I said I wouldn't be posting anymore in this thread, but I feel I do owe apologies to those I have attacked and to those members who I have offended either in this thread or the Flag Thread.

Please accept my Heartfelt Apologies!

Best Wishes To You All!
Giselle

Originally Posted by wayfarer07

I think this thread tends to fall into the trap of thinking we can always label political-correctness as being the same sort of thing all the time. It may be more useful to make a list of categories of NON-PC speech to better understand what we think PC even is.

I see where you're going with this, and it may actually be more advantageous to illustrate that PC and pluralistic approaches are trying to accomplish the same goals, but by different means. Neither necessarily wants the following examples you've indicated:

Originally Posted by wayfarer07

1. Rude speech with a tinge of truth in it that is funny only to certain people, but offensive to whomever it is targeting.
2. Speech which attempts to be truthful at the expense of or regardless of who might be offended by it.
3. Speech that is outright vulgar or hateful and targeted towards a group of people.

The point, is that the approach by which those things are avoided is markedly different between the two philosophies. So here's the problem:

In a diverse society, where different groups coming together have different norms and comfort zones, those differing levels are bound to clash.
And the solutions offered by the different approaches:

PC:

1. Standardized speech, dictated by a select few, in the hopes it will change attitudes.
2. Expectation that any and all offensive things will be reported to and dealt with by select authorities.
3. Making all interactions conform to a least common denominator of offense.

Pluralistic:

1. Allowing language to evolve on its own, focusing more on attitudes themselves.
2. Encouraging individuals to work things out when possible, realizing offenses will happen, letting authorities focus on real cases of abuse.
3. Allowing diverse groups to arrive at their own collective comfort levels.

Originally Posted by wayfarer07

To be honest, I really don't see what all the heat is about. We all speak differently when in different company don't we? Besides that, the whole argument is basically about semantics. I don't find any other general disagreement other than a semantic one. Am I wrong?

Where the difference lies is this: Someone who is PC is going to try to make you say something other than, say, "Black-hat SEO" because we shouldn't associate black with bad. Never mind that in the real world no one saying that term remotely thinks of "black man" when using it.

Or here's a situation, loosely based on real occurrences:

A professor tells her students she will automatically mark them down a letter grade if they profess to support the death penalty. Fellow professors, knowing this, keep a list of all executions in the common area of their offices, and knowing she'll be at a vigil the night of the next execution hold an office party in celebration of the execution.

Are the actions of the professor in regard to her students right? Are the professors, outside of bad taste, wrong? Why or why not? I'll withhold my opinions for the moment.

tim

Steve,

If you can find a link or a book title that covers that study I'd be very interested to see it. I can certainly see that if you read or see something offensive you're more likely to act offensively. My driving tends to be different just based on what music I'm listening to. It does make sense.

Originally Posted by vangogh

I think language affects us in a lot of ways. On the surface you can say that we're all adult and we can determine the context with which things are being said. I think a lot more happens in the subconscious, not necessarily when you hear a word once or twice, but when expressions like "That's so gay" are repeated again and again.

To a point, I'm with you. But a teenager grappling with whether s/he is homosexual is facing far more than a word, and it's more than likely that teen uses the phrase "That's so gay" and doesn't make the connection. It's certainly worthy of its own study. But I'd have to say that if I were a teenager approached by that study, I'd probably have said it was pretty "gay". I say that just because I know how many teenagers are.

But what about some of the more extreme examples of trying to change our language, like the example in the last post?

Originally Posted by vangogh

Getting other teens to understand how the expression might make some feel and getting them to use a different expression doesn't harm anyone. There's no downside to teaching the kids to say "That's so stupid" when they mean that's so stupid.

It doesn't harm anyone, but how effective is it really? I keep coming back to the NAACP having a funeral for the "n-word" and the complete ineffectiveness of the move. You can run anything up the flagpole, doesn't mean anyone will salute. Remember that "gay" didn't originally mean homosexual, that term evolved, as does most slang.

Originally Posted by vangogh

Out of curiosity if the expression was "That's so southern" how would feel? I'm guessing it would bother you if something you feel pride in was used as a derogatory expression. Obviously I cant speak for you so maybe it wouldn't bother you, but I'm guessing it would.

