic, and humourless, other than that you don't happen to like it?
 
 
sdv (non-human)
19:01 / 27.07.05
Haus: my problem is twofold firstly that the argument is largely anecdotal and relies upon personal experience and memory, secondly that there is nothing in the statements that attempts to explain how and where the concept, the construct of 'political correctness' comes from.

My reasons for this are also multiple, to begin with the history of PC is important because it is clear that what PC represents was and probably still is a site of considerable struggle. The history of this is very interesting and I think it is regretable that this has not been addressed, except obviously through discussions of dubious events.

i'll think about this history...

steve
steve
 
 
nyarlathotep's shoe horn
19:07 / 27.07.05
my brain tumesces from reading all these words -

My experience of PC started Uni in 1986. By graduation, the school was awash in self-appointed guardians of the language.

The growing presence of accusations of sexism, homophobia and racism (in that order) hadn't grown out of nothing. The engineering students at a rival school had an infamous reputation, perhaps from responding to a "no means no" campaign with banners hung from dorm windows reading "no means harder" among others. The campaign iteself had begun in response to a growing concern over increasing numbers of sexual assaults reported on campus.

that was the flashpoint I remember.

while we tried to fill our brains with new ideas, our attention between classes was always drawn back to the issues of sexism, homophobia and racism - posters, meetings, overheard conversations. It soon came to be pervasive. Less so off campus.

I took these campaigns to be a reaction to what students and faculty considered intoleable environments.

however, the more momentum the PC movement gained, the less it targeted those whose initial behaviour had inspired it in the first place. Some of the engineering students had been punished (if memory serves). First year students had "sensitivity" workshops to ensure they understood the dynamics of prejudice.

I had used the word "gay" flippantly, in an idle conversation with someone I'd just met. I was given a ten minute lecture on how deep down, I was a homophobe who was in denial. This was my flashpoint, where I saw the trend in PC move to the unreasonable. I was having my intention, motives and psyche pasted with PC definitions of homophobic dynamics. It seemed that a growing number of people were on the lookout for things to point at and label. it seemed like they were becoming less discriminating.

as it gained more momentum, it seemed that words were being replaced, on television, in the media, in conversations, with pauses, where the speaker tried to remember 'asian-american' instead of whatever word had been used up until that point.

I found much of this trend distasteful, however, I took a severe dislike to white suburbanite university students lecturing me, on Apartheid, gay-bashing, and date-rape.
Silence met my challenges about our reservation system, after which Apartheid was modelled. The cry for justice in South Africa found another audience, ignoring the cry for justice at home as well.

I was being lectured on my behaviour by third parties with their own agendas (in some respects, undoubtedly sincere). I couldn't stomach being told by white suburban canadians how my words might make an economically disenfranchised african-american feel.

eventually, opposition to the PC movement was heard, and it lost momentum over time.

it seems to be celebrating something of a resurgence in our public fora. This isn't the same movement as I recall. Today's PC is twenty years older.

What, exactly, are we dealing with now?

it seems to me that an underlying current in PC, at least my recent exposure to it, seems to deny something unpalatable. An avoiding of discussions about death, illness, masturbation and the uncomfortable silences that often accompany the evocation of social taboos.

anway, long enough
TexIx
 
 
m
19:32 / 27.07.05
sentimentity: Here is a clarification maybe.
For me, the primary goal of PC behavior is to gain a sense of moral superiority through shaming others for perceived inappropriate behavior, and not any real desire to address any sort of harm or injustice. In the above example of the Hitler TV comment, the offended party (if acting PC) would be getting off on the confrontation itself more than really trying to right any wrong. Whether or not the guy's joke was actually funny or not(and it seems that we could dedicate a whole other thread to the nature of taboo or transgressive comedy) is a moot point because the offended party is humorless. It's the same definition that I would apply to prudes or squares.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
19:36 / 27.07.05
I had used the word "gay" flippantly, in an idle conversation with someone I'd just met. I was given a ten minute lecture on how deep down, I was a homophobe who was in denial. This was my flashpoint, where I saw the trend in PC move to the unreasonable.

