Political correctness run amok

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TopHatFox
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Re: Political correctness run amok

Post by TopHatFox »

Ahhhhh, old people misunderstanding everything. :P

From what I've seen, safe spaces are the antithesis of comfort or sheltering. They are about having very difficult and nuanced conversations about race, religion, sexuality, lifestyle, documentation, wealth, structural power, gender, etc. in a respectful and productive way.

On the specifics of costumes, the deal is to avoid perpetuating symbolic oppression. For instance, wearing a native "american" costume is just another way to show indigenous people everywhere that we as colonialists can not only use their lands to our benefit without asking, but their culture as well; it's a form of symbolic violence.

On that note, my college is currently trying to replace our mascot (Lord Jeff) because he was one of the Europeans that spread diseased blankets in indigenous communities. Having a colonialist mascot is also a form of symbolic violence. Ideally, there would be real, physical change, such as the US government redistributing back indigenous land, but I wouldn't hold my breath on that one; there's too much power at stake.
Last edited by TopHatFox on Wed Oct 26, 2016 9:25 pm, edited 3 times in total.

TopHatFox
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Re: Political correctness run amok

Post by TopHatFox »

P.S. I think the term "political correctness" should be re-framed; it's too easy to use it pejoratively.

All it means is active respect for people's varying identities.

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jennypenny
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Re: Political correctness run amok

Post by jennypenny »

Hey, show respect for your elders! :P

My question to you then is why do you need the university to designate an official space for such things? Why do you need the university to establish official rules and policies to make sure everything is fair and appropriate? Why can't students learn to do it for themselves? A hundred years ago when I was a kid, we played stick ball a lot after dinner. There was always a lot of negotiating of rules before the game started, but that's how we learned how to work things out. We didn't ask adults to come and make it fair for us. How are you going to learn how to work things out with other people who feel differently about the world if someone else always does it for you?

I appreciate what you're trying to accomplish with the non-appropriation thing, but almost every culture has been oppressed at some point. Any one of us can point to something in our ancestry that was oppressive, and all women have been oppressed regardless of their cultural heritage. Does that make almost all depictions offensive? I like to prepare indian and japanese food, am I appropriating their cultures? What if I listen to samba or reggae, am I appropriating their cultures? Where does it stop? How are we supposed to integrate and learn to appreciate other cultures if we keep each other at arm's length?

With the costumes, I don't see why we couldn't make a distinction between costumes meant to mock a culture, like blackface, and those meant to emulate something likable about a culture, like wearing a ninja costume or dressing like the St. Pauli girl. Is it really that big a deal that it needs to be policed? I'm Irish-American and once a year I get to watch a large percentage of the US drink green beer and butcher the irish brogue, but I choose to find it amusing instead of insulting.

Dragline
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Re: Political correctness run amok

Post by Dragline »

Let the clash of the generations commence! You've got work to do, Zalo. What is "active respect for people's varying identities" and what accommodations do we make for people who just plain don't know about the varying identities of their peers?

And at bottom, at what point does the quest for stamping out micro-aggressions just become old-fashioned witch hunts against well-meaning people?

My take -- which is that this kind of stuff ain't new: http://www.prospectingmimeticfractals.c ... -runs-awry

"Thus, [] the new microaggression culture actually seeks to create a new form of an archaic sacred structure, where the accusers first claim victimhood and then go on the attack against alleged perpetrators by cajoling the authorities into action -- much like the hysterical victims of witchcraft in colonial Salem went after various scapegoats by cajoling authorities with spectral evidence."

Do you dare "risk forgiveness" for any unintended slights?

BRUTE
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Re: Political correctness run amok

Post by BRUTE »

lol

brute thinks they must've put something in the water between his generation and Olaz'.