I'm more offended by actions than words. The now prohibited example would be a perfect illustration of that. But you could call me a "corn pone, redneck, white trash hillbilly" and it would have little to no effect on me. And, for that matter, people have made reference to the South for generations meaning just that, but so what? That doesn't change the notion that you can try to alter preconceptions, but the language, especially slang, that goes along with evolves with changes in attitude.

tim

All semantics aside, there's no question that there's a class of "politically correct police", especially managing news networks, that will get people fired if their public comments are not deemed to be correct.

Besides the firing of Rick Sanchez, who was one of my favorite TV anchors, the latest is PBS firing Juan Williams for saying Muslims on airplanes make him nervous. http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/juan-...ry?id=11937951 Both of these incidents happened on other people's shows, not the host's show.

Tim here's a PDF about the experiment with the students and politeness/rudeness.

Automaticity of Social Behavior: Direct Effects of Trait Construct and Stereotype Activation on Action

Some title, huh?

There are more, but I wasn't sure at the moment which experiment is in which PDF or post. If you can wait a couple of days I'll be publishing a post on my blog sometime on Monday that links out to a few. If you can't wait do a search for the word 'priming' It should lead you to some or all of the experiments.

But a teenager grappling with whether s/he is homosexual is facing far more than a word

Absolutely. My view is why add to it. The expression is basically saying that being stupid and being gay are the same thing. That's not really fair and I do think any of us would be affected if instead of gay the expression used a word that was associated with ourselves.

It doesn't harm anyone, but how effective is it really?

I can't entirely answer that, but I'd ask effective at what? It's not like changing the expression is trying to change people's attitudes. I don't think that's what the point is. I think it's more trying to prevent a change in attitude for people who do start to associated stupid and gay (in this specific case) as the same.

Again I don't see any downside to getting the point across that the expression "That's so gay" can be hurtful to some people. The only reason for not doing anything is to maintain the status quo, but there's no advantage to that status quo. Nothing is gained in the current expression.

I'm more offended by actions than words

I believe you. I still wonder if it would affect you after awhile. I think it's hard to hear something over and over and not have it affect you. But I do believe you aren't offended by being called names.

And I do agree that people take things too far. I say that for people on both sides of this issue. That's true for anything in life. There are always people who abuse things and take them too far. I don't think a few extremists invalidate the side of the issue though. I don't think that if some take political correctness to an extreme that's bad it means that political correctness in itself is bad. Same thing for the politically incorrect side of this. Otherwise you'll end up seeing everything as bad, since everything is pretty much abused by some.

A lot of this issue to me is also about the context in which the words are spoken. It might for example be appropriate for a comedian to make a politically incorrect joke in a club on a Friday night and then be inappropriate for someone to repeat the joke in the office on Monday morning.

Originally Posted by wayfarer07

All semantics aside, there's no question that there's a class of "politically correct police", especially managing news networks, that will get people fired if their public comments are not deemed to be correct.

In the media in the last few years, that hasn't been restricted to the left wing, either. Bill Maher's Politically Incorrect show being canceled after comments about 9/11 and the scandal with the Dixie Chicks come immediately to mind. There's no doubt in my mind that our society has become entirely too reactionary.

Originally Posted by vangogh

If you can't wait do a search for the word 'priming' It should lead you to some or all of the experiments.

I've started reading it, interesting stuff. It's been known for years that colors, for instance, have a subconscious effect, and has been used everywhere from fast food restaurants to prisons. It would seem to be a foregone conclusion that reading things of a certain nature put a person in the mood of the piece. It does certainly help us personally to know what our triggers are. Institutionally, though, we hit a problem. Certainly we'd structure rules to facilitate people getting along and accomplishing what the institution is there for, but at what point does that structure take an Orwellian turn?

Originally Posted by vangogh

Absolutely. My view is why add to it. The expression is basically saying that being stupid and being gay are the same thing. That's not really fair and I do think any of us would be affected if instead of gay the expression used a word that was associated with ourselves.

And all this time I thought that word meant happy. The dictionary says it does. What about fag? It originally meant stick, and in Britain is used in common speech even today to mean cigarette. Are British people who are coming out going to think that they're cigarettes, or pick up smoking? Or are they going to cower in terror if a friend says he's going to "smoke a fag"?

What about the phrase, "Black-Hat SEO"? What about the words, blackball, blacklist, blackout, and any number of other words that associate black with bad? I suppose we can keep, "in the black", since that's good. How many of those words and phrases, that have been in our collective lexicon for years, do we use and actually make any association at all with black people? My wager is no sane ones. But that's the assertion made to try to strike these words from our vocabulary.

