Touchy Subject: "Political Correctness".
 

Reading this item from the BBC this morning, where the Three Little Pigs story has been censored by the BBC's PC cops, is just another example of Political Correctness gone wild in my view.

[And this is not a thread about WHO might be offended, I'm miffed by the general idea that some "big brother" panel ought to interfere with what we read/write/learn-in-school to avoid offending anyone no matter how remote the possibility, so this is NOT an invitation to discuss those potentially offended and whether they should be; I am talking about the very notion that such filtering and censorship has any place in a society that values free speech and freedom of the press and whether governments and PC panels have the duty to protect various segments of society from any potential insult to their sensibilities. ArcticStones should chop this off immediately if it gets us into WHO]

Clearly there are reasonable reasons for this filtering: Unnecessary Violence, Nudity, Porn, etc. -- but those are more widely held "societal family values".

This piece in the National Post (a Canadian national paper) titled "Fire the Censors" discusses the alacrity with which various Human Rights Commissions have actually tried to interfere with newspaper and magazine opinion pieces when they were deemed to be politically incorrect while at the same time ignoring atrocities elsewhere.

My questions here are these:

• Do you have other examples?

• What is your view on this rampant trend?

Democracy is always under threat, and education is the key to fighting that threat.

Unfortunately, we generally don't appreciate education. Business prefers training over it, and training makes people unqualified for anything outside of its narrow scope. In computers for example, if an IT tech's Comptia certification is more important to employers than a college degree (and it is!) then the majority of techs will not have the education to maintain a Democracy. This applies to all other careers as well: medical, dental, automotive, sports, retail, business management, and so on.

My views on political correctness are adequately explained by Larry the Cable Guy http://youtube.com/watch?v=EDqu7kNX5zI

So what's next? Take ham and bacon out of the grocery stores?

My sense is a lot (some?) of the so called not PC stuff doesn't really offend anybody. Rather it is an opportunity for advocates to come center stage and advocate for their cause whatever it may be?

I support censorship for children.... past that just label it, tell the world it's offensive and move on.

This guy is from Nebraska. His accent is as fake as his (boring, catchprase-laden) act.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VROn7ZvVoW8

Pretty much every culture which has ever existed has had taboos of one sort or another. Many of them seem silly.

We're just getting our fair share.

Don't entirely disagree. But, did you watch the audience reaction.... most people seem to think at least some of the PC stuff is funny, not offensive.

BTW... Larry the Cable Guy is a stereotype of the Southern working class.... and hardly an accurate or favorable portrayal.

Why aren't Southerners offended?

Am I supposed to care what most people listening to a bad comedy act think about anything? My only point was that Larry the Cable Guy sucks.

I find that P.C. arguments are either just arguments or a bunch of people preaching to each other in the choir.

I'm from the South. I'm offended by his act not because he's a stereotype but because the material isn't funny. (OH SNAP)

Serious reply:

They're not offended because most people don't know he isn't actually one of them; it's not apparent to the majority of his audience that he constructed the stage persona from a stereotype of them in order to become successful. (Did you know Carlos Mencia's real name is Ned Holness, for another example?)

Agreed, and with a bad Southern accent. A lot of his stuff is vulgar gutter garbage, but I don't try to get it banned and I don't yell "PC" "PC" !!

He's not really that vulgar. Go check out some of Doug Stanhope's act.

I love Stanhope.

That's a perspective and connection I hadn't made. It certainly explains why they're not unexpected in a society, but not why they develop in the first place. How do these things get started and then gain the traction they so obviously build up? Universities, which are supposed to be bastions of free thought are the worst offenders in my view.

Some years ago, I got a call from the "thought police" at the University where I was a Dean. They were objecting to the content of an article in the student newspaper for the Faculty (offensive to women in their view). They thought I should lean on the editors. I pointed out that I had recently received an Award from the Canadian Federation of Engineering Students which cited:

and that I didn't get that because I made it a habit of arbitrarily interfering with their right to publish whatever they wanted to in their student newspaper consistent with a modicum of decency and good taste, i.e. not offensive to a large majority of students (not Faculty) and not libelous.

