5 ms·

Is it just me or is this ultra-political correctness a new and intresting phenomenon? I'm really interested to watch where it's all going. Pretty much all joke

Is it just me or is this ultra-political correctness a new and intresting phenomenon? I'm really interested to watch where it's all going. Pretty much all jokes are going to offend somebody. You can't ask people to smile, comment on thier clothes or belongings. You can't interact causally in the workplace at all. Perhaps we'll see workplaces where all communication is in writing and on topic. Do we want our workplaces where people gather together as friends as they work, or do we want our workplace relationships to be strictly professional? I think I would prefer to work in a culture where, if you don't like the people you work with, you go find a new job. You don't complain, you get over it or you leave. (Because even telling me my jokes are offensive is a form of harassment itself.) I don't want to work in an office where I can't make friends, tell jokes, or laugh and enjoy life. Life is too short to sit in a room full of people you dont' know, don't like, or don't care about.

flukus 10y ago
> Pretty much all jokes are going to offend somebody. You can't ask people to smile, comment on thier clothes or belongings. You can't interact causally in the workplace at all. But not talking to someone is also sexist/racist/abelist/whatever, so you better hope you live somewhere with some interesting weather.
dingaling 10y ago
I spent nearly 20 years working in a Northern Irish company in which in-office discussion of politics, religion and most sport was banned, on pain of disciplinary action. On occasion people were asked to stop bringing their choice of newspaper into the office, too, as this could be construed as a subtle political signal. After a few months one adapted to restricting the domain of conversation without much effort, and the main problem was when we had visits from overseas staff who would stray into the verboten topics. One became adept at moving the conversation to safer ground.
- flukus 10y ago
  Politics and religion were particularly touchy in Northern Ireland, but why sport?
  - dnh44 10y ago
    I'm not familiar with the situation in Ireland but in Scotland the Celtic / Rangers rivalry has a strong religious element to it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Firm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Firm
- hatsunearu 10y ago
  SPORTS? Wow, is that really that big of an issue rivaling _politics_ and _religion_?
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
chillacy 10y ago
I spoke to a friend who mentioned that the reason all his coworkers at his small privately owned company are white was because the CEO had some pretty racist beliefs about minorities. And he mentioned that their work banter is pretty edgy as well. Now of course it's illegal for them to discriminate like that for hiring... but I wouldn't want to work with most of those people anyways, so it's better they keep to themselves. Plus I heard that the pay is terrible there.
pareidolia 10y ago
I found Slavoj Zizek has a very interesting perspective on "racist jokes" as a bonding factor in _diverse_ communities https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ri0qiAita4s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ri0qiAita4s (approx. 10m)
norea-armozel 10y ago
Not to be mean but there's more than "PC" at work here. For example, I don't talk much at work since I have anxiety among other things, so it's really hard to socialize even at work. But what makes it even worse is when people don't respect my personal space and try to get me to "open up" beyond doing my work. I know for some this annoying because we're social creatures but honestly I'm not. I prefer to be on topic so that when I go home at the end of the day I can just forget about whatever happened only to pick it up later. So, if that offends anyone that's not my supervisor I don't really care. Nor should others take offense when I don't care for their "you should open up more or smile more" comments. I won't file a complaint with HR since I know the nightmare of HR from previous jobs but don't expect me to give you my personal email address or my Facebook account name (since I don't use my legal name on it) just because we work together.
- jay_kyburz 10y ago
  I think that attitude is perfectly fine, and hey one day you might find that you do want to go to lunch with colleagues and have a chat about the weekend. All I'm saying is that it would be a shame if we created a work culture were that was simply not possible.
daughart 10y ago
The idea that you can't interact casually without risking personal offense is just a knee-jerk reaction. If restricting work conversations about personal appearance, sex, gender, race, religion, rape, etc. is equivalent to eliminating all personal interactions, your conversations must be quite impoverished. Telling you that your jokes are offensive would indeed be harassment---if you worked at a late night show or another joke-telling profession! Otherwise, no, telling you that your jokes are offensive is in fact not a form of workplace harassment. Also, you might want to reflect on why making friends, telling jokes, laughing, and enjoying life requires you to say racist and/or sexist things at work.
- jay_kyburz 10y ago
  Thanks for proving my point. You jumped to the assumption that I'm a racist or sexist, and you even put it in writing. Now I report you to HR, you have a black mark on your record and won't be getting your annual bonus / raise / promotion. And hey look, perhaps I am, who can tell these days. Telling somebody to smile is sexist now apparently. "island of cannibals" is racist, but I dont know which race - all of them I guess. Give me any topic of conversation and I'll tell you who it offends.
nikdaheratik 10y ago
The entire dialog is becoming very tiresome, especially since it seems play out almost entirely on the Internet, where you can't even tell sarcasm half the time. On the one hand, you have decades of women and other minorities having to brush off a bunch of stupid comments or risk losing their jobs, and they're just tired of having to put up with that BS anymore. And they're right to feel that way. On the other hand, if everything becomes political, then that's completely stifling in a free society. Taken to the extreme, it could be less free than Soviet Russia since, at least there, you know who was enforcing that nonsense and had some kind of hope of navigating it. The enforcers here are self appointed, at times faceless, and have different people taking turns deciding what the outrage of the week is. The problem is mostly that our society is trying to move away from the old social hierarchy, which was exclusive and hurt alot of good people, but we haven't figured out what we're replacing it with.
- jay_kyburz 10y ago
  Great comment!

