4 ms·

> Putting polical corectness aside I'm not sure what that term means. If anything, the politically correct thing - the acceptable thing - is to take shots at "

> Putting polical corectness aside I'm not sure what that term means. If anything, the politically correct thing - the acceptable thing - is to take shots at "political correctness". But let's have a clear definition and say how it applies to something in particular in this discussion.

mwfunk 10y ago
At this point, any hand-wringing over political correctness feels like mass hysteria a la UFOs in the '50s or fairies in the Victorian era. I see a lot of complaining about it, but I can't even tell you the last time I witnessed any examples of political correctness having any impact on anything of any import whatsoever. On the other hand, I've seen seemingly endless instances of people using political correctness as a strawman to blow off disagreements or criticism without having to address them. It's like a blank check for assholes: if they think that all the people who think they are assholes are a bunch of brainwashed PC zombies, that's a lot easier to deal with than looking in the mirror, thinking about it for like 2 seconds, and maybe growing up a little. Nowadays anti-political correctness seems like an infinitely more widespread and toxic influence on our culture than any supposed PC conspiracy, in the sense that it shuts down honest discussion and keeps people from talking about real issues or understanding each other's perspectives. Ironically a lot anti-PC hysteria uses verbiage about how we should all be up front and direct and brutally honest, but in practice it ends up doing the exact opposite. Nowadays anti-PC hysteria isn't people saying "tell me how you REALLY feel, don't mince words, let's talk straight about real issues"; rather, it's a mostly homogenous group of people saying "shut up and go away, I don't care about seeing things from your point of view, how dare you act like you're special enough to have your own perspective".
- flukus 10y ago
  > I see a lot of complaining about it, but I can't even tell you the last time I witnessed any examples of political correctness having any impact on anything of any import whatsoever. You've never worked in an office? It has an impact all the time because there are many subjects not safe to discuss.
  - throwaway729 10y ago
    > It has an impact all the time because there are many subjects not safe to discuss. I agree with you, in the sense that cultures heavier on PC typically have a bit more self-censorship than they might otherwise. However, my experience so far is basically that nothing of value was lost! I can kinda sympathize with the first guy who gets in trouble for stepping over the (newly instated, sometimes implicit) line. But as far as actual effects on the office? Mostly just a work place that feels more like a place where important work happens and less like a high school lunch table. I'd be curious to know why you think the typically censored topics add anything of business value to a work place.
    - flukus 10y ago
      Depends on how much value you place on office socialising, which certainly has it's benefits. It can also have a big impact on hiring when it becomes heresy to question things like diversity quotas. One I often see personally is not being able to discriminate based on communication ability out of fear of being labelled racist.
      - greglindahl 10y ago
        And there's a good reason to have a more open mind about communication: you miss out on some potentially great candidates that way. The first ops person I hired at blekko had kinda terrible spoken English. He was awesome and solved a lot of hard problems. I just learned to not try to communicate with him over the phone :-) If I step back a step, the reality is that I am always more comfortable communicating with people like me, with an accent I'm comfortable with, who use my kind of vocabulary, who use similar grammar to mine. Guess what? I can effectively communicate with a lot more people than the ones who score highly on my personal communication scale. Edit: I should add that this is something that should be discussed openly during the recruitment process.

mwfunk 10y ago

At this point, any hand-wringing over political correctness feels like mass hysteria a la UFOs in the '50s or fairies in the Victorian era. I see a lot of complaining about it, but I can't even tell you the last time I witnessed any examples of political correctness having any impact on anything of any import whatsoever. On the other hand, I've seen seemingly endless instances of people using political correctness as a strawman to blow off disagreements or criticism without having to address them. It's like a blank check for assholes: if they think that all the people who think they are assholes are a bunch of brainwashed PC zombies, that's a lot easier to deal with than looking in the mirror, thinking about it for like 2 seconds, and maybe growing up a little. Nowadays anti-political correctness seems like an infinitely more widespread and toxic influence on our culture than any supposed PC conspiracy, in the sense that it shuts down honest discussion and keeps people from talking about real issues or understanding each other's perspectives. Ironically a lot anti-PC hysteria uses verbiage about how we should all be up front and direct and brutally honest, but in practice it ends up doing the exact opposite. Nowadays anti-PC hysteria isn't people saying "tell me how you REALLY feel, don't mince words, let's talk straight about real issues"; rather, it's a mostly homogenous group of people saying "shut up and go away, I don't care about seeing things from your point of view, how dare you act like you're special enough to have your own perspective".

flukus 10y ago
> I see a lot of complaining about it, but I can't even tell you the last time I witnessed any examples of political correctness having any impact on anything of any import whatsoever. You've never worked in an office? It has an impact all the time because there are many subjects not safe to discuss.
- throwaway729 10y ago
  > It has an impact all the time because there are many subjects not safe to discuss. I agree with you, in the sense that cultures heavier on PC typically have a bit more self-censorship than they might otherwise. However, my experience so far is basically that nothing of value was lost! I can kinda sympathize with the first guy who gets in trouble for stepping over the (newly instated, sometimes implicit) line. But as far as actual effects on the office? Mostly just a work place that feels more like a place where important work happens and less like a high school lunch table. I'd be curious to know why you think the typically censored topics add anything of business value to a work place.
  - flukus 10y ago
    Depends on how much value you place on office socialising, which certainly has it's benefits. It can also have a big impact on hiring when it becomes heresy to question things like diversity quotas. One I often see personally is not being able to discriminate based on communication ability out of fear of being labelled racist.
    - greglindahl 10y ago
      And there's a good reason to have a more open mind about communication: you miss out on some potentially great candidates that way. The first ops person I hired at blekko had kinda terrible spoken English. He was awesome and solved a lot of hard problems. I just learned to not try to communicate with him over the phone :-) If I step back a step, the reality is that I am always more comfortable communicating with people like me, with an accent I'm comfortable with, who use my kind of vocabulary, who use similar grammar to mine. Guess what? I can effectively communicate with a lot more people than the ones who score highly on my personal communication scale. Edit: I should add that this is something that should be discussed openly during the recruitment process.