Then I asked the burning question: "Had there been student complaints about the article?" .... Well, no, as it happened, the complaint was from the staff in that office. Further, I asked, did the office of political correctness know that both the editor and the author of the article were female students and that 25% of the students in the Faculty were women and they hadn't mentioned it to me? .... Silence. The matter was dropped.

My point here is not to boast about an award... It's to say that that kind of PC crap has to be roundly resisted or these taboos, as Craig calls them, will continue to grow -- after all, it empowers the watchers of our morality every time we acquiesce. There's a lot to be said for calling a spade a spade.

In almost every case, the censors appear to forget one very important point: context.

It is the context in which the material resides that will ultimately determine whether or not any offence is likely to be caused. "Three Little Pigs" uses pigs because it is meant for young children -- young children who will likely have no care for the same story if it involved Frank, Dave and Bob, three builders from some company who advertise in the Yellow Pages.

NOTE TO PC BRIGADE: The above is an example. The lack of a female/ethnic/etc. name does not mean it is sexist/racist/etc. ;)

Such stories are also designed to teach children about farm animals, and this (necessarily) requires them to contain farm animals. This is the context.


As for other examples, I seem to recall the following:

• "Baa Baa Black Sheep" being changed to "Baa Baa Rainbow Sheep": http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4782856.stm
• "Blackboards" having to be called "Chalk-boards". (no problem with whiteboards though!)

It seems to me that PC is a distortion of what is usually a healthy principle: "give no offense." That's not too different from the "golden rule," which is found in cultures throughout the world -- "do not do to others what you would not have done unto you." The difference with PC is that disproportionate emphasis is given to those who "take offense," so they end up controlling the terms of discussion. Basically, all one needs to do is to claim they're offended by some kind of speech and link it to an ism of some kind (racism, sexism, agism, etc.) and the expression becomes taboo.

I fear that in the US, you might well end up resisting from the unemployment line. Do, say, think what you wish in your home, but it just isn't that way in the US workplace.

For starters, it is near common practice for business as well as government to "pay" rather than oppose a, for example, sex discrimination suit/sexual harassment suit... it's cheaper. This makes it common practice to file those suits. And once something as unclear as was it reasonable for an individual to take offense at "whatever" remark/action goes to the jury, the outcome is far from certain. What you intended by the remark, whether you are accurate in your remark, etc, is irrelevant.... only criteria are was the individual (reasonably) offended and did it result in a "hostile work environment." (technical legal requirements are much more detailed).

As my old BLaw professor used to say.... you can sue anybody over anything with $10 and a typewriter (long time ago).

At some point, political correctness in the workplace bumps up against US law for those protected minorities listed in the Civil Rights Act, Americans with Disabilities Act, and others.

Just to make it clear, this is not saying WHO, but im just commenting on what the bbc said:
As a follower of said offended religion, i can only laugh at those that do still get offended. There is nothing wrong with the story just because it involves pigs. I find now that its only older generations that are still annoyed by such things, but the younger generation have no problem with the 3 little pigs what so ever, its a story for effing sake. I would also say that it is more culture than religion that makes people find the story offensive.

The most ridiculous examples of this PC crap are usually from mindless stick-up-their-arse bureaucrats getting offended on behalf of someone else who probably thinks like everyone else that the censorship is stupid ( of course I'm talking on behalf of someone else here ).

Even worse, budgets, jobs, careers, promotions, & other perks depend on how many lawsuits are filed/won and number of consent decrees are obtained by said bureaucrats and their staffs.

(Anecdotal info from an acquaintance who used to work at EEOC.)

Phil's right, it's usually an extreme and destructive distortion of good intentions.

The two that come to mind is when an official was called a racist for using the term "niggardly" (which has nothing to do with race), or when the County of LA wanted to ban the use of the terms "Master/Slave" from any equipment (i.e. hard drives) sold to the county.

I just thought this was an extremely important point that isn't being adequately discussed. And it applies to our current situation. Anyone who is educated in literature is less likely to be offended by this story because they will better understand the context it was created in, and thus better understand whether or not is was meant to offend.

More to the point, I think if you study the Humanities, you start to realize that if you tried to nullify every last thing that may offend you, you would spend your days doing nothing else.

Just a thought.

Disneyland.

One good example is the removal of pirates chasing women and replaced with pirates chasing food. This has been re-introduced, but why remove it in the first place?

The initial editing, then replacing, then removal of Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln.

