Political correctness.

NWO Sentryman

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What do you think of when you hear the term "Political Correctness".

I tend to think of censorship, and art being censored beyond recognition. My main case is the numerous times licensed anime has been censored to the extent that it is barely recognisable. Take the English Dub for One Piece (The first one, not the Funimation one), the most recent (and egregious example). It is such a crime against humanity of a dub that Funimation had to step in and buy the rights.

It's not just dubbed anime that gets emasculated by Political Correctness. There are numerous cases of Heavy Metal records being burned due to being "politically incorrect", as demonstrated with the PMRC. This also had a strange overlap with the Religious Right, who declared that it promoted Satanism.

So what's your take on the matter?
 
NWO Sentryman said:
What do you think of when you hear the term "Political Correctness".
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The Wikipedia entry sums it up pretty well, as far as I'm concerned.
I tend to think of censorship, and art being censored beyond recognition. My main case is the numerous times licensed anime has been censored to the extent that it is barely recognisable. Take the English Dub for One Piece (The first one, not the Funimation one), the most recent (and egregious example). It is such a crime against humanity of a dub that Funimation had to step in and buy the rights.
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I have no idea of what you're talking about.
It's not just dubbed anime that gets emasculated by Political Correctness. There are numerous cases of Heavy Metal records being burned due to being "politically incorrect", as demonstrated with the PMRC. This also had a strange overlap with the Religious Right, who declared that it promoted Satanism.
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If you mean the Parents Music Resource Center, wasn't that wound up in about 1987? When was the last time anybody burnt a heavy metal record anyway? In fact, when was the last time a heavy metal album was released on a record?

Anyway, what you're talking about is censorship, which isn't quite the same thing. I refer you back to the above Wiki entry.
 
sophia8 said:
I have no idea of what you're talking about.
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Dubbed Anime was regularly made "politically correct" (and it's something the anime industry has suffered from until recently), by which I mean

- Names were changed
- Egregious edits were made (In ANY 4Kids dub, firearms are edited out, and in their dub of One Piece, cigarettes were replaced with Lollipops, I **** you not.)
- Whole arcs are cut out (Granted, they may have been filler arcs, but it wrecks the pacing and the tempo of the Anime).
- Other examples of this sort of political correctness: ANY 4Kids dub, most 80s English dubbed Anime (Gatchaman, Golion/Voltron - whichever one it is)
- Not least, removal of ANY mention of Death (Bonus points: the first dub of Dragonball Z, where death was referred to as "the next dimension")

ETA: as for Heavy Metal, I was referring to mass burnings of their CDs and Records due to being "politically incorrect". Rap also seems to be getting a LOT of the flak lately, although it is the Glam Rap (not the socially conscious like NWA or Public Enemy).
 
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Whenever someone uses awkward or even counterproductive terminology in an attempt to avoid potentially offending someone or causing controversy. That's at least how i see it.

An example are the people who argue for sexual freedom (especially against laws that criminalize same-sex intercourse and so on) and use the "Consenting adult" meme. On the face of it seems like a perfect term to use since it avoids messy details about rape or minors/youths. The issue is of course that most countries do not equate adulthood with the ability to consent to sex. If were to legalize same-sex intercourse between "consenting adults" in a country where it is illegal we often find a curious anomaly where it's legal to have heterosexual sex with a minor but homosexual sex is illegal (sometimes it's just "sodomy" that is prohibited, meaning lesbians are not affected). This has historically been the case in many countries, including in my own. So then we have another pointless piece of legislation to remove, unless we are to believe that "the homos are recruiting our children!!".

Most of the time however is just see the term Political Correctness used in a way to demonstrate that someones "truth" is being hidden from public view by the mainstream media. It's common for various nationalists and people on the far-right to use this terminology, especially if they have a paranoid and persecutory world-view.
 
I think there are a few different things:

As Arcade22 says, sometimes it means using counterproductive terminology which is easily parodied. In fact, I am not even sure whether some terms were genuine or simply parodies:

"vertically challenged" for short.
"follically challenged" for bald.
"melanine-enhanced" for black.

I assume that they are just parodies, but of course the terms themselves are actually more negative than the word they are supposed to be euphemsisms for because short, bald and black are technically neutral words whereas "challenged" or "enhanced" either suggests something is wrong or at least a deviation from the norm.

There are other politically correct terms for jobs such as "postal worker", "flight attendant", "fire fighter" and "police officer" which replaced words which were gender-specific. In this case, most of them have been accepted, although I think in the UK "postman" is still used more frequently than "postal worker".

