Has political correctness actually gone mad?

Wibble said:
Why? I might not agree with some Uni's decisions about who to invite to speak and who not to but they have the right to invite who they like. Free speak doesn't mean the right to speak anywhere you choose even when the owners of a particular place don't want you there.
Click to expand...

It isn't the university though, it's a minority who want to supress free speech that disagree with their world view that bully the university. So anyone who states 'A transexual is technically still a male' will be protested against and barred from speaking. Even a feminist otherwise liberal speaker.

Technically the hallmarks of fascism and certainly not liberalism.

Grylte said:
Why do people consider being negative against a religion, especially Islam, racist?
Click to expand...

If you discriminate against a group of people because their muslim then you're a bigot. If you're against the seperation of genders in public places, against homophobia, against oppression of women, against Islamic schools and against the burkah you may have some valid arguments.
 
Wibble said:
I don't think giving a platform to everyone is an absolute duty of a University. Personally I'd tend towards free speech but you shouldn't give platforms to people with vile views.
Click to expand...
Who decides what is ‘vile’ and what is not - that’s the fundamental question though isn’t it?
 
Member 5225 said:
Who decides what is ‘vile’ and what is not - that’s the fundamental question though isn’t it?
Click to expand...
Well, I'd say for a start anything that encourages violence or the treatment of a defined group as being somehow less than human. That seems something even Mill would agree with.
 
Ubik said:
Well, I'd say for a start anything that encourages violence or the treatment of a defined group as being somehow less than human. That seems something even Mill would agree with.
Click to expand...

So we shouldn’t allow anyone to speak at a university who’s gone on record that they’re in favour of the whole “punch a Nazi” thing?

I’m (obviously) being devil’s advocate but it’s very hard to avoid getting sucked into grey areas here.
 
WackyWengerWorld said:
If you discriminate against a group of people because their muslim then you're a bigot. If you're against the seperation of genders in public places, against homophobia, against oppression of women, against Islamic schools and against the burkah you may have some valid arguments.
Click to expand...

I don't discriminate anyone personally or as a group, i'm just generally against religion.
And it pisses me off when it makes it a problem for them to do their job properly, and it affects me and my job's reputation.
But it is still not racism, and i wouldn't call it bigotry either.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
So we shouldn’t allow anyone to speak at a university who’s gone on record that they’re in favour of the whole “punch a Nazi” thing?

I’m (obviously) being devil’s advocate but it’s very hard to avoid getting sucked into grey areas here.
Click to expand...
I'd say if they were speaking about wanting to punch nazis, or their whole shtick elsewhere is about punching nazis, then yeah. If someone just wrote on twitter when Spencer was punched that they, too, would punch a nazi then I don't think anyone would care. I'm not saying this should be a law, fwiw (even though it's probably already covered under hate speech), it was just a point that "vile" views tend to have a fairly widespread acknowledgement as being vile, and so there's already cover for people to tell some speakers to piss off and remain true to free speech.

One particularly grey area I suppose would be in something like a humanitarian situation where a regime was engaging in ethnic cleansing or just generally killing its civilians, and someone wanted to speak advocating a military intervention (violence by any definition, even if it's in aid of saving people). I know plenty are firmly against any interventions like this, but saying people shouldn't be able to speak in favour would be a little ridiculous.

I'm tempted to also include people that speak on climate and other science issues whilst presenting misleading (and often false) data but that's probably too far :lol:
 
As per the 3/4 posts above - shows how hard it is to set the rules, regulate, etc
 
2cents said:
images
Click to expand...
Oscar Isaac is such a great method actor.
 
Adebesi said:
The Mao thing was just one of her more successful straw men. There is more to Mao than the people he killed. His analogy wasnt meant to suggest feminism will lead to mass murder, it was about controlling thought. It may be a clumsy analogy - its always a risk to use mass murdering dictators for this purpose - but in other instances people understand analogies are not meant to be perfect comparisons, they compare very specific aspects of different situations.
Click to expand...

