What are your thoughts on "political correctness"?

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In the UK we have taken political correctness way too far. You can barely breathe before you are accused of not being politically incorrect. The rights of UK nationals are waived to accommodate the rights of foreigners. They are given benefits and other things far more easily than UK nationals are out of our taxes. The government seems to bend over backwards to show how politically correct they are and our rights suffer as a result.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... douts.html

There was a case of a Christian woman working at the airport who was told to remove her cross and chain necklace in case it offended other people of religions. It was widely publicised here. She was actually suspended from work for refusing to remove it. Can you imagine a muslim being suspended for refusing to remove their hijab? A nurse was also facing the sack for refusing to remove her cross and chain.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/8467132.stm
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religio ... cross.html

I can't bear political correctness. You don't have to be racist or anti any group but you don't have to take PC'ness too far either. It's just gone too far in the wrong direction.

The above post by whirlingmind reminds me of what I often think is unfair.

The political correctness (or equality in general) often seems to protect only certain groups of people. The above example of a Christian woman getting in trouble for refusing to remove the cross is a good example. Maybe muslim women should be forced to remove their hijab to enforce political correctness in an equal way if a cross is a problem.

Also I notice it's sometimes regarded ok when white males are insulted because they are considered as the traditionally privileged group. I think white males should be equally protected by political correctness.

While I agree with the idea of political correctness in a vague sense, sometimes I wonder what it really is.

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I don't know if this relates, but...
I also hesitate to use the word "American" to refer to the citizens of the US. Is this also political correctness?

What exactly is political correctness?

I don't even know something is PC until someone says it is. I had no idea being nice was PC so I must be *gasp* PC because I can say things in a nice way without being mean and still be honest. I just think then they are truly mean people if they think it's PC that they have to say things in a nice way rather than in a mean way so to them it feels so fake if they have to change their communication. I would say everyone is PC to a degree or else imagine what life be like if everyone were mean and nasty and rude and we were all bullying each other and beating each other up and doing slander and breaking into each others homes. Yes people have called these things political correctness because we don't allow hate crimes or bullying or harassment at work places and all and we can go to the police if someone is bullying us because it's called harassment. Also we have laws about trespassing and breaking an entry.

The subject of codifying political correctness into law is an interesting one, but not really what I want to discuss right now. For now, I want to limit the discussion to voluntary interpersonal interactions that occur on a day to day basis.

The word gay:
14th century: happy
1890's: promiscuous (gay house = brothel)
1920's-present: homosexual
1990's-present: bad, stupid

It's pretty clear how that word evolved, isn't it?
Anyway, as scarp mentioned, it still is the most common term for homosexuality and no amount of wiggling will change the fact that the word one uses to mean "stupid" may be part of the listener's identity. I know plenty of GAY people who are hurt by this use of the term. Some aren't, but that is irrelevant: I'm not hurting so badly for adjectives that I need to use one that insults my friends.

Now, "lame" is one that does hurt me, because as a 90's teen, that word stirs a lot of nostalgia. I strongly associate it with my generation and youth. Also, I am a disabled person and don't find its use offensive myself. I still try not to use it for the sake of those who are offended by it.

It is easy to choose a different word and selfish to refuse to do so when the first word that comes to mind has connotations you want to avoid. Simple as that.

I have never seen anyone be offended by the word lame. I didn't even know it was a medical word until I was at Babycenter reading and I have seen threads about the word "ret*d" about rather it's okay to use or not or why people say it. Then people brought up other words like lame trying to justify the R word because they see it as no different and I agree with them. I then saw the hypocrisy in the word. I see it as if i get offended by ret*d, then I am going to have to get offended by stupid or idiot or imbecile, lame, and other former medical words. If not, then I can't get offended by ret*d. I just say lot of people aren't ready for the new meaning of the word and give it another twenty years, maybe less people will be offended by it and you can use it with no problem because it will be like stupid, dumb, lame, idiot and no one will react to it if they over hear you use it. No one will connect that word to the intellectual impaired like they don't with stupid, idiot, moron, and imbecile. I wonder how long it took for stupid, idiot, and dumb to be used without lot of people getting offended by those words after they stopped using those words in medical field?

People even use the word [mod edit: racial slur removed] to mean other things instead of black person. It offends me but I ignore it. It's not something I would ever use myself as a phrase. I couldn't careless if black people were using that word. but I always think why is it okay for them to use that word but if a none black person uses it, bam they get beaten up by a black person and other black people get offended by it if they over heard it. I see it as a double standard and hypocritical. but what if that meaning of the word changed and it no longer meant black people? May take me years to get used to it. It didn't take me long to get used to the word ret*d being used in another way and not mean ret*d people. I saw it as, hey if normal kids are going to be called that word, I should stop being offended by it and that was the end of it. if anyone calls me that, don't get too upset by it because I am being treated like everyone else because they are called that too. But no one dared to say that about me, if they did, then it was done behind my back and I never knew about it. But they didn't hesitate to not use that word around me when they call a teacher that behind their backs or another kid or someone else that to their face. They also didn't hesitate to say around me to someone else "Dude, that's ret*d." Just as long as I wasn't being called it, it didn't bother me.

