10 ms·

Perhaps PC is really about finding offense when none is intended.

arrrg 13y ago
Intention isn’t all that matters. The point is to be thoughtful about what you say and if someone else says they are offended to actually listen and apologise. Basic empathy and all that. It’s all quite simple and not very hard to do.
- pandaman 13y ago
  I am offended by your implications. Please apologize now.
  - arrrg 13y ago
    What, specifically, are you offended by? Just to be clear, I do not accuse everyone who ever failed this of lacking basic empathy. People make mistakes and that’s just normal. I think in many situations pretty much all people do actually listen and apologise when someone else is offended. Pretty much everyone can recognise the value of doing just that. Just to be clear, my goal was not to accuse others of lacking basic empathy. I apologise for not making that clear. I should have made it clearer. My goal was to explain the thinking behind what detractors call “political correctness”. It’s about respecting other people, their identity and what they want to be called. And that’s about it. Of course, that respect is not unlimited. Especially the expression of political views that doesn’t grant others that same kind of respect is typically excluded from that respect. I think that’s perfectly sensible, maybe you disagree. (And just to be clear, this is not a call to limit political speech, at least not from me. This is about using free speech to harshly criticise other free speech.)
    - pandaman 13y ago
      Is not the proper form to apologize for being an insensitive person yourself, not for the "victim" misunderstanding you? Anyways, I'd be fine with this if not for the arbitrary exclusions. I.e. it's okay to mock people, who believe the world is 5000 y.o for the reason that they are likely intolerant bigots (because such a belief automatically implies not following PC?) but on the other hand, mocking people who believe that a man can become a woman by claiming to be one is an extreme bigotry comparable only to enslavement of blacks (because everybody who believes this, apparently, is automatically PC?). Obviously you need to do these exclusions because, without the witch hunts and angry mobs, PC would not be any fun and the participant would quickly become tired of apologizing to everybody. But, since you have divided people into "good" and "bad" you are now not fighting for respect, you are just another "us against them" angry group. And I am fine with that (i.e. I don't want a crusade against all the angry people to make the world a happy place). The hypocrisy though is funny.
      - arrrg 13y ago
        Yeah, you are right, I apologise for offending you. If you unpack that it means that I think I should have written my original comment differently. I do not divide people. If creationists are persecuted for their beliefs I will stand right by their side. No questions asked. And that’s not so much the point. The problem I have with creationists is their belief in something demonstrably false and their attempts to push that false belief on other people, especially in schools. That doesn’t make me assume that they are also racist or stupid or any of those things. Yes, I will speak out loudly and harshly against creationists when their belief is harmful to other people. And I will roll my eyes when it’s something they believe merely in private. And that’s that. In that context the comparison to trans* people makes no sense at all. There really isn’t much of an argument there. Respecting trans* people for who they are doesn’t harm anyone else. They are not trying to convince anyone of anything demonstrably false. And so, yeah, denying them that is extreme bigotry. It’s denying them their basic human dignity for just no reason at all. The belief that the earth is 6000 years old and the belief that trans* people exist and that gender dysphoria is best treated by allowing trans* people to, well, transition are not exactly comparable.
        pandaman 13y ago
        I find cross-dressers funnier than believers in the thousands years old universe. For me a man dressed as woman is demonstrably a man, not a woman and vice versa, quite unlike the age of the universe, which is just a good theory (even if I'd been 10000 y.o. myself and claimed not seeing the creation going on somebody could have asserted that the whole universe had been created just a second ago all together with my memories of past 10000 years). I know, this does not make sense to you but it might give you some insight on what other people are thinking. Anyways, this was just an example of hypocrisy. When you claim to respect feelings it should not have mattered whose feelings you respect. Bringing in the "false" and "true" feelings just underlines the separation between the "good" and "bad" people.
        arrrg 13y ago
        I think I made the difference between different beliefs quite clear.
  - detcader 13y ago
    never seen this type of humor in this context before in my whole life
    - pandaman 13y ago
      This is not humor. I am genuinely offended by socipathic implications claiming that somebody who does not follow PC lacks "basic empathy" (which is the PC code for "subhuman"). Of course, offending bigots and haters is fine from your point of view. If you had any empathy (not the "basic" kind ) you knew how do we feel about this crap. PS. I guess you down voted me to offend me? Tough cookies, I am actually not offended by that. "Basic empathy" though does indeed offend me.
    - detcader 13y ago
      wow you're really upset
- makomk 13y ago
