Just What is (and what is wrong with) Political Correctness?

robinrohan writes:The term "politically correct" was originally a joke among liberals having to do mostly with race, gender, and groups of various sorts that might be discriminated against, such as people in wheelchairs. So the liberals had to be real careful not to offend anybody, such as calling a disabled person a "cripple" or something of that sort. The joke consisted of taking this agenda to the extreme. Through the years, the term "political correctness" came to stand for this agenda of not discriminating against anybody. In other words, we must not judge, for if we do we might offend somebody or some group.Another slogan of political correctness is being "inclusive." Exclusivity is evil; inclusiveness is good.Traditional Christianity, for example, is exclusive and therefore evil by politically correct standards.
New Age Christianity, such as Jar's religion, is inclusive and therefore good by politically correct standards.Political correctness is a pretense.

Wikipedia writes:Political correctness (also politically correct, P.C. or PC) is a term used to describe language that is calculated to provide a minimum of offense, particularly to the racial, cultural, or other identity groups being described. The concept typically refers to the English language, but is not exclusive to it. A text that conforms to the ideals of political correctness is said to be politically correct.

It's a moral system. It's also a political agenda.

My problem with it is that it seems to try to dictate feelings. We are supposed to go around feeling nice, politically correct feelings all the time. But people aren't that way. Thus they sometimes PRETEND to have such feelings. That's why I call it a pretense.

"PC" is rather hard to pin down, but we can make a start: It came out of the Civil Rights movement and the feminist movement. The idea is to get rid of prejudice, to eradicate it completely--any prejudice, all prejudice. The problem with this is that people are naturally prejudiced and tribal by nature.

"Like earlier crusades against antisocial ideas, the mission [of purism or pc] is fueled by good (if cocksure) intentions and a genuine sense of urgency. Some kinds of error are held to be intolerable . . .

What you can do, however, is pay attention to your responses, and understand when your actions are offensive.It's impossible to live without taking a crap. It's possible, and advisable, to not crap your pants in public.

Sterotyping is inevitable. It's just a pejorative term for "classifying." That's how we think. We classify. Stereotypes can come in very subtle packages.

To say we must not stereotype is very misleading.

Can't deal with the true meaning of what's being said, I guess. So much easier to smear your opponent as a racist. Typical mindless categorizing kneejerk PC.

It's all a matter of whether it's actually true or not. You can decide that for yourself, but you can't rightly deal with it formulaically by simply pointing out a superficial similarity between my descriptions and theirs.

Faith writes:You are personalizing something that is not personal,

Dan Carroll writes:There's no force of authority. No physical force. Just people reacting to what others say and do by saying they think poorly of the person (denouncing them) for what they say and do. Even if it is extreme, it's still just variations on responding to someone's attitude by saying, "Geez, what a dick."