I don’t pretend to suffer fools, and I make a habit of having a leg to stand on when I put the other one down. This isn’t about me, however.
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Looks like the entire conversation this pertained to has been unpersoned so little point in continuing.
You could, but the sneering is a far better way to illustrate how you actually feel about her as a human.
Sanctimony is not helping the vector of the thread.
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True, but that’s all some people have.
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I just don’t get the conservative high-fiving over their not using someone’s preferred racial terminology.
I may still say Latino/Latina out of habit but I’m not going to take particular pleasure in mocking her for it like lollipop_jones and Israel_b.
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You seem to have missed part of the conversation as it has been disappeared. I wasn’t participating in that part of the thread at all.
Well, luckily for you, we’re all willing to treat you with respect, too.
I’m definitely in the +decency, -bigotry camp, so you can do your respect thing, but please don’t think “respect” covers all the legitimate responses to indecent bigotry.
Nowadays, you get called Politically Correct and a Cultural Marxist when you point out basic facts such as that most immigrants, legal or not, or most Muslims, or most Mexicans, or most Jews, or most Romanians are law-abiding people who live productive lives of respect towards others. You get called that by somebody who calls in a rather hysterical manner for democratic governments to commit some huge atrocity ranking with the expulsion of the Jews from Ukraine or even the Armenian Genocide.
“Namby-pamby” or “bleeding heart” come to mind. Typical of dipshit bigots to have to rely on the left to give them better words and unintentionally brand themselves as Orwellian sub-humans.
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[quote=“Russell_Letson, post:36, topic:91700, full:true”]It could and did go beyond identifying and shaming obvious slurs and insults, sometimes digging deep into linguistic history to uncover the (often forgotten) ethnic/gender-based roots of common phrases. And this has included some linguistically-erroneous connections–use “niggardly” in a blog post and watch the reactions in the comment thread.
Those sometimes-hypersensitive or overcautious attitudes toward language can go beyond ordinary decency, tact, and respect, to the point where delicacy is more important than precision and directness.[/quote]
You hit the nail on the head.
When phrases like “rule of thumb” or a perfectly cromulent word like “niggardly” are purged, that goes beyond mere treating people with respect.
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Neither of which are a serious concern, outrage junkie.
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Of course not – but they are symptoms of a larger problem.
Oh, and merry christmas to you, too.
It almost looks like you’re just looking for something to be offended by there, ace, though I’m probably mistaken. Merry Chrisrmas.
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Perhaps you could better articulate what the larger problem is by providing examples that are actually problematic.
People didn’t stop using “niggardly” for fear of causing offense- the term has been archaic for generations. The only people who still use it are 1) writers like George RR Martin when they want to create old-timey sounding dialogue, and 2) people who are trying to be intentionally provocative by using a word that sounds very similar to a racial slur.
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Seriously, it’s the only reason why they even know what the word is. It wasn’t commonly used
Nobody’s even telling them what they can’t say, but they only want to use it in conversation because it sounds like nigger.
That’s not being a freedom-fighter, that’s being a childish trolley.
Funny enough, the initial incident in '99 that lifted the archaic word into modern conservative minds and lips gave the following end-
Howard refused but accepted another position with the mayor instead, insisting that he did not feel victimized by the incident. On the contrary, Howard felt that he had learned from the situation. "I used to think it would be great if we could all be colorblind; that’s naïve, especially for a white person, because a white person can’t afford to be colorblind. They don’t have to think about race every day. An African American does
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Political correctness, like almost any cultural term means a wide spectrum of behaviour from an expectation that people use a modicum of self-monitoring to avoid using terms that might have little social significance to them, but a great deal to others to those very few who use it as a tool to essentially bully and gain power over others.
However, the fact there are those who use a movement for their own aggrandizement in no way denigrates the entire of the movement…
Every cultural belief or tool, without exception, will be used by some minority in a way we disapprove of. To expect otherwise is foolishness.
So, when you choose to define a movement (and that’s any movement: patriotism, conservatism, egalitarianism, any religious movement, political correctness) by its most extreme members, you are not saying anything novel about the movement - you are saying something about yourself.
And if your first reaction is to say “well, that’s what they do”, remember your mother’s words (or whatever source of wisdom you respect.
“Treat others with the fairness that you would have them treat you”
or failing that,
“You cannot control their behaviour, but you do control your own.”
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Does it come as a firefox plugin yet?
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Arguing on-line is one of those diminishing-returns activities, but being identified as some kind of bigot or apologist or show-off does require at least one more comment. (Mausium seems determined to project on my remarks various unlovely motives and attitudes, though, so I don’t think there’s a civil response left for me there.)
Tlwest: That “good enough reason” is the reason. I understand the problem of niggardly quite well. Which does not mean that I shouldn’t be able to think about the process of pejoration–or the social dynamic that sees even the thinking-about as evidence of bigotry or insensitivity.
I am old enough to have lived through several cycles of linguistic examination of conscience regarding race, class, and gender, and all of them included, along with welcome consciousness-raising and behavior-changing, over-reactions, misapprehensions, unsuccessful attempts at reform (remember “wymyn”?), and bits of guilting. (Catholics are aware of the power of guilting and the trap of scrupulosity.)
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You mean the one that only exists as a straw concept in your head?
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Political correctness has always had a focus on enforcement, rather than self moderation. Or that has been my experience. The term itself originates in Stalinist USSR. Political correctness was really coming into vogue when I was in graduate school, and the primary practitioners were people who seemed to really enjoy finding fault with others. I understand that might not be everyone’s experience.
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