4 ms·

Thats a remarkably bad article, almost to the point of satire. It just sparkles some anecdotes over the fallacy that politeness is somehow impeding free speech.

by yk 13y ago

Thats a remarkably bad article, almost to the point of satire. It just sparkles some anecdotes over the fallacy that politeness is somehow impeding free speech. If you are offending someone, then you should apologize or the offended party has every justification to think of you as an asshole. The free speech issue is actually calling someone a asshole here. And if you can not express your opinion in a way that does not offend, chances are that you should reconsider your opinion. In the unlikely case that a opinion is both offensive and reasonable, you will have to live with people calling you insensitive. Which brings me to this gem: Yes, of course there are students, and citizens, who have genuine grievances. But we no longer distinguish between them and those claiming harm where none exists. Problem is, there is no objective scale to the subjective qualia of being offended. People have every right to be offended whenever they are. [Edit: botched formatting.]

jniles 13y ago
I thoroughly disagree. The point is that we are seeing too much PC, and it is corrupting the nature of public debate. All comments become subjective to the audience, rather than subjective to the speaker. The examples cited by the author all are encompassed in the quote " I think it’s these very small things that reinforce cultural and racial stereotypes.. " to which the author disagrees. You are correct, there is no appropriate scale to measure being offended, which is why unchecked (read: no scale to judge) PC results in kids being kicked out of school, a huge industry being built around PC counseling, etc. The author is not proposing removing PC altogether, just that it is being laughably abused to the detriment of everyone. I'd be inclined to agree.
- yk 13y ago
  " I think it’s these very small things that reinforce cultural and racial stereotypes.. " I tend to agree with the quote. To use a analogy to programming languages, in Python one is always tempted to use lists, whether they are the appropriate data structure or not. And experience then comes in the form of many solutions using lists. As for too much PC, I think the problems are rather created by lazy thinking instead of PC. So in a way there is a industry which exploits PC, but the solution is not less PC, the solution is more critical thinking. ( And bad articles really do not help with that.)
  - newnewnew 13y ago
    What if critical thinking comes up with the "wrong" answers? Most of the biggest thought criminals on the internet merely mention facts that exist for anyone to see. What if, after running lots of multiple regressions to get rid of confounding variables, distasteful conclusions persist?
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
gizmo686 13y ago
> And if you can not express your opinion in a way that does not offend, chances are that you should reconsider your opinion. This is the crux of the problem. Suppose you believe that Blacks tend to commit more crimes than Whites. This fact itself may be offensive to some people regardless of how you say it. However, this offense has no bearing on the truth value of the claim. Saying that you should "reconsider your opinion" here causes these offensive possibilities to be considered far less seriously, and causes people to speak them far less clearly. This is not just some abstract problem. I have been to several conversations about race and discrimination. By far the best one started with the instructions "nothing that is said in this room leaves this room". Some very "offensive" things were said, even to the point where a couple of people had to walk out of the room for a few minutes. However, everyone I talked to (including those who walked out) said that it was one of the best such conversations they had attended. >In the unlikely case that a opinion is both offensive and reasonable, you will have to live with people calling you insensitive. The problem is that someone may rationally decide that it is in their best interest not to voice their opinion because of this, in which case we all loose.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

by yk 13y ago

jniles 13y ago

I thoroughly disagree. The point is that we are seeing too much PC, and it is corrupting the nature of public debate. All comments become subjective to the audience, rather than subjective to the speaker. The examples cited by the author all are encompassed in the quote " I think it’s these very small things that reinforce cultural and racial stereotypes.. " to which the author disagrees. You are correct, there is no appropriate scale to measure being offended, which is why unchecked (read: no scale to judge) PC results in kids being kicked out of school, a huge industry being built around PC counseling, etc. The author is not proposing removing PC altogether, just that it is being laughably abused to the detriment of everyone. I'd be inclined to agree.

yk 13y ago
" I think it’s these very small things that reinforce cultural and racial stereotypes.. " I tend to agree with the quote. To use a analogy to programming languages, in Python one is always tempted to use lists, whether they are the appropriate data structure or not. And experience then comes in the form of many solutions using lists. As for too much PC, I think the problems are rather created by lazy thinking instead of PC. So in a way there is a industry which exploits PC, but the solution is not less PC, the solution is more critical thinking. ( And bad articles really do not help with that.)
- newnewnew 13y ago
  What if critical thinking comes up with the "wrong" answers? Most of the biggest thought criminals on the internet merely mention facts that exist for anyone to see. What if, after running lots of multiple regressions to get rid of confounding variables, distasteful conclusions persist?

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

gizmo686 13y ago

> And if you can not express your opinion in a way that does not offend, chances are that you should reconsider your opinion. This is the crux of the problem. Suppose you believe that Blacks tend to commit more crimes than Whites. This fact itself may be offensive to some people regardless of how you say it. However, this offense has no bearing on the truth value of the claim. Saying that you should "reconsider your opinion" here causes these offensive possibilities to be considered far less seriously, and causes people to speak them far less clearly. This is not just some abstract problem. I have been to several conversations about race and discrimination. By far the best one started with the instructions "nothing that is said in this room leaves this room". Some very "offensive" things were said, even to the point where a couple of people had to walk out of the room for a few minutes. However, everyone I talked to (including those who walked out) said that it was one of the best such conversations they had attended. >In the unlikely case that a opinion is both offensive and reasonable, you will have to live with people calling you insensitive. The problem is that someone may rationally decide that it is in their best interest not to voice their opinion because of this, in which case we all loose.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]