Kriegsspiel
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Re: Political correctness run amok

Post by Kriegsspiel »

jennypenny wrote: My question to you then is why do you need the university to designate an official space for such things? Why do you need the university to establish official rules and policies to make sure everything is fair and appropriate? Why can't students learn to do it for themselves? A hundred years ago when I was a kid, we played stick ball a lot after dinner. There was always a lot of negotiating of rules before the game started, but that's how we learned how to work things out. We didn't ask adults to come and make it fair for us. How are you going to learn how to work things out with other people who feel differently about the world if someone else always does it for you?
Maybe this is what we get when a 'tipping-point' amount of young people weren't allowed to play outside with the neighborhood kids, or chose to sit inside playing video games? Lacking early peer socialization, they don't know how to get along in the college years, and you get these dysfunctional college campuses we're hearing about now. I'm sure sociologists have reams of papers playing around with this "theory."

7Wannabe5
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Re: Political correctness run amok

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Eh, extreme political correctness is like high courtly romance, hats festooned with macaroni, or freshly squeezed goji berry ginseng juice with your breakfast; unsustainable at altitudes below top level affluence within protective enclave. Of course, it will eventually drift down to the masses, like a Bob Marley t-shirt on a clearance rack at Wal-Mart.

Spartan_Warrior
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Re: Political correctness run amok

Post by Spartan_Warrior »

@Brute: I imagine you were being facetious, but the concentration of hormone-altering birth controls and other powerful pharmaceuticals in the water supply probably increases year over year. http://hosted.ap.org/specials/interacti ... y1_01.html I frankly do wonder how many modern trends are influenced by this--from mood disorders to drug resistant diseases to lower fertility rates to increased transsexualism.

Anyway, political correctness seems like both an obvious and innocuous concept. IMO the weaponization/politicization of the term "political correctness" arises from the same angry white populism responsible for Trump. The marginalized and disenfranchised who feel threatened by "the other" and thus see "political correctness" as an affront to "muh freedumbs" (that is the freedom to marginalize and disenfranchise "the other" instead). Seriously, when I see the words "political correctness" in the context of someone complaining about it, my most immediate word associations are "bigot" and "Trump". Sorry, is that a "micro-aggression"?

In my opinion, political correctness is actually a combination of two very simple things your mamas should've taught you: showing basic respect toward others' differences and self concepts, and not putting your foot in your mouth.

There is also a clear and obvious difference between a mistake and political incorrectness. In keeping with the transsexualism example, if you call a trans woman "sir" by accident because you are not aware of their "varying identity" then you are making a mistake. If you deliberately misgender a trans person you are being politically incorrect and IMO an asshole (the two being sort of synonymous).

That should also make the answer to this question obvious:

"And at bottom, at what point does the quest for stamping out micro-aggressions just become old-fashioned witch hunts against well-meaning people?"

The answer is that it becomes a witch-hunt when the people actually are well-meaning. I don't see many examples of this, though. More often I see bigots shielding obvious bigotry by complaining about "political correctness".

For that matter, the stuff with students mistaking the priest for a KKK member seems rather unrelated to political correctness. I think it's much more a commentary on today's culture of fear promulgated from the top-down.

I don't really remember any "safe spaces" from my college daze, but then that was ten years ago. I suppose it's possible I'm too disconnected from whatever trends are so alarming. But to be totally honest, a lot of the complaints about political correctness seem ironically analogous to people "claiming victimization" over "micro-aggressions". Students organizing safe spaces through campus to discuss their differences and issues doesn't seem to be hurting anyone, much less any of you.

Chad
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Re: Political correctness run amok

Post by Chad »

I agree that political correctness used to be "a combination of two very simple things your mamas should've taught you: showing basic respect toward others' differences and self concepts, and not putting your foot in your mouth." It is turning into something different now. Political correctness is being used as it's own form of oppression in some cases. Just that now, the ones who felt oppressed, or at the very least felt like they weren't the "cool kids", are using it to do what they always complained was done to them.

