Just What is (and what is wrong with) Political Correctness?

No, sir, it was not. It was developed by the right to mock the liberal agenda of equality and tolerance. You know, those silly sentiments.

(the term is "kike", actually)

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It was coined by the liberals, as a joke.

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...and then, rather brilliantly, the conservative Right appropriated the term as is stated above.They did the same with the word "liberal" (hates america), and "feminist" {hates men, loves to kill babies).Congrats, robin, you bought the conservative spin.

Hi, Schraf. In Indiana and Kentucky and thereabouts, the common usage is kite. Really.According to Wiki, we all have a peg to hang a hat on. The first usage is purportedly the SCOTUS in 1793. Since about 1980, the right has used it as a ridiculing club.

Robin, do you feel oppressed to the de-gendering of words, like using "chair" or "chairperson" instead of "chairman", "mail carrier" instead of "mail man", "police officer" instead of "police man", or "flight attendant" instead of "stewardess"?

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I was going to link to that Wiki article. Although there are recorded uses going back to to 1793 they are not using it with the contemporary meaning.From Wiki: It goes on: As you say, everyone has a peg to hang a hat on.Although I still haven't worked out why the etymology of the term is so important to people.

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Oops! Wrong Planet

Only according to liberals who have a vested interest in not understanding it.It was driving me crazy in the 60s already, long before I had a name for it, and it wasn't about nigger, wop and kiKe. It was an aggressive hate war on the white race as the cancer of the world, on conservatives, who we all know are nothing but a bunch of Hitlers and jingoistic idiots; on America, which is really only an evil imperialist monster. Those who agree with such sentiments of course object to conservatives daring to characterize them as Thought Control or anything pejorative. It was militant in-your-face black activism, in some cases out and out thuggery (it was a murder that woke up David Horowitz). It was militant feminism, one group cheerily named The Society for Cutting Up Men, characterized by sneering contempt for any demented woman who liked the idea of marriage and family as a career, or horror of horrors identified herself as a "housewife." It was militant gay rights. I remember attending a "talk" with my ex in which the speaker got up and berated the assembled group for any thought that homosexuality might be an aberration, and accused all assembled of REALLY being homosexual but denying it. It was an abusive speech.Intimidation.That's PC. It's the abusiveness, the labeling, the smearing, the aggressive rejection of any other opinion, the enforced prohibition against thinking anything other than what they say you should think.It was such a relief finally to have a name for it, which I didn't have until the 90s, to read David Horowitz and others and find out where all that insanity came from.{edit: This is the classic conservative statement on PC, but it's frustrating because I don't know much about the context of it, or much about Bill Lind, and although he says the term originated in a comic strip he doesn't name the strip and I can't find another reference to it anywhere.}Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I do. I consider it idiotic and tyrannical and in many cases bad English, which comes up in the endless stumbling over the generic "his" and the requirement to substitute "their." Which I do to avoid endless nagging.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Not oppressed but I must admit I do chuckle when folk use such expressions.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

English needs a gender-neutral singular pronoun for hypotheticals.

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The American Drivel Review

The one I like best is "firefighter".
"Fighter" is even more macho than "man" - although there are a few firewomen around.

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Well the ones that end in 'man' bring up an interesting point. There are strong (so I've seen on TV at any rate ) etymological arguments that the usage of -man as a postfix does not strictly denote male.In Old English man is genderless - it means person or human being (see page 4 of this paper): The drive to remove -man indicates ignorance of the history of the language. I'm perfectly happy with flight attendant - but I'm equally happy with steward and stewardess. Just as I'm happy with host and hostess or husband and wife to differentiate the gender of equal roles in a more social context.

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Oops! Wrong Planet

I look at it as an attempt to re-introduce manners into {political\cultural} concepts."My mother always said that if you couldn't say something nice about someone you shouldn't say anything at all"I do think the internet will become a bias removing tool, as you can't be biased about {information} you don't know, but people seem unable (or unwilling) to let (their) gender go ....Enjoy.

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I'm still curious as to who is actually enforcing this enforced prohibition.You've certainly done a good job of pointing out how American white people were the ones who really had it rough in the sixties, but you have yet to tell us who has actually managed to prohibit you from thinking something other than that what they said you should think.So far, it just seems like people have decided they don't like you because of what you think, and told you so.

Where are you getting this from? Political correctness has nothing to do with labeling or judging people based on their particular personal merits or behaviors. Someone who is rude deserves to be called on it or avoided because of it, but you can't know that he is rude until you observe it. If, however, the man was in the same ethnic/racial/whatever category as the last person who was rude to you and you automatically assumed that he would be rude as well and you expressed that to him or to someone else (i.e. "All Albanians are rude...") then that would be considered "politically incorrect" and quite ignorant, to boot. The assumption itself is silly, but not under attack. It is the public expression of that assumption that falls under the "PC" umbrella.Yes, many people have been working to try and break some of the negative presumptions about various groups of people by changing the language, changing the media and pop culture representation of certain groups and encouraging people to judge others on a case by case basis. I don't find this to be a bad thing.For example, some people in my family held to many stereotypes and/or had a very negative view of gay people until I came out to them. They hadn't really known a gay person (who'd come out to them) and when they were confronted with someone they loved and cherished it made them rethink alot of things and even the most adamantly anti-gay has done a complete 180. I didn't try to change them. My revelation did all the work for me. All it took was a flesh and blood example of the opposite of everything they believed about homosexuals to change them. (BTW, gay jokes are perfectly fine. I don't find them offensive at all unless told with malice. Just like I know the difference between someone jokingly caling me a "dyke" and some guy screaming it out of his car while throwing a bottle at me. I think you will find that is usually the case with most "PC" people. It is the intent behind the words/statements and not always the words/statements themselves)Encouraging people to engage others on their merits and not based on misguided notions about the group they belong to is the goal. Not mind control. You can entertain all the fantasies about Thought Police you want, but you will be wrong.

Oh, don't you know, Dan? That's the exact same thing as oppression to white Christians. Why, if you're a white Christian, being disagreed with is just as bad as, say, not being allowed to vote, or being denied equal protection under the law, or having to worry about getting lynched if you look at a woman the wrong way, all that stuff. It's horrible!Just if you're a white Christian, though. Everybody else is just supposed to suck it up, especially from white Christians.