Has political correctness gone too far?

[T_i_B]

Interesting article from Nick Cohen of the UK Observer, who belive it or not tends to side with the PC cause in most things. Make of this what you will.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,1401764,00.html

The political correct ideology was born in the defeat of the radical wave of the 1960s, and the sour whiff of failure hangs around it to this day. The middle-class left retreated into universities and other public sector ghettos where they could pretend the outside world didn't exist. There they could set their own speech codes on racism and sexism and force doubters into silence.

The freedom to dissent was of no account. Professor Stanley Fish, who is satirised as the leftish academic celebrity, Morris Zapp, in David Lodge's campus novels, gave the official line in a 1992 essay: 'There's No Such Thing as Free Speech and It's a Good Thing Too'. All concepts were political, he explained. If the concept of free speech suited your political opponents and 'can no longer be involved in ways that further your purposes' then you must see it as 'an obstacle to those purposes' and scrap it.

I doubt if anything has done the liberal-left greater harm in the past 40 years than its association with such intolerance and intellectual cowardice. Small wonder the Bush family keeps winning elections.

And yet what can justly be dismissed as repressive political correctness can also be a liberation. The paradox of the Sixties is that while politically it was a disaster for the left and ushered in a generation of right-wing leaders, most notably in America and Britain, it also began a huge advance in the condition of women, gays and others which continues to this day. The famous remark that the 'right won the economic war and the left won the culture war' is usually quoted to sum up the paradox. It doesn't quite get there because individualism won both.

[vi5]

1. I think certain factions of the left suffered in the 90's...

From a combination of maybe 10% misplaced priorities (ie. arguing over semantics, etc.) and 90% of the right wing media blowing these small things waaaaaaaaay out of proportion.

I was in grad school smack dab in the middle of the Clinton 90's. I am the prototypical liberal, touchy feely, sensitive, "feel your pain", white male. You'd be hard pressed to find a more empathetic person than I am politically, socially, etc. And I sat in more than a few classes, some of which I would offer an opinion in and be told flat out in specific terms "Yes, but your opinion doesn't carry as much weight on this because you are a white male."

Now I didn't have any problem with statements like this to some degree, and would in the context even agree with them. But I could see where this type of thinking and way of looking at things, when amplified through the right wing media would foster a backlash. And again, maybe 10% of this could be blamed on the left's poor phrasing or misplaced priorities or just feeling their strength after 12 years of republican presidents. But the other 90% was exaggerated and made too big a deal out of by the media.

[salin]

3. Just yesterday I ran across

a blog entry that countered that 90% hyped reaction to which you refer. It was about reframing a response to "PC" Bashing. Decideed to put it in my sig line. I think it is a pretty effective response.

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. Well, I know Morris Zapp wasn't politically correct in Lodge's novels

in fact he suffered from others' PC attitude - he was a guy wanting to get laid, get academic kudos, and make money, but fundamentally caring when it came down to it. So Cohen has got that wrong.

But, back in the real world, it's true that PC can go too far. You can end up with a conveyor belt of terms, with each one replaced by another euphemism, without actually changing the prejudices of people.

I think the ideas of getting all the playground swearing repeated in the classroom is a disaster - some children will be embarrassed, others will glory in it, and I agree that parents would get mightily pissed off by it.

[salin]

4. The only time I ever hear the words "I know its not PC... but..."

I know that what is about to follow is some blatant, smug and snide, stereotyped comment that says worlds more about the utterer than it does about the comment itself. I have come to believe that the anti-PC crowd is really cover for "As nasty as I wanna be" manners.

[Deep N RedLand]

9. Anti-PC Crowd are Really Bigots in Disguise

I agree that those howling most loudly against "polictical correctness" are really upset because they can't display thier intolerance more openly. Whenever I here someone on the Right complaining about "PC liberals" you can be sure those are the same people who would ask "how come black people can use the N word, but white people can't?", discuss problems with "those fags" with thier Neocon friends or don't understand why some women might find thier sexual or sexist jokes or behaviours amusing in the workplace (just look at Bill "what are you wearing?" O'Reilly). I find it most pathetic when a Righty tries to pretend otherwise or complains the Left is always portraying them as bigots or intolerant. Well, if the shoe fits.