flukus 10y ago

> Pretty much all jokes are going to offend somebody. You can't ask people to smile, comment on thier clothes or belongings. You can't interact causally in the workplace at all. But not talking to someone is also sexist/racist/abelist/whatever, so you better hope you live somewhere with some interesting weather.

dingaling 10y ago

I spent nearly 20 years working in a Northern Irish company in which in-office discussion of politics, religion and most sport was banned, on pain of disciplinary action. On occasion people were asked to stop bringing their choice of newspaper into the office, too, as this could be construed as a subtle political signal. After a few months one adapted to restricting the domain of conversation without much effort, and the main problem was when we had visits from overseas staff who would stray into the verboten topics. One became adept at moving the conversation to safer ground.

flukus 10y ago
Politics and religion were particularly touchy in Northern Ireland, but why sport?
- dnh44 10y ago
  I'm not familiar with the situation in Ireland but in Scotland the Celtic / Rangers rivalry has a strong religious element to it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Firm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Firm
hatsunearu 10y ago
SPORTS? Wow, is that really that big of an issue rivaling _politics_ and _religion_?

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

chillacy 10y ago

I spoke to a friend who mentioned that the reason all his coworkers at his small privately owned company are white was because the CEO had some pretty racist beliefs about minorities. And he mentioned that their work banter is pretty edgy as well. Now of course it's illegal for them to discriminate like that for hiring... but I wouldn't want to work with most of those people anyways, so it's better they keep to themselves. Plus I heard that the pay is terrible there.

pareidolia 10y ago

I found Slavoj Zizek has a very interesting perspective on "racist jokes" as a bonding factor in _diverse_ communities https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ri0qiAita4s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ri0qiAita4s (approx. 10m)

norea-armozel 10y ago

Not to be mean but there's more than "PC" at work here. For example, I don't talk much at work since I have anxiety among other things, so it's really hard to socialize even at work. But what makes it even worse is when people don't respect my personal space and try to get me to "open up" beyond doing my work. I know for some this annoying because we're social creatures but honestly I'm not. I prefer to be on topic so that when I go home at the end of the day I can just forget about whatever happened only to pick it up later. So, if that offends anyone that's not my supervisor I don't really care. Nor should others take offense when I don't care for their "you should open up more or smile more" comments. I won't file a complaint with HR since I know the nightmare of HR from previous jobs but don't expect me to give you my personal email address or my Facebook account name (since I don't use my legal name on it) just because we work together.

jay_kyburz 10y ago
I think that attitude is perfectly fine, and hey one day you might find that you do want to go to lunch with colleagues and have a chat about the weekend. All I'm saying is that it would be a shame if we created a work culture were that was simply not possible.

daughart 10y ago

The idea that you can't interact casually without risking personal offense is just a knee-jerk reaction. If restricting work conversations about personal appearance, sex, gender, race, religion, rape, etc. is equivalent to eliminating all personal interactions, your conversations must be quite impoverished. Telling you that your jokes are offensive would indeed be harassment---if you worked at a late night show or another joke-telling profession! Otherwise, no, telling you that your jokes are offensive is in fact not a form of workplace harassment. Also, you might want to reflect on why making friends, telling jokes, laughing, and enjoying life requires you to say racist and/or sexist things at work.

jay_kyburz 10y ago
Thanks for proving my point. You jumped to the assumption that I'm a racist or sexist, and you even put it in writing. Now I report you to HR, you have a black mark on your record and won't be getting your annual bonus / raise / promotion. And hey look, perhaps I am, who can tell these days. Telling somebody to smile is sexist now apparently. "island of cannibals" is racist, but I dont know which race - all of them I guess. Give me any topic of conversation and I'll tell you who it offends.

nikdaheratik 10y ago

The entire dialog is becoming very tiresome, especially since it seems play out almost entirely on the Internet, where you can't even tell sarcasm half the time. On the one hand, you have decades of women and other minorities having to brush off a bunch of stupid comments or risk losing their jobs, and they're just tired of having to put up with that BS anymore. And they're right to feel that way. On the other hand, if everything becomes political, then that's completely stifling in a free society. Taken to the extreme, it could be less free than Soviet Russia since, at least there, you know who was enforcing that nonsense and had some kind of hope of navigating it. The enforcers here are self appointed, at times faceless, and have different people taking turns deciding what the outrage of the week is. The problem is mostly that our society is trying to move away from the old social hierarchy, which was exclusive and hurt alot of good people, but we haven't figured out what we're replacing it with.

jay_kyburz 10y ago
Great comment!