I noticed something...

[Exmortis]

I am not totally sure if this is an accurate statement. But it seems as if political correctness has been ascended to the status of deity.

By that I mean that it can't be disputed... not that we should worship it.

http://forums.leagueofreason.co.uk/viewtopic.php?p=68398#p68398

I started I thread based on questioning whether Homosexuality was useful to the survival. I got a few brilliant answers in fact.
However, I was quite surprised by the number of shots that were taken at me. There is no doubt that I threw some fuel on the fire for fun, but that was just directed at one person.

But I am getting off topic...

Do you think that attacking political correctness has been elevated to the point of committing social blasphemy?

 

[Prolescum]

No, it's not accurate. Political correctness is used in a derogatory fashion against people who have the decency not to refer to gays as poofs or travellers as gypos. People who use the term political correctness are more often than not happy to display their bigotry out in the open under the guise of 'just callin' a spade a spade' and screaming 'PC gone mad!' whenever an objection is made. In reality, political correctness doesn't exist, just people trying to be respectful of everyone, and because the term political correctness gives the impression that it's fear behind their actions, it belittles the cause of reason, which I am against wholeheartedly.

Do you think that attacking political correctness has been elevated to the point of committing social blasphemy?

Although I've answered this above, I'd ask if you're really looking to validate the use of abhorrent terms like poofter, nigger and similar in common parlance... You'll receive no such thing from me.

 

[DeathofSpeech]

I am not totally sure if this is an accurate statement. But it seems as if political correctness has been ascended to the status of deity.

By that I mean that it can't be disputed... not that we should worship it.

http://forums.leagueofreason.co.uk/viewtopic.php?p=68398#p68398

I started I thread based on questioning whether Homosexuality was useful to the survival. I got a few brilliant answers in fact.
However, I was quite surprised by the number of shots that were taken at me. There is no doubt that I threw some fuel on the fire for fun, but that was just directed at one person.

But I am getting off topic...

Do you think that attacking political correctness has been elevated to the point of committing social blasphemy?

One should be prepared in the style of Tycho Brahe to not only have one's nose cut off to spite one's face... but to adopt a more fashionable nose as contemporary values evolve. Blasphemy then is just a skeptical bit of social rhinoplasty.

"Shake the shit out of 'em... " - The Pathfinder; INK

 

[MRaverz]

The only time I ever hear the words 'political correctness' is when someone is claiming that it's 'gone mad'. Makes me think that the whole concept was thought up (or at least wielded) by people to cloak their intolerant or ignorant views.

 

[Exmortis]

Although I've answered this above, I'd ask if you're really looking to validate the use of abhorrent terms like poofter, nigger and similar in common parlance... You'll receive no such thing from me.

No, I am not particularly fond of these terms either. I am just curious as to whether the majority of people defend these positions because they respect them or because they are afraid they will seem prejudiced if they question them.

 

[simonecuttlefish]

Political correctness is a bunch of shit that has shut down all serious debate, I hate it, and it must die.

Calling someone a nigger, spik, wop, dago, whatever is not "politically incorrect", it's racism.
Calling someone a cunt is not "politically incorrect", it's ill mannered.
Calling someone a towel head is not "politically incorrect", it's religious intolerance.

Suggesting that you have concerns about what's going in the local mosque is "Politically Incorrect", and gets people looking at you like a freak. People are so desperate to take offence and outrage at every possible opportunity they can't think properly.

Political correctness has shut down any chance of serious discussion related to race/religion/politics. No one has the "god given" right not to ever be offended, so fuck PC and start talking.

Edited In
I have this and it's a total scream
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politically_Correct_Bedtime_Stories
eg
Rumpelstiltskin

A parody of the classic Rumpelstiltskin story.

Instead of turning the straw into gold by magic, the girl (Esmeralda) and Rumpelstiltskin take the straw to poor farmers, who use it to thatch their roofs; in better health, the farmers become more productive, which improves the local economy and eventually leads to the overthrow of the prince and Esmeralda's being rewarded with gold. Esmeralda is then able to thwart Rumpelstiltskin's plan to take her first born child by guessing his name, however unlike in the original tale, she only guesses it because his "Little People's Empowerment Seminar" nametag is still on his body. Angry at the idea that her reproductive rights were almost taken away from her, she moves to California and starts a birth control clinic and lives happily ever after,as a "fulfilled, dedicated single person."

 

[ImprobableJoe]

Racists used to be called racists. Bigots used to be called bigots. Obnoxious rude assholes... well, you get the picture. "Political correctness" was a phrase used by obscure academic types to describe positive behavior that avoided racism, bigotry, and being an obnoxious rude asshole, and nobody really used it outside of a very limited group. But all it meant was the sort of decent polite behavior that societies generally aspire to.

Then some evil genius decided to co-opt the term, and created its opposite: "politically incorrect." Then they corrupted it even further, and called political correctness evil. So they replaced being polite and respectful to women, non-whites, and handicapped people (among others) with the phrase "political correctness run out of control!!" And they cover up the criticism of their bigoted shithead behavior by being proudly "politically incorrect."

