Are you a member of the PC Brigade?

finchy

Just wondering who the PC Brigade are. (see racism and Will thread)

guinea

Stewart Lee strikes the best balance.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGAOCVwLrXo

Pross

I suspect like many I hate discrimination but feel that things have gone too far in some circles and that in many cases the people being protected aren't anywhere near as offended as their "protectors" seem to think they should be.

keef66

I voted yes cos I made one of the early comments on Will's original thread. Dismayed to find it had disappeared today I was keen to see where it had gone; downhill seems likely since the moderators have intervened.

I suspect Will was guilty of no more than typing too quickly and expressing himself clumsily.

If I typed on a public forum everything that occurs to me in the course of a day, I'd be on the Sex Offenders Register by teatime!

Ben6899

No.

I hanker after the days when I could air small minded prejudice safe in the knowledge that enough other people were similarly small minded (nasahapley 2010)

STEFANOS4784

Funny how the No's outnumber the yes's considering recent threads :roll:

Monkeypump

A slightly loaded question...

Certainly a 'no' for me though.

finchy

Monkeypump wrote:

A slightly loaded question...

It was deliberate.

passout

Yes, why not - it doesn't really exist (it was made up by the Daily Mail) so it doesn't really matter what you vote. It's just one of those topics that people get all flustered about but doesn't actually effect anybody too much.

finchy

passout wrote:

Yes, why not - it doesn't really exist (it was made up by the Daily Mail) so it doesn't really matter what you vote. It's just one of those topics that people get all flustered about but doesn't actually effect anybody too much.

Ah-ha. You understand.

STEFANOS4784

Oops :oops:

passout

STEFANOS4784 wrote:

Oops :oops:

Oh sorry - I didn't want to embarrass anyone. I'll change my answer then:

No way, I'm a Jeremy Clarkson loving Englishman and proud. I say what I like and like what I say (in Yorkshire accent). I blame Health & Safety gone mad and Immigration.


Hope that helps!

iainment

This sums up my feelings quite well.


http://www.ukskeptics.com/entry.php/1-The-PC-brigade

The PC brigade Rate this Entry
Comment by
John Jackson

I've seen this mentioned a few times again recently and had a quick ponder on its usage.

What is political correctness?

Well, it seems to be a general mode of thought or action that addresses discrimination or inequalities regarding others. Race, gender, sexual orientation, disability, etc., are areas where political correctness is used to weed out discrimination and language use that is seen to be offensive.

e.g. words like "nigger" or "faggot" are deemed unacceptable with political correctness because their usage is intended to cause offence.

I think most people would agree that PC used in this way is a good thing.

Political Correctness gone mad.

Of course, as with many things, it's possible to go too far. We often hear stories (although many are probably media exaggerations!!) of things like the word "black" being banned for fear of causing offence to black people. e.g. "would you like your coffee white or without milk?"

The fault here is that the word "black" is not actually offensive (black people are proud to be black) and is not used to cause offence.

This sort of thing ends up having the opposite effect to what was intended - probably because well-intentioned people don't know where to draw a line between doing good and going too far. This is not helped by the fact that the 'line' is arbitrarily drawn, of course.

And the question-begging epithet "gone mad" is meant to portray excessiveness rather than an error of judgement and it's this facet of the term 'political correctness gone mad' that is designed to make political correctness per se look ridiculous.

The PC Brigade as a pejorative term.

In arguments, it's quite common to see people referred to as members of the PC brigade or the PC brigade referred to when someone is constructing an argument.

The problem here is that the PC Brigade doesn't exist!

All people are doing when using it in arguments is using it metaphorically for the 'PC gone mad' example given above. I suggest that it's used mainly in two ways:
•As an Ad Hominem attack

An Ad Hominem argument is when someone responds to someone in an argument but they attack the person, not their argument. Referring to someone as a member of the PC brigade is simply an attempt to insult or belittle the person as being a 'goody goody' type. Of course, the character of the person (whether the insinuation is true or not) has no bearing on their argument.
.
•As a Strawman Argument

A strawman argument is where a caricature (a false representation) of a person's argument is created to make it easier to refute it. An example would be the defence minister saying "we need to cut the armed forces by 5,000 personnel" and the shadow defence minister responding "why would you want to leave the country defenceless?" - of course he never said 'defenceless' but creating that image makes it easier to oppose the argument.

I see the use of the PC Brigade as being used in a similar manner. Although based on the Ad Hominem, the use of the term PC Brigade is meant to assign a false position to an opponent (building the straw man) so that instead of responding to the actual position of a person making a counter-argument, the counter-argument is dismissed or shot down easier by representing it as 'PC gone mad'.
The downside to this type of thinking is that the genuine and beneficial use of political correctness is lost.