It all comes down to the fact that people are the same. When they get power they abuse it, even if they are the ones who were previously abused. (Obviously, it is not comparable to abuses such as denial of voting, segregation, glass ceiling, etc.)

Everyone with hurt feelings needs to develop a backbone and stop obscuring real problems with some of these made up ones.

Joe Rogan just released his new comedy special on Netflix called Triggered. I'm looking forward to watching it.

BRUTE
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Re: Political correctness run amok

Post by BRUTE »

+1 what Chad said

brute feels no disrespect towards almost any human, but some of this stuff seems absurd to him. brute is happy to call anyone whatever pronouns they like, but he's never, EVER seen actual harassment-type behavior, yet he sees lots of humans being triggered by reading that N-word in Tom Sawyer (maybe the first triggering/safe space?) or because somebody didn't know the complicated protocols PC has set up for communicating with others.

in the same way, Olaz' example of Halloween costumes seems ridiculous to brute. symbolic oppression? it's a costume. on halloween. brute has dressed up as a cowboy too, and no cowboys were complaining.

there's a difference between preventing assholes and becoming assholes, and the line seems more blurry than brute would've thought 10 years ago, or even 5.

7Wannabe5
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Re: Political correctness run amok

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Chad said: It all comes down to the fact that people are the same. When they get power they abuse it, even if they are the ones who were previously abused.
It has been my experience that in an extremely diverse classroom setting, the same X% of children across multi-cultural lines will be the crybaby/bullies. IOW, the majority of children do not have tendencies towards either crybaby or bullying behavior, but the fairly strong minority (20%?) of children who have tendencies towards crybaby behavior will also have tendencies towards bullying behavior, depending on circumstances. So, what you are saying is true, but only for this "will be heard" minority of any given cultural grouping. Maybe just representative of the proportion of the human population likely to be more emotionally/physically reactive to external stimuli? Perhaps of some use in a hunter/gatherer commune, but less so in modern classroom setting?

Spartan_Warrior
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Re: Political correctness run amok

Post by Spartan_Warrior »

Political correctness to the extent of Orwellian policing of language and thought would be problematic. If it is being used as its own form of oppression, I guess I am not exposed to these examples. Even the OP about the kids being suspended over fruit is a case of (we presume) mistaken intent--the "witch hunt" that Dragline fears. That doesn't necessarily mean that the concept of political correctness itself is to blame. If the kids had conspired to send a watermelon to a team full of black kids despite knowing that it could be construed as offensive to them and being asked by fellow students not to include those items*, I don't think it would be "political correctness run amok" to react to that in some way, including discipline if appropriate.

*Incidentally, that may have been exactly what happened. "Before the gift was presented that evening, a few AHS students discussed that the watermelon could be perceived as racially offensive and should not be included in the gift." http://abc13.com/news/not-all-students- ... t/1044766/

(Speaking of Orwell, his quote here seems relevant: "Early in life I had noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper." ;) )

Again, maybe I'm out of the loop, but I personally have seen more instances of racists and bigots crying about political correctness--not to imply that's what's happening in this thread, of course--than I have seen people in authority using the concept of political correctness to oppress. I think there are greater concerns than safe spaces, etc. Like I said, it almost seems ironic that people seem to view safe spaces and political correctness as "micro-aggressions" in and of themselves.
Last edited by Spartan_Warrior on Thu Oct 27, 2016 10:35 am, edited 1 time in total.

