I view political correctness as a means used to protect an ideology from unwanted questions. Political incorrectness is distinguished from lack of civility or just plain absence of regard for the feelings of others.

Most certainly it is an imposed (dictatorial) orthodoxy complete with its own range of sanctions.  That is why it should be resisted as should all dictatorial orthodoxies.

All I have to give is my own point of view. Both PC and non-PC activities are certainly part of the culture of most modern democracies. I do not think they actually mean anything beyond a social indicator for the group(s) you belong to. If you are in a PC group, then you talk the PC talk, or there are adverse consequences (ostracism) and vice versa.

I divert briefly to the issue of free speech before returning to PC for a final comment. For me PC is just a minor game in the bigger issue of free speech. The reason I love free speech is that it promotes speaking from the heart; and a comment tells you just as much about who said it, as who it was said about. It is the non-violent to and fro that is needed between people to set and move cultural limits as circumstances require. Without it, tensions develop and spread.

But there are limits on free speech. Even if there are no legal impediments, there can most certainly be social consequences (even being fired from your job) for a comment spoken in the wrong social context.

The big problem with free speech I see is that speech can stir the emotions and get people riled up; this is fine when there is a genuine grievance and a clear inequality in the way different citizens are treated under common law.

But when it is simply hate speech and nothing to do with resolving anything of note, then surely enough is enough, and it is required that the majority not to be silent but to stand up and renounce it. And the law often does stand in as proxy for that silent majority and does place legal limits on freedom of speech. This is OK as long as the law is the last back-stop; the bare minimum below which the integrity of society itself might be put at risk. It should never be at the vanguard of the cultural fence of where society says "OK, or not OK; that flexes and moves as we change going into the future. 

The big problem I see with PC is that it is an attempt to appease people who are not actually offended by non-PC comments, but pretend to be offended "on behalf" of the people they think should be offended. This is a very slippery road, and I for one do not think we should take any notice of these false Samaritans. Instead the whole PC/non-PC paradigm seems to have given them a seat at the table. For shame! 

I view political correctness as a means used to protect an ideology from unwanted questions. Political incorrectness is distinguished from lack of civility or just plain absence of regard for the feelings of others.

When open debate is viewed as for far too long of being just wishy-washy talks , snipers, like those from Dallas will determine to be 'corrected' by all means.  It's a catch-22 situation.  'Morning after Dallas Attack" & "Morning after Jenin" 

http://advogato.org/person/StevenRainwater/diary/334.html

https://www.amazon.com/Mornings-Jenin-Novel-Susan-Abulhawa/dp/1608190463

Proper political correctness use must be employed with great care and as a compromise situation between two poles.

When you employ it in a natural form and without distinguishing the interlocutor, then it can be perceived as frivolous person; polite but being out of the interest for entering behind the skin of the problems.

On the other hand, if you do not use at all the political correctness with marginal or very sensitive people, you might appear as rude person that is better to avoid the relationship.

And when you have both kind of people, sensitive and no so sentive. The risk is to appear as transforming politness in dishonesty.

I think that the best is to be sincere and try to go directly to the problems who can interest avoiding personal qualifications or adjectives which could drive indirectly to them.

My norm is to do the same that I would like they would do with me in such situation. The problem is not of language but of inteligence for understanding the situation where message must be given if I do not know enough the persons that I contact.

While there are and ought to be collective social and cultural sensitivities, they should never be tied to the political framework. We can be sensitive to feelings and limitations of our fellow man without tying it to a social or political order. On the other hand, we need take all offenses so personally. I am profoundly deaf, and while I might take umbrage to someone joking about a deaf man, I have no hesitation in being the one to personally tell the joke (smile). The same might be applied to any number of disabilities--its funny being told by the afflicted one, not so humorous being told by someone not so afflicted. In truth, we all have handicaps of some kind, circumstances out of our control, or lessons yet to be learned. But we need to keep our sense of humor in tact lest we be offended even when offense was unintended. On the other hand, the larger question regarding political correctness today has been taken to cover inconvenient facts, stifle questions that need asking, and to shift blame.  

The "political correctness" of the 1990s was a runaway train lifted from the mutterings of academia and ensconced in the demagoguery of a few political groups as a way of shifting focus on certain matters and pronouncing the lack of political correctness savvy upon their opponents. This also was propagated by news agencies that did not want to be accused of being insensitive to those most benefiting from PC. Eventually, the PC movement waned, but not before causing some changes in terminology that has since been of questionable benefit. Not only did this cause the almost total abandonment of terms like "retarded" and "crazy", but also gave rise to more "glamorous" professional terminology like administrative assistant instead of secretary, solid waste technician instead of garbageman, and culinary specialist instead of cook. This is seen by many as a thin ploy of substituting one label for another with no real substance.

Personally, the resurgence of political correctness in the 2010s is tied to multiracial acceptance and globalization. However, tolerance for others and PC, to me, are two totally different things. A few examples. While legitimately there is concern about the movie industry not casting ethnic people in ethnic roles, I also have concern with placing ethnic people into inappropriate historical contexts for the sake of diversity and political correctness. A black person being portrayed as one of the New England Puritans, something that could not and did not happen, is more incorrect than a Swede playing the part of an Egyptian, but currently more socially acceptable and, in fact, more socially demanded.

The shoe company Nike, not too many years ago, suffered a setback in the release of a new athletic shoe. Their research department had researched several proposed names for the shoe and finally settled on one than would not give offense to anybody in the world. Only problem was that the name was identical to, if I remember correctly, the most insulting word possible for a South China seas island people. Thus, after a limited production run, Nike had to change the name.

Is this political correctness taken to the extreme? Is this where we are headed? Do we have to watch our every word and gesture in order to not give offense to anybody? Do we have to have someone of Asian descent and someone of African descent to play parts in a movie about the founding of Iceland because to do otherwise is politically incorrect and racist besides? Is an inadvertent and unintentional insult worth ruining a company? A reputation? A career? Someone once said that you can't please all of the people all of the time, but it seems that in today's world everybody is demanding just that.

Political correctness is a thing made above all in USA. In Italy and in other parts of Europe political correctness has become a caricature, also because is mostly used in a dogmatic way by the so called "radical chic" ( term coined by journalist Tom Wolfe in his 1970 essay "Radical Chic"), a category of persons, we use to say, that has the heart on their "left" and the pocket on their "right". Generally they are bio-eco-bycicle-extremists. I prefer the "esprit de finesse", a gift that comes from the heart... true, free, without any a priori category.

Daniele,

Oh, believe me, many of us were sick and tired of hearing the term Politically Correct every time we turned on the television.

HG, I would offer that political correctness is indeed an imposed orthodoxy, AND that its most fundamental premise is: "Do Not Offend." Especially, do not offend those who you perceive are less able to fight back.

It makes no difference how valid an argument might be. If this viewpoint has a chance of offending, it has to be banished from "civil discourse."

Could anyone comment on this tidbit about Sniper Johnson? 

"In the end," he wrote, "evil always fails."

Johnson was a private first class from the Dallas suburb of Mesquite with a specialty in carpentry and masonry. He served in the Army Reserve for six years starting in 2009 and did one tour in Afghanistan from November 2013 to July 2014, the military said.

A military lawyer says Johnson was accused of sexual harassment by a female soldier when he served in the Army in Afghanistan in May 2014. Lawyer Bradford Glendening, who represented Johnson, said Johnson was sent back to the U.S. with the recommendation he be removed from the Army with an "other than honorable" discharge.

Also last time a Sniper who was targeting specifically on a few 'enemies', it was triggered by a similar court verdict... can't remember his name now ... he was hiding in a rural lodge that was burned down with him in it by Special Marshall force.  This time a robot delivered a bomb. 

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-08/urgent-dallas-police-chief-negotiations-underway-at-parking-garage

Mainz, Germany

Dear Laird,

My sense of your comment is that it is off topic. Moreover, at this point, I think we ought to let the criminal investigation proceed regarding the various shootings.

Our question is: "What is political correctness? Does it represent an imposed orthodoxy?"

It does make sense to me to suppose that if debate and discussion are effectively prohibited and punished, in favor of feeling and pre-existing conviction, then conflict will likely shift from the arena of debate and discussion to other, less acceptable forms. That seems to me a fatal flaw of imposed and enforced political correctness.

H.G. Callaway

Susan

The arguments of the gun lobby are that Americans need to be able to purchase weapons to 'protect themselves'.  When you hear the NRA lobbyists chant this mantra on TV it is always with the same 'steely reserve' that we imagine the inhabitants of the Alamo to have expressed (wrongly of course) 

While weapons of war remain available to the public in the US there will be and endless litany of Columbine, Orlando and Dallas and a hundred other places where guns were seen to be the solution.

Hundreds of Cops get killed every year performing their duty by nutjobs and criminals who have access to the most powerful weapons available usually only to armies.  

Thousands of other people are killed by firearms or affected by the ever present threat or aftermath of such events.  Even I have experience of gun violence in the US, the son of one of my friends was fatally shot in the head a few years ago.  We had to take the investigation out of state because the state coroner treated it in a casual 'just routine' manner.

While guns are available and shootings just routine the only thing to look forward to are more casualties. 

