Political correctness is bullshit. Just look at the term itself: political = for reasons of politics, correctness = right, meaning in terms of procedure, not right in terms of morality. A collection of points about it that should give you a better picture of my overall feeling about it:
- The biggest myth about PC is that it “promotes diversity.” Bullshit. I think that it under the guise of promoting diversity, it actually serves to accentuate differences and suggest an inherent difference (when true diversity-embracing understands that despite superficial differences, things are actually inherently the same). Saying “chairwoman” instead of “chairman” doesn’t promote women’s rights. It hurts, by implying that a chairwoman and a chairman are different things, and required different skills/efforts/friends to achieve it. They didn’t (or they shouldn’t, at least). BTW before you say stuff like “what about ‘African-American’ as opposed to ‘Nigger’”, note that that’s not being PC; that’s being NOT disrespectful. ‘Nigger’ has connotations of being servile, lowly, and non-human. ‘Chairman’ has none of those things. ‘Mankind’ has none of those things.
- Being PC is not the same thing as being tactful. Being tactful means to say things so as to not antagonize people; it implies a fundamental difference in what you’re saying and what you really mean to say. Being PC is using euphemisms for terms while not changing at all the meaning of what you’re saying. Saying “we’re increasing our efficiency” is not a tactful way of saying “we’re firing employees.” It’s just a euphemism that obscures the truth.
- Lots of people are offended by non-PC talk. Bullshit. I think very few people were originally offended by these things that are now being made PC. But with the growing prevalance of PC terminology, people are learning to take offense where they didn’t before. Very few women give a shit about authors and philosophers using “mankind” instead of some dumb shit like “peoplekind” except in two cases:
- When lawyers started using bullshit like that to exclude women from shit.
- When they started being accused of being “part of the male practice of keeping women down.” Bullshit. Men have been keeping women down for centuries using much worse stuff than “mankind.” Stop fighting petty battles and start fighting the real war instead.
- When one group is always presented the same way in all forms of media, and they complain about it, they’re not fighting for PC. They’re fighting against a systematic bias in their own portrayal. So in Aladdin when you take out the line “they cut off your ear if they don’t like your face” to try to be PC, but still display all the other stereotypes of the Arabian world, you’re a bigot. On the other hand, when one group complains about its portrayal in one particular instance, without a broader background of bias, or when portrayed in a work of satire, it is just PC bullshit. Cases in point: Sikhs complaining about being bad guys in Hitman 2 (yeah? well why aren’t the russians, the malaysians, the americans, and everyone else in the world complaining?), Haitians complaining about their portrayal GTA:Vice City (yeah? well you think the jamaicans/mexicans/puerto ricans/rich whites/poor whites/blacks/etc. portrayed any more accurately or fairly? Ever hear of the concept of satire?)
That’s all the bullshit about that I can stand for right now. But onto a related topic: relativism.
More and more I feel that those who believe, or would have us believe, that “all viewpoints/ethics/cultures/whatever” are equal and cannot be judged are feeding on bullshit. Because everything is not equal. As Bill Maher frequently points out, repressing women is not “just different”; it’s wrong. And it’s worse than not repressing women. While I’m not saying that everything can be ranked precisely against everything else, but everything has a certain “Quality” associated with it. Although there are variations in people’s definitions of what is Good, Quality is not subjective. This gets to the heart of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, so read that to fully understand what I’m saying.
I’m not saying that aspects of the philosophical concepts of Relativism are wrong. But I am saying that it is wrong to simply say that everything is the same, or that everything depends on viewpoint, or that you can’t judge something because you’re not part of it. Bullshit. I never understood that last one. People say “don’t judge me/my religion/my beliefs/my whatever.” What does that mean? Are you not supposed to make any quality judgements about it? If so, then it might as well not exist, because they are prohibiting you from thinking about it in any sort of rational manner. They are in fact forcing you to rely only on your previous knowledge (your “prejudices”) about it. I think what they really mean is “don’t treat me differently because of ________” Which is somewhat more realistic, but still not quite there. Yes, you are right in not treating your Satan-Worshipping friend like shit because he worships Satan (and you do not). But if he’s abusing his wife/gf/whoever, you are wrong in not judging him and not saying anything about that. Because, again, many things ARE wrong, no matter what your belief system (which might in itself be wrong).
Sorry if I’ve contradicted myself in there, or otherwise not made sense, but feel free to ask me in person to elaborate. It’s early and I haven’t slept much, and so although I might have missed many details, I firmly stand by the crux of my arguments. Not that it matters; very few people actually read stuff critically and do/say anything about it.
Tags: bullshit, political correctness, relativism
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