On Political Correctness
theamericanscholar.org
theamericanscholar.org
There appears to be a alchemical transformation that results in people's minds, where "<Obnoxious Statement X>" on its own is obnoxious, but "I know it's politically incorrect to say so, but <Obnoxious Statement X>!" makes you a Free Speech Martyr and a real deep thinker.
This kind of uncharitable guessing at others' states of mind isn't very constructive. Focusing on one's impression of a speaker often makes it harder to parse their speech.
I was just watching this recording of a debate from 1965: https://vimeo.com/18413741 and James Baldwin's speech (starts around 14:30) on the different realities that a white and black person inhabit, and I think it's a good illustration of the issue.
Not for lack of good intention, one person's idea of the reality of the problem is often different from another's, so no wonder these two people might have trouble understanding each other.
Separately from that, I see a particular troubling pattern practiced most commonly by the people who believe in specific causes so ardently that you have to walk on eggshells: when you disagree with them, they attribute the worst possible intent to your disagreement, rather than seeing an opportunity to engage.
Scott Adams have been talking a lot about it lately. I'm wondering how much his influence has grow. It seems a lot. A truly master persuader.
I recognize that this could seem like an attack, but I'm really not calling the author racist. What I want is to know, how can we have greater agreement that racism is bad, and more diversity of expression about racism, at the same time? It seems contradictory.
It's probably the same for religion. Use thought experiments rather than talking about things directly which could hurt someone who is not prepared to have an open discussion.
If they won't rationally debate you, sinking to their level and shouting them down / using underhanded means to "win" just puts you on their level and gains sympathy for the other side & hurts your reputation.
Unfortunately, I think that's the main issue that the author is getting at; it's gotten to the point where I can barely tell the far left from the far right anymore in terms of how irrational and sometimes violent they are. It's slogans, it's shouting down, it's even threats or actual violence.
When you disregard civility and resort to those tactics, it's tribalism.
So, how can people argue that bigotry is unacceptable and wrong without making it harder for bigots to speak up?
I've got a better question: in what way is making it dangerous ("uncomfortable" is an underhanded euphemism) to express certain views advancing the "fight" against them? It's really an attack on "those [other] people", and not at all on their beliefs: since ideas can't be physically and verbally attacked and abused, if abuse happens (it does), it can only be directed at people. In fact the liberal elite has largely abandoned the "fight against racism". It's entirely likely that a legitimate treatment of the subject, an "Against Racism", would be attacked (or rather, its author would be attacked) as "normalizing" racism. I'm entirely serious: I have observed claims by everyday liberal elites in their safe spaces (e.g., HN, reddit) that it's not acceptable to explain why certain views are bad because doing so normalizes them.
Because the inconvenient truth of liberty is that authoritarianism gets results fast and delivers "solid" security. So in theory, it shouldn't matter how racist someone is, or how much they disagree with the current government/religion, or whatever; our ability to hurt or kill them should override that need for self-actualization.
And it works. If you are (or feel- being implies feeling) in danger, it's much less work to trust another individual if you already know they share the same values as you; and a community that has very rigid standards helps suppress the values they don't share with you. You can see this work in poor countries; extremist groups and local communities in general aren't attractive without their moral strictures (religion is usually the tool for this task).
The downside, of course, is that authoritarianism by its nature fails far more violently when enough of the people under it gain the power to disrupt it; and since oppression breeds resentment they tend to be very angry and negatively affect a large cross-section of that society. Liberty doesn't fail like that and allows for a far more flexible society, but it also takes longer to work and depends on other forces to make that happen (usually for company profit, like if a business makes enough money on Sunday to pay a fine levied on businesses open that day).
So liberty is the long-term solution... but since authoritarianism is the short-term solution it's way more likely to be preferred by society. And you can't stop the human bug of desiring short-term gain unless you make that preference dangerous to express in which case we've come full-circle.
How would you recommend handling a situation like that? How would you work to stop a racist behavior, without making someone feel uncomfortable for doing it?
You could ask why they chose to use that word. Some people just aren't aware of racist connotations of certain words.
You could ask how they would feel if someone used a slur against a group that they were a member of.
If they were harming myself or a third party, I would leverage the remedies society makes available: the courts, the cops, etc. If not, and I were motivated, I would attempt rational debate about the matter, which can be started as simply as stating that [IMO] their words or actions are inappropriate (which is not what you were suggesting before). In the event that doesn't make a difference, I would simply walk away.
What I find shocking and disturbing is how intent you seem to be on harming someone just because you disagree with them. There are perfectly nonviolent racists out there who know how to mind their own business who I'd rather associate with than someone like you...