Colin

Gun control is nothing to do with PC.

It is rather more difficult to kill 49 people in a nightclub with a meat cleaver or a knife.  An automatic rifle is much more efficient and far quicker.  It is also unlikly that the psychopath who killed five cops and wounded six more in Dallas would have wreaked such carnage with a carving knife.  

Crime is very low in my community even though the bad guys can be almost certain that no one is carrying a pistol.  I doubt however that anecdotal 'mom's apple pie' assurances about our respective communities are much in the way of evidence for the benefits of everyone being armed.  There are plenty of US communities with spectacularly high crime rates where the bad guys don't care who is carrying a pistol

The second amendment is the most the most misprepresented constitutional provision in history, it was never meant as a licence to arm yourself with the firepower of an infantry section, indeed the idea was you joined a militia first with a view to protecting against invasion. 

As for the prevention of the bloodbath of colonists by the Red Coats.  The  first ten amendments to the US constitution were adopted on the December 15, 1791,  some time after the Redcoats had gone.  The second amendment was introduced to deal with those who possessed 'red' complexions rather than red coats. 

One last point, it is not only the bad guys that have guns in the UK, our police and soldiers have them.  Its not perfect but a whole lot safer than being in a place where every nut and psycho with an axe to grind can buy a Kalashnikov or an M16 and give vent to his anger down at the local gay bar or high school.

I see it is contradictory term. 

"Political" means the relative issue while "Correctness" is an absolute description.

The reason why gun culture needs to be examined is because people are killed by nutjobs with guns.  

It is factually correct that 'guns don't kill people', people kill people but the same can be said for heroin, cocaine, marijuana, speed.  They don't kill people either.  Leave a gun on the ground it will not killed anyone until a person picks it up.  Heroin too is completely safe until a person gets hold of it .

Drugs don't kill people, people kill people with them and that is why they are banned.  

It is 'true' that the 'only person who can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun'.  Where were the good guys at Columbine?  Why didn't a 'good guy' stop the killing in Orlando.  A good guy with a bomb killed the asshole who shot 11 cops in Dallas, but that was a litle to late.  So much for the right to bear arms.  It seems that the bad guy with the gun always has the upperhand when it comes to deciding who gets shot. 

I am happy to live in a country where we do not think that we need to carry guns to protect ourselves and where our legislature decided that there is no need in a civilised society to carry deadly weapons to live an ordinary life.  We still have mass shootings but they happen about every 15 to 20 years, not every month.  

There is much mythology about the righteousness of using deadly force but the reality is as always somewhat different.  The good guy with the gun is seen far less often with the bad guy with the gun.  The bad guy with the gun nearly always knows better how to use it because he shoots people not paper targets.

We all need good guys with guns and they should be the only people who can get near them.  While assault weapons can be bought by a member of the public it will be other members of the public, not just 'bad guys' who get shot.

If you want to be a good guy with a gun join the army or your police department.  The United States was built on the philosophy of democracy and the rule of law, not the perverse mentality of the gunslinger. 

By the way, there are nearly 900,000 cops in the US.  The statistics indicate that by a huge margin that most of them do not shoot innocent people at random and the vast majority of them only ever discharge their weapons on the range.

Mainz, Germany

Dear all,

Many thanks for your comments related to the shootings. I see some compassion here as well as controversy.

Here are the President's recent comments given at his press conference following the NATO meeting in Warsaw:

http://video.foxnews.com/v/5029070401001/obama-us-not-as-divided-as-some-have-suggested/?#sp=show-clips

I can tell you, by the way, that I attended integrated schools in my home town of Philadelphia, and I live in an integrated neighborhood, with people of many backgrounds. I have also lived in several other places in the U.S.

In my personal experience, I have never even seen an American police officer use or even aim or hold a gun. The police are generally friendly and do their best to be supportive of the public. The gun violence that does take place in the city most often arises from drug related turf-wars --often in the poorest neighborhoods. 

In my judgement, the 2nd amendment right to bear arms was designed as part of the defense strategy of the early American republic. It was found, during the revolutionary war that small farmers would rise up in arms to resist invaders, and the primary reliance was to be on civilian self-defense. The founders were suspicious of "standing armies" in times of peace.

Originally, the prohibition on laws restricting weapons only applied to the federal government; and it was the states which were primarily responsible for organizing and overseeing the local militias, of which the 2nd amendment speaks. The corresponding provisions of the state constitutions were often written so as to allow the states to regulate weapons. However, the modern legal judgment is that the 14th amendment "incorporates" the provisions of the first 10 amendments (the Bill or Right") against the states. This renders state regulation of weapons, under their own constitutional provisions impossible.

Perhaps the best hope of stricter regulation would allow the matter to be returned to the states. I cannot see why we should have exactly the same weapons laws in, say, rural Alaska, Montana or Idaho, and in every great city. 

However, it should be noted that many American oppose new regulations on the possession of guns. New gun laws are chiefly popular in more urban areas where guns in the hands of criminals do the most damage.

Now, having said this much, I wonder if those contributing to this thread might wish to return to the questions of "political correctness."

I would emphasize, again, that insofar as speech and open discussion are prohibited or punished, this is likely to force related conflicts into less desirable forms. This makes little sense, so far as I can see,especially in any multi-ethnic, multiracial country with great internal diversity. On the contrary, what is most needed is to give differences in point of view ample scope for engagement and exchanges. This must include more conservative as well as less conservative voices.

Those who wish to debate gun control, might consider starting a thread devoted to that topic.

H.G. Callaway

Returning to 'political correctness' we need to start by dismissing any concept that any particular ideology can dictate what is correct.  'Political correctness' comes from a dictatorial ideology that admonishes individuals for behaviour that is seen not to conform.  In that respect it is no different to any other doctrinaire dogma.

There is a fundamantal difference between pseudo-liberal PC language and behaviour.  The fact that many proponents of PC language would be appalled by what are considered racist epithets they nevertheless chose who they associate with commonly along discriminatory boundaries.  In the UK we have a group called Champagne socialists who espouse socialist principles while enjoying bourgeois lifestyles.  They talk affectionately about the 'working class' but would not be seen in the company of those who fit this category.

On another point the politically correct insist that we 'respect' other cultures as 'different' but not inferior.  It is quite clear that some cultures are superior to others and that there is no shame in saying so.  We would not consider western culture of the 19th century to be 'different' but 'equal' to the culture of today so we should not consider cultures that embrace 19th century values to be simply 'different' but equal. 

If any culture downgrades women it is not simply un-PC it is inhuman.  If any culture forces its religion on people simply to keep them in subservience it too is inhuman, atavistic and backward. Respect for humanity is far more important than dogmatic promotion of so called 'political correctness'.  

H.G. is absolutely right about returning legislative power to the states.  The devolution of power within a federal system is essential to maintain democracy.  Those in the 13 colonies who joined militias did not at first intend to found a nation state.  They simply opposed the tyranny of British government.  It was very clear in the writings of those who eventually became the founding fathers that the object of the revolutionary wars was the removal of tyranny, not the replacement of one tyranny with another. 

I agree with Barry Turner when he say "inhuman" that kind of cultures. Anyway I think that Pc upholds the cultural "relativism". We should feel free to consider hidebound cultures that treat women as inferior beings as regards to men and that would like to impose their religion in all the world. This is a very actual problem. Moreover it is precisely the relativistic conception that has made us so weak (i speak especially for Europe) as regards to those fundamentalist cultures. This kind of relativism of PC,  is also the sense attributed to Nietzsche's concept of nihilism, i.e. "the fall of supreme values". We are living in the Western world in a time of poverty of strong values. How could we answer to the question posed by the German poet Hölderlin in the elegy Brot und Wein: ""which is the task of the poet in time of poverty?"

Barry,

As I said, in the American PC of the 1990s I found that it was often those people who wanted to shame or control others by shouting that they were not PC. The same thing is happening now with the word Racist. If I refuse to agree, on the grounds of science, with the opinion of someone of ethnic background, then I am called a racist. Innocent little things, even well-meaning people are called racist.Its the new finger pointing WITCH!

   Political correctness is to be involved in a "neutral" language to ensure that you could not possibly be accused of discriminating against or being offensive to sensitive minority groups as sex, race, religious, etc. When most of the times "neutral" means that it is not taking a position on such issue and at the same time one is enough polite to consider its importance.

   For some people may have the same psicological effect as it has the saccharin in the coffee after having a sweet dessert of a great meal. 

It was indeed the British who transported slaves to the colonies but political correctness has no place in judging that evil.  It was also the British who put an end to slavery and inspite of economics favouring Britain supporting the South in the Civil War it was slavery that prevented that support.

Political correctness has no place in historical study, you take the past as you find it and do not judge it on 21st century morals (unless you find 19th century 'values' here in the 21st century)

Political correctness is propaganda not fact and it is just as biased and bigotted as any philosophy it condemns.  There is no reason why minority groups or for that matter majority groups should be protected from being 'offended' .  The 'minority' or 'majority' of a group does not make it ethical, moral or right.  The fact that a minority group or a majority has a set of values does not place any duty on those who disagree with them to offer respect as a right.

