Don’t. I despise it, and it will cause me to re-evaluate your intelligence downward, drastically.
That probably doesn’t worry you at all, especially if you’re the kind of person who whines about political correctness. What ought to worry you more is that James O’Brien might hear you and grind you into a feeble slime for using it.
Man, that is beautiful. He just asks the guy what he means by it, and has him babbling after a few minutes.
I used it unironically in 1989, when I first heard it. I think. Can’t remember. Seemed like an almost valid concept at the time, although the liberals in my college usually laughed (or at least smiled) when they used it.
As an aside, around the same time (margin of error plus or minus a decade, maybe) I read about Soviet political officers, and also about the US-written manual for the contras that recommended that units likewise have a political officer, and deduced (quite likely incorrectly) that “political correctness” referred to compliance with the party line.
This isn’t entirely invalid as a concept. Though we don’t really want some smarmy apparatchik in our workplace ferreting out our various political heresies, conversely there is utility in reminding ourselves what we stand for. So, for example, a band of contras would want to remember that they’re theoretically trying to establish a new liberal democracy, and would not want to lose site of it and devolve into a pack of bandits raping and pillaging.
Whooops — shit. Last comment for now, but I should hasten to add that I say this not as an endorsement of the Salvadoran Contras.
I remember when it became a craze in the early nineties and they made like “politically correct fairy tales” and other merch off of it. I was too young to understand it was utterly mean spirited trash from adult bullies, just felt like it was playing with language – something I enjoyed. Ho ho, it’s snow white and the seven little people.
The way children are lured into nazism by soft-faced youtubing goober-gabblers making it seem like a harmless laff now? That’s what was happening to me at that time. I was lucky to figure it out quickly and escape the shit-hatch.
–
Great American Satan: I remember those books. And I remember being frustrated with them, because everything felt a bit off and mean instead of making a genuine point. Then I stumbled onto Women Who Run with the Wolves and went down much more interesting reading rabbit holes.
Hmmm…but what if you’re criticizing the “politically correct” way to say “nazi” – “white nationalist”, “alt-right”, etc? “Damn this country, you can’t even call a Nazi a Nazi anymore, gotta call them alt-right!”
A bit more seriously, I was talking with a friend the other day – he’s left-centrist, and of the “maybe when there’s a substantive difference between candidates, it might be worth it [to vote]” type. And I mentioned that in a local election I hadn’t had time to research I had gone with a candidate because “I’m generally pretty secure about a black female Democrat”. Which caused him to huff ‘also you said it wrong she’s a “women Democrat of color”… based on the articles I’ve read, “female black Democrat” is a grave insult from someone who isn’t a Democrat woman of color, that the preferred phrasing is “Democrat woman of color”‘.
He’s a cis white dude, obviously. I was tempted to call him out for being “politically correct”, but insincerely so. I decided not to wade into that swamp, though, and just say that if you’re doing a press release or something you may want to opt for that language, but in everyday usage what I said is generally fine unless asked otherwise.
@6 rjphonston
To say nothing of how PoC and black are not actually interchangeable. >_>
The only reasonable meaning of “politically correct” I can think of is “trying hard to be a decent human being”.
My only use of “politically correct” is as a tell for someone who likely an ignnorant bigot in many forms who uses the phrase.
I claim to be one of those who has never used “political correctness” at all, actually. Except to ask people what by they mean by it. All I can suss it to mean is what I would call “simple politeness” which, for some reason, is apparently a bad thing to some people.
But this guy at the link you gave, he is brilliant. Can we give him a talk show in America?
Stewart Lee on political correctness, with abundant footnotes:
I always got the impression that it originally referred to an insistence that people needed to use a list of specific terms that were considered non-offensive, or be labeled as racist, sexist, etc. In other words, it was a way of policing language, which some people made fun of mainly for being over-zealous.
Then the far right took it and turned it into a blanket term for anything they didn’t like, so that eventually anything that was non-bigoted was derided as “politically correct”.
The “politically correct” allegation is typically used as a put-down from conservatives to label liberal and progressive folks.
However, there may be a conservative version of “politically correct.”
The online Cambridge dictionary has a succinct definition for “politically correct” — “avoiding language or behavior that any particular group of people might feel is unkind or offensive.” This definition is broad enough that it could be used to label both liberal and conservative concerns.
For example, former NFL football quarterback Colin Kaepernick was taking a knee during the national anthem before football games as a symbolic protest to bring attention to issues of police violence and its impact on black Americans.
