Freedom of Speech(not) and Politically Correct - Part Duex.

Geeze Louise . . . i had no intention of turning this thread into a battleground of feminist dogma. For Habibi, Soz and anyone else, please note that my point on that particular, not very germaine point, is that it is folly not to recognize the differences between ourselves (people with marked intellectual outlooks) and the general run of society, who give less consideration to such issues, and who are informed by a culture which appalls us, while it seems quite normal to them.

Political rectitude, by the way, Habibi, deserves no such credit for positive social change. Our world is a better place for the activism of the 1960's rather in spite of, than because of political rectitude. That's my never humble opinion, and if you don't like it, how'd you like a knuckle sammich?

Well, so long as, the moment you knock my teeth out, you'll know that you're wrong to do so!!

<grins>

No means no is feminist dogma?

I thought it was the law...oh well...

Of fer chrissake, i'm outta here . . .

Well, dogmagone...

Set - it's good to see the arguments you set out.

First, in order to register an opinion on the sub-discussion, here, I'm with nimh and soz - that No means No and is not situation-specific. That's what our generation has grown up with. I think its actually mysogenist to suggest that women are not responsible for their effect on men, however, and denying any responsibility for the situation is absurd.

Theft is wrong - no question - but to leave a car unlocked with an expensive camera on the seat is not the best way to discourage theft thereof...the parallels are obvious.

Second, you make a very valid point that it's OK for "intellectuals" to deal in various terms, whether PC or not, as parts of a debate or joke, without impacting (or necessarily portraying) our underlying viewpoints. We are practiced at playing "devil's advocate" and seeing both sides of an argument. Where PC actually scores good points, in my opinion, is where it prevents those who are uninformed about the impact of their words on less powerful/numerous groups in society from using terms which perpetuate injustice or opression.

It's a dangerous view, to apply one rule for the educated (who may perceive irony, too) and another for the masses - and it may smack of division based on opportunity - but it's not terrible to recognise this difference...though it may be un-PC!!!

KP

I agree that political rectitude might have a benefit in helping to form a more tolerant society. I would point to this very thread, though, as evidence of how the thoughtless adherence to a principle can lead to ridiculous outcomes. In some cases, such adherence could be damaging to individuals.

I came back to this thread simply to apologize to Ceili for having inadvertantly ruined her thread. But i'm gonna stick my neck out again--so far, only Craven and KP have made reasonable responses to what i wrote, without necessarily agreeing with my position. Soz has give a first class example of a reaction based upon political rectitude. What i wrote had nothing to do with the politics of sex, but she jumped right on it, and came up with that "no means no" sloganeering crap. For her, and for the bunny: that feminist slogan (for that is precisely what it is) would mean nothing in a case in which a woman charged a man with rape, but he could make a case convincing to the court that she had, without coercion, disrobed and joined him in an intimate situation--very likely, he would be acquitted. And that is the point of a condemnation of political rectitude. It has the absolutist, dogmatic character of religious belief to say that any position with regard to human behavior is applicable in absolutely every situation, without exception. For Habibi, i can't for the life of me understand why you apply political rectitude to the smash-mouth situation i described--it was simply an example of ill-considered behavior, the results of which are both the immediate and ultimate responsibility of the unfortunate victim--just as KP describes with the camera left on the seat of the unlocked car. Trying to equate such examples with political rectitude, a very specific appeal to dogmatic belief, and not a standard for behavioral decisions, is to so broaden the term as to make it meaningless.

I know that having decided to respond after i'd decided to leave means any response to what i've just written is fair game. So be it.

I missed the first PC thread, I 've been pretty busy just lately, but I hate PC in all it's forms and agree that reasonable people should listen to remarks and jokes and just plain inadvertant stupid **** in context.

We have a rule at the Bear house. If it's funny, it's excused.

Let's face it boys and girls we're every one of us at any given moment potentially the butt of one joke or another, and i suspect there's a cliche for every imaginable group of people.

Let's also remember that every cliche and every stereotype is, at least a leeeeetle bit based in a leeeeetle reality there somewhere or it wouldn't have been called attention to in the first place.

Take that shitting in the woods thing.....you don't see me starting a protest group do ya?

We're all destined for the same dirt nap folks, might as well relax while we're here :wink:

You assume a great deal with very little evidence, Setanta.

You have absolutely no idea what my attitudes are in relation to the sort of situation you describe - (which comes out as a hoary old chestnut in all such discussions, and possibly as a red herring, like all the occasional extreme situations whose trotting out Craven mentions above as one of the ploys used to attempt to render ridiculous things which normally make perfect sense - whether it bears any relationship to reality I have no way of knowing - it certainly bears none to any reality that I have participated in) except that, if a no is expressed, by anyone of either gender, then going on makes it rape or sexual assault - this, as has been said not just by Sozobe and myself, but by others whom you have not chosen to make assumptions about, is both the law and ethical behaviour. The rape case is always harder to make stick than the therft case - this is life.