So yeah, these days when you hear somebody complaining about political correctness gone wild, it usually means that they're about to be a really huge jackass and are looking to preemptively shut off criticism against them.

 

[Exmortis]

Uh,huh... Just for future reference... Political incorrectness, bad... Political correctness, very bad... Avoid?


Just on the off chance you don't get my sense of humor... The above is a joke... Don't hurt me...

 

[ArthurWilborn]

I think it has. Modern society has gotten to the point where people will scream racism at anyone who disagrees with them. Any criticism of bad decisions is "perpetuating a negative stereotype". Any mention of color in any context is an insult against someone or another. You can't address negative but true topics, (for example, epigenetics resulting in Native Americans having a lower tolerance for alcohol) without someone screaming at you. It's always "institutional racism", whitey keeping everyone down.

 

[Light]

You know, I would reply to this in more detail, but that would defeat the whole point.

Nobody is infringing your rights. You can still say whatever you want when you are on your own time. This has not changed.

And now for something completely related - my favourite comedy bit ever done about PC.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGAOCVwLrXo

 

[Andiferous]

You seem to have missed the point that was being made in that thread. A good part of the discussion was about the homophobic nature of this statement:

In conclusion, I don't agree with homosexuality because it accomplishes nothing however, I see no need to actively oppose it in the way I oppose religion as it is not create misinformation nor does it pose any imminent threat to the species.

From there, the thread progressed toward terminology and how to avoid making homophobic statements like the one above. By paraphrasing in this fashion and reducing the argument to a random victim of Mr. Tyrant Political Correctness:

I started I thread based on questioning whether Homosexuality was useful to the survival. I got a few brilliant answers in fact.
However, I was quite surprised by the number of shots that were taken at me. There is no doubt that I threw some fuel on the fire for fun, but that was just directed at one person.

But I am getting off topic...

Do you think that attacking political correctness has been elevated to the point of committing social blasphemy

It seems you have missed the point entirely.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

People are so desperate to take offence and outrage at every possible opportunity they can't think properly.

The flip side of that is that bigots use that claim to pretend that no one ever has a legitimate reason to be offended. They then dishonestly turn the problem around and claim that their asshole behavior isn't the problem, and the real issue is that their victims are offended or dare to complain. So the problem of sexism isn't that women are discriminated against, the "real" problem is women are whining about it. The "real" racism is practiced by minorities when they speak up against discrimination, and the "real" victims are the majority who are being infringed on... according to the bigots.

It is a load of bullshit to shift the blame from the offenders to their victims.

 

[DeathofSpeech]

People are so desperate to take offence and outrage at every possible opportunity they can't think properly.

The flip side of that is that bigots use that claim to pretend that no one ever has a legitimate reason to be offended. They then dishonestly turn the problem around and claim that their asshole behavior isn't the problem, and the real issue is that their victims are offended or dare to complain. So the problem of sexism isn't that women are discriminated against, the "real" problem is women are whining about it. The "real" racism is practiced by minorities when they speak up against discrimination, and the "real" victims are the majority who are being infringed on... according to the bigots.

It is a load of bullshit to shift the blame from the offenders to their victims.

You left out the "uppity" before victims... Uppity Victims.
You can't have a really good argument as a bigot apologist without mentioning that the victim doesn't have any reason to take offense. :shock:

 

[ImprobableJoe]

You left out the "uppity" before victims... Uppity Victims.
You can't have a really good argument as a bigot apologist without mentioning that the victim doesn't have any reason to take offense. :shock:

Right... because "uppity" is as required for the insult as "articulate" or "they really act white/straight/like a man" is required for the backhanded compliment.

 

[ArthurWilborn]

You know, I would reply to this in more detail, but that would defeat the whole point.

Nobody is infringing your rights. You can still say whatever you want when you are on your own time. This has not changed.

And now for something completely related - my favourite comedy bit ever done about PC.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGAOCVwLrXo

This guy is exactly what I'm talking about. He doesn't allow that you can disagree with him; if you do, you're automatically an idiot or a bigot. This is about as funny as screaming "YOU'RE A RACIST" at anyone who disagrees with you. It's textbook special pleading, completely fallacious.

 

[Unwardil]

See political correctness is calling someone a person of homosexual orientation instead of calling them gay, or just, well, Steve.

And it's retarded. The entire concept is retarded. You can't change what people think by trying to change the words they use to communicate their ideas, but that is the goal, to try and remove any possible grounds for offense from language. Unfortunately, when you do this, you also remove all the ideas that are being communicated, so instead of communicating, you're just throwing words back and forth. Similar to a monkey jumping up and down on a piano. The notes are the same as in music, but it's not music, it's just noise.

So, PC is bullshit, always has been.

However, I don't really think you were talking about PC, you were talking about secular ideals that have become sacred. Such as equal rights for gays or freedom of speech or, whatever. And I agree, questioning any aspect about them generally results in being called the secular equivalent of a heretic. All rational discourse is almost immediately replaced with ad hominem attacks and it's just a big waste of time.

