What's the line between PC language vs. bold leftist radicalism?

I've heard complaints about PC language with its exaggerated respect for marginalized groups. I agree we definitely should be considerate, but on the other hand I'm OK with being offensive in order to highlight oppression, so to speak. And I'm willing harshly criticize both those in power and any traditional institutions altogether (I'm against gay marriage). Am I PC? What does that mean? Where do you draw the line?

edited 10th May '11 6:10:48 PM by LoveHappiness

PC is a pejorative used to dismiss people.

Any other meaning is lost in that noise.

edited 10th May '11 6:13:11 PM by blueharp

PC is a bit of a buzz word. It just means to be in line with the common potlical ideology

For exmaple racial slurs would be 'PC' in the south white supremacy groups.

edited 10th May '11 6:46:14 PM by joeyjojo

I dislike the notion that I should specifically avoid offending people with the way I normally behave in the first place.

This.

I've always found politically correct terms to be patronizing and condescending.

Like midget versus little person. Call me crazy but little person sounds almost insulting and condescending.

Hell yeah. I'm with Barkey there.

edited 10th May '11 6:52:12 PM by MarkVonLewis

That and anything that ever utters the word "Marginalized Groups" makes me want to break shit and do the opposite of whatever is being asked of me. Can't stand that word.

What Barkey said.

Forget PC, try CC: Common courtesy!

I do like KCK's idea.

The other wiki has a secton on the euphemism treadmill'

fag becomes homo becomes gay man becomes what ever they are calling it now.

I heard something on the radio today and went out and about trying to verify it. I found out that 'idiot', 'imbecile', and 'moron' were originally descriptions of mental retardation. An idiot was someone whose mental age were that of someone three or under, and imbecile was someone with the mental age of three to seven, and a moron was someone with the mental age of seven to ten years. If you used these words in a medical context the person you were talking with would know immediately the severity of mental impairment they were dealing with. But nowadays if you say a person with 'intellectual developmental disorder' is a moron you'll get punched in the face.

So in addition to what Barkey said, I think another line is when medical terminology becomes to offensive to say. *

edited 10th May '11 7:52:20 PM by Bur

language changes, and diversifies.

Think of how often the word "bully" is used to mean something good.

It's not unknown, but I suspect it's rarer now.

Funny you say that because I use 'Bully!' to mean something equivalent to "Hooray!". I blame my Mom.

I know language changes, but it's still something to consider. In the case of idiot, imbecile, and moron it's obviously too late, and I'm not suggesting we try and bring them back into medical texts (though the classification could be useful), but it's a bit of a warning story. We had these short, descriptive words. Now we have to use cumbersome phrases like "profound retardation".

I think doctors have come up with some new terms that they consider more precise and descriptive than the blanket terms you're talking about. They have plenty of useful classifications to use.

edited 10th May '11 8:06:06 PM by blueharp

Mongoloid... Heh that sounds fun to say!

(adds to vocabulary)

Nah, you have every right to offend people.

As they have every right to be offended.

Honestly though, PC is such a thoroughly abused buzzword I don't think it has a meaning anymore. One side sees it as a tactic to brush off racism and bigotry with a snide "you're just being too PC, you whiny bitch, grow a tougher skin;" while the other side sees it as a movement to put padding on anything sharper than a crayon and treat everyone like porcelain toddlers, metaphorically speaking.

Those two definitions are so obviously differing and conflicting as to make the term useless.

edited 10th May '11 8:46:17 PM by deathjavu

What's the line between PC language vs. bold leftist radicalism?

Bold leftist radicalism involves actually doing something. E.g trying to do something about actual racism, sexism, etc. rather than simply quibbling about the words people use for it.

That said, regarding complaints about political correctness, it basically boils down to "I find that insulting, don't say that about me." I think it's kind of silly to treat that as a threat to your freedom of speech, when it's just a natural response to being insulted.

Of course, then you have people who try to stop you from using words that insult other people. That's probably more a grey area, but it's kind of a no-win situation because if you take that approach, you'll be accused of white knighting, and if you don't, you're silently perpetuating privilege. I guess it boils down to a question of values and ethics.

Wow. Them peoples in Love Happiness' link sure hate the State, don't they?

I agree that bold leftist radicalism does indeed involve actually doing something. Groups have a right to choose what they're called, so I disagree with Barkey and Mark - if you keep calling people something they don't want to be called, you're automatically being annoying, at best.

Incidentally, 'little person' is now not PC either, anyway. It's complex to explain, but from what I can tell, you're meant to just say "person with (whatever physical/mental illness or condition they have)". Like "person with schizophrenia" rather than "schizophreniac". That way, you're acknowledging their person-hood and not defining their whole life by their illness/condition.

Another problem is white-straight-cisgendered-etc-those-priveleged-people-you-know persons controlling what is and what isn't PC rather than the oppressed people they claim to fight for and with. This ironically gives the oppressed even less public visibility and such. I think outsiders thinking of social justice movements as being pedantic whiners, mostly represented by aforementioned priveleged persons, is one of the major reasons why SJ movements struggle to get off the ground.

all can say is that people should remember that just because you find something offensive doesn't mean that it's wrong.

I think we have to draw the line somewhere. After all, there are members of some groups who end up committing suicide due to hurtful things said about them.

So? There have been suicides in every group that can be blamed on "they said mean things". Should we curtail speech on the off chance that someone might say something offensive?

We have to be sensitive about what we say. Just because we can say something doesn't mean we necessarily should. There are consequences to what we say that aren't always immediately apparent. In an ideal world, people would simply use tact and courtesy to know what not to say. In our less ideal reality however, there will have to be external forces acting on those who cross the line in what they say.

Note that there's a HUGE difference between making a political statement and simply being a jerk to a group.

edited 11th May '11 11:51:43 AM by CBanana

"Political correctness" used to be very specifically about what words were used to describe certain groups of people and in particular the use of words that were less derogatory towards those groups (e.g. "gay" for "homosexual" and so on). However, it's come to mean "anything involving state regulation of personal behaviour that a right-wing journalist or politician wants to bash". In the UK, at any rate, "it's political correctness gone mad" has become a cliche for anyone complaining about any sort of bureaucracy or regulation. It's real-life Trope Decay.

My own feeling about PC is that it had an initial use in encouraging more courteous behaviour towards minorities, but this was destroyed when some left-wingers took it up in The '80s precisely as a substitute for "bold leftist radicalism" (which, as Bobby G says, it isn't). Changing words is no substitute for changing social structures, especially given that the new words soon become abusive terms themselves (as with "gay", which is used by some younger British people to mean "rubbish" now). PC has just ended up as an Aunt Sally that conservatives love to hate.

edited 11th May '11 12:32:07 PM by captainbrass2

I don't pick on people unless they do something obnoxious to deserve it, namely picking on other people or myself first. So if someone decides to kill themselves because they were rude to me and I threw an insulting slur their way, I figure the gene pool just got a little cleaner. Their loss, not mine. I don't think it's very realistic to essentially say that people will go on a depressive bender and kill themselves because they were in the room when someone said "faggot".

edited 11th May '11 12:34:56 PM by Barkey