Political correctness gone mad

[Jimmy Higgins]

ron,

The mildly ironical thread title was intended to indicate a different claim from the above. My view is that 'political correctness' is sometimes correct and right. The rest of the OP is my example.

Alex.

So, then you have no problem with claims that political correctness is sometimes absurd and wrong?

Sometimes? From some people at this web board, the word "endemic" seems to be more of the claim.

 

[Philos]

...a white person with dreadlocks is doing nothing remotely unethical or objectively incorrect, but is violating the PC rules according to a narrow minded intolerant dogma.

ron,

Now I see your agenda.

Alex.

 

[Philos]

People struggle to accept extreme events as true; that's why conspiracy theories are so common in the wake of shocking occurrences. Holocaust denial is a kind of anti-conspiracy theory, in that it claims that a well understood and documented conspiracy by a major government to harm a large fraction of their citizens, did not take place.

I guess it is a cognitive safety mechanism - when someone reports something sufficiently horrifying, there is a tendency to seek a less threatening explanation. 9-11 is better if it is an inside job, because we expect a large and powerful organization to be able to do severe and traumatizing damage; accepting that a dozen ordinary blokes with box-cutters can do that level of damage would mean accepting that you could die at any moment with no warning, no way to see the danger coming, and no defence against it.

When confronted with the holocaust, most people defend themselves with the myth that it couldn't happen here, and that the Nazis were uniquely evil; But some prefer the myth that it never happened at all. Both myths are dangerous.

bilby,

I agree with all that.

Alex.

 

[fromderinside]

People struggle to accept extreme events as true; that's why conspiracy theories are so common in the wake of shocking occurrences. Holocaust denial is a kind of anti-conspiracy theory, in that it claims that a well understood and documented conspiracy by a major government to harm a large fraction of their citizens, did not take place.

I guess it is a cognitive safety mechanism - when someone reports something sufficiently horrifying, there is a tendency to seek a less threatening explanation. 9-11 is better if it is an inside job, because we expect a large and powerful organization to be able to do severe and traumatizing damage; accepting that a dozen ordinary blokes with box-cutters can do that level of damage would mean accepting that you could die at any moment with no warning, no way to see the danger coming, and no defence against it.

When confronted with the holocaust, most people defend themselves with the myth that it couldn't happen here, and that the Nazis were uniquely evil; But some prefer the myth that it never happened at all. Both myths are dangerous.

bilby,

I agree with all that.

Alex.

I'm taken aback how a psychologically written apologia can so easily rope in otherwise empirical people.

What is it about 'extreme events' which happen several times a day to most everybody if one divides up the day properly be either extreme or require explanation for apparent bad behavior requiring one to assert people to go into denial over then being true? Seems to me the behavior must first be human initiated, of approximate similarity to oneself to the point of needing to defend oneself, and beyond what one would consciously consider doing without permission before rationalization is needed. In other words it's not a general human behavior.

Personal denial may be a universal human trait. However a holocaust is not a universal consequence of tribalism for all groups. What seems more apparent is people want to deny that they may be among those who would do such. So a fiction is constructed. Consider the candidacy of D Trump. He attaches murder, rape, drugs with only those who cross the southern US border who are brown skinned .. and up to fifty percent of those who prefer things to be as they were accept his bleating as true. Its not a social 'cognitive' defense system. Its permission to be racist which is the real trait we are addressing here. Yes holocaust deniers are racists not individuals in need of psychological or medical care.

Bottom line, don't bring out the blanket of for people when the denied behavior is so ethnically and socially specific it just makes the behaviorof those who resort to such as normal. They're far from it.

just sayin'

 

[ronburgundy]

Jews don't consider it remotely insulting to be a Jew either. The problem isn't whether the named person feel it is insulting to be X, but that X is clearly being used in a derogatory sense to convey that all Xs are bad. It is intended as an attack on all members of a group.

Sure. But it doesn't work without that background of insult; If someone says 'Joe Bloggs has blue eyes!', it's neither an insult to Joe, nor to blue eyed people, absent a context in which the iris-pigmentally challenged have been targets of abuse.