You have made an assumption that I do not see the human relevance of situational issues - in this you are quite wrong, as it happens. I have enormous situational understandings of many, many things - this no more changes my view of whether or not a crime has been committed than the camera in the car as opposed to in the well-guarded shop illustration affects whether or not a theft has been committed. Where it does come in is in considering what response is a just one - as in pleas in mitigation.

Although it is none of your, or anyone else's business, since you HAVE made a series of quite unwarranted assumptions, I would add that, in my personal life, on the one occasion in which I DID wish to withdraw consent very late in the game, because of certain sudden changes in my estimation of the fella's character, I decided this was actually quite unreasonable, for the sort of reasons you describe - especially as the fella had not actually done anything TO me - just revealed his true self, quite without realising it, or that it would be a problem. I have no doubt, though, unpleasant as I then, suddenly, and with further later knowledge, increasingly, found him to be - even, as I say, given this I am sure he WOULD have stopped - never questioning that, no matter how angry and frustrated he felt, to not do so would be rape.


I wonder - and this is a genuine question - if the naming of this as rape would cause similar accusations of "PC" and militancy if the scenario was of two fellas, one gay, one wanting to experiment with homosexual sex - where the gay man was much stronger than the experimenter - where the experimenter happily went along with the encounter until just before penetration - then decided that it was too much for him, and decided to stop, but the other man went ahead and forced him to submit to anal intercourse? Is that really rape, or would calling it such be unreasonable?

I dont know about America and I fully admit I am no expert on legal affairs - but then, as far as I know, neither are you - but I doubt that very, very much.

If the woman (or, in the very apt parallel dlowan sketches about the gay men, one of the two men), would join her lover in "an intimate situation", "disrobing" and all, but would make vocally clear that she did not wish for the intimacy to extend to intercourse, and he forced her to have it anyway, I would bet my bottom dollar that he would NOT be acquitted, not here, not anymore.

And that directly pertains to the rest of your argument. You brought forward this example as one that supposedly proves that "political rectitude" has it wrong in its "absolutist, dogmatic character of religious belief [when saying] that any position with regard to human behavior is applicable in absolutely every situation, without exception."

But, yes, even if the motivation of the woman (or man) to go to x length and then say "stop" might be situationally determined in all kinds of (pleasant and unpleasant) ways, the red line for the other that her/his "no" constitutes does, yes, remain applicable in every situation, without exception.

And the fact that the law treats it as such nowadays is, indeed, thanks to the new norms on this matter that PC has brought to the debate. As said, in 1958 (or 1973, for that matter), the guy might have been acquitted. Now, I wouldnt think so.

Dlowan brought her example, I can bring mine. I once had an affair with a woman, but the second length of time I spent with her, I had reasons to tell her that, no, I didnt want to go past point X. We would go up to that point, but then stop. I had to tell her "stop", every time, too - even though I'd also already told her beforehand, she would still always try, and try again. It was not pleasant.

OK, now any reasonable mind would obviously say, looking at that story, that it was extremely foolish for me to enter into that situation, in the first place. And I'd be the first to say so. Not just was it foolish of me, it was not very nice, either - she wanted me, and I kept stringing he along - that is, I didnt mean to, but that was the net effect, getting hot with her but then always drawing that line at the end again. What can I say? I was ambivalent, I didnt have the heart to say "no" to all of it - a range of weaknesses on my part.

Now - if we're talking "victim", "perpetrator", "good guy/bad guy" scenarios, would any of those labels be situationally determined, if you look at a story like that? Hell yeh. No dogma would retroactively make me into a "victim" for having to fend off her further advances, after having taken her that far - that would at least partly be my responsibility - and I think that roughly equates with the point you were making.

But my point, and the point of the politically correct dogma of "no means no" here, would be that, had she at some point physically forced me to have intercourse with her anyway, it would still very much have been rape! In that case, I would have been a victim. Thats where what you call a "dogmatic belief" appears as the obvious, generally applicable truism it is - nothing behaviorally contextual about it. As soon as you have to force someone, you're transgressing both moral and legal standards - period, regardless of what the lead-up to it was.

Now if that hypotheticality sounds a little silly, its because, hopefully, few women in their right mind would go there - would even think that doing so would be anything but rape. Yet when it's the woman "voluntarily disrobing" and "joining in intimacy", apparently we are to believe that the meaning of continuing over her "no" after a specific point in time is contextually relative. In fact, following you, insisting otherwise is a kind of mindless hanging on to feminist dogma, instead of thinking for oneself. Well, I have little sympathy for PC in general, but I'm glad it has taken much of the state/law/education system to where it has little truck with such arguments.

This is interesting, thread got all meta on us.

My reaction was based on political rectitude? <shaking head>

The phrase "political correctness" and Setanta's variant "political rectitude" are, (as the above hopefully illustrates), completely meaningless. It is bandied about by all corners of the political spectrum (does a spectrum have corners?) and is generally understood to be a pejorative, but beyond that...?

