Here’s what happens when you change the term “political correctness” to “treating people with respect”

boing
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Oh come on. You deal with customers and you choose to use swear words, and you’ll probably find yourself out of a job. You and every other human being already deals with language policing. PC is simply a change of acceptable words to widen unacceptable language to include those that are unacceptable or are seen as harming various minority communities.

Perhaps what you are complaining about is that we were raised in the dominant culture, so we grew up policing socially unacceptable language automatically. How dare we be put into the position of everyone else of having to learn new speech patterns in order to continue to be socially acceptable! That’s everyone else’s job!

More seriously, it’s time for us to grow up, accept that we live in a multi-cultural society, and make some effort to deal with that reality. It’s what everyone else us around us is capable of.

Society in general. Any language policing needs acceptance from a significant segment of the population in order for there to be impetus sufficient for actual enforcement. Most attempts to change fail - we only hear about the ones that have gained a wide spread of usage and support.

Of course, it’s always your right to ignore the general consensus and pay the consequences.

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Indeed, I’ve always had a hard time taking complaints that basically come down to “how dare people not find this funny!”. (Or for movies, books or music “how dare people not find this moving!”)

In any profession that depends on audience acceptance, having to accept that tastes change seems a matter of professional competence, not artistic integrity.

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The “problem” of political correctness is not simple, and not just because it has spent several decades making the transition from left-wing in-joke to right-wing sneer. The underlying attitudes about public discourse, civility, social sensitivity, audience expectations, the nature of language, and even the makeup and structure of various communities–all interact to produce multiple acceptable and unacceptable (of varying degrees) lexicons and usages.

It is tempting to treat this complex set of demands perceptions and interactions as a simple lookup table–and in fact most sensible and decent people do have a “never say this” list. But such a list is subject to change, and not everyone gets the same memo, and in any case there isn’t really a memo but a consensus that can emerge suddenly or gradually and from any number of directions.

For example: I recalled that there is not necessarily unanimity among those being named as to what they prefer to be called and by whom, so I Googled my way to the “Native American name controversy” entry in Wikipedia, which suggests that it’s even more complicated and multi-sided than I had understood, with overlapping or complementary or competing naming conventions (tribal, cultural, legal, anthropological).

Any professional writer is familiar with the notion of “house style,” by which a given publication attempts to standardize usage, spelling, terminology, and so on, and which is often codified in a style guide or manual (e.g. the Associated Press Stylebook). But we do not have a single style manual for general public discourse, though there is a host of volunteer copy-editors.

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This is actually another one of the biggest problems facing comics today (ask your friend, I’m sure he’ll agree)- For a musician, I write a song, record a quick demo, listen to it a couple times, maybe ask a couple other musician friends what they think. Then I can go make changes or tweaks based on the feedback from that. By the time I release the finished version, maybe 4 or 5 people total have heard it.

A comic can’t do that. They have to play their stuff out in front of a genuine audience each time they make a change in the wording or delivery. This used to be why even guys with their own HBO special and Vegas deal would be doing open mics 4 nights a week- to test and refine new material before it went into their main act. Remember that for a good comic, something as simple as how long to pause after a word can literally change the entire meaning- A slight pause or change in inflection can change the tone from serious to sarcastic to derision to hyperbole. A joke that’s intended as a dig at racists can come off as racist if the wording is awkward or the timing is bad. So, what would have been hysterical and socially conscious once it’s perfected might come off as tone deaf and offensive in it’s first incarnation.

Again, this is why even the pros will do small clubs for cheap or free in between real gigs- To work on the second, third, and final draft of a joke. But in the age of camera phones and social media, it’s really hard to do that- Because your first time testing something out may end up as a viral video on Facebook.

For example, take your buddy’s joke*:

Everyone is talking about how all the pools in Rio turned green but not about how the entire US gymnastics team turned black.

Change the subject, and it becomes a dig at the media:

CNN is talking about how all the pools in Rio turned green. FOX is talking about how the entire US gymnastics team turned black.

Add a lead-in, and it becomes an anti-racist joke:

Wanna know how racist a country we are? A black guy can be better than a white guy at basically anything and we’re like “eh”. No respect. I mean, everyone is talking about how all the pools in Rio turned green but not about how the entire US gymnastics team turned black.

It’s making those changes, testing each of them out in front of real people to see which gets the better laugh- That’s why comics are freaked out about the crowds not giving them a chance. Not because they want to offend people, but because fucking up the first couple times is just part of the process.

  • Maybe funny, maybe not- I’m just trying to illustrate the point.
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I’m quite sure that’s exactly what the Right is troubled by.

Because their self-identify is exclusionary, they hate treating all people with respect.

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Well, I guess I’ll be that guy. Again.

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and i’m sad no one wants to give epic poetry a chance.

it all reminds me a bit of a philip k. dick short story where the protagonist’s two sons went down different political roads: one removing all sweat glands and hair, the other living “natural” never shaving or bathing. each kid keeps trying to convince the dad over to their way.

eventually, war between the two sides breaks out, and he’s told he has to choose a side. he’s carted away one night for the fact he hasn’t chosen. he just can’t understand what all the fuss is about.

i don’t think we get to choose what is and isn’t important to the next generation. often, even to our own.