The Enchanted Tiki Room was a target until Walt's daughter intervened for them to leave it alone.

In Anaheim, we are inundated with Spanish audio in Disneyland. Yet if you look around, a great deal of attendees are Asian. Where will it end?

The audio track of Nature's Wonderland was criticized by feminists for sexist remarks. Seems as if whiners get more attention from Disney than those that love the place.

Political Correctness - insensitivity battling hypersensitivity (or vice versa) with ignorance as the weapon of choice. What a kerfluffle!

In my experience, there are more complaints about than examples of "Political Correctness gone wild". As with many subjects, the most egregious examples receive attention and distort the extent of the problem. But I agree that it is a problem.

That, to me, is one of the most infuriating examples, as is the annual overblown "Merry Christmas" vs "Happy Holidays" debate and the so-called "War on Christmas".

The way I see it, the cognitive dissonance caused by contradiction of one's world view may cause an individual or group to respond in ridiculous (or worse) ways in an attempt to force the world to fit their beliefs. The problem exists at both ends of the PC debate, and each extreme is to be resisted for diverting attention from more pressing concerns.

According to the article, "judges at this year's Bett Award said that they had "concerns about the Asian community and the use of pigs raises cultural issues". Becta, "a leading partner in the annual Bett Award for schools" is "standing by the judges' verdict."

It seems to be a case of Regarding the "Baa Baa Rainbow Sheep" article, in context, using a "variety of descriptive words in the nursery rhyme to turn the song into an action rhyme," words like "happy, sad, bouncing, hopping, pink, blue, black and white sheep" and exchanging "boy and girl at the end of the rhyme" to "encourage the children to extend their vocabulary and use up some energy" seems innocuous and, IMHO, did not warrant the offense it caused, ironically, to PC critics.

However, the "warning that the nursery rhyme Baa Baa black sheep should not be taught in schools because it was "racially offensive" is ridiculous, as evidenced by the fact that the guideline was dropped "after black parents condemned the advice" as such. 


But "healthy principles" are often just philosophical ideals that require reasoned interpretation to make sense in the real world, e.g., the old overused example being "Does the golden rule make it OK for a masochist to inflict pain on others?"

"Give no offense" is a similar construct. Everyone's "offense" perception depends on personality traits, upbringing, mood at the time of occurrence, and a myriad of other factors: some are offended by mere disagreement of any kind with their own biases or opinions, others aren't offended by the most extreme personal insults.

PC laws/regulations are, in effect, an attempt to define the allowable limits of "offensiveness", which amounts to making punishable that which is entirely subjective. This is not entirely unique: a cop can give you a ticket (which courts will uphold) for driving 50 in a 65 zone if he feels it's faster than is safe for existing conditions. One can rationalize the reasonableness of the ticket example by claiming that the cop is an "expert" in driving and such, so his opinion is more valid than that of just a "normal" driver, but it seems non-sensical to me that an equivalent argument can be made that there is an "expert" (or 12 "experts" in a jury) in offensiveness evaluation whose opinion should count more than anyone else's.

And that is the fundamental problem. The disproportionate emphasis is most often given to those who are members of some power/voting bloc, or members of a group who are "victims" du jour in popular culture, or . . .? There is no objective standard.

I believe the principle that "everyone has a right not to be offended" is diametrically opposed to the concept of free speech. The two cannot be "balanced" in any reasonable way: any enforcement of the first comes at the expense of the second. Given that the rights of free speech are critical to a free society, protecting people by law from being exposed to speech that may be offensive to them diminishes the overall health of that society.

To my humble knowledge, there are no laws in the US about PC. The laws are about prohibiting discrimination in the workplace or violation of the constitution (church/state for example). Slurs directed at a minority member or the minority are generally considered evidence of discrimination in the workplace. For example, the lady boss has a sign on her desk that says, "Women have to produce twice as much in half the time to compete with men.... fortunately, that's not hard to do!" Humor? Would you feel the same with if there was a blatant, consistent pattern of promoting only women into management? You can construct similar circumstances surrounding religion, ethnic background, disability, etc., etc. So, is the sign PC or is it discrimination?

Some fine lines there to be sure, but there are also some good reasons for having those laws. Wouldn't "no offense intended" be pretty hard to define, too? Could the law exclude extremely offensive remarks because the individual making the remark didn't know any better?