Political correctness supports injustice, it prevents righteous condemnation of behaviour and beliefs on erroneous concepts of egalitarianism.  The casual use of the word 'racist' has devalued its meaning and PC is to blame for that.  It is not racist to condemn cultures that enslave or subjugate women in the name of religion, we do not need to give them respect, they do not deserve it.  

The casual use of the word 'discrimination' has devalued its meaning, PC is responsible for that.  We are disgusted by wife beaters and those who abuse children in our culture and we rightly punish them.  It is absurd that we should respect cultures where this behaviour is not only tollerated but encouraged.  Those societies and cultures are not our equal they are inferior.  There is nothing negative about discrimination against them.

The bottom line on PC is that it was adopted so that the chattering classes could pontificate at dinner parties and be 'holier than thou' when discussing difficult topics.  PC is not morally superior it is an abrogation of morality.  Ethics is the study of right and wrong and when something is wrong it should be said so, not tiptoed around to prevent offending someone.  

Sorry Barry, Britain didn't officially support the South. However, there were plenty of ships and weapons built for the South by British shipyards and factories that were paid for by tons of sugar and cotton that was slipped through the blockades.

There were several attempts to obtain diplomatic recognition for the South and Jeff Davies believed that both Britain and France may even be induced to come in on the side of the Confederacy.  The Trent Affair involved the USS Jacinto capturing two Confederate diplomats on board the RMS Trent in 1861.  This precipitated a major diplomatic incident and it alarmed Lincoln sufficiently to release those Commissioners rather than risk Britain coming in on the side of the Rebels.

It was never a serious risk, the UK Parliament would never have approved such a move while the South continued to embrace slavery as its economic mainstay.

It is quite correct that British 'interests' involved blockade running and that Armstrong Whitworth guns were on the Confederate side at Gettysburg but neither the UK nor France would openly ally with a slave nation.  Incidentally, the Confederacy imposed a cotton embargo on Britain and France to try and pressure them into supporting them, it did not work.  Britain simply shifted its attention to cotton grown in India.

Indeed very much of the contraband finding itself in New Orleans and Charleston originated in British and French colonies in the Caribbean or from the UK and France themselves but this was much more to do with 'private enterprise' rather than diplomatic and military support.  Interestingly those Whitworth guns were ineffective due to overshooting.  If the Rebs had had British gun crews or had been trained by them that battle might very easily have ended differently.

It is interesting to note that the highly effective Confederate Navy was equipped with ships built in Britain.  The CSS Alabama sunk or captured 65 Yankee ships before being sunk herself off Cherbourg by the US Navy.  The final surrender of Confederate Forces was when the last CSA Ensign was lowered on the CSS Shenandoah in the River Mersey on the 7th November 1865, some eight months after Appomattox.

The Alabama had been built in Liverpool the Shenandoah in Glasgow, both had British crews officered by Southerners. 

If the British had officially supported the Confederacy they would have had dozens of these ships.  The blockade would have been lifted and the South would almost certainly have won the war. 

We would certainly have a different view of 'political correctness' had that been the case.

The vast majority of Confederate soldiers were not slave owners and had no interest in slavery.  Similarly the vast majority of those in the North did not see freeing of the slaves as the main issue and even Mr Lincoln had no intention of integrating the freed slaves into American society.  

He was working on a plan to send them all back to Africa until he realised the political capital he could gain from them.  Lincoln really worked the PC mindset 130 years before it was re-invented on the East Coast.  

The decendants of the inhuman actions and policies of nations of 150 years ago have no guilt or obligation to pay reparations anymore than the decendants of those who crewed the slave ships or sold the slaves to them on the West African coast.  If we are to extend this ridiculous concept of 'the sins of the fathers' it would know no boundaries. Are the decendants of the Ancient Romans responsible for the attrocities committed in the arena 2000 years ago? 

It is correct that we should fight racism and unfair explotation everywhere but that is not achieved by 'politically correct' rhetoric about blame and the morality of the people of past centuries.  Breaking down barriers and eroding prejudice will not be brought about by fuelling resentment for evils done five generations ago.  

We should look to history but we should never re live it.   The Confederacy was built not just on slavery but on the concept of resentment and victim mentality, of exclusivity and stubborn determination to hold on to anachronistic cultural values.  We could call that the 'political correctness' of its day.   In the 21st century it should be a lesson to us of what to avoid, not of what to aspire to.

In  1558 , Giovanni Della Casa did write the book "Galateo overo de’ costumi". This book represents a kind of PC in an ancient form, dedicated to the higher social classes. In the book are contained etiquette and  bon-ton rules... You could understand the class which you did belong to, from the language and the behaviour. It was a kind of aristocratic PC, that is still present at same levels in Europe and shows the privilege of you rbelonging to a higher social class. Sometime PC and Galateo work together. Then you can really shoot...

Mainz, Germany

Dear all,

Looking around a bit, I found some interesting quotations from Doris Lessing who wrote a book in the 1990s concerned with "political correctness."

From:

Our Country, Our Culture

The Politics of Political Correctness

Edited by Edith Kurzweil and William Philips

Partisan Review Press

Published 1994

ISBN: 0-9644377-3-2

http://www.dorislessing.org/unexamined.html

Here is a sample:

Of course, I am not suggesting that the torch of Communism has been handed on to the political correctors. I am suggesting that habits of mind have been absorbed, often without knowing it. There is obviously something very attractive about telling other people what to do. I'm putting it in this nursery way rather than in more intellectual language because I think it is nursery behaviour, very primitive stuff. Deep in the human mind is the need to order, control set bounds. Art, the arts in general, are always unpredictable, maverick, and tend at their best to be uncomfortable. Literature in particular has always inspired the house committees, the Zhdanovs, the vigilantes into, at best, fits of moralizing, and at worst into persecution. It troubles me that political correctness does not seem to know what its exemplars and predecessors are; it troubles me a good deal more that they may know and do not care.

Does political correctness have a good side? Yes, it does, for it makes us re-examine attitudes, and that is always useful. The trouble is that, as with all popular movements, the lunatic fringe so quickly ceases to be a fringe; the tail begins to wag the dog. For every woman or man who is quietly and sensibly using the idea to look carefully at our assumptions, there are twenty rabble-rousers whose real motive is a desire for power over others. The fact that they seem themselves as anti-racists, or feminists, or whatever does not make them any less rabble-rousers.

---End quotation

This description and evaluation fits my picture of "political correctness" quite well. It grows from more or less puritanical moralizing in the direction of group action and persecution. Its as often a matter of corporatism and conformity to a perceived order as it is anything on the left of the political spectrum. (Think of the timid college and university administrators, or generous political contributions.) Again, one might say that the esteemed goals of the political left adopt a version of vehement "solidarity." (Democrats on the left made a deal with the left-extremists to recruit their "enforcers." ) I particularly liked the comment made by someone on this thread above that the advocates and perpetrators of enforced political correctness have their "hearts on the left" and "their pockets on the right." That was once a very familiar "post-modernist" self-image widely projected as a means of self-aggrandizement.  The once trendy image has since declined.

What has persisted over decades is the pure presumption that "pc" doctrines are right, as though one could evaluate social policies by feeling alone, or by the felt need of a protecting group, so that any attempt at critical examination, moderation or elaboration of alternatives is standardly rejected out of hand. Questioning anything "pc," then, has merely amounted to stepping out of the related identity group. It almost pure "identity politics." But given the growing inequalities, world-wide, over the same decades, this tend to show that there is a great deal of disguised deference to concentrated wealth involved.

H.G. Callaway

In Europe, and above all in Italy,  we have big problems with immigration coming especially from Libya to the coasts of Sicily. Clandestine immigrants are welcomed and behind whose trade there is a lot of mafia money. The Italian Government through the PC attempts to make acceptable to Italian citizens this impressive and insoluble problem. The PC has become an instrument of power to justify crimes, murders committed by immigrants of color at the expense of Italian citizens. The presence of the representatives of the government to the funeral of immigrants killed by Italians serves to politicians to collect votes. When an Italian or a whole family is massacred  by immigrants the government is absent. This highlights how the PC is used for political purposes and not as a style of education.

One expression of PC (politically correct) is that the:

Former president of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso has joined Goldman Sachs as a non-executive chairman in its international business and adviser to the wider group.

http://www.reuters.com/article/moves-goldman-sachs-barroso-idUSL8N19U2PS

In other words, PC is the way imposed to the “employees - leaders” of any status, category, religion or social, scientific impact to do not disrupt the establishment and the status quo.  It does not represent an "orthodoxy" but a co-responsibility. 

The truth hurts (someone). Sometimes the truth and the PC don't agree each other.

Moreover who downvotes an answer, does it in an anonymous way, then or this person is lacking in courage or is lacking in arguments. 

Mainz, Germany

Dear Doucas,

You wrote:

In other words, PC is the way imposed to the “employees - leaders” of any status, category, religion or social, scientific impact to do not disrupt the establishment and the status quo. It does not represent an "orthodoxy" but a co-responsibility.

---End quotation

I think the question here is not a matter of "disrupting the establishment," but more a matter of being in a position to question it --for purposes of democratic evaluation.

