
On Political Correctness - malandrew
https://theamericanscholar.org/on-political-correctness/#.WL4RHT076Ec
======
glangdale
I find the phrase "Political Correctness" to be hopelessly compromised. It's a
real thing (the standard left-liberal 'circular firing squads' that form up
almost everywhere, the pointless parsing of language looking fro something
that might be offensive), but it's also heavily used as a all-purpose generic
insult.

There appears to be a alchemical transformation that results in people's
minds, where "<Obnoxious Statement X>" on its own is obnoxious, but "I know
it's _politically incorrect_ to say so, but <Obnoxious Statement X>!" makes
you a Free Speech Martyr and a real deep thinker.

~~~
xiaoma
Free speech has never been about protecting popular ideas. It's the ideas that
those in power find obnoxious that get censored. Though the particular ideas
vary between modern America, communist Russia and medieval Spain, it's the
threatening views of outsiders that are met with suppression or violence.

~~~
glangdale
You appear to have been moved (triggered, even) to say something about "free
speech" and "obnoxiousness". Aside from the fact that post posts contain these
words, I am at a loss to understand how it connects in any way to anything I
wrote.

~~~
current_call
When you said, "There appears to be a alchemical transformation that results
in people's minds, where "<Obnoxious Statement X>" on its own is obnoxious,
but "I know it's politically incorrect to say so, but <Obnoxious Statement
X>!" makes you a Free Speech Martyr and a real deep thinker.", you were
implying that free speech shouldn't protect obnoxious ideas, but that's wrong.
Free speech exists specifically to protect unpopular ideas.

------
munchbunny
In my experience with the particular type of situation in the article, stark
disagreements come out of a difference in the "reality" that you inhabit. From
one reality the claims you make seem perfectly reasonable. From another, they
might sound ridiculous. The actual difficulty of the situation is reconciling
the two realities, not the assertions themselves.

I was just watching this recording of a debate from 1965:
[https://vimeo.com/18413741](https://vimeo.com/18413741) and James Baldwin's
speech (starts around 14:30) on the different realities that a white and black
person inhabit, and I think it's a good illustration of the issue.

Not for lack of good intention, one person's idea of the reality of the
problem is often different from another's, so no wonder these two people might
have trouble understanding each other.

Separately from that, I see a particular troubling pattern practiced most
commonly by the people who believe in specific causes so ardently that you
have to walk on eggshells: when you disagree with them, they attribute the
worst possible intent to your disagreement, rather than seeing an opportunity
to engage.

~~~
owebmaster
> In my experience with the particular type of situation in the article, stark
> disagreements come out of a difference in the "reality" that you inhabit.
> From one reality the claims you make seem perfectly reasonable. From
> another, they might sound ridiculous. The actual difficulty of the situation
> is reconciling the two realities, not the assertions themselves.

Scott Adams have been talking a lot about it lately. I'm wondering how much
his influence has grow. It seems a lot. A truly master persuader.

------
xiaoma
> _" Unlike the campus protesters of the 1960s, today’s student activists are
> not expressing countercultural views. They are expressing the exact views of
> the culture in which they find themselves (a reason that administrators
> prove so ready to accede to their demands)."_

------
lbarrett
The important question about this perspective is, I think, this: How do you
fight against harmful, unjust beliefs such as racism without making it
socially uncomfortable for people to express them? The author says that racism
is a big powerful force that should be fought but then argues only for
weakening our social defenses against it.

I recognize that this could seem like an attack, but I'm really not calling
the author racist. What I want is to know, how can we have greater agreement
that racism is bad, and more diversity of expression about racism, at the same
time? It seems contradictory.

~~~
moonshinefe
If your beliefs are correct, you should be able to have a rational debate
against someone from the other side and prove your position is correct.

If they won't rationally debate you, sinking to their level and shouting them
down / using underhanded means to "win" just puts you on their level and gains
sympathy for the other side & hurts your reputation.

Unfortunately, I think that's the main issue that the author is getting at;
it's gotten to the point where I can barely tell the far left from the far
right anymore in terms of how irrational and sometimes violent they are. It's
slogans, it's shouting down, it's even threats or actual violence.

When you disregard civility and resort to those tactics, it's tribalism.

