The responses were thin on numbers and those that were submitted were utterly feeble.

In other words, not a single contributor could display evidence of how PC had impinged on their liberties.

“Politcial Correctness” is one massive rightwing whinge.

I’ve been looking at this conversation with some interest and have added to a few other conversations as well.

Although my opinions differ as I think you are correct only about 50% of the time – I much appreciate you setting up this site and bearing the risks in so doing.

Regards

Kojak

Well, quite.

Anyway, that has been my contention all along that the effects of PC are complex and POTENTIALLY both nebulous and far reaching.

But don’t let facts like that get in the way of a withering little accusation, eh?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/3346573/School-told-to-drop-its-offensive-saints-name.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jul/19/adults-children-paranoia-surveillance

No my dear Rodent, there is hardly any explanation at all.
You simply present fait-accompli, then mistakenly assume your position is synonymous with ‘fact’.
Hell, it sounds like you can’t even count if you believe there are “thousands of words on explaining”.

Perhaps you always think in such binary, or simplistic terms?

A causes B (clunk) and does not impact on C or D (unless you say it does, of course).
I can see the attraction of linear explanations but they hardly ever reflect the complexities of linguistic or cultural theory not to mention the way in which they influence institutional behaviour (to return to the frightened school teachers).

Ideas propagate moods my simplistic friend …….. so do try and keep up.

Clearly my powers of persuasion are lacking – I’ve just wasted thousands of words on explaining why incidents like your schoolchildren/camera episode aren’t in any way connected to political correctness, but you’ve just posted the phrase PC – health and safety axis with a straight face.

I said Find some faults and your response is a cut ‘n’ paste followed by Oooh, look at you thinking you’ve got such big brainy brain, Brainiac. See ya.

OK, well lets take the wiki-item and unpack it a bit shall we?
My contention is that PC is an oppressive ideology with unintended political and social consequences – I dare say from your perspective this will merely amount to another bout of ‘wittering’, but here we go.

First we have a British Ministry of Information official Arnold Bennett who (during WW1) used the expression ‘politically correct’ in vetting language for “appropriateness” – an early hint about the nature of the beast?

Then there is Ruth Perry who traces the term from Mao Zedong’s Little Red Book. The People’s Republic of China banned religions, and allowed only Marxism and Maoism as the politically correct belief systems, thus, being politically incorrect — to contradict Marxism and Maoism — might lead either to jail or to death, or to both. A bit more than health safety, but I digress.

As a linguistic concept PC became infamous for addressing the linguistic problem of naming. Using “inclusive” and “neutral” language is based upon the concept that “language represents thought, and may even control thought” per the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis, a language’s grammatical categories shape the speaker’s ideas and actions – typified by Orwellian, newspeak.

Liberal and Left-wing commentators observed that after 1980, right-wing American conservatives re-engineered the term political correctness to ideologically re-frame US politics as a culture war.
Hutton reports: Political correctness is one of the brilliant tools that the American Right developed in the mid-1980s, as part of its demolition of American liberalism. . . . What the sharpest thinkers on the American Right saw quickly was that by declaring war on the cultural manifestations of liberalism — by levelling the charge of “political correctness” against its exponents — they could discredit the whole political project.
Moreover, the commentators claimed there never was a “Political Correctness movement” in the US, and that many who use the term do so to distract attention from substantive debate about racial, class and gender discrimination and unequal legal treatment.

Right-wing and conservative critics claim that political correctness is a Marxist undermining of Western values. In The Abolition of Britain, Peter Hitchens says: “What Americans describe with the casual phrase . . . ‘political correctness’ is the most intolerant system of thought to dominate the British Isles since the Reformation.” William S. Lind and Patrick Buchanan have characterized PC as a technique originated by the Frankfurt School, whose work aimed at undermining Western values, by influencing popular culture through Cultural Marxism. In The Death of the West, Buchanan says: “Political Correctness is Cultural Marxism, a regime to punish dissent and to stigmatize social heresy as the Inquisition punished religious heresy. Its trademark is intolerance.

So a quick walk through the wiki item yet only the Flying Rodent has a handle on these delicate and complex issues and only he (for it is almost certainly a he) can define exactly when and how such ideas insinuate themselves into everyday life supported by his exciting system of classification (or the PC – health and safety axis if you prefer).

Well done, FR, your exposition on Big Ron is nothing less than a master class on the theoretical origins, application and interpretation of a disparate and evolving set of political ideas and cultural theories – in fact you make it all sound so easy.
I’ll bet there isn’t one big problem in the world that we couldn’t solve if we just listened to you, eh?

Look, I’ve explained my thoughts on what causes daft, authoritarian legislation, and you’ve made no attempt to rebut it beyond continuing to witter about the “unintended consequences of political correctness” – a concept that, as you’ve repeatedly demonstrated, you don’t understand, can’t define and aren’t interested in investigating further.

I named this particular argumentative fallacy myself, so I’m well aware of the futility of arguing against those deploying Kamm’s Gimlet.

http://decentpedia.blogspot.com/2007/08/kamms-gimlet.html

Find some faults in what I’ve said, or I’m going to assume that my original conclusion – that you’re wasting my time and yours, to no useful purpose – was entirely correct.

Ahh, yes, that always sends a particular chill, an apparently ‘benign’ controlling ideology.

The fact that we have endured one of the most controlling periods of political activity may be entirely co-incidental?
http://www.noliberties.com/trailer.htm

Maybe the effects of PC are entirely linear and do not mushroom with unintended consequences?

And maybe the real culprits for certain excesses are the Daily Mail readers and the jackbooted Health & Safety Nazis and not an intelligentsia who feel the need for greater control over the the thoughts and actions of its minions?

Diminishing racism is a good thing, obviously, just don’t assume PC is the only route – there is always more than one way to skin a cat

Well, quite. Also note, it’s these choose-my-own-reality types who are most likely to toss around accusations of ‘postmodernism’.

Which is a shame.

Christ, at least left-wing PC was a well-meant and partially successful attempt to convince people not to hurl filthy abuse at each other for no reason. Right-wing PC looks like nothing more than a permission slip allowing the dirty-minded ignoramus to act like a hateful arse with total impunity. That explains a lot.

‘Political correctness is sometimes caricatured as people being oversensitive and trying to prevent anyone from being able to criticise them or their arguments’

But this isn’t all about the law – this is about the sort of atmosphere I prefer to encourage in the comments threads. For that reason there is a stringent comments policy and that’s helped LC develop a better culture of conversation than CIF or most other blogs.
Now – you lot are the community and I can’t really force you to behave. However I will have to exercise my judgement when comments go over the line (as they did) or when a thread descends into ad-hominem stupidity (as it did). I’ve pointed out in the past I will do this so I hope no one is surprised. A discussion about the character of the person who calls ‘libel’ or who is worth suing or not worth suing is neither here nor there. You’re all welcome to discuss that in a thread about libel law.

(thanks Left Outside)