The moral? Holding anything sacred is stupid.

 

[Neil86]

I am going to be blunt here, political correctness in its extreme form is a pile of garbage and anyone who tries to press it on me can ram it up their sphincter. Any word on its own is not an issue, it is the context, protesting against homosexuality is bad, a joke meant in good humour about fags is fine, a speech demonising black people is bad while a speech about how niggers are just as good as everyone else is perfectly acceptable. I do not see any word as inherently insulting, the offense is created entirely by the manner in which the word is used or the mind of the person being 'offended' and I generally only see intentional insults as valid.
Please note I am not homophobic or racist, and I specifically chose examples which apply to some of the people closest to me, and terms they themselves are perfectly comfortable with being used(within a friendly context). However I would refrain from using words that are commonly considered offensive around people who I do not know so well out of politeness.

 

[Story]

I'm sort of in the middle. I think a lot of belief is motivated by emotions, maybe even some of my own, especially when we hit grey areas of science like homosexuality where there is no consensus to it's biological origins. Personal experiences and emotion tends to fill the gaps where we should probably be saying "I don't know".

I contend that doxastic reasoning is primarily emotional. No matter how rationale you are you will be swayed by your emotional biases in grey understudied fields of knowledge with no compelling evidence to support any view.

These biases can be summed up to being politically correct or politically incorrect. Whether or not your argument is true or not. It will remain in those categories until compelling evidence surfaces to support your claims. That being said, I do agree that people's tendency to lean towards morality will lead them to politically correct views even if they are false, but it is equally true and more prevalent with the converse. There are two extremes, far left and far right. There isn't only the far right. Both can be ridiculous and both can be wrong, although the far right is in my opinion is much more harmful than the left.

Take this scenario for instance, Someone who isn't racist (Let's say he's black, like I am) starts this thread.

Disclaimer: None of the following information reflects any of my beliefs in any way or form. It is completely hypothetical and doesn't reflect any real evidence or research I've encountered. This is just a random scenario. Whilst I am partially of Caucasian descent I descend mostly from indigenous Jamaican and African roots. Basically, I'm black with fairly dark skin. I can happily prove this.

Is it evolutionarily favourable to be white rather than black.
There are far more successful white people than black people. Would you say that white people are currently being selected evolutionarily for progress over blacks. We could look at the circumstances as to why this is happening, but the fact of the matter is that it is.

This kind of post inspires a lot of thoughts, not to the meaning of the message however but to the intentions of the poster. If you didn't know that he was black or maybe if that wouldn't matter to you, instead of posting any of the information in favour of his idea that you may know you'd instantly lean towards a confirmation bias for evidence to the converse idea knowing that this kind of discussion would only fuel actual bigots and racists. You may even develop a dislike towards this questionable member in the process.

Let's take this scenario a step further, lets say that before you arrived on the scene. There was a post after this poster that said.

Re: Is it evolutionarily favourable to be white rather than black.
Yes, we are clearly being favoured. In fact it has been researched and proven that our minds have clear distinctions in terms of capacity and capability. Black people that have any real intellectual intelligence are usually mixed with white blood. This is because our brains expanded and grew bigger after we split away from them thousands of years ago. Smart black people have basically stolen our advanced white brains.

Something like this would infuriate most of us. Although none of it is true. I just made all of that up, but lets say it were. Do you think this discussion would help any progress mankind has made? Would it's truth make it less politically correct or incorrect. Would criticism of these scientific findings be political correctness gone mad?

Options may seem as easy as black and white, but they very rarely are.

 

[TheFlyingBastard]

Political correctness is something aside from respect.

To illustrate: Some of us are critical of religion. We can be as respectful as one can possibly be, but you try and tell people they're wrong for - I don't know - forcing creationism into science classes. In some areas, protesting aloud against this is frowned upon, after all, "the bible says it, that settles it". In those cases it would be politically correct to shut up and take it.

Of course, that's bullshit. For the sake of the next generation you kind of have an obligation to fight against such intellectual poison. Sure, you'd be frowned upon because you'd be the "politically incorrect "and evil, possessed atheist. But what value does the concept of "accepted" or "politically correct" have in those cases?

Another example that gives me a headache is Germany. Some games are censored. (Command and Conquer: Red Alert, for example, had "androids" with green blood instead of humans.) Some are outright forbidden. There's an incredibly uptight social rule going on there on their political stage, and it doesn't reflect what people want. It seems like such a desperate try to show the world that they're not going to invade Europe anytime soon. Blood and violence is politically incorrect, so let's ban it.

Perhaps you could say that political correctness is a way to make a prevalent idea immune to criticism, because for some reason the people in question like to hold on to it. But not for the reason that it is honest or because it reflects reality or what people actually think.

 

[Story]

There doesn't appear to be a lucid consistent definition of what political correctness actually is in this thread.

Some people seem to believe that it's simply disagreeing with someone's religious beliefs openly.

If there is not clear lucid philosophy to is. We could say it was anything...