Pol-correct language

[cambertian]

I just want people in general to stop bickering. Not just "those who are offended" or "those who aren't," no. Both sides.
I've been to one too many forums lately where this sort of thread has been occurring, and it never ends well. Please tread carefully.

[Matt]

itt: bullshit strawmen circlejerk, no citations

If you're not going to elaborate further than that I don't think you get to call people out on lacking citations. How do you expect anyone to learn from their mistakes if you won't even tell people what they are?

Forgive me, I have been hasty. Not in the sense that I've reconsidered my original threadcrap, but I just hadn't the time or energy to elaborate until now.


First, to clarify: as far as I've ever seen, the shit that comes out of Carlin's mouth on stage is never the truth (else he would not be saying it on stage). It is pure demagoguery, a distortion that feeds our prideful desire to feel smugly superior some unseen, undefined Other that we're sure is out there and we're even more sure is a fucking idiot.

(Incidentally, I've come to the understanding that there are so many inspirational quotes falsely attributed to him because lots of people want to think what he says is an act and that deeper inside there's this core of kindness and caring that is doing it ironically. Absent that core, then what we the public know of him is no better or worse than what we have of Donald Trump, and cut from the identical cynical, loveless, made-from-dietary-fibre-extracted-from-horse-feces cloth.)

Now if someone listens to Carlin, thinks, "Hey, you know what, I'm actually doing this wrong, I am better than this, I should start doing this other better thing instead" and improves, then I'll admit he was telling the truth, at least relative to that person, rather than merely saying what the crowd wants to hear according to his brand.


When I say straw men and no citations, I mean that no one's actually cited, with personal knowledge or independent backup (so we know it's not just some rumour spread by chain email or Facebook), an actual instance of some "PC police" behaviour that has contributed some kind of harm to persons or truth.

That said, the thread has improved significantly since my threadcrap, and we've got 2 distinct things:

1. White privilege
2. Nouns versus adjectives

1. is well documented, and a part of everyday life when you're either not white or regularly dealing with non-white people. It is probably not conscious. (I am not in HR, but I suffer the same effect myself when reading court cases - and I'm not even white.) There's a lawyer's blog that has a lot of great posts about unconscious racial bias (slightly, long-ago curated list here) that, when prevalent among enough individuals in a community, can only result in a starting systemic bias.

2. Yeah that is annoying. And unhelpful, since if you don't address the underlying problems then the new words just get the exact same connotations as the old words and you're just playing catch-up for no good reason. But at best, though, (it's limited but not nothing) you're forced to think of not "a homosexual" but "my gay coworker Ralph" - but then if you're already sharp enough to do that you could also just say "my gay coworker Ralph who is a homosexual" and mean exactly the same thing (recognizing person with a trait), and if you're not that sharp you're probably just thinking "a gay person" and again mean exactly the same thing (thinking about abstract concepts and instances of them).


Caligari's contributions to this thread are worthwhile generally and I defer to him.

[Big C]

Alright, genius, how do you expect whites to be white allies when there's so much pressure on them to set aside their own individual very-real problems for the sake of a collective goal that doesn't really affect them? You think if enough of us take the first step forward we'll clear that minefield eventually?

Should I expect some heavenly reward? Because I never got one after working with the UU church for a whole decade.

And if you think I *SHOULDN'T* expect a reward, then you *SHOULDN'T* expect lasting results because I'm not a Goddamn automaton or a zealot.

[Trance]

You can usually tell with some accuracy how little a person knows about a subject by how hostile they are to dissenting opinions and arguments. I've seen a lot of this in this thread, and for the sake of everyone's mood, let's stop talking about the things the thread wasn't originally about.

More to follow after I finish watching my movies.

[Matt]

Big C: I reread your previous post from page 2 for context and... um, I honestly don't know what you mean.

It's the problem I originally had with this thread: complaining in great sweeping generalties but without enough detail to begin to see what the problem is. I mean, I can take a few guesses (e.g., being stuck with a group that has an unhealthy fixation on identity politics and superficial labels at the expense of actually helping people, etc.), but those guesses tend to be completely wrong and the assumptions those guesses imply end up making things worse.