People say meanings of words change so it's acceptable to use other words, why not accept that the meaning of the words ret*d and gay have changed too? Oh right, because they are not used to it and they say we have a hard time with change.

I don't really hear it used that much any more.

One exception to what you wrote was the movie Blazing Saddles. My younger brother and a few friends of his saw it at a theater where the crowd was overwhelmingly black. He said that the blacks in the crowd were howling in laughter through most of the movie.

I ran into something really strange while working at one company years ago. There were two Australians who worked at the company -- one full time and one who had come to the US for a few months to work with us. Every morning I would hear them greet each other with "How's it going convict?" So one morning I was walking down the hallway and met one of them and so I said "How's it going convict?" Although he was quite friendly and easy going, he got pretty mad and told me never to call him that again. So I figured it was a similar thing to blacks for Australians.

Later, I was talking to someone else from Australia and asked about that. She was puzzled and said that she had never heard anyone in Australia use the word "convict" in a greeting.

I still don't understand what the big deal was about that.

Maybe it was just an inside joke between those two people who, by coincidence, were both Australian. Maybe one or both of them had recently gotten out of prison, or something similar?

Probably just an inside joke.

They were both very good software developers with good work histories. If there was any prison time in their past, they would never have gotten to the positions they were in.

To play devil's advocate, the word "gay" could be seen as offensive to homosexuals as it once indicated promiscuity and debauchery. Moreover, it wasn't that cut-and-dry. Even in the mid-20th century, the word still meant happy to the general public.

But anyway, when I responded to this thread, I was responding to political correctness in general. I now wonder if this thread was really about PC in the general sense, or specifically about the OP's hang-up about hearing people use the term gay to mean "stupid."

Nonetheless, what bothers me is the dismissive nature being used to negate anyone who takes issues with aspects of political correctness. And to say that, "Those who prefer to brush off social and cultural issues without thinking very deeply about them do enjoy attacking the straw man that is "Political Correctness,"" ironically, seems to be an excuse to brush off anyone who takes issue with political correctness by painting them under the broad brush that is 'insensitivity and ignorance.'

I've had a lifetime of being told what I can and can't say, what I can and can't do. I don't understand how you folks can allow your emotional hangups to justify silencing and censuring those who use words and phrases you don't like, even if their intention is not to offend. It may mean a lot to you, but for you to call them ignorant and insensitive for not having the same beliefs and values as you seems like it may be a ToM problem. Your concerns in life may not be theirs, and vice versa, and I don't believe in forcing my opinions and beliefs onto others...and certainly don't want it forced upon me.

I think this user summed it up best:

Gentlemen, it refers to Australia's early colonial history as a place where British prisoners were sent, and other British criminals fled to to escape prosecution.

As two expats in the US, they were joking about being from a land founded by criminals. In everyday Australian greeting, this doesn't come up. But as two foreigners, it was a mutual connection that reminded them of their homeland.

Even NTs have this issue too about the gay word and ret*d.

I HATE Political Correctness.

I am happily one of the most un-pc people you'll ever meet.


I hate it so much, I even have an un-pc forum I made, which all of you are invited to join if you so wish: http://unpchaven.proboards.com/index.cgi

Last edited by TrainofLove on 01 Mar 2013, 6:09 am, edited 1 time in total.

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The problem with political correctness is that it should be called professional correctness.

There is a huge difference between someone speaking from a position of authority using a word like ret*d when on the job in contrast to when someone is in the break room eating their lunch.

This is the problem, there are times when one isn't speaking for themselves.

Otherwise it's simply a tool to curve personal freedom and expression.

It's absurd how simple it is and stupid people make things.

On the other end the whole fisherman fisherperson thing is utter nonsense. It's truly a sign of extreme feminism jumping into the english language.

All languages have grammatical genders english being a germanic language has inherited this trait.

There was a time when a pencil, a book, and a table all had genders and it had nothing to do with sexism. In fact gender were often reversed when you were talking about an object in the plural versus the singular. Woman itself literally meant wife man.

The diplomatic response should of been changing the endings of the words to be closer to the actual pronunciation. So fisherman should be spelled fishermin, as it's pronounced in virtually ever situation.

