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Treating Other People With Respect

arthwollipot

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arthwollipot
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So this image and quote made the rounds of the facebooks recently:

JAGfU4P.png


Now, I don't want to talk about whether the attribution is accurate or not. But I do get the impression that some people here might disagree with what it says - that "political correctness" is effectively synonymous with "treating other people with respect". I don't disagree with it. I think it expresses very well something that I've been thinking in vague terms for some time - especially when people denigrate the idea of political correctness.

If you do a Google Image search for "political correctness" you'll get a whole lot of quotes about how political correctness is tyranny with manners, or with a happy face, or that it's "destroying the very fabric of society" (yes, that's a real one), or how it's "thought control" (yes, that's a real one too). I have always thought that these ideas entirely missed the point of political correctness, and the quote above attributed to Gaiman articulates why.

What are your thoughts?
 
I've noticed that often when someone complains about "political correctness" they're mad because other people are calling them out for being a buttocks.
 
I think political correctness has done more harm than good, but I don't have the time or energy to take it any further than this (too long; didn't type), except to say - what image? I do not see one, nor a link. It might help to know what you are referring to. ;)
 
arthwollipot said:
What are your thoughts?
Click to expand...


My thoughts are that, while the sentiment is fine in theory. In practice, however—particularly as it pertains to (certain segments of) society these days—the problem is that the dividing line between respect and disrespect is sometimes very narrow. Say anything the least bit controversial, the least bit against the preferred expectation from some, the least bit against the current prevailing political beliefs of some, and one's comment gets branded as harassment, sexist, racist, hate speech, misogynist, etc. To put it another way, some folks are very quick indeed to take a comment as disrespectful/offensive.

Somewhere between these two poles there has to be a reasonable middle ground.

I would also offer the following trio of comments as counterpoints for consideration:

Stephen Fry said:
It's now very common to hear people say, "I'm rather offended by that," as if that give them certain rights. It's no more than a whine. It has no meaning, it has no purpose, it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. "I'm offended by that." Well, so [redacted] what?
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Christopher Hitchens said:
If someone tells me I've heart their feelings, I say, 'I'm still waiting to hear what your point is.' In this country, I've been told, 'That's offensive' as if those two words constitute an argument or a comment. Not to me they don't.
Click to expand...
Richard Dawkins said:
If your belief has any value, you should be able to defend it with something better than "Your argument against it hurts me." Grow up.
Click to expand...
 
mgidm86 said:
I think political correctness has done more harm than good, but I don't have the time or energy to take it any further than this (too long; didn't type), except to say - what image? I do not see one, nor a link. It might help to know what you are referring to. ;)
Click to expand...
The image is public on imgur, so I don't know why you can't see it. Here's the link: http://imgur.com/JAGfU4P
 
Was I asleep when they passed that law against being disrespectful?

There must be one, the way people act.
 
I think it's a pretty good thought: political correctness is a way of putting a negative spin on the idea of, "Treating people with respect."

A free society is -- or is supposed to be -- a society where each individual is valued and treated with and accorded dignity and respect. Many people believe being treated with respect is a basic human right. That it is essentially what separates free societies from repressive societies.
 
I think the concept of political correctness has made people hyper-sensitive to anything anyone else says or does. There was a time when you were a wuss if you couldn't withstand a verbal battering of near-epic proportions (judging from my own pathetic youth ;)). Now, if someone utters a syllable with the wrong intonation, someone else is offended enough to file suit for hate speech.

There has to be a middle ground. And where will the politicians of the future come from of no one has the hide to withstand the barrage of abuse that comes with running for public office these days?
 
I like the way the guy in the OP graphic thinks in blue. It makes it more truthy. I bet when he's mad, he thinks in red.

Isn't "respect" a synonym for "fear?"
 
My problem with "political correctness", as practiced by most, is that they're replacing an offensive term with a convoluted exacting term that we're all supposed to remember.

My attitude in life has always been refer to people as if they were people -- defined by what they were wearing, or where they were standing, not by the color of their skin or the number of limbs they have apparent or whatever.

It is about respecting people. But not toadying to them, or making people feel good because they used to feel bad, or whatever. People are people and deserve to be treated like people. With respect. (Until they prove they're not worthy of respect, but that's a rant for a different time.)
 
The people who complain about political correctness also say dumb **** like, "why's it OK to have a BLACK entertainment channel???" The main problem with those people is that they would like to enforce an even more oppressive and doctrinaire regime of political correctness, one where politicians are supposed to wear flag pins, country music bands insulting a patriotic president on foreign soil deserve death threats, and anything uttered against our hero soldiers is grounds for treason (unless that soldier went AWOL and Obama brought him back home). When they start yammering about political correctness, Internet Cain says, "Oh, go **** a baby."
 
Cain said:
The people who complain about political correctness also say dumb **** like, "why's it OK to have a BLACK entertainment channel???" The main problem with those people is that they would like to enforce an even more oppressive and doctrinaire regime of political correctness, one where politicians are supposed to wear flag pins, country music bands insulting a patriotic president on foreign soil deserve death threats, and anything uttered against our hero soldiers is grounds for treason (unless that soldier went AWOL and Obama brought him back home). When they start yammering about political correctness, Internet Cain says, "Oh, go **** a baby."
Click to expand...

