Political Correctness

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Pup7 said:
No, there is no difference.

You can’t go around telling everyone you’re offended because you disagree. It’s wrong. It is stopping everyone else from having an opinion that differs from yours.

That is my point.
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Isn’t that precisely what you’re doing here? Telling people you’re offended by their offense?
 
Yes, it is, when it reaches the level of foolishness.

Here’s another one.

A woman was written up by HR because a man complained she was using a hot water bottle in her lap under her desk to relieve menstrual cramps. She hadn’t said anything to the man, she wasn’t bothering anyone, she had not made a big deal out of it. He saw it, asked her what it was for, she told him, he complained it made him uncomfortable to hear her “discuss her problems”.

She said “it’s for cramps”.

This actually happened. Google it.

What?
 
Yep.

Ironic, isn’t it?

But are you implying I can’t find it ridiculous? Because I would say that’s saying I can’t have an opinion.

Also, look at the examples of PC gone off the rails. That is the actual problem I’m talking about.

The problem, though, is it never seems to work both ways.

Look at the National Anthem debacle.

People were outraged, expressed their feelings against kneeling - and were immediately told THEY were in the wrong and they had no clue what they were talking about.

Fair? No, it wasn’t.
 
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How people interpret satire is quite subjective. “Hi. I’m satirizing X.” “Well I’m very offended by your satire!” As I just pointed out to Joe, I do think a line may have gotten crossed when The Simpsons moved from satire to being just a cartoon. In the latter case, Apu is getting stereotyped without the satire or irony behind it, and that’s wrong.
 
Perhaps what is important is, if you are going to use stereotypes, you use stereotypes of all sorts of groups so that it is not one-sided. If only one group in a show is caricatured, it could be seen as promoting an idea that everyone else is normal but them. But, The Simpsons make fun of a lot of different groups, which makes it acceptable.
 
I stuck it out through season 12 or so. The first 8 seasons were definitely the best. I lost interest when it got more low brow with Homer getting hurt or maimed in every single episode.
 
I’m simply not following your logic. Maybe you can help me see what I’m missing.

It seems you’re saying that …

You should be free to say the things you want to say and that people should accept this right. (Here I agree)

However, you also seem to be saying that people who disagree and voice those concerns are somehow doing something wrong or unfair when they say what they want to say in response. (Here I don’t see you can simultaneously hold this belief and the previous one)
 
Or when I was nursing my baby discreetly at Starbucks when an employee asked me to “cover up with a blanket” because “somebody might get offended.”

Edited to add - new can of worms. Sort of.
 
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No, that isn’t what I mean at all.

What I’m saying is equal consideration is rarely if ever given to the other side of the story.

Look at the real life verifiable examples I gave. How is that fair?
 
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Pup7 said:
Yep.

Ironic, isn’t it?

But are you implying I can’t find it ridiculous? Because I would say that’s saying I can’t have an opinion.

Also, look at the examples of PC gone off the rails. That is the actual problem I’m talking about.
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No, you certainly can find it ridiculous. And you’re free to say so. Just as others are free to say they find certain comments offensive.

Why shouldn’t those who accept politically correct language see you as trying to silence them, just as you believe they’re trying to silence you?
 
I’m not trying to silence them.

It’s discussion. And it’s unfair for a side to keep saying “you must do/say/think X because I’m offended - end of convo, I’m right, you’re wrong”.

Hang on - what about the rights of the other person?

How about the 13 dead at Ft Hood?
 
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This comes back to the problem of conflating multiple lines of thinking. At this point it’s not clear what your most concerned with.

Is your concern private citizens speaking their mind when they feel offended? Is it businesses making decisions to protect their bottom lines in response to such private statements? Is it actions of governments in response to such business decisions or private statements?

These are three different things and likely require three different conversations. Which one are you concerned about here?
 
You can be offended. I’d be hard-pressed to stop you.

It’s what you do with those feelings that matter.

Expressing how one feels offended is perfectly acceptable. It is to be embraced in a marketplace of ideas under the protection of free speech. I wouldn’t even call that political correctness.

Political correctness goes beyond that. It demands that other people make special sacrifices - censorship, penalties, “safe spaces” - to accommodate one’s offended feelings.
 
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It is wrong. More to the point, they set up their satire in such a way that it was always destined to become disparaging humor.

Satire is not in and of itself an objective art form. It is dependent upon subjectivity. The target has to feel the sting of the humor used as weapon (subjective). Indeed, the very subject of the satire is largely based on the authors’ subjective understandings of good and bad, right and wrong, vice and virtue, etc.
 
In this case, I’d say what I just told Grace. PC isn’t about feeling offended but what one does with those feelings. If you express them through speech, a documentary for example, fair enough! If you demand that The Simpsons be banned from TV, you cross a line. Because it’s all subjective, as you acknowledge, we should all have access to expressing that subjectivity.
 
blackforest said:
You can be offended. I’d be hard-pressed to stop you.

It’s what you do with those feelings that matter.

Expressing how one feels offended is perfectly acceptable. It is to be embraced in a marketplace of ideas under the protection of free speech. I wouldn’t even call that political correctness.

Political correctness goes beyond that. It demands that other people make special sacrifices - censorship, penalties, “safe spaces” - to accommodate one’s offended feelings.
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This is where the distinction that jesucated keeps trying to explain comes in. Everyone should be free to express opinions – even those about how I might offend another. When laws are established to bar freedom of speech, we’re in a different realm.

Note, however, that if a college, for example, wants to create a “safe space,” that’s likely its prerogative. And this, too, is different than making certain forms of speech illegal.
 
This is yet another entirely different line of conversation. Much of what you seem to be saying in this thread is that people over police the views of others. Now you seem to be saying that because these views were anti-American they should’ve been policed in some way. You can’t have it both ways. Either you defend the individual right to speech, or you don’t. This doesn’t mean that somehow “political correctness” caused the death of 13 people. It means that a person shot 13 people and killed them. Those deaths are unspeakably horrifying and tragic, but to suggest as you are here that it was a political correctness issue is woefully inaccurate.
 
It’s quite clear. I’ve said it multiple times.

There’s rarely consideration for the viewpoint of the other party. It’s always the offended person, or the person who may be offended.

Again - I’ve given multiple examples.
 
This is such a central point, so thank you for helping me try to drive it home. We can’t confuse free speech with consequence free speech. Free speech protects us from government censure but not from the responses of others and the responses of the marketplace.
 
jesucated said:
This doesn’t mean that somehow “political correctness” caused the death of 13 people
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The Army admitted their failure to take action caused the shooting. I read the statements.

They changed policies as a result. That sort of thing is now a DOD code. It wasn’t prior to that.
 
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