I partially agree with you here. Yes languages change and some of those changes could have nothing to do with political correctness but some do.
I meant the mentioned quoted cases.
It is no secret that I am an atheist but I still celebrate christmas and I still call it christmas. I call it such because that is the name it was given. I can celebrate christmas for entirely different reasons than christains and the name has nothing to do with it. Christmas can be a completely religious or a completely secular holiday. To each his own so to speak.
Still, the assumption everyone celebrates Christmas, and in fact the fact that many non-Christians do celebrate Christmas is part of the Christian-centric nature of American culture.
And that is exactly what most of the "happy holidays" movement is about, pointing out that, yes, there other religions are out there. This has rather far reaching political implications due to the fact that a lot of major political issues center around Christianity (ex. gay marriage). The cultural recognition that Christianity isn't the only religion out there is part of the process of recognition of that fact in the political sphere.
And just what harm can it do for a child to not win an award when another child does? They get upset? Maybe it will actually teach them that hard work pays off and if they want an award they have to earn it? I would rather my child learn that lesson, then learn that no matter what they do they get an award. This is why it is such a disaster when little leagues don't keep score, or declare a tie in the interest of playing nice. It is an important lesson for children to learn that life does not just hand everything to you for free.
Obviously that's an important lesson, but really the question is WHEN a child needs to learn that lesson. Is it kindergarten? At that point it's a little hard for a child to actually apply more effort for superior results, so in my opinion no. First grade, maybe. Definitely by middle school, IMO. But I'm not a specialist in Child development so I can't say when is the best time.
That point being, you can always build a kid's confidence, whereas teaching the value of hard work is a difficult lesson for those that don't get gratification initially and can convince them they're worthless, so timing is essential.
Whether or not the word 'black' was intended to mean 'outsider' or 'foreigner' is debatable. For the sake of argument I'll agree with you. But the thing is that nobody TODAY thinks that. Now black just means 'a person with black skin'. It is an adjective. It isn't any different than describing facial features, hair color, height, weight, etc.
Nobody thinks that consciously, but more often then not with language, subconscious connections are far more important then conscious ones.
On to the 'N' word. Seriously, it is just a word. Sure, it was originally intended as an insult but I, as a white man, am forbidden from saying it, even if I am not using it to insult anybody! When I was in high school, I was talking to one of my friends about a scene in a movie. Part of the scene included said *gasp* ****** (oh no, I said it! call the police!). So I relayed this line to my friend and I was immediately confronted by 3 black guys who just happened to be coming around the corner at the moment. Long story short, there was a physical altercation that I did not start and the blame was put on me for using racist remarks, though there was nothing racist about what I said. I was sent home for a week and the black kids were let off the hook and offered counseling because they were victims of a 'hate crime'.
I understand that your situation was taken to the extreme, but the fact is that words only contain the meaning which is put into them. N***** does have great deal of collected racism and other cultural rubbish attached to it, and people have let it stay that way. Granted, there is a reclaimation effort which is quite successful in certain sub-cultures, but in general, it's meaning is racism. Just like G*** and cr*****.
This is all about guilt. The people (liberals) behind political correctness want white people to feel guilty for the things our ancestors did 200 years ago. They want us to carry that guilt so they can guilt trip us into supporting their goofy policies like 'affirmative action' that do nothing to bring races closer together, but only serve to further divide them.
Not explicitly trying to offend people is about guilt? That's certainly news to me.
Yes PC is popular wisdom taken to the extreme. In my previous argument I was not suggesting that white people run around saying the 'N' word every chance they get, but white people should not be afraid to say it either. If you use it in an offensive way then you should expect it to be taken offensively, but not EVERY single use of the word is offensive. If somebody thinks that it is, then the problem lies with them, not the person saying it. If they simply can not hear the word from a white persons mouth without feeling offended, then they are the ones who are racist.
White people CAN say it actually. Among a certain sub-culture it has a completely different meaning, and if you're part of that, you can use it within the acceptable circumstances. For everyone else and/or in every other situation it lacks any positive connotations.