I don't understand this logic. To have greater agreement about something requires convincing people. If you forbid discussion of a topic, you have given up any chance of convincing anyone of anything; you've simply temporarily driven the other side underground.
It may look like you're making headway. But that's an illusion.
So, you're suggesting that we can argue that racism is bad without making racists feel judged for being racist? Please, explain to me how we can do that.
I think that sometimes people spend more time with retorts about telling you to "just google it" than just saying "I read this book and it's what helped shaped my opinion about this".
I used to do workshops on this that worked fairly well. I used a simple method, namely mutual active listening. Two people who are on opposite sides of an issue agree that one will talk for a while, say five minutes, and the other will only listen and say back to them what they think they are saying. Then they exchange roles and the previous talker becomes the new listener, and vice-versa, for five minutes, and then switch again, and so on until each person feels like he or she has expressed their main ideas and been accurately understood. This process doesn't lead to total agreement, but invariably it produces a lot more agreement than the two parties had before they started out, and also friendlier, more respectful relations.
So mutual active listening works, but the question is how you get people to agree to do it. I think the best sell is that most people, I think, feel misunderstood and misrepresented by people on the opposite side of various issues. I would tell them that the people on the opposite side also feel misunderstood and misrepresented by them, and the only way each side can come to feel accurately understood is if they both agree to do mutual listening with each other. I haven't tried this yet, but I think it would motivate a lot of people to try mutual active listening.
Edit: My comment was meant humorously, although I consider the main content of the article to be very thoughtful. And the above sentence, seemingly a soundbite from a right-wing talk show, has a nugget of truth in it: Once you stop debating the basic pillars of your society, you risk losing the defensive forces to protect them, e.g. against populism.
It also seems to me that the so called "pc police" feature more prominently in peoples imaginations than they do in their actual lives. Any time I've seen someone called out (in real life) for issues of cultural sensitivity, it has been in a respectful and reasonable fashion, even if the situation has warranted a much harsher response (and occasionally it has).
The situation online or in a college is a bit different, but at the end of the day I would consider it similar to talking to a stranger at a bar; if you talk some shit, expect to get shit talked. If you have a problem with that, you can go crying to the bouncer, but if they are at all good at their job, they will either nod and ignore you, or kick you out if you are out of line.
I realize the analogy is a bit crude, but as other commenters have pointed out, most of these so called "pc police" are just trying to correct centuries of systemic racism, sexism, etc. by having a reasonable discussion. If they are a bit shrill sometimes, just be thankful that they aren't using the same tactics that were once used to keep them from speaking out.
You: The situation online or in a college is a bit different, but at the end of the day I would consider it similar to talking to a stranger at a bar; if you talk some shit, expect to get shit talked. If you have a problem with that, you can go crying to the bouncer, but if they are at all good at their job, they will either nod and ignore you, or kick you out if you are out of line.
Him: A clarification, before I continue (since deliberate misconstrual is itself a tactic of the phenomenon in question). By political correctness, I do not mean the term as it has come to be employed on the right—that is, the expectation of adherence to the norms of basic decency, like refraining from derogatory epithets. I mean its older, intramural denotation: the persistent attempt to suppress the expression of unwelcome beliefs and ideas.
See? He made a point of defining political correctness in the second(!) paragraph, but it didn't stop you from arguing with your own definition. He even anticipated you would use a different definition.
You: I realize the analogy is a bit crude, but as other commenters have pointed out, most of these so called "pc police" are just trying to correct centuries of systemic racism, sexism, etc. by having a reasonable discussion. If they are a bit shrill sometimes, just be thankful that they aren't using the same tactics that were once used to keep them from speaking out.
Him: Let me be clear. I recognize that both the culture of political correctness and the recent forms of campus agitation are responding to enormous, intractable national problems. There is systemic racism and individual bigotry in the United States, and colleges are not immune from either. There is systemic sexism and sexual assault in society at large, and campuses are no exception. The call for safe spaces and trigger warnings, the desire to eliminate micro-aggressions, the demand for the removal of offensive symbols and the suppression of offensive language: however foolish some of these might be as policy prescriptions (especially the first two), however absurd as they work themselves out on the ground, all originate in deeply legitimate concerns.
See? He made a point to answer people that think political correctness is just fighting systematic bias, but you just zoomed right past it. He criticizes the methods used to fight systematic bias, not fighting systematic bias itself.
How can any conversation on serious topics be worth having if people refuse to listen and respond? Nothing good can come of dumping the same preconceptions into the other persons eyes and ears.