Many conservatives viewed Kaepernick’s actions as an offensive behavior — perhaps this is an example of conservative “political correctness” in action?
Absolutely. Nobody has to agree with the idea of “patriotism'”, but they don’t recognize personal choice to disagree with them. Either agree with us, or be ostracized. It’s called bullying….
Meanwhile, here’s a bunch of white guys lecturing blacks about racism:
https://warhornmedia.com/2017/09/07/statement-critical-theory-unity-church-endorsement/
I can think of some correct applications of “political correctness” today. The purging of the term “Climate Change” and replacing it with alternate terms that don’t mention climate by government agencies under the Trump administration fits perfectly. Refusing to call out white supremacists as white supremacists and using the terms they prefer like alt-right and identitarian fits pretty well, too. Or there’s the avoidance of the term “terrorist” for people from specific political groups (i.e. those who support the Republican party) even when the person flatly admits that they’ve used violence against the public for political ends.
However, I still won’t use the term. It’s become a dog whistle by the right, and no matter how good my intentions may be, it’s become impossible to separate it from its attached baggage.
Yeah, back in my bad old days when I was a high-school-through-university right-winger it was my number one concern. I was under the impression that America-hating Marxist intellectuals were using academia and public education as a means to brainwash the American youth while persecuting and censoring freedom-loving conservative, Christian, patriots.
Sound familiar?
Nerd @ 14
Ah! But conservative anger over Kapernick isn’t a form of “political correctness” because it’s “politically incorrect” to love America/freedom/God/etc. Only the PC thought police would thumb their nose at patriotism and disrespect our great nation.
At least, that’s what I would have said between the ages of 16-to-23.
I might have thought the same thing, but the Nam’ War was going on when I was that age. And could be drafted and sent there with minimal training. Things like that makes one skeptical of certain definitions of “patriotism”, especially when Quayles and Bushes support the war, but bought ways for their offspring to get out of being sent to SE Asia. Cynicism sets in.
Unironically you say? Challenge accepted. Saying you’re not politically correct is the politically correct way of saying you’re about to be an asshole.
I consider the term to be mostly invalid. It would only apply in fact if someone was using offense as a way of literally preventing the open discussion of a valid issue. However, that is not how it is used a vast majority of the time.
In essence, the term is used as a political weapon against liberals, and can be stretched to mean anyone asking for politeness or baseline levels of public respect.
For example, “Happy Holidays” being offensive is perhaps the most apt example of the common definition of “politically correct,” but it is almost never tagged as such. The NRA demanding that conversations about gun violence be stunted for a week or two after gun massacres is an excellent example of the core definition of the term—but again, “PC” is never applied.
When *only* liberal actions, even ones that are barely objectionable, are slammed as “PC,” while conservative actions, even the most thoroughly fit for the description, are not described in the same manner, the term stops meaning what people think it means, and instead the definition becomes, “a catch-all term to shame and shut up liberals.”
pontavedra #21
By George….
My only defense was I was young, uncultured, and had the misfortune of being born to conservative parents who encouraged my political stupidity. That, and ending up in a podunk, Lilly-white, rural suburb in Wisconsin that failed to challenge my beliefs.
I listen to James O’Brien regularly and he’s the most logical man on the radio especially when debating with a theist but the dichotomy is that he claims to be a believer.
A clever but complex man.
I don’t get the point of this. The term PC is perfectly clear. The practice is a bit off, I agree, but what is JOB carrying on about ? He sounds like a smart alec trying to make a point.
jesuswept
You’re wrong. It was never used that way by anyone advocating the use of non-offensive terms (well, to be absolutely accurate, Wikipedia records a single possible example of such unironic use, by Toni Cade Bambara in 1970). I well remember when the term crossed the Atlantic, in the mid-1990s. I challenged a number of right-wing whiners (including Americans) to supply examples of non-ironic use by the left. Not one example was forthcoming. I’ll bet you can’t supply any either.
Thanks for outing yourself as an idiot. It’s “perfectly clear” that “politically correct” is just an all-purpose right-wing sneer.
I’m not American.
One conclusion of the discussion seemed to be that it was bad to distinguish between “boys’ clothes” and “girls’ clothes”, but it was OK to have “unisex clothes” distinguished by “girl’s fit” or “boy’s fit”. The trade-off here is between clarity of language and offending people.
