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I noticed something...

arg-fallbackName="Exmortis"/>
Interesting, one of the reasons why Political correctness is so disagreeable is also one of the reasons why God is so disagreeable.

They both cannot be properly defined... and because they cannot be defined, they become the subject of your choler....
 
arg-fallbackName="Story"/>
Indeed....

I once heard someone say that it was politically incorrect to call blind people "blind people". I'm not sure what he wanted us to refer to them as, perhaps "Visually Challenged"?
 
arg-fallbackName="ArthurWilborn"/>
Story said:
Indeed....

I once heard someone say that it was politically incorrect to call blind people "blind people". I'm not sure what he wanted us to refer to them as, perhaps "Visually Challenged"?
Click to expand...

According to my sources "blind person" and "deaf person" are still acceptable since they are terms of pride.

The newest thing is "person-first language", so maybe what they were looking for was "person who is blind".
 
arg-fallbackName="Skillbus"/>
People who strawman their opponents as advocates of PC piss me off just as much as actual advocates of PC.
 
arg-fallbackName="TheFlyingBastard"/>
Skillbus said:
People who strawman their opponents as advocates of PC piss me off just as much as actual advocates of PC.
Click to expand...
Well, just because you think PC advocates should be killed doesn't mean we can't have a discussion about this. >:-(
 
arg-fallbackName="Anachronous Rex"/>
Skillbus said:
People who strawman their opponents as advocates of PC piss me off just as much as actual advocates of PC.
Click to expand...
Well the important thing is that you've found a way to feel superior to both :p
 
arg-fallbackName="Skillbus"/>
Anachronous Rex said:
Skillbus said:
People who strawman their opponents as advocates of PC piss me off just as much as actual advocates of PC.
Click to expand...
Well the important thing is that you've found a way to feel superior to both :p
Click to expand...

Yeah, now I just need to find a way to feel superior to other XKCD readers too...
 
arg-fallbackName="Jaguar"/>
Greetings:

I think political correctness is just the newest form of censorshit... I mean, ship. I value people who are polite, and respectful and that we should try to be the same. But nowadays, I do think political correctness is being taken to the point where every criticism is taken as hate speech and from there to censorship.

- The Jaguar
 
arg-fallbackName="Andiferous"/>
The irony though is that "Political Correctness" is a concept entirely invented by its' opponents.
 
arg-fallbackName="Jaguar"/>
The irony though is that "Political Correctness" is a concept entirely invented by its' opponents.
Click to expand...

Not sure if "invented". I mean, it does have a certain pompous and hypocritical bell to it, maybe they heard it once then got together and decided that could be their new cover up.
 
arg-fallbackName="Story"/>
Jaguar said:
Greetings:

I think political correctness is just the newest form of censorshit... I mean, ship. I value people who are polite, and respectful and that we should try to be the same. But nowadays, I do think political correctness is being taken to the point where every criticism is taken as hate speech and from there to censorship.

- The Jaguar
Click to expand...

I wish you'd show examples of what you mean by this. So many people make claims of a concept of unfairness, but don't back it up.

For all we know you could be talking about someone saying "Niggers were pretty dumb in Africa back during the slave trade", which you believe is true and feel that the critiques of this person is just political correctness gone wild.
 
arg-fallbackName="Andiferous"/>
Jaguar said:
The irony though is that "Political Correctness" is a concept entirely invented by its' opponents.
Click to expand...

Not sure if "invented". I mean, it does have a certain pompous and hypocritical bell to it, maybe they heard it once then got together and decided that could be their new cover up.
Click to expand...

A political correctness opponent conspiracy? I could see that...
 
arg-fallbackName="ArthurWilborn"/>
Political Correctness is real. It's based on a misunderstanding of psychosocial theory and the use of language. The idea of pychosocial theory is that cognition is dependent on the use of langague. Some people reasoned, erroneously, that they could change peoples thoughts by forcing them to alter their language; that is, the words they used. This brought us the term "Special Education"; since "special" has a positive connotation, it was reasoned that it would make people think more positively about people with disabilities. Of course, what all these idiots failed to realize is that language is fluid and the connotations of words change over time. Moron, imbicile, and retarded all used to be medical terms; and now even special is on its way to joining them as a generic insult.
 
arg-fallbackName="DepricatedZero"/>
Political Correctness is too real and runs roughshod over language far too often. My favorite example is the word niggardly. I would likely get scolded for using it at work, and jobs have been lost over it in the past. It shares its root, Norse 'Nigla', with Niggle. Essentially it is an adjective similar to miserly. It describes tight-asses, in short.