The context of abuse of atheists in the USA might render "Joe is a godless atheist" an insult in the USA; But no comparable culture exists in 21st Century Britain, so in that context, the insult would fall flat - people, likely including Joe, would not see it and be angered, upset, or disgusted; they would see it and shrug.

Even in the UK, people are aware that 100 years ago it was an grave attack on a person to accuse them of being a godless atheist, and there continues to be a sizable minority who give Abrahamic religion and the Bible credence, which are inherently and at their core insulting attacks on atheists.
So, while most current brits may be atheists, their are still plenty of believers who would consider that an insult and most atheist would still immediately recognize that it was intended as an insult and thus "Joe is a godless atheist" is actually just another way a saying that all atheists are bad immoral people of no worth. That is an insult to all atheists, whether you are proud to be one or not. They might "shrug" but only because they don't feel threatened due to being in the majority, but that doesn't make the act of saying such a thing any less immoral and shouldn't alter the legal response to it.

Also, it would still not be painted over even in the US either where it is a bigger insult than calling someone a Jew, and atheist are a small widely hated minority, and hated most by the racial minorities, so they don't get the protection of a coalition among those focused on injustices against minority groups.
If an atheist in US so much as tries to defend themselves from the constant extreme insults pervasive in the Bible and every sermon or countless aspects of culture that supports such ideology, then the atheist is further attacked as militant extremist.
What this illustrates is that while such an insult against a Jew and an atheist are equal in terms of violating ethics, they get different political responses because those responses are not rooted in ethical principles. It is a case where the offending action violated legit ethical "correctness" and should have been responded to, and though the type of response made sense, it was likely as or more rooted in less defensible political whims and biases than ethical principles.

 

[ronburgundy]

It is saddening to me that just 70 years after the Holocaust I can find far too many young Aussies who think the Holocaust was faked or greatly over-stated.

People struggle to accept extreme events as true; that's why conspiracy theories are so common in the wake of shocking occurrences. Holocaust denial is a kind of anti-conspiracy theory, in that it claims that a well understood and documented conspiracy by a major government to harm a large fraction of their citizens, did not take place.

I guess it is a cognitive safety mechanism - when someone reports something sufficiently horrifying, there is a tendency to seek a less threatening explanation. 9-11 is better if it is an inside job, because we expect a large and powerful organization to be able to do severe and traumatizing damage; accepting that a dozen ordinary blokes with box-cutters can do that level of damage would mean accepting that you could die at any moment with no warning, no way to see the danger coming, and no defence against it.

When confronted with the holocaust, most people defend themselves with the myth that it couldn't happen here, and that the Nazis were uniquely evil; But some prefer the myth that it never happened at all. Both myths are dangerous.

I think you're correct about the motive behind attributing the cause of the Holocaust to "uniquely evil Nazis" and thus it cannot happen here. People just using defense-mechanisms to deflate the implications it has for their own life and society would go that route. But I think the motive behind outright denial that the Holocaust occurred is quite different and less innocent. It requires far more self-delusion and ignoring of clear facts to deny the Holocaust even happened. Plus it requires accepting a far greater, worldwide, and much less plausible conspiracy that the whole thing is a fabrication. That shows a motive not just to deny the threat and horror, but to specifically remove moral blame from the Nazi's and deny Jews any basis to have a grievance. IOW, they aren't just trying to reduce the threat the idea poses the themselves. They are trying to reduce the threat it poses to the Nazi ideology that they themselves share and deny Jews a right to their greivance because they have it in for Jews.
IOW, I think general sympathies with racial bigotry and fascistic use of power are what motivate Holocaust deniers, combined with some more specific anti-antisemitism.

BTW, many of those deniers in Australia are likely connected to the numerous Nazis that were welcomed by Australia after the war. So, some of those deniers defending their ancestors, parents, and friends in social circles that include ties to Nazis. Whereas those without such a personal incentive require a more sinister motive.

 

[Philos]

Its not a social 'cognitive' defense system. Its permission to be racist which is the real trait we are addressing here. Yes holocaust deniers are racists not individuals in need of psychological or medical care.