Again this trend has attracted satire, but again I am not sure if some terms such as "sanitation engineer" or "domestic engineer" are parodies or not.

Having said that, I think in some cases, the term "politically correct" is just a term of abuse for a well-meaning refusal to use obviously derogatory terms such as the n-word.

I think the OP is confused about the meaning of the word though as he is using it to complain about censorship of children's comics and music, but there can be a connection. For example, Peter Jackson is re-making the movie The Dambusters and he is expected to change the historical name of the squadron leader's dog, presumably because 21st Century audiences won't be able to root for a pilot who calls his dog N-word.
 
NWO Sentryman said:
ETA: as for Heavy Metal, I was referring to mass burnings of their CDs and Records due to being "politically incorrect". Rap also seems to be getting a LOT of the flak lately, although it is the Glam Rap (not the socially conscious like NWA or Public Enemy).
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Were they actually burned for being "politically incorrect"?

I think if it was government-sanctioned burning of CDs and records, then it would be a problem. If people were simply burning their own CDs and records, then the only issues would be public health or environmental issues.
 
NWO Sentryman said:
What do you think of when you hear the term "Political Correctness".

I tend to think of censorship, and art being censored beyond recognition. My main case is the numerous times licensed anime has been censored to the extent that it is barely recognisable. Take the English Dub for One Piece (The first one, not the Funimation one), the most recent (and egregious example). It is such a crime against humanity of a dub that Funimation had to step in and buy the rights.

It's not just dubbed anime that gets emasculated by Political Correctness. There are numerous cases of Heavy Metal records being burned due to being "politically incorrect", as demonstrated with the PMRC. This also had a strange overlap with the Religious Right, who declared that it promoted Satanism.

So what's your take on the matter?
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Politically correct was an idea that labels helped define people and victimise them. Hence, 'retard' for someone with a disability, 'fireman' assumes no women can be fire fighters. Language is very powerful, and as it gives us the framework with which we think. I have no problem with using language that means that someone with spina bifida, for example, is mentally not capable of doing the work that I do, or that women are capable of doing work that men do. Using and creating 'politically correct' language has had a few problems, provide fodder for some jokes, but I think it's overall effect has been beneficial.
 
a_unique_person said:
Politically correct was an idea that labels helped define people and victimise them. Hence, 'retard' for someone with a disability, 'fireman' assumes no women can be fire fighters. Language is very powerful, and as it gives us the framework with which we think. I have no problem with using language that means that someone with spina bifida, for example, is mentally not capable of doing the work that I do, or that women are capable of doing work that men do. Using and creating 'politically correct' language has had a few problems, provide fodder for some jokes, but I think it's overall effect has been beneficial.
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I think the overall effect isn't as beneficial, given how making dubbed anime politically correct has impacted how the western world is perceived (cultureless, money-driven, destroying art, etc.), and that has impacted policies.

Also look at the EU's porn ban proposal to make the internet "politically correct". I'm saying that the unintended negative consequences of political correctness outweigh the benefits.
 
a_unique_person said:
Politically correct was an idea that labels helped define people and victimise them. Hence, 'retard' for someone with a disability, 'fireman' assumes no women can be fire fighters. Language is very powerful, and as it gives us the framework with which we think. I have no problem with using language that means that someone with spina bifida, for example, is mentally not capable of doing the work that I do, or that women are capable of doing work that men do. Using and creating 'politically correct' language has had a few problems, provide fodder for some jokes, but I think it's overall effect has been beneficial.
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I think that this assumes a theory of the way language relates to thought that has not been proven or which the evidence does not support which is that language affects the way we think.

However, I think it is more likely that language simply reflects the way we (or society) thinks. For example, while the word "fireman" has been replaced by "fire fighter" it wasn't the fact that the word "fireman" was used that prevented women becoming fire fighters, it was more to do with the fact that fire fighters tended to be men either because of physical strength or social expectations that men do dangerous things like fight fires.

You might think that the use of the word "fireman" created those social expectations but I disagree because the words "doctor" and "nurse" don't refer to a particular sex and yet they were still traditionally seen as respectively male and female jobs. (In Japan, however, the word for nurse "kangofu refers to a woman, was replaced by "kangoshi", but I still see very few male nurses - none, in fact, when I spent six weeks in hospital).

