Political Correctness
Posted: Sat Jun 11, 2016 5:21 pm
Political correctness is not a legitimate political issue, but a politically divisive issue. This is from another forum:
You just regergitated Fox New’s talking points. That’s disgraceful in a philosophy forum.
In principle, political correctness is bullshit, but I’ve yet to hear one example that wasn’t also an issue of everyday politeness. I defy you to provide just one example.
The issue I most see is about the LGBT or LGBTQ community. You’ll notice they keep adding letters. This is what I see the right complain about. I have never once seen a rightwinger disregard political correctness without also simultaneously showing disrespect, and I watch a lot of Fox News. What I see is people failing, nay, refusing, to recognize and validate people who are dealing with one of the most intimate issues possible. These people are constantly told they are mistakes, abominations, evil, and we have people who systematically treat this issue as if it were a triviality for political reasons. There are few things that are more abominable than that.
In any event, it is quite clear that political correctness and basic politeness are so similar, that even mentioning the issue seems absurd, unless of course you wanted to make a divisive issue out of it, and that’s exactly what it’s doing, isn’t it? It’s dividing people into factions, for and against, democrat and republican. That’s what a divisive issue really is: not one intended to divide, but one that does divide. The trouble is they are so hard to see, because nearly all political issues today in this nation are divisive. It is like that story of the leprechaun. A man finds a leprechaun, and demands his pot of gold. The leprechaun agrees to take him to retrieve it. When they get there, the man discovers the leprechaun has burried his pot of gold in a strawberry field, underneath one individual strawberry bush. Then the man realizes he needs to go get a shovel. He ties a ribbon around the bush, and makes the leprechaun promise not to remove it. The leprechaun complies again. The man leaves. When he returns, he discovers that instead of removing the ribbon from the one bush, the leprechaun has placed ribbons on every other bush. The man is shocked and bewildred. He spends all night digging under strawberry bushes, but he never finds the pot of gold. Divisive issues are like that in America. In fact, they are so much a staple of American politics that we consider them regular issues proper to politics, and refuse to even entertain the idea that instead of legitimate political issues, they are only politically divisive issues.
Back to political correctness. The reason this issue is felt about by the average rightwinger is not because they believe in the legitimacy and correctness of the position, although that’s why they believe it is. It is because the self-proclaimed Opinion-Makers appeal to their baser selves when bringing up the issue. There is always some mention of “wussies” or “softies” or something like that. There is always insult coupled with the issue. Always. That appeals to the part of you that wants to insult people when you disagree with them, and the part that wants to play off being insulted when it hurts.
To believe you support something for one reason when you really support it for another is the mark of a fool. To believe a politically divisive issue is a legitimate political issue is the mark of an even bigger fool.
You just regergitated Fox New’s talking points. That’s disgraceful in a philosophy forum.
In principle, political correctness is bullshit, but I’ve yet to hear one example that wasn’t also an issue of everyday politeness. I defy you to provide just one example.
The issue I most see is about the LGBT or LGBTQ community. You’ll notice they keep adding letters. This is what I see the right complain about. I have never once seen a rightwinger disregard political correctness without also simultaneously showing disrespect, and I watch a lot of Fox News. What I see is people failing, nay, refusing, to recognize and validate people who are dealing with one of the most intimate issues possible. These people are constantly told they are mistakes, abominations, evil, and we have people who systematically treat this issue as if it were a triviality for political reasons. There are few things that are more abominable than that.
In any event, it is quite clear that political correctness and basic politeness are so similar, that even mentioning the issue seems absurd, unless of course you wanted to make a divisive issue out of it, and that’s exactly what it’s doing, isn’t it? It’s dividing people into factions, for and against, democrat and republican. That’s what a divisive issue really is: not one intended to divide, but one that does divide. The trouble is they are so hard to see, because nearly all political issues today in this nation are divisive. It is like that story of the leprechaun. A man finds a leprechaun, and demands his pot of gold. The leprechaun agrees to take him to retrieve it. When they get there, the man discovers the leprechaun has burried his pot of gold in a strawberry field, underneath one individual strawberry bush. Then the man realizes he needs to go get a shovel. He ties a ribbon around the bush, and makes the leprechaun promise not to remove it. The leprechaun complies again. The man leaves. When he returns, he discovers that instead of removing the ribbon from the one bush, the leprechaun has placed ribbons on every other bush. The man is shocked and bewildred. He spends all night digging under strawberry bushes, but he never finds the pot of gold. Divisive issues are like that in America. In fact, they are so much a staple of American politics that we consider them regular issues proper to politics, and refuse to even entertain the idea that instead of legitimate political issues, they are only politically divisive issues.
Back to political correctness. The reason this issue is felt about by the average rightwinger is not because they believe in the legitimacy and correctness of the position, although that’s why they believe it is. It is because the self-proclaimed Opinion-Makers appeal to their baser selves when bringing up the issue. There is always some mention of “wussies” or “softies” or something like that. There is always insult coupled with the issue. Always. That appeals to the part of you that wants to insult people when you disagree with them, and the part that wants to play off being insulted when it hurts.
To believe you support something for one reason when you really support it for another is the mark of a fool. To believe a politically divisive issue is a legitimate political issue is the mark of an even bigger fool.