Political Correctness And The Death Of The Truth In Society

Can you tell us the last time someone attempted to intimidate you because of your having spoken up? Did the intimidation succeed? Were your civil rights violated? Were you effectively silenced?

You will come to your own conclusions regarding Hawkeye, just as the rest of us have done.

He started out cordial because he actually found somebody who agreed with some of what he said. Then, the real Hawkeye emerged.

No, but it shoud be borne in mind that my schooling was completed
long before anyone ever heard of political correctness.
I did not have a fight on my hands.

My post was an exhortation to fight against P.C.




David

Well, given that you have pointed out that you didn't have a fight on your hands, i think it appropriate to point out that one can ignore political rectitude without a point by simply ignoring it. I doubt that any fight is necessary.

This is tempest in a teapot stuff, and i suspect the original post of being a cover for racism, even if the author himself were not aware of it.

I 'm sure that 's true much of the time; not always.
I 've heard of college students (and professors) having some threats on campus.

Perhaps hawkeye should practice a bit more mild mannerism. Oui? Dear everybody. Had I truly been offended I would never have posted here again. I just find some people should keep a more mild temper.

As you well know, that is hearsay evidence, and not really worth much. Do you have any positive evidence that anyone was genuinely endangered?

there was no temper directed towards you, so you had no cause to be offended. Had you chosen to be offended anyway that would have been your problem, not mine.

I believe we have all strayed from the original objective of this topic? No? Perhaps we could get more P.C. supporters and P.C. haters to discuss the reasoning for their positions?

On the contrary, in practice taking unnecessary offense is the primary tenet of political correctness. The motivation for this lack of tolerance of other peoples views and opinions is a matter of debate, though I don't think it is all that complicated. Some people are naturally prickly bossy SOB's. That type has always been around, it is just now they are empowered and think that they can control the rest of us.

So I'm guessing you are not a fan of P.C. hawkeye? In which case I'll have to agree with you.

What Hispanic communities are you takings about?

The South Florida Cuban community for example is surely Latin without any of the problems you are referring to.

Painting whole ethic/racist groups with a broad brush is a good indication that the painter is a bigot.

I would like to explore this proposition since it seems, at the outset to be a correct statement.

Even if we assume it to be correct for the moment, i wonder whether it is a negative or a positive. The tone of the OP does suggest that the author takes it as a negative.

I believe the statement to be correct, philosophically speaking. I therfore wonder on what fair grounds one could dispute it. Moreover, this topic is quite relevent as i think it reflects the trends of how the American society is going through an intellectual churning of sorts. You are getting the taste of your own medicine or poison should i say. Questions such as these will help unwind the stress jamming up in the average American mind.

Political correctness is a concept imbued in a democratic society. Such a society, even if set-up as a farce, has to have a level of tolerance to suffer the most extreme of view-points and thought processes. The political players who wants to run or is active in the rigours and vigours of a democratic society fights out issue's through a political process enshrined through tradition or documents called as 'the Constitution'.
In such structures of governance, the issue of morality and practicality is sorted out. The laws of the land reflects the moral turpititude of the people ruling those lands.

If the society in question has come to such passe as has been suggested in the OP, than the society and definitely its members are themselves to be blamed.
But how does it show that blacks and hispanics are morally pathological than the white anglo-saxons or caucasians.

Further to those assertions, i would like to touch up on the issue of ethnic disparity. In a multi-lingual, multi-religious, multi-ethnic society it is not surprising that such thoughts arises time to time in puritanical minds. If my culture is getting affected by other influences, by which it could mean the processes by which the young generation of my community is deviated from my own ethnic0- cultural norms and rules of behaviour, then, I am bound to be worried about the corruption seeping into my society. (Here when i say my or mine than it is psychological association of my mind with my/our society as if a natural relationship and ownership is established or is assumed)

For example if the observtion is that profanity is a bad influence on young minds, which is mostly accepted as so by moral standards, than surely the moral influence of the older generation is getting curbed by the excessive use of profanities in public life today. But i am afraid on the question of and merits of tracing which group most likely influences the other, especially the negative side, it would be awefully difficult to prove how blacks and hispanics makes an impression on a white man's kid more than their own kith and kin.