  No, the point is that if someone who's a member of an recognized marginalised group says they are offended in a way members of that marginalised group are allowed to be offended, you have to listen and apologise. For instance, telling a woman who's been raped by a man that she was asking for it and should stop complaining is both politically incorrect and an awful thing to do. Doing the same to a cis man is still awful, but since he's not a member of the relevant marginalized group it's actually politically incorrect to object to it under some circumstances. Likewise, telling anti-rape campaigners that they're only doing it to get revenge on the gender that raped them is politically correct if they're male victims and politically incorrect if they're female ones. Similarly, if a woman who's been raped by a man is using her experiences to advocate for rape prevention campaigns aimed solely at men, it's an attack on her personal experiences and therefore politically incorrect to question the merits of her campaign. On the other hand, if a woman who's been raped by a woman is calling for campaigns that include women, even though she's a member of the right group that's not an appropriate use of her experiences and so she's fair game for everything up to and including deliberately triggering her PTSD to get her to shut up. Decency and empathy barely enter into it.
  - arrrg 13y ago
    Fuck off MRA.
- summerdown2 13y ago
  What if I'm offended by you giving apologies? (this is a thought experiment, a little tongue in cheek). Let's be clear, I'm not suggesting people shouldn't be nice where they can. I just think there ought to be a threshold before apologies are in order, and the fact someone is offended shouldn't be the only condition. I suggest a three step procedure: a) Someone says they are offended. b) You agree with them and feel sorry. c) If so, apologise. I don't think it should go: a) Someone says they are offended. b) You disagree with them. c) You apologise anyway. ... if you do the latter, my feeling is that trolls will soon control your behaviour and any interesting and unusual thought will become unsayable.
detcader 13y ago
What do you mean by "offense"?
crassus 13y ago
PC is fundamentally Marxist[1]. The rules of discourse are completely different from the logical/rationalist discourse you may be used to. Who is speaking matters more than what is said, and those not in a protected class aren't allowed to disagree with progressive ideas, however gently, if their disagreement is "hurtful". [1] http://arts.uwaterloo.ca/~kwesthue/regiftedxmas12.html http://arts.uwaterloo.ca/~kwesthue/regiftedxmas12.html
- gizmo686 13y ago
  Thanks for the link. Are you aware of any research on this topic you can point me to?
- summerdown2 13y ago
  Can I just say that this (and the subsequent further links) are some of the most insightful and thought-provoking things I've read in a long time. I'm a writer, and frequently go to critique groups for opinions on my fiction. Recently, a certain type of critique has begun to appear which I've found very hard to deal with. It's essentially "what you wrote offended me in some way." Up to now, my response has been, "Thank you, but regardless of your political stance, did you think it was good writing?" ... to which the answer is usually "it's bad writing because it offends me." I find it frustrating, because my thoughts usually run in the "modern" type of discourse, and I tend to agree with Bill Hicks that you can't please everyone: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoCezQAF5AA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoCezQAF5AA Anyway, thank you for giving me insight into what's going on. I don't know what I'll be able to do as a response, but I'll certainly put some effort into thinking about it.
dragonwriter 13y ago
"PC" is mostly an artificial construct by which conservatives attempt to construct a persecution narrative by falsely portraying individual expressions of offense by different people in different contexts about different things as if there was a unified group of people who shared all those instances of offense and had a coherent program behind it.
- smsm42 13y ago
  Implying there are no such things as campus speech codes, including Federal Government trying to push ones on the higher education institutions[1] - which is clearly a violation of 1st amendment, for starters. 1. http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887323582904578485041304763554 http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142412788732358290...
  - tptacek 13y ago
    You just quoted the WSJ editorial page. Predictably, you can find the actual DOJ letter to Montana quickly with Google, where you'll immediately discover that the letter is the result of a cooperative process following a rash of sexual assaults on campus, and was not in fact a new nationwide speech code for universities.
    - smsm42 13y ago
      >>> You just quoted the WSJ editorial page. Thank you for telling me. I was wondering what those letters WSJ in domain name and those "Wall Street Journal" headers on the site mean... and now I know! >>> and was not in fact a new nationwide speech code for universities. The letter itself is not. However, it is intended to be used as a template policy for other places, and it significantly reduces the bar that needs to be cleared before speech can be punished - in part by removing any objective component - and introduces possibility of students being punished before the investigation is even completed. How speech codes could do anything about assault - which, by any sane definition, must involve physical action beyond speech - is completely incomprehensible. Even if change of the rules were necessary to prevent assault - which is doubtful as assault is already illegal so old rules should work just fine - speech limits have nothing to do with assault.

arrrg 13y ago

Intention isn’t all that matters. The point is to be thoughtful about what you say and if someone else says they are offended to actually listen and apologise. Basic empathy and all that. It’s all quite simple and not very hard to do.

pandaman 13y ago
I am offended by your implications. Please apologize now.
- arrrg 13y ago
  What, specifically, are you offended by? Just to be clear, I do not accuse everyone who ever failed this of lacking basic empathy. People make mistakes and that’s just normal. I think in many situations pretty much all people do actually listen and apologise when someone else is offended. Pretty much everyone can recognise the value of doing just that. Just to be clear, my goal was not to accuse others of lacking basic empathy. I apologise for not making that clear. I should have made it clearer. My goal was to explain the thinking behind what detractors call “political correctness”. It’s about respecting other people, their identity and what they want to be called. And that’s about it. Of course, that respect is not unlimited. Especially the expression of political views that doesn’t grant others that same kind of respect is typically excluded from that respect. I think that’s perfectly sensible, maybe you disagree. (And just to be clear, this is not a call to limit political speech, at least not from me. This is about using free speech to harshly criticise other free speech.)
  - pandaman 13y ago
    Is not the proper form to apologize for being an insensitive person yourself, not for the "victim" misunderstanding you? Anyways, I'd be fine with this if not for the arbitrary exclusions. I.e. it's okay to mock people, who believe the world is 5000 y.o for the reason that they are likely intolerant bigots (because such a belief automatically implies not following PC?) but on the other hand, mocking people who believe that a man can become a woman by claiming to be one is an extreme bigotry comparable only to enslavement of blacks (because everybody who believes this, apparently, is automatically PC?). Obviously you need to do these exclusions because, without the witch hunts and angry mobs, PC would not be any fun and the participant would quickly become tired of apologizing to everybody. But, since you have divided people into "good" and "bad" you are now not fighting for respect, you are just another "us against them" angry group. And I am fine with that (i.e. I don't want a crusade against all the angry people to make the world a happy place). The hypocrisy though is funny.
    - arrrg 13y ago
      Yeah, you are right, I apologise for offending you. If you unpack that it means that I think I should have written my original comment differently. I do not divide people. If creationists are persecuted for their beliefs I will stand right by their side. No questions asked. And that’s not so much the point. The problem I have with creationists is their belief in something demonstrably false and their attempts to push that false belief on other people, especially in schools. That doesn’t make me assume that they are also racist or stupid or any of those things. Yes, I will speak out loudly and harshly against creationists when their belief is harmful to other people. And I will roll my eyes when it’s something they believe merely in private. And that’s that. In that context the comparison to trans* people makes no sense at all. There really isn’t much of an argument there. Respecting trans* people for who they are doesn’t harm anyone else. They are not trying to convince anyone of anything demonstrably false. And so, yeah, denying them that is extreme bigotry. It’s denying them their basic human dignity for just no reason at all. The belief that the earth is 6000 years old and the belief that trans* people exist and that gender dysphoria is best treated by allowing trans* people to, well, transition are not exactly comparable.
      - pandaman 13y ago
        I find cross-dressers funnier than believers in the thousands years old universe. For me a man dressed as woman is demonstrably a man, not a woman and vice versa, quite unlike the age of the universe, which is just a good theory (even if I'd been 10000 y.o. myself and claimed not seeing the creation going on somebody could have asserted that the whole universe had been created just a second ago all together with my memories of past 10000 years). I know, this does not make sense to you but it might give you some insight on what other people are thinking. Anyways, this was just an example of hypocrisy. When you claim to respect feelings it should not have mattered whose feelings you respect. Bringing in the "false" and "true" feelings just underlines the separation between the "good" and "bad" people.
        arrrg 13y ago
        I think I made the difference between different beliefs quite clear.
- detcader 13y ago
  never seen this type of humor in this context before in my whole life
  - pandaman 13y ago
    This is not humor. I am genuinely offended by socipathic implications claiming that somebody who does not follow PC lacks "basic empathy" (which is the PC code for "subhuman"). Of course, offending bigots and haters is fine from your point of view. If you had any empathy (not the "basic" kind ) you knew how do we feel about this crap. PS. I guess you down voted me to offend me? Tough cookies, I am actually not offended by that. "Basic empathy" though does indeed offend me.
  - detcader 13y ago
    wow you're really upset
makomk 13y ago
No, the point is that if someone who's a member of an recognized marginalised group says they are offended in a way members of that marginalised group are allowed to be offended, you have to listen and apologise. For instance, telling a woman who's been raped by a man that she was asking for it and should stop complaining is both politically incorrect and an awful thing to do. Doing the same to a cis man is still awful, but since he's not a member of the relevant marginalized group it's actually politically incorrect to object to it under some circumstances. Likewise, telling anti-rape campaigners that they're only doing it to get revenge on the gender that raped them is politically correct if they're male victims and politically incorrect if they're female ones. Similarly, if a woman who's been raped by a man is using her experiences to advocate for rape prevention campaigns aimed solely at men, it's an attack on her personal experiences and therefore politically incorrect to question the merits of her campaign. On the other hand, if a woman who's been raped by a woman is calling for campaigns that include women, even though she's a member of the right group that's not an appropriate use of her experiences and so she's fair game for everything up to and including deliberately triggering her PTSD to get her to shut up. Decency and empathy barely enter into it.
- arrrg 13y ago
  Fuck off MRA.
summerdown2 13y ago
What if I'm offended by you giving apologies? (this is a thought experiment, a little tongue in cheek). Let's be clear, I'm not suggesting people shouldn't be nice where they can. I just think there ought to be a threshold before apologies are in order, and the fact someone is offended shouldn't be the only condition. I suggest a three step procedure: a) Someone says they are offended. b) You agree with them and feel sorry. c) If so, apologise. I don't think it should go: a) Someone says they are offended. b) You disagree with them. c) You apologise anyway. ... if you do the latter, my feeling is that trolls will soon control your behaviour and any interesting and unusual thought will become unsayable.

detcader 13y ago

What do you mean by "offense"?

crassus 13y ago

PC is fundamentally Marxist[1]. The rules of discourse are completely different from the logical/rationalist discourse you may be used to. Who is speaking matters more than what is said, and those not in a protected class aren't allowed to disagree with progressive ideas, however gently, if their disagreement is "hurtful". [1] http://arts.uwaterloo.ca/~kwesthue/regiftedxmas12.html http://arts.uwaterloo.ca/~kwesthue/regiftedxmas12.html

gizmo686 13y ago
Thanks for the link. Are you aware of any research on this topic you can point me to?
summerdown2 13y ago
Can I just say that this (and the subsequent further links) are some of the most insightful and thought-provoking things I've read in a long time. I'm a writer, and frequently go to critique groups for opinions on my fiction. Recently, a certain type of critique has begun to appear which I've found very hard to deal with. It's essentially "what you wrote offended me in some way." Up to now, my response has been, "Thank you, but regardless of your political stance, did you think it was good writing?" ... to which the answer is usually "it's bad writing because it offends me." I find it frustrating, because my thoughts usually run in the "modern" type of discourse, and I tend to agree with Bill Hicks that you can't please everyone: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoCezQAF5AA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoCezQAF5AA Anyway, thank you for giving me insight into what's going on. I don't know what I'll be able to do as a response, but I'll certainly put some effort into thinking about it.

dragonwriter 13y ago

"PC" is mostly an artificial construct by which conservatives attempt to construct a persecution narrative by falsely portraying individual expressions of offense by different people in different contexts about different things as if there was a unified group of people who shared all those instances of offense and had a coherent program behind it.

smsm42 13y ago
Implying there are no such things as campus speech codes, including Federal Government trying to push ones on the higher education institutions[1] - which is clearly a violation of 1st amendment, for starters. 1. http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887323582904578485041304763554 http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142412788732358290...
- tptacek 13y ago
  You just quoted the WSJ editorial page. Predictably, you can find the actual DOJ letter to Montana quickly with Google, where you'll immediately discover that the letter is the result of a cooperative process following a rash of sexual assaults on campus, and was not in fact a new nationwide speech code for universities.
  - smsm42 13y ago
    >>> You just quoted the WSJ editorial page. Thank you for telling me. I was wondering what those letters WSJ in domain name and those "Wall Street Journal" headers on the site mean... and now I know! >>> and was not in fact a new nationwide speech code for universities. The letter itself is not. However, it is intended to be used as a template policy for other places, and it significantly reduces the bar that needs to be cleared before speech can be punished - in part by removing any objective component - and introduces possibility of students being punished before the investigation is even completed. How speech codes could do anything about assault - which, by any sane definition, must involve physical action beyond speech - is completely incomprehensible. Even if change of the rules were necessary to prevent assault - which is doubtful as assault is already illegal so old rules should work just fine - speech limits have nothing to do with assault.