• ernestm
    1k
    its not so much inspiration. It's disgust.

    People overseas should be able to say Trump's an idiot and not be concerned they lose a tourist visa application. It's a vast over-reach of authority by the nationalists, in my opinion. Carlson can say what he likes. Similarly, if people overseas want to say Carlson's a jerk, or America is a pit of evil because of what Carlson says, they should not be penalized for it. That's my opinion.

    To me, it's just as revolting as CIA black sites overseas using 'extended interrogation techniques' because they wouldn't be able to do it if they were located in the USA.
  • Izat So
    92
    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/06/opinion/jordan-peterson-canadian-deference.html

    "It is worth remembering that Mr. Peterson can be more accurately described as a previously obscure Canadian academic who believed, erroneously, that he would soon be forced by law to use gender-neutral pronouns and who refused to bow to that hypothetical demand. The proposed human rights policy that made Mr. Peterson famous is now Canadian law, and no instance of “compelled speech” has occurred as a result of it or resulted in criminal charges, as Mr. Peterson feared. On the issue of legal requirements for pronoun use, things remain the way Mr. Peterson wanted them — the same.

    "Mr. Peterson was taking a stand not against power in that instance but on behalf of it."
  • Izat So
    92
    Jordanetics: A Journey Into the Mind of Humanity's Greatest Thinker (2018) ISBN 978-952-7065-69-3
  • Maw
    2.7k
    Yeah I mean these supposedly zealous advocates for Free Speech(tm) either willfully turn a blind check towards censorship regarding issues they dislike, or condone outright censorship. Bari Weiss attempted to get a Palestinian professor fired for criticizing Israel during her time as a student at Columbia and to this day continues to ignore anti-BDS legislation which is a overt violation of the First Amendment. She has also condoned dis-inviting fellow Jews to speak at Universities because of their sympathy towards Palestinians and criticism towards Israeli policies. Jordan Peterson, who just last year criticized Orban's position re: eliminating gender studies in universities, is now cordially meeting with him, and discussing the dangerous of political correctness. It's an outright sham, anyone who believes that these types of free speech advocates in and around the 'Intellectual Dark Web' authentically value universal free speech is a naive, Brooklyn Bridge-buying fool.
  • ssu
    7.9k
    I remember one person that actually started this thread saying in the opening paragraph:

    (but please, let's not make this about him)Izat So

    Nope, you couldn't resist being yourself! :grin:

    Oh that evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil Jordan Peterson!!!
  • Izat So
    92
    About that link between endless ranting about PC, beloved of the far right... Ignore it and make it about me being myself, if you like.

    Not surprised re Weiss. The IDW does often "stand not against power but on behalf of it".

    Taking a stand on behalf of power is probably the crux of this whole overblown anti-PC BS.
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    Yeah I mean these supposedly zealous advocates for Free Speech(tm) either willfully turn a blind check towards censorship regarding issues they dislike, or condone outright censorship.Maw

    Not in this zealot's case.
  • fdrake
    5.8k
    This is such a Steven Pinker-esque argument. The discussion is around the increase in right wing terrorism, and the charts provided clearly show this to be the case. This is an important societal problem to concern ourselves with, and not something to shrug at simply because there are less overall terrorist attacks compared to 40+ years ago.Maw

    I for one support ethnic diversity among terrorists. We're so used to them being just Muslims, and it's about time we had some proper integrated white nationalists reclaiming what's our own. The fall of Isis signalled the need for a renovation in terrorism, and only the white neckbeard can provide.

    Edit: (yes, this is a joke. Yes. The majority of domestic terrorists come from working class disgruntled white right wingers.)

    Edit2: (yes, far right terror is also a thinkpiece distraction, state terror is the major problem)
  • Izat So
    92
    If you're of a certain age and avoid Fox news, you wouldn't think that all terrorists were jihadis.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in_Great_Britain

    And of course there's the generally under presented cause of many mass shootings in the US (and Canada). https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/may/21/santa-fe-mass-shooting-misogyny
  • Maw
    2.7k
    Not surprised re Weiss. The IDW does often "stand not against power but on behalf of it".