I swear an increasing number of people these days really don't understand the idea of comparison at all, and instead think that it means you're saying two things are identical in every way.
 
About this minority of students that are banding together to clamp down on free speech, is there not an opposing group that can argue against them?

If there is then maybe they weren't very compelling, if there isn't then why the fuss?
 
afrocentricity said:
About this minority of students that are banding together to clamp down on free speech, is there not an opposing group that can argue against them?

If there is then maybe they weren't very compelling, if there isn't then why the fuss?
Click to expand...

From what I’ve read there is and they are but the faculties consistently err on the side of those who feel most offended. Which is understandable. Although that also explains why there’s a fuss.
 
FlawlessThaw said:
To get your perspective, in what way?
Click to expand...

@2cents

You are correct about abnormally high consanguinity among Jews; it is (IIRC) specifically related to Askenazi Jews. At least that is wht I learnt in class.

However, there is this fairly recent (and very interesting) review paper: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fgene.2014.00462/full
It mentions the recessive diseases found among them (that were considered a mark of a fairly related population), but also mentions that genetic data hasn't corroborated this properly, except for certain populations of priests. I had not read it before (still not finished it) and it seems to be both informative and not overly technical. (still, a warning: population genetics is probably the hardest stuff to read within bio)

@Synco it might be interesting for you also


Ubik said:
One particularly grey area I suppose would be in something like a humanitarian situation where a regime was engaging in ethnic cleansing or just generally killing its civilians, and someone wanted to speak advocating a military intervention (violence by any definition, even if it's in aid of saving people). I know plenty are firmly against any interventions like this, but saying people shouldn't be able to speak in favour would be a little ridiculous.
Click to expand...

That's an interesting point actually - there has been a parade of Bush-era neocons and Obama-era nat sec people (all advocates of various wars, all taking about "global security challenges") giving talks at my univ without a hint of protest.
Even more stunningly, there was also known idiot Sean Spicer and famous pizza pedo Podesta, who came and left without incident. White text.
 
Last edited:
Pogue Mahone said:
From what I’ve read there is and they are but the faculties consistently err on the side of those who feel most offended. Which is understandable. Although that also explains why there’s a fuss.
Click to expand...
Sorry mate but they can't be that compelling :lol:

But seriously, can you give examples? A wanted Z to speak for reasons, B wanted to stop Z and succeeded/failed because... (sizes would help too)
 
Member 5225 said:
Who decides what is ‘vile’ and what is not - that’s the fundamental question though isn’t it?
Click to expand...

The clubs and societies invite and occasionally the Universities veto. Which is fair enough. It is the University's venue so they have the right of veto. No fundamental questions involved.
 
Last edited:
WackyWengerWorld said:
It isn't the university though, it's a minority who want to supress free speech that disagree with their world view that bully the university. So anyone who states 'A transexual is technically still a male' will be protested against and barred from speaking. Even a feminist otherwise liberal speaker.

Technically the hallmarks of fascism and certainly not liberalism
Click to expand...

Fascism? Hardly. And protesting against what people say is an inherant part of democracy.
 
2 Girls 1 Midfield said:
Well I agree there. I don't think any uni should obligated to host anyone as such. Their gaff, their rules. It's just a bit sad that some students want to ban speakers with conservative but perfectly legitimate political views. It's a bit like putting your fingers in your ears and saying "la la la" to yourself. I say that as someone left leaning myself too. I don't think there's anything wrong with hearing alternative viewpoints.
Click to expand...

I tend to agree no matter how vile most of the mainly right wing nutjobs in question are. I'd personally prefer they were allowed to speak and the students organised protest rallys like used to occur.

Of course the right wing press would love that.
 
