Has political correctness actually gone mad?

Pogue Mahone said:
Out of interest, using this broad definition for what constitutes racism, what % of the population are not racist, in your opinion?

My take on it is that a lot of people (most people?) have biases and prejudices when it comes to people of a different ethnicity to their own. Which is ok, so long as they're willing to recognise these impulses, challenge them and make sure they always treat everyone equally, irrespective of the colour of their skin.

The idea that someone could decide to spent the rest of their life married to a black person and still be lumped in alongside members of the fecking Klu Klux Klan in one big, amorphous racist club is obviously preposterous. Calling someone a racist is insulting. We're only a generation or two away from lynchings ffs. Expanding the definition to include huge swathes of society will only end up alienating and pissing off potential allies and/or rob the word of any kind of real meaning.

All of the above equally applies to sexuality/gender. Sticking people like Martina Navratilova - a lesbian who chose to spend a large part of her career working closely with a trans woman - in the same category as actual queer bashers for daring to express an opinion on fairness in sport (an opinion you're allowed to disagree with) is exactly the sort of over the top, mean-spirited tactics that turn a lot of people off trans activism, when they might naturally be inclined to have sympathy for their plight.
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Havent been following this conversation so apologies if this is a bit of a tangent to what you two are talking about. But I am reading 21 Lessons for the 21st Century at the moment. (I love Yuval Noah Harrari, I think he's absolutely fantastic, this is the least impressive of his three books IMO, but only because a lot of the content in it seems to be recycled from his other two books. Someone told me this was because he was contractually obliged by his publisher to do 3 books but he didnt have any ideas for his third one so just churned this out. I have no idea if that is true. But anyway, I digress.)

One interesting point in this book (one of the few interesting points not raised already in his other two books) is he draws a distinction between racism and culturism. He reckons a lot of people get the two things confused - most people dont even think of culturism as a thing. But he says there is an important distinction to make, which might account for some of the biases and prejudices you talk about.

Racism is based in the belief that one group of people are genetically superior to another and it claims to be rooted in science, although of course the science is pretty clear that, while there may be some genetic differences between races, they are small and do not constitute superiority or inferiority.

Culturism is the belief that one culture is superior to another. It has nothing to do with science or genetics, but social norms. So it is possible, he argues, to be anti immigrant on the basis that you do not like, say, conservative Islamic culture, but not be racist. If you think people coming into the UK from Pakistan is problematic because they bring traditions like FGM and misogyny, or because you feel they do not make an effort to integrate into British culture, or anything like that, rooted in cultural norms, rather than assumptions about genetic superiority, Harrari argues that is not racist, that is culturist.

I think this is an interesting and helpful distinction. Obviously calling it culturism instead of racism isnt giving people a green light to be as predudiced as they want about people with different cultures. There is still a debate to be had about cultural diversity, about how tolerant host nations should be and how much effort immigrants should make to integrate. But I do think making this distinction helps bridge the gap between people who have a problem with immigration, but reject the term "racist", and those who are more comfortable living in multicultural societies, who welcome immigrants, and who often dismiss those on the other side of the debate as racist. If both sides can agree that culture is different to race, and concerns about culture are more valid than concerns about race, then perhaps there is a way for a more constructive dialogue between the two sides.
 
Adebesi said:
Havent been following this conversation so apologies if this is a bit of a tangent to what you two are talking about. But I am reading 21 Lessons for the 21st Century at the moment. (I love Yuval Noah Harrari, I think he's absolutely fantastic, this is the least impressive of his three books IMO, but only because a lot of the content in it seems to be recycled from his other two books. Someone told me this was because he was contractually obliged by his publisher to do 3 books but he didnt have any ideas for his third one so just churned this out. I have no idea if that is true. But anyway, I digress.)

One interesting point in this book (one of the few interesting points not raised already in his other two books) is he draws a distinction between racism and culturism. He reckons a lot of people get the two things confused - most people dont even think of culturism as a thing. But he says there is an important distinction to make, which might account for some of the biases and prejudices you talk about.

Racism is based in the belief that one group of people are genetically superior to another and it claims to be rooted in science, although of course the science is pretty clear that, while there may be some genetic differences between races, they are small and do not constitute superiority or inferiority.

Culturism is the belief that one culture is superior to another. It has nothing to do with science or genetics, but social norms. So it is possible, he argues, to be anti immigrant on the basis that you do not like, say, conservative Islamic culture, but not be racist. If you think people coming into the UK from Pakistan is problematic because they bring traditions like FGM and misogyny, or because you feel they do not make an effort to integrate into British culture, or anything like that, rooted in cultural norms, rather than assumptions about genetic superiority, Harrari argues that is not racist, that is culturist.

I think this is an interesting and helpful distinction. Obviously calling it culturism instead of racism isnt giving people a green light to be as predudiced as they want about people with different cultures. There is still a debate to be had about cultural diversity, about how tolerant host nations should be and how much effort immigrants should make to integrate. But I do think making this distinction helps bridge the gap between people who have a problem with immigration, but reject the term "racist", and those who are more comfortable living in multicultural societies, who welcome immigrants, and who often dismiss those on the other side of the debate as racist. If both sides can agree that culture is different to race, and concerns about culture are more valid than concerns about race, then perhaps there is a way for a more constructive dialogue between the two sides.
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Actually, that's a useful concept. Otherwise how else do you explain someone like Maajid Nawaz being "racist" towards people of the same ethnic group. Also explains tensions between people of the same race, with different cultural backgrounds (Irish vs English, African v Carribean)

EDIT: Also London vs the rest of the UK?
 
afrocentricity said:
I keep hearing about it so I'll accept it. I disagree with their reaction though and I'd ask why they think it's the appropriate one, hoping that on self reflection they'll challenge themselves.
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Its a difficult subject for many to get their head around, even liberal people who are supportive of equal rights for all may still face a quandry around trans rights because its not about being accepted for who you are, but being accepted for who you want to become. As a solitary person you can decide to ignore the extreme views held on either side of a debate but if we want to get a society wide acceptance of any issue we have to find a fair middle ground that has some wiggle room for people on the edge of that view. People who are struggling to grasp, but remain generally open to the idea may find that their grip on the situation is loosened by a media storm like the one around Navratliova and such outcries will play to their more conservative of traditional views.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Actually, that's a useful concept. Otherwise how else do you explain someone like Maajid Nawaz being "racist" towards people of the same ethnic group. Also explains tensions between people of the same race, with different cultural backgrounds (Irish vs English, African v Carribean)

EDIT: Also London vs the rest of the UK?
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Is London vs RUK a cultural divide? I tend to think of it as an economic one. London feeling like they carry RUK. RUK resenting London for sucking economic activity away from it.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
From wikipedia:
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I had no idea that was a thing, but I was refering to somethig else, unless I misunderstood antohan.

In Portuguese, (and I assume Spanish), if you're adressing someone whose gender you don't know (say an automated letter from your bank) it will often be written for exemple:

Exmo(a) senhor(a)

Which is a formal way of writing "Dear sir or madam" when you don't know who you are refering to. In many Portuguese and Spanish words you turn a masculine noun into a feminine by substituting the final o with a or adding a when it doesn't end in a vowel. This only works in written form, so if you are speaking in public you will still say "senoras y senores" (ladies and gentleman).

Now apparently people (who?) are trying to introduce a trend of substituting the vowel by an x, which doesn't make phonetic sence at all. You would write senorxs then, which I don't even have an idea how you could pronounce. It seems as if the x was chosen just because of it's mathematical meaning of variable.

EDIT: found the phenomenon https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latinx

Some refuse to use the term as "Latinx doesn't roll off the tongue in the Spanish language."
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Arruda said:
I had no idea that was a thing, but I was refering to somethig else, unless I misunderstood antohan.

In Portuguese, (and I assume Spanish), if you're adressing someone whose gender you don't know (say an automated letter from your bank) it will often be written for exemple:

Exmo(a) senhor(a)

Which is a formal way of writing "Dear sir or madam" when you don't know who you are refering to. In many Portuguese and Spanish words you turn a masculine noun into a feminine by substituting the final o with a or adding a when it doesn't end in a vowel. This only works in written form, so if you are speaking in public you will still say "senoras y senores" (ladies and gentleman).