Also, I think there are some words that obviously are derogatory but usually when they are replaced with another word that word eventually also gains a negative meaning if it is used in a negative way. For example, no one uses the word "crippled" anymore except as a derogatory remark, the word replacement word "handicapped" was considered perfectly acceptable for while but was gradually seen as having a negative meaning and was replaced with "disabled" which may or may not be replaced with "challenged". "Retarded" and "spastic" were both perfectly acceptable for a while but became negative in meaning and replaced. So I think there is a case for saying that negative social views of certain people are the cause of negative treatment rather than the language itself which merely reflects and transmits the negative views.
 
NWO Sentryman said:
I think the overall effect isn't as beneficial, given how making dubbed anime politically correct has impacted how the western world is perceived (cultureless, money-driven, destroying art, etc.), and that has impacted policies.
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Sorry, but who is perceiving the Western world as "cultureless", "money-driven" and "destroying art" on the basis of how anime is dubbed? I think whoever they are can be safely ignored if their only evidence for having no culture is the practice of dubbing anime.
 
NWO Sentryman said:
What do you think of when you hear the term "Political Correctness".
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To be honest, the first thing that comes to mind is extreme-right wingers whining about how their particular brand of hate-speech isn't covered more in the media because the media is too "politically correct".
 
NWO Sentryman, practically none of what you're calling "politically correct" actually is, or has anything to do with political correctness in any way. They're censorship, but political correctness is only one little corner of censorship, not the entirety of it, and your examples are of other kinds of censorship.

It's like looking at and talking about beagles, dachshunds, Irish setters, elkhounds, and dobermans, but calling them all poodles.
 
NWO Sentryman said:
What do you think of when you hear the term "Political Correctness".
Click to expand...

These are among the first things that spring to mind for me

1. You can't tell Irish/Polish/Jewish or race based jokes any more, but telling jokes that denigrate or disparage white, middle-class adult males is considered to be perfectly acceptable.

2. Nurses, doctors and paramedics (in NZ anyway) spend 40% of their study time being forced to learn "cultural sensitivity" (so that they don't offend someone's spiritual well-being and other forms of woo woo) rather than learning how to care for them medically and to save their lives.

3. Children at state-run schools are not allowed to excel, especially in sports. Excellence is frowned upon, so there are no winners or losers and the scores are not kept, lest it should dent the egos of the less successful children, and their parents. It is no coincidence that our most successful sporting schools are private schools (or as they strangely call them in Britain, "Public Schools")

4. Children at school no longer fail. We cannot say that a child has failed, we must protect them from this psychological trauma by calling it "deferred success".

5. The systematic, and misguided attempt to gender neutralise everyday terminology. We no longer have a gingerbread man, a chairman or a spokesman, we have a "gingerbread person", a "chairperson" and a "spokesperson".

Political Correctness is an insidious, creeping disease that has infected human society over the thirty to forty years, starting with the ramblings of self appointed social engineers like Virginia Satir, and continuing with her many disciples and ardent followers in the psycho-quackery trade. Her diatribe "I am me" contains, IMO, some of the most socially damaging ideas of the 20th century, extolling the virtues of "self-esteem" at the expense of personal responsibility.

At a school where I used to teach, our heads of subject departments were known as "Managers". MDE was Manager; Department of English, MDS, Manager; Department of Sciences, MDH, Manager; Department of History etc. Then we had a new, woman Headmaster arrive (who insisted on being called "Headperson"). At a staff-meeting, she told us all that she wanted to change the titles of the department heads. This was because she considered the term "manager" to be gender-biased (having the prefix "man"). I laughed, and so did a couple of other teachers, and when she asked me what I though was funny, asked her if she understood the etymology of the word; that the "man" in "manage" wasn't a prefix at all; that in fact the whole word "manage" was actually derived from the Italian word "maneggiare" which means "to handle" or "to control". This brought more snickering and chuckling in the room, and her face went crimson!

I respectfully suggested that she leave the names of titles as they are, but that should a woman be appointed to any of the positions, they could replace the word "manager", with "damager". Needless to say, this got me offside with the Headmaster (or should I say Headperson). Well, what did I expect, embarrassing her in front of her staff. Well, I did say earlier that I used to teach there.

All this brings to mind the final thing that springs to mind

6. Discouraging people being allowed to speak their mind. Instead, they have to tip-toe around the sensitivities of the overly precious.