If the "co-responsibility" involves purposes, aims and policies which cannot be openly questioned or discussed, then what is the difference between that and "an orthodoxy?" You wouldn't want to make a distinction without a difference I suppose. 

H.G. Callaway

I perceive political 'incorrect' as a concerted actions by many to totally cut-off all private and individual means to seek justice within an individual's capacity. There is no political correct other than political 'convenient'/expedient or political suicide. 

Mainz, Germany

Dear James,

I can tell you that the situation at many a major intersection in downtown Philadelphia is not much different regarding the proliferation of panhandlers.

There are always people who will tell you not to encourage them. Still, if you do stop and talk with them, you can find out much of what is going on, economically and socially. The panhandlers used to be mostly African American, and I find that I some times went to the same or neighboring schools in the city. Often they are out of work or waiting on disability, lost their apartment or there was some conflict in the family which brought them to go out on the streets. In recent years, I have seen increasing numbers of whites, too, from working families--somehow broken and without friends. I have to tell them that there are more jobs in the suburbs. They often come from rural areas, and my advice is to seek out friends or patch up the family, if possible. Philadelphia is friendlier than many a place, but without knowing someone, finding a job and a place to live can be extremely difficult.

The city does try to put them up, temporarily at least, especially in sever weather. Otherwise, they'd be dead on the streets when Winter hits. Often enough, I surmise, the recession of 2008 is still not over for many ordinary people and the lack of employment opportunities tends to simply tear families apart.

There are also many immigrants in the city, though nowhere near the numbers in NYC. Many come for professional positions. We also see ethnically composed people in certain trades--gardener for instance.

H.G. Callaway 

With this election of 2016,  how come nobody see that political suicide is the new game in town? 

Dear Callaway,

Orthodoxy (from Greek ὀρθοδοξία, orthodoxia – "correct belief", "right opinion") is adherence to correct or accepted norms.  I do not see why PC represents an imposed orthodoxy; what is “right” in the PC?

We should have a co-responsibility for things or statements, purposes, aims and policies which should be openly questioned or discussed. That is my opinion.  The situation of PC imposes a false reality.

We construct a false reality and finally in order to be PC we create a multifaceted society with a false identity.  It is unethical to bomb a hospital and kill innocent people but it is not PC to say that in the media. It is unethical to execute thousands in the name of “democracy” like in Iraq, but just now we learned that this was based on fake data. It is PC to cover that massacre in a the PC way.

When a decision is taken  around a "PC table" a co-responsibility is created.  That is the ethical face of a society.

Mainz, Germany

Dear Doucas,

You have the correct etymological definition of "orthodoxy." However, you don't seem to see that the word is often used to question received belief or doctrine. Here are two examples of usage from Webster's dictionary:

Examples of orthodoxy in a sentence:

I was surprised by the orthodoxy of her political views.

He rejected the orthodoxies of the scientific establishment.

---End quotation

Use of the word in the phrase "imposed orthodoxy" is similar. It is not that anyone thinks you are not entitled to the views which you regard as "right" or correct. The question is whether "pc" is imposed.

You remark on "false reality," and if "pc" is a false reality, then we might uncover some of this. It matters who is there "around the table," as you put the matter. You may want to review some of the skepticism about "pc" in the various notes above on this thread. My impression is that you just joined us?

H.G. Callaway

I find this interesting narrative of 'Affirmative Action' in its earliest action item at MIT in regards of Vera's tenured professorship position.

But here's the puzzling and more interesting bit:

"He found that very few professors were willing to take a Russian. There were a flood of White Russians who had come to Paris, and they were not viewed with great favor. But one man that father approached was Professor [Dietrich] Bonhoeffer. And he had been in the cohort of an uncle of my father. They both had been scientists together at Berlin and he had fond memories of Alexander Kistiakowsky. So he took my father on, and from there on it was just upward and onward."

How many Prof. Dietrich Bonhoeffer were there, at Univ. of Berlin during the war? That's not the pastor Dietrick Bonhoeffer, I guess ? ...

http://manhattanprojectvoices.org/oral-histories/vera-kistiakowskys-interview

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2012/10/25/tragedy-dietrich-bonhoeffer-and-hans-von-dohnanyi/

Political correctness usually follows the dogma of those in power. It was not politically correct, for instance, for Galileo to state that the earth revolved around the sun, and thus the house arrest and ostricization. Nevermind that just about any scientist of the day already knew it but dared not say it. We are seeing the same thing with the global warming issue and its attributed causes--get on the wrong side of the political agenda and be criticized. We call these the Zeitgeists of the day, and usually they are wrong.  

Dear Callaway,

I really enjoy your approach and logic.  I would really like to join you “around a pc table” and I am ready to review some of the skepticism according to your suggestion. I really appreciate it.

As you correctly said “The question is whether "pc" is imposed”.  To my opinion nothing can be imposed if, we do not agree. There comes the question of co-responsibility.  We are normally free humans. So, the question is if you would like to invite me to join the pc table?

Best, Vassilis

True political correctness is sincerity, based on evidences, facts, experience, thorough analysis of the information, values of the higher order and love for the world.For ex, Martin Luther King's speech or Charlie Chaplin's "The Great Dictator final speech" 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1UFB6YCOmc

I have to make a clarification: in my reply which I speak of illegal immigration the skin color is only a problem  linked to the fact that the most of  immigration is illegal. In Italy it is very rare to meet people who have a racial hatred toward the people of color. The real problem is the clandestinity that I consider a misdeed of our politicians and of intrusion of dirty money. For that this problem  maight also be applied to the Slav peoples or Albanians. People who come in Italy  with the willingness to work and to integrate into our civilisation that comes from the world of Greek Jewish and Christian culture are totally accepted. Angela Merkel had to apply the PC in order to avoid worse damage for the women perfumed and which were not covered well enough according with the canons of certain categories of illegal males. Those women, for example in Köln, were raped because they were regarded as whores for religious reasons.

Political correctness is indeed imposed orthodoxy. It is however political or ideological orthodoxy. Hence the 'political' in 'political correctness'. See for example: Arye L. Hillman and Heinrich W. Ursprung, 2016. Academic exclusion: Some experiences. Public Choice, 167(1), 1-20.

Mainz, Germany

Dear Pechonkina,

Thanks for your comment. You seem to idealize political correctness and the processes of arriving at it. But this stands in some considerable conflict with the perception of an imposed orthodoxy. 

You wrote:

True political correctness is sincerity, based on evidences, facts, experience, thorough analysis of the information, values of the higher order and love for the world.

---End quotation

If "PC" is widely seen as an imposed political orthodoxy, then this would seem to imply that many people feel they were not consulted, that their interests and views were ignored and that there is some failure of representation involved. This is consistent with the wide perception of "PC" as an elitist doctrine which works to the disadvantage of many ordinary people and their customary mores and ways of life. 

Academically, if people are excluded, in the often all-too-human manner, that is, by any means convenient, "by hook or by crook," at the expediency of the moment and without regard to anything but insider interests and perspectives, then their views would not be properly represented in the outcomes --as one would naturally expect. The question, "Who are the most effective infighters?" is not the same question as "What is the best judgment of policy regarding matters of general public interest?" In somewhat this way, one would expect the cult of institutional infighting to substantially distort value judgments of more general import and significance. The effect would likely be that alternatives to the reigning institutional-political orthodoxies would simply fail of expression and development.

One would naturally expect in similar circumstances, especially if academic advice is passed on to political actors, that the resulting policies would look like an imposed, and more or less one-sided political orthodoxy imposed on others, whether they like it or not. (One might also expect that political actors are simply instrumentalizing the universities for their own purposes, independent of the "consent of the governed." ) How can it possibly be that "political correctness is sincerity, based on evidences, facts, experience, thorough analysis of the information, values of the higher order and love for the world," (as you put it) if those who question or disagree are simply excluded on that ground alone?

My sense of your brief note is that you are simply not engaging with the skeptical perspectives so far developed on this thread.

H.G. Callaway

Mainz, Germany

Dear Hillman &readers,

I found he abstract for the article you mentioned at the following location:

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11127-016-0337-4

The abstract reads as follows:

Public Choice

April 2016, Volume 167, Issue 1, pp 1-20

First online: 26 May 2016

Academic exclusion: some experiences

We describe and compare the experiences of academic exclusion of Alexander Del Mar, J.A. Hobson, and Gordon Tullock. While aspects of the circumstances differed, a common element was academic exclusion because of challenges to mainstream views. Alexander Del Mar, J.A. Hobson, and Gordon Tullock were in due course recognized for the originality and merit of their contributions, although each incurred personal costs because of the exclusion by the academic elites of their time. Our study takes us into the role of ideologically based prejudice in judgment of the worthiness of economic ideas.

---End quotation

It looks like only the first couple of pages of the article is available on line. Perhaps you could say more? Is the full article available elsewhere? The theme of "ideologically based prejudice" is, of course, much to the point here.

H.G. Callaway

Dear all

There are only won or lost in a political game. There are no correct or incorrect in a political game.

Mainz, Germany

Dear Liu,

It appears that you make of politics a "zero sum" game. But that seems to me to represent a failure of representative and democratic politics --where all may benefit by cooperation.

