"Great" Sitcoms we can no longer watch aka political correctness

At their best, tags are informational. They tell us quickly what a thread is about and allow us to browse by categories that interest us. But there are less noble uses of tags that are becoming increasingly more common.

When tags are used as an editorial comment, they are much less useful. Often A2K cliches use the tags to signal each other which threads their opinion group will agree with (this is perhaps somewhat useful).

The tags that are personal attacks cross a line from informational to uncivil. They are an anonymous slap in the face, and they work as a form of group pressure to weed out unpopular opinions before people even have the chance to read them.

Political Correctness is a term that is thrown about quite a bit these days, on Able2Know and elsewhere. The term is almost always used as a put down. The problem is that the term has no specific meaning. It is used in so many context that it can be applied to almost anything which renders the term useless.

Consider the following uses of the term.(This is not even close a complete list).

1) Taking offense at words that some people find insulting (such as "queer", "anchor baby" or "tar baby").
2) Having sympathy for someone that you don't think deserves sympathy.
3) Teaching history classes that specifically focus on a minority.
4) Saying that anything or anyone is racist.
5) Holding any number of political positions (such as gun control or racial profiling).
6) Machines that speak more than one language.
7) Suggesting that any of a number of groups, for example women or homosexuals, should be treated more fairly.
8) Acknowledging there is more than one holiday in December.

Now I am suggesting the term is useless. This is not an statement about any specific action or event that may be tagged with this meaning label. With such a great number of things that are labeled "political correctness" it is inevitable that some of these things will be bad. For example, I am pretty solidly against censorship of any kind. But this leads to an interesting paradox.

The people who throw around the "political correctness" label are often trying to stifle debate. They want to be able to call people "queer", but they feel no one should ever be called "bigot". It seems reasonable that in a free society you should be able to say either. Free speech is free speech.

Since the term is so broad it is useless there is nothing inherently wrong with being politically correct. It is a silly endeavor to try to lump such a broad swath of America under the same term as if everyone who doesn't want to be called "nigger" is in favor of stricter gun laws. It would be more honest and useful to express your position without using terms that are both prejudicial and meaningless.

Just to be clear, I don't want to prevent people from using the term "politically correct". Certainly the term should be allowed. In my opinion the people who use this term as a broad put down to shortcut real discussion are being dumb asses.

I'm not sure why you couldn't make All in the Family today. Are you saying that it would take attacks from the right because it makes fun of a white, blue collar everyman?

Ok, why do you think you couldn't make All in the Family today?

All in the Family was groundbreaking in the 1960s.

Awesome - you see it is sexist, but not - the point is the person (Archie) is making sexist remarks but he is the one you are laughing at because what he says is so crazy - "equality is unfair"

1960s - 1970s.... I don't know how old you are, but for me all those decades are kind of blurred together into a fuzzy misspent youth.