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Hidden Tribes: A Study of America's Polarized Landscape [pdf]
- batrat 8y agoPC = political correctness. What is wrong with people that invent a new abbreviation every second? Good CB (click bait)
- RandomInteger4 8y agoHuh? PC isn't new. That abbreviation has been around since the 80s or 90s.
- gsich 8y agoPersonal Computer is probably what most people think, especially here.
- 07d046 8y agoTwo thoughts: 1) "Political correctness" has always meant "excessive language policing from the left" rather than anything more concrete—it was a pejorative term even before it was introduced to the general public in 1990 on the pages of the New York Times—so it's no surprise that it has a bad reputation. 2) It's kind of ironic to use a research paper by a group called More In Common, who seek to counteract polarisation, to slam a particular political group.
- hyperdunc 8y agoI don't think it's ironic. If that political group is not receptive to this reasonable attempt to show them how they're going wrong, that's on them and rather reinforces the article's gist.
- Brakenshire 8y agoThe point is who will not say they dislike something defined to be a pejorative?
- Svoka 8y agoI know, right? There is no people for "political correctness". There are only those who don't like it. Whole term is constructed to be disliked.
- bdz 8y ago>But since the survey question did not define political correctness for respondents, we cannot be sure what, exactly, the 80 percent of Americans who regard it as a problem have in mind.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- rntz 8y agoI agree it would be nice to have a clearer picture of what anti-PC folks think of themselves as being against (and what pro-PC folk think of themselves as being for). However, it's also useful to know people's feelings towards a phrase _without_ defining it, to understand what they feel about the term as _they_ interpret it. This gives a sense of the political atmosphere surrounding a term, which can be just as important as what the term actually means. This isn't how things would work in some "ideal", perfectly rational world; but that's politics for you.
- tiniuclx 8y agoThis article makes me think about the disdain some people might have against the 'liberal elite', and according to the article political correctness does seem to be a trait of that particular class. I think the key is to understand the reason why many Americans reject PC language and culture. Is such language overused due to a fear of being accused of *ism? Or is it because people believe that communication should be empathetic by default, and doesn't need sanctimonious words to show it off? I generally assume there is no malice in someone else's words, which is especially helpful on the (mostly text-based) internet, where there aren't any para-verbal cues.
- emsy 8y agoI found charitable interpretation a good indicator of whether someone is virtue/tribal signaling or interested in intellectual exchange, finding truth and acting moral.
- YorkshireSeason 8y agoI've repeatedly found that the ability to paraphrase and summarise the opposing positions in a way that the opposition can agree with, is a good indicator of whether someone is interested in, and able to have a meaningful discussion in a controversial subject. It might be illuminating to compare this heuristic to the requirement of a decent scientific paper to summarise related work properly.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- PostOnce 8y agoThe linked report is WAY more interesting than the article. Covers much more ground (not just 'PC culture') and in a better way. I just started reading it not knowing what I was in for, somehow both easy to digest but still broad and not that shallow. Infographics, survey responses, profiles of 'typical' people in each segment of the political spectrum, etc. Quite an enjoyable presentation. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5a70a7c3010027736a22740f/t/5bbcea6b7817f7bf7342b718/1539107467397/hidden_tribes_report-2.pdf https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5a70a7c3010027736a227...
- dang 8y agoAlright, let's switch to that, since most of the thread below is just semantics about the term 'political correctness'. All: I'm sure we can do better than that, so please try. (The submitted URL was https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/large-majorities-dislike-political-correctness/572581/?single_page=true https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/large-majo...)
- Dowwie 8y agoIf the original poster wanted to directly link to the underlying study, the OP would have. That original link was to a prominent media platform.
- dang 8y agoSure, but if a different link is better for the community as a whole, that takes priority over the original poster's intention. We change links like this all the time; it is not a recent innovation.
- Dowwie 8y agoThen it's your definition of what makes content better for the community that needs updating. That this admin conduct, or maybe just yours, has been ongoing for some time now is not sufficient reason for it to continue. Thought policing like this is not why I participate in the HN community. You aren't being called out on this behavior so I feel obligated to give you this feedback.
- d2j 8y agoThankfully, Google exists. Let me help you: https://www.google.com/search?q=political+correctness&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b https://www.google.com/search?q=political+correctness&ie=utf...
- izacus 8y agoYour answer is condescending and you failed to even attempt to understand what the study said. Just because you managed to Google ONE definition of PC culture, it does not mean the people answering the study poll had the same thing in mind. Which is a bit of problem for methodology and the result itself. Especially in such a wide social topic like political correctness.
- d2j 8y agoThat's like saying "this study of people saying they like the red colour is worthless because they haven't defined what the red colour is" PC has one definition, but of course you can make up others
- andybak 8y ago> PC has one definition And definitions are never complex, multifaceted or problematic, eh? Thank goodness language is so simple and clear.
- pjc50 8y agoColor doesn't even have unambiguous definitions. The XKCD color survey was a fun inquiry into this: https://blog.xkcd.com/2010/05/03/color-survey-results/ https://blog.xkcd.com/2010/05/03/color-survey-results/
- dang 8y agoWe detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18207375 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18207375.
- JohnStrangeII 8y agoSince "PC Culture" is primarily intended to protect minorities, that shouldn't be surprising at all. Bear in mind that any working democracy has to actively protect minorities, because otherwise it would decline into a tyranny of the majority. Edit: There was a bit of a misunderstanding here, I'm afraid. Please see me other post about it. In a nutshell, you need to take the actual victims of discrimination seriously or have a lot of empathy, otherwise it will be difficult to judge the many arguments for and against some particular form of PC.
- gaius 8y agoSince "PC Culture" is primarily intended to protect minorities I am a minority. No it isn't. It is simply one faction of the dominant caste using us as pawns in its war on another faction.
