Political Correctness

[mallorys_camera]

I’ve been thinking a lot over the past few days about political correctness.

And how political correctness is a type of theology. It’s superimposed over a cultural foundation that’s used to thinking in terms of absolutes – Right versus Wrong – because it is, after all, a kind of syncretism growing on top of a kind of Christian view of the universe that has now – mostly – been discarded by America’s intelligensia. But the structural form remains.

To speak against the politically correct canon is to commit blasphemy. Political correctness is dogma, it’s a neural virus, and it’s pathological. People increasingly buy into it not because they believe it necessarily – although they may believe it or believe parts of it – but because they know if they don't buy into it, they’ll be abused.

The stupider ones may even believe it. Who fucking knows?

It’s no different from any fundamentalist variety of Christianity, Islam, Zoroastrianism.

###

I’m off to Albany to play for a few days. Hopefully, my mood will improve.

Comments

More Cult Than Religion.

[robby.livejournal.com]

I've noticed that the most "correct" lead an insular life, where conforming news and opinions constantly reinforce their world view. They work hard to filter out any dissent.

Re: More Cult Than Religion.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure.

I think it may have something to do with the striving to be a good person in some outward sense that conforms to expectations. I would call that a religious impulse.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Where does one find this "canon"? IME, however "correct" you think you are, there's always someone more "PC" than you. Your ideas are "reasonable"; the person who isn't as far along the spectrum is "ignorant" whereas the person further along it is "a lunatic". But that's because the definition of "politically correct" is tautological and pejorative. People don't self-define as "PC"; this is a label put on them by others who think they "go too far".

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

I don't think the definition of politically correct is tautological or pejorative at all --although I'm using it here in a pejorative sense, certainly. "Political correctness" means going to great lengths to avoid offending or in other ways putting specifically identified groups at a disadvantage. That's a value-neutral definition, although it does imply that PC people feel free to offend other groups as much as they want -- which seems true to me.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

"Political correctness" means going to great lengths to avoid offending or in other ways putting specifically identified groups at a disadvantage.

That's the definition of politeness, isn't? The only real difference between "political correctness" and traditional etiquette is which groups are specified and the degree of deference shown them. All "PC" says to me is (a) the people being identified as such are perceived as being lefty on the ideological spectrum (or at least more lefty than the speaker) and (b) the degree of deference practiced by them is perceived as being excessive.

It's fundamentally not a value-neutral term. If their actions aligned with your personal assessment of what is "reasonable", you would term them something like "common courtesy".

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

If their actions aligned with your personal assessment of what is "reasonable", you would term them something like "common courtesy".

Had to laugh at this -- you don't know me or you'd know how wrong that is.

Politeness is a person-to-person interaction. Political correctness is a person-to-group interaction.

It's not synonymous with politeness since politically correct people feel quite comfortable saying offensive things to members of groups so long as those groups are not the groups they've identified as the important groups.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

I disagree. Plenty of people seem to think that politeness applies to certain groups of persons (such as their friends) but not others (such as panhandlers or phone solicitors).

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Yes, the homeless are a particular quandary for politically correct individuals on the left, I've noticed, as more and more of them acquire property whose value they're interested in safeguarding. Gentrification is another dicey issue.

[bleodswean.livejournal.com]

Michael Savage - "Liberalism is a mental disorder."

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm. I don't agree with that. :-)

I think it's unfortunate that people tend to buy into ideologies -- "liberalism"; "conservatism" -- lock, stock, and barrel without thinking things out for themselves. But I suppose that's a time management stratagem. :-)

[bleodswean.livejournal.com]

I think there is a kind of knee-jerkism to many ideologies and folks would cry foul if accused of not thinking things through themselves. I don't find it to be time-management as much as a frantic need to feel aligned and part-of. It's also a youthful perspective, imo.

I find that political identification and/or correctness is far better projected and understood in person with lengthy conversing on all matter of subjects than in the written word within small online boxes.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Very true.

Compromise is anathema to the young. :-)

[robby.livejournal.com]

I've often wondered if Michael Savage is mentally ill, but it's possible he says things to be entertaining and get ratings.

