Political Correctness

[Robert Maxwell]

"Political correctness is tyranny with manners."

Is it really tyranny, if it has no legal consequences?

It has legal consequences if someone claims emotional distress and sues. It also has consequences if your company decides to fire you over the slightest matter (or non-matter) rather than risk ruffled feathers.

Do you have anything to back this up other than paranoid hysteria?

 

[Locutus of Bored]

"Political correctness run amok" is almost universally the favorite complaint of jerks and misanthropes who want to turn the fact that they've been called on their behavior into some kind of persecution. Rarely is it ever justified.

You'd think with the way people on the internet constantly carry on about political correctness that someone must be following them around with one of those ticket machines from Demolition Man and repeatedly fining them one credit for a violation of the verbal moralities statute. But then when you press them on it they come back with "well, this one time in 1993 a university was overly sensitive..." Wow, remarkable.

No one is denying that sometimes governments, corporations, schools, or other organizations can get carried away while being motivated by good intentions, but the sheer tonnage of whining complaints about political correctness is completely out of proportion with the significance and frequency of the actual problem, which is fairly rare.

This is just the stupid Happy Holidays debate all over again, minus Jesus. Why are you trying to take Jesus out of the Happy Holidays debate?

 

[JarodRussell]

"Political correctness run amok" is almost universally the favorite complaint of jerks and misanthropes who want to turn the fact that they've been called on their behavior into some kind of persecution. Rarely is it ever justified.

Now that statement isn't politically correct.

 

[iguana_tonante]

That's neither clever or deep. I hope you realize that.

 

[horatio83]

I don't wanna live in a social space where you can utter racist, sexist or homophobic slurs without any punishment. But what kind of punishment? Legal punishment is problematic due to free speech and public protest is what we employ currently and usually label political correctness. I think the next step is to make these explicit, non-legal rules of conversation implicit rules. You utter a racist slur and you are just out of the discussion, you are not taken seriously anymore. Nobody says anything, you are just looked at as if you are the idiot you are. Such implicit rules, taboos or however you want to call them can be more powerful than explicit ones.

But surely context matters. What if you use racial slurs and/or stereotypes as part of a joke? What if it’s a funny joke?

Of course insults can be used in a non-insulting fashion. I guess most of us have at least once playfully insulted a friend in order to signal that they really are friends, that they are beyond distanced politness and so on.
About racist jokes, if you would make a similar joke about your own ethnic group the joke was most likely not racist, otherwise it probably was.

 

[Darth Duck]

I try not to make "Your mom" jokes if I'm not 100% sure the person's mom is alive.

It happened to me once. That was awkward.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

"Political correctness run amok" is almost universally the favorite complaint of jerks and misanthropes who want to turn the fact that they've been called on their behavior into some kind of persecution. Rarely is it ever justified.

Now that statement isn't politically correct.

It's a good thing I'm not arguing in favor of political correctness there then, isn't it? I'm simply arguing that it's not as big a problem as people make it out to be. Just like I don't argue that people should have to say "Happy Holidays," but that it's no big deal if they do.

But you go right on missing the point, as per usual.

I try not to make "Your mom" jokes if I'm not 100% sure the person's mom is alive.

It happened to me once. That was awkward.

Eh, I've had a couple "your mom" jokes and insults tossed my way since my mom died last year. People rarely mean it seriously, and if they do they didn't actually know my mom anyway, so it doesn't bother me. I just play along and don't try and put them on the spot about it by mentioning that she died.

 

[Bob Karo]

So... Some people are too offensive. Some other people are too easily offended.

Yeah, I doubt any of this is going to change soon. I just try to treat people with respect and take things how they're offered. In my experience, that's what most people are doing anyway.

 

[Gov Kodos]

. . . “water buffalo” is not, and never has been, used as a slur against blacks.

You keep telling them what they should be offended by, let us know how that works out. As to his explanation,

You can guffaw all you like. That doesn’t change the facts.

The fact that he's twisting in the wind, and that some are willing to blow the incident out of all proportion claiming universities are turning the US into a Stalinist state? Poor, poor, pitiful them. It doesn't matter where the animal comes from, blacks take exception to the comparison because it was and is used by racists to dehumanize them. Neither you, nor the folks in that book, or the kid at the university get to decide what offends them.