On the original issue that provoked the discussion, it’s interesting that John Lewis had quietly gone unisex with their children’s clothing a full year previously. The complaints about this only came as a backlash against complaints this year about certain other retailers having ranges of children’s clothing that were blatantly sexist.
Just look at the words we’re not allowed to call Republicans for fear of hurt feelings:
White supremacists
Racists
KKK sympathizers/members
Pro-lynching
Homophobes
Misogynists
Transphobes
Fecal Fountains
Assholes
KG above to springa73@12:
You’re wrong. It was never used that way by anyone advocating the use of non-offensive terms (well, to be absolutely accurate, Wikipedia records a single possible example of such unironic use, by Toni Cade Bambara in 1970).
Nope, not wrong — that was the impression received, unless you imagine springa73@12 is outright bullshitting.
Whether or not the impression was correct doesn’t detract from the reporting of the impression received — in fact, the phrasing suggests the impression was not correct.
I personally think that is a common perception.
(Or, that is a very uncharitable reading)
—
Pedantically, if a term cannot be properly used other than ironically, then using it ironically must be unironic. (Yes, a paradoxical conceit)
[grr lazy editing above — blockquotes borked]
I’ve used it to describe what some dub as “conservative correctness”, that is the tendency of conservatives to freak the fuck out whenever one of their sacred cows are tipped because it is political and it is most definitely social pressure to police “correct” speech.
I have. Back in the 1980s, as @2 A Masked Avenger said, it was a term invented by the punk/anarchist Left to make fun of the doctrinaire Marxists.
I’ll be politically correct when politics is…so apparently I have some time to wait.
I prefer the more nuanced version…”honest but fair context”. After all, everything offends someone, so why not just talk non-offensively, and anyone who truly wants to see offense is going to anyway no matter what you say, so why bother? Just don’t purposely choose the worst word to describe someone and you’ll be fine. everything else is a description.
And if it’s a race thing, ignore it as it should be irrelevant anyway. If someone is asking you to describe someone, they’re not “the black girl…” or the meaningless phrase “the african american woman…” or whatever, they are “the brown skinned person down the hall”..pure description! If someone is offended by that, they WANT to be offended, and are hopeless.
Oh, and since literally everyone is different, no point in asking them a preferred term, because you’ll get different answers depending on who you ask. Your answer to appease one person will offend another. Just don’t be a racist douchebag and it’ll work out fine in the end. Just remember you’re talking to a single human, not a representative of their group.
Simple in the end…if you want it to be.
Of course I’ve used it, because it has a perfectly clear and useful meaning. The string theorist Luboš Motl, on Quora, has described its origin and its meaning well enough:
‘[T]he term “political correctness” first appeared right after the Bolshevik coup in Russia exactly 100 years ago, in late 1917. People were expected to be “politically correct” which means “adherent to the policies and principles of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.” See the Encyclopedia Britannica: https://www.britannica.com/topic/political-correctness. During the following 100 years, it was used basically with the same meaning both by proponents and, increasingly frequently, by critics of the political correctness. Political correctness has always meant some self-imposed censorship driven by the urge to be compatible with a powerful far left-wing ideology.’
You leftist fools are hilarious to read.
Well, since nobody imposes such censorship on their selves, we may just dismiss the entire concept. Anybody using “politically correct” unironically has lost touch with reality.
vivian Frankford, #36
Yes, and the swastika is an ancient spiritual symbol from South India.
I don’t know why people get so worked up about seeing it on a red flag in Europe and America!
*South Asia
I can use it unironically!
Who is more politically correct than an American conservative? They must all toe the party line or risk being called RINO. Their party has NO optional positions on any issue. They must ALWAYS respond to certain issues with certain phrases, and must always replace certain terms with other, specific, research-invested terms meant to deceive.
Every statement they make must pass the test: It is done (politically) correctly or it is wrong.
Their abhorrence of “political correctness” as a phrase is the most indicative of projection as anything else they do. (It’s just the polarity of PC that matters.)
James O’Brien became one of my favorite hosts after just a few short clips. Quite flawless stuff.
You’d think in an era where Trump and the Republicans dominate every branch of government, “political correctness” would be used to describe things like bragging about sexual assault and attacking LGBT people. But, haha—nope.
The Kaepernick case is a great example—he did something that pissed off many Americans and would likely prevent him from ever holding a major political position in this country, yet no one described his actions as “politically incorrect.” Rather, you were much more likely to hear people accusing him of “political correctness”—which proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the term no longer has any real meaning (if it ever did) beyond being a snarl term to be mindlessly used against anyone who expresses liberal political views. (See also: “Virtue signaling.”)