And it isn't inevitable. It is forcefully pushed on us. There is a happy medium as I pointed out, where you do not purposefully offend people, and you are also not afraid of saying certain things. That is the inevitable result. PC only occurs when somebody thinks they know what is best for you and forces you to act a certain way.
It only seems pushed on you because you have a slightly different cultural outlook. Me and most of my friends don't need to bother thinking about these kinds of things because the "PC rules" are part of our local culture. There are exceptions obviously, but every area has those exceptions.
No, the first example is just 'being a jerk'. And the bible belt has its cultural traditions and whatnot. Neither is political correctness because they are just the normal social behaviors of those societies and really give no mind to whether or not it might offend anybody. Political Correctness is when you have to consciously stop and think about what you are about to say so you can not offend anybody at all who may or may not overhear your conversation.
The PC behaviors you described are the same, the normal cultural traditions of most of the East Coast, and a good amount of the West coast. It's also fairly standard among the academic community in general. Some things are general to the entire US however, but still, the point stands.
Within these groups, people don't think in terms of PC. Sure, there are some exceptions (which was what the "atheist in the church" example was all about, the exception in an area totally hostile to his/her/it's views), but for the vast majority, it's not an imposition, it's only natural.
This is true. Higher education does correlate to more liberal political views. The reason is not because of the intelligence of the person though. It is because of simple indoctrination. Universities are liberal indoctrination camps. I am not saying people should avoid higher education, I am just saying there is a lot of liberalism associated with it. I have also noticed that a lot of people who have a (slightly) higher than average intelligence seem to think they know what is best for everybody else, and that most people are too dumb to do anything right without their help. This also fits nicely into the liberal political view.
I'm not suggesting a value judgment, merely pointing it out because the academic community and the media tend to follow liberal PC. This is because both tend to be more educated, and therefore, more liberal.
Again, for them, it's just their culture, nobody thinks about it as an imposition.
Conservatives are not PC. They believe every persons freedom of speech is far more important than protecting the feelings of any sensitive cry baby who wanders by and might overhear something they don't like. PC is all about protecting everybody's feelings because everybody is too weak to deal with anything without help. There is no conservative PC.
Lol, try telling my mother that her religion is a lie.
There are different standards for what constitutes "PC", but certain things simply aren't politically correct to talk about in a highly conservative crowd. It's not that they're self-censoring, it's just that that's conservative culture.
I'm sorry but this one made me lol. How do my driving habits affect the price at the pump? Is this a zero sum game? Do I have an alloted amount of gas I am allowed to use per month or something? Does my using 20 gallons of gas instead of 15 deprive somebody else of 5 gallons? If I go back and have a second helping of rice during dinner does that mean I deprived some starving child in china of his meal? If I buy a 60 inch HDTV does that mean somebody else can only get a 40 inch TV because I am using the energy they need for a bigger TV?
This is not a zero sum game.
Actually, it is. A set amount of oil exists on earth and a certain amount is drilled each year. That oil is ultimately distributed among the earth population based on the principals of capitalism. Every tank of oil you use means that there is that exact amount less in total.
It's just distributed across the population of the world in such a massive way that individually, your contribution is insignificant. However, as a group, SUV drivers are far from insignificant.
However, the biggest issue is really supply and demand. By increasing demand with a finite supply SUV drivers naturally increase the price of the commodity.
Simple supply and demand. Our supply has not increased and liberal environmental policies will not allow us to increase our supply (in the form of drilling for our own oil) Demand is increasing. Not just in the US but in the entire world. No amount of conservation (be it hybrid cars, CFL lights, unplugging your toaster, etc.) will reduce demand. Conservation does not produce growth. If you halt supply, you halt the economy because eventually demand will surpass supply. For their to be economic growth, you need to increase supply. There will be more people coming along who need oil. We need to produce more oil to lower prices, it is that simple.