The book does fail to note:

From Middle English bemoth, behemoth, from Late Latin, from Hebrew בהמות (bəhēmōth), either an intensive plural of בהמה (bəhēmāh) 'beast', from Proto-Semitic (compare Ethiopic bəhma 'dumb, speechless', Arabic ʼabham (declined as bahma(t), bahīma(t)) 'animal'), or borrowed from Ancient Egyptian p-ehe-mau 'hippopotamus', literally 'water-ox'.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/behemoth

Not that where the animal comes from matters in the least, two groups are got worked up and the university over reacted. It's not the next coming of Lenin's Cheka.

 

[JarodRussell]

"Political correctness run amok" is almost universally the favorite complaint of jerks and misanthropes who want to turn the fact that they've been called on their behavior into some kind of persecution. Rarely is it ever justified.

Now that statement isn't politically correct.

It's a good thing I'm not arguing in favor of political correctness there then, isn't it? I'm simply arguing that it's not as big a problem as people make it out to be. Just like I don't argue that people should have to say "Happy Holidays," but that it's no big deal if they do.

But you go right on missing the point, as per usual.

Why, would have been such a big deal to leave "jerks" out of your statement? So why did you not do it? And why do you react to criticism against the political correctness of your statement that offensive? Was that last remark really necessary?

See, that right there is the basic mechanism of a typical political correctness "debate". A says something, B shouts "this is offensive" (irrespective the actual content, A simply didn't word it carefully enough) and A gets angry in turn. And then the trouble starts, and the original content gets lost eventually.

 

[horatio83]

You keep telling them what they should be offended by, let us know how that works out. As to his explanation,

You can guffaw all you like. That doesn’t change the facts.

The fact that he's twisting in the wind, and that some are willing to blow the incident out of all proportion claiming universities are turning the US into a Stalinist state? Poor, poor, pitiful them. It doesn't matter where the animal comes from, blacks take exception to the comparison because it was and is used by racists to dehumanize them. Neither you, nor the folks in that book, or the kid at the university get to decide what offends them.

The book does fail to note:

From Middle English bemoth, behemoth, from Late Latin, from Hebrew בהמות (bəhēmōth), either an intensive plural of בהמה (bəhēmāh) 'beast', from Proto-Semitic (compare Ethiopic bəhma 'dumb, speechless', Arabic ʼabham (declined as bahma(t), bahīma(t)) 'animal'), or borrowed from Ancient Egyptian p-ehe-mau 'hippopotamus', literally 'water-ox'.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/behemoth

Not that where the animal comes from, two groups are got worked up and the university over reacted. It's not the next coming of Lenin's Cheka.

Some black guys are loud at night and annoy a Jewish guy who uses an anglicized version of a Hebrew word to insult them and a bunch of white guys decide that the latter behaviour is not OK. Talking about blowing an everyday conflict totally out of proportions, there you have it.
Not treating people who are loud at night with velvet glooves is not "politically incorrect", it is ordinary tit-for-tat behaviour.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Now that statement isn't politically correct.

It's a good thing I'm not arguing in favor of political correctness there then, isn't it? I'm simply arguing that it's not as big a problem as people make it out to be. Just like I don't argue that people should have to say "Happy Holidays," but that it's no big deal if they do.

But you go right on missing the point, as per usual.

Why, would have been such a big deal to leave "jerks" out of your statement? So why did you not do it? And why do you react to criticism against the political correctness of your statement that offensive? Was that last remark really necessary?

See, that right there is the basic mechanism of a typical political correctness "debate". A says something, B shouts "this is offensive" (irrespective the actual content, A simply didn't word it carefully enough) and A gets angry in turn. And then the trouble starts, and the original content gets lost eventually.

You're so good, Jarod, the way you maneuvered me right into your trap with that clever ruse. I never saw that one coming. Well played, sir.

 

[Gov Kodos]

You can guffaw all you like. That doesn’t change the facts.

The fact that he's twisting in the wind, and that some are willing to blow the incident out of all proportion claiming universities are turning the US into a Stalinist state? Poor, poor, pitiful them. It doesn't matter where the animal comes from, blacks take exception to the comparison because it was and is used by racists to dehumanize them. Neither you, nor the folks in that book, or the kid at the university get to decide what offends them.

The book does fail to note:

From Middle English bemoth, behemoth, from Late Latin, from Hebrew בהמות (bəhēmōth), either an intensive plural of בהמה (bəhēmāh) 'beast', from Proto-Semitic (compare Ethiopic bəhma 'dumb, speechless', Arabic ʼabham (declined as bahma(t), bahīma(t)) 'animal'), or borrowed from Ancient Egyptian p-ehe-mau 'hippopotamus', literally 'water-ox'.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/behemoth

Not that where the animal comes from, two groups are got worked up and the university over reacted. It's not the next coming of Lenin's Cheka.

