This all sounds rather theoretical and abstract to me. Could you provide a concrete example of political correctness having a demonstrably damaging effect on democracy?
Something that has either previously caused offense or is likely to, something that is likely to cause a negative emotional reaction in another person. The recipient of the words sets the standard, i.e whoever reads or listens to what you're saying: see caveats i already mentioned above about excluding those with ulterior motives, and enlightening those who are not sufficiently erudite to convey their thought without causing offense. I get what you're saying about affecting semantics by policing syntax's, at least i hope i do, however words have meaning and how we use them is an important part of conveying our thoughts, if we use imprecise words we risk conveying imprecise thoughts or our thoughts being misconstrued.
The thing is it's more death by 1,000 cuts. There isn't an example I can point to where PC culture has, say, led to the decisive turn in an election...but political correctness, however well-intentioned, is undoubtedly a form of censorship. Just like the BBFC is well-intentioned, but can also lead to the banning of "video nasties" which we now view as totally innocuous. Censorship is the enemy of liberal discourse, and perhaps that's the term we should be using here since political correctness is such a broad term that means different thing to different people.The art of politics is attempting to get people to agree with you, while not making them afraid to disagree. When you introduce things like trigger words you're introducing a tool with which to derail that discourse, if not end it outright. That's what I'm talking about here, excessive political correctness (although, again, excessive is a subjective ideological standard). I think it's obvious that the terms of democratic discourse being in the hands of corporate political actors is damaging to democracy, don't you? How can you tell without first saying it? How do you know that the offended person is not feigning offence to control the conversation? Is the phrase "homophobia is bad" offensive?
I don't think you can know it's not going to cause offense, it's a judgment call made by each person in the same manner as we try to judge if hugging someone or paying them a compliment would be inappropriate. Would you walk up to a total stranger and given them a hug or pay them a compliment, probably not as you don't know them well enough to know how it would be received. IMO when someone is feigning offence to control the conversation their intentions soon become apparent as despite the offender apologising or trying to move the conversation on to the substance the faux offended person keeps trying to return to what they supposedly took offense at. I wouldn't say bad, it's not reasoned or logical IMO. If someone said they had negative thoughts or feelings towards LGBT's and someone told them that was bad (homophobia is bad) then personally I'd say the person saying so is guilty of intellectual dishonesty and their reasoning is as flawed as the person they're castigating.
That's workable in a one to one conversation; In a one to many conversation, such as all online public discourse, you're asking the individual to appease everyone That's a subjective statement. You might have that skill, others don't. I'm surprised you didn't notice my trap. The word "bad" is from the old english "baeddel", meaning a "hermaphrodite or womanish man". The statement "homophobia is bad" means, with utter linguistic accuracy, "homophobia is gay" - How's that for illogical? The attempt to appease everyone in a connected society is exhausting, if not impossible.
That would take smarts, me not have smarts. EDIT: Even though Ricky Gervais can brush people up the wrong way sometimes i think a recent comment he made on twitter is both relevant to what you're saying, @VipersGratitude, but also hit the nail on the head. Personally i disagree with the degrading part as I'm comfortable with degrading myself to an extent if it means discovering genie offense and learning from it or faux offense and discounting it.
Was listening to this, and the concerns I've been putting forward regarding social media were discussed at the 1h 26m 25s mark. mmmm, validation feels good.
I hope this is relevant, either way i found it thought provoking, it's part of a longer interview but this part deals with how 'identity politics are used to shut down debate' and if that's 'political correctness' (Viewer discretion is advised due to some f'ing and jeff'ing)
It's completely on point and illustrates much of the frustration that caused me to start this thread in the first place. Often the slightest hint of a particular "ism" - real or imagined - leads to the end of liberal discourse. If society continues to be so hostile and dismissive of opposing ideas it'll all end up like NI.
I was wonder what you guy thought about this Jordan Peterson character that seems to have popped up in the last few months. Very basically his point is radical left wing marxism is taking over politics under the guise of postmodernism and political correctness. He is obviously a very good orator and structures his responses very well and is often pitted against people who are unable to articulate a good rebuttal. However I can’t help but think It sounds like a really good conspiracy theory with minimal truth about it.