[ElectroPrincess]

15. Excellent Commentary - thanks for the link in your sig :-)

[bemildred]

5. "Political correctness" is and always has been a bullshit issue.

You have flag worshippers and conservative flat-earth types accusing
"leftists" of being rigid in their thinking. This article is propaganda.
Cohen is a paid hack.

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. Propaganda for whom?

Cohen supports Stonewall strongly. Are you suggesting they are paying him?

[bemildred]

7. Why not address what I said?

Hitchens hates Kissinger, so do I. I still think Hitchens is a
paid hack. That Cohen supports Stonewall has nothing to do with
the general question of his integrity as a commentator. He is a
propagandist. I am not alone in that opinion:

http://www.zmag.org/content/MainstreamMedia/edwards_iraq-observer.cfm

But you, of course, are free to disagree.

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. I did address what you said

Your reference to 'flag worshippers and conservative flat-earth types' has nothing to do with Cohen - look at his articles.

The conclusion of the article was that Stonewall is doing a better job at gaining understanding for gay people in schools than the History Month. But you call it propaganda. Now, you drag Cohen's view on Iraq into it, which is irrelevant to the subjects of political correctness or homosexual rights.

[bemildred]

10. No you did not.

It is most presumptious of you to assert that you know what I am
talking about better than I do. I said zippety-do-dah about Stonewall,
nor did I intend to, it was not an accident that I avoided that subject.
I was addressing his tendentious bashing of the "political correctness"
straw man as evidenced in the excerpt posted, and his preposterous
pseudo-history of the left. What is this if not propaganda:

"The political correct ideology was born in the defeat of the radical wave of the 1960s, and the sour whiff of failure hangs around it to this day."

It sure as hell is not history. We will leave the faulty grammar aside.
He also bashes Stanley Fish, whereas he is not fit to hold Fish's coat
for him, intellectually speaking.

[muriel_volestrangler]

11. So you purposefully ignored the conclusion of the article?

Well, that's irresponsible if you then dismiss the article as just 'propaganda'. History? No, it's opinion - as you'd expect from a commentator. That doesn't make it propaganda.

And I'm criticising what you actually wrote, not your knowledge of the subject of political correctness (though I do criticise your knowledge of Cohen if you think he's a flag waver or conservative, as you implied). You said bugger all about 'history' or 'pseudo-history' earlier, nor did you describe his argument as a strawman. If that was your point, you should have made it.

[bemildred]

12. "avoiding a subject" is not "purposefully ignoring" it.

I have every right to select what I want to talk about and what
I choose to ignore, and there is nothing irresponsible about it.
There is no rule that says I cannot talk about the part of this
piece that annoys me unless I also address his conclusion.

You seem to think he is allowed to have an opinion, but I am not.
My assertion that he is a propagandist is MY opinion based on
my reading of him, I supplied a link just to flesh it out. It is the
assertions he makes about "the left" - like he knows what that
means - that annoy me, and all the babble about "political correctness",
which is a vacuuous straw man constructed to bash leftists as a
class, and if that is not propaganda I don't know what is.

[T_i_B]

13. I'm with Muriel on this one

You really need to read more of Nick Cohen's writing on civil liberties, immigration and so on before trying to stereotype him as a paid up hack. May I reccomend reading his book "pretty straight guy's" for starters. If anything Cohen tends to be seen as pretty PC kinda commentator himself.

Cohen is dead wrong on Iraq, which he supported, and IMHO was wrong on Afghanistan too, which he opposed. However, he does sometimes get things right and come out with a good article. And he certainly cannot be pigeonholed into any party line, as you will find out if you read his work more thoroughly. If you want Blairite propoganda then try reading David Aaronvitch, Andrew Rawnsley or Johann Hari, not Cohen.

[bemildred]

16. Eh, opinions will vary.

I made rather specific complaints about him, I thought, and I never said
he is wrong about everything, nor did I mean to. Hitchens is right
about Kissinger too.

FWIW, I have run into him a number of times here before, always in the
context of this sort of left-bashing blather, and that is why I teed off
on him. If he had stuck to specifics I would have left it be.

But I'm not a Brit, so he's not really my problem, and I don't really
want to offend you or Muriel (more than I may have already) so I'd as
soon let it go.