Brilliant. Ten measly minutes of conversation makes you think you're being treated unreasonably... Do you think it's fair to say that the moment you decided that 'PC' had gone too far was the same exact moment you were challenged to rethink or modify your own behaviour? If so, is that a coincidence? It's very easy to approve of progressive politics if they never ask us to move out of our comfort zones.

as it gained more momentum, it seemed that words were being replaced, on television, in the media, in conversations, with pauses, where the speaker tried to remember 'asian-american' instead of whatever word had been used up until that point.

Do you think this was a bad thing?

I found much of this trend distasteful, however, I took a severe dislike to white suburbanite university students lecturing me, on Apartheid, gay-bashing, and date-rape.

Was this because you took a different position on these issues to theirs, or because you did not believe that white suburbanite university students should not voice an opinion on these issues? If the latter, does that extent to those who had been gay-bashed or date-raped?

Silence met my challenges about our reservation system, after which Apartheid was modelled. The cry for justice in South Africa found another audience, ignoring the cry for justice at home as well.

If these people were not concerned about the reservation system or social justice in North America, then surely they were not 'PC' - by the way you seem to be defining it - enough. (Actually, I'm not sure how you are defining it - you've jumped from anecdotes about sensitivity training and language to opposition to Apartheid, and I'm not sure quite what the link is.) 'PC' does not seem to be the problem here, unless your definition of specifically includes "ignoring domestic racism and injustices while concerning oneself with the same as it occurs overseas". Had these students also been active in campaigning against the reservation system, would they really have won greater approval from you, given your aversion to them "lecturing" you on domestic issues such as rape and homophonic violence?

I couldn't stomach being told by white suburban canadians how my words might make an economically disenfranchised african-american feel.

"Couldn't stomach" is an interesting choice of words, suggesting as it does discomfort and unease. Again, I have to ask why you felt this way. Was it that their analysis was flawed? Or was it because you believed that white suburban Canadians should not comment on the feelings of non-white, non-suburban people? What words of yours were being discussed, out of interest?

it seems to be celebrating something of a resurgence in our public fora.... Today's PC is twenty years older.... it seems to me that an underlying current in PC, at least my recent exposure to it, seems to deny something unpalatable. An avoiding of discussions about death, illness, masturbation

Could you give any examples of this? It strikes me as rather an odd supposition. Are you sure it's the 'PC' brigade - those queer-positive, affirmative action loving college liberals - are not the ones who want to stop discussion of masturbation, rather than, say, their enemies on the religious right? Are you sure it's the 'PC' brigade rather than, say, the people who wanted Terri Schiavo kept alive, who want to avoid discussion about death?
 
 
*
19:46 / 27.07.05
For me, the primary goal of PC behavior is to gain a sense of moral superiority through shaming others for perceived inappropriate behavior, and not any real desire to address any sort of harm or injustice.

How do you know this? Or what makes you think this? Further, if in fact the intent of some people is to use the recommendation of sensitive language to gain a sense of moral superiority, while that of others is to address real harm and injustice, to what extent does this disparity invalidate the entire movement?

Can you move towards a results-based analysis rather than an intention-based analysis, since none of us can ever positively know the intentions of another?
 
 
m
20:00 / 27.07.05
The disparity doesn't invalidate the movement in any way, and it seems to me that we have to infer other people's intentions on a real regular basis.
 
 
paranoidwriter waves hello
20:09 / 27.07.05
For many reasons, I've been desperately trying to avoid posting in this thread, but I feel I have to clarify a few of my points. Of course, this will mean that you all have the right to discuss these points and what I am about to type, but I should point out that I am merely clarifying a few sub-points (as it were), not necessarily arguing an opinion I fundamentally believe mind, body, and soul. I am a very flexible thinker, or at least I try to be.

In response to my comments about PC and censorship (etc) in the Greenpeace Viral Ad thread (and again, repeated here, above), Haus typed:

You seem consistently to be confusing "slating" with "silencing".