Imposition of a political orthodoxy, of course, is not a form of cooperation.

H.G. Callaway

Mainz, Germany

Dear Hillman &readers,

I found he abstract for the article you mentioned at the following location:

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11127-016-0337-4

The abstract reads as follows:

Public Choice

April 2016, Volume 167, Issue 1, pp 1-20

First online: 26 May 2016

Academic exclusion: some experiences

We describe and compare the experiences of academic exclusion of Alexander Del Mar, J.A. Hobson, and Gordon Tullock. While aspects of the circumstances differed, a common element was academic exclusion because of challenges to mainstream views. Alexander Del Mar, J.A. Hobson, and Gordon Tullock were in due course recognized for the originality and merit of their contributions, although each incurred personal costs because of the exclusion by the academic elites of their time. Our study takes us into the role of ideologically based prejudice in judgment of the worthiness of economic ideas.

---End quotation

It looks like only the first couple of pages of the article is available on line. Perhaps you could say more? Is the full article available elsewhere? The theme of "ideologically based prejudice" is, of course, much to the point here.

H.G. Callaway

What is political correctness? Does it represent an imposed orthodoxy? - ResearchGate. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_is_political_correctness_Does_it_represent_an_imposed_orthodoxy/6 [accessed Jul 12, 2016].

Mainz, Germany

Dear all,

Many thanks to Professor Hillman for his paper, which I see has been made available from his own web page on RG.

Here follows a brief video, which I would like to recommend, which addresses the issue of "politeness."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRw5BxFTqrE

This is about 5 Min. long and well focused. The argument is made that it matters not in the least how politely one may question "PC." It is the willingness to question at all which evokes the hostile response.

H.G. Callaway

Dear all,

In a structure that is built from things that are false but put in place for an intended purpose, then after a while to use those false things become objectionable in the structure as the things are found to be untrue. Then you create another mechanism to make those things that are found false but used for a purpose to seem and be treated as some kind of obscene. Thus what we have built is a facade in which  false  things are inserted and be part of the structure because of lack of imagination or higher order thinking regardless of what we intend to do. Political correctness is one of the paintings of color to hide such a structure from exposing itself  of absurdity and works of short nearsightedness. What we instead must do is not to be politically correct but to be correct. Politics is an art of deception and to be politically correct is to be more skillful to deceive, but to be correct is  not only politically correct but truthfully correct. 

With regard to the theme of "ideologically based prejudice", I have in mind the fundamental text of Max Scheler "Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die materiale Wertethik. Neuer Versuch der Grundlegung eines ethisches Personalismus" (Halle 1927), where ethic founded on "person" is the basis of every philosophical reflection on the concept of value. I find the reflections of Scheler very current, even after almost a century. Philosophical Anthropology was born in the old Mitteleurope, as a gift full of humanism. With the "linguistic turn" influenced by Wittgenstein's Philosophical investigations the semantic power of "language", better of "linguistic games", contributed mainly in English-speaking countries to create that atmosphere of relativism that is inspired by the respect of the values of all peoples and of all ethnic groups. And so far so good! But when, in this way, you begin to underestimate your own cultural and spiritual identity, then the system of values evolved from the common roots of Western country remains "hidden" under the veil of PC, as has happened in the European Constitution where the Greek Jewish Christian common matrix  was removed so as not to offend the people with other cultural matrixes. From here the impotence.

I like Gad Saad's talk on "PC" better than Karen Straughan's...

http://www.concordia.ca/jmsb/faculty/gad-saad.html

@Prof. Hillman, thanks for sharing your paper on RG.  That reminds me of another author being excluded of seeking publication and Ph.D dissertation ... but I am glad that they all prevailed, given enough time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_L._Thompson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5-oG0L6ZnU

Mainz, Germany

Dear Nani,

Just a few comments here on your more philosophical points. 

First of all, I'm a defender of late Wittgenstein, or of crucial elements of his work. I take it that the discourse on "language games" is partly designed to illustrate the relationships between language meaning and particular activities --sometimes its "forms of life." I don't see this aspect of late Wittgenstein as an endorsement of contemporary doctrinaire relativisms. (I realize you may not intend such a suggestion.) Instead it is more a relationalist theme. "To understand a language is to understand a form of life." I do not see that accepting this idea would lead anyone to underestimate or devalue the specifics or commitments of their own culture. Instead it more likely facilitates internal evaluations and reforms if we explicitly understand the linkages of culture, languages and patterns of activity --what people actually do.  None of this is intended as a criticism of work of Max Scheler. I assume, philosophically speaking, that there is always more than one way to reach any particular philosophical conclusion. Wittgenstein decided to address his thoughts to the English-speaking world--though most was first written down in German.

Doctrinaire relativism, of the sort which tends to de-center, essentially belongs to the ideology of internationalist corporatism. (That it is imitated and advocated on the left is a matter of having the "pocket on the right.") The recent ascendancy of  varieties of relativism has much to do with the motives of globalization. Its basically always a balancing act to attempt to expand and deepen international trade and relations, on the one hand, and to maintain the democratic integrity and legitimacy of the home country on the other. If international trade and finance take too large a role in politics, then they tend to suppress domestic manufacturing, employment and the local power of both. People in such distress naturally appeal to local peculiarities of culture, which seems to give them a place to stand and make a case. But recognizing and accepting local or national peculiarities and specifics of culture in this way tends to inhibit  deal-making on a global scale. It gets in the way.

Thus the tendency to suppress "difference" at home, while celebrating it abroad or among immigrants--where it makes little difference to local and national politics and power. It is from this, or some similar perspective, that we may best understand that "PC" celebrates "difference" and "diversity," though this never seems to include the dominant or pervasive cultural peculiarities, history or specifics of the home country. Instead, these are regularly dismissed or denigrated for home consumption.

A good illustration of this kind of point can be found in the treatment of art, and the expressed preference among styles found in international, corporation's collections and patterns of support. It strongly tends to avoid national peculiarities, except of a very abstract sort. Its art which appeals equally to all and avoids specifics of representation better understood in one place rather than another. 

H.G. Callaway

Dear Callaway, I love Wittgenstein, and Wittgenstein  is much more than any interpretation has been made in the world especially in the English one. What I wrote is a simplification of the beautiful work of Sir Michael Dummett on the Origins of Analytical Philosophy. So I agree totally with your considerations. Surely Wittgenstein has nothing to do with relativism. Moreover Dummett considers also Husserlian work and Frege's work responsible of the so called "linguistic turn". The problem is quite complicated to discuss in this context. Also because I use the term "relativism" as a philosophical vision of spiritual and cultural values.

Mainz, Germany

Dear Kausel,

I thought the point of interest in the short video was (not that politeness and good manners are not necessary! but) instead the point is that they are not sufficient to satisfy the more vociferous advocates of "PC"

You are perfectly correct that politeness is good practice; and I am glad to observe that we have seen much of it on this controversial thread.

Waxing more philosophical, if I may, I generally recommend Emerson's little essay on the importance of good manners, "Behavior." Its well worth reading, and I know of it in some detail since I published my own edition of Emerson's book:

https://rowman.com/ISBN/9780761834113/The-Conduct-of-Life-By-Ralph-Waldo-Emerson

Consider the following brief quotation:

Emerson “Behavior” from The Conduct of Life (1860)

Manners are factitious, and grow out of circumstance as well as out of character. If you look at the pictures of patricians and of peasants, of different periods and countries, you will see how well they match the same classes in our towns. The modern aristocrat not only is well drawn in Titian's Venetian doges, and in Roman coins and statues, but also in the pictures which Commodore Perry brought home of dignitaries in Japan. Broad lands and great interests not only arrive to such heads as can manage them, but form manners of power. A keen eye, too, will see nice gradations of rank, or see in the manners the degree of homage the party is wont to receive. A prince who is accustomed every day to be courted and deferred to by the highest grandees, acquires a corresponding expectation, and a becoming mode of receiving and replying to this homage.

---End quotation

See:

http://www.emersoncentral.com/behavior.htm

Its useful, in this connection, to have on hand a definition of "factitious."

Definition of factitious (Webster's)

1. 1 :  produced by humans rather than by natural forces

2. 2 a :  formed by or adapted to an artificial or conventional standard b :  produced by special effort :  sham

---End quotation

The chief point, I take it is that good manner change and adapt to the purposes of those in a position to formulate and insist upon good manners. This is not a reason to disregard politeness and good manners. It is relevant, however, to the sub-theme of hypersensitivity. Part of what is false in "PC" is the insistence that the PC empowered "hypersensitives" may properly decide what is polite and what is not --in conformity with their own interests and political agenda. 

From this perspective we may better understand the point from Straughan that genuine politeness is never sufficient in contesting PC --face-to-face. However reasonable and polite the criticism, it will be willfully misconstrued and purposefully misunderstood. That in any case is the general pattern. In this way, PC contributes to the decline of civility. 

H.G. Callaway

As I recall if I discounted Straughan's short video is when she professed 'I am VERY anti-feminist'... PC is to put labels on all things, so that people not familiar with an entire history of people's struggle may take a stand with 'safety' assurance of not being erred by being an outsider all these times. In that view, Straughan is acting a PC spokeswoman from my point of view.