Certainly drilling for more oil would decrease price, it would increase the supply. But conservation DOES decrease the strain on the supply.
However, it does not solve the core problem, oil is a finite resource.
As for why we don't drill... 2 words, strategic reserves.
Barrack Obama said "We can't drill our way out if this!" Why not? We can eat our way out of hunger, we can drink our way out of thirst. If we have a shortage of towel racks, couldn't we produce our way out of the shortage?
Because it's just asking for the same problem to come back and bite us in a few years. We need a solution, not a stop-gap. Or at least a stop-gap that we can use indefinitely.
And do you know how much oil you use even if you don't drive any car at all? There are so many products we make out of oil that everybody uses and they don't even realize how much oil they are using. We need more supply just to keep up with higher demand for plastic bottles, lubricants, soaps, shoes, rubber, tires, dyes, paint, clothes, candles (paraffin wax is a highly used product of oil) DVDs, insulation, caulk, various other building materials, movie film, and literally thousands of other products we use and NEED on a daily basis. Even if we all drove cars that run on water and found a way to get energy without burning a single molecule of oil, we would still need millions of barrels a day to keep up production of other goods and services.
Which is an enormous part of the overall issue, we NEED substitutes, and not just for part of the issue.
Instead of leaving sticky notes on my car window calling me a 'gas-hole' these people need to write their senators and congressmen and tell them to let the oil companies drill for oil.
And what happens when we run out? Again?
And what about strategic reserves?
It is just a phrase to describe something or somebody crazy. "Crazy as a pet (rac)****" Because raccoons make bad pets as they occasionally go crazy and bite and scratch their owners. The word '****' is a mostly southern word used to purposefully insult black people.
Figured as much, probably just not familiar with your sub-culture, an unfortunate case of homonyms where one is offensive, and the other... isn't.
Look, I am all for women equality and all that, but I am not for spending tax money to replace the millions of man-hole covers in our streets. The word 'man' as used to describe humans does not have to mean 'males only' Mankind is all of humanity. And this society already has gender equality. The liberals just like to pretend we don't so they can keep the woman vote (women are more likely to be liberals than men) by promising equality to them. And it is not a subconscious change, it was a forced change. Women were sick of being second class and they fought for equality. This whole business about changing words and titles of things to be more PC is a pure femi-nazi power grab.
That's actually the issue, that "man" is used to describe people in general. It's a purely patriarchal linguistic construct. It has many subconscious implications which are recognized by modern psychologists, hence the push for change.
As for gender equality, no way. Why do men almost always not get custody in divorces for example? Why don't women register for selective service (aka, they can't be drafted)? How come women are so rare as corporate execs? Most of the issues are social, but removing patriarchal language is part of how social change occurs.
I completely agree. Except that this whole PC business lets people think they can tell me what I can and can not say. The freedom of speech allows us to disagree on an issue openly in public, but it does not allow anybody to silence what I say by declaring it 'not politically correct'.
Well, they can. It's their legal right to try if they so desire. And you're also to try the same thing. As long as you both use words.
Just what things are you talking about? And the thing is that the government is signing on to this whole PC movement. I can actually be arrested for saying the 'N' word. I won't be arrested for the word itself but I would be arrested for assault, threatening the well being of another person, or any other fool reason they can attach to the word.
What I meant was things like being fired, boycotts of your products, etc. People are free to do these things if they like.
Well, if you are, all I can say is appeal.
Overall, the "rules of PC" are little more then cultural norms. For those of us in the mentioned areas, even though we might give lip service to the anti-PC ideal, the actual mentioned concepts are simply how we behave, most of us anyway.
The thing with Political Correctness is it's a form of self censoring, it really has no place in America, a country that is suppose to pride it's self on freedom of speech. Yet it seems the more we progressed as a country the more we're willing to cut back on that freedom and put together special situations where that right has it's limitations.
Freedom of speech covers only legality, people have every right to express displeasure with what you say.
People say a lot of things about PC, but it's little more then cultural norms.
