4 ms·

Since "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 pr

Since "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 ago
Since "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 ago
    No more than the OP was elected to speak for the majority...
    - JohnStrangeII 8y ago
      I 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.
- pasabagi 8y ago
  I don't know what this is being downvoted for. I'm not a minority, but it's also obvious that a lot of PC stuff is virtue-signalling, combined with a implicit reproach towards minorities for being sensitive. I mean, realistically, nobody gives a damn if you use the wrong word for a disability. Disabled people care that they're not accounted for in political decision-making that whole areas of wealthy countries are basically impossible to live in, whole careers that would be perfectly viable are closed, and so on. I'm not black, but I'm pretty sure nobody black is angry about people using the wrong words. I'm pretty sure they're angry about the fact that police basically have carte-blanche to imprison and murder their children over bullshit. PS: I am actually mildly disabled. But then, that's the thing, isn't it? Everybody is going to be a minority at some point in their life, if you're old, if you have kids, if you have an injury - then you get the hard side of a society that caters for white able-bodied men.
  - gaius 8y ago
    virtue-signalling, combined with a implicit reproach towards minorities for being sensitive Indeed. Here's a concrete example of PC culture banning a word and shaming people who actually have the condition https://www.epilepsy.org.uk/press/facts/brainstorming-offensive https://www.epilepsy.org.uk/press/facts/brainstorming-offens... 93 per cent of people with epilepsy did not find the term derogatory or offensive in any way and many felt that this sort of political correctness singled out people with epilepsy as being easily offended.
jules 8y ago
Did you read further than the title though? "Whites are ever so slightly less likely than average to believe that political correctness is a problem in the country: 79 percent of them share this sentiment. Instead, it is Asians (82 percent), Hispanics (87percent), and American Indians (88 percent) who are most likely to oppose political correctness." "Three quarters of African Americans oppose political correctness. This means that they are only four percentage points less likely than whites, and only five percentage points less likely than the average, to believe that political correctness is a problem. If age and race do not predict support for political correctness, what does? Income and education." "Progressive activists are the only group that strongly backs political correctness: Only 30 percent see it as a problem. So what does this group look like? Compared with the rest of the (nationally representative) polling sample, progressive activists are much more likely to be rich, highly educated—and white. They are nearly twice as likely as the average to make more than $100,000 a year. They are nearly three times as likely to have a postgraduate degree. And while 12 percent of the overall sample in the study is African American, only 3 percent of progressive activists are."
hyperdunc 8y ago
Having a lot of empathy can be counterproductive when it leads to assuming that specific cases are general enough to form policy. Aside from that, I disagree that PC is primarily intended to protect minorities. It is an attempt to control language and therefore people's thoughts, which is insidious. If one result of PC is less negative discrimination the other results are too high a price.

gaius 8y ago

Since "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 ago
  No more than the OP was elected to speak for the majority...
  - JohnStrangeII 8y ago
    I 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.
pasabagi 8y ago
I don't know what this is being downvoted for. I'm not a minority, but it's also obvious that a lot of PC stuff is virtue-signalling, combined with a implicit reproach towards minorities for being sensitive. I mean, realistically, nobody gives a damn if you use the wrong word for a disability. Disabled people care that they're not accounted for in political decision-making that whole areas of wealthy countries are basically impossible to live in, whole careers that would be perfectly viable are closed, and so on. I'm not black, but I'm pretty sure nobody black is angry about people using the wrong words. I'm pretty sure they're angry about the fact that police basically have carte-blanche to imprison and murder their children over bullshit. PS: I am actually mildly disabled. But then, that's the thing, isn't it? Everybody is going to be a minority at some point in their life, if you're old, if you have kids, if you have an injury - then you get the hard side of a society that caters for white able-bodied men.
- gaius 8y ago
  virtue-signalling, combined with a implicit reproach towards minorities for being sensitive Indeed. Here's a concrete example of PC culture banning a word and shaming people who actually have the condition https://www.epilepsy.org.uk/press/facts/brainstorming-offensive https://www.epilepsy.org.uk/press/facts/brainstorming-offens... 93 per cent of people with epilepsy did not find the term derogatory or offensive in any way and many felt that this sort of political correctness singled out people with epilepsy as being easily offended.

jules 8y ago

Did you read further than the title though? "Whites are ever so slightly less likely than average to believe that political correctness is a problem in the country: 79 percent of them share this sentiment. Instead, it is Asians (82 percent), Hispanics (87percent), and American Indians (88 percent) who are most likely to oppose political correctness." "Three quarters of African Americans oppose political correctness. This means that they are only four percentage points less likely than whites, and only five percentage points less likely than the average, to believe that political correctness is a problem. If age and race do not predict support for political correctness, what does? Income and education." "Progressive activists are the only group that strongly backs political correctness: Only 30 percent see it as a problem. So what does this group look like? Compared with the rest of the (nationally representative) polling sample, progressive activists are much more likely to be rich, highly educated—and white. They are nearly twice as likely as the average to make more than $100,000 a year. They are nearly three times as likely to have a postgraduate degree. And while 12 percent of the overall sample in the study is African American, only 3 percent of progressive activists are."

hyperdunc 8y ago

Having a lot of empathy can be counterproductive when it leads to assuming that specific cases are general enough to form policy. Aside from that, I disagree that PC is primarily intended to protect minorities. It is an attempt to control language and therefore people's thoughts, which is insidious. If one result of PC is less negative discrimination the other results are too high a price.