[bleodswean.livejournal.com]

*nods* He's so angry and paranoid these days....he's right up against the ilk of whatshisname....forgot.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Haven't listened to right wing talk radio in a while but used to listen to it regularly when I was living near Ithaca -- not because I agreed with many of the sentiments but because I like to listen to people talking when I drive.

Russ Limbaugh struck me as a smart guy who did not necessarily agree with much of the shit he was spouting but knew his bread was being buttered by his shock value to the ditto-heads.

Glen Beck struck me as dangerous.

Savage definitely struck me as mentally ill.

[thistle-verse.livejournal.com]

You doubtless have a much more complicated and wide-ranging definition of "politically correct" in mind, but I mostly find these days that people screaming about how they hate having to be politically correct are actually screaming about what I simply call tolerance and kindness. Usually it happens when someone calls them on something. :)

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Interesting!

I started thinking about political correctness after reading an FB debate on New York State's common core teaching standards yesterday. (I have no dog in this particular fight since both my kids -- thankfully -- have graduated from high school. I can see both sides of the issue.)

One guy who was quite articulate on the subject of why teaching to test standards was a reasonable expectation got told he was being "abusive" toward teachers. He wasn't being "abusive" at all -- just articulating opinions in language so persuasive that nobody who believed otherwise could refute him. But that started me thinking.

[thistle-verse.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't think of political correctness in that example, but rather a very worrying trend toward no one being able to reasonably disagree or think their way through an argument without descending into defensive name-calling. Which I agree is a horrible trend that needs to die in a fire.

I was thinking more along the lines of, say, the name "Redskins" for an NFL team, or transgender pronouns, etc.

I am her friend in Watertown!
But not her sister, although I sometimes run across her sister on Ft Drum and marvel at the small world it sometimes is.

Thank you!

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's the same kind of defensive behaviour I see anywhere that ideology has the upper hand. It strikes me as orthogonal to "political correctness", since I doubt anyone would use that term if all the participants were perceived as being on the conservative end of the political spectrum.

For instance, if the topic was not teaching but policing and someone was accused of being "abusive" toward the cops for defending how they're having to change their methods to be less lethal, would those flinging the accusations be condemned as "politically correct"?

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Maybe not in that particular instance.

But ultra-conservative McCarthyites in the 1950s were certainly characterized as politically correct.

Perhaps the usage has evolved over time.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Really? I never heard this term before it started being applied to the perceived leftist orthodoxy in the early 80s. The OED has some earlier citations (albeit "not as a fixed collocation" and not with the same meaning), but nothing from the McCarthy era, let alone any examples of it being applied to red-baiters.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Well, of course, your experience is the definitive test of what is real and what isn't, right? :-)

I remember the term being use in the 1960s along with the Orwellian-inspired "rightthink" to describe the posturings of both the McCarthyites (safely in the past by that point) and opponents of the Free Speech Movement in Berkeley.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

If I thought my experience was "definitive", would I have bothered checking vetted reference works? Thanks for the additional information on its usage.

You're onto something

[bb-lurks.livejournal.com]

You know I tend to agree with muckefuck on PC. I do think it's about politeness. And you've never answered my PC challenge question. What non-pc position do you hold that you are willing to defend? Is there some reason to use the word "tranny" rather than "transsexual person"? Maybe there is, but it's polite not to, I'm thinking.

That said, you've got a real insight into all the heat and one-up"person"ship around PC. It's very reminiscent of the way American Protestantism has operated; the sense that one needs to signal that one is among the "saved" rather than the "damned". It's one thing to try to be courteous to people or groups of people, to address them by their preferred form of address. It's quite another to think that it's a test of character to get things "righter" than other people.

Re: You're onto something

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

What non-pc position do you hold that you are willing to defend?

I'm not gonna defend any non-pc positions in a quasi-public forum. I ain't stupid. If you like, next time we hang out, I'll trot a few out for your disapproval. You'll probably have to get me drunk. :-)

And I believe the politically correct term is not "transsexual" but "transgender."

[platofish.livejournal.com]

My only gripe with 'PC' is that its not applied equally. For example, and its a trivial example, in my workplace no one would ever speak with an over-the-top faux Asian accent, but speaking with a deep South/Texas drawl or fake German-speaking-English wouldn't raise and eyebrow. Same with 'women scientist' or 'LGBT scientists' awards and meetings. Perfectly acceptable in PC terms, whereas organizing a 'hetro-male' meeting would be a sackable offense. Political correctness does ensure life is more balanced and inclusive, but its still not quite there.