Anyway, there's a few thoughts for you to ponder. I like doing things like this as it helps you to think clearly and see what's going on in arguments when terms like this one are used.

The PC Brigade and do-gooders are terms that are often used interchangeably in arguments and the same points stand for both terms: those who are using such terms to bolster their position or attack their opponent are simply engaging in fallacious arguments. They're an indication of someone who doesn't know how to debate properly.
.

Homer J

I voted No, and for the record I have never owned a pair of sandals

freehub

I voted Yes.

finchy

freehub wrote:

I voted Yes.

surreyxc

i voted who gives a *****. what the hell are crap threads like this on a bike site anyway. Clue is in the title, it is a bike web site about bikes and cycling. Utter ****, who cares.

finchy

surreyxc wrote:

i voted who gives a *****. what the hell are crap threads like this on a bike site anyway. Clue is in the title, it is a bike web site about bikes and cycling. Utter ****, who cares.

Have a look at some of the other threads on the cake stop and you'll understand.

I can't be bothered to answer the rest of this.

rake

wheres the third option. the closet discriminator pc.
do you dress smartly for interviews? remember how you are dressed may/or may not :roll: cause people to form an opinion. :!:

bails87

This poll needs an 'I'm not racist, but....' option.

surreyxc

I can't be bothered to answer the rest of this, blah blah blah, saw the threads and all the other non-bike dirge. Still don't care. The moderator should just throw the whole lot in the bin.

rhext

Funny really, when I read the letters and articles which complain about 'political correctness' and 'do-gooders', typically I'd be proud if their authors called me by either term.

I used to buy the 'political correctness gone mad' myth too, particularly as it relates to the modification of language to remove terminology which is perjorative to minority groups. After all, the abusers seem to simply find a new set of terminology to continue the abuse and in the meantime we've lost access to some perfectly good words.

But many years ago, I read a tirade by a local newspaper editor complaining that measures to allow wheelchair-users access to public buildings were a waste of public money and 'political correctness gone mad', and I realised that the term is most commonly used to defend a position which the originator knows is at the very least uncharitable.

And I see that society's refusal to tolerate language which is abusive of minority groups does have a positive effect on integration. Sure, there's a hardcore which finds a new language to abuse, but you can see that they start to feel the disapproval of the rest (racists now feeling obliged to identify themselves in advance: "You know, I'm not racist but....."). And the people who aren't hardcore don't adopt the abusive language by default, which in turn helps to defuse the stereotypes. If the price we have to pay for that is a few instances of over-enthusiasm (which often turn out to be more examples of over-enthusiastic reporting than anything else) then it seems to me to be a small price.

rake

To surreyxc

thats why its called cake stop buddy. you may make a note not to come in if you dont like dirge. there are pleanty of other sections all about biking.

Mettan

freehub wrote:

I voted Yes.

Nice

finchy

surreyxc wrote:

I can't be bothered to answer the rest of this, blah blah blah, saw the threads and all the other non-bike dirge. Still don't care. The moderator should just throw the whole lot in the bin.

:roll:

Who let the mountain biker in?

"I don't like other people talking about things I don't want to talk about."

I would say calm down by counting to 10 but I doubt you'd be able to get that far.

passout

iainment wrote:

This sums up my feelings quite well.


http://www.ukskeptics.com/entry.php/1-The-PC-brigade

The PC brigade Rate this Entry
Comment by
John Jackson

I've seen this mentioned a few times again recently and had a quick ponder on its usage.

What is political correctness?

Well, it seems to be a general mode of thought or action that addresses discrimination or inequalities regarding others. Race, gender, sexual orientation, disability, etc., are areas where political correctness is used to weed out discrimination and language use that is seen to be offensive.

e.g. words like "nigger" or "faggot" are deemed unacceptable with political correctness because their usage is intended to cause offence.

I think most people would agree that PC used in this way is a good thing.

Political Correctness gone mad.

Of course, as with many things, it's possible to go too far. We often hear stories (although many are probably media exaggerations!!) of things like the word "black" being banned for fear of causing offence to black people. e.g. "would you like your coffee white or without milk?"

The fault here is that the word "black" is not actually offensive (black people are proud to be black) and is not used to cause offence.

This sort of thing ends up having the opposite effect to what was intended - probably because well-intentioned people don't know where to draw a line between doing good and going too far. This is not helped by the fact that the 'line' is arbitrarily drawn, of course.

And the question-begging epithet "gone mad" is meant to portray excessiveness rather than an error of judgement and it's this facet of the term 'political correctness gone mad' that is designed to make political correctness per se look ridiculous.

