Has political correctness actually gone mad?

WackyWengerWorld said:
I think the Right are trying to ridicule political correctness due to sinister motives. In the 70s/early 80s it was considered okay to use the P word on television. Racism was more common and more tollerated. Political correctness was brought in order to not mock people for their inherent characteristics. Today you have public figures who flirt or indulge in racism as branded 'politically incorrect' or 'alt right', when in fact they're simply racist biggots. Ridiculing political correctness is a way of minimising racism and bigotry.
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Agreed.

Unfortunately, the left is making this easier for them by a failure to pick their battles and constantly taking people/institutions to task over what should really be non-issues. For me, that's the most worrying thing about all the examples of over the top sensitivity in this thread. It's not about any real risk of to our freedom of speech or thought but because of the ammunition it provides to the right.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Agreed.

Unfortunately, the left is making this easier for them by a failure to pick their battles and constantly taking people/institutions to task over what should really be non-issues. For me, that's the most worrying thing about all the examples of over the top sensitivity in this thread. It's not about any real risk of to our freedom of speech or thought but because of the ammunition it provides to the right.
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I blame Twitter.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Agreed.

Unfortunately, the left is making this easier for them by a failure to pick their battles and constantly taking people/institutions to task over what should really be non-issues. For me, that's the most worrying thing about all the examples of over the top sensitivity in this thread. It's not about any real risk of to our freedom of speech or thought but because of the ammunition it provides to the right.
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Who on the left though? It's not major politicians or leaders of mainstream movements. It's an obscure individual that the right wing media give a platform to in order to make it seem like liberals are 'the loony left'.

Other than that it's about changing some terms to make any references to groups of people inoffensive. But I don't see people being attacked for using the word 'disabled' for instance.
 
Adebesi said:
I just spent the last 20 minutes reading through that old Social Media: A Force For Good? thread from a year or so ago. That was a great thread, not sure why it died after 5 pages, it deserves to be as long as this one.
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I think it just got filed under “aged caftards railing against the inevitable” and died a quiet death. Pity really. I’ve read a load of fascinating pieces recently about how harmful all this stuff is.

Here’s a good ‘un from last week.

There’s a bloke called Tristan Harris who used to be “chief ethicist” (I think?) at Google who is really interesting on this whole “battle for our attention” thing going on right now. He’s very concerned and is adamant we need to start fighting back or we’re in deep doo doo. Check out his interview with Sam Harris as a good starting point.
 
WackyWengerWorld said:
Who on the left though? It's not major politicians or leaders of mainstream movements. It's an obscure individual that the right wing media give a platform to in order to make it seem like liberals are 'the loony left'.
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Completely agree. People have this bizarre abstract idea of the ''Left'' which doesn't mean anything and as you said in most cases we are talking about individuals.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
I think it just got filed under “aged caftards railing against the inevitable” and died a quiet death. Pity really. I’ve read a load of fascinating pieces recently about how harmful all this stuff is.

Here’s a good ‘un from last week.

There’s a bloke called Tristan Harris who used to be “chief ethicist” (I think?) at Google who is really interesting on this whole “battle for our attention” thing going on right now. He’s very concerned and is adamant we need to start fighting back or we’re in deep doo doo. Check out his interview with Sam Harris as a good starting point.
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Interesting. And ties in with this thread as well if you read right to the end. Thanks.

(Hope you enjoyed the dopamine hit from seeing someone had replied to one of your posts.)
 
WackyWengerWorld said:
Who on the left though? It's not major politicians or leaders of mainstream movements. It's an obscure individual that the right wing media give a platform to in order to make it seem like liberals are 'the loony left'.

Other than that it's about changing some terms to make any references to groups of people inoffensive. But I don't see people being attacked for using the word 'disabled' for instance.
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It depends a lot on each country. Some of women who organised the women's march are rather loony and were able to organise huge demonstrations.
Those who shout the loudest and are the most radical get more attention. That's the same on the right.
 
@Stack (fwiw)

For all the shit you're getting in various threads: I get where you're coming from, I'm sure others do too.
 
Synco said:
@Stack (fwiw)

For all the shit you're getting in various threads: I get where you're coming from, I'm sure others do too.
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I get it too but kind of think feck it, is it that terrible?
It's probably kind of cringey for female users but I expect they're just used to it on these boards and blank most of them
 
caid said:
I get it too but kind of think feck it, is it that terrible?
It's probably kind of cringey for female users but I expect they're just used to it on these boards and blank most of them
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I didn't mean much more than what I said: I generally understand where he's coming from. Doesn't necessarily mean I would have written the same posts in the same way, but the basic point he was making isn't alien to me. The reason I have explicitly written this had more to do with the well-known group dynamic that will expose him to continued ridicule by a larger number of posters, something I don't like.
 
Sweet Square said:
Completely agree. People have this bizarre abstract idea of the ''Left'' which doesn't mean anything and as you said in most cases we are talking about individuals.
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Especially when the 'left' seems to contain everyone from far-left socialists to centrist liberals. An easy way for the right to group hugely divergent portions of the political spectrum into one.
 
