Treating Other People With Respect

sir drinks-a-lot said:
I'd argue that Political Correctness, as used today, didn't exist 50-60 years ago.
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Maybe not the term or the scope, but the way you're using it, yes it did. The only thing that changed is the social norm. Where it was once acceptable to pat a female coworker's butt and say "Nice work, honey", to stand up and say "Hey, you shouldn't do that! It's offensive!" would be excessively trying to avoid offense of a minority group. Given that the social norm has changed in the intervening time, to avoid offending women in this way is no longer excessive, is it?

In short, labeling something as "PC" is merely a resistance by the labeler to a challenge of the social norm toward greater respect for minority groups. In retrospect, things in the past that have clear parallels to modern instances of "non PC" are not seen so because of the subsequent change in social norms.

In a more general sense, this lines up with the perception that being "PC" is a liberal trait, rather than a conservative one, even though conservatives will also excessively avoid offense to (perceived) minority groups. The groups conservatives avoid offense of are establishment majority groups, whereas liberals often challenge that establishment by challenging offensive terms against minorities that are part of the social norm.

Hm. Very interesting.
 
Do you think that people might be more willing (than people 50 years ago) to find malice or ascribe bad intentions to someones actions without getting all the facts? When I say this I think right away of when Bud Lite got in trouble for their slogan "the perfect drink for removing the word no from your vocabulary." and how a select few people let their imaginations take them straight to rape, possibly because it's on their minds constantly, instead of what they intended to convey; namely that Bud Lite will help you overcome your inhibitions and try new fun things.

I mean to say that avoiding saying or doing certain things because someone might misunderstand you and get really upset, this kind of behavior doesn't necessarily come from a place of respect, and is really kind of patronizing sometimes too. What do you guys think?
 
Upchurch said:
Patting a woman on the butt at work and saying, 'Nice job, honey" isn't politically incorrect? Why not?

Or any of the other examples, for that matter?
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Patting a woman, or any stragner rather, on the butt is sexual harassment. What's politically incorrect about that? Or any of the other examples for that matter? Do you think murder is politically incorrect? Assault?

To be fair, I'm not convinced that you truly grasp what you're talking about. Your definition is based purely on what you consider to be excessive.
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Not my definition, mind you. The general accepted definition. It's as subjective as racism or sexism is, based purely on what is considered to be discriminatory or prejudiced.

That, and some arbitrary factor that you haven't quite been able to articulate.
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You are for some unexplained reason still rejecting the common definition of PC that has been pointed out to you many times in this thread.
 
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Upchurch said:
Maybe not the term or the scope, but the way you're using it, yes it did. The only thing that changed is the social norm. Where it was once acceptable to pat a female coworker's butt and say "Nice work, honey", to stand up and say "Hey, you shouldn't do that! It's offensive!" would be excessively trying to avoid offense of a minority group. Given that the social norm has changed in the intervening time, to avoid offending women in this way is no longer excessive, is it?
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There's your problem. I think why we disapprove patting women on the butt is not because it offends their sensibilities, it's because it is unwanted physical contact and it violates their sense of privacy/autonomy. Same with every other example in your quote (sans the first one), the reasons we don't do them or disapprove of them are actually rational and sensible and don't come merely down to someone perceiving them as offensive.
 
Upchurch said:
What makes them mutually exclusive?
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They aren't. But the reason we deem them morally undesirable are not connected to offending someone's sensibilities.

Do you not find sexual harassment offensive?
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No, not in the way we've been using the word 'offense'. It seems to trivialize these transgressions.

It's like asking 'don't you find rape uncomfortable? No? You find it comfortable?'
 
Upchurch said:
Patting a woman on the butt at work and saying, 'Nice job, honey" isn't politically incorrect? Why not?

Or any of the other examples, for that matter?
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With the woman's consent it's politically incorrect, without it, it's work place harassment. The other work place examples (and the disability issue) are matters of discrimination, not language or actions between consenting adults. The paragraph you quoted is pure conflation of political correctness with issues the author supports. The corollary would be if people pointed out every instance of censorship and called it political correctness..that would be equally stupid.
 
sir drinks-a-lot said:
The real question you should be asking is whether complaining about someone patting a woman on the butt at work and saying, 'Nice job, honey" is a politically correct action. I'd answer "no".

A quick Google turns up these examples, all of which I'd consider Politically Correct. Do you think most people would agree?

1) Controversy over the use of the term "manhole" because it is sexist.

2) A school in Seattle renamed its Easter eggs 'spring spheres' to avoid causing offence to people who did not celebrate Easter.

3) Government workers in Seattle have been told that they should no longer use the words “citizen” and “brown bag” because they are potentially offensive.

4) Chris Matthews of MSNBC recently suggested that it is “racist” for conservatives to use the word “Chicago”.
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You forgot eating watermelon - not only is it racist, it might get you killed.

http://nypost.com/2015/08/28/reporters-everyday-comments-deemed-racist-by-on-air-killer/
 
TeapotCavalry said:
There's your problem. I think why we disapprove patting women on the butt is not because it offends their sensibilities, it's because it is unwanted physical contact and it violates their sense of privacy/autonomy.
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That's true, but you're ignoring that it also offends our sensibilities because it is insulting and demeaning.
 
Upchurch said:
That's true, but you're ignoring that it also offends our sensibilities because it is insulting and demeaning.
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They are two issues that should not be conflated. You can separate them by considering the situation where the woman has consented to being patted on the butt and a third party is the one taking offense.
 
Upchurch said:
I'm not conflating them. The degrading behavior can be considered entirely separately from sexual harassment.
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No, actually you can't consider them separately in that example. What you need to do is use an example where only the "degrading behavior" is involved and not the harassment. I provided you such an example and you ignored it.
 
Upchurch said:
That's true, but you're ignoring that it also offends our sensibilities because it is insulting and demeaning.
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Is anything that offends our sensibilities politically incorrect?

The author wants to cloak everything bad as the antagonist of political correctness, as if political correctness means moral good. It doesn't.

Upchurch said:
I'm not conflating them. The degrading behavior can be considered entirely separately from sexual harassment.
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Sexual harassment is the degrading behavior. I guess the simplest way to put it is that calling it political incorrectness is simply inaccurate. Maybe in some weird way it would fit the description, that patting someone on the butt is not excessively calculated to not offend a particular group of people. But non-butt-patting is not something that is usually brought up as an example of political correctness.

Would you say, with a straight face, that murder is politically incorrect, and it be a meaningful sentence in any way?
 
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ThunderChunky said:
No, actually you can't consider them separately in that example. What you need to do is use an example where only the "degrading behavior" is involved and not the harassment. I provided you such an example and you ignored it.
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"Nice job, honey"

Although, I find your argument that maybe she likes sexual harassment in the workplace a little dubious. Can one really give consent to a workplace superior when they are in a position to treated worse or lose their job if they don't "give consent" to the harassment?

Regardless, insisting that businessmen not do that to their female coworkers 50 or 60 years ago would certainly be considered "PC". Hell, feminism today is considered "PC".
 
Upchurch said:
"Nice job, honey"

Although, I find your argument that maybe she likes sexual harassment in the workplace a little dubious. Can one really give consent to a workplace superior when they are in a position to treated worse or lose their job if they don't "give consent" to the harassment?
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Just want to point out the "superior" part is something you just added to this hypothetical story, ad hoc.

What went through my head reading ThunderChunky's examples was two dating colleagues being playful at work and a third one eyeing them from afar and muttering to themself "This is so politically incorrect. I will promptly report it to my boss."
 
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