Now apparently people (who?) are trying to introduce a trend of substituting the vowel by an x, which doesn't make phonetic sence at all. You would write senorxs then, which I don't even have an idea how you could pronounce. It seems as if the x was chosen just because of it's mathematical meaning of variable.
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Sure. I was only sharing those to show how silly sounding English words have also got in the quest for gender neutral language. There's an x in there too. Feck knows why.

Xe (Rickter, c. 1973)[69] Xe is laughing I called xem Xyr eyes gleam That is xyrs Xe likes xemself
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Sure. I was only sharing those to show how silly sounding English words have also got in the quest for gender neutral language. There's an x in there too. Feck knows why.

Xe (Rickter, c. 1973)[69] Xe is laughing I called xem Xyr eyes gleam That is xyrs Xe likes xemself
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Ah, got it! Edited my post, as I found the name of the trend. It's called Latinx.
 
That's not evolution, it's murder.
 
jojojo said:
Just as a sidenote I was listening to an AI specialist talking about some ethical issues last night - around how easy it is to build racist/sexist bias into AI models.

One of the illustrations he gave was google translate working on a series of non-gender specific phrases (I think it was in Turkish) and translating into English. Despite the same neutral pronoun being used in the sentences, it came up with things like:
He is a doctor
She is a nurse
He is an architect
She is a cook

I've seen it before where a translation algorithm came up with, "he is a chef" and gave as the alternative, "she is a cook."

Apparently a consequence of one of those "big data" learning models that uses word association to translate phrases. I'm not sure if it's been fixed now.
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I'm sure I read somewhere (or was told by an insider) that Microsoft had to kill off a project because within weeks of absorbing and processing freely the AI had turned into the worst possible mix of Donald Trump and Bolsonaro.

I'm picking those names, they basically called it a "Little Hitler".
 
Adebesi said:
Is London vs RUK a cultural divide? I tend to think of it as an economic one. London feeling like they carry RUK. RUK resenting London for sucking economic activity away from it.
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Capital city vs rest of the country is a divide in most countries. When the country is large enough you have a few others, e.g. Rio vs Sao Paulo vs rest of Brazil, or South vs North.
 
Arruda said:
That's not evolution, it's murder.
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Agree. It started simply using @ for a or o. Then it turned into X. Now x doesn't roll off the tongue so they started using e, and le for el or la but it sounds like Catalan so you now get a mix whereby X goes wherever you can use a or o and e where there's an a or o at the end, even if there's no gender implied but just in case to avoid using either letter at the end.

Todxs unidxs contre le lenguaje inclusive

Dafuq?

POSTA-1200x600.jpg
 
antohan said:
Agree. It started simply using @ for a or o. Then it turned into X. Now x doesn't roll off the tongue so they started using e, and le for el or la but it sounds like Catalan so you now get a mix whereby X goes wherever you can use a or o and e where there's an a or o at the end, even if there's no gender implied but just in case to avoid using either letter at the end.

Todxs unidxs contre le lenguaje inclusive

Dafuq?

POSTA-1200x600.jpg
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Dxfxq, surely?
 
So opinions are divided on whether the response to Navratilova's views is a case of PC gone mad. I'm going to find an example everyone agrees with in the end, I'm determined to. I thought I had it here but no.

Navratilova competed for decades at the highest level in female sport, she says she thinks transgender athletes have an unfair advantage but the café is divided on whether she is just thinking/saying that because she is transphobic or because she might know a thing or two about competing at the highest level of female sports.

Also, I have found out that,

Thinking that she might have a point makes you transphobic.

Being called transphobic isn't a bad thing though because transsexuals have it worse so you know just shut up.

And testosterone is a performance enhancing drug unless you had loads more of it from the womb onwards, or you are taking loads of it to change your gender at which point it stops enhancing your performance and doesn't help you at all because there are tall men and short men.
 
And now we see where Southpark came up with the Goobacks' language.
 
Vato said:
That's some flawless logic right there.
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Standard party line though. I sure am used to it.

I doubt it's a well known fact but our beloved "poorest President in the world" decided that since transgender people have a hard time getting a job social security should pay them 1.5x times the minimum wage, for life, for doing nothing.