    Taking a stand on behalf of power is probably the crux of this whole overblown anti-PC BS.
    Izat So

    Coincidentally, this excellent article on the hypocrisy and myopia around the IDW and 'free-speech' advocates was just published today.

    The idea that no-platforming and other efforts to control campus speech are tactics carried out primarily by students on the left is almost undoubtedly the result of outlets like the Times’ opinion section giving such incidents excessive amounts of coverage -- while essentially ignoring the many examples of conservatives trying to shut out speech they don’t like. You’re unlikely to read Bret Stephens’ take on the efforts of conservative students to use the court system to cancel a panel discussion about Palestinian rights at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. David Brooks isn’t likely to weigh in anytime soon on the University of Arizona students who were arrested on campus for criticizing Border Patrol agents. Ross Douthat didn’t churn out an article to condemn the Nebraska GOP for using its political influence to call on Creighton University to rescind its offer to have former-Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-NE) deliver its graduation speech.
  • Izat So
    92
    Thanks for the timely excerpt and link.

    What strikes me about a lot of this activity is the pure pedantry of it all. I don't know about you but 80% of speech is subtext and as you said about Pinkeresque there is what we might call pedantic occlusion everywhere, if you get my drift. Occlusion of potential narrative elements seems more prominent with both mainstream proponents of anti-PC and the extreme PC, with the voices of anti-PC being 100x louder and with currently far more deadly outcomes.

    I think people believe that truth is whatever fits neatly into their brains. They believe truth is familiarity. The US is a weird case - should be a very open-ended society but maybe it got ahead of itself and a sizeable portion of the population had a reaction formation (an overzealous defence of something they don't really believe in but don't want to admit to themselves they don't really believe in). What they really mean by free speech is shut up other people.
  • NOS4A2
    8.3k


    The problem with political correctness is its censorial undertakings. These undertakings help the far-right because when censored they can claim “free speech” and they will be defended on free speech grounds. If they claim power they might use their persecution as reason to persecute others. For instance, when Hitler was debating Otto Wells regarding the Enabling Act, he justified his suspension of civil liberties by saying that his own civil liberties were routinely suspended and his speech “verboten”.

    The trend of PC’s emancipated terminology brings us to a consensus that does not welcome dissent. It makes differences on matters of principle almost unspeakable. This deadening of our language leads to a culture of euphemism and dog-whistle.
  • Izat So
    92
    Given the voice if anti P.C. is far shriller, louder, and more powerful, and the shut-them-down P.C. contingent is a small, youthful minority, and the communications errors of this youthful contingent is being used by the far right to shore up its appeal, I would say that your fears of P.C. being able to bring consensus to a closed point is misplaced. The FAR greater threat is the far right.
  • ssu
    7.9k
    The trend of PC’s emancipated terminology brings us to a consensus that does not welcome dissent. It makes differences on matters of principle almost unspeakable. This deadening of our language leads to a culture of euphemism and dog-whistle.NOS4A2

    This is partly true. Sure, you can find examples of this, but on the other hand you can find the opposite too. There is great open discussion also. And is this REALLY such a big problem is a valid question. And where I disagree with (for example Jordan Peterson) is that this trend would be a well thought agenda pushed by some (Marxists) leftists. It isn't. Nobody has planned this. It's not even the woke left that actually make this any kind of problem. The left has been all the time like this. It was worse when there still was the Soviet Union. Hence to think that this is a big issue is wrong. The World is far more conservative than it looks to be.

    The real problem is simply three things:

    1) The vitriol of the social media and the low standards public discussion (when everybody can participate so easily) have changed public discussion. After the 2016 election the hate mongering continued and has basically turned ranting and character assassination into the new norm. Without the historical firewalls of newspapers (which picked just what would be an opinion worthy of print), the public discourse has turned very ugly. Algorithms pick the most aggressive, most outrageous views. This creates the 'toxic' environment.

    2) Far too easily we are put into our own echo chambers.

    3) People and organizations are so afraid of public accusations that they self censor themselves and start being PC, even if they wouldn't otherwise give a damn.

    Given the voice if anti P.C. is far shriller, louder, and more powerful, and the shut-them-down P.C. contingent is a small, youthful minority,Izat So
    How so? Small youthful journalists do have an effect on just what is talked. Both sides here see the other side as shiller, louder and more powerful.

    I would say that your fears of P.C. being able to bring consensus to a closed point is misplaced. The FAR greater threat is the far right.Izat So
    Yet you seem not to get it that your paranoid fear of the right, when it comes to Jordan Peterson or whoever, is misplaced. These commentators (like Peterson etc.) denounce the far right, right wing terrorism and racist attacks etc. That seems not to matter to you at all. Perhaps there is this absolutely ludicrous idea that "They have to say that, but they don't mean that", which is ridiculous.
  • NOS4A2
    8.3k


    Given the voice if anti P.C. is far shriller, louder, and more powerful, and the shut-them-down P.C. contingent is a small, youthful minority, and the communications errors of this youthful contingent is being used by the far right to shore up its appeal, I would say that your fears of P.C. being able to bring consensus to a closed point is misplaced. The FAR greater threat is the far right.

    Being anti-P.C. spans the entire political spectrum, at least in America.

    Americans Strongly Dislike PC Culture
    Warning To Democrats: Most Americans Against U.S. Getting More Politically Correct

    The far-right is a greater threat than the PC crowd, but they both employ the same censorial tactics, and so we can oppose them for the same reasons.
  • Maw
    2.7k
    Being anti-P.C. spans the entire political spectrum, at least in America.

    Americans Strongly Dislike PC Culture
    Warning To Democrats: Most Americans Against U.S. Getting More Politically Correct

    The far-right is a greater threat than the PC crowd, but they both employ the same censorial tactics, and so we can oppose them for the same reasons.
    NOS4A2

    Notice how neither of these polls actually define Political Correctness, rendering the analysis meaningless.
  • NOS4A2
    8.3k


    Most competent people can figure out what words mean on their own accord.
  • Maw
    2.7k
    Most competent people can figure out what words mean on their own accord.NOS4A2

    The report itself says that the political correctness is "hard to define" and then goes on to not provide a definition for respondents. If there's no standard definition provided to all respondents then it's open to interpretation per participant because it's an indeterminate phrase.
  • NOS4A2
    8.3k


    This is partly true. Sure, you can find examples of this, but on the other hand you can find the opposite too. There is great open discussion also. And is this REALLY such a big problem is a valid question. And where I disagree with (for example Jordan Peterson) is that this trend would be a well thought agenda pushed by some (Marxists) leftists. It isn't. Nobody has planned this. It's not even the woke left that actually make this any kind of problem. The left has been all the time like this. It was worse when there still was the Soviet Union. Hence to think that this is a big issue is wrong. The World is far more conservative than it looks to be.

    I think you’re right about this. Political correctness is not limited to any sort of political party or persuasion, manifests in many ways, and all sides practice variations of it (though in the hidden tribes study only 30% of American progressives believed political correctness is not a problem, deviating from the norm who mostly think it is).

    I think Orwell, always prescient, touched on political correctness before the term “political correctness” came into use. He described it as “intellectual cowardice”, which he saw as a problem.

    This kind of thing is not a good symptom. Obviously it is not desirable that a government department should have any power of censorship (except security censorship, which no one objects to in war time) over books which are not officially sponsored. But the chief danger to freedom of thought and speech at this moment is not the direct interference of the MOI or any official body. If publishers and editors exert themselves to keep certain topics out of print, it is not because they are frightened of prosecution but because they are frightened of public opinion. In this country intellectual cowardice is the worst enemy a writer or journalist has to face, and that fact does not seem to me to have had the discussion it deserves.
    ...

    At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is not exactly forbidden to say this, that or the other, but it is ‘not done’ to say it, just as in mid-Victorian times it was ‘not done’ to mention trousers in the presence of a lady. Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press or in the highbrow periodicals.

    https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/the-freedom-of-the-press/
  • tim wood
    8.7k
    Most competent people can figure out what words mean on their own accord.NOS4A2

    Then why are you so misguided on and about Trump? Are you incompetent? Or is your proposition false or disingenuous? (All, clearly!)
  • NOS4A2
    8.3k


    Then why are you so misguided on and about Trump? Are you incompetent? Or is your proposition false or disingenuous? (All, clearly!)

    Your virtue-signalling doesn’t find any currency with me, unfortunately. It might curry favor and advantage in your world, but looks pathetic and self-serving in mine.
  • tim wood
    8.7k
    Most competent people can figure out what words mean on their own accord.NOS4A2

    If you mean this, then how do you account for the fact that for at least 2500 years, and no doubt longer, this has been an important topic?
  • NOS4A2
    8.3k


    If you mean this, then how do you account for the fact that for at least 2500 years, and no doubt longer, this has been an important topic?

    For the same reason you know what words to use and in what order to place them. We could quibble about definitions and may be justified in doing so, but there is a general consensus on what words mean and how they could be used, hence the dictionary.
  • ssu
    7.9k
    I think you’re right about this. Political correctness is not limited to any sort of political party or persuasion, manifests in many ways, and all sides practice variations of it (though in the hidden tribes study only 30% of American progressives believed political correctness is not a problem, deviating from the norm who mostly think it is).NOS4A2

    Correct. Usually the over the top PC arguments are caused by a huge overreaction to something where the 'outraged' people who are there to 'defend' correct values have quite a conspirational view of something valuable being attacked indirectly or in a hidden views. It is all about dog whistles and hidden meanings. And the normal response would be "You cannot be serious!", but the current climate makes us more likely just to be mute.

    From the perspective of the right-wing and conservatives, Political Correctness can be seen from issues like defending "family values". Jerry Falwell attacking the British childrens TV show 'Teletubbies' and accusing one of the characters being gay because of the color purple and other 'gay symbols' is a good example right-wing PC outrage. The denial of the producers of having any sexual innuendos in a program intended for toddlers doesn't matter. It just "shows" how vast the "conspiracy" is when it's started at such young age.

    And phenomenon won't go anywhere, it will likely just become worse.
  • A Seagull
    615
    The PC brigade are scared of free-speech because they do not have the intellectual capacity to refute comments or opinions that they do not like. Instead they take the cowardly course of merely labelling such comments as 'racism', 'homophobia', 'hate-speech' and the like.
  • deletedusercb
    1.7k
    Oh, jeez, it's more complicated than that. And the Right use to have the power behind their PC and you were unpatriotic if you didn't support some dumb ass war or communist if you were against cuts capital gains taxes or a faggot if you ....well, jeez there were a million things that could set off possible faggot charges, or you were a threat to the family, or somehow bringing up the idea of actually cancelling a corporate charter - as intended as an option by the founders, meant that you were unamerican and hated freedom. Unamerican, not patriotic, helping the Commies, but criticizing someone in office, not supporting the troops when you are trying to get them out of a war zone by not funding the war. Then there was the whole religious PC crowd and all of their pet things that were not Bible GodTraditional values PC. I mean, it has gone crazy out there with PC. But it's not so neatly tied into not having the intellectual capacity, though I am sure that might be some people's problem. Control issues. Whatever. The right woke up to the concept of PCness when it wasn't there political correctness that had the high status. Great, they got it, often,on the left pc. But my sense is they haven't learned a damn about their own pc. Stuck between maniacs we all are.
  • Izat So
    92
    to sum up my thoughts, the global billionaire mafia are hoping the people they have made poor by loudly pushing siphon up economic policies as if they actually could work will scapegoat others. Being anti PC is useful to them, and social media certainly help in the trend to polarization. P.C. wouldn’t even be in the news, we would just continue to progress to more inclusivity as communication shrinks the world if it weren’t for the economic cruelty insisted upon by the GBM and the fact that dupes don’t place the blame where it is deserved. I’m more afraid of the influence of the right with its legitimation of siphon up economics than I am of P.C. censoriousness, which is just a reaction.
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