However, because it phonetically resembles nigger, which has its root in the latin Nigrum/Niger.

However, due to it not being 'kosher' to call someone a nigger, the word Niggardly is controversial. That's political correctness out of control.

It's not about calling a spade a spade, it's about calling a niggard a niggard and not being accused of being racist.
 
arg-fallbackName="reason"/>
ArthurWilborn said:
Some people reasoned, erroneously, that they could change peoples thoughts by forcing them to alter their language; that is, the words they used.
Click to expand...

To me, that' is maybe the most accurate statement so far. Mostly though, I believe that what is Politically Correct or Incorrect is a method of removing bullets. Someone quite early on in the thread suggested that people are so desperate to take offence and I have to agree. This I believe is a learned behaviour stemming from the "you hurt me - now you have to pay me" attitude that has developed over the recent years and is continuing to grow. No win no fee lawyers doing their utmost to tell you just how offended you really are. Let's sue them! Let's take them to the cleaners for saying you are fat! Your self-confidence has been destroyed and you must be suicidal!

As this culture develops, local authorities fear getting sued by everyone; they turn to their quango people who are keen to justify their inflated fees to come up with some policies to hide behind. And so here we are. Banning all kinds of nursery rhymes, adjectives, etc just in case they offend some fat person who will sue them. So now, the fat employee cannot bring a case against the local authority (being his employer) as the policy clearly states "Don't call someone fat if they happen to be 33 stone, they are merely slightly rounded". But the culprit who used the "fat" word can take the blame and be dismissed limiting any damage and protecting the establishment.

To be fair, there are some reasonably sensible outcomes in the whole PC department. But there are some really silly ones too. If the only way to not get sued is to discourage the use of everyday phrases in the fear that someone will be offended, then that's what will happen. Take away the use of the phrase - take away the bullet.

Everyone blames the Americans for the Sue-Everyone-With-A-Pulse culture but I am not so sure. It may have started there but it was always going to come here too as legal aid is paid for by the Government. If a no win no fee lawyer wants the case then our taxes don't have to provide for the legal representation and that is why the rules in the UK changed to allow this practice.

Is PC a good thing? In my opinion it may have started life with good intentions but now it is mainly used for the agendas of individuals or organisations that choose to hide behind it or clobber someone with it and now any use it may have had has fallen by the wayside.
 
arg-fallbackName="Daealis"/>
On a different forum I have seen an example that I think relates to the topic.

There was discussion about racism. There were all these PC-nazis shouting "you can't say nigger!" and they were clinging to the claim even when there were a few blacks coming in saying they use the word all the time and it's the context that offends, not the word.

Of word usage the conversation slided to the physical attributes and through there to some statistics showing that in america blacks have a higher percentage of violent crimes or something to that effect and a friend suggested a theory to why that is: Since the original blacks came to america as slaves, they propably had chosen the strongest, most masculine types and their wives. This, in effect "selective breeding", resulted the general populus to be initially of a fairly big on testosterone and muscles, which also has been shown to somewhat lead to aggressive behavior. And through this line of thought, it might explain the statistics.

I thought the idea isn't that crazy that there might be something to it, but before he could answer any of the nazis and their screams of "racist!" they blocked him from from the conversation, so he can't answer their arguments against it(which were really weak in comparison). They were comparing his ideas to nazi eugenics and whatnot.

It was just ridiculous that they couldn't even entertain the idea that the statistics were not completely the result of social differences and injustice, that there might be a bit of a fault in the racial attributes as well, because this might be offensive to someone.
 
arg-fallbackName="lrkun"/>
Exmortis said:
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?
Click to expand...

Political correctness is useful. It allows one to avoid offending others. Offending others for the pure sake of doing so is not in anyway practical. Humans are communal beings, thus there is a need tolerate each other.

On the other hand, there are certain circumstances in which the derogatory terms can be used; for the sake of hurting others or for the sake of offending others. One's judgment will have to make a major play in such a case.

It can be observed that humans are communal creatures. They interact with each other in their daily lives. Words can either offend or make connections, and depending on the individual's purpose: a. one can choose to offend others; or b. one can choose to make relationships.
 
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