"Society is transphobic and we won't fix that so we will compensate them"

Flawless logic, particularly if you want hard working tax payers to warm to them.
 
antohan said:
Standard party line though. I sure am used to it.

I doubt it's a well known fact but our beloved "poorest President in the world" decided that since transgender people have a hard time getting a job social security should pay them 1.5x times the minimum wage, for life, for doing nothing.

"Society is transphobic and we won't fix that so we will compensate them"

Flawless logic, particularly if you want hard working tax payers to warm to them.
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What’s the procedure behind that? As in, how far along do you have to be before they accept you as trans? Could you in theory just claim to be the opposite to what you are and therefore become eligible?
 
2 man midfield said:
What’s the procedure behind that? As in, how far along do you have to be before they accept you as trans? Could you in theory just claim to be the opposite to what you are and therefore become eligible?
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I've no idea but based on other handout schemes I've had insight into it likely depends largely on how likely you are to vote for them.

In Argentina they have a registry and you fill in an application form asking really odd questions like "What is your war name?", "When was your first time?", "With a man/woman/other?", "As a child, where you molested by a family member?".

Not sure if it's poor taste from someone actually transphobic or simplistic pigeon-holing by wannabe advocates.
 
fellaini's barber said:
Typical liberal nutjob reply as expected, nothing to do with the discussion, just call them racist, sexist, homophobe, transphobe, asshole, ignorant from the lofty moral high ground you created in your tiny little head,only problem is you have deluded yourselves into thinking anyone gives a flying feck.

When did the bolded happen ffs:lol:?Why would anyone bother themslves with what you crazies label them? I mean on this thread someone is being called transphobic because she's against transgender women competing with actual women born as women, and she's supposed to bother if loons call her names for that opinion? Nah mate
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If writing me off as a liberal nutjob makes you feel better about the blatantly transphobic shit you keep posting, good for you I guess.

And most (though not all) on here and elsewhere didn't take issue with the point she was making (having trans women compete against cis women would be unfair), but the way she made it. Going "men will just become a woman to win a lot" is straight-up trans panic shit, comparable to "men will just say they are women to molest girls in restrooms". She could have just said "their physical advantage would make for an uneven playing field, and would be unfair for cis women" and avoided stoking the flames of trans hatred. What she said also ignores those who transition before puberty, and whose bodies will follow the development of their 'new' gender. They'd have no physical advantage over cis women, and there shouldn't be anything that keeps them from competing.
UnrelatedPsuedo said:
It really is when we set it against the male equivalent.

There are a tiny amount of women’s sports that are at the same level, or better, than the male version.

I’m not speaking to the value of women’s sporting events. They’re every bit as important as men’s events in societal terms.

But almost exclusively the pinnacle of any sporting discipline has a Man atop. Most female sporting disciplines could be conquered by amateur or semi professional men.
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Are we talking about the entertainment value of the sport, or the physical capabilities of the performers? Because they aren't necessarily linked. There's also a fair bit of subjectivity involved, so you unilaterally declaring women's sports shit and questioning whether they're genuine sports is just plain stupid, not to mention sexist. Who the feck are you to make that distinction? They're women at their physical peak competing, and they put in as much time as their male equivalents, and deserve the same respect as the men get.
 
antohan said:
Agree. It started simply using @ for a or o. Then it turned into X. Now x doesn't roll off the tongue so they started using e, and le for el or la but it sounds like Catalan so you now get a mix whereby X goes wherever you can use a or o and e where there's an a or o at the end, even if there's no gender implied but just in case to avoid using either letter at the end.

Todxs unidxs contre le lenguaje inclusive

Dafuq?

POSTA-1200x600.jpg
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This always seemed like the logical solution to me. The “x” thing sucks from a linguistic perspective.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
When I'm talking about turning people off trans activism, I would be a lot more worried about kids/teenagers who are still finding their way in their world. I've always been reassured by the way each generation gets more and more progressive, leaving old farts like me (and, soon enough, you) looking out of touch and outdated in our opinions. I'd like to think that will continue indefinitely but it's hard not to notice that identity politics is turning out to be incredibly divisive, with the animosity it generates causing people you'd expect to be sympathetic to the plight of minorities end up seduced by the alt right.
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I know there's a lot of money to be made out of this idea that identity politics is pushing young men to the far right(See the Sam Harris & Peterson thread)but all the polling and voting evidence suggests this is completely false.

