A Conversation for Ask h2g2

Has Political Correctness had its day?

Post 41

pedro

smiley - applause Otto. Hit the nail on the head there.

<>

Also kinda says what Otto does. PC is the ultimate straw man these days.


Has Political Correctness had it's day?

Post 42

badger party tony party green party

"Thought-showers" instead of "brainstorm" to avoid offending epileptic springs to mind.smiley - book

What a fantastic example of just how great PC can be SWL thanks!

Thought shower is WAAAAAAY better not just becuse it is less likely to cause offence, oh no it doesnt stop there it is actually a BETTER description of whats going on.

IN a meeting you will be asked to generate new ideas. What part of Brain storming actually descrbes what is going on? A brain storm as we know is tempestuous electrical neurological activity causing an epilleptic seizure. So that aint what you are doing is it.

Sure no one gets drenched by precipitationin a "thought shower" but you are actively trying to have useful thoughts. And you avoid needlessly offending people while using no extra syllables.

I can see how this could bother those to lazy stupid or down right mean spirited to ammend their language but, that wouldnt be any of us lovely people here would it?

Isnt PC great!

onelove smiley - rainbow


Has Political Correctness had it's day?

Post 43

TRiG (Ireland) A dog, so bade in office

"less likely to cause offence"smiley - huh

And who, exactly, is likely to be offended by "brain-storm"?

Good grief, get a grip, man.

TRiG.smiley - biggrin


Has Political Correctness had its day?

Post 44

TRiG (Ireland) A dog, so bade in office

"less likely to cause offence"smiley - huh

And who, exactly, is likely to be offended by "brain-storm"?

Good grief, get a grip, man.

TRiG.smiley - biggrin


Has Political Correctness had its day?

Post 45

badger party tony party green party

Im told those who suffer epilleptic seizures, memory loss or other problems due "brain storms" as they are sometimes called...with me so far...

OK? Now the Brain-storming we are familiar with in the business speak sense is different and when someone explained to me the difference I just accepted it...Might bother some people some words we use so maybe its better to use some other words...I can go with that.

Because it was no fudgeing problem to do so.

I did not run round the equality training session shouting "its political correctness gone mad" I didnt write a letter hysterically lamenting the death of our language and the policing of our thoughts. I didnt run into the street to find a sufferer of eppilepsy to grab them by the lapels and demand that he (or she, Im an equal opportunity ranter) tell me if this use of "brainstorming" really bothered them and if they cared that they were taking christmas away from us?

I just went "Oh its better if I use the words thought shower instead" and got on with my life. I may not have a "grip" but I can manage to make what are in the grand scheme of things tiny changes to my language to avoid potential offence.

If that's not having a grip then Im happy free faling into a hell where christams is banned or whatever is happening because people have to think for a tiny bit of a second about not being offensive to others.

smiley - rainbow


Has Political Correctness had its day?

Post 46

Otto Fisch ("Stop analysing Strava.... and cut your hedge")


"By all means, change the language where it genuinely is calling offence, but not where someone *thinks* it *might* cause offence, without actually asking the people involved."

Political correctness as I understand it is not about using language to avoid causing offence. It's about not using language that is discriminatory (often implicit rather than deliberate or malicious) or which robs people of their dignity. It's rude to call someone 'ugly' to their face, but I've never heard anyone say that the term 'ugly' should not be used.

The first irony about PC, as I've already said, is that the hijacking of the term goes some way towards proving the thesis it promotes.

The second irony about PC is that the anti-PC brigade actually propagate what they see as 'PC gone mad' through their misinformation campaign. If you tell people about 'PC gone mad' stories about mythical bans on Christmas through fear of causing offence to minorities, it will lead to ordinary decent people thinking that mentioning Christmas is offensive, and avoiding mention of it because they think it's the right thing to do.


Has Political Correctness had its day?

Post 47

benjaminpmoore

'Lastly, when politicians end up talking in a mangled gobbledy-gook that the ordinary man cannot relate to, people mentally switch off which means the lying barsteward'

I'm sorry but I just feel that your use of language has the potential to offend bar stewards with it's tacit implication that they are all liars. In future, please use the term 'lying person-who-has-given-you-a-drink-posssibly-for-money-but-does-not-repressent-his-or-her-profession-as-a-whole' which is unlikely to offend anyone.

Thank you.


Has Political Correctness had its day?

Post 48

swl

smiley - laughsmiley - ok


Has Political Correctness had its day?

Post 49

benjaminpmoore

Have you any idea how slow it is typing with all those bloody hyphens? smiley - biggrin


Has Political Correctness had its day?

Post 50

iain

Found you !


Has Political Correctness had its day?

Post 51

IctoanAWEWawi

The brainstorm/thought shower thing is an interesting example of what goes wrong.
As far as I can tell, the whole thing started off in a Northern Irish newspaper office where the staff decided that 'brainstorm' could be offensive to people with mental health problems like epilepsy. They then started using and it was picked up all over the shop by people saying "it's PC gone mad". This brought it to the attention of a lot of people who then proceeded to use the new term for a variety of reasons (because they believed it was better, because they didn't want to make a mistake even though they thought it was daft etc.).

Various mental health charities and support groups have been asked about this over the time since its first appearance and all of them have responded that a) they didn't originate it and b) noone they knew was either bothered by the phrase 'brainstorm' nor had even thought it was potentially offensive.