( noting: even if we can’t always understand, maybe it’s still worth trying not to dismiss it all out of hand. )

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Except that it is vital to maintain a class of people who may speak truth to power. This has more often than not been the province of comedians: Court jesters, bardic satirists, Lenny Bruce, Smothers Brothers, George Carlin, Jon Stewart.

Compromising that in the age of Trump is more dangerous than people realize.

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Good thing the “truth to power” crowd are all finding the strength to stick to their rape jokes with a rapist in power!

Those brave, brave individuals.

Protip: Lenny Bruce, Smothers Brothers, George Carlin, Jon Stewart are all “SJWs” to the modern Republican.

South Park and its ilk haven’t kept us from getting Cartman elected. Their attacks are risk-free.

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i don’t buy any of that.

he starts off saying it’s better when things are overtly oppressive vs. when things are implicitly oppressive, because at least the power dynamics are clear. as if those are the only two choices.

how about, instead, limiting coercion and removing differences in power? because that’s the actual conversation worth having.

he then expands that initial conceit of overtly oppressive power being good, and gets into racist jokes(*).

he intimates that the disappearance of racist jokes is surely a sign of the rise of totalitarianism – when at least here in the us, the worry about telling racist jokes arose simultaneously with de-segregation and integration: ie. people don’t feel comfortable with some sorts of jokes about race, because – surprise – some of those jokes are wholly about re-enforcing racial power differences.

i had to stop when he starts arguing that we need racist and ableist jokes because that’s the only way to establish true intimacy with people of different backgrounds. he says respect is cold and distant, while racism and its overt power differences – that’s what he’s trying to say right? – is warm and loving.

yikes. the bizarre logic that takes is no logic at all.

he might have a rough-and-tumble personality with a heart that’s made of pure gold, but if he does: maybe he can look beyond his own ego.

learning about other people – using the words they would prefer to hear, and avoiding the jokes that they would prefer not to hear – takes work. lots of people don’t want to do that work. fine, that’s pretty normal. who likes to do work?

but, being able to be lazy – in action or in thinking – is the surest sign of a privileged position in society.

*edit: i love how he adds in argument about smoking because his argument about smoking is both clear, and hard to argue with. he attaches this clear argument to the first, to justify his initial premise. but, there is no actual connection: just two separate points… this guy has got his logical fallacy skills down pat.

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But what are they scared of, exactly? Has there been a significant rise in assaults on comics who tell edgy jokes, or comics getting arrested for using offensive language? Lenny Bruce was actually sentenced to jail time for obscenity back in the 1960s, so if anything it seems that comics today have fewer serious restrictions than their forebears.

So really it seems like the PC Menace is really just a problem because comics are afraid a lot of audience members might not like their material. Well, that’s pretty much the nature of stand-up, isn’t it?

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Oh, I get where you’re coming from here, but if this person you’re talking about uses the term PC, you can count on it being wielded as a kludge. This person you describe strikes me as a shit-stirrer looking for any excuse to escalate a simple conversation straight into high Drama.

I stay away from people like this, given the choice. I sincerely hope you haven’t described a close relative.

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Then I defer to your conceit of determining actual conversations worth having.

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Again- I can paint or play music alone in my bedroom all day and all night whenever I want until I get good. Comics can’t do that. They require an audience to hone their material and skills.

So, take any great artist- Now imagine if they hadn’t been allowed to practice.

And yeah, 95% of comics are going to be entertainment- But there are also going to be the Jon Stewarts and John Olivers and Steven Colberts and Samantha Bees and Bill Mahers, and I really believe that we need them now more than ever.

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Oooh, that’s very perceptive of you… and no, they’re not a relative. Usually I can avoid them these days.

The point about using PC as a weapon is a good one. This thread seems to be covering two major aspects: the act of being open and respectful through language itself, and the way that is set and encouraged. I’m optimistic enough to think the former is pretty straightforward – it’s the latter which seems to cause problems.

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Does it ever. Best of luck keeping your distance!

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thanks!

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#notallconversations

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No problem. Responding to bad faith misrepresentations of an argument which began with a denial of every idea presented and which then go on to offer no substantive criticism of those ideas seems like a bad time.

Thanks for playing ‘Aaaaaaand back to what I was talking about’.

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i was thinking about this, and what you were saying earlier. maybe comics should build up. don’t start with the nuclear jokes.

i give somebody like louis ck some slack when he starts in on something that initially sounds homophobic or racist because he’s built up the cred elsewhere that he’ll soon bring it on back to be about himself. ( and, also his whole platform isn’t based on these kind of jokes. )

that’s part of performance: build up the trust.

it also takes any performer a while – career-wise – to get to the point where they can successfully pull out the big guns. just like a magician probably shouldn’t start with sawing a person in half with a real saw, maybe a white comic basing a career on jokes about their black friends isn’t the best idea. each person can start at a level according to their current ability and work up. ( i’m probably a bit naive on this, but it sounds good in theory. )

from the audience side of things, there’s definitely a line between heckling, sometimes for the sake of heckling – disrupting the performance for everyone – and saying: enough is enough, we don’t need these kinds of jokes anymore.

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