I hate Political Correctness
 
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smartcooky said:
These are among the first things that spring to mind for me

1. You can't tell Irish/Polish/Jewish or race based jokes any more, but telling jokes that denigrate or disparage white, middle-class adult males is considered to be perfectly acceptable.
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That reminds me of this:

Stewart Lee said:
It really worries me that 84% of this audience agrees with that statement, because the kind of people that say "political correctness gone mad" are usually using that phrase as a kind of cover action to attack minorities or people that they disagree with. I'm of an age that I can see what a difference political correctness has made. When I was four years old, my grandfather drove me around Birmingham, where the Tories had just fought an election campaign saying, "if you want a ****** for a neighbour, vote Labour," and he drove me around saying, "this is where all the ******* and the coons and the jungle bunnies live." And I remember being at school in the early 80s and my teacher, when he read the register, instead of saying the name of the one asian boy in the class, he would say, "is the black spot in," right? And all these things have gradually been eroded by political correctness, which seems to me to be about an institutionalised politeness at its worst. And if there is some fallout from this, which means that someone in an office might get in trouble one day for saying something that someone was a bit unsure about because they couldn't decide whether it was sexist or homophobic or racist, it's a small price to pay for the massive benefits and improvements in the quality of life for millions of people that political correctness has made. It's a complete lie that allows the right, which basically controls media now, and national politics, to make people on the left who are concerned about the way people are represented look like killjoys. And I'm sick, I'm really sick — 84% of you in this room that have agreed with this phrase, you're like those people who turn around and go, "you know who the most oppressed minorities in Britain are? White, middle-class men." You're a bunch of idiots.
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smartcooky said:
These are among the first things that spring to mind for me

1. You can't tell Irish/Polish/Jewish or race based jokes any more, but telling jokes that denigrate or disparage white, middle-class adult males is considered to be perfectly acceptable.

2. Nurses, doctors and paramedics (in NZ anyway) spend 40% of their study time being forced to learn "cultural sensitivity" (so that they don't offend someone's spiritual well-being and other forms of woo woo) rather than learning how to care for them medically and to save their lives.

3. Children at state-run schools are not allowed to excel, especially in sports. Excellence is frowned upon, so there are no winners or losers and the scores are not kept, lest it should dent the egos of the less successful children, and their parents. It is no coincidence that our most successful sporting schools are private schools (or as they strangely call them in Britain, "Public Schools")

4. Children at school no longer fail. We cannot say that a child has failed, we must protect them from this psychological trauma by calling it "deferred success".

5. The systematic, and misguided attempt to gender neutralise everyday terminology. We no longer have a gingerbread man, a chairman or a spokesman, we have a "gingerbread person", a "chairperson" and a "spokesperson".

Political Correctness is an insidious, creeping disease that has infected human society over the thirty to forty years, starting with the ramblings of self appointed social engineers like Virginia Satir, and continuing with her many disciples and ardent followers in the psycho-quackery trade. Her diatribe "I am me" contains, IMO, some of the most socially damaging ideas of the 20th century, extolling the virtues of "self-esteem" at the expense of personal responsibility.

At a school where I used to teach, our heads of subject departments were known as "Managers". MDE was Manager; Department of English, MDS, Manager; Department of Sciences, MDH, Manager; Department of History etc. Then we had a new, woman Headmaster arrive (who insisted on being called "Headperson"). At a staff-meeting, she told us all that she wanted to change the titles of the department heads. This was because she considered the term "manager" to be gender-biased (having the prefix "man"). I laughed, and so did a couple of other teachers, and when she asked me what I though was funny, asked her if she understood the etymology of the word; that the "man" in "manage" wasn't a prefix at all; that in fact the whole word "manage" was actually derived from the Italian word "maneggiare" which means "to handle" or "to control". This brought more snickering and chuckling in the room, and her face went crimson!

I respectfully suggested that she leave the names of titles as they are, but that should a woman be appointed to any of the positions, they could replace the word "manager", with "damager". Needless to say, this got me offside with the Headmaster (or should I say Headperson). Well, what did I expect, embarrassing her in front of her staff. Well, I did say earlier that I used to teach there.

All this brings to mind the final thing that springs to mind

6. Discouraging people being allowed to speak their mind. Instead, they have to tip-toe around the sensitivities of the overly precious.


I hate Political Correctness
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IOW, Special Snowflake Syndrome?
 
NWO Sentryman said:
IOW, Special Snowflake Syndrome?
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Yes, pretty much. We live in a world where minority wants and needs dominate the majority, the smaller the minority, the greater effort is made to meet their needs, often at the expense of the majority.

e.g. schools with populations numbering in the hundreds, where the children are not allowed to put up Christmas decorations because it might offend the three Muslim children in the school.
 
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