
Can We Take Political Correctness Seriously Now? - dankohn1
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/11/can-we-take-political-correctness-seriously-now.html
======
robobenjie
relevant pg essay:
[http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html)

This is a complicated topic, but my take is that the downside of political
correctness is a potential for a loss of absolute correctness, while the
benefit is respect and erring on the side of not doing harm. Those things need
to be balanced and we have do decide as individuals and as a culture how we
make those trade offs.

~~~
omonra
There is a huge potential downside from political correctness. When ideas are
not allowed to compete on their intellectual merit (because someone finds them
offensive), everybody loses.

------
deciplex
It never ceases to amaze[1] me that whenever the left gets close to getting
their voices heard in any broad sense, you start seeing these sort of polemics
attacking them for not practicing absolute tolerance and freedom of speech
whenever and wherever they assemble. Yes, there are intolerant assholes on the
left, same as with any large group of people, and PC/SJW culture is fucking
stupid, no doubt. But compared to our national media in the large, it is small
potatoes.

Maybe students are sick to death of the status quo eating their future and
wrecking their society and poisoning the Earth. They have grown up in a
popular culture totally dominated by a right-wing media machine, wholly owned
by the ruling class and which has successfully kept the Overton window so
damned narrow we can hardly have a conversation anymore. It is completely
understandable that they would want journalists to get the fuck out, rather
than letting them get away with yet another hit piece attacking them on style
rather than substance and completely ignoring their message. Look at the
coverage of anything from OWS to Ferguson if you're curious why the left wants
to tear the national media limb from rotten limb.

[1] depress

~~~
mcphage
> whenever the left gets close to getting their voices heard in any broad
> sense, you start seeing these sort of polemics attacking them for not
> practicing absolute tolerance and freedom of speech whenever and wherever
> they assemble.

A lot of people want to see what happens when this particular culture group
gets power. What will they do, how do they behave?

> wholly owned by the ruling class and which has successfully kept the Overton
> window so damned narrow we can hardly have a conversation anymore. It is
> completely understandable that they would want journalists to get the fuck
> out

So the right wing is preventing anybody from having a conversation—but it's
okay because you don't want one anyway?

> if you're curious why the left wants to tear the national media limb from
> rotten limb

And replace it with what, exactly?

------
peterhadlaw
Freedom of Speech is a wonderful thing. Those who oppress it know not it's
true beauty.

------
ende
What is political correctness but censorship?

------
malandrew
Slavoj Zizek is probably the philosopher best known for show how political
correctness is an overall bad thing for society. His stuff is worth checking
out.

------
msie
I like tuhaybey's take on it (in the comments).

------
xlm1717
Seeing how the same author has been trying to sound the alarm on political
correctness at least since the beginning of this year, it seems unlikely that
we'll start taking political correctness seriously any time soon.

Questioning political correctness is the realm of right-wing kooks anyway.

~~~
dang
> _right-wing kooks_

The HN guidelines ask you to edit name-calling out of your comments here, so
please do. In this case the last sentence could be eliminated, since that's
all it does.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