This is going to sound a little manipulative, but please bear with me if I use an example from someone else's work, which (I think) illustrates how I am (at least) adequately aware of how I am using those two words:

There is a portion of a Derek & Clive tape where Peter Cook and Dudley Moore are (effectively) shouting over each-other and not listening to one another's words. It's debatable whether their apparent animosity to one another in this "sketch" is real, but if the exchange were "real", they would both (IMHO) be guilty of "silencing", or more accurately "censoring" each other. Funnily enough, during their exchange Dudley Moore slowly raises the pitch of his voice as he says something like (please forgive my memory; I'm still digging out my cassette-tape copy of the "sketch"):

"And I've just raised my pitch two octaves above yours and as a musician I know anyone listening is more likely to hear what I'm saying over what you are saying!...[etc]"

Strangely enough (for me anyway), his ploy worked and I can never remember what Peter Cook is saying "underneath".

Of course, silencing and deafening are two very different words with very important exclusive and distinct definitions. But there's a very complex relationship and interchangeability between the two, don't you think?

To go back an earlier post, similarly, when I type something like "we may be dangerously close to PC Hell on this one.", l am (much like m's take/definition of PC) merely trying to express a concern over any possible "silencing" of an open discussion of the meaning and possible interpretations of the Greenpeace's Viral ad and ALL the surrounding issues. As far as I can tell I was never guilty of silencing anyone, as were many other members. Again, I admit though I was probably a little clumsy with my wording (I do try though, I promise); my intention was never to offend or start an argument.


As a kind of side-note (i.e please don't take this as [for example] an example of some underlying prejudice on my part):

In the UK at least there is a chain of computer stores called "PC World" which is regularly advertised on TV. The theme-tune (a dramatic acapella-esque rendition of the company name) always makes me chuckle. Indeed, I was kind-of consciously playing on this advert in the post which sparked all this, by simultaneously trying to suggest that if there is a "PC World", maybe there's a "PC hell" and a "PC Heaven"?, etc. As I stated in a later post in that thread, however, PC is obviously an emotive term here and elsewhere, so I probably shouldn't have used it at all. Also, of course, many 'lither's may not have seen the adverts (etc). Again, I apologise.


That typed, I am very glad that a specific "PC" thread has now been started in Head Shop to discuss this issue as it would appear a new, fresh discussion was long overdue (for newbies like me, at least). However, personally, I'd have preferred a 'fresh start" for the birth of this thread, with maybe a few links (if necessary) to describe why/how the thread was born. (But I stress, that's just my personal preference.)

I intend now to sit back and listen to y'all, and pretend I've recently been daft enough to play with one of those excellent Chinese (?) finger-trap thingamee toys/devices. So, although my fingers may not be available for comment, as always, I promise I AM listening. (I've also missed a few new posts while typing this, so I apologise if this post seems out of place in any way; I will catch up.)

One Love.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
21:27 / 27.07.05
So the literal equivalent of 'Euw!' then?

I think the Fregean vers. is quite useful - it's a noise of disapproval that can be applied to almost anything - examples later, but must abed.
 
 
sdv (non-human)
22:02 / 27.07.05
from an american friend -

"...Political correctness has always been an ideological term, firstdeveloped by the far right think tanks in order to condemn the multiculturalism that existed on the college campuses, mainstream media and large corporations during the nineties. It has always been, in its heart of hearts, a figure of resentment. Political correctness is what the 'liberal elites' demand and what I reject, what I say no to. (See the Genealogy of Morals by Nietzsche or your local mega-church for copious illustrations.)Political incorrectness is basically a triumph of will for the fundamentalist fascist mindset. Bland conformism to authoritarian values now appears to be somewhat daring and even transgressive. Even though Christian values are actually the majority values of mainstream U.S. society, the concept of political incorrectness allows the fundies
to see themselves simultaneously as a persecuted minority and also as courageous rebels speaking out against the powers-that-be that in reality are the very ones who cynically fund their activities. Those liberals thought they were so smart with their book-learning and science, but, see, we rule! "

...comments to which I produced a difficult and dense deleuzian response to, but in this context I think he/she is to the point... What he does not register is that the term was produced to counter and how it escaped from their control.

s
 
 
Quantum
09:56 / 28.07.05
For me, the primary goal of PC behavior is to gain a sense of moral superiority through shaming others for perceived inappropriate behavior, and not any real desire to address any sort of harm or injustice. m

Thank you for that excellent example of a right wing interpretation of PC, please *do* set yourself up as an emissary of the 'PC gone maaaad' camp, you'll go far.