Pogue Mahone said:
I've seen that happen, personally, with people I know (who would be about your age) leaving university as well rounded, educated and progressive young men, then got sucked into social media squabbles and found themselves siding with the "bad guys". I honestly don't think this would have happened if there weren't so many examples of activists picking fights, insulting people or over-reacting to trivial slights when (ironically!) a more tolerant and reasoned debate would have served their purpose much better.
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Your friend needs to watch John Carpenter - They Live. And of course he needs to stop siding with right wing dickheads.


(4:30)
 
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Halftrack said:
If writing me off as a liberal nutjob makes you feel better about the blatantly transphobic shit you keep posting, good for you I guess.

And most (though not all) on here and elsewhere didn't take issue with the point she was making (having trans women compete against cis women would be unfair), but the way she made it. Going "men will just become a woman to win a lot" is straight-up trans panic shit, comparable to "men will just say they are women to molest girls in restrooms". She could have just said "their physical advantage would make for an uneven playing field, and would be unfair for cis women" and avoided stoking the flames of trans hatred. What she said also ignores those who transition before puberty, and whose bodies will follow the development of their 'new' gender. They'd have no physical advantage over cis women, and there shouldn't be anything that keeps them from competing.
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But this is also part of the problem and pretty much the reason for this thread. Navratilova might have phrased her words in a clumsy, insensitive manner but the content itself is not the issue. Having a person like Navratilova publicly castigated and shamed because she phrased her words poorly seems pretty unfair in my opinion, especially when you have real bigots like Trump and Putin talking shite and making actual harmful policies on a daily basis.

Before this time of moral outrage, people could say something insensitive and worst case they got reminded their language was unacceptable and they might make an public apology. Now on the other hand, people get branded a bigot, sacked and publicly shamed. This extreme form of tone/language policing does more harm than good because it suffocates debate completely, emboldens the actual bigots and turns away people who may actually be sympathetic to your cause
 
Bobcat said:
Before this time of moral outrage, people could say something insensitive and worst case they got reminded their language was unacceptable and they might make an public apology. Now on the other hand, people get branded a bigot, sacked and publicly shamed.
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Also before this time of moral outrage: blatant and unrepentant racism suffocating society. Political correctness has its issues, but it's a lot better than what we had. It's pretty releaving to me that you can say that the worst case consequences for people saying "something inensitive" was a reminder, and you think that was a good thing.
 
niMic said:
Also before this time of moral outrage: blatant and unrepentant racism suffocating society. Political correctness has its issues, but it's a lot better than what we had. It's pretty releaving to me that you can say that the worst case consequences for people saying "something inensitive" was a reminder, and you think that was a good thing.
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That's a false dichotomy. Being against extreme language policing does not mean you support Jim Crow laws, somewhere between lynching people and shooting down a 60 year old lesbian because she phrased her words poorly is a middle ground we should look for.

And "something insesitive" in this case means just that, not blatant rascism/sexism/homophobia. Im talking about the over the top outrage like this case, where a prominent supporter of LBGT people in sports gets thrown under the bus because she phrased her words poorly.
 
Quantify the amount of outrage on this story please, somebody? I was under the impression it's a media story that will be completely forgotten about in weeks. Like most of the others in here...
 
afrocentricity said:
Quantify the amount of outrage on this story please, somebody? I was under the impression it's a media story that will be completely forgotten about in weeks. Like most of the others in here...
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As usual, the real and lasting outrage is the outrage of the people who are outraged that there is an outrage.

Bobcat said:
That's a false dichotomy
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I disagree. There is a clear and strong link between the kind of language that is socially acceptable and the broader role of racism and bigotry in society. That said, I didn't say anthing about Jim Crow, so your comparison is your own.
 
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I agree the issue is a bit overdone but the fact that society has a short attention span doesn't mean this is irrelevant. If people had forgotten about this in a week and that was the end of it, that would be one thing. But when this has been forgotten it'll be replaced by something else, something small, something relatively trivial, which will also blow over in a week.