I remember being surprised when fishin' used "PC" in reference to a case where a 7-year-old had mentioned that his mom was lesbian, and was then punished by the school for saying so. (He was "talking inappropriately.")

Fishin' said, "To me is looks like political correctness gone overboard."

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=468189#468189

I thought PC was in the service of the opposite -- giving gay people special treatment, special rights, giving in to their demands to flaunt their deviant sexuality in front of innocent children, that sort of thing.

Anyway, just one example that comes to mind, many many many available on A2K alone. Everyone uses "PC" as a pejorative. But what does it MEAN?

Here's what I propose -- an imperfect, but more precise terminology. Call it "Glorified Victimhood."

An example:

I met E.G. in a housing co-op, I lived there first, he lived there solo for several months when I was in Europe. He is an alpha type, the women in the co-op were always comparing him to their fathers and getting pissed at him. I stayed with him at the co-op briefly when I returned, and new people had moved in who knew him but not me, and made certain assumptions about me. There was one lesbian couple in particular (I think I learned "Lesbian until graduation" from patiodog the first time I told this story) who were openly disdainful of me. White, breeder, not interesting.

Then, there was some kerfuffle with the phone, and they realized I was Deaf. Oh! A disabled sister! How fascinating!! How wonderful! How worthy!

Their thinking (and they really said variations of the "disabled sister" crap) was prime GV, and it pissed me off.

Now, GV is still imprecise, but perhaps it can help focus the debate, such as it is. There is a lot of what is commonly called "PC" that bothers me, too; the "differently abled" doublespeak et al. Most of what bothers me about it seems to be distilled within GV.

Bill to Nix "Outdated" Terms for People with Disabilities"

Excerpt:

Under a proposal backed by a group of disabled people, the state would have to use "people-first" terminology in its laws and official documents.

For example, "the disabled" or "the mentally ill" would be replaced by phrases such as "individuals with disabilities" and "individuals with mental illness."

While it's a simple rearrangement of words, it's important because it "shows that they are people first, and that disabilities are secondary," said Donna Lowary, state program coordinator for People First, a nonprofit advocacy group.

Lowary said the "outdated" language currently used in laws "attaches negative labels to the self-esteem."

Undoubtedly, this will be a welcome change from the current system, where the laws describe the mentally ill as "crazies," "nutjobs," or "stark raving loonies," and describe the disabled as "crips," "wheelies," and, in the case of quadruple amputees, "human footstools."

Negative labels to the self-esteem indeed!

Great posts by nimh while I was typing.

For terms of this discussion, i consider political rectitude to be an adherence to dogma partaking of the fervor of religious devotion, and admitting of no mitigation or exception to the belief held.

Dlowan, i made no unwarranted assumption. You said that "no means no" is not feminist dogma, but rather that it is the law. I don't know that to be the case. I made no assumptions about your knowledge of situational issues--i was simply pointing out that parroting "no means no" in all situations, without regard to the details of any situation, constitutes dogmatic adherence to an idea, which in my thinking is a case of political rectitude. I have no objection to you changing a definition of the circumstances to one of an alleged homosexual assault--my point, and the one which the professor of whom i wrote was referring to, is that there is an element of personal responsibility for the situations in which one finds oneself, which ought not to be ignored. Therefore, i object to political rectitude as blind adherence to dogma of a character like that of religious fervor.

I would remind Habibi that i began my initial response to Soz's post with the caveat that i understand and accept the principle that "no means no." The very fact that Soz couched her reaction in such terms, when the point of the anecdote was a discussion of personal responsibility in such situations is, to my mind, evidence of sloganeering--of using dogmatic terms to apply to all situations. I have in no place stated that i would agree with the character of such a defense to a charge of rape. I continue to assert that Dlowan's bald statement that "no means no" is the law, is either an unsupportable statement, or one which she has so far failed to support.

I'm curious about Ceili's take on this.

These threads were predicated on the fact that PC is bad. (Right?) Part of my exasperation with the whole "PC is bad" thing is because I have often been accused of being PC when I think I'm being commonsensical. Hopefully, my posting record on A2K has shown that I am far more likely to buck a trend and say, "actually, I think..." at the risk of getting myself in hot water than reflexively spout dogma.

So, this has become a case in point. As nimh has pointed out really excellently, one can have tolerance for all sorts of ambiguity while still acknowledging that at some point there is a red line. Acknowledging that red line has somehow brought forth charges of PC ("political rectitude.") This is not philosophy, it is law, though I guess Joefromchicago or Jes can comment on that more thoroughly.

So, to get meta again, what do you think of this discussion, Ceili? Was it PC of me to point out that I agreed with the women who said that if sexual intercourse takes place after a woman expresses her objections, even if she had disrobed etc., that is still rape? ("Rape" is a legal term, by the way, not a philosophical one.) If so, if it was PC, what made it such? What would be the less PC approach?

Setanta, I brought up "no means no" for a very specific reason, regarding the TIME your story took place.