That said, yeah, we're overreacting.

There are laws about inserting prayer into school, who can marry whom, and there are attempts made to define the beginning of human life according to the religious beliefs of specific groups. A majority may agree with these laws and these attempts, but they are still all about PC.

Defining what is acceptable is a messy but necessary process that helps maintain societal boundaries - and health. Like any ongoing process undertaken by any heterogeneous group, it is prone to occasionally swing too far in one direction or the other.

When I was young, the accepted for an officer of the law was "policeman", but times were changing. I had an aunt who bristled upon hearing anything other than "policeperson", "chairperson", "personhole cover", etc; over time society seems to have gotten used to saying "police officer", seems to have become pretty flexible with chairman/woman, and seems to have rejected "personhole cover" for having carried things too far. Even my aunt - the kind of feminist with the tendency to hurt her own cause - finds this acceptable.

I think a better example would be decency standards, which are more a product of subjectivity than traffic law. Roads and cars are engineered to be safe within certain limits under certain conditions. Whether conditions become unsafe for the posted speed limit is not supposed to be an arbitrary judgement, but one made based on measurable conditions - wind speed, visibility, rate and type of precipitation... That's not to say that officers don't make errors in judgement (that may well be upheld in court).

I also think that the risk of political incorrectness is ridicule (social sanction) rather than fine or incarceration (legal sanction).

I think some of these examples are a stretch as there's usually some degree of legal/Constitutional substance behind them. Of course, I guess that would depend on how one defines PC. The lines are often hard to draw between PC taboos and hate speech, for example.

A number of years ago, I remember someone facetiously suggesting that the mailman in the future be called a personperson. :cool:

I wonder why the term "politically correct" refers only to English. I think that there's no similar linguistic process in any other language of the world.

Not so. You have the exact same term in Norwegian.

Partial quote from Wikipedia:

"Several political figures claim that political correctness is a serious movement aiming to change the nature of Western society. Thus, Peter Hitchens wrote in his book The Abolition of Britain, "What Americans describe with the casual phrase .... political correctness is the most intolerant system of thought to dominate the British Isles since the Reformation". Lind and Buchanan have characterized PC as a technique originated by the Frankfurt School. According to Lind and Buchanan, the work of the Frankfurt School aimed at undermining Western values by influencing popular culture through Cultural Marxism.[20][21] Buchanan, says, in his book The Death of the West: "Political Correctness is Cultural Marxism, a regime to punish dissent and to stigmatise social heresy as the Inquisition punished religious heresy."[citation needed]"

It's all a commie pinko plot !

I meant that we in Russian also have the term "политкорректность" - [polit-korektnost']:)
But there's no such thing here in Russia. If the man is black we call him black - and it is normal. If someone is mad, he's mad and not 'mentally challenged'. The blind aren't 'optically handicapped' etc.
I study English for a long time already and I perfectly understand the origin and the sense of this linguistiс phenomenon. But it is difficult to explain to some people, especially elderly, why a person they have called bum since their childhood turns into a 'Displaced homeowner'. I tried to put a bit of humor in my post, I hope you see it:)
Political Correctness originates from the most ugly and hard-edged Euphemisms, that defy all the laws of natural evolution of language. such language is fictional, unreal. And language cannot exist in half-dead and fossilized form. It is an organism that needs expression. For people movement means life. Expression means life for the language.

i hope I put it all clear

If you're really interested about how these (and other) strange-seeming behaviours develop, you could do worse than read some of the books of the late American anthropologist Marvin Harris. I'm guessing you're in the 60% who still reads books. ;)

Amazon link

Bookaholic would be a good description -- my wife and I probably spend 2 or 3 K a year on books. :) Thanks for the link -- I ordered it from Amazon.ca. Now reading Steven Pinker's "The Stuff of Thought".

I can barely believe the post of cwtnospam being anything near PC speech or actions. This has to do with liberty and what constitutes freedom. This has nothing to do with Political Correctness and everything to do with ones own personal and political agenda.

LOL! What do you think PC is? Political Correctness is about inhibiting freedom. It serves no other purpose than to subordinate other people's beliefs.

Favourite PC expression:

Migrant workers = Third country nationals....