Care to give an anecdote at least?

[Big C]

@Vae:

Sure. Apologies for getting angry at you. I took something that was not aimed at me too personally. Forgive me.

I went to church to seek guidance for my own problems, and also to sometimes make myself useful while benefitting others.

Somewhere along the way things got awkward, even ugly. I think it was around the time of the Ferguson shooting.

That was ugly business but from what I could conclude it could have been either the officer's fault or the perp's fault. Or both. It wasn't going to end well either way, though.

The church wouldn't settle for anything less than it being the officer's fault, though, and people would look at me and my dad funny if we ever disagreed, despite the church being all about respecting other people's viewpoints and beliefs. And when an incident a few months later involving it DEFINITELY being the officer's fault for planting evidence and staging a crime scene (he put his tazer on the dead suspect to make it look like he fought back) didn't get half the attention it came across as either blind sentimentality or someone pushing an agenda over trying to adhere to logic and justice.

I generally don't like getting involved on something that dicey if I'm not sure it's going to accomplish anything. Effort should never have to be wasted.

I wouldn't have minded all this if they had been more church-like and cared about the flock's well-being, but it was all social justice all the time, and I felt drowned out by a lot of angry, self-righteous people who weren't as savvy as they thought they were.

Another example: For a long while, in sci-fi/fantasy literature circles, a troll by the handle of Requires Hate went around for over 10 years and bullied and harassed people while spouting social justice rhetoric and unleashing incredibly vicious behavior towards anyone that didn't meet her standards. Even people who agreed with her rhetoric realized at some point that she was bad news and had been getting a free pass for too long because her beliefs lined up with what people wanted to hear. If social justice causes want to be taken seriously, they need to have SMARTER internal security than this. A feminist friend of mine described it as the Geek Social Fallacies on a somewhat-larger scale. And she and I both felt like we had been shunted to "clean-up crew" duty over the incident because it happened because of *other* people's mistakes but *we* had to bear the ugly drama.

[Matt]

The church wouldn't settle for anything less than it being the officer's fault, though, and people would look at me and my dad funny if we ever disagreed, despite the church being all about respecting other people's viewpoints and beliefs.

Oooh, I remember that.

but it was all social justice all the time, and I felt drowned out by a lot of angry, self-righteous people who weren't as savvy as they thought they were.

Fuck, I remember being that. It is the mindset of Judas Iscariot when he called out Mary for anointing Christ's feet. Glad you got out.

The issues still exist, but they are far too easy to turn into something to attack people with or simply repeat as an in-group identity marker - the same thing as what I described with Carlin and Trump but with rainbow-coloured polish on the turd.

EDIT:

A feminist friend of mine described it as the Geek Social Fallacies on a somewhat-larger scale. And she and I both felt like we had been shunted to "clean-up crew" duty over the incident because it happened because of *other* people's mistakes but *we* had to bear the ugly drama.

Ouch. Totally agreed re: Geek Social Fallacies - one of the big things I had to get used to in my own church life was that I'd be in communion with creationists, liberals, conservatives, transphobes, LGBT activists, Russians, Texans and even Mac fans...

(The clean-up sounds like it could be re-framed into something positive that would look real good on a resume (or better, an interview answer) if you're ever looking for a sales or management job, though!)

[Big C]

Other church examples - I stopped going to the local Methodist church after the pastor lady was going on about white privilege, despite probably being richer than I am and preaching in a city with a large white homeless population, as I said above. And the young adult pastor was too busy to even answer my emails despite telling me to email him about meeting up for coffee. It was basically the same non-welcome I got from the local UU church.

My feminist friend mentioned above is also Jewish and reports similar problems at all the local synagogues she's tried. Hearing all this fire-and-brimstone crap that's wrong with the world wouldn't be so bad if I felt like progress was being made, but it wasn't demonstrably clear one way or the other whether it *WAS* or not, and it felt like anyone who wasn't willing to personally risk their own time/money/well-being on such an uncertain shot at hope was ignored at best and viewed as weak/cowardly/selfish at worst.