Some black guys are loud at night and annoy a Jewish guy who uses an anglicized version of a Hebrew word to insult them and a bunch of white guys decide that the latter behaviour is not OK. Talking about blowing an everyday conflict totally out of proportions, there you have it.
Not treating people who are loud at night with velvet glooves is not "politically incorrect", it is ordinary tit-for-tat behaviour.

You don't read very closely, do you? Nor do you appreciate the US has a different history with black/white relations from Europe that has created a lot of hypersensitivity in many institutions in the US to avoid the appearance of racism, if not always the presence.

 

[scotpens]

Some black guys are loud at night and annoy a Jewish guy who uses an anglicized version of a Hebrew word to insult them and a bunch of white guys decide that the latter behaviour is not OK. Talking about blowing an everyday conflict totally out of proportions, there you have it.

Not that it’s terribly relevant but, for the record, they weren’t guys, they were a bunch of sorority girls.

. . . Neither you, nor the folks in that book, or the kid at the university get to decide what offends them.

Words have objective meanings. If anyone can decide what’s offensive based on nothing more than their personal feelings, then we all become like Lewis Carroll’s Humpty-Dumpty.

"Political correctness run amok" is almost universally the favorite complaint of jerks and misanthropes who want to turn the fact that they've been called on their behavior into some kind of persecution. Rarely is it ever justified.

Really? The prevalence of campus speech codes — not just one isolated incident back in the ’90s, but an ongoing problem — is certainly one example of “political correctness run amok,” and I believe I’m quite justified in calling it that. Calling a spade a spade, you might say.

 

[Gov Kodos]

. . . Neither you, nor the folks in that book, or the kid at the university get to decide what offends them.

Words have objective meanings. If anyone can decide what’s offensive based on nothing more than their personal feelings, then we all become like Lewis Carroll’s Humpty-Dumpty.

Not quite, words are not completely objective or there would be little confusion. Also, words are used by people with intentions and agendas. One group claims racism, another claims it's harmless and an institution over reacts and embarrassed itself. That's all, it's not the end of free speech in America. The creation of Free Speech Zones http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech_zone and The Patriot Act are far more deleterious to civil liberties than the one posited here in this university's case.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

One group claims racism, another claims it's harmless

But in the case of the beast that shouted "water-buffalo" at the heart of the world, it IS harmless. His intent was not to make a racial slur, because it was not in fact one. In Hebrew culture, the word was intended to mean something that had nothing to do with race. The fact that the students outside his window took it as a slur...isn't that more their problem than his?

To put it another way: If the student had used words like 'loser' or 'idiot' or even 'freak', there might be some who even interpret THOSE words as racial slurs, but they would be wrong. Racism requires intent, does it not?

 

[Gov Kodos]

One group claims racism, another claims it's harmless

But in the case of the beast that shouted "water-buffalo" at the heart of the world, it IS harmless. His intent was not to make a racial slur, because it was not in fact one. In Hebrew culture, the word was intended to mean something that had nothing to do with race. The fact that the students outside his window took it as a slur...isn't that more their problem than his?

To put it another way: If the student had used words like 'loser' or 'idiot' or even 'freak', there might be some who even interpret THOSE words as racial slurs, but they would be wrong. Racism requires intent, does it not?

One group claims racism, another claims it's harmless and an institution over reacts and embarrassed itself.

Cherry picking does help, doesn't it? As to his intent, he alleges he didn't mean it as a slur. I don't know either way.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ Okay, okay, I'll give you that last bit.

 

[Gov Kodos]

^ Okay, okay, I'll give you that last bit.

What is far more disturbing is one kid mentioned in the article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_buffalo_incident who has been forgotten in this. Jacobowitz's roommate who is facing punishment by guilt through association. Universities do use extremely unfair systems of evidence, procedure and punishment that would never stand in a civil court of law.

A second student, Jacobowitz's roommate, was also charged by the university and placed on probation for his part in the original midnight ruckus. The second student had agreed to probation in order to avoid a hearing, which he felt would require an attorney his family could not afford. After the university dropped charges against Jacobowitz, the second student's faculty counselor sought to have the penalty of probation reversed, but Robin Read, the university's judicial officer overseeing the case, refused, even though the second student had not been the one to yell "water buffalo." He had merely been one of several students to yell at the women for disturbing study and sleep late at night.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ although to be fair, that thing about the roommate does have a 'Citation needed' tag on it. Are there any other links backing it up?