Various pundits? How about mentioning Rowan Atkinson, Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry?

It is not only about the right to speak, it is about the right to listen. I don’t want people telling me what I can and cannot listen to. That is the pushback against PC. The witch-hunt mentality forcing the “far right” into the political spotlight clearly isn’t being instigated by the far right - there is a reaction against a culture of victimhood which has grown in momentum due, largely I’d say, to the phenomenon of the internet.

Things are going to be a bit messy for a while no doubt. The scales have been rocked and we’re just going to have to weather the storm until the younger generations mature and come to the political fore with a more direct understanding of the machination of political discourse online and how memes and propaganda therein are general nonsense.

Nothing has changed really. Everything has been amplified a little though.

JP is not the headliner for those in fear of an overly PC attitude. What a heavy PC tilt does is give voice to the extreme ends of the societal discontent. An attitude against misplaced vulgarity would make more sense than pushing for everyone to treat everyone like an innocent victim - even though we’re all innocent victims (as in we’re human and therefore we have some choice as to how to deal with upset).

People shouldn’t be forced by law to treat people in a manner that the government dictates. The law is a guide to civil interaction, it is not something we’re under any obligation to abide by if we feel strongly against it.

What has been exposed in the internet is how dark humour can be accessed by everyone more readily. People who don’t like it seek it out like perverse vampires looking to shut others down - something akin to me or you knocking on someone’s door and telling them we hate eating strawberries - and screaming this at them. Why should anyone give a fuck?

The other factor is the purposeful (or rather indoctrinated) use of hyperbole and misrepresentation in the sphere of media. There is a frenzy of competition for the next sensationalist slice of pie to dish out for “clickbait” and I doubt many take it too seriously. The problem is now that there is a lack of moderate journalism, and lack of distinction between professional journalism and amateur journalism, and the growing use of such mediums to control and pervert ‘news stories’ to suit. Most of us hav always been aware fo this and what appears to be the case now is that those naively assuming everything they heard as the truth now have the opportunity to find their own groups online. This will inevitably lead to a section of these people becoming more extreme and a section of them realising they’ve been duped by their own bias (with rational thought being the force that will win out eventually).

You continue to bring sense to these discussions.
Lets not forget the bad actors using social media to foment the chaos you speak of above. Russia, China and various opportunists use the far reaching power of the internet to create division. That fact is oft overlooked in all this, and I think it should be at the top of the list as far as the awareness of the public.

As a direct example look at the BBC interview with Farage. They basically let him emphasis his position, and gain public appeal, by trying to pull skeletons out if his closet rather than deal directly with the subject at hand.

As deplorable as you view Farage it doesn’t matter when he is paraded on national television merely to have shit thrown at him that has mostly nothing to do with the problem at hand.

Just because we have people that are less than savoury attacking the poor line of questioning to put them it doesn’t make the line of questioning poor. There is a lack of nuanced debate on television now, and television does still have some clout. All we ever seem to hear listening to debate shows is “we’re running out of time” ... maybe having a debate show that last 2-3 hours would be a getter approach? Clearly there is a demand fro such as we’ve seen by the popularity of podcasts and youtubers (of which I listen to myself because I have the time to).

The only reasonable thing I’ve seen on the BBC is question time ... but it is still FAR too short a format - especially with the inclination of panelists to put one over their political rivals. It would make more sense to have panelists with some academic weight rather than pandering to the views of politicians. That said, I guess it’s better than nothing :)

I think I bring sense, but I probably don’t. I’m suspicious of myself as much as, if not more so, than of others.

All I can say in truth is that the average person in the street doesn’t much care for PC talk and neither do they accept impolite behaviour or hateful speech - there doesn’t need to be a ‘law’ protecting anyone in most societies (and once such “anyones” are able to stand up the ‘law’ to get them there should be removed).

Obviously there are many holes in this as it’s just a vague outline. The only human group I see that need ‘protecting’ to any degree forever are children - but not in a limitless sense! Other areas of the world do certainly have problems with other groups, and generally speaking, the west doesn’t massively suffer from the persecution of different groups of humans anywhere near like it has in the past.