Mainz, Germany

Dear Kausel,

I thought the point of interest in the short video was (not that politeness and good manners are not necessary! but) instead the point is that they are not sufficient to satisfy the more vociferous advocates of "PC"

You are perfectly correct that politeness is good practice; and I am glad to observe that we have seen much of it on this controversial thread.

Waxing more philosophical, if I may, I generally recommend Emerson's little essay on the importance of good manners, "Behavior." Its well worth reading, and I know of it in some detail since I published my own edition of Emerson's book:

https://rowman.com/ISBN/9780761834113/The-Conduct-of-Life-By-Ralph-Waldo-Emerson

Consider the following brief quotation:

Emerson “Behavior” from The Conduct of Life (1860)

Manners are factitious, and grow out of circumstance as well as out of character. If you look at the pictures of patricians and of peasants, of different periods and countries, you will see how well they match the same classes in our towns. The modern aristocrat not only is well drawn in Titian's Venetian doges, and in Roman coins and statues, but also in the pictures which Commodore Perry brought home of dignitaries in Japan. Broad lands and great interests not only arrive to such heads as can manage them, but form manners of power. A keen eye, too, will see nice gradations of rank, or see in the manners the degree of homage the party is wont to receive. A prince who is accustomed every day to be courted and deferred to by the highest grandees, acquires a corresponding expectation, and a becoming mode of receiving and replying to this homage.

---End quotation

See:

http://www.emersoncentral.com/behavior.htm

Its useful, in this connection, to have on hand a definition of "factitious."

Definition of factitious (Webster's)

1. 1 :  produced by humans rather than by natural forces

2. 2 a :  formed by or adapted to an artificial or conventional standard b :  produced by special effort :  sham

---End quotation

The chief point, I take it is that good manner change and adapt to the purposes of those in a position to formulate and insist upon good manners. This is not a reason to disregard politeness and good manners. It is relevant, however, to the sub-theme of hypersensitivity. Part of what is false in "PC" is the insistence that the PC empowered "hypersensitives" may properly decide what is polite and what is not --in conformity with their own interests and political agenda. 

From this perspective we may better understand the point from Straughan that genuine politeness is never sufficient in contesting PC --face-to-face. However reasonable and polite the criticism, it will be willfully misconstrued and purposefully misunderstood. That in any case is the general pattern. In this way, PC contributes to the decline of civility. 

H.G. Callaway

What is political correctness? Does it represent an imposed orthodoxy? - ResearchGate. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_is_political_correctness_Does_it_represent_an_imposed_orthodoxy/7 [accessed Jul 13, 2016].

Once upon a time... I have read a book about philosophy of mathematics titled "Realism in Mathematics" by Penelope Maddy (Oxford University Press, 1990) The date of preface is 1989. It is very interesting with regard to our question the conclusion of the preface where Penelope writes "Finally, I feel compelled to add a personal note on sexist language. Some years ago, when I first introduced the ideas behind set theory realism, constructions like 'the set theoretic realist thinks his entities... ' struck me as amusing, but since then I've discovered that some readers and editors are legitimately disapproving of this usage. Of the many alternatives available, I've chosen one that does least violence to the standard rhythm, that is, the use of 'she' and 'her' in place of 'he' and 'his' in neutral contexts. Some might find this just political incorrect as the automatic use of masculine, but I sincerely doubt, that phrasing like 'when the mathematician proves a theorem, she...' makes anyone tend to forget that some mathematicians are men. So I'll stick with with this policy. To those who find it distracting, I apologize; this is not, after all, a political treatise. At least you have my reasons." Penelope is afraid to be considered "politically incorrect" using even an excess of PC.  This Penelope's way should be considered a sort of "captatio benevolentiae". Sometimes, I think, a little bit of humility could be the best remedy. 

It is a term concocted by reactionaries who wish to belittle, delegitimatize the real concerns of progressives who are aware that words have consequences.  Those who agree with the progressive position should not be bullied into feeling apologetic for trying to influence the discourse relevant to various forms of inequality.

Mainz, Germany

Dear Nani,

Thanks for your little story of Penelope Maddy and the pronouns. It certainly illustrates the tensions which people may feel--and manifest in different ways. Personally, I think of this example, as it strikes me, as pretty tame; and we might best say, "Well, that's the solution she came up with. Good for her." There are other possibilities, of course. Habits may also become entrenched without much reflection.

One might, for instance take up alternatives of paraphrase which are less visible or which tend not to be noticed. If the problem with traditional use of pronouns is felt to be, e.g., that it suggests that no mathematicians are female, then that would seem to solve the problem. If on the other hand, one wanted to promote attention to female mathematicians, or encourage them, one might take a different course in paraphrase of traditional usage. Generally, though, it strikes me as somewhat awkward to feel obligated to explain one's usage. People should simply do what they consider better or more correct in the given situation. 

Mentioning the "captatio benevolentiae," I think of Cicero and his rhetoric --flattery or  plea to the audience to help make them receptive to a particular message. For myself, I would simply tend to disregard such an opening, as in the lengthy opening flattery directed to an aristocrat of old at the opening of some early modern book of philosophy --a plea to the patron.

I believe in the direct and simple rhetoric. If people agree or disagree, then they should show it. That's how people come to mutual understanding rather than mere arrangements.

H.G. Callaway 

Daniele,

Agreed. What I really dislike is the PC way of taking a label and making it more awkward than necessary. One good example is councilman, which is said to be politically incorrect because some council members are women. However, rather than just use councilman or councilwoman as the situation dictates, the PC insist that it should be councilperson: gender neutral.

Mainz, Germany

Dear Kausel,

Many thanks for your appreciative words on the Emerson essay. I'm pleased you found the time to read it. I have often quoted it as a response to lack of manners. It has startling effects. For Emerson, good manners belong to every just cause.

....

Dear Chasin,

The proper question, I think, is not whether we want to "influence" the course of events, but how this is to be done. Are we a democratic society which debates the issues, decides on a better course of action and then takes a vote? Or, are we a society of, let us say, advertising agents, who want to sell the product by hook or by crook? Is language properly a means of persuasion or simply a means to an end?

You wrote:

It is a term concocted by reactionaries who wish to belittle, delegitimatize the real concerns of progressives who are aware that words have consequences. Those who agree with the progressive position should not be bullied into feeling apologetic for trying to influence the discourse relevant to various forms of inequality.

--End quotation

No doubt, "words have consequences," but more importantly, ideas have consequences, and it is by debating ideas, in as polite  fashion as may be possible, that we can best evaluate them and thereby decide which words might better be used. I don't know if you will count me as a "progressive" ( I did favor Sanders, among the candidates), but this seems less important than the question of the proper means employed to influence events. I think you will find no "bullies" on this thread.

You may find an attempt to "de-legitimatize" non-discoursive, means to a political end. Anyone can mouth the PC line. What we want to know is who can defend it. 

H.G. Callaway

Dear Barbara, I don't understand what do you mean with your distinction between reactionaries and progressives. I was born and live in Milano I am not a mediterranean or a South Italian person. In my country has passed the Einlightement, I did study in a classic highschool that was the first to be occupied in Italy while in Paris (Nanterre) the first violent political clashes did begin. We were all well-off young students. Well-off young women started to meet in the occupied Universities to make exercises of  self-consciousness... So feminsm was born in Europe, probably American feminism in Berkeley has been different. Now i make distinctions between free-thinkers and not-free-thinkers.

Orthodoxy tends to be preferred concepts over evident truths. The "elephant in the living room" depiction is usually an obvious point overlooked by those in deliberations. Attached please find such a depiction from one of my recent lectures on what is missing in American education... 

Max,

Sadly, some board rooms are like some governments, they only see these things as unnecessary added expenses. Grade school administrators faced with tightening budgets target music and art as unnecessary and distracting from more important educational concerns. Funding for museums, historical parks, archaeological sites, and art programs are the first to fall under the ax during governmental belt-tightening, even though it has been shown by many studies that for every dollar invested in culture and arts we get a return of 7 to 10 dollars in tax revenue. You would think that a government short on cash would jump at the chance to spend 10 million and get 70 million in return. Corporations also can benefit by sponsoring art and music classes and seminars for their employees. This leads to more job satisfaction, thus more productivity.

H.G., sorry, I forgot I was not on the other thread concerning art.