- weregiraffe 8y ago>I am a minority. No it isn't. LOL. Were you elected to speak for all minorities?
- gaius 8y agoNo more than the OP was elected to speak for the majority...
- JohnStrangeII 8y agoI didn't speak for any majority or minority, I was talking about the reasons why PC culture came about. People downvoted my comment, because they were confusing personal opinions with arguments. I also didn't make the claim that members of minorities automatically understand what it takes to protect minorities, as some commenters here seem to presume without further reflection. Being a member of a minority means nothing, everybody is in some kind of minority in life. What counts is whether or not you ask and take seriously those people who have actually become the victims of discrimination. I was also not arguing for or against PC, as some people who replied erroneously presumed, too. The arguments for and against PC are complex, and "political correctness" is an umbrella term for many different forms of nudging, regulation, etc., and every PC issue has different arguments for and against. Make a similar survey about Americans' opinions about the IRS and you'll probably get the result that the majority of Americans dislike the IRS. It's safe to bet that the majority of this majority hasn't really thought this through either. Ask Americans about the police, and you probably get the same result. And so on, and so forth. These kind of surveys don't tell us anything except that most Americans do not really spend much time thinking about the arguments for or against the issue under consideration. Why should they? For most people, PC will merely be an annoying and slightly silly behavioral regulation, because they have not become the victim of any serious discrimination in their life so far. Since PC is about the protection of minorities, which is essential to a working democracy, it will concern those members of a minority the most who have actually been victims of discrimination. These are the people you have to listen to first and foremost, not to your "gut feeling" or to your political views and peers.
- a_humean 8y ago"Political correctness" is almost always used as a pejorative. So saying that surveyed Americans dislike it its about as surprising as saying that Americans think racism is bad in principle in surveys - it does not mean that Americans don't on-mass practice it even if in principle they violently oppose it. The only "political correctness" people identify is the language of their political opponents. Political correctness is most often used as a criticism of the politically sensitive language used by different groups. As a very American example, you just need to look at the terms "Pro Life" and "Pro Choice". From the perspective of the opposing groups "Pro Life" amounts to "Pro subjugation of women at the cost of their individual health and political power", and "Pro Choice" amounts to "Pro infanticide sinful hedonists". Both groups have significant political power in American, and wielding that power they demand respect behind these "PC" labels. Political correctness isn't new or some kind of distinct ideology, its an exercise or attempted exercise in political power to shape the language and outcomes of our politics. Its our basic civility and the structure of power. What is new maybe is the pace of social and political change of the past 100 years that has made people notice the exercise in new political power more often.
- gaius 8y agoattempted exercise in political power to shape the language and outcomes of our politics. Manipulating language doesn't really work tho', because everyone understands what's really meant. As an example we all actually know that a "full stack engineer" is just a webdev, and a "senior" one probably only has 2 years experience. I mean back in the days of client-server, you would have developers do a GUI in Delphi or Visual Basic and also write the SQL to run on the server, and noone ever bragged about being "full stack" back then, it was just a normal part of the job. In the early days of the web the same people would write the HTML and the Perl CGIs and no-one ever used the term "full stack". I was there. It's baffling why people even try these tricks because they're so transparent and in fact only hurt their own credibility.
- pjc50 8y agoIt does and it doesn't. Framing can be extremely effective in politics: "collateral damage", "entitlements" etc. There can also be reclaiming efforts on specific words e.g. "queer". But in the other direction the euphemism treadmill can turn terms intended to be neutral into slurs - "retarded" is possibly the most conspicuous example.
- whack 8y ago> One obvious question is what people mean by “political correctness.” In the extended interviews and focus groups, participants made clear that they were concerned about their day-to-day ability to express themselves: They worry that a lack of familiarity with a topic, or an unthinking word choice, could lead to serious social sanctions for them The problem is that everyone is hyper sensitive to specific things, even where they claim to oppose political correctness. For instance, most "devoted conservatives" dislike political correctness, but made a big issue out of Obama's passing remarks about "you didn't build that" and "cling to guns and religion". They took great exception to Clinton's comments about "basket of deplorables", but didn't have a problem with Trump's "rapists and drug dealers". Ie, when the other side says something that offends you, it deserves to be made into a big issue. When the other side is offended by something you say, political correctness has gone too far.
- cannonedhamster 8y agoThe difference between Republicans and conservatives used to be minimal. I'd say that conservatism swung so far right that most long term Republicans didn't even realize it. The vast majority of people who vote Republican or Democrat do so nearly without any understanding of a particular candidate's positions apart from the general party platforms and only votes on one or two issues that are personally important to themselves. With how gerrymandered the country is, especially in many Republican controlled states, the middle ground for centrists Republican and Democratic candidates is gone. This was started by a concerted effort in the 1980s to turn the country more conservative, which was very successful and backlash to the liberal culture expansion of the 1960s through the 1970s. I don't however believe that the architects of that plan foresaw the damage that would come from polarization. America has a large reckoning coming as we must learn and define what we want our national image to be. It's certainly no longer the shining city on the rock. We're far closer to the loud, obnoxious uncle at the dinner table talking about what we did in the past. Unless we can find common ground as a country, we're destined to fade in global power far quicker than we should have. Edit: Typo
- PunchTornado 8y ago> Among the general population, a full 80 percent believe that “political correctness is a problem in our country.” From experience that's more or less correct. I'm on the left and the majority of my friends are also on the left and we make fun of PC. Why are so many people easily offended by language? I remember when Larry David did a funny bit about holocaust and people gone mad, "you can't joke about the holocaust". I think this is the PC that most people hate.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- RickJWagner 8y agoThis article gives me hope. I like the idea that we're more alike than it may seem at times.