Der,

IMHO there are some different things going on here. As the news was reported towards the end of WW11 it is the case that people in the West and in the US couldn't bring themselves to believe the news reports. I can understand that. I have seen newsreels of the Allied occupation authorities taking local German civilians (under compulsion) to see the gas ovens for themselves. This happened all around Germany and the faces of those Germans tell the story. There was no avoiding the truth in front of them.

Since then the evidence of the holocaust is plain and incontrovertible. For those who are modern "deniers" I agree with you that a different agenda should be suspected. There is a world of difference between those who find it difficult to stomach that human beings can be that bad, and those who know full well that humans beings can be that bad and wish to hide the fact for some political purpose. I will call that purpose racism.

Alex.

 

[fromderinside]

Its not a social 'cognitive' defense system. Its permission to be racist which is the real trait we are addressing here. Yes holocaust deniers are racists not individuals in need of psychological or medical care.

Der,

IMHO there are some different things going on here. As the news was reported towards the end of WW11 it is the case that people in the West and in the US couldn't bring themselves to believe the news reports. I can understand that. I have seen newsreels of the Allied occupation authorities taking local German civilians (under compulsion) to see the gas ovens for themselves. This happened all around Germany and the faces of those Germans tell the story. There was no avoiding the truth in front of them.

Since then the evidence of the holocaust is plain and incontrovertible. For those who are modern "deniers" I agree with you that a different agenda should be suspected. There is a world of difference between those who find it difficult to stomach that human beings can be that bad, and those who know full well that humans beings can be that bad and wish to hide the fact for some political purpose. I will call that purpose racism.

Alex.

We're agreeing then. I'm operating from the same center as you.

Personal denial may be a universal human trait. However a holocaust is not a universal consequence of tribalism for all groups. What seems more apparent is people want to deny that they may be among those who would do such. So a fiction is constructed.

Remember a large fraction of the American population reacted before the war as they are now in favor of tribal fictions. More clearly many Americans identified with the Germans so one needn't invent a separate rationale here.

 

[ronburgundy]

bilby,

I agree with all that.

Alex.

I'm taken aback how a psychologically written apologia can so easily rope in otherwise empirical people.

What is it about 'extreme events' which happen several times a day to most everybody if one divides up the day properly be either extreme or require explanation for apparent bad behavior requiring one to assert people to go into denial over then being true? Seems to me the behavior must first be human initiated, of approximate similarity to oneself to the point of needing to defend oneself, and beyond what one would consciously consider doing without permission before rationalization is needed. In other words it's not a general human behavior.

Personal denial may be a universal human trait. However a holocaust is not a universal consequence of tribalism for all groups. What seems more apparent is people want to deny that they may be among those who would do such. So a fiction is constructed. Consider the candidacy of D Trump. He attaches murder, rape, drugs with only those who cross the southern US border who are brown skinned .. and up to fifty percent of those who prefer things to be as they were accept his bleating as true. Its not a social 'cognitive' defense system. Its permission to be racist which is the real trait we are addressing here. Yes holocaust deniers are racists not individuals in need of psychological or medical care.

Bottom line, don't bring out the blanket of for people when the denied behavior is so ethnically and socially specific it just makes the behaviorof those who resort to such as normal. They're far from it.

just sayin'

I think I largely agree with you that the outright deniers are more often motivated by being sympathetic to Nazi ideology. But see my above post regarding the many people (and especially in Australia) with social ties to former Nazis. Even if they don't accept Nazi ideology, they would likely be motivated to deny that anyone that they care for and associate with was or has a relationship with someone who engaged in genocide. That is a product of normal psychological self-defense mechanisms, but giving into "normal" psychological biases is still an immoral act when it harms others and is avoidable, which it is.