So why is there a BLACK entertainment channel? Is it the same reason there's a country music channel?
 
It can go too far. The problem isn't so much those that demand respect, but the nature of the problem itself. The was a time when "retarded" was a clinical term, rather than a derogatory one. It became derogatory not because of the sound made when you say it, or even its basic meaning -- but because it is commonly used as an inappropriate metaphor.

You might object to how it lumps people into a category, but the thing is -- we don't object to lumping blue eyed people into a single category when discussing the genetics that cause it, and we don't generally object to lumping people with the same disease into a single category when discussing treatments.

At what point do we need to stop making up new words to replace the former ones that have been misused in a derogatory fashion? It seems to make more sense to me to distinguish between the derogatory misuse of the word and its actual meaning. When used appropriately, I don't think that we need to make it an issue, and I don't think that we need to make up new terminologies as a "fix" because it doesn't actually solve the problem -- it defers it for approximately as long as it takes for the new term to be considered derogatory by the same process. It's never the word itself which is derogatory anyway -- it's the attitude, the tone of voice, and the improper associations.

Practically, the fight against prejudice is partially one against over-generalization, and the PC thing is all about that. However, there are also legitimate uses for sub-categories of "human" which are not intended attack anyone's status as an individual. Obviously we need these words, because we keep coming up with new terminologies that mean the same freaking thing which are supposedly cleansed of the nasty associations of the old ones. Why not just quit using the old ones inappropriately? That might make more sense. There are occasions when the older term actually had something screwed up in its meaning originally, but that's a different situation entirely.

I guess what I'm saying is that we should mainly be addressing the attitudes and associations rather than the words themselves. I also think we're doing a lot better at that than we did when PC first became a thing.
 
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arthwollipot said:
So this image and quote made the rounds of the facebooks recently:

[qimg]http://i.imgur.com/JAGfU4P.png[/qimg]

Now, I don't want to talk about whether the attribution is accurate or not. But I do get the impression that some people here might disagree with what it says - that "political correctness" is effectively synonymous with "treating other people with respect". I don't disagree with it. I think it expresses very well something that I've been thinking in vague terms for some time - especially when people denigrate the idea of political correctness.

If you do a Google Image search for "political correctness" you'll get a whole lot of quotes about how political correctness is tyranny with manners, or with a happy face, or that it's "destroying the very fabric of society" (yes, that's a real one), or how it's "thought control" (yes, that's a real one too). I have always thought that these ideas entirely missed the point of political correctness, and the quote above attributed to Gaiman articulates why.

What are your thoughts?
Click to expand...



Political Correctness is one of those terms like "Feminism" or "Socialism" that has ten different meanings to nine different people. In one person's hands it's a shield with which to protect their right to free expression, in another person's hands it's a mask to conceal their bigotry.

The key word, and where I think Gaiman has it wrong, is "treat".

The definition of "treat" is:

behave toward or deal with in a certain way.

(my bolding)

How you "treat" someone is not what you think of them, it is not how you represent them to other people, it is how you behave towards them.
 
newyorkguy said:
A free society is -- or is supposed to be -- a society where each individual is valued and treated with and accorded dignity and respect. Many people believe being treated with respect is a basic human right. That it is essentially what separates free societies from repressive societies.
Click to expand...

While I agree that, as a matter of courtesy and manners, we should treat each other with dignity and respect... I think that you are very mistaken as to a free society. A free society, traditionally, means that the government does not oppress you... Nothing to do with whether your fellow citizens are rude.

To fix your quote:

" the government having to treat you with respect is essentially what separates free societies from repressive societies."
 
Corsair 115 said:
Originally Posted by Stephen Fry : It's now very common to hear people say, "I'm rather offended by that," as if that give them certain rights. It's no more than a whine. It has no meaning, it has no purpose, it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. "I'm offended by that." Well, so [redacted] what?


Originally Posted by Richard Dawkins: If your belief has any value, you should be able to defend it with something better than "Your argument against it hurts me." Grow up.:
Click to expand...

Stephen Fry? That limp-d*** pa*** boy? Who cares what a fa**** thinks?

And Richard Dawkins? That godless heathen?

Who the eff cares what a bunch of ho*** and heathens think and believe?

(*Insert emoticon indicating sarcasm, and emphasizing that these comments are not meant literally.* After all, wouldn't want to offend any retards in our midst! *Repeat disclaimer for that previous sentence.*)
 
Treating people with respect is easy enough. We all know what it is, and we all know how to do it. And of course we each choose how much respect to give on a case by case basis, using personal judgement.

Political correctness is something else entirely. It's a collection of shibboleths for signaling adherence to (Politically) Correct Thought.

Thus the difference between "illegal alien" and "undocumented immigrant" isn't just --or even primarily--a difference in the amount of respect shown to such a person. It's a difference in what problems you're trying to acknowledge, and what truths you're trying to conceal. What political faction you're trying to speak to, in other words.

You use "undocumented immigrant" not out of sincere interest in respecting those people, but out of self-interest: Politically-correct terms are for maintaining your own position within the in-group. The problem is not, as Neil Gaiman (or whoever) suggests, with people making disrespectful jokes. It's with people declaring that only approved vocabulary reflecting their values and assumptions may be used to discuss a topic.
 
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