Grylte said:
I work with lots of muslims, of litterally ever skin colour and origin, i think most of them are cnuts because the way they use their religion to defend how they do their job. I have heard stories from my customers where they have experienced some ridicolous stuff, because the collegue of mine they met, couldn't help them cause they were gay, had a dog, had perfume on, and stuff like that.
Click to expand...
If I had co-workers who would do things like that, I'd be pissed off, no question. That's what I was referring to in the last paragraph of my post. It's also noteworthy that, according to what you say, these persons themselves seem to claim their religion is coupled with homophobia and intolerance. Such an interpretation of Islam deserves criticism, period. (What I don't get, though: how could that co-worker know that some particular customer is gay?)

So as long as you can still treat other individuals fairly, I can't see anything wrong. I think @WackyWengerWorld has put it well in post #4228/second part.
Grylte said:
But if i say anything, i'm told i'm racist.... really....?
Click to expand...
If you don't mind to tell: Who said that, and in which situation?
 
berbatrick said:
@Synco it might be interesting for you also
Click to expand...
Very interesting indeed, for its historical breakdown of both inner-Jewish debate and scientific developments. My ability to grasp the latter is limited of course, so I naturally got lost somewhere in the second half. I just have to assume the author's deductions are valid.

I also like the conclusion, proper no-nonsense materialism.
Obviously, what kept Jews identity were their language, culture, tradition and religion. Thus, whatever their biological hereditary kinships, both the trans-generational vertical, and intra-generation horizontal relationships are secondary consequences. However, the increasing reliance on scientific reductionism in biological thinking of the last two centuries eventually culminated in turning the evidence of DNA sequences into the essence of the characterization of Jewishness rather than its consequence. Still, in spite of repeated efforts, there is no agreed upon criterion to identify Jews, and samples examined for the distribution of biological or molecular markers all depend on the preconceived biases of the investigators. Races, it is assumed, may differ in inherent properties that are evaluated differentially. But races are not biological-meaningful classification entities. And if so, why is racism a bad property? The answer must be: Because it provides socio-cultural justifications for discrimination on the basis of presumed and irrelevant biological properties.

Nice to see you undermining BDS, by the way. :p
 
afrocentricity said:
About this minority of students that are banding together to clamp down on free speech, is there not an opposing group that can argue against them?

If there is then maybe they weren't very compelling, if there isn't then why the fuss?
Click to expand...

There is and has been, but in many of those cases it has escalated into violence which is why this is so fecked up. Both stances are so extreme that any civilized debate is almost impossible, so when hurling insults does not work any longer they resort to violence instead. It's like we are back to the fecking 30's
 
Synco said:
If you don't mind to tell: Who said that, and in which situation?
Click to expand...

Not directly to me, i'm careful what i say to people, i generally try to stay out of trouble snd drama :)
But i read it several times on facebook, where if people voice negative opinions about muslims, they are being accused of being racist.
 
Grylte said:
Not directly to me, i'm careful what i say to people, i generally try to stay out of trouble snd drama :)
But i read it several times on facebook, where if people voice negative opinions about muslims, they are being accused of being racist.
Click to expand...

But that is being bigoted. Why would you have negative views on a whole group of people?

If a black guy swerves out in front of me, a reasonable response would be "Prick! Hope you die horribly in front of your family". Not "Bloody black people! Hate them all" - then complain when people were being 'PC' and calling me racist because of it. What possible reason could there be to give a negative opinion against a whole group of people on the basis that they share one characteristic with one person/a few people you dislike?
 
Oscie said:
But that is being bigoted. Why would you have negative views on a whole group of people?

If a black guy swerves out in front of me, a reasonable response would be "Prick! Hope you die horribly in front of your family". Not "Bloody black people! Hate them all" - then complain when people were being 'PC' and calling me racist because of it. What possible reason could there be to give a negative opinion against a whole group of people on the basis that they share one characteristic with one person/a few people you dislike?
Click to expand...
That's the difference I think. You can have an opinion about Islam, but not all Muslims. One is a concept, the other is literally hundreds of millions of individuals.
 
Oscie said:
But that is being bigoted. Why would you have negative views on a whole group of people?