Spartan_Warrior
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Re: Political correctness run amok

Post by Spartan_Warrior »

@Brute: Were cowboys oppressed at some point? Did our culture wage genocide on the cowboy race and appropriate their lands? (Hm, I guess an argument could be made...) Dressing in white-culture-stereotypical Native American costume seems much closer to dressing in blackface than to dressing like a cowboy. Is it also inoffensive for a white person to dress in blackface?

cmonkey
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Re: Political correctness run amok

Post by cmonkey »

Dragline wrote:My take -- which is that this kind of stuff ain't new: http://www.prospectingmimeticfractals.c ... -runs-awry
I think we're all missing the most important point here - Dragline has a blog and we should all probably read it. ;)

Tyler9000
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Re: Political correctness run amok

Post by Tyler9000 »

Olaz wrote: From what I've seen, safe spaces are the antithesis of comfort or sheltering. They are about having very difficult and nuanced conversations about race, religion, sexuality, lifestyle, documentation, wealth, structural power, gender, etc. in a respectful and productive way.
That would be great if that were the case. But when only one viewpoint is allowed and any other is criminalized as "triggering" then it's not a conversation at all. And when the safe space expands to the entire campus, it becomes simply a popular new gift wrapping for authoritarian intolerance. Take, for example, the accelerating number of conservative speakers disinvited from commencement speeches.

It reminds me of a conversation I had with a young San Francisco native and Berkeley grad upon me moving to the Bay Area. Paraphrasing her (and spoken without a scent of irony): "I love San Francisco. It's the most diverse, inclusive, and tolerant city, and everyone is welcome. Well, unless you're Republican or Christian. In which case, GTFO. You don't belong here."

My favorite example of the childishness and cultural weaponization of college campuses is when mediocre General Tsao's chicken at the Oberlin cafeteria became offensive "cultural appropriation".

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jennypenny
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Re: Political correctness run amok

Post by jennypenny »

Spartan_Warrior wrote:IMO the weaponization/politicization of the term "political correctness" arises from the same angry white populism responsible for Trump. The marginalized and disenfranchised who feel threatened by "the other" and thus see "political correctness" as an affront to "muh freedumbs" (that is the freedom to marginalize and disenfranchise "the other" instead).
Explain to me why I'm supposed to take that statement in stride but tiptoe around college students to avoid offending anyone? You can't have it both ways. People can either offer up respect and demand it in return, or feel free to be as sarcastic as they'd like but then learn to accept the same in return.

I do see political correctness run amok as a threat to my freedom -- my freedom of speech. As a writer and pretty outspoken person, I'm shocked that you don't see the danger in limiting speech in any way.

What depresses me most is that Rome is burning and our universities are focused on halloween costumes and oppressive mascots.

Spartan_Warrior
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Re: Political correctness run amok

Post by Spartan_Warrior »

@Tyler: Haha, defending the "cultural authenticity" of General Tso? That is a good one. Stepping back from the sensationalism, though, what we seem to have are various student groups protesting for more authentic ethnic choices on the school menu. I'm not sure I see that as a threat or even a harbinger of an actual threat (like a sign of more authoritarianism, etc). I could be wrong.

cmonkey
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Re: Political correctness run amok

Post by cmonkey »

Tyler9000 wrote:My favorite example of the childishness and cultural weaponization of college campuses is when mediocre General Tsao's chicken at the Oberlin cafeteria became offensive "cultural appropriation".

Those students should just learn how to cook themselves and host a meal for the people they claim would like to eat it, instead of demanding other people do it. So lazy. :roll:

daylen
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Re: Political correctness run amok

Post by daylen »

For the most part I am disconnected from this whole pc movement. I didn't know that most of this stuff was going on until I read this post today. Now some of the encounters I have had in the past year or two make more sense. More than a few people have assumed that because I am young and in college that I am liberal and part of the pc police. :roll:

Tyler9000
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Re: Political correctness run amok

Post by Tyler9000 »

Spartan_Warrior wrote:I'm not sure I see that as a threat or even a harbinger of an actual threat (like a sign of more authoritarianism, etc). I could be wrong.
It's a symptom of obsession with victimization that also manifests in stuff like faking hate crimes in order to bludgeon political straw men and demanding "segregated black-only safe spaces" on campus. It's certainly not constructive.
Last edited by Tyler9000 on Thu Oct 27, 2016 1:10 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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