Do you think that includes homophobic and racial slurs? I can get behind rejecting niceness for its own sake, but what about terms that have violent connotations and have historically been backed up by violence?
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If you wanna go down this pedantic road, youâre going to have to show me where I ever claimed that she said it.
So her position according to you is that we SHOULDNâT heap public opprobrium on the hypothetical man who writes a story about black jewish lesbians getting gang-raped by some KKK power fantasy. That doing such is âdangerous to us all.â
Iâd counter with this:
tl;dr - sheâs being a hypocrite.
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I know you threw the word âideallyâ in there, but thatâs like @popobawa4u saying that a censor is an assesor, since thatâs the original usage, lo! these 2500 years ago.
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Iâm not being pedantic.
You said this:
Saying political correctness is censorship is misusing both terms.
So I said this:
If thatâs what she was doing youâd have a point.
You then posted this:
Anne Rice: political correctness is new form of censorship
âŚfollowed by a snarky gif implying I was wrong (thereby implying that she was doing what I said she wasnât doing).
Itâs not pedantic to point out to someone that theyâre talking shite.
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Is it just me, or was Stan Rice among the worst poets ever? Those epigraphs certainly led me to think so.
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I know you threw the word âideallyâ in there, but thatâs like @popobawa4u saying that a censor is an assesor, since thatâs the original usage, lo! these 2500 years ago.
Whatâs the problem then? No-one is complaining about the original usage.
Does she have any lestatistics to back her claim?
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I donât see how âshut the fuck upâ is so much more offensive than âyou fucking stupidâ that we should put it in a different class entirely. They are nearly synonyms.
Anyway I look at this, it sounds like people are trying to get people to stop complaining about things on twitter, stop boycotting authors or companies doing things they donât like. Why would people do that, to spare the hurt feelings of the people they donât agree with? If a million people go on twitter and say that they wonât buy product X from company Y because of their affiliation with unlikable person Z then what should we do, censor those million people and not let them express their opinion on the matter?
This whole âtwitter ruining careersâ thing seems like a terrible thing because - at the very lest - the false positive rate must be pretty high. But thatâs not âpolitical correctnessâ, thatâs a million people being able to simultaneously voice their anger about one person. The problem isnât what they are angry about, the problem is the scale of the reaction and the reaction to the reaction and so on. Mass scale twitter anger has implications beyond this discussion. (and is directed at people who argue for political correctness as well)
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That will always be the fine line. Is the speaker voicing an honest opinion or not? Is it being voiced as an opinion or as a demand or factual statement? While I do not support any such things as hate or violence, I am not going to stop anyone from voicing an honest opinion in support of them. But, that changes when they are actually striving to bring about violence and bigotry. Just as we have the right to freedom of speech, we donât have the right to yell âFire!â in a theater.
There are somethings I will never say, not because I am afraid of offending, but because I have no intention of hurting anyone. I am generally described as a âfoul mouthed assholeâ. That is how I normally talk and behave. That is how I normally express myself. It is when people demand that I not swear because they are offended that I get pissed off. They are using Political Correctness to impose their mores on me.
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Exactly, this is what sheâs complaining about, not political correctness by itself, again:
âŚinternet campaigns to destroy authors accused of inappropriate subject matter or attitudes are dangerous to us all. Thatâs my take on it. Ignore what you find offensive. Or talk about it in a substantive way. But donât set out to censor it, or destroy the career of the offending author.
âŚand as you can see by my emphasis, sheâs not directing it at people who argue for political correctness. Itâs possible to discuss the problems with something without resorting to ruining someoneâs career.
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I think that âpolitically correctâ sounds too passive-agressive, so I prefer to use âideologically pureâ to distance myself from those connotations.
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Iâm speaking specifically of racist or homophobic (or what have you) language. Iâm not asking for yourself, Iâm asking if we should just shrug our shoulders when people do say it? Or do you agree that itâs political correctness or unfair censorship to have SC (as an example) bring down the Confederate flag, because some people hold the honest opinion that itâs âheritage not hateâ, in the face of very real ongoing racial violence aimed at the black community. At what point does âfreedom of speechâ become something more insidious, or does that matter, do you think?
BTW⌠Iâm not trying to trick you into anything here⌠Iâm just trying to gauge if you think there is a line?
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Iâm speaking specifically of racist or homophobic (or what
have you) language. Iâm not asking for yourself, Iâm asking if we should
just shrug our shoulders when people do say it? Or do you agree that
itâs political correctness or unfair censorship to have SC (as an
example) bring down the Confederate flag, because some people hold the
honest opinion that itâs âheritage not hateâ, in the face of very real
ongoing racial violence aimed at the black community. At what point does
âfreedom of speechâ become something more insidious, or does that
matter, do you think?
Yes, there is a line. It is the one that differentiates between expressing an opinion and inciting violence or hatred. Granted, that is a very fine line at times. Which is what the courts are for 
This whole âheritage not hateâ is new to me. But even now, given the context of this discussion and all, I am going to assume that there are those who are using it as an excuse to freely engage in bigotry. That is human nature for you. The only way to fight something like that is the way we are doing it now. By talking about it. Drag it out in the open and pick it apart, exposing its flaws. And doing so repeatedly.
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Iâve seen definitions of censorship that specify only the state, and others that specify any organization or group that has a significant authority or power. Obviously the latter is a much broader definition.
But when you talk about monopoly industries or other situations where there is some kind of regulatory body that may not be the state per se but is a singular authority in some matter, then I think it warrants serious consideration as to whether that might be included in the definition of censorship.
As for mobs and their impact. I think thatâs more mobs. Whether itâs real or virtual, mob mentality can cause serious damage and violate peoplesâ rights. But I wouldnât count that as censorship. I think itâs just mob mentality.
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I bristle when anyone uses the term âpolitical correctnessâ as it is, more often than not, deployed to strike down much needed criticism of bigots. From the post, though, it seems like the situation she addresses hews a little closer to actual sketchy speech limitingâŚexcept that she doesnât really say anything specific about anything at all. âThere are forces in the book worldâ is the literary version of vague-booking
She also went born-again for some years recently, Iâm sure itâs more of that crappy social conservative fearmongering. I thought she walked back the born-againisms, but hereâs more dumb from the same font.
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âCensorshipâ derives from the State.
Corporations pick and choose what content is most profitable. People enjoy conflating it with censorship, though.
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Only because the state is usually the dominant power structure. One that currently goes hand in hand with capitalism in most countries.
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Why do you assume this to be the case?
This may or not overlap with censorship, depending upon the particular instance. How about when companies get pages critical of them taken down with mere intimations of DMCA violations? The government does not need to actually do anything, if people are so risk-averse as to assume they will.
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Censorship derives from power. IMHO.
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