The PC Brigade as a pejorative term.

In arguments, it's quite common to see people referred to as members of the PC brigade or the PC brigade referred to when someone is constructing an argument.

The problem here is that the PC Brigade doesn't exist!

All people are doing when using it in arguments is using it metaphorically for the 'PC gone mad' example given above. I suggest that it's used mainly in two ways:
•As an Ad Hominem attack

An Ad Hominem argument is when someone responds to someone in an argument but they attack the person, not their argument. Referring to someone as a member of the PC brigade is simply an attempt to insult or belittle the person as being a 'goody goody' type. Of course, the character of the person (whether the insinuation is true or not) has no bearing on their argument.
.
•As a Strawman Argument

A strawman argument is where a caricature (a false representation) of a person's argument is created to make it easier to refute it. An example would be the defence minister saying "we need to cut the armed forces by 5,000 personnel" and the shadow defence minister responding "why would you want to leave the country defenceless?" - of course he never said 'defenceless' but creating that image makes it easier to oppose the argument.

I see the use of the PC Brigade as being used in a similar manner. Although based on the Ad Hominem, the use of the term PC Brigade is meant to assign a false position to an opponent (building the straw man) so that instead of responding to the actual position of a person making a counter-argument, the counter-argument is dismissed or shot down easier by representing it as 'PC gone mad'.
The downside to this type of thinking is that the genuine and beneficial use of political correctness is lost.

Anyway, there's a few thoughts for you to ponder. I like doing things like this as it helps you to think clearly and see what's going on in arguments when terms like this one are used.

The PC Brigade and do-gooders are terms that are often used interchangeably in arguments and the same points stand for both terms: those who are using such terms to bolster their position or attack their opponent are simply engaging in fallacious arguments. They're an indication of someone who doesn't know how to debate properly.
.

Some interesting stuff there!

Radioactiveman

Passout can vouch for me I am certainly not PC

rake

rhext wrote:

Funny really, when I read the letters and articles which complain about 'political correctness' and 'do-gooders', typically I'd be proud if their authors called me by either term.

I used to buy the 'political correctness gone mad' myth too, particularly as it relates to the modification of language to remove terminology which is perjorative to minority groups. After all, the abusers seem to simply find a new set of terminology to continue the abuse and in the meantime we've lost access to some perfectly good words.

But many years ago, I read a tirade by a local newspaper editor complaining that measures to allow wheelchair-users access to public buildings were a waste of public money and 'political correctness gone mad', and I realised that the term is most commonly used to defend a position which the originator knows is at the very least uncharitable.

And I see that society's refusal to tolerate language which is abusive of minority groups does have a positive effect on integration. Sure, there's a hardcore which finds a new language to abuse, but you can see that they start to feel the disapproval of the rest (racists now feeling obliged to identify themselves in advance: "You know, I'm not racist but....."). And the people who aren't hardcore don't adopt the abusive language by default, which in turn helps to defuse the stereotypes. If the price we have to pay for that is a few instances of over-enthusiasm (which often turn out to be more examples of over-enthusiastic reporting than anything else) then it seems to me to be a small price.

i think the main motive of the term pc gone mad (weather used correctly or not) is not so much defending a known negative position, its a retort to being told how to think when you have an opinion of your own which you believe to be beneficial.

shouldbeinbed

I've not voted but would say no since I'm typing on a Mac

rhext

rake wrote:

i think the main motive of the term pc gone mad (weather used correctly or not) is not so much defending a known negative position, its a retort to being told how to think when you have an opinion of your own which you believe to be beneficial.

Well, I'd never tell you how to think. Nor would I ever attempt to stop you from airing your views (remember, I'm a do-gooder too). But if you express a view which I find offensive (and I'm not saying that you do) then I'll vocally express my disapproval. Most complaints that I see about 'political correctness' could be paraphrased as 'how dare you tell me that way of referring to <pick minority group of your choice> is offensive'.

Av it

rhext wrote:

rake wrote:

i think the main motive of the term pc gone mad (weather used correctly or not) is not so much defending a known negative position, its a retort to being told how to think when you have an opinion of your own which you believe to be beneficial.

Well, I'd never tell you how to think. Nor would I ever attempt to stop you from airing your views (remember, I'm a do-gooder too). But if you express a view which I find offensive (and I'm not saying that you do) then I'll vocally express my disapproval. Most complaints that I see about 'political correctness' could be paraphrased as 'how dare you tell me that way of referring to <pick minority group of your choice> is offensive'.

Or even "how dare you tell me what im thinking / saying / mean" etc

Im a PC doo gooder i just dont like foreigners or mountainbikers, wiggle, or focus bikes.

I do like dirty asian girls though