Also, deniers are very different than the other people bilby referred to, namely those who don't deny the Holocaust, but attribute its cause to "uniquely evil" people rather than normal average people who gave into their worst tendencies and selfish cognitive biases within a economic and poltical context that got to a place that was ripe to bring out such tendencies. Events all over the world across history show that large % of people if not a majority in any community or society can wind up supporting very heinous actions actions, if the context makes it useful to do so and there is not enough of a push back against it before it is able to grow and develop. Like any other movement, it gains momentum as it grows and once it reaches a threshold of support, it starts to draw people in that would not have supported it before. This is a "normal" social psychological phenomena rooted in the fact that most people are conformists and will go with the tide. It is a positive in areas like civil rights movements and the recent gay movement which reach a threshold of support than rather rapidly swept in a bunch of additional supporters who were waiting for it to be the socially safe thing to do.

This is why authoritarianism must be opposed everywhere it tries to rear its head. Which is why never have or likely will vote for any GOP candidate, because they mostly represent pro-authoritarians. But also why I increasingly find myself in opposition to the morphing "left" who increasing show disregard for personal liberty and support for methods involving unjust abuse of authority, so long as it is seeking to advance the ends they care most about.

 

[ronburgundy]

...a white person with dreadlocks is doing nothing remotely unethical or objectively incorrect, but is violating the PC rules according to a narrow minded intolerant dogma.

ron,

Now I see your agenda.

Alex.

You're the one with a agenda you won't admit to, using passive aggressive rhetorical tactics to dismiss any claims against political correctness by offering an example of one positive political response against an action that you miscategorize as politically incorrect, when in fact it is just ethically incorrect.

I don't play dishonest rhetorical games, so I can weasel out of my insinuations later after their invalidity is exposed.

 

[ronburgundy]

So, then you have no problem with claims that political correctness is sometimes absurd and wrong?

Sometimes? From some people at this web board, the word "endemic" seems to be more of the claim.

I don't think it is only "sometimes" a problem, I was just verifying whether Philos would acknowledge even that low threshold, in order to determine what he meant, which he now has revealed he meant just the kind of back-handed passive aggressive and logically fallacious 'critique' of anti-PC claims that his thread title implied.

There are conservatives who support real injustices who mislabel efforts against ethical wrongs as "PC" so they can ignore them. But there are also people like the OP who mislabel responses to ethical wrongs as "PC" so they can make the fallacious leap to the conclusion that anything labeled PC is a real ethical wrong and thus PC is good.

By definition, attacks against things because they are politically incorrect are problematic and destructive. Things that warrant such attacks are clearly categorizable as either factually incorrect or ethically incorrect by validated or near universally held principles. If it is merely "politically incorrect" that means it is not incorrect in a way reasonable or ethical people should care about. It means that only under the self-serving, unreasoned, incoherent, and often arbitrary "rules" that shape particular political agendas is in "incorrect".


BTW, "gone mad" doesn't imply that there is too much concern for real injustices and dangers. It means almost the opposite. It means that their too much irrational focus on invented injustices or efforts to use destructive and unjust methods to resolve is real issue, because those responsible care only about a narrow set of preferred outcomes and not about any principles or reason or ethics that should govern what is an injustice and how should we respond to those we identify. "Gone mad" has been used to refer to the extreme absurdity and/or real injustice of particular PC efforts.

 

[fromderinside]

... giving into "normal" psychological biases is still an immoral act when it harms others and is avoidable, which it is.

... normal average people who gave into their worst tendencies and selfish cognitive biases within a economic and poltical context that got to a place that was ripe to bring out such tendencies. ...This is a "normal" social psychological phenomena rooted in the fact that most people are conformists and will go with the tide.

Biases may be normal and conformity may be normal, but, being normal isn't a moral position or basis for position. I'm a psychologist who finds psychologizing by anyone can be loathsome, just as loathsome as having biases and conformity can be loathsome when attached to morality. In this case I find justifying political positions by stereotyping types based on psychological analysis loathsome. I'm not saying don't do it because you'll fry in atheist goo, I'm saying doing it doesn't meet ethical or empirical standards.

 

[Philos]

There are conservatives who support real injustices who mislabel efforts against ethical wrongs as "PC" so they can ignore them. But there are also people like the OP who mislabel responses to ethical wrongs as "PC" so they can make the fallacious leap to the conclusion that anything labeled PC is a real ethical wrong and thus PC is good.

ron,

You have raised an interesting and important question in moral philosophy and it is a question that is implicit in the OP.