Cheesy said:
Especially when the 'left' seems to contain everyone from far-left socialists to centrist liberals. An easy way for the right to group hugely divergent portions of the political spectrum into one.
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I want to say this is a deliberate tactic but really I image it's just plan laziness.
 
Sweet Square said:
I want to say this is a deliberate tactic but really I image it's just plan laziness.
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Part laziness, part stereotyping, eg branding people the 'PC brigade' when really you're talking about an incredibly diverse bunch of people fighting an equally diverse array of social injustices, whether real or perceived.
I'm sure half of those coming under this broad banner would have diametrically opposed views on so many issues too.
 
Buchan said:
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entr...0d9e4b0208970d00545?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009

Cultural appropriation? Oppression? False equivalence?

No, just lunatics.
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:wenger: That's some pretty impressive mental gymnastics right there. Even if you disregard the fact that dreads has been around since the iron age in different cultures, you could argue that Bob Marley and the whole reggae movement made dreadlocks mainstream, which then makes them a Jamaican and a Rastafarian thing.

So going by their line of thinking unless you are one or both of: Jamaican or have lived under British colonial rule you can't wear dreads
 
WackyWengerWorld said:
I think the Right are trying to ridicule political correctness due to sinister motives. In the 70s/early 80s it was considered okay to use the P word on television. Racism was more common and more tollerated. Political correctness was brought in order to not mock people for their inherent characteristics. Today you have public figures who flirt or indulge in racism as branded 'politically incorrect' or 'alt right', when in fact they're simply racist biggots. Ridiculing political correctness is a way of minimising racism and biggotry.



So just to clarify you want children who are struggling in school to be labelled stupid and be mocked so they believe they'll never amount to anything? And hence they'll give up because 'they're stupid anyway'. That's essentially what Carlin is calling for there. He hasn't actually bothered examining what language or communication teachers have with parents, because if he'd have bothered to do that he'd actually realise he has no actual point.
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Oh don't be so bloody sensitive. It's not what he's saying at all. It's satire that's highlighting the crass stupidity of political correctness as a whole. If you want to take PC in a serious context then you have to look at it's origins. It's classed by some people as cultural marxism. Something that has manifested itself into western academia over the past 4 or 5 decades. Young fertile minds that have been spoon-fed ideologies, then bubble-wrapped from the real world & given safe-spaces to protect them from the real truth of life, & then finally they're let loose into society to preach their brain-washed, highly selective, teachings. Colleges & universities should be places of education not indoctrination. Places where you're challenged & not where your sensitivity holds the upper hand to life's topics. The problem the students have when they leave uni is that they hold very strong orthodox opinions, but they're weakly supported when someone challenges them on it.

This is just indicative of what's going on in many universities :


 
redman5 said:
Oh don't be so bloody sensitive. It's not what he's saying at all. It's satire that's highlighting the crass stupidity of political correctness as a whole. If you want to take PC in a serious context then you have to look at it's origins. It's classed by some people as cultural marxism. Something that has manifested itself into western academia over the past 4 or 5 decades. Young fertile minds that have been spoon-fed ideologies, then bubble-wrapped from the real world & given safe-spaces to protect them from the real truth of life, & then finally they're let loose into society to preach their brain-washed, highly selective, teachings. Colleges & universities should be places of education not indoctrination. Places where you're challenged & not where your sensitivity holds the upper hand to life's topics. The problem the students have when they leave uni is that they hold very strong orthodox opinions, but they're weakly supported when someone challenges them on it.

This is just indicative of what's going on in many universities :


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"Some people" in this context being right-wing (generally far-right) conspiracy theorists.
 
I just watched that clip. I went to a red brick university in the 1970s and even then I wouldn't have said my university was "a safe space for white males". Quite the opposite, really. We had loads of international students and just as many women as men.

It was certainly challenging, that's for sure. If you wanted to promote a viewpoint, you had to be able to back it up. I recall a tutorial group where my tutor told me "I'm not interested in hearing what you think, unless you can provide some peer-reviewed evidence for that".
 
redman5 said:
Oh don't be so bloody sensitive. It's not what he's saying at all. It's satire that's highlighting the crass stupidity of political correctness as a whole. If you want to take PC in a serious context then you have to look at it's origins. It's classed by some people as cultural marxism. Something that has manifested itself into western academia over the past 4 or 5 decades. Young fertile minds that have been spoon-fed ideologies, then bubble-wrapped from the real world & given safe-spaces to protect them from the real truth of life, & then finally they're let loose into society to preach their brain-washed, highly selective, teachings. Colleges & universities should be places of education not indoctrination. Places where you're challenged & not where your sensitivity holds the upper hand to life's topics. The problem the students have when they leave uni is that they hold very strong orthodox opinions, but they're weakly supported when someone challenges them on it.

This is just indicative of what's going on in many universities :


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Not sure if you watched the video you posted but Rod Liddle says in it that he's talked to students at universities and was told these extremely sensitive viewpoints "have no purchase" in the University as a whole and are seen as very much a fringe ideology. Surely that's reassuring, if anything?
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Not sure if you watched the video you posted but Rod Liddle says in it that he's talked to students at universities and was told these extremely sensitive viewpoints "have no purchase" in the University as a whole and are seen as very much a fringe ideology. Surely that's reassuring, if anything?
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The fact that the Oxford union have had people like Tommy Robinson & Dennis Prager speak at their university would probably back that up.
 