I understand the concept but the more it gets stressed the more hair-splitting and hypocritical (or at least obliviously illogical) the arguments become. It makes sense on paper and there are examples that demonstrate it but acting like it's the *ONLY* problem in the room both casts a lot of people in genuine need of help with their own problems to the side and comes across as looking for an "easy" dragon to slay.

tl;dr: It isn't the message that's the problem, it's where the message is being read, the insistence on reading the message to the exclusion of other problems, and the inexplicable belief that reading the message to people who are either too deaf or too busy to hear it will somehow accomplish anything.

Any effort that expects to succeed on the basis of banking on people's goodwill and selflessness needs a better plan than "throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks".

[Matt]

As someone who has sometimes consciously, deliberately used male privilege and class privilege to gain a social edge over a richer, white female rival or a working-class white male one, I can agree that no one thing should be considered in isolation.

Odd that a sermon would go at any significant length about white privilege though - is it something leading up to another point? (Just to brainstorm: Moses the Black; slavery; those white homeless guys have other advantages that they should use or be grateful for; the manner in which Christ is depicted;...)

(meanwhile I'm awful at responding to emails so I will pass no judgment there!)


Spoilering the part of my response that has very little if anything directly to do with the original topic:

---

Re: progress and social change, I'm afraid I have little to say about churches being a means to making a social difference, being in a particular denomination where the pastors say things like this:

Doing good is worth thinking carefully about. We should always do good (“While there is time, let us do good to all men, especially those who are of the household of faith – Gal. 6:10). The curve that modern thinking takes, however, is rooted in the ideas of Utilitarianism. In that there are the ideas of the greatest good for the greatest number, and the idea of the necessary evil (the “greatest good,” etc.).

If you have “talents” or “gifts” use them. Though be careful. They are like money to us and easily lead us astray. The first thing to concentrate on is the “good” that is near at hand. Do it. When we fall into the reasoning that, “Well, I’ll get to that later because if I do it now then I will not be able to do this greater thing later.” That’s utility. And we don’t know whether we will be alive or dead later.

Mother Theresa, for example, is still greatly criticized by some because she only took care of the poor when she could have organized, raised money, built hospitals, etc. She, instead, picked up dying beggars one at a time and cared for them. She did not see herself as existing to clear up the problems of poverty in Calcutta or elsewhere. She just did the good.

“What if everyone did like she did?” Well, we’d be in paradise. But those who have done very little for anyone stand by and criticize the saint who has done much. That is utility.

which is part of a much longer-going theme the best intro article to which is probably this.

[Big C]

It didn't go on *THAT* long, but the sermon seemed like an attempt at trying to drum up church attendance in an extremely secular city (Portland, OR). My feminist friend and I suspect it's the same deal at the UU church and the synagogues. She and I think they're only going to attract zealots/oddballs/people with chips on their shoulders that way and going to repel more lucid would-be churchgoers.

Organized religion is neither man nor beast in this city, and given that I have little faith in freethinker-type groups I just stopped going to any sort of organized religious institution or religion-like organization.

At any rate, putting state issues into church seems just as bad to me in its own way as putting church issues into state.

At any rate I'd like to say that I think being expected to contribute to this stuff without expectation of a reward is arrogant. I didn't expect a reward initially because I figured if everyone did their part enough everything would work out. That was over a decade ago and the situation has gotten worse, therefore I have lost confidence in leftist causes and no longer will work for them for free, which is why I am very annoyed when they get preachy with me and act like they know what's best for me without even asking me what *I* want out of life or what I've been through.

I don't see any glory in being a martyr as it sounds like a highly wasteful one-way street. The best I can see it as is making the best of a bad situation. But at this point I'm through inviting suffering upon myself and if I'm going to take risks I'm going to demand rewards.

EDIT: Another thing. A lot of this politically-correct jargon originates from academic discussions, right? Well my college was utter crap and neglected my student needs, so I never had a chance to get a bachelor's. And I think shoving all this jargon down people's throats without warning or explanation is classist for that reason if the shovers are going to just dismiss people that they think don't get it. I shouldn't need a college degree just to be properly 'vetted' on how to be fundamentally decent to people.