I pretend to know what’s going on anymore than the next person. I have suspicions about how and why certain global shifts are happening, but I have no real idea solid enough to adhere to one theory over another - it’s almost certainly a combination of my theories combined with several dozen other theories I’ve never heard of and likely never will.

Inwardly I’m a chaotic rebel, an anarchist of the highest degree. Outwardly I step with caution, trepidation and an overwhelming sense of my own stupidity.

When it comes to manners I act as I see fit regardless of laws and in strong opposition to the dictates of law as my moral positioning comes first and foremost. We’re all going to do things we deem “bad” in hindsight, so I believe it is best to think about and set out a personal moral structure built as best as possible away from the whims and shaming of others - as my moral constitution plays out I’ll inevitably be steered by societal views, but I must remember that such pressures can also uproot my personal sense of what is “right” and “wrong”.

I’d rather suffer mistakes and live with shame than blindly follow ridden of any sense of possible guilt. Self depreciation is a gift and like any gift we can overdo it; that is essentially what I mean by the balance between the inward and outward regard.

Note: I despise religious institutions (but have interest in ‘religion’ as a regard towards the individual human condition) - just in case you get the wrong idea ;)

No wrong idea here. I follow a few of the discussion you’ve been in..these free speech ones are important. Some serious dogma to overcome.

OK, fair enough, yes, social media is bound to be polarizing, yes, people have a choice on how they respond to things (up to a point talk of a culture of victimhood is reasonable but only up to a point - there is also a culture of blaming the victim and "himpathy") and no, governments don't have a right to tell you what to say (and I don't know of any western government that does - lawyers have refuted JP's assertion that the Canadian charter of rights would force him to use a person's chosen gender pronoun).

I'm pretty convinced that the rise of the right as fomented by agents of global plutocrats such as Putin, Koch et al is to get the people they have ripped off to blame minorities. Neoliberal economic policies serve those plutocrats very well (but no one else). This is faaaar more dangerous than any extreme PC sentiments amongst undergraduate social science and humanities students and hardly anyone is saying anything.

But what I'm really trying to get at with the question is whether there is too much emphasis put on PC and not enough on the rise of the right, which is being fomented by Bannon and Koch bots, as we know (amongst whom we might include Farage). The academic discussion on PC is relevant within the uni but it serves to supplement the bad bots outside of it. In an era ripe for scapegoating there does need to be a consideration of what kind of speech will lead to the rise of malevolent social movements such as Proud Boys, etc.

PS there are links within my posts here to further information.

My issue with PCism/SJWism is an issue with desires to control others--their behavior, including their speech, especially when it amounts to controlling aspects of their livelihood/careers, freedom from incarceration, freedom from significant sanctions, etc. It's an issue of just what sorts of things we try to control, to just what extent.

What complicates matters is that these real concerns blend in so well with reactionary apologetics for the rule of the parasitic plutocrats. I haven't seen any genuine thought put to it on the part of the well-paid pundits who defend against PC extremism aimed at the kinds of social conditions created by bogus economic strategies that only redound to those already gorging on the rest of our efforts. Those that have lost out - due NOT TO PC but to the shitemeisters of the parasitic rentier class - feel they have allies in the scapegoating that they indulge in. I don't think that is the intention of those railing about SJWs but that is the result. They are working against their aims without realizing it ... or?

Is this an reasonable account, do you think, of the issues with Political Correctness? — Izat So

Yes, the subtext of (mainly) white male complaints and anxiety around 'political correctness', a term which is rarely well-defined, is the perception that the shift in ethnic demographics, from majority white to majority non-white that has taken place in the last few decades means the white majority will lose its status at the dominant ethnicity, and as a result, potentially lose social, political, and economic power; a privation that non-whites have had to deal with in for centuries. This holds equally true for ethnicity as it does for gender. Parallel to shifting ethnic demographics in the last few decades, women have increasingly gained economic, political, and social power, along with bodily autonomy. An outcome of gaining power is the ability to demand greater equality. An equality of wages and access to capital and sources of wealth accumulation, of representation (business, political, entertainment, etc.) of respect, and of power more generally, to that which has been enjoyed by White (men) for generations.