One thing that strikes me about 'surveys' of how PC is received is whether the people being asked realise they are being asked as insiders. I.e. the article at the start of all this says that x amount of non whites find PC to be a bit daft (ok, paraphrasing).
But I think there's a difference in here the question asked and the one answered. It seems (and I can;t tell cos I wasn't the one asking) that the question was asked of non-whites because the questioner was thinking of PC terms related to race. I.e. asking the people on the receiving end of the terms. BUT is there any reason to think that the people responding also saw themselves in that role? There's every chance, and every reason, that they saw themselves as users of the terms they thought of. So they would be answering about their use of PC for other people and not other peoples use of PC for them.

That's a bit convoluted and not exactly how I have the thought in my mind, but can't quite seem to put it down on the page right!


Has Political Correctness had its day?

Post 52

KB

I know what you're getting at, Ictoan. For instance, someone might think that n---er or spastic aren't acceptable, but due to the vagueness of the question they thought they were being asked about the usual "personhole" rubbish (most of which is either fictional or vastly exagerated).


Has Political Correctness had it's day?

Post 53

kea ~ Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small, unregarded but very well read blue and white website

Catching up on backlog...


Can we name Otto as most intelligent poster of the year? smiley - applause


*

>>>
>Not particularly PC being actively alienating, rather putting a cosy spin on what already exists - "service user" or "client", instead of "patient". Implies the person involved has some choice in the matter when they often don't<

Not PC at all. The change was brought in on the basis that using the word 'customer' or 'client' would encourage those in public organizations to remember that the users were people, who should essentially be treated as you would want to be in a service industry environment.

And certainly not spin. It was introduced before the present government came into power in any event.
<<< Blues

And in NZ, at least, the name change was initiated by community based patients' rights groups. We chose 'consumer' smiley - rolleyes. And there are some advocacy people now arguing against that. But the point of the original change was, in addition to what Blues said, about changing power differentials between patients and practitioners. That did start to happen to quite a marked degree in NZ, although there is now a swing back in the other direction.

*

>>The use of terms like 'spastic', 'cripple' or 'moron' to describe the disabled rob them of their dignity because they became terms of abuse. <<

I agree with the points made about those words, but just to offer an example of the kind of idiocy that SWL is on about (shock horror smiley - winkeye), someone I know on h2, who has a distinct neuromuscular disability, got modded for using the word spastic to describe her hand movement. However I take that as a limitation of h2's modding system, and it's an anomaly which I am happy to live if it means that we are more careful about people around us.


Has Political Correctness had it's day?

Post 54

Researcher U197087



Apologies for my misunderstanding of the origins of those terms. I was a member of an advocacy group a while ago and got a lot of anti-service propaganda from that.


Has Political Correctness had it's day?

Post 55

kea ~ Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small, unregarded but very well read blue and white website

Chris I just reread your post properly, and I think what you are saying is in fact correct:

>>
Not particularly PC being actively alienating, rather putting a cosy spin on what already exists - "service user" or "client", instead of "patient". Implies the person involved has some choice in the matter when they often don't, and if the draft paper happens, will have even less. Use of terms like that papers over what injustice there may already be.
<<

This kind of management equality speak is used in Mental Health alot in NZ but as you say doesn't translate into actual empowerment for the mental health consumers (as we say here smiley - winkeye). In fact if you read government documents on mental health you would wonder if they were referring to the same service smiley - erm

So, yes, the original impetus in NZ for such language change came from consumer groups. But those ideas and paradigms got co-opted by the economic model driven health reforms here in the last 15 years, so everything *looks* good but it actually gets used to make management feel good rather than having to deal with the fact that the service fails so many people.


Has Political Correctness had it's day?

Post 56

Researcher U197087

Thanks kea. I do think it is often a gloss to be correct in word but far from so in deed.


Has Political Correctness had it's day?

Post 57

Xanatic

Blues Shark mentioned that with PC the worst that can happen is you are told "You can´t say that" with a disapproving glance. Well, there is an example here of a couple who seemed to have ended up being questioned by the police, and had top go to court, for saying they think homosexuality is wrong:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/lancashire/6205223.stm

And a professor at a danish university got suspended, after saying he had made some tests which indicated women are less intelligent than men. In most cases nowadays you just get disapproval for being un-PC, but we should stop it before things go any further.


Has Political Correctness had it's day?

Post 58

Xanatic

The professor earlier mentioned is called Helmuth Nyborg, if you want to look into the case.

I also wanted to look at something blicky said earlier, when he was told to use the phrase thought-shower:
"I didnt run into the street to find a sufferer of eppilepsy to grab them by the lapels and demand that he...tell me if this use of "brainstorming" really bothered them..."

Which as mentioned here earlier, is a big part of the problem. There is probably many who don´t give a damn about what they are called. But someone had a friend who had a friend who heard a term might be offensive, and so it no longer can be used. I would like to actually know that a substantial portion of people actually are offended by something, before I decide to stop saying it.


Has Political Correctness had it's day?

Post 59

Otto Fisch ("Stop analysing Strava.... and cut your hedge")


'[T]here is an example here of a couple who seemed to have ended up being questioned by the police, and had top go to court, for saying they think homosexuality is wrong'

Not true. See the earlier news report.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/lancashire/4555406.stm

The couple wrote to the council complaining about council attempts to promote awareness of gay issues, and asking if they would distribute Christian leaflets as well. The council said they would consider it, but would not display anything that was offensive to minority groups. Which is fair enough - this is the council, local government.

Police then interviewed the couple to see if a crime had be, or was likely to be comitted. Best guess is that this is about the content of the leaflet they wished to display, which might have broken the law, or which might have been illegal to display passing it off as a council leaflet.

It went to court because the couple sued, not because they were taken to court. And they won (or it was settled in their favour out of court).


Has Political Correctness had it's day?

Post 60

Researcher U197087

Here's something I encountered in the Daily Maul yesterday (It was the only newspaper in the cafe).

http://snipurl.com/diwal


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