lisa843
06-15-2007, 01:10 AM
I found the following post while surfing the net. It makes a lot of valid points...I agree with some but not all of what they are saying. What do you think about all that?? What are your thoughts on "political correctness"??
the following is the link to where the post came from:
http://www.modernhumanist.com/?m=200611
Posted by modernhumanist in : Humanist Perspective, Humanist Reason , 3 comments
Political Correctness is not correct. It is not mannerly, nor is it polite. Political Correctness is something we do (fake) so that we won’t get in trouble for saying something that someone has decided is offensive or inappropriate. Like any other measure of society, it was born out of a legitimate concern that people were being degraded, oppressed, marginalized or in other ways offended by certain kinds of speech and behavior.
Where it took a far turn is when it became the way to communicate in a sanitized and censored way. Political Correctness also encompasses what we call damage control for when someone says or does something inappropriate. This includes meeting with the right people, apologizing to the right people and publicly displaying the correct amount of remorse so that people will forget that you said or did whatever got you in trouble in the first place.
By now we have all heard or seen Michael Richards’ racist tirade. It’s not too long ago that Mel Gibson went on his anti-Semitic rant. Just a few months ago, Virginia’s George Allen got into trouble and eventually lost his election bid for calling an Indian man “macaca”
We have been inundated by racist outbursts, not to mention the numerous homophobic ones that don’t seem to ruffle as many media feathers.
All of the parties in question apologized and performed acts of contrition, but what is really true? When a person is drunk, believes they are speaking in private or in the midst of rage, do they lose control of their faculties to where they don’t know what they are saying? Or rather, is this the time when their true feelings come out?
When an enemy combatant is being waterboarded by the now U.S. Government sanctioned practice, they are not made comfortable. They are in fact made supremely uncomfortable to put them in an uncontrollable terror situation in the hopes that this will break down their guard and make them admit what they are hiding.
Doesn’t it make sense that Gibson and Richards and Allen are all actually racist and their misfortune in being caught is what is truly the issue?
The truth is we may be all far more prejudiced that we think, both individually and as a culture. I think that political correctness and the real consequences violation brings really does make us a world full of liars, especially in the U.S. Do we truly live in a free society when racists cannot speak their mind and have to fool us into believing they are not racist?
I think political correctness keeps us from moving forward as a society by misleading us into thinking we are more progressive than we actually are. Furthermore, by not allowing it to come to light or be discussed, we are actually living a lie and allowing it to perpetuate. In addition, by forcing racists and others to watch themselves, it may breed even further racism as the target groups now dislike their racial enemy even more for making them speak falsely.
It would be much better for us personally and culturally to be able to confront racism and homophobia and all other forms of hate head on, rather than wonder who is really open and who is being politically correct.
Look at the fallout from Michael Richards’ tirade. Everyone is talking about it and getting that topic on the table. Imagine if everyone who felt like Michael Richards blew up like that - we would then have no choice but to address it vs. viewing it as an aberration, when it is obvious that it is not.
In order for us to have any hope of living in a free and open society, we have to give people the opportunity to be real and say so. This does not mean simply letting the racists be racist, but also letting the people who like porn or smoke marijuana or like members of the same sex or appreciate all forms of art do what they like as well. The moral majority is against porn, yet they are some of it’s biggest purveyors. Even much of the priest sex scandals can be tied to not allowing people to be themselves.
I’m not suggesting that we condone behaviors that are dangerous, offensive or inappropriate, simply that we need to see what the world is really like before we can address these issues rather than believing that everything is fine and we only have a few aberrations.
Until we know where we stand as a culture, we can not hope to grow beyond our challenges.
the following is the link to where the post came from:
http://www.modernhumanist.com/?m=200611
Posted by modernhumanist in : Humanist Perspective, Humanist Reason , 3 comments
Political Correctness is not correct. It is not mannerly, nor is it polite. Political Correctness is something we do (fake) so that we won’t get in trouble for saying something that someone has decided is offensive or inappropriate. Like any other measure of society, it was born out of a legitimate concern that people were being degraded, oppressed, marginalized or in other ways offended by certain kinds of speech and behavior.
Where it took a far turn is when it became the way to communicate in a sanitized and censored way. Political Correctness also encompasses what we call damage control for when someone says or does something inappropriate. This includes meeting with the right people, apologizing to the right people and publicly displaying the correct amount of remorse so that people will forget that you said or did whatever got you in trouble in the first place.
By now we have all heard or seen Michael Richards’ racist tirade. It’s not too long ago that Mel Gibson went on his anti-Semitic rant. Just a few months ago, Virginia’s George Allen got into trouble and eventually lost his election bid for calling an Indian man “macaca”
We have been inundated by racist outbursts, not to mention the numerous homophobic ones that don’t seem to ruffle as many media feathers.
All of the parties in question apologized and performed acts of contrition, but what is really true? When a person is drunk, believes they are speaking in private or in the midst of rage, do they lose control of their faculties to where they don’t know what they are saying? Or rather, is this the time when their true feelings come out?
When an enemy combatant is being waterboarded by the now U.S. Government sanctioned practice, they are not made comfortable. They are in fact made supremely uncomfortable to put them in an uncontrollable terror situation in the hopes that this will break down their guard and make them admit what they are hiding.
Doesn’t it make sense that Gibson and Richards and Allen are all actually racist and their misfortune in being caught is what is truly the issue?
The truth is we may be all far more prejudiced that we think, both individually and as a culture. I think that political correctness and the real consequences violation brings really does make us a world full of liars, especially in the U.S. Do we truly live in a free society when racists cannot speak their mind and have to fool us into believing they are not racist?
I think political correctness keeps us from moving forward as a society by misleading us into thinking we are more progressive than we actually are. Furthermore, by not allowing it to come to light or be discussed, we are actually living a lie and allowing it to perpetuate. In addition, by forcing racists and others to watch themselves, it may breed even further racism as the target groups now dislike their racial enemy even more for making them speak falsely.
It would be much better for us personally and culturally to be able to confront racism and homophobia and all other forms of hate head on, rather than wonder who is really open and who is being politically correct.
Look at the fallout from Michael Richards’ tirade. Everyone is talking about it and getting that topic on the table. Imagine if everyone who felt like Michael Richards blew up like that - we would then have no choice but to address it vs. viewing it as an aberration, when it is obvious that it is not.
In order for us to have any hope of living in a free and open society, we have to give people the opportunity to be real and say so. This does not mean simply letting the racists be racist, but also letting the people who like porn or smoke marijuana or like members of the same sex or appreciate all forms of art do what they like as well. The moral majority is against porn, yet they are some of it’s biggest purveyors. Even much of the priest sex scandals can be tied to not allowing people to be themselves.
I’m not suggesting that we condone behaviors that are dangerous, offensive or inappropriate, simply that we need to see what the world is really like before we can address these issues rather than believing that everything is fine and we only have a few aberrations.
Until we know where we stand as a culture, we can not hope to grow beyond our challenges.