As far as words that one shouldn't be able to say the list is rather short, [mod edit: racial slur removed] and [mod edit: homophobic slur removed] or the only two words that I think shouldn't be able to said in public. They're the only words in the english language that universally can be proven to be threatening to either a gay or black person, simply by their direct connection to hate crimes.

For the vast majority of the time, it truly is a product of people trying to reppeal freedom of speech/expression laws, which is something that lobby groups are becoming exceptional skilled at not only from the social groups but from the corporate direction as well.

I wouldn't expect them to not feel physical pain due to me stepping on their foot by accident. But I would expect them to realise that it was an accident, and not go ape on me: "You stepped on me on purpose! You hate me!" That's the difference.


ezbzbfcg2, I agree with what you have wrotten in this thread.


Whirlingmind; we have the same problem here: Political correctness gone amok. To the point where they censor older books.




QFT!



Oh it’s not by any means limited to white men. It’s *all* whites. You see, immigrants calling me ‘potato who**’ is okay. They’re the minority and I just have to put up with that because it’s not taken seriously, people even laugh about it, but heaven forbid I should use a similar term. Either all such terms are okay, or they must all get the same reaction.
Thank heavens racism only goes one way! (sarcasm).
The most blatant examples I have seen of racism is the so-called “reverse racism” (as if there is such a thing! There is just racism. Period.) There are parts in my city where ethnically Norwegian children are bullied for being white. That's a non-issue of course, but the moment an immigrant from the third world plays the race card, all he** is loose.
And of course we have to understand them (to death). It's their culture, their values, their traditions.
They came here. They chose to live here. If the way we do things aren't good enough for them, go home. We are not gonna change to accommodate them. They have to adapt to us. Just like I'd have to adapt to their customs if I lived in their country.



I agree 100%, ShamelessGit!
Whenever I hear PC terms, they make me wanna use the frowned upon versions just to spite them. People who are into PC nonsense are looking for things to be offended by. Like children dressing up as any type of people not their own on Halloween, that allegedly is racism. The PC nonsense has gone way too far. Now it’s time to use our brains again.


I think political correctness is grade A stupid. I’m so fed up with everyone who are so over sensitive to words, especially words that have never been degrading or negative, but that are now suddenly terrible. And to make things worse, in some instances the replacement word the group in question insists on, is worse!
One good example in my language: As long as we have known about other races, we have used the word “neger” when referring to a Negro. There is absolutely nothing negative about the word, it simply means someone with recent roots from Africa. (Yes, recent; I’m not gonna say someone from Africa; I’d no doubt be told we’re all from Africa if you just go far enough back in time). But now suddenly they come here and demand that we say “svart” instead (‘black’). In Norwegian there are a lot of racist terms going something with “svart”, and there is a swear word that involves the colour black (nothing to do with the people), and in addition black gives the association of dark and dirty. So instead of a word most people find neutral and descriptive, they insist on one that have negative associations.

Another is the term “people of colour”. They flip out if you call them “coloured”, but people of colour is fine. Ooookaaayy.... Makes no sense. It’s the same word. Just like Negro is black in Latin.

An Asian is a person from Asia. It simply say what part of the world said person is from, it does not give a good description of said person since there are a lot of different looks and colours in Asia. In the PC crazy US, people from China, Korea, Vietnam and Japan have forced through the word Asian referring to their look, hijacking the term of an entire continent to refer to only a part of its people. I know for a fact that it greatly annoys other Asians, and I understand that perfectly well; taking a general term and excluding many it refers to from it! It’d be like Aryans insisted that European look meant Aryan, despite the fact that many ethnical Europeans have red, brown or black hair, and green, grey or brown eyes. Not being Aryan but 100% European I’d certainly object to that. The proper general term for someone from Korea/Japan etc is oriental.

“Merry Christmas”. “Happy holidays”. Don’t even get me started! This is a Christian country. If whoever you’re talking to is an immigrant s/he has decided to live in a Christian country, and I will not allow them to have me walk on egg shells regarding the traditions I use in my country. And if I chose to live in Muslim/Buddhist/Hindu/Jewish country, I would not expect people native to the country to tip toe around me and nearly be afraid of admitting they were Muslim/Buddhist/Hindu/Jewish. And if they were to wish me a good Eid, Chanukkah or whatever, that would be an including gesture on their part IMO.

Another example is jobs where the profession title is something man (fireman, handyman etc). I think it’s ridiculous to react to that (insisting on neutral terms or adding female before it); to me fireman etc is just a job title, not a gender.

Now the word ret*d is a bad word in the US. Because it’s also used as a derogatory word, the’r-word must go

To me ‘gay’ is either homophile or lame. I don’t find it offensive despite identifying as bi.