If a black guy swerves out in front of me, a reasonable response would be "Prick! Hope you die horribly in front of your family". Not "Bloody black people! Hate them all" - then complain when people were being 'PC' and calling me racist because of it. What possible reason could there be to give a negative opinion against a whole group of people on the basis that they share one characteristic with one person/a few people you dislike?
Click to expand...

Thay's not at all what i said, or mean, maybe i worded it wrong.
I judge everyone on how they treat me and others, not how i think they are because they are religious.
It's the moment they use their religion as defense for why they do something, that afrects others in a negative way.

And your example is pretty much exactly the point i made in my first point.
There's a difference between 'black people' in your example, and 'muslims' in mine, cause one is a race/skin colour, the other a group of religious people.
I never discriminate anyone for their race, which is pretty much what racism is about.
People chose their religion, or are taught(brainwashed) from their families, a race is not chosen, that's who you are, shows where you and your family are from.

I respect everyone until they show they are not worthy of my respect, regardless of their skin colour or where they are from. But race and religious belief is not the same.
 
Ubik said:
Well, I'd say for a start anything that encourages violence or the treatment of a defined group as being somehow less than human. That seems something even Mill would agree with.
Click to expand...

Guessing you’re ok with this Presidents club thing - they have the right (like the Universities) to pick and choose, correct?
 
Wibble said:
Why? I might not agree with some Uni's decisions about who to invite to speak and who not to but they have the right to invite who they like. Free speak doesn't mean the right to speak anywhere you choose even when the owners of a particular place don't want you there.
Click to expand...
Was meant for this post. I am guessing this recent outrage at the Presidents Club thingy is crazy for you; they have a right to pick and choose, correct?
 
Grylte said:
Thay's not at all what i said, or mean, maybe i worded it wrong.
I judge everyone on how they treat me and others, not how i think they are because they are religious.
It's the moment they use their religion as defense for why they do something, that afrects others in a negative way.

And your example is pretty much exactly the point i made in my first point.
There's a difference between 'black people' in your example, and 'muslims' in mine, cause one is a race/skin colour, the other a group of religious people.
I never discriminate anyone for their race, which is pretty much what racism is about.
People chose their religion, or are taught(brainwashed) from their families, a race is not chosen, that's who you are, shows where you and your family are from.

I respect everyone until they show they are not worthy of my respect, regardless of their skin colour or where they are from. But race and religious belief is not the same.
Click to expand...
I'd just like to point out that legally speaking, discrimination based on religion is often defined as racism. In Norway specifically, it falls under Straffeloven (penal code, for those who don't speak Viking), paragraf 135a, popularly referred to as Rasismeparagrafen (this one should be fairly obvious). It's not an anti-racism law, but rather an anti-discrimination and anti-hate-speech law. Law specifically states that hate-speech, discrimination or showing contempt based on or directed at someone based on their race, ethnicity, nationality, religion or lifestance, sexuality or disability are crimes. So if you're treating someone worse because they're Muslim, you risk running foul of this law, same as if you were doing it because of their skin colour.

I agree that they are different, but I also agree with the law's view that neither are ok.
 
Last edited:
Member 5225 said:
Was meant for this post. I am guessing this recent outrage at the Presidents Club thingy is crazy for you; they have a right to pick and choose, correct?
Click to expand...

You're comparing free speech and the right to exploit/harass young women.
 
Mrs Smoker said:
Life of Brian from Monty Python. Banned in Norway, and Swedes then came up with that nice catchphrase.
Click to expand...
What why?
I don't get it. Norwegian media & people at my parents age has hailed Monty Python for ages.
Maybe this was before the humor was embraced?
 
Mrs Smoker said:
Probably some outdated blasphemy law that is (hopefully) long gone.
Click to expand...
Yeah, googled a bit. Seems the ban was lifted in 1980. At least we're not as mad today as I thought when I read that a comedy was banned, had me worried. :lol:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.