What is 'political correctness'?

My understanding of political correctness is that it is a normative code, founded on ethical principles accepted in a society. Ethics is about considering what is right or wrong and political correctness is the application of ethical principles coming from such consideration. Unfortunately the term has become somewhat muddied over time, maybe partly because of the word 'political'. I have also become aware of some negative connotations in usage of the term in certain quarters.

Whether we regard some action as 'politically correct' would (in my view) depend upon the axioms on which such correctness is based. For example, in a society which values fairness and the rule of law, I would expect PC to be the practical application of fairness and the rule of law.

Can mistakes be made in the application of PC? Of course. However, to cast PC as good or bad per se is a mistake IMHO. For example, what might have been PC in Nazi Germany may not be PC in today's Germany. The ethical axioms have changed, which I think is a good thing.

Alex.

 

[fromderinside]

There are conservatives who support real injustices who mislabel efforts against ethical wrongs as "PC" so they can ignore them. But there are also people like the OP who mislabel responses to ethical wrongs as "PC" so they can make the fallacious leap to the conclusion that anything labeled PC is a real ethical wrong and thus PC is good.

ron,

You have raised an interesting and important question in moral philosophy and it is a question that is implicit in the OP.

What is 'political correctness'?

My understanding of political correctness is that it is a normative code, founded on ethical principles accepted in a society. Ethics is about considering what is right or wrong and political correctness is the application of ethical principles coming from such consideration. Unfortunately the term has become somewhat muddied over time, maybe partly because of the word 'political'. I have also become aware of some negative connotations in usage of the term in certain quarters.

Whether we regard some action as 'politically correct' would (in my view) depend upon the axioms on which such correctness is based. For example, in a society which values fairness and the rule of law, I would expect PC to be the practical application of fairness and the rule of law.

Can mistakes be made in the application of PC? Of course. However, to cast PC as good or bad per se is a mistake IMHO. For example, what might have been PC in Nazi Germany may not be PC in today's Germany. The ethical axioms have changed, which I think is a good thing.

Alex.

Philos you're dong the equivalent of throwing principles into the brier patch. Being politically correct is a political act. It is probably not an ethical act . Consider one of my favorites.

In 19th Century England those who threw great dinner parties for the entitled were dismayed by the number of knivings taking place there. They determined the problem was in the fact knives were a popular piece of ornament to wear. So they agreed to turn away anyone who came to one of their parties wearing a knife. Soon it became public etiquette for people to not wear knives in public.

The sane move of limiting knives at socially important events became socially correct. What wasn't correct was to call out anyone who wore a knife in public. Yet while this change in behavior was ongoing many on both sides of the issue exchanged politically taunts and slurs. This latter scenario is the emergence of political correctness. However, after a time limiting wearing of weapons became law and people who wore knives were fined and had their weapons taken from them by authorities and politically activity around this issue receded.

If you suggest political correctness is ethical under any scenario whatever you introduce a brier patch confusing ethical with political behavior. The ethical and politically correct move is to refrain from sending political signals to those you suspect of being on the other side of an issue. Did I just make a politically correct statement? Of course I did. Apologies.

 

[Godless Raven]

It seems to be more an issue of someone's name being displayed in public rather than political correctness. Would it have got the same response had there been no name, just some sort of comment on Jews in general?

DBT,

If it had been:

"I love Becky Brown" or "Bill Brown is gay" or "Fred Williams is Welsh" there would have been no phone call.

The Jewish history is known, but what concerned me is that even now, after all these years since the holocaust, a young person would know that "Jew" is perhaps the most stigmatising term to be posted on a wall. That is how I and my wife saw it and obviously how the council saw it, as they reacted so quickly. It takes some very serious sxxx to get the council moving in our county.

Alex.