Dear H.G.Callaway, thank you for your mercy to the dreamer...Political as Biblical correctness on the Earth is utopia! "Rara avis" and politcorrectness" sounds great! May be,sarcasm, may be, oxymoron.To A.Hepburn,"You can avoid reality, but you can't avoid the consequences of avoiding reality".I like Bismarck's thoughts, "Politics is not an exact science, ..it's the art of the possible"...And "Finita la comedia"(at the end of his career). If political correctness is a hidden discrimination, a veiled tool of authoritarianism (Divide and rule) it will cause inciting enmity to black sheep, which is a crime against humanity, against the value of every human being. It's characteristic of hunting for witches. Labeling, humiliation, sanctions, gossips...Creative personalities, honest personalities, men of genius "with a grain of lunatic aspect"...! To M.Angelou, "Hate, it has caused a lot of problems in the world, but hasn't solved one yet".Woe from wit"by Griboyedov: "A man that hates pretence and all that's done for show/ and is unfortunate to have in mind a few ideas of some kind/ and wants to openly speak out/ Look out!" "I'm suffering a million torments from friendly squeezes, shuffles, exclamations, comments..." "I'm queer! All men are queer as a rule/ He isn't queer who's like a fool".How can one be protected from this phenomenon of evil? To Pope Francis, "As long as the problems of the poor are not radically resolved by rejecting the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation and by attacking the structural causes of inequality, no solution will be found for the world's problems or, for that matter, to any problems"

http://samlib.ru/a/alec_v/woehtm.shtml

This concept was invented by conservatives to disparage the progressive notion that words make a difference and can add to the marginalization of particular groups. Using the trm t strengthens this position. instead it should be called out for what it is, a form of bigotry. 

[I answered earlier probably in somewhat different words but my response did not get posted]

@Max, 

Orthodoxy, or people in charge tends to prefer existing imperfect rules than being forced to examine situations when it screams that existing guidelines according to the book no longer apply in such concrete circumstances.  

 I've been in many of those closed door sessions when I had to explain or give reason for my 'politically incorrect' charges. I was told point blank 'Susan, just say Uncle... just say it...'  

Now as I think back,  when a collective decision had to be made by those in charge, apart from personal preferences or opinions, it is understood that once a decision has reached a conclusion, everyone must back it in public, no matter what their personal reservation towards the decision might be... There is definitely a workplace cultural and values attached to most private and public career paths or mentoring structure as far as any written policy can reach by personal trust alone.   I see workplace diversity really ought to be aimed at 'breaking' or shaking up 1-1 personal trust without diminishing overall potential that everyone may reach their own best effort within and outside their prescribed scope of work. 

In many modern days professional endeavors on the ground, one has to make decisions based on or against their best judgement,  luckily most decisions aren't irreversible or irredeemable ... the higher one climbs the ladder in politics, the chances of irredeemable sins are graver... 

"Half of the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm but the harm does not interest them."

-T.S. Eliot, poet (1888-1965)

Mainz, Germany

Dear Laird,

I find it a bit difficult to know, at times, just how you think your various comments may fit into a given thread. However, I noted the following in you recent posting:

There is definitely a workplace cultural and values attached to most private and public career paths or mentoring structure as far as any written policy can reach by personal trust alone. I see workplace diversity really ought to be aimed at 'breaking' or shaking up 1-1 personal trust without diminishing overall potential that everyone may reach their own best effort within and outside their prescribed scope of work.

---End quotation

Again, this strikes me as somewhat out of the blue. But it also seems to clearly reject what we might justly call freedom of association. Why in the world would you think to reject or question "1-1 personal trust"? Why not suppose, on the contrary, that such relationships might be usefully extended to include others as well? This is not to say that one might not question the actual effects of particular relationships, but that is quite another matter. Otherwise, this seems simply an opening for the workings of jealousy --something to be kept out of professional relationships, I would think. 

Generally, I see no relationship between this theme of yours and the general questions of diversity in the workplace and political correctness. 

H.G. Callaway

Mainz, Germany

Dear all,

Readers of this thread may find the following piece of interest –which has apparently gained much attention recently.

"Not a Very PC Thing to Say:

How the language police are perverting liberalism."

New York magazine:

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/01/not-a-very-pc-thing-to-say.html

The general idea here is that social media are magnifying the influence of a small group of leftist radicals in political debate, making use of political intimidation--well beyond what would assume from their actual numbers. The phenomena has spread from the academy into social media.

Here follows two opening paragraphs.

Around 2 a.m. on December 12, four students approached the apartment of Omar Mahmood, a Muslim student at the University of Michigan, who had recently published a column in a school newspaper about his perspective as a minority on campus. The students, who were recorded on a building surveillance camera wearing baggy hooded sweatshirts to hide their identity, littered Mahmood’s doorway with copies of his column, scrawled with messages like “You scum embarrass us,” “Shut the fuck up,” and “DO YOU EVEN GO HERE?! LEAVE!!” They posted a picture of a demon and splattered eggs.

This might appear to be the sort of episode that would stoke the moral conscience of students on a progressive campus like Ann Arbor, and it was quickly agreed that an act of biased intimidation had taken place. But Mahmood was widely seen as the perpetrator rather than the victim. His column, published in the school’s conservative newspaper, had spoofed the culture of taking offense that pervades the campus. Mahmood satirically pretended to denounce “a white cis-gendered hetero upper-class man” who offered to help him up when he slipped, leading him to denounce “our barbaric attitude toward people of left-handydnyss.” The gentle tone of his mockery was closer to Charlie Brown than to Charlie Hebdo.

---End quotation

Comments invited.

H.G. Callaway

Political correctness is the Orwell's nightmare of Newspeak came true. Anglo-Saxon dominant culture exported this virus abroad trying to convince other places with a different culture and different contexts they had exactly the same problems they had in USA when this was simply not true (e.g. in Italy we have a lot of problems but they are different). This misconception created a sort of 'false reality' struggling to 'come true' by the continuous work by of the media...I hope my place (Roma) developed sufficient antibodies of skepticism, hirony, and basic detachment to resist this attack. 

The cultural degradation of western societies made this nonsense to appear as a 'cultural advancement' so none laughs when in Universities students say they are 'offenced' or 'scared' in reading Ovidio or Aristotle...I fear when these students will become ruling class.....In the same time the 'cultural opposition' of NATO to Russia that once based upon Solgenitsyn and Sacaharov now is based upon Pussy Riots and Femen...I pray we will soon recognize Russia is a necessary element of our culture and civilization (Mendeleev, Tolstoy, Florenskij, Kolmogorov, Ciaikovskij..are screaming this issue) and, having already developed the antibodies against totalitarian thinking, will give us the necessary hand to come out of this nightmare.

Mainz, Germany

Dear all,

Here follows some live comments from President Obama concerning free speech on campus--originating from the White House and featured on YouTube by the FIRE.org.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mi5da2AhDCY

Its a short video of about 5 Min. In general terms, speaking before an audience and responding to a question, the President advocates free speech and open discussion on campus. He explicitly rejects "PC"-style protection of the kinds of sensitivities which would inhibit open debate and exchanges of views.

Comments invited.

H.G. Callaway

Dear Barbara, I find downvoting politically incorrect, because who downvotes an answer, does it in an anonymous way, then or this person is lacking in courage or is lacking in arguments. 

Mainz, Germany

Dear Giuliani,

I agree with your comment that "Political correctness is the Orwell's nightmare of Newspeak came true." I also agree that the problems of different societies are often quite distinct and that it makes little sense to import solutions from abroad wholesale, as it were, and without regard to the differing traditions, societies and polities. In general, it seems to me that the advent of simplified world-wide communication has often facilitated overly hasty borrowings; and often enough, it is the worst aspect of other societies which are imported first! I could go into some detail from my perspectives on either side of the Atlantic.

It may be that the international media tend to think that other societies have exactly the same problems as the U.S. I couldn't say with much confidence. But it seems clear that they make a lot of money out of conveying controversy.  It was years back that I first herd of European countries describing themselves as "media societies." I didn't like the idea. But it certainly flatters the media and their roles in European countries. I would be pleased to think that Roma bella will resist the cult of political correctness.

As I see it, Russia is undoubtedly an important European country. In fact it makes up the largest of the ethnically defined European nations. (This has always suggested to me that ethnically defined nationality becomes a doubtful undertaking on larger scales. That larger scales generally require working federalism.) Europe and the rest of the world will do well to maintain friendly relations with Russia. Its one of the great nations of the world. Europe will also do well to reject the kind of quasi-war and political-military intimidation we have seen on the eastern border of Ukraine. Clearly, many in Ukraine wanted to join the rest of Europe in the E.U., and the Russians simply drew a line. We now know the eastern boundary of the E.U. Russia put itself outside of it.

H.G. Callaway

PC is ultimately a bait of forming political alliance ... on what principle other than political expediency?  1-1 affinity in ethnicity, in sex and race, in nationality, in all protected characteristics of EEOC has all been deployed to divide your colleagues and conquer a promotion... anybody that has sensed devilish side of the game, will consciously not have anything to do with damaging one's own peers' spirit on 'false' pretense that upper or lower stratum imposed on 'the same' level, but concentrate to effect changes that permeates Up and down the ladder of political alliances. 

I shall refrain from spending more time in this thread.  I've said enough. adieu.

Can words cause physical harm?  In some cultures people have died from curses. I've known plenty of adults whose lives are damaged by their parents' telling them decades earlier that they would always fail, which is a sort of curse. As one study has shown: "Suicide rates for ethnic immigrant groups in the United States are significantly predicted by the degree of negativity of hate speech directed toward them" (Mullen & Smyth 2004).  Words may cause measurable suffering, just as physical blows do. If speech can inflicts harm via prolonged exposure, should we also allow physical violence?  I generally oppose efforts to regulate speech, since it is important to hear perspectives that we disagree with, but I am no longer certain what the proper boundary is in regulating harmful behavior. I doubt that political correctness debates can be resolved until we have better evidence about the potential harmfulness of symbolic expression, and we may never have that evidence.  