[bleodswean.livejournal.com]

Exactly this!!!! It's so confusing regarding who gets to decide what is offensive to whom.

Nicely put!

[robby.livejournal.com]

Straight white cannot be at all offensive. Just recently, there are even calls requiring us to stop sitting in a comfortable manner.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Well, you may not ride on the NYC subways. It is kinda gross to see these guys sitting with their legs so widely spread. This may be straight male behavior, but I can assure you that it's not confined to straight white males.

[robby.livejournal.com]

Future generation will thank these guys for keeping their testicles cool, and their sperm count up. When you see man-spreading on the subway, I would hope you would personally thank these men, and tell them how much this means to you.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Calling shenanigans. I'm a man and manspreading (a.k.a. "lavaballing") annoys me. I've got into thigh-wrestling matches with guys no bigger than me who still feel entitled to grab half my seat. If you really care that much about the fate of your precious spermatazoa, stand the fuck up. It's better for your body than sitting so you will live longer to impregnate more women.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

I think robby was making zee leetle joke there.

"Lavaballing" is a new one on me. Love it!! My goal for today will be to work the word "lavaballing" into as many conversations as I can. :-)

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Wait, are Germans an oppressed class in this society and no one sent me the memo?

Here's the thing: I'm a fourth-generation German-American. I'm tall, blond, and blue-eyed. My surname is super-German. (There's a "von" in it, for Chrissakes.) When I travelled to Germany, people came right up to me and spoke German without thinking twice about it.

Number of times I've been asked by another American if I speak English: 0
Number of times I've been complimented on how well I speak English: 0
Number of times I've been what country I'm really from: 2

This doesn't ever happen to me:


My fourth-generation Asian friends? This shit happens to them all the time. A Korean-American girl I knew who also studied abroad in Central Europe for a year had people come up to her and randomly yell things like "Ching chong ching chong!" several times.

So, yeah, it's kind of rude to cop a bad German or French accent to make a(n invariably) lame-ass joke. And the Nazi cracks got old real quick. But it's not in the same league with what other minorities have to deal with it. Hell, it's barely the same sport.

And don't even get me started on the whole "Where are the hetero-male awards?" The best response to that is a cartoon which I sadly can't find a copy of right now. It shows a bunch of White guys driving around in sports cars with bikini-clad young models on the hoods of them and the caption is "Every day is Straight White Male Pride Day!"

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Your perfect world would appear to be one in which egalitarianism is not the goal. Rather the goal is to turn straight white males into the marginalized scapegoat group.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Can I have an unsupportable ad hominem response which ignores all nuance? I can? Thank you!

Now all we need is a reductio ad Hitlerum to the effect that what I really want is to send them all to death camps and this discussion will have completed its normal lifespan.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

How is that an ad hominem? I'm not criticizing you personally. I read yr LJ and I quite like you -- probably more than you like me, in fact. :-)

I'm merely extrapolating from what you're writing here. And it honestly does seem to me that you have an ax to grind with straight while males on the basis of race and sexual orientation.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

No, "extrapolating" would require you to outline a chain of cause-and-effect which would need to be supported with real-world evidence of some sort which could be challenged as more or less accurate or plausible. What you are doing here is claiming you can see what's inside my head. You can't, and claiming otherwise is a classic form of ad hominem. As is this:

And it honestly does seem to me that you have an ax to grind with straight while males on the basis of race and sexual orientation.

And saying you have to dislike someone in order to engage in ad homines against them is plain nonsensical. I like you, too, but that's no bar to me saying something equally counterproductive like, "And you just seem to have an axe to grind against feminists" or whatever.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

We'll have to agree to disagree. I don't think the term ad hominem applies here. (Definition: Of an argument directed against a person rather than a position.) I wasn't criticizing you. Hell, I wasn't even particularly criticizing your position -- I'm not a white male; I don't particularly care when white males are bashed.

I was making an observation.

But anyway, I think the horse is dead. :-)

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

As a general rule, once the metadiscussion starts, the actual discussion is over. And this is one of those subjects where the metadiscussion gets the upper hand almost immediately.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

I agree.