If it had said "I love" or "is gay" you and your wife wouldn't have called. Yet, to me, having grown up where I have, it would be considered far more offensive to have someone write you were gay than a Jew. And in the recent and current political atmosphere, far more offensive to have someone write "Joe Blow is a Muslim" vs "...a Jew". So Alex, what you would have left up there and not made a call over could have easily offended many people. Why weren't you offended enough to call if it had said "Bill Brown is gay"? You said the history of Jewish mistreatment was well established...I can't think of a society or culture where the same can't be said for gay people. Why wouldn't you have called, and why shouldn't other people that find different words offensive blow off your actions and be offended that you wouldn't do the same when it's another group?

Can a person be "Politically correct" or "Ethically correct" when they only do so for certain groups and could give less than zero fucks about others? Or is that just individuals attacking their pet peeves while not giving a shit about anyone else's?

As far as the title of the OP, no I wouldn't say that was PC gone too far...you outright said it was for a specific group while dismissing others for your personal feelings. I'm not even sure it counts as being PC at all.

 

[bilby]

Sure. But it doesn't work without that background of insult; If someone says 'Joe Bloggs has blue eyes!', it's neither an insult to Joe, nor to blue eyed people, absent a context in which the iris-pigmentally challenged have been targets of abuse.

The context of abuse of atheists in the USA might render "Joe is a godless atheist" an insult in the USA; But no comparable culture exists in 21st Century Britain, so in that context, the insult would fall flat - people, likely including Joe, would not see it and be angered, upset, or disgusted; they would see it and shrug.

Even in the UK, people are aware that 100 years ago it was an grave attack on a person to accuse them of being a godless atheist, and there continues to be a sizable minority who give Abrahamic religion and the Bible credence, which are inherently and at their core insulting attacks on atheists.

While I am sure that some people in the UK are aware that 100 years ago it was an grave attack on a person to accuse them of being a godless atheist, I would be very surprised if it was a majority; Certainly few people I know of in the UK would see such a message and immediately think of the history of persecution of atheists in the UK. People generally don't think or act on the basis of their recall of historical events that took place prior to their birth. But then, I only lived there for 25 years, so perhaps I didn't notice that everyone else still thought of atheists as an oppressed group, or that 'godless atheist' was an effective insult.

So, while most current brits may be atheists, their are still plenty of believers who would consider that an insult and most atheist would still immediately recognize that it was intended as an insult and thus "Joe is a godless atheist" is actually just another way a saying that all atheists are bad immoral people of no worth. That is an insult to all atheists, whether you are proud to be one or not.

It's obviously intended as an insult. But it carries no weight as an insult in the UK; it would fall completely flat.

They might "shrug" but only because they don't feel threatened due to being in the majority, but that doesn't make the act of saying such a thing any less immoral and shouldn't alter the legal response to it.

Yes, it really does. In order for an attempted insult to be morally wrong, it must actually achieve the effect of insulting someone.

Also, it would still not be painted over even in the US either where it is a bigger insult than calling someone a Jew, and atheist are a small widely hated minority, and hated most by the racial minorities, so they don't get the protection of a coalition among those focused on injustices against minority groups.
If an atheist in US so much as tries to defend themselves from the constant extreme insults pervasive in the Bible and every sermon or countless aspects of culture that supports such ideology, then the atheist is further attacked as militant extremist.

Yes, I am aware of this; the US is a VERY different environment for atheists. Indeed, it is clear to me that you are not grasping just HOW different it is; Your experience in the US has left you with the idea that things must be at least a little bit challenging for atheists in the UK - but it really is not so.

What this illustrates is that while such an insult against a Jew and an atheist are equal in terms of violating ethics, they get different political responses because those responses are not rooted in ethical principles. It is a case where the offending action violated legit ethical "correctness" and should have been responded to, and though the type of response made sense, it was likely as or more rooted in less defensible political whims and biases than ethical principles.

Yeah, No.

You would be right, if you didn't start from the false premise that all attempted insults are equally insulting. But they are not.

 

[fast]

I haven't researched the first thing about political correctness, but the drive to be politically correct, as it seems to me without really knowing, is a call to be tactful, especially in cases where not being so might (oh say) alienate others. It's, for instance, certainly not socially acceptable to refer to African Americans as being just a bunch of negros. Such language is not only unprofessional, but it's divisive, socially unacceptable by some conservatives and most liberals, and it's lacking tact--severely so in this case.