[T_i_B]

17. Only left bashing?

I've seen his articles posted a number of times on DU, and quite often it is the pro-civil liberties/anti-Enron/anti-Blair stuff that gets posted. Here's an old article that was very popular on DU at the time it was published for instance.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,587483,00.html

About 90% of Cohen's left bashing is bitterness that the rest of the left disagrees with him on Iraq. However, he's even nastier towards the right.

[bemildred]

19. "Only left-bashing". nt

[hfojvt]

21. and I am against

the term "political correctness" raises a red flag for me and anyone who accepts that term or believes that it exists as a problem is swallowing some rightwing propaganda.
I thought the original post which started this exchange was about PC more than it was about Cohen. The post was about Cohen's column's thesis, the statement that Cohen typically makes weak arguments was really tangential, even if some people are running with it.
That Cohen was giving opinion rather than history is beside the point as well. If his opinion is based on erroneous history that probably makes for erroneous opinion even if it makes him an ignoramus rather than a liar or a shill.

[ElectroPrincess]

14. It's propaganda IMO in it's purist form ...

Whenever the fascists want to discriminate against a group of people they pull out the notion of "ooh Ah, the intellectual elite is way too hypersensitive for reality." Therefore, they can go about their merry way to disenfranchise groups (intellectuals, liberals, those pro-affirmative action, etc) without fear of retribution.

Yes, there's nothing wrong with being sensitive to other peoples in an empathetic VICE sympathetic way ... because the right wing radicals can't overtly discriminate against women and minorities, they try to accomplish the same goal through covert means.

They disrespect anyone who wishes to keep the pro-choice issue secular yet moral without religion. Therefore when abortion (and later birth control) are outlawed they can more overtly discriminate against women through criminal action.

With regard to Affirmative Action Initiatives being *dead* we already know the fandango that has lead to such actions.

PC flags are a sign of the Right Wing trying to dismiss rational arguments of moderates and progressive as "too sensitive" / "unreal."

[Nimrod]

18. In some ways, yes

I'm perfectly happy with not being allowed to call someone a nigger because that's rude. I'm NOT perfectly happy with not being allowed to use the word "niggardly" just because it sorta kinda if you aren't listening close sounds like the other word.

There's a line between tolerance and over-sensitivity. It's easy to see intolerance everywhere, but if you can't differentiate between what's real and what's not, you're shooting yourself in the foot and wasting valuable time and energy.

A perfect example: I know at least a few of you winced when I used the "n" word, even though I was referring to the word itself rather than anything the word represents. As I used it, it was six letters put together in a particular order and that's all, referring to nothing other than a particular arrangement of letters in our language.

Anyway, I'm allowed because I'm a faggot. So there. :)

[bemildred]

20. Exactly.

There are plenty of people on "the left" that I disagree with, that I
consider to be loons, but their existence does not give one carte blanche
to bash all "leftists" as though we were some sort of monolithic
army of loons. One must make the necessary distinctions, not merely
run around slinging labels with abandon. Genuine thought and coherent
argument require discrimination, not just pasting ideas you fancy
together.

[mistertrickster]

22. In short, yes. If you are a democrat because you're gay or black or

a feminist, that means you must be a republican if you're homophobic, racist, or sexist. Unfortunately, there're a helluva lot of those folks out there--look at all the "rebel flags" hanging in the back window of pickup trucks.

What really matters is not sexual orientation, gender or race. What matters is wealth, the golden rule--"he who has the gold rules."

To think that Oprah is discriminated against because she's black while some poverty-stricken white boy from the rural South is part of the "white male power structure" is ludicrous.

The right-wingers have been killing us with this focus on "identity politics" and rightly so.

We need to focus on the economic issues that unite us instead of the "tribal" differences that separate us.

[eridani]

23. PC is the sign of a healthy society

Humans have a built-in tendency to be xenophobic, and also to be horny. PC is the nervous, slightly guilty apology we make for the former tendency, and prudery the nervous, slightly guilty apology we make for the latter. Does PC get seriously stupid sometimes? Sure, just like Victorians talking about piano "limbs." But still, I vastly prefer living in a society where people are more ashamed of their xenophobia than their sex drives.

And of course policing language is a totally lousy substitute for real action--not trying to deny that.