The specific incident changes regularly, but the issue is always there, buzzing in our ears like an annoying mosquito.
 
Halftrack said:
If writing me off as a liberal nutjob makes you feel better about the blatantly transphobic shit you keep posting, good for you I guess.

And most (though not all) on here and elsewhere didn't take issue with the point she was making (having trans women compete against cis women would be unfair), but the way she made it. Going "men will just become a woman to win a lot" is straight-up trans panic shit, comparable to "men will just say they are women to molest girls in restrooms". She could have just said "their physical advantage would make for an uneven playing field, and would be unfair for cis women" and avoided stoking the flames of trans hatred. What she said also ignores those who transition before puberty, and whose bodies will follow the development of their 'new' gender. They'd have no physical advantage over cis women, and there shouldn't be anything that keeps them from competing.

Are we talking about the entertainment value of the sport, or the physical capabilities of the performers? Because they aren't necessarily linked. There's also a fair bit of subjectivity involved, so you unilaterally declaring women's sports shit and questioning whether they're genuine sports is just plain stupid, not to mention sexist. Who the feck are you to make that distinction? They're women at their physical peak competing, and they put in as much time as their male equivalents, and deserve the same respect as the men get.
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Read. The. Post.

I’ve outrightly declared women’s sport as being important in the very lost you’ve responded to.

At no point did I question whether they’re genuine sports. What the feck are you talking about?

I didn’t disrespect the time women spend rising to the top of their field.

Women are less capable than men to play most physical sports.

I’ve listed some sports that women’s sport surpasses (or equals) the men’s equivalent. I picked an example that it’s different enough to be better (Gymnastics). An example in which it’s effectively the same but producing a better product (90’s Tennis) and then a like for like example whereby women beat men (ultra distance running).

Untwist your knickers and have a rethink.

Women are slower, worse, weaker and less entertaining in almost all sports. This remains true.
 
UnrelatedPsuedo said:
Read. The. Post.

I’ve outrightly declared women’s sport as being important in the very lost you’ve responded to.

At no point did I question whether they’re genuine sports. What the feck are you talking about?

I didn’t disrespect the time women spend rising to the top of their field.

Women are less capable than men to play most physical sports.

I’ve listed some sports that women’s sport surpasses (or equals) the men’s equivalent. I picked an example that it’s different enough to be better (Gymnastics). An example in which it’s effectively the same but producing a better product (90’s Tennis) and then a like for like example whereby women beat men (ultra distance running).

Untwist your knickers and have a rethink.

Women are slower, worse, weaker and less entertaining in almost all sports. This remains true.
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Apologies, you didn't question whether they were genuine sports, you outright stated that, bar a few, they aren't.
UnrelatedPsuedo said:
To be fair, all women’s sport is absolutely shit. There are perhaps one or a few (Gymnastics, 90’s Tennis, Figure skating, extreme distance running) that are genuine sports.
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Maybe you should start keeping better track of the shit you post?

And I didn't say that you disrespected the time they spend rising to the top, I said they deserve respect same as the men, and declaring all women's sport to be "absolute shit" is hardly a statement of respect, is it?
 


The US should most certainly invest more in their mental health care.
 
2 man midfield said:
Who is this idiot? I'm guessing the blue tick means she's a celebrity of some kind?
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I have no idea who he\she\it\they or whatever is, but I followed a link with a picture of the entity in question at some movie award in the US so I guess the object in question is famous yes.
 
It strikes me that many people are using the undoubtedly difficult issues associated with dealing with trans people in sport and those like Caster Semenya with natural/developmental conditions to push their "There are only 2 sexes. All this gender and identity stuff is bollock innit." type agendas.
 
Wibble said:
It strikes me that many people are using the undoubtedly difficult issues associated with dealing with trans people in sport and those like Caster Semenya with natural/developmental conditions to push their "There are only 2 sexes. All this gender and identity stuff is bollock innit." type agendas.
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How many genders are there?
 
Vato said:
How many genders are there?
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It depends as gender is a social construct.

The Navajo identify 4. The Bugis people identify 5.

There are at least 35 (often overlapping) gender identities that I have seen listed that (I assume) are used in western society.
 
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