EDIT2: Also, Vae, your churchy stuff is probably going to go over my head---no offense. I became a pretty staunch atheist after 9/11 for reasons you can guess at. I won't shoot down religion on principle, but you'll have to forgive me if I find religious institutions more of an unworkably unwieldy apparatus than they're worth at this point and find it to be an unnecessarily convoluted solution to a fundamentally simple---but tall---problem. I can say that I've had better experiences with *smaller* churches, though---like, no more than 100 members or so. Large churches I've been to devolved into lowest-common-denominator crap no matter the denominator.

EDIT3: If you're wondering why I'm saying I've always been a staunch atheist while saying I went to church, I initially found the UU church to be a good 'church for the churchless' for people like me in Florida that found the local strains of mainstream Christianity alarming. 'course, a few years ago, the UU branch where I live *NOW* went super-stupid as I mentioned above, and while the local Methodist church initially met my explanations it too devolved as mentioned above. So yeah, I've come full circle and in the process gotten out of the circle.

EDIT4: WORDS.

[DoomRater]

I'm not sure I can recommend going to a church for much of anything these days. Also, sermons are highly unlikely to be filled with anything more than the proverbial baby milk as far as help goes. This is pretty much because a preacher is trying to reach a huge mass of people at once with one message, so it's going to be too generic to be of much use personally. If you want a community, believe it or not, I'm finding more use and connection online than off. Then again I've been in Vermont for over 5 years now and have been forced to return due to circumstances outside my control, and Vermont is not known for its church population or religiousness.

However, I can say that I DID hear about the Supreme Court Ruling the next church day it passed on equal rights. They were not pleased, but they didn't address it in the sermon. I will say that in the past I've turned in sermon notes on the back of the Pew attendance cards, and I've actually had them commented on and mailed back to me. THAT was something. I think I had taken issue with a subpoint I heard the pastor make and he was polite enough to address it. Sadly I dunno if he's even there anymore.

[Blox]

[Hege Cactus]

These type of topics tend to be always make me go bit eyebrow raise mode cause of how silly it gets, dunno if its just me or being from north europe or something

tho as a general fist rule I find it that some of the stronger words that are clearly just for the sake of insulting groups should not really be used so much unless its okay with the people around, and not really used for the sake of attacking.
But I also find it that in general it doesn't need to be over shot, I just don't really understand the whole getting offended for the sake of it then going completely shut down with out explanation I tend to see happening in this sort of stuff.
Like ok, if some person says a word you find it offensive, you can just explain em why you find it offensive and discuss it reasonably, and if its like, understandable reason, the other person should then be more careful with it.

In general, biggest thing with being politcally correct I hate is that how people go so so aggressive and attack mode so easily, from both sides really, like if someone uses a "bad word" the persons offended get so aggressive and even if they dont and just ask politely, people using the word can get aggressive and attacking with their why and how they used it thing.

like shees, where's the respect dawgs

However in crowd/mob mode, specially with twitter tumblr and so on, I don't usually even touch this stuff, it just tends to go to complete shitstorm, no more like, shit hurricane mode.

[Reactor]

In general, biggest thing with being politcally correct I hate is that how people go so so aggressive and attack mode so easily, from both sides really, like if someone uses a "bad word" the persons offended get so aggressive and even if they dont and just ask politely, people using the word can get aggressive and attacking with their why and how they used it thing.

Yeah, this is why I don't think "inventing" pol-correct speech did any good. If people wish to insult intentionally, they WILL find a way, meaning that pol-correct language did no good. As for causing unintentional harm, I don't think it happens on that frequent basis (unlike intentional insulting) which would require an entirely different "language" to be conceived and used. Not to mention that politically correcting (or legalesing for that matter) everything will lead many people to think - especially naive people - that everyday speech is something nasty and evil, because sooner or later you will hurt someone with it. Plus, this overblown, overly descriptive terminology is not something many people will find attractive, either listening to or speaking it.

[Arctangent]

that everyday speech is something nasty and evil

I mean, typically a word gets a more politically correct version because that word has some unpleasant stuff to it. In theory, if an everyday word has a politically correct counterpart, then there is something nasty and evil to it, even if mildly so.

On the other hand, you don't really see alternatives for stuff like "that," "tennis," "fowl," etc. because there's really no reason to replace them.