Halftrack said:
"Some people" in this context being right-wing (generally far-right) conspiracy theorists.
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Hence the word 'some'. The conspiracy theorists believe it's an attempt to bring down western civilization as we know it (ie capitalism). But seeing as capitalism is flourishing, & the middle-class sector is growing, then that theory is blown right out of the water. It was funny though watching the students demonstrating at the recent G20 summit. Filming it on their state-of-the-art i-phones, & then shooting off to McDonalds for their lunch.

Oh to be young again :wenger:
 
redman5 said:
The fact that the Oxford union have had people like Tommy Robinson & Dennis Prager speak at their university would probably back that up.
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Yeah. I’m as guilty as the next man of looking at bickering on twitter and assuming that universities are crammed full of over-sensitive ninnies so it’s always good to hear a bit of perspective. Even coming from a goon like Rod Liddle.
 
PedroMendez said:
This happens the other way around as well.
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Not to the same extent. Especially when some of the groups I'm talking of who are classified on the 'left' by the far-right are probably actually quite right-wing economically even if they hold certain liberal views.
 
redman5 said:
Oh don't be so bloody sensitive. It's not what he's saying at all. It's satire that's highlighting the crass stupidity of political correctness as a whole. If you want to take PC in a serious context then you have to look at it's origins. It's classed by some people as cultural marxism. Something that has manifested itself into western academia over the past 4 or 5 decades. Young fertile minds that have been spoon-fed ideologies, then bubble-wrapped from the real world & given safe-spaces to protect them from the real truth of life, & then finally they're let loose into society to preach their brain-washed, highly selective, teachings. Colleges & universities should be places of education not indoctrination. Places where you're challenged & not where your sensitivity holds the upper hand to life's topics. The problem the students have when they leave uni is that they hold very strong orthodox opinions, but they're weakly supported when someone challenges them on it.

This is just indicative of what's going on in many universities :


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You're largely making assumptions here as to issues that exist on a fairly small-scale and applying them to a wide-ranging context. Universities are varied and different. As are professors. And students. Some fringe students may fall into the examples you give but it's hardly a uniform thing.
 
Cheesy said:
Not to the same extent. Especially when some of the groups I'm talking of who are classified on the 'left' by the far-right are probably actually quite right-wing economically even if they hold certain liberal views.
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The deplorable speech of Hillary (who is centrist and not leftwing) is a good example how much people like to differentiate. I could point to a hundred recent examples where center left liberals are smeared as right wing, right wing enablers, traitors or what not. There isn't even an attempt to differentiate between different right-wing groups anymore. When push comes to shove it's it boils down to two labels: neoliberal or alt-right/racist.
 
hobbers said:
It's classed as cultural marxism by anyone with eyes who knows what cultural marxism is.

Granted the students propagating it are usually far too naive and/or stupid to understand it but their professors certainly do.
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Cultural Marxism is a conspiracy theory that, in short, claims that communists have infiltrated academic institutions (among others) in order to destroy Western Society. Pointing out that something is "Cultural Marxism" is often used to try and shut down anyone arguing in favor of something a right-winger doesn't like, or arguing against something a right-winger likes.

No one with a brain thinks Cultural Marxism is a real thing.
 
hobbers said:
It's classed as cultural marxism by anyone with eyes who knows what cultural marxism is.

Granted the students propagating it are usually far too naive and/or stupid to understand it but their professors certainly do.
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What do you think 'cultural marxism' is and historically originates from? A link to a moderately detailed description fitting your idea would do too.
 
Cultural Marxism is mostly nonsense, yeah. The reason a lot of media tends to be more liberal is because it generally operates in major cities...which in-turn tends to be more liberal as well. Well-off people who travel all around the world, whether they be actors/producers/reporters etc are generally a lot more likely to be liberal than someone who's spent their entire life in the one rural area.
 
hobbers said:
I think it's cute that you're referring to it like some kind of god-tier weapon. Try shedding all the coats of hyperbole about infiltration and destruction. It isn't some massive communist conspiracy, it isn't neo-nazi propaganda. There are just plenty of stupid people who have found their way far too far into the world of academia.

Jordan Peterson to the rescue.
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I'm guessing they're stupid because their views doesn't align with yours?

As for Jordan Peterson: He tends to see Marxism everywhere, and really dislikes the left. I take his opinions on the left about as seriously as I take a cats opinion on dogs.
 
crappycraperson said:
http://www.dailywire.com/news/22073/berkeley-students-protest-exam-demand-take-home-frank-camp#

I am sorry but this is just bizarre and mental -



To keep making remarks about privilege whenever challenged over their actions shows the infantine nature of these protestors. Protesting just for the sake of it.
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So the uni is racist cos people of colour can't revise as they're too stressed worrying about other students of colour in oppressive countries?
Agree their arguments are puerile and the professor deals with it admirably.
:lol:That woman's tshirt. Wouldn't want to get stuck in a lift with her.
 
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