Originally Posted by vangogh

I can't entirely answer that, but I'd ask effective at what? It's not like changing the expression is trying to change people's attitudes. I don't think that's what the point is. I think it's more trying to prevent a change in attitude for people who do start to associated stupid and gay (in this specific case) as the same.

But you repeat yourself. That's effectively the same thing. It's exactly like trying to alter speech will affect attitudes, and in this case an attitude that may not even be present. At least in my experience, kids differentiate from context in which "gay" is used, whether they take it to mean stupid or homosexual. When I asked how effective it would be to try to talk kids out of using the word to mean stupid, it meant just that: Do you think intervention by adults will really get kids to stop using that term, any more than any other slang term that's evolved over even our generation? It's more likely it'll die out on its own, and intervention will simply perpetuate its use.

That gets back to the whole premise of PC. It's nice to know that certain word groups, and the mood in which they're written, affect our attitude. But to attempt forcible change in attitude by changing language is an exercise in futility at best, totalitarian at its worst.

Originally Posted by vangogh

I believe you. I still wonder if it would affect you after awhile. I think it's hard to hear something over and over and not have it affect you. But I do believe you aren't offended by being called names.

Well, therein lies the difference between casual remarks and outright harassment. I think people these days have considerable difficulty differentiating the two, which causes far more problems than society needs.

Originally Posted by vangogh

And I do agree that people take things too far. I say that for people on both sides of this issue. That's true for anything in life. There are always people who abuse things and take them too far. I don't think a few extremists invalidate the side of the issue though. I don't think that if some take political correctness to an extreme that's bad it means that political correctness in itself is bad. Same thing for the politically incorrect side of this. Otherwise you'll end up seeing everything as bad, since everything is pretty much abused by some.

Take a look a few posts back at what I'm defining as the difference between a PC and a pluralistic approach, listed out by differing approaches to what's effectively the same problem, and tell me what you think. My take is that society would probably be better off without incorrectness or outright rudeness, but there's a better way both to define incorrectness and redirect it than what PC offers. I wouldn't go so far to say that everything labeled politically correct is bad. What I would say is that we all need to look at basic human interaction and the way we structure our political systems (most importantly, the ones outside of government) and be very careful not to create for ourselves that brave new world we really ought to fear.

Originally Posted by vangogh

A lot of this issue to me is also about the context in which the words are spoken. It might for example be appropriate for a comedian to make a politically incorrect joke in a club on a Friday night and then be inappropriate for someone to repeat the joke in the office on Monday morning.

Well, sure. The question is, then, does the one offended by it take it up with the person who told the joke, saying, "Hey, this isn't safe for work," or something similar, or immediately run to the boss and complain the first time it happens? If the latter case is what's more likely to happen, with more people "reporting" at the least case of offense, doesn't that create in and of itself the hostile work environment most companies try to prevent?

Meh. I had some other examples, but this is getting rather long, so I'll leave it here for now.

tim

Originally Posted by vangogh

Tim here's a PDF about the experiment with the students and politeness/rudeness.

Automaticity of Social Behavior: Direct Effects of Trait Construct and Stereotype Activation on Action

Some title, huh?

There are more, but I wasn't sure at the moment which experiment is in which PDF or post. If you can wait a couple of days I'll be publishing a post on my blog sometime on Monday that links out to a few. If you can't wait do a search for the word 'priming' It should lead you to some or all of the experiments...

Perhaps you could also point to a more introductory article on priming. For some of us, that PDF was very hard going. I couldn't take it all in.

And, while we're waiting for people to reply, here's something bound to be offensive both to pretty much everybody across the board!



BOTH Conservative and Liberal PC-types would lynch me for posting that. But it does say something about our attitudes, that is, all of us, which is why I'm sharing it.

tim

Actually I still believe that Mr Obama is a clever and sincere man. He just had the awful luck to be elected in the middle of a crisis that probably nobody could handle well.

The cartoon was funny because it had a large element of truth. Mr Obama is being unfairly blamed for the chaos caused by others.

My sentiments exactly. I voted for him, he actually won NC, which is a major feat. The point was that I could see multiple groups saying what the picture did, and the same way. And then I can see multiple groups recoiling at it too.

tim

I think most liberals would think that cartoon is funny. But if it were released in a very public way, talking heads on the right and left would both distance themselves from it, denouncing it in strong language as if they found it very offensive.

Originally Posted by wayfarer07

... as if they found it very offensive.

Yes. There is tremendous pressure to be a hypocrite, and to condemn things that do not offend you at all.