Source:  Mullen, B., & Smyth, J. (2004). Immigrant suicide rates as a function of ethnophaulisms: Hate speech predicts death. Psychosomatic Medicine, 66, 343–348.

Dear downvoters, dear all, 

personally I do not attend these free discussions to increase the RG Score, but because I find fruitful to discuss with people who seek the truth "looking each other into the eyes", or fighting with the Templar sword that is  long, powerful and straight. I find very interesting the "was" but even more the "wie" (I think in English the what and the how). I must say that I consider the courage more important than intelligence, and imagination more interesting of pure logic intellect.  For example I find very interesting the way which Irina writes with. She is an artist of language, and let slide the concepts through a strong aesthetic sense. I believe that only the "Beauty" can save the world, not certainly the PC. Whoever possesses courage and aesthetic sense has no need of  PC

Mainz, Germany

Dear Cobb,

Thanks for your argument and comments.

I have to say that my perspective on the issues is more or less the reverse of your own. I'd simply say that freedom of speech is a constituent value and constitutional legal form of of American society. Suppression of first amendment rights is destructive of the polity. More generally, freedom of speech on campus belongs to academic freedom; and we won't have genuine universities and colleges without it.  Whatever is found in the studies you project, I do not believe this will essentially effect the central issue.

But let me look more closely at the chief argument you present. You wrote:

Can words cause physical harm? In some cultures people have died from curses. I've known plenty of adults whose lives are damaged by their parents' telling them decades earlier that they would always fail, which is a sort of curse. As one study has shown: "Suicide rates for ethnic immigrant groups in the United States are significantly predicted by the degree of negativity of hate speech directed toward them" (Mullen & Smyth 2004). Words may cause measurable suffering, just as physical blows do. If speech can inflicts harm via prolonged exposure, should we also allow physical violence?

---End quotation

Let me begin by stipulating that words may cause harm. I think this would be challenged by some, but it is worth examining the consequences, from a logical point of view.

In a somewhat similar way, I suppose, simply being an immigrant, a stranger in a strange land, may cause harm, but often people take the risk in spite of that. The person who makes the choice may likely wonder about the alternatives risks. What are the risks if the fellow just stays in place, risking "the devil you know" over the "devil you don't know"? I suppose there may be some risk and possible harm whatever choice is made. Often a sort of compromise is made, and groups of immigrants will cluster together for moral support in a new country. This is widely tolerated, though if separation is supported or subsidized, the incentives for integration are considerably reduced. (Recall the U.S. national motto here, "E Pluribus unum.")

Now consider again the harm that words and speech may produce. Certainly people may get upset if their cherished ideas are challenged. Perhaps they'll feel dejected--maybe ultimately depressive and suicidal? That seems an extreme assumption, but let's allow that it may sometimes happen?

But, again, what is the alternative? What harm to individuals and to the society and polity will we likely have if free speech is rejected? The American founders were practically unanimous in rejecting this course. As we have seen the President arguing above on the short video, students in colleges need to have their ideas challenged--and sometimes corrected. This is true regardless of their emotional commitment to those ideas. This is an important, indeed, a central means of intellectual and moral integration, and it may in fact be the greater risk to the immigrant to be simply shunted aside and disregarded instead of having the opportunity to test ideas in open debate.

If we do not settle our differences by means of debate and discussion--especially the most emotionally charged among those ideas--what alternative forms will the conflicts take? Might it mean the end of democracy and the rise of authoritarianism? I think the idea not completely outlandish. Where rational discourse is blocked, then persisting conflicts typically take more pernicious forms. Defense of freedom of speech and of academic freedom are central to the defense of democratic forms and norms. 

H.G. Callaway

Alessandro sei un genio. I totally agree with you and this is the truth. For the most of people in Usa is not so easy to understand it in all its depht. They tend to project American experience in all the world.

Mainz, Germany

Dear Nani,

Would you care to give an argument to support the positions you take? Or is this just an expression of feeling?

You wrote:

Alessandro sei un genio. I totally agree with you and this is the truth. For Usa people not so easy to understand in all its depht.

H.G. Callaway

Admittedly, many of the proponents that try to spread political correctness are from the West, and particularly the U.S. Unfortunately, like in H.G.'s Mahmood story, it only takes a few misguided individuals in any society in order to cast a shadow on the whole of that society. Still, if some in a country adopt political correctness as a cause, does that not say something in and of itself? The dissatisfied will always find a banner to rally around.

It always amazes me how quick people are to judge an entire country by the actions of 1/10,000ths of its citizens.

However, I do not see political correctness as strictly a Western invention. There have been several societies, historically, in which some form of PC was practiced. I can think of a few Eastern cultures that practiced probably the most extreme form of PC.

Grazie Daniele, too kind with me ! If I can answer you (But Daniele probably could do it much better) I should say my idea was that some very peculiar traits of USA society like racism, 'hate speech', correct behaviour are 'external' to our culture and traditions (even if globalization is struggling to import them here instead of importing the big virtues of American people like optimism, the faith in a B plan, the tendency to avoid lies...).

Basically (especially Romans like me) the Italians are much more immoral than Americans and this is not necessarily a bad thing, this implies that our attention to 'categories' of people and not to 'offend them'  is much more relaxed .. we give for granted that any person is more or less as good (or evil) as any other and tend to look with suspicion at people acting as 'moralizers' or pretending to 'struggle for justice', while we take in maximal esteem 'private goodness' (someone that is generous with his/her friends, someone that is hilarious and smiling, someone that loves the family, a good looking woman, an expert artisan, a saint..)...In Roma this happens at the  maximal level because we (until 1870) did not have a bourgouis class (middle class were made by priests) and both aristocratic and poor people do not even understand the meaning of  'civil virtue'...When Italy invaded us, middle class came from North but (Thanks God)  they were generally corrupted by the city air....think that in Italian movies until the seventies of last century to have an actor having a credible bourgouis aspect had to call Michel Piccoli from France.

dear Callaway, I have been in the Usa many time, the last time for an Harvard's Convention in San Francisco. I love american people and I have many friends there above all in California and in New York. I have been really surprised, for example, that Italians for the most of people I did meet (not ignorant persons) are all South Italians, they didn't distinguish Palermo, the South of Italy from Rome, Florence and Milan. I understand that persons like you, with your level of culture and knowledge of Germany and Europe, and so on have another idea of the world. A friend of mine living on Hudson river  and working in the MOMA of New York with an important role was totally surprised that Germany might be in Europe, because she was thinking of Nazism. I did appreciate the words of Alessadro: "The cultural degradation of western societies made this nonsense to appear as a 'cultural advancement' so none laughs when in Universities students say they are 'offenced' or 'scared' in reading Ovidio or Aristotle...I fear when these students will become ruling class.....In the same time the 'cultural opposition' of NATO to Russia that once based upon Solgenitsyn and Sacaharov now is based upon Pussy Riots and Femen...I pray we will soon recognize Russia is a necessary element of our culture and civilization (Mendeleev, Tolstoy, Florenskij, Kolmogorov, Ciaikovskij..are screaming this issue) and, having already developed the antibodies against totalitarian thinking, will give us  the necessary hand to come out of this nightmare." And finally yes may be I did fly into Italian pride...

Mr. Callaway,

I am puzzled by your response.  I expressed a very tentative view that there is not a clear boundary between harm caused by words and by physical actions. I did not state it with conviction, because I'm not sure about it myself.  In my five-minute search online, the only evidence I found was about suicide rates among immigrants.  You clearly found that evidence unconvincing.   Nevertheless, when I said "harm," I meant serious harm, not that someone's ego was slightly bruised.  If, hypothetically, certain forms of expression, repeated frequently and affirmed by people with high social standing, have the net effect of depressing the life expectancy of a social out-group by 3 years, then perhaps courts would and should weigh that harm against the harm to the polity of narrowly defined restrictions on speech.  Already the U.S. Supreme Court has made similar determinations,  weighed competing harms, and limited the right to free speech in specific contexts.  (Restrictions of "fighting words" is an example.)   To suggest that a hypothetical case might come before the court involving statistical evidence that certain types of speech are correlated with reduced life expectancy of some groups and that the court might find some way to balance harms, is NOT the same as suggesting that free speech be abandoned altogether.  

   It might be useful to talk about a specific case, which you might be able to shed light on.  German law, as I understand it, criminalizes publication of literature that posits that the Holocaust did not occur.  I'm not sure what the purpose of the law is, but I presume one reason for it is to prevent forcing Holocaust survivors and relatives of those killed to be reminded of the horror again and again by discussing it.  I further presume that doing so would cause stress that might increase morbidity and mortality.  Fictional accounts suggest that such reminders can drive people to suicide, for example.  On the other side, there is a cost to the polity in Germany (and in other European countries with similar laws) of having free speech stifled.  Thus, the law seems to be based on a balancing of interests or balancing of harms.  Has it meant, in your words, the end of democracy and the rise of authoritarianism?  If ever there was a slippery slope, this should be it, and yet Europe seems to have sustained democracy for several decades.