What is acceptable is not universal, and what's socially acceptable is constantly evolving, so it can be difficult to always be on target to offend the least number of people. When an isolated pocket of people begin to make head way in conveying (hopefully not just creating) yet another way they feel offended, some can become exasperated and fail to take into account why or how there is offense and simply deflect from the issue and brand the subject matter as just another case of political correctness running amuck.

In a world where most people hang on the words we use, the need to be increasingly tactful is everpresent--the need to be politically correct. Some people (or some groups) are so turned off by certain buzz words that we are forever having to keep our pulse on the swinging views of these groups. In some circles, it's egregious to even refer to a black person as African American. For that matter, to even refer to them as blacks. What's the newest term earning the least resistance? People of color?

People aspiring to be especially tactful will often alter their wording to please the largest number of their target audience. Doing so is being politically correct. Suppose it is the case just for the sake of argument that flying the confederate flag is not in fact offensive but merely declared as being offensive, and further suppose that the expressed idea that it's offensive is the catalyst later driving those that feel offended. That's a lot of supposing, but being right or wrong on that account is wholly irrelevant, for regardless of the truth, displaying the flag will not be revered as a politically correct act. To overcome the lack of appreciation for the unapproval felt, those trying to be more tactful for social approval (trying to be politically correct) will alter their wording or behavior.

I don't know. That's just a novice shot in the dark.

 

[bilby]

"Stop imposing your Political Correctness on me" is just a euphemism for "How dare you ask me not to be a rude asshole! I have the free speech right to be a rude asshole, and no sense of irony at all when I complain about you exercising your right to tell me that I'm being a rude asshole".

It has the advantage of brevity too.

 

[bilby]

"Stop imposing your Political Correctness on me" is just a euphemism for "How dare you ask me not to be a rude asshole! I have the free speech right to be a rude asshole, and no sense of irony at all when I complain about you exercising your right to tell me that I'm being a rude asshole".

It has the advantage of brevity too.

View attachment 6425

Of course, people have the right to be disrespectful of others, if that's what they want. But they really need to stop acting surprised or victimised when they are called on their rudeness; and they need to recognise that just because they have the right to say something rude, that does not mean they have the right to remain respected by their peers, or by their wider society, if they exercise that right.

 

[Godless Raven]

"Stop imposing your Political Correctness on me" is just a euphemism for "How dare you ask me not to be a rude asshole! I have the free speech right to be a rude asshole, and no sense of irony at all when I complain about you exercising your right to tell me that I'm being a rude asshole".

It has the advantage of brevity too.

View attachment 6425

Of course, people have the right to be disrespectful of others, if that's what they want. But they really need to stop acting surprised or victimised when they are called on their rudeness; and they need to recognise that just because they have the right to say something rude, that does not mean they have the right to remain respected by their peers, or by their wider society, if they exercise that right.

For the most part, I think Neil Gaiman is correct. Where this all fails is when it's applied to an uber sensitive person that finds a ton of things personally offensive.

Let's say I'm having people over to watch a UFC event. Those of you that know me know I curse a lot, but I'm very capable of not cursing at all when I'm in social situations or work related situations where it's not appropriate and I have no problem at all with that. But, we're watching some event and let's say there's 9 other people. 8 of those people are fellow Vulgarian's like me but the 9th person announces that he/she finds swearing offensive because they weren't raised around it or whatever. Should everyone watching the event immediately stop and feel bad that they were rude? Should they just stop. Should they ask the stuck up cunt what the fuck their problem is?

We all know people that are overly sensitive. I can be too, particularly over things like people dropping the "N word" or joking about abusing women. Those are triggers for me, but I can't imagine expecting people that do that to speak like me and think like me because they are in my presence. It seems it would be more up to me to decide whether I wanted to be in that persons presence and how the fuck would I know if I didn't let them speak their mind the way they do. That 9th person at my pretend UFC party may really dislike people that swear, and I'd be giving off the wrong impression that I'm something I'm not...leading them to later be...offended by my actions.