The apparent implication is that no one could *genuinely* believe these progressive things—like the importance of fixing a broken justice system and ensuring equal rights for all Americans—rather, we’re only *claiming* to support them to curry favor among the “elites” (who are somehow separate from the people who actually wield most of the political power in this country.)
I’ve used it extensively and unironically… as a description of what people believe and how they behave and talk. (It’s a term that has ancestry and even some use in the “intramural” battles on the British Left from the 1920s through 1950s, which falls right inside an academic concentration in my disreputable past.) For example, “Blair questioned whether the accusation that POUM’s leading members were no longer politically correct really mattered in opposing fascism.”
Which, I suppose, is my point: The issue of “political correctness” first arises in Western common discourse in determining whether one is a good-enough Communist, during the reign of Stalin. Think about that for a moment…
When I was at Antioch in the 70s the term Politically Correct was used frequently, but it was always, always used as a joke and to make fun of too self important and serious people who claimed to be leftists. And if there was somewhere that was more left in the the 70s I don’t know where that would have been.
I would like to create a campaign to ensure that from now on Political Correctness refers solely to the opinion that there was anything honorable or decent about the treacherous South in the War of Treason in Defense of Slavery or the addlepated defenses of the post-Reconstruction atrocities.
Saad, #39: ‘Yes, and the swastika is an ancient spiritual symbol from South India.
I don’t know why people get so worked up about seeing it on a red flag in Europe and America!’
I give you credit for knowing the rhetorical device of analogy—I didn’t think the moronic leftist readers of this sloppy blog were intelligent enough to know it. But, unsurprisingly, you make what’s called a false analogy. For the swastika used to means B but now it primarily means S, having undergone a transformation in significance. On the contrary, ‘political correctness’ used to mean D—and still means D now: it hasn’t undergone a transformation in significance. So the the swastika and the term ‘political correctness’ have not undergone an analogous transformation in significance. Nice try, though.
Nice try about pretending “political correctness’ is anything other than right wing properganda. You lose, not use.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
vivian Frankford @46:
Didn’t you or Luboš read the whole article he linked to?
It most certainly has been used in that way, and that’s certainly a transformation in significance. Or do things only mean what you want them to mean?
Just out of curiosity: is Luboš still a climate change denier? That would be hilarious if it wasn’t depravedly irresponsible. Like most right-wingers. Jokes without a punchline.
Luboš Motl is a theoretical physicist, whose speciality is string theory.
This does not make him worth listening to regarding linguistics or semantics.
If you think it does than you are a fucking idiot.
#50, chigau: ‘Luboš Motl is a theoretical physicist, whose speciality is string theory. This does not make him worth listening to regarding linguistics or semantics. If you think it does than you are a fucking idiot.’
LOL. I never said he is worth listening to on linguistics or semantics just because he is a string theorist. You are the one who brought up this irrelevancy. I did, however, say that the string theorist Motl described the origin and meaning of the clear, useful term ‘political correctness’ well enough. He did. Moreover, you commit here a fallacy, argumentum ad hominem—for you say that Motl is not worth listening to on linguistics or semantics because he is a string theorist. But, of course, being a string theorist does not preclude one from speaking truthfully about linguistics or semantics. So does your poor ability with English stem from your being Chinese, or, like most readers of this blog, are you just dumb?
#49, Rob Grigjanis:
‘Didn’t you or Luboš read the whole article he linked to?’
I did. I don’t know whether Motl did, but I’d bet he did too.
‘It most certainly has been used in that way, and that’s certainly a transformation in significance. Or do things only mean what you want them to mean?’
Words are used in many ways, and many of those ways are not established. But we are speaking of established words here, and their definitions aren’t pulled out of thin air but out of dictionaries. So look up the definition of ‘political correctness’ in Merriam-Webster, an august dictionary: ‘conforming to a belief that language and practices which could offend political sensibilities (as in matters of sex or race) should be eliminated’ (though Merriam-Webster gets the date of the first use of this term wrong). This definition is equivalent, in essence, to the definition that Motl gave: ‘[“political correctness”] was used basically with the same meaning both by proponents and, increasingly frequently, by critics of . . . political correctness. Political correctness has always meant some self-imposed censorship driven by the urge to be compatible with a powerful far left-wing ideology.’ So ‘political correctness’ used to mean D—and still means D now. In 1917 in Bolshevik Russia, the leftists tried to suppress dissent by terming it ‘politically incorrect’; in modern times, leftists term conservative speech against Muslims, against abortion, against socialism, against welfare, against reparations for blacks, against affirmative action, etc., ‘politically incorrect.’ The same historical trend is there.