Notice how I humourlessly silence you like the liberal elite that I am? I'm simply gaining a cheap sense of moral superiority.

the concept of political incorrectness allows the fundies to see themselves simultaneously as a persecuted minority and also as courageous rebels sdv's American friend

That's a great quote, which I think concisely describes the purpose and usage of the phrase PC. I like the image it evokes of right wing conservative Rebel Alliance, heroically braving the liberal elite Death Star of political correctness...
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
10:13 / 28.07.05
I'm playing catch-up, Steve, but wrt your:

Haus: my problem is twofold firstly that the argument is largely anecdotal and relies upon personal experience and memory, secondly that there is nothing in the statements that attempts to explain how and where the concept, the construct of 'political correctness' comes from.

I agree entirely, but suggest that the absence of the history of the construct is a lacuna I constructed deliberately, in the first instance in the hope that PW would either supply his understanding or failing that acknowledge the inherent problem, and now to invite the same from the board more generally. I think the anecdote on Hitler I would normally not have quoted, except that I think Deva's question based on it is key.

There's a lot that is good in your friend's analysis - one of the great sleights of hand of Political Correctness is that, with right-wing values on the verge of dominating every element of the government of the most powerful nation in the world, to be right-wing in public is an act of heroic defiance.

The aetiology of the term is complex and interesting- I have seen it acribed at various times to Mao, Stalin, the Frankfurt School, Angela Davies, the NDC and so on - I think the legendary quality of the idea is reflected in its representation as possessed of many different parents...

m's comments are quuite interesting here, and Flyboy's response:

Are you sure it's the 'PC' brigade - those queer-positive, affirmative action loving college liberals - are not the ones who want to stop discussion of masturbation, rather than, say, their enemies on the religious right? Are you sure it's the 'PC' brigade rather than, say, the people who wanted Terri Schiavo kept alive, who want to avoid discussion about death?

I'm afraid I didn't understand m's final comment, but one might conclude that Political Correctness for him involves any attempt to prevent a conversation on unwelcome topics - which seems to be broadening the movement to the point where its memb

ers would have no interest in advancing each other's agenda. His clarification - that an action can be described as "politically correct" in terms of the intention of the person raising the complaint rather than the complaint itself - is interesting if somewhat boggling. It seems to suggest that, for example, if one genuinely was offended by a remark then one's complaint is not "bad" political correctness (PCGM as a shorthand?). One of many problems with this, of course, is that it means that the ultimate judgement on whether the correction is Politcal Correctness and thus can be discarded as irrelevant and ignoble in its intentions is made by the correctee:

In the above example of the Hitler TV comment, the offended party (if acting PC) would be getting off on the confrontation itself more than really trying to right any wrong. Whether or not the guy's joke was actually funny or not(and it seems that we could dedicate a whole other thread to the nature of taboo or transgressive comedy) is a moot point because the offended party is humorless. It's the same definition that I would apply to prudes or squares.

As such, Political Correctness becomes a handy label, as indeed it was in the example m cites, which essentially says "this person is raising an issue because of their own personal, spiritual failings (like prudishness or squarishness on the right (although PC may be used to advance right-wing suppressions of speech in my model, such as masturbation or the right to die - see also PW on prudery elsewhere), not through any fault of mine". Thus, it is always in the interest and within the power of the person being corrected to dismiss the correction as ignobly motivated. This seems to me a problem.

To address PW's clarifications briefly, as I think they have some interest to the thread.