~~~
lbarrett
I agree that rational debate is good, but in this case the rational debate has
to include judgment because the one side of the debate is arguing that the
other side (say, racism), is evil. That prevents it from being a perfectly
calm, rational debate because the other side ends up (accurately) feeling
judged and condemned. That's exactly the thing the author dislikes here--that
the people supporting the non-mainstream views on these issues feel that it's
not socially acceptable to have those views, so they feel they can't speak up.

So, how can people argue that bigotry is unacceptable and wrong without making
it harder for bigots to speak up?

------
dqv
One of the biggest problems I've had discussing issues with people is that
many claims go unsubstantiated. Asking someone to cite their claims is seen as
an objection or a denial of the "truth".

I think that sometimes people spend more time with retorts about telling you
to "just google it" than just saying "I read this book and it's what helped
shaped my opinion about this".

~~~
thomastjeffery
The underlying problem is that people don't read books. They read other
peoples' unsubstantiated opinions.

------
woodandsteel
Great essay. As the author explains, we need to get people to have rational
discourse when they disagree with each other on important social and political
issues.

I used to do workshops on this that worked fairly well. I used a simple
method, namely mutual active listening. Two people who are on opposite sides
of an issue agree that one will talk for a while, say five minutes, and the
other will only listen and say back to them what they think they are saying.
Then they exchange roles and the previous talker becomes the new listener, and
vice-versa, for five minutes, and then switch again, and so on until each
person feels like he or she has expressed their main ideas and been accurately
understood. This process doesn't lead to total agreement, but invariably it
produces a lot more agreement than the two parties had before they started
out, and also friendlier, more respectful relations.

So mutual active listening works, but the question is how you get people to
agree to do it. I think the best sell is that most people, I think, feel
misunderstood and misrepresented by people on the opposite side of various
issues. I would tell them that the people on the opposite side also feel
misunderstood and misrepresented by them, and the only way each side can come
to feel accurately understood is if they both agree to do mutual listening
with each other. I haven't tried this yet, but I think it would motivate a lot
of people to try mutual active listening.

------
agroot12
Well, where is the PC police when you need it? Because that sentence triggered
me: "That, by the way, is why liberal students (and liberals in general) are
so bad at defending their own positions.".

Edit: My comment was meant humorously, although I consider the main content of
the article to be very thoughtful. And the above sentence, seemingly a
soundbite from a right-wing talk show, has a nugget of truth in it: Once you
stop debating the basic pillars of your society, you risk losing the defensive
forces to protect them, e.g. against populism.

------
doggydogs94
I do not tell people who I voted for. I don't want to lose half of my friends.

~~~
legostormtroopr
You voted for <them>? I could never be friends with someone who voted for
<them>. How repugnant!

------
hurbledr
When did not wanting to eat shitty banh mi become a case of political
correctness gone too far? If I pay for a slice of prosciutto di parma and get
ham from some farm in the US, shouldn't I rightfully be pissed off?

It also seems to me that the so called "pc police" feature more prominently in
peoples imaginations than they do in their actual lives. Any time I've seen
someone called out (in real life) for issues of cultural sensitivity, it has
been in a respectful and reasonable fashion, even if the situation has
warranted a much harsher response (and occasionally it has).

The situation online or in a college is a bit different, but at the end of the
day I would consider it similar to talking to a stranger at a bar; if you talk
some shit, expect to get shit talked. If you have a problem with that, you can
go crying to the bouncer, but if they are at all good at their job, they will
either nod and ignore you, or kick you out if you are out of line.

I realize the analogy is a bit crude, but as other commenters have pointed
out, most of these so called "pc police" are just trying to correct centuries
of systemic racism, sexism, etc. by having a reasonable discussion. If they
are a bit shrill sometimes, just be thankful that they aren't using the same
tactics that were once used to keep them from speaking out.

~~~
current_call
Wow, a snarky straw man based off of the first sentence in the article. Then
you make points that the author specifically refuted in the article without
discussing what he wrote. It's like you tried to read it and gave up so you
could regurgitate your opinion.

You: _The situation online or in a college is a bit different, but at the end
of the day I would consider it similar to talking to a stranger at a bar; if
you talk some shit, expect to get shit talked. If you have a problem with
that, you can go crying to the bouncer, but if they are at all good at their
job, they will either nod and ignore you, or kick you out if you are out of
line._

Him: _A clarification, before I continue (since deliberate misconstrual is
itself a tactic of the phenomenon in question). By political correctness, I do
not mean the term as it has come to be employed on the right—that is, the
expectation of adherence to the norms of basic decency, like refraining from
derogatory epithets. I mean its older, intramural denotation: the persistent
attempt to suppress the expression of unwelcome beliefs and ideas._

See? He made a point of defining political correctness in the second(!)
paragraph, but it didn't stop you from arguing with your own definition. He
even anticipated you would use a different definition.

You: _I realize the analogy is a bit crude, but as other commenters have
pointed out, most of these so called "pc police" are just trying to correct
centuries of systemic racism, sexism, etc. by having a reasonable discussion.
If they are a bit shrill sometimes, just be thankful that they aren't using
the same tactics that were once used to keep them from speaking out._

Him: _Let me be clear. I recognize that both the culture of political
correctness and the recent forms of campus agitation are responding to
enormous, intractable national problems. There is systemic racism and
individual bigotry in the United States, and colleges are not immune from
either. There is systemic sexism and sexual assault in society at large, and
campuses are no exception. The call for safe spaces and trigger warnings, the
desire to eliminate micro-aggressions, the demand for the removal of offensive
symbols and the suppression of offensive language: however foolish some of
these might be as policy prescriptions (especially the first two), however
absurd as they work themselves out on the ground, all originate in deeply
legitimate concerns._

See? He made a point to answer people that think political correctness is just
fighting systematic bias, but you just zoomed right past it. He criticizes the
methods used to fight systematic bias, not fighting systematic bias itself.

How can any conversation on serious topics be worth having if people refuse to
listen and respond? Nothing good can come of dumping the same preconceptions
into the other persons eyes and ears.

~~~
hurbledr
If the author didn't want to talk about the banh mi thing, why even mention
it? It is relevant to the discussion after all, since the portrayal of such
instances in the media have had a strong influence on the way political
correctness is currently defined and understood.

I'd also like to point out that the definition of political correctness, as
it's used colloquially, doesn't change just because you say it does. I also
don't think that using the term political correctness in the sense that
practically everyone understands it constitutes a deliberate misconstrual.
Also, to the authors point, I don't think the majority of commenters on the
right (when did this become a discussion of partisan politics again?) are
talking about "the expectation of adherence to the norms of basic decency,
like refraining from derogatory epithets" when they rail against political
correctness. More often it seems they are railing against the perceived
suppression of their unwelcome beliefs and ideas. Hence my comment to the
effect of "don't dish it out if you can't take it."

As for the second passage you copy/pasted, I don't see how that disagrees with
what I said.

Of course many of the policies enacted on campuses are what you might call
penny smart, pound foolish, but that doesn't mean that the intention is bad,
or that we should not even try. It's unfortunate that many of these policies
are seen to have a chilling effect on campuses, but I don't feel that asking
college students to think before speaking is unreasonable, especially if the
net benefit is reducing bigotry, racism, and prejudice. Perhaps these methods
are not the most effective, but I don't exactly see the author offering up any
better solutions. He seems content to complain about the dozen or so people
he's met that were made to feel uncomfortable by these policies, while
ignoring the many generations of people who have suffered far worse.

Also, since you seem to have read the article more thoroughly than I, what do
you make of the authors closing statement, where he says,

When we talk about political correctness and its many florid manifestations,
so much in the news of late, we are talking not only about racial injustice
and other forms of systemic oppression, or about the coddling of privileged
youth, though both are certainly at play. We are also talking, or rather not
talking, about the pathologies of the American class system. And those are
also what we need to deal with.

Seems a bit convoluted to me. Is he arguing that we should ignore addressing
racism in favor of some sort of attack on the American class system or what?

~~~
current_call
_If the author didn 't want to talk about the banh mi thing, why even mention
it? It is relevant to the discussion after all, since the portrayal of such
instances in the media have had a strong influence on the way political
correctness is currently defined and understood._

The banh mi thing was one example out of a dozen paragraphs of examples. It is
relevant, but focusing solely on it is missing the forest for the trees. It's
cherry picking.

 _I 'd also like to point out that the definition of political correctness, as
it's used colloquially, doesn't change just because you say it does. I also
don't think that using the term political correctness in the sense that
practically everyone understands it constitutes a deliberate misconstrual.
Also, to the authors point, I don't think the majority of commenters on the
right (when did this become a discussion of partisan politics again?) are
talking about "the expectation of adherence to the norms of basic decency,
like refraining from derogatory epithets" when they rail against political
correctness. More often it seems they are railing against the perceived
suppression of their unwelcome beliefs and ideas. Hence my comment to the
effect of "don't dish it out if you can't take it."_

The term "political correctness" is nebulous. He defined the term because he
wanted to clarify what he was talking about. If you read what he wrote using
different definitions than he gave, then you're not really being fair to him.
You have to accept some premises to understand what he's saying. But if he was
defending one definition and claiming to use another, you could call him out
on it. For instance, if he was defending your colloquial definition, but
pretending to use his definition, then you could say he's being disingenuous,
but that doesn't seem to be what you're arguing and I don't think he's mixing
definitions either.

 _As for the second passage you copy /pasted, I don't see how that disagrees
with what I said._

He thinks current methods do more damage than aid. He also thinks they're
motivated by selfishness. When you read my response to your next point you'll
have a better understanding of why he thinks this.

 _Also, since you seem to have read the article more thoroughly than I, what
do you make of the authors closing statement, where he says,_

His article is about two religions. The first religion is the political
correctness religion. The second religion is meritocracy. He attempts to
relate the two. He says that the elite use the religion of meritocracy as an
excuse to further their own gain and political correctness as a religion to
place themselves outside of their own system. Professors and college students
benefit from systematic bias the most, but they use political correctness to
feel morally superior by focusing on problems that don't threaten their life
style. It's easy to take responsibility for bias. It's hard to take
responsibility for poverty.

~~~
hurbledr
I fail to see how political correctness is both a nebulous concept and a
dogmatic belief system at the same time.

Along the same lines, the idea that their is some sort of over-arching
"liberal elite" belief system that colleges slavishly adhere to is laughable,
or it would be, if folks like the author of this piece didn't take it serious.
While professors in any given discipline often share a number of "beliefs",
colloquially known as "facts", if you get a few of them together in a casual
setting, they'll more often than not take to arguing about the finer points of
their field. In fact, this sort of behavior is often encouraged, in both
casual and professional settings. That's why grad students write and defend a
thesis.

I also think that accusing professors and students of using political
correctness as a tool to further their own aims and to preserve their
entrenched power is assuming quite a lot about the actions and motivations of
a huge swath of people.

~~~
current_call
_I fail to see how political correctness is both a nebulous concept and a
dogmatic belief system at the same time._

I didn't say political correctness was a nebulous concept, I said it was a
nebulous term. The issue isn't vague concepts; the issue is that it's hard to
tell what concept we are talking about. Lots of words have to be defined. If
you're reading something about art you better hope there's a definition for
the term "art" toward the front. The same is true for terms like "political
correctness", "liberal", "conservative", and "culture". Defining vague terms
before using them is very common. This should not be so hard to understand.
For an extreme case, look at Guy Steele's speech, "Growing a Language".[0] He
defines every word longer than a certain length.

 _Along the same lines, the idea that their is some sort of over-arching
"liberal elite" belief system that colleges slavishly adhere to is laughable,
or it would be, if folks like the author of this piece didn't take it serious.
While professors in any given discipline often share a number of "beliefs",
colloquially known as "facts", if you get a few of them together in a casual
setting, they'll more often than not take to arguing about the finer points of
their field. In fact, this sort of behavior is often encouraged, in both
casual and professional settings. That's why grad students write and defend a
thesis._ _I also think that accusing professors and students of using
political correctness as a tool to further their own aims and to preserve
their entrenched power is assuming quite a lot about the actions and
motivations of a huge swath of people._

Rather than argue with my summary of someone else's writings and your own
second hand perception of him, why don't you read his work and argue against
his own points? Did it occur to you that evidence and responses to your very
replies might be inside the text or do you just not care to find them?

Actually, don't even bother. I've been telling you to read the article since
my first post and you obviously still haven't. There is no worth while
discussion happening here. Turn off the computer. Read a book. Practice
listening to someone else for a few hundred pages. Then maybe you can handle
ten.

[0]
[https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/steele.pdf](https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/steele.pdf)