White identity, which largely exists invisibly in the background, begins to emerge as a reaction to these perceived threats, as you put it, "when you're used to privilege, equality looks like oppression", and as James Baldwin wrote, "an identity is questioned only when it is menaced". Suddenly, you can't slap a girl's ass, or say "bitch", or the N-word, or use an Indian accent, or dress as a Native American for Halloween, or in essence, leverage your now waning ethnic dominance and privilege, which you had otherwise enjoyed, to sub-humanize other ethnicity or genders without social repercussions.

I don’t think you seem to get it. The rise of the far right is due to the extreme left enabling them.

Also, right does mean bad and left doesn’t mean good. The extreme ends are issues and it seems pretty clear to me that people get annoyed with the extension of the left into extremism and feel obliged to tilt to the right further - this allows recruitment into the extremes more easily.

Also, it is not a case of governments dictating free speech. People in the UK have been prosecuted for making jokes, and to repeat, I don’t want people demanding that I CANNOT LISTEN to what others say simply because they feel offended. That is the inherent evil lurking under PC.

People are reacting out of fear due to massive cultural exposure. Out of touch governments are then listening to the propaganda pushed on the internet without any real understanding of it. They think it reflects the views of everyone and then it snowballs.

The rise of the far right is due to the extreme left enabling them. — I like sushi

This is of course a garbage analysis that denies agency to those who are on the far right. If you become a white supremacist, neo-Nazi or what-have-you because of someone else then you were open to it to begin with.

It’s just common sense. If people are pushing hard left ideas and they are disliked then there will be push back - the position with weight is the position that has laws passed. There has been a slow creeping PC culture since the 90’s. People have been arrested for offending people and lost their jobs because of others looking to be offended. It doesn’t take much looking to see that this has been enflamed by the media.

In the more centrist area of politics both the right and left work off of each other on more equal terms. At the extremes no one has much inclination to defend oppression unless it is oppression dressed up as protection - that is the extreme left and there is a necessary push back against it. It appears to me to be a problem because leftist movements are slow burning. By the time they rise to prominence their task is almost completely fulfilled in exposing social problems. Sadly they then keep pushing and shifting agendas quite often disproportionately to each agendas meaning in the current sociopolitical climate.

You can call my view garbage if you want. There are plenty of liberals types who agree with this - I mentioned a couple in my first response. And you appear to be saying it is better not to allow anyone to be open to anything because people are inherently bad? I don’t think so. PC could easily be said to be right wing in some sense. It is telling you how to behave and what you can and cannot listen to. My mother generally taught me this along with my childhood peers. I can understand this for children (to some degree), but for adults? I am trying to be sensible here, not to enflame or entice.

The whole nonsense is about to shift into ageism I think. The irresponsible elders with the youth as victims. Probably the next -ism for the next generations coming through.

It’s just common sense. If people are pushing hard left ideas and they are disliked then there will be push back — I like sushi

To be clear, you think Left political correctness, which you haven't defined or explained outside of vague terms, can lead to a push back into...Nazism. Weird how white hegemony hasn't lead to mass non-white fascist movements.

I don’t know what “Left PC” is? If you don’t know what PC is then we’re wasting our time here.

I’ve not mentioned the political ideology you mentioned above. I’ve no idea what you’re implying after that about non-white fascist movements, but I get the feeling this is going to be an attempt at discussing something serious that is going to fail before it gets started.

If you could rephrase that whole last response then there might be a point to pursue here.

Thanks

If you don’t know what PC is then we’re wasting our time here. — I like sushi

Then explain it. Provide examples. Why is it driving people towards far-right ideology (which includes neo-Nazism, white supremacy etc.)?

I’ve no idea what you’re implying after that about non-white fascist movements — I like sushi

You say that "pushing hard left ideas that are disliked" has lead to the emergence of the far right. So why hasn't America's long history of white supremacy or modern far right movements lead to some sort of equivalent for people of color,or the Left in general? You've literally implied that political correctness enables the far right, so what equivalency does the far right enable? It's seemingly a unilateral dialectic.

so what equivalency does the far right enable? — Maw

On that logic,political incorrectness, obviously.

I never said it is all bad (PC). I have already given examples of what I mean. If the situation is more right leaning the left slowly gains momentum. If the situation is more left leaning the right gains momentum more quickly.

I don’t like to repeat myself on the same page, but the problem, as I see it, is when people are prosecuted for what they say and/or others are told they cannot listen to what others say (or severely inhibited from doing so). This is how the PC culture of the 90’s has morphed into something radical from a simple liberal idea.

You've literally implied that political correctness enables the far right, so what equivalency does the far right enable? It's seemingly a unilateral dialectic.

This smell of sophistry. Care to rephrase? I am not sure what “literally implied” means. Either I literally say X or I imply X. I never actually/literally said PC enables the far right and didn’t imply it either.

I don’t really know how clearer I could be. If what I’ve written in this thread doesn’t satisfy you fully and I don’t understand why your asking me to say what I believe I’ve said clearly enough then so be it - by all means keep trying though and maybe I can clarify; if not I don’t really have much to add.

is when people are prosecuted for what they say and/or others are told they cannot listen to what others say (or severely inhibited from doing so). — I like sushi

Prosecution is a legal term and I'm not sure who is being prosecuted by the USA government for stating 'non-political correct' views. This also seems like an incomplete definition given that China's CPC and other such governments do prosecute individuals for what they say, and censures content to limit what civilians can see, and I sincerely doubt we'd consider this 'political correctness'. So I'm really curious to understand precisely waht, in your view, is driving people towards extreme right-wing politics, which includes neo-Nazism and white supremacy. Is in not being able to dress as a Native American for Halloween? Is it being asked to call a transgender person by their preferred pronoun? Is it saying that Christopher Columbus was a bad person? What is it exactly? What are people saying that they are being *ahem* "prosecuted" for?

I never actually/literally said PC enables the far right and didn’t imply it either. — I like sushi

The rise of the far right is due to the extreme left enabling them. — I like sushi

Hmm...

You also stated, "it seems pretty clear to me that people get annoyed with the extension of the left into extremism and feel obliged to tilt to the right further - this allows recruitment into the extremes more easily"

So the "extension of the left into extremism" is ostensibly into political correctness, so that's what we are talking about (as oppose to universal healthcare, abolishing capitalism, solving global warming, etc.) and being "annoyed" with political correctness drives people into the open arms of white supremacy. That seems reasonable to you? That people are so profoundly "annoyed" that they being white supremacists?

Look ... never mind. Anyone can read what I’ve said. I talked about PC in terms of a simple liberal idea and as “radical” and “extreme”. So I didn’t imply or literal say that and you’ve quoted the evidence for this and EVEN out context of the whole blocks of text it doesn’t say what you’re claiming.

I’m not talking about the US because I’ve never been there.

I have nothing more to add because this will turn into me saying, I didn’t say this or that and you likely selecting more quoted that do nothing to back up whatever it is you think I am or what I’m saying. Not interested.

Bye

Maw, I agree with your points.

Sorry sushi, you're not really making much sense in terms of explaining the rise of the right as a reaction against political correctness.

Why rise against political correctness, if not for the idea that others below the historically more privileged in society are cutting into their slice of the power pie?

Why ignore the deliberate, documented efforts on the part of Bannon et al by means of social media bots and rightwing organizations devoting huge effort and money to trashing "the left"...? And their being heavily funded by the rentier parasites. Meanwhile extreme PC (when it becomes what it wants to protect people against) seems centred around some university campuses among some disciplines when members who, unknown to them (or not), have become members of Bannon's army come to give talks.

What on earth does left mean? Scandi style government? Or a respect for human rights, regardless of gender or colour? What's wrong with either? Where have people come to this idea that the left represents a taking away of freedom? Not having to pay all of my salary for medical treatments would give me more liberty. Tax breaks for the rich do not result in less oppression because fewer social services does not mean less oppression, except it might appear to be to men and their women of the lower classes who have become even less well off due to their own voting choices and are blaming those below them due to the influence of plutocracy championing news channels such as Fox News of the equivalent in other countries.

Do people really feel so oppressed by the stigma against making racist jokes or their refusal to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple that they would fear PC more than being shot up in a church or mosque? There's the sense of entitlement talking.

What complicates matters is that these real concerns blend in so well with reactionary apologetics for the rule of the parasitic plutocrats. I haven't seen any genuine thought put to it on the part of the well-paid pundits who defend against PC extremism aimed at the kinds of social conditions created by bogus economic strategies that only redound to those already gorging on the rest of our efforts. Those that have lost out - due NOT TO PC but to the shitemeisters of the parasitic rentier class - feel they have allies in the scapegoating that they indulge in. I don't think that is the intention of those railing about SJWs but that is the result. They are working against their aims without realizing it ... or? — Izat So

I don't know if I really understand any sentence you wrote there, and I'm not sure what any of it has to do with my comment.

I don't know if I really understand any sentence you wrote there, and I'm not sure what any of it has to do with my comment. — Terrapin Station

The concerns you raise are real within the university.

Pundits can inadvertently fuel the distrust of PC and feed into the power agenda of less wholesome actors on the right. Pundits ought to start looking at the economic shift to neoliberal economics that has led to wage stagnation, a growing income divide and a ponzi cycle of real estate bubbles and collapses that have resulted in a larger underclass. They ought to consider that disaffected people tend to scapegoat "the other". The ubiquitous punditry against PC only serves to fuel the flames outside of the university. They're surrounded by wildfire but are trying to repair a dripping tap.

The concerns you raise are real within the university. — Izat So

Inside and outside the university. It's unfortunately human nature to want to control other people in many different ways.

Inside and outside the university. It's unfortunately human nature to want to control other people in many different ways. — Terrapin Station

Do people really feel so oppressed by the stigma against making racist jokes or their refusal to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple that they would fear PC more than being shot up in a church or mosque? There's the sense of entitlement talking. — Izat So

I'm not saying anything about fear. So why bring that up?

Sorry sushi, you're not really making much sense in terms of explaining the rise of the right as a reaction against political correctness.

I didn’t actually say that. I used the terms EXTREME and RADICAL alongside PC. I am not saying PC is inherently bad, but that the use of it in hyperbole is bad.

This is the thrust of my view:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=h3UeUnRxE0E

If people are brought into the eye of the law for “insults” then you can be sure that those demanding the right not to be insulted are going to find themselves pushing up against those that are apparently insulting them. Given the readiness to be insulted the accusations grow and more and more ridiculous cases rise to the surface. The dumb accusations then get confused with serious accusations, the “argumentum ad Hitlerum” then stokes the fire and before you know it the extreme left has conflated right leaning, or conservative views, with vicious comparisons to the far right. The far right jump in with relish and then make the already fuzzy boundaries more fuzzy.

Do you follow? I think Rowan Atkinson also manages to highlight the effect of the internet too AND just late last year the police department were asking people to report offensive tweets (posters were put up) so it is not like these things are unrealistic, although they should be.

Do people really feel so oppressed by the stigma against making racist jokes or their refusal to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple that they would fear PC more than being shot up in a church or mosque? There's the sense of entitlement talking.

It is a question of freedom of expression not entitlement. It is precisely the misguided sense of ‘entitlement’ to not be offended that is a serious problem being thrust around on social media and creeping into legislation.

If freedom of speech is not always a major concern then I don’t know what is - other than, as Mr. Atkinson put it, basic sustenance.

And to quote myself because it appears you missed this:

At the extremes no one has much inclination to defend oppression unless it is oppression dressed up as protection

I heard someone mention something about Trump recently too I’ve been saying for the past few years; I think it was Sam Harris? That is that Trump says plenty of idiotic things yet people are still trying to construe some phrase of wording as being either ‘racist’ or ‘fascist’ when it is clearly, at best, a stretch. Whether someone is or isn’t this or that ‘-ist’ it doesn’t mean they are incapable of saying anything without being said ‘-ist’.

If that isn’t clear enough then that's fine too. I believe I’ve presented a reasonable enough account and if you find it unreasonable that’s fine. The PC movement when it started was basically just about asking people to think a little about the feelings of others in general discourse. Now people are pushing it as a part of law and playing with it in the sociopolitical sphere. I’m not keen, but that doesn’t mean I’m against polite speech and reasonable respect in day-to-day discourse. In politics and ethical debates these things shouldn’t be inhibited by demands on what can and cannot be said.

Well Sushi, I don't think extreme PC gives rise to rightwing extremism because I don't think it's that common outside of a university campus, Rowan Atkinson's "thousands" seems a bit of an exaggeration based on the kind of things I've witnessed or read about in the news. Atkinson's accounts are the first I've heard of it outside a university. That's not to say that I disagree with Atkinson on the broader issue in principle, but that I doubt that extreme PC has had anything like the kind of influence in fomenting the politely named "alt right" as the social media bots hired by the rentier class have had, combined with the increasing economic insecurity of those not in the 1%, not unlike the situation with Germany after WWI. And because of that, I'm far more concerned about the rise of the far right, evident all over the world, than I am about whether someone is allowed to call a police horse gay, although that in itself is perturbing.

You might meanwhile find this effort on the part of one famous pundit to discredit certain university disciplines interesting. And this article makes me wonder why that same famous pundit made all the hype about the law. What was the motivation to "misrepresent", I wonder?

"Political Correctness", "the left", "the Right", are all a bit difficult to discuss because the terms are too fluid. We put the fluid terms in our squirt guns and aim as well as we can.

It seems to me that there is no necessary link between "the left" and "the right" these days. As American politics go, what I call "the left" (socialist organizations such as the Socialist Workers Party, Communist Party USA, Socialist Labor Party, et al) became moribund since... the 1970s -- at least 40 years ago. These organizations were based on Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, DeLeon, et al), had party discipline, had specific and stable views on economic and social issues, and published their views, and had larger and smaller participation rates over time -- the peak being the Great Depression, probably.

"The Right" has been a more or less consistent and cohesive interest group since at least the Great Depression. They generally occupied the conservative wing of the Republic Party, but have not always dominated it. There were once "liberal Republicans" too, and they were at one time dominant.

"The Left", such as it is today, is not a party -- it's a pronoun. The Right, on the other hand, is cohesive, organize, consistent, and in power. "The Right" opposed Social Security in the 1930s, Medicare / Medicaid in the 1960s, and enthusiastically helped end Welfare As We Know it under William Clinton. They did not disappear after Bill Clinton. They continued under Bush II, didn't disappear under Obama, and are here with Trump. Koch Brothers weren't around in 1934 but but they've been active in the last 20.

"The rich Right" knows what side of the bread their butter is on, and they work consistently and effectively to keep the butter as thick as possible. They are pretty successful. I doubt if "the rich Right" spends any time at all worrying about "the left", especially the pronominal left that is just a place holder for some disenchanted college students. Their hired political operatives might bait the academic non-entities to get them to act out, but beyond that, "who cares what they think?". Environmentalist are a manageable concern, and crazy crypto-fascist groups are annoying, but pose no risk apart from smelling bad. (The rich gentile folks in Germany had no particular problems with the Nazis. Nazis, Schmatzies. What do you all, Sieg Heil und Heil Hitler, want to buy these days?)

I'm fairly certain that most of the jabberwockies on "The Left" do not know shit from shineola when it comes to political and social analysis. The old leftists knew much more. Mostly they play word games. BORING.

"The rich Right" knows what side of the bread their butter is on, and they work consistently and effectively to keep the butter as thick as possible. They are pretty successful. I doubt if "the rich Right" spends any time at all worrying about "the left", especially the pronominal left that is just a place holder for some discontented college students...etc. — Bitter Crank

Yup

That is that Trump says plenty of idiotic things yet people are still trying to construe some phrase of wording as being either ‘racist’ or ‘fascist’ when it is clearly, at best, a stretch. — I like sushi

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/06/trump-racism-comments/588067/