Of course, silencing and deafening are two very different words with very important exclusive and distinct definitions. But there's a very complex relationship and interchangeability between the two, don't you think?

Of course. However, we were talking about "slating" and "silencing", weren't we, rather than "deafening" and "silencing"? If you mean that in response to your friend's Hitler gag this PC maven in the corner had generated a constant, deafening hum which made any further speech incomprehensible, then I get this, but otherwise I think you're comparing apples and oranges there. When the mechanisms of communication (in this case, the posting of sequential statements which are not allowed to overlap through board technology) specifically prevent two people "speaking" at the same time, I don't see how one can use this as a valid comaprison.

On:

As far as I can tell I was never guilty of silencing anyone, as were many other members.

I assume that this is simply bad phrasing, and that you mean "as far as I can tell I was never guilty of silencing anyone, nor were any other members". Otherwise, I have no idea what you mean. I'm still struggling to understand why the suggestion that something may have homophobic undertones is silencing debate, rather than extending it. If somebody feels at that point that they are unable to discuss this analysis, is that, to return to m's point, the fault of the analyst? I think this may be the result of a misunderstanding - you are responding to the question:

why is it "politically correct" to silence Hitler jokes, but not "politically correct" to silence reactions to Hitler jokes?

As if it were asking "why do you (Paranoidwriter) try to silence us (people on Barbelith)"? It is not this question - AFAICT, the only person who has suggested that Barbelith User A is attempting to silence Barbelith User B is yourself, when you described what was happening in the Greenpeace thread as "a form of censorship". In fact, the question is asking, specifically, why freedom of speech extends to your friend's right to make the funny, but does not extend to the third party's right to query its use, in the same way, in fact, that the Greenpeace ad is free speech, but questioning its message is slating/deafening/silencing/censorship.

M has a solution to this - that it depends on whether or not the objection is based on "good faith", in effect - that the same words can be either good PC (fighting oppression) or bad PC (seeking to create conflict with the aim of giving the plaintiff a thrill at how right-on they are), and that one makes a personal judgement based on as-yet-unclear criteria on whether to act on their words or reject them. However, since the decision to reject them is always going to provide one with a better self-image than to act on them, I'm not sure how disinterested such a wholly personal choice can ever be.

Which brings us neatly over and back to Deva's Marge Piercey paraphrase. Calling somebody a racist is a very, very big thing to do, especially to somebody who identifies strongly as non-racist. As such, if somebody says "what you have just said is racist", as somebody with a lot invested in not being a racist there will be a strong temptation to choose the response that keeps one far from the accusation of racism - that is "that statement is a result of your bad conscience/ your desire to create conflict/your desire to be seen as Politically Correct, and therefore has no bearing on my behaviour, but rather the failings of you, the person making the statement." The consequences of this being far less than the consequences of accepting a label as charged as "racist". Which, by the way, is why I see the separation of the ideas of being racist and doing racist, for example, as terribly important.

Example. Many years ago, on Barbelith, somebody claimed that doctors in Whitechapel do not tell Bengali families the gender of their unborn children, in the expectation that a female foetus will be aborted. This led to a discussion of whether it was ethical to limit somebody's access to medical data that they would be able to get in the normal course of events on the grounds of a guess made about their behaviour, based on a guess made about their culture based on a guess made about their race based on a guess based on their skin colour and name.

This discussion led somebody else to say, after they had shared their thoughts on the isssue, "And I suppose that makes me a racist?" The phrase "I suppose that makes me a racist" being brinksmanship - a flag that says that if you say that this is a racist viewpoint, then you are accusing the other person of being something utterly hideous and repugnant, and, by extension, making an accusatiion so vile and far from the truth, and thus so obviously the product of malice (bad conscience or bad faith), that it can be discarded immediately as simply Political Correctness gone mad. So, I think the idea of Political Correctness as a metatag actually extends far beyond situations in which it is cited in the visible text.

This example may also be useful for the sometimes overt but, I think, often present dichotomy of political correctness and common sense.