Even if it is generally believed that blacks and hispanics swear more than the average white guy, it surely can't be logically concluded that white kids will necessarily be influenced by such bad behaviour. There surely must be some other cause.

The increasing degradation of public morality is a social phenomenon across the board. An holier than thou attitude is self conceit and does conspire to look down upon other groups, and in some cases accuse the other, for all the ills of the society. It is a dangerous path to take.

it is not really dangerous, as at some point people will get sick of it and stop doing it...problem solved. However, it is disturbing how much credibility the Holy Rollers have gained over my lifetime. We used to be smarter, we used to laugh at them and resist their manipulations.

There is no doubt that public decency has to be maintained at all costs. However, ironically, America is finding itself in soupy situation. All the while, the upwardly mobile, capitalist influenced, conservative citizens asked for more freedom of expression so much so that judges allowed pornography to be a right within the provision of the first amendment, by which a whole lot of good did happen but its flip side was that TV (TV personalities have become one of the richest people) and pornography inflitrated every home in America like no where else. Today, some of the ultra-conservative have now started thinking about regulating such immoral economic activities as they find themselves at their wits end in protecting their children and community from an ultra-liberal society.

Hope you'l can solve the problems of immorality and decadence in public life.

Bullshit. Our problem is much closer to the fact that we are approximating Sharia Law than it is that we are too loose.

And who cares about TV any more? That is an old technology that is on the way out. Increasingly video is streamed on the web, though sometimes we view it on what was once called TV's. AND BTW, almost all porn has been on the web and is available to all (except for the heavily Internet censored states of China and Australia) for over a decade.....what cave have you been hiding out in?

Perhaps the biggest issue with PC is that it stifles legitimate debate. It is not possible to have a productive conversation without generalisations. Can you imagine it "The <group of people> have a rampant crime issue. Of course not all of them are criminals, and I don't want anyone to tar them all with the same brush because that would be wrong. What we are saying here is we need to get to the bottom of the problem. Now, a larger than normal percentage of them are poor. I don't want anyone to think that being poor equals being a criminal, because that would be wrong...." etc etc etc.

When all that needs to be said is "This (group of people) are caught in a poverty cycle, and we need to find a way to break that. That poverty cycle goes hand in hand with a higher crimerate, which reinforces the poverty cycle.

Note : even the above paragraph, if said by a politician, would be attacked by certain people as racist...despite it being absolute truth (that lower socio-economic areas have higher crime rates)

Secondly, PC presumes that people are stupid, and cannot separate a generalised statement from the individual. This patronising viewpoint is usually highly inaccurate.

Thirdly, PC/Racism is often used as a power play tool (just as any emotional belief usually ends up being) by people in power, and also by minority groups. Sometimes it's used to silence debate, and other times it's used to smear a persons reputation.

Like any emotional belief, PC is often used to establish ones 'righteousness'...which, whenever righteousness rears it's ugly head, means it's used to oppress people and their cultures...multiculturalim's 'we must respect other cultures by not doing anything to offend them, and upholding their cultures whether something about it offends us or not', is another form of saying 'let me place your culture's importance above mine, while I subjugate my culture to yours'. The truth of the matter, which many people don't realise is 'this is my culture and we're proud of it...but not to the extent that I think we're superior to yours. To the same degree, be proud of your culture, but don't flaunt it as in any way superior to ours'.

Lastly in relation to PC. It is human nature to be uncomfortable with things that a different. PC will never ever change this. PC denies human nature, despite the overwhelming evidence of it - wherever in the world you travel. The better way would have been to teach respectful assertion, but instead all they teach is 'one way obligated respect'..which causes more tension and resentment that it prevents.

So the question "Does PC help or hinder society?" is, in your view, answerable by "Yes" or - your chosen answer - "No"? That's not logic, it's definitely not philosophy, it's not even basic English. If anyone looked for proof that political correctness destroys language, you just provided it.

You cite Orwell without appearing to have read him - if you had, you would see how nonsensical your 2 quoted phrases really are:

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm