Brief Thought
Irradiated by LabRat
…Which I will hopefully have time later to expand upon.
Reading the discussion at Popehat about comment moderation approaches, and the way upvoting and downvoting comments seems to be more about popularity of opinion or agree/disagree than about the quality of civility of the comment, I find myself musing on the distinction between “unpopular opinion” and “asshole comment”. Especially because of the frequency with which I see the acronym “PC” for “politically correct”.
Although I’ve encountered cases which I genuinely regarded as “political correctness gone wild”- mostly cases in which someone tried to completely do away with an unpleasant reality by altering language until it was sufficiently sugarcoated- in the last five years or so I’ve vastly more often run into cases in which someone was claiming that their own abominable behavior or belligerent/dismissive/openly hateful assertion was getting negative social reaction because it was “un-PC”.
….Yes, I will expand upon this, which I should have time to do soon. Perhaps. I hope.
September 23rd, 2012 at 12:01 am
Looking forward to that one!
September 23rd, 2012 at 12:42 am
Me too!
September 26th, 2012 at 6:22 pm
I read this in passing a while ago, and wondered what it was all about.
However, the question of what “politically correct” means won’t quite leave me. I’ve developed a thread of thought that looks kind of like this:
-Most of the social norms that used to go under the label of politeness have been reduced or changed.
-This change is slowly passing out of living memory, but whenever I sit down to chat with members of my grandparent’s generation, I get the impression that they grew up under different rules of social discourse than I did.
-There is a new set of rules about public discourse, and different sets of “Should-Not-Talk-About” flags. Politeness hasn’t disappeared, but the list of polite topics and discussion methods have changed.
-We don’t really have a single cultural label for “polite” or “language for respectable company” anymore
-There are labels analogous to “fit for TV”, or some such.
-The term “politically correct” was often used to describe a new set of rules for social discourse. I seem to recall that it gained notice in the 80s and 90s, but I might be wrong.
-Usually, “politically correct” seems to be understood as “in accordance with left-of-center thought”
-But sometimes, “politically correct” is used as if it is a new label for “mentionable in polite company”
Just a few thoughts, and I hope I didn’t steal your thunder.
September 27th, 2012 at 12:19 am
Nope, not at all. I will consider that when I’m writing. I’ve just been… this week has been… not good.
September 27th, 2012 at 12:49 am
Karrde: That’s quite a generous interpretation of “politically correct”. (I’m not saying you’re wrong!) The way I remember it being introduced, growing up in a centre-left family in conservative Alberta, was that people who found themselves unable to be casually racist, sexist, homophobic, ableist, or &c. used accusations of “political correctness” to claim the victim mantle for themselves and throw the blame on someone else.
I can empathize: These folks grew up in a social environment where they could joke about “lazy indians” or “woman drivers” or whatever and get a laugh rather than a glare, and without asking them what they felt society changed out from under them. Now people — particularly (in the Albertan context) those self-important intellectuals from Toronto — are telling them they’re horrible people, Nazis almost, when all they wanted to do was tell a joke. Change feels coercive.
September 28th, 2012 at 8:13 pm
I’ve heard politically correct used in two different ways:
My understanding of ‘politically correct’ is that it means saying something for political reasons (e.g. to curry favour), rather than because it’s actually the truth or for any better reason. (and it seems to have none of the positive connotations of ‘diplomatic’, it’s more a slimy thing).
IMO, it’s a negative thing, with very much an implication of dishonesty. If you actually are saying something because it’s more respectful or kind or truthful, you’d say you were being respectful or kind or truthful…
OTOH, I’ve also sometimes heard people use it much more neutrally as described by karrde, as a sort of modern etiquette.
For me it’s the first meaning that generally comes to mind when I hear the term, partly because I hear it used that way the overwhelming majority of the time (like 100 times more often), and partly because the actual words ‘politically correct’ sound like that’s what they mean.
September 28th, 2012 at 8:19 pm
I admit that when I’m on a forum that uses voting, I usually do vote based on agreement more than on quality of the discussion. Or to be more exact, I tend to vote for posts that express well a position that I agree with. Even while agreeing that voting just favours popular posts rather than better thought or better written ones, and not really like the system - if that IS the system, then I will want opinions I agree with highlighted.