‘Just out of curiosity: is Luboš still a climate change denier? That would be hilarious if it wasn’t depravedly irresponsible. Like most right-wingers. Jokes without a punchline.’
I don’t know. Nor do I care about his views on climate change.
HTML lesson
Doing this
<blockquote>paste copied text here</blockquote>
Results in this
<b>bold</b>
bold
<i>italic</i>
italic
vivian Frankford #51
LOL you said he is a string theorist LOL when you quoted him.LOL
That means LOL that you LOL brought it up.
vivian Frankford,
In the United States, and apparently in Britain, “political correctness” means things like not using blackface as a halloween costume, not naming your sports team using a racial slur for Indians, not deliberately using the wrong gender pronouns for people. In other words, it is used to disparage people for proposing that marginalized groups should be treated with the same basic decency and respect that other groups are treated with.
Here’s your definition from your previous post:
As you can see, the two are different, i.e. it has undergone a *gasp* transformation.
I’m enjoying the fact that you called me out on not knowing analogies and then promptly displayed your shit grasp of them for all to see. What a clueless asshole you are.
vivian Frankford @51:
That’s not what chigau said at all. For “poor ability with English” just look in a mirror. “X being an expert in A does not qualify X to talk about B” is not remotely the same as “X is not worth listening to on B because X is an expert on A”.
So we’ve established that you’re an illiterate racist idiot. Didn’t take long. Next!
oooh Saad #55
I am sure you are wrong.
vivian Frankford is far from clueless.
vivian Frankford knows exactly precisely what they are doing.
#56, Rob Grigjanis:
‘That’s not what chigau said at all.’
Read what chigau wrote: ‘Luboš Motl is a theoretical physicist, whose speciality is string theory. This does not make him worth listening to regarding linguistics or semantics.’ I.e., F is a C, and F’s being a C does not make F worth listening to on Y.’ chigau is right on this point. But no one here has said that Motl is worth listening to on linguistics or semantics because he is a string theorist. As I wrote, ‘I never said [Motl] is worth listening to on linguistics or semantics just because he is a string theorist. You [chigau] are the one who brought up this irrelevancy.’
‘[W]e’ve established that you’re a[] . . . racist.’
Questioning whether someone’s English is poor due to his or her being Chinese, i.e., not a native speaker of English, is not racism; rather, it’s merely rational. Now, if I had asked whether chigau is dumb because he is Chinese… But I wouldn’t ask that. For Chinese people have a higher mean IQ than Americans (I’m American).
vivian Frankford #58
You are a fucking idiot.
#59, chigau:
The things I said apply also to the Japanese.
oh my
what was that wooshing sound?
*performs the giant pile of assumptions dance*
Now, what was that about ‘leftists’ being moronic and unintelligent?
Rowan #62
pix or it didn’t …
you know the drill…
use the sooper-sekret-code, vivian Frankford will never figure it out
I’ll take passive racist stereotypes for 200.00, Alex!
OTOH, “Demented Fuckwits” didn’t make the list, so that makes me happy.
*reads thread*
sees all Frankford has written and the responses.
obvious conclusion:
is correct wrt Frankford.
no further communication needed.
also North America.
https://nativeamericanjewelrytips.wordpress.com/2010/06/10/native-american-symbol-whirling-log-swastika/
I notice that the article vivian Frankford links to @36 does not give any actual examples of the usage of 2political correctness” it claims for the early 20th century (Jaws@43 gives one, but does not source it). I would be interested in any actual, properly sourced examples, although they would not affect the overall point that leftists have not used the term unironically for many decades, and certainly were not doing so when the right started using the term as an all-purpose sneer.
Frankford@36 claims that:
It is utterly absurd to claim that the things right-wingers who have been braying about “political correctness” for the past few decades have been objecting to, are “basically… the same” as “the policies and principles of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union” – although I am quite prepared to believe that Frankford is stupid enough to babble about “cultural Marxism” as well as “political correctness”.
I wasn’t the biggest fan of Hillary, but voting Clinton was politically correct?
I’ll show myself out…
Has anyone linked to the “Conservative Correctness” page on Rationalwiki yet?
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Conservative_correctness