That seems to be the underlying impetus.
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âWe called [somethingnew] [somethingworse] in the past and nobody complained, (or if they did, they were whiners!)â
Sure is funny how easily people concerned about âPolitical Correctnessâ and how they hate everyone equally lose their shit over wordchoice when itâs their own beliefs or personal vulgarity held dear.
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And that form really only exists in institutions of bureaucracy, HR departments and school systems that donât really care about context, they want firm established rule sets that keep them safe from liability, it has little to do with protecting anyone.
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My thoughts on the term âpolitically correctâ is that people defending their use of the term think that theyâre trying to defend some high and mighty idea about making things about substance as opposed to logic and reason.
The reality is theyâre defending this:
That is 100% how the phrase âpolitically correctâ is used: As a stick to beat people with in arguments. Why? Because it isnât an argument. Itâs not reasoned, itâs not logical, it doesnât mean anything, and it forces your opponent into a defensive posture. The insinuation is that you have no reasoned or effective response to what is being said, and that you are making an argument from emotion or without substance. Itâs shorthand, and itâs bullshit. If you have a problem with something I said, address the argument, donât just say itâs political correctness. What Iâve found is that some of the time, people donât know how to address the issue because theyâve never bothered to think about it themselves. Other times, the people were just being some flavor of douchebag and not expecting me to call them on it.
Hereâs the funny part, a lot of people who are so careful to qualify their remarks by saying, âI know itâs not politically correctâŚâ often donât say things that are any kind of problem. Working retail in a university town, weâve often had to deal with large number of Asian customers who are international students who donât have a complete mastery of English. Iâve had coworkers say, âI donât want to be politically incorrect, but a lot of these guys donât speak English so well and itâs hard to figure out what they want.â My response is, âItâs a language barrier, nothing politically incorrect about it, whatever politically incorrect is supposed to mean.â Then those same people go on to say something really douchey without apology⌠So Iâm not sure âpolitical correctnessâ is holding anyone back in practice.
On the other hands, students complaining about a âchalkingâ that was somehow offensive piss me off. What they want is some kind of administrative manhunt, but hereâs what I do when I encounter a chalking I donât like: I wipe it away. Just like that. If someone has a problem with it, Iâll tell them to fuck off, because no one owns the sidewalk. Itâs fucking chalk.
You see what I did there though? I picked a behavior I didnât like, explained why I didnât like it, and offered my solution. Whether that solution is sufficient is a different argument. I didnât have to utter, for one moment, the armpit fart that is the phrase, âpolitical correctness.â
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Can confirm. Went to a blind-specialized school and⌠ye Gods and little fishes. We literally had staff fired for simple joking around with the students. Nobody offended, hell the students being the ones to start the jokes and just roll with it. This is why I am⌠prickly about Political Correctness or at least the start of why I became so. I saw it used as a tool to remove teachers and staff that actualy bonded with us and replaced them with people that set themselves above us with a very clear âbubbleâ we werenât to cross. Basically it looked to my younger eyes like administration were removing anyone that genuinely gave a damned and replaced them with boring authoritarians.
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So youâre combating this concern through a nuanceless, contextless, and broad dismissal of everyone you communicate with?
Does that not sound as sweepingly poor a decision as the bureaucracies that oppressed you?
This isnât rugged individualism, this is dumb policy in practice on an individual. They denied persons expression and you mock others for choosing their means of expression through what you consider âlegitimateâ.
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Was this ever answered? Asking for a friend.
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Actually Mandy I posted the cartoon and other comments because you were going on about how ânobody is making fun ofâ and⌠honestly you were kinda wrong there whether it was you doing the posting or not. But Eh.
I stand by my statement. Political Correctness is as another poster said, a club rather than a solution and a lot of this topic standing outside looking in and then later even moreso when i got involved, looked very âyou do not completely agree with us? RAAAR.â Which⌠is the same behavior youâre saying is wrong.
IE weâre all flawed. Iâm often times an overly angry asshole. It takes effort on my part to not feel like the entire world is ready to hurl rocks at my face for not fitting in with hte clique, but at the same time it takes just as much effort to not speak up when I see things going on I feel arenât right, like otherwise good people circling eachother whipping into a frenzy that if you changed the descriptives a bit, would look like the sort of bigoted douchbaggery we kinda want to collectivly stop, at least at an institutional level.
Iâm sorry I cuased a mass thread derailment but⌠Yea. DOne is done I suppose.
The plight of the poster âjust asking questionsâ but never really curious about anything.
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Think whatever the hell you want. Iâve said my piece. I just wish youâd get off the high horse and stop sneering at me. All of you.
Donât pretend to be sincere when you arenât at all interested in knowing what a phrase means and how itâs actually practiced? Your insecurities arenât the whole of reality.
And thereâs no need to throw a fit because you canât personally sneer a conversation into submission. Try listening more.
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Um again, not ALL of us are âsneeringâ at you. Many people have approached you in a calm and rational manner.
Iâm one of them.
And personally speaking, Iâm not on any âhigh horse;â my feet are planted firmly on the ground.
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Is tone trolling not just another form of âpolitical correctnessâ?
Someone can literally tell me Iâm circlejerking in onanistic glee in their entry to the conversation, but snark back alongside sincere discussion and instantly my speech is unacceptable and unworthy.
Weâre not only hit with demands for a person to say whatever hits their brain without filter and without judgment but also demands for respect no matter how disrespectful their rhetoric?
Does that seem equitable, your demands of other people you interact with?
Why dont you treat others better?
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Cool. Can we get on with the thread now?
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@Mal_Tosevite referenced the original obscuring terms (âsanitation engineersâ being a favorite of mine), but PC does actually seem to have become to a degree a language cudgel in many areas or at least a set of linguistic signifiers of a thought system which suffers no criticism due to the self surety of its righteousness.
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Sure; since half the populace has less than the median quantity of wit, having the word âcorrectâ in the term is definitely problematic. Itâs an invitation to dogma.
The main tool of political correctness appears to be renaming a concept or entity, seeking to reframe the set of issues around it.
So it should turn on itself, and come up with a better name for what itâs doing.
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Sugar coating?
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Thereâs part of your problem.
Worldwide, the engineering faculty and student body are notorious for being politically well to the right of the average academic and STEM outlook. On the campuses Iâm familiar with, the right-wing political organisations are almost exclusively run by law and engineering students.
Engineers are also dramatically overrepresented amongst terrorists, weirdly enough.
Why this is so is an unanswered question, AFAIK.
The terrorist thing may be due to distorted educational and employment structures in some troubled countries, combined with the practical usefulness of engineering skills when planning destructive activities. The rest of it may have something to do with a professional mindset that values usable heuristics and simplified abstraction over deep understanding of detail.
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Sexual frustration plus the fun of making the devices? 
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