(PC-as-tag - memo to me. Come back to this)
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
10:17 / 28.07.05
the concept of political incorrectness allows the fundies to see themselves simultaneously as a persecuted minority and also as courageous rebels

Oh, at the risk of quoting myself; the comaprison has been made withoout irony of PCGM and fundamentalist Christianity. My question then was:

I think the point is that one can say "this is what fundamentalist Christianity believes. These are books written by fundamentalist Christians about the tenets and beliefs of fundamentalist Christianity. These are ten things Fundamentalist Christianity approves of, and ten things FC disapproves of. " That man may be made of straw, but you'd still know if you drove into it.

The same thing not being, to my knowledge, something one can do with Political Correctness (Gone Mad)...
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
10:50 / 28.07.05
Oh. It happened again. I was just in the terrorism thread suggesting that terrorism was a word without a meaning beyond 'all the things this means', and PC is a bit like that. It seems to mean 'anyone engaged in an attempt to tackle a perceived iniquity in terminology or practice which I perceive as non-existent or non-threatening'.

It came to my notice when I was a kid because Camden Council reputedly decided that 'manholes' had to be called 'personel access hatches'. I still don't know if its true, and if it is, I'm waiting for the name to be changed back on the basis that its excision betrays a latent prejudice against anyone who is interested in the various holes men have.

Sub-note - as I've mentioned elsewhere, Bluewater Shopping Centre, of hooded infamy, screened a series of anti-domestic violence movies in February. From a sort of Middle England viewpoint, that could seem as far into PC as banning hooded tops is anti-PC. It just made me wonder what the state of play at Bluewater really was and is.
 
 
sdv (non-human)
16:59 / 28.07.05
The pre-history of the PC concept is, i think relevant and does by implication question some of the assumptions being made, perhaps most importantly that most of the comments could not have even been made without this prehistory. The trajectory which results in PC begins (I think) in 1968. This being the moment when modernity becomes post-modernity and it is marked by significant changes to the social, economic and the first signs of the change in dominant labor forms. The post-modern is here (at least) understood as an account of the consequences of the social and historical changes rather than as a crisis of thought or legitimacy. Not then an account of the end of grand-narratives and the dissolution of traditional social-bodies and communities, though this is arguably true, but also as significant an economic and material change as 1926. In the early years of the change, challenges to what is an acceptable social relationship/statement began to circulate, initially within the left but eventually it escapes from this limited social arena and gradually becomes normalized throughout wider society. Generally i think we can say that the argument was accepted that 'offensively' stereotyping human beings was unacceptable, as was any explicit statement of power and superiority – for example the infamous and embarrassing statement from the early 70's 'a child sat on my lap and i felt her sexual desires...' (need i mention the challenge raised by feminism, gay politics and so on...). This marks a structural change in how the left and ultimately society should address the question of how a human being may relate to other human beings. At the beginning of the 80s there is a marked social and political shift, as the neo-liberal response began to dominate both the political and the intellectual high ground – for them the structural change in how others may be addressed needs to be restrained. It is this moment during the mid-1980s that the concept of 'politically correct' was used to describe what had been a positive and useful phenomena. That the use of the concept failed to prevent the continuing challenges to the stereotyping and the occasional demand for related social and political demands from continuing is obvious...

This of course means that the phrase 'political correctness' does have a meaning and the various people suggesting it is a meaningless term are simply not recognizing it's historical significance or the precise site of struggle...

an example shortly.
 
 
m
18:40 / 28.07.05
Quantum: Thanks for the ad hominem, jerk.

Haus: I'm pretty sure that Flyboy wasn't responding to my post, but to Tenix's. My response didn't make any sense to you because it was to Sentimentity. Although, now that I re-read my response, I realize that it is confusing because I am going along with Sent's idea that there is a "good" PC movement, which I don't think there is. There are civil rights movements, environmental movements, worker's rights movements, etc, but no PC movement. I only ever think of it as negative descriptor.

I write very slowly, so I'll post this and be back in a bit to address some of your other points.
 
  

Page: (1)23456

 
  
Add Your Reply