I'd also like to point out that the definition of political correctness, as it's used colloquially, doesn't change just because you say it does. I also don't think that using the term political correctness in the sense that practically everyone understands it constitutes a deliberate misconstrual. Also, to the authors point, I don't think the majority of commenters on the right (when did this become a discussion of partisan politics again?) are talking about "the expectation of adherence to the norms of basic decency, like refraining from derogatory epithets" when they rail against political correctness. More often it seems they are railing against the perceived suppression of their unwelcome beliefs and ideas. Hence my comment to the effect of "don't dish it out if you can't take it."
As for the second passage you copy/pasted, I don't see how that disagrees with what I said.
Of course many of the policies enacted on campuses are what you might call penny smart, pound foolish, but that doesn't mean that the intention is bad, or that we should not even try. It's unfortunate that many of these policies are seen to have a chilling effect on campuses, but I don't feel that asking college students to think before speaking is unreasonable, especially if the net benefit is reducing bigotry, racism, and prejudice. Perhaps these methods are not the most effective, but I don't exactly see the author offering up any better solutions. He seems content to complain about the dozen or so people he's met that were made to feel uncomfortable by these policies, while ignoring the many generations of people who have suffered far worse.
Also, since you seem to have read the article more thoroughly than I, what do you make of the authors closing statement, where he says,
When we talk about political correctness and its many florid manifestations, so much in the news of late, we are talking not only about racial injustice and other forms of systemic oppression, or about the coddling of privileged youth, though both are certainly at play. We are also talking, or rather not talking, about the pathologies of the American class system. And those are also what we need to deal with.
Seems a bit convoluted to me. Is he arguing that we should ignore addressing racism in favor of some sort of attack on the American class system or what?
The banh mi thing was one example out of a dozen paragraphs of examples. It is relevant, but focusing solely on it is missing the forest for the trees. It's cherry picking.
I'd also like to point out that the definition of political correctness, as it's used colloquially, doesn't change just because you say it does. I also don't think that using the term political correctness in the sense that practically everyone understands it constitutes a deliberate misconstrual. Also, to the authors point, I don't think the majority of commenters on the right (when did this become a discussion of partisan politics again?) are talking about "the expectation of adherence to the norms of basic decency, like refraining from derogatory epithets" when they rail against political correctness. More often it seems they are railing against the perceived suppression of their unwelcome beliefs and ideas. Hence my comment to the effect of "don't dish it out if you can't take it."
The term "political correctness" is nebulous. He defined the term because he wanted to clarify what he was talking about. If you read what he wrote using different definitions than he gave, then you're not really being fair to him. You have to accept some premises to understand what he's saying. But if he was defending one definition and claiming to use another, you could call him out on it. For instance, if he was defending your colloquial definition, but pretending to use his definition, then you could say he's being disingenuous, but that doesn't seem to be what you're arguing and I don't think he's mixing definitions either.
As for the second passage you copy/pasted, I don't see how that disagrees with what I said.
He thinks current methods do more damage than aid. He also thinks they're motivated by selfishness. When you read my response to your next point you'll have a better understanding of why he thinks this.
Also, since you seem to have read the article more thoroughly than I, what do you make of the authors closing statement, where he says,
His article is about two religions. The first religion is the political correctness religion. The second religion is meritocracy. He attempts to relate the two. He says that the elite use the religion of meritocracy as an excuse to further their own gain and political correctness as a religion to place themselves outside of their own system. Professors and college students benefit from systematic bias the most, but they use political correctness to feel morally superior by focusing on problems that don't threaten their life style. It's easy to take responsibility for bias. It's hard to take responsibility for poverty.
Along the same lines, the idea that their is some sort of over-arching "liberal elite" belief system that colleges slavishly adhere to is laughable, or it would be, if folks like the author of this piece didn't take it serious. While professors in any given discipline often share a number of "beliefs", colloquially known as "facts", if you get a few of them together in a casual setting, they'll more often than not take to arguing about the finer points of their field. In fact, this sort of behavior is often encouraged, in both casual and professional settings. That's why grad students write and defend a thesis.
I also think that accusing professors and students of using political correctness as a tool to further their own aims and to preserve their entrenched power is assuming quite a lot about the actions and motivations of a huge swath of people.
I didn't say political correctness was a nebulous concept, I said it was a nebulous term. The issue isn't vague concepts; the issue is that it's hard to tell what concept we are talking about. Lots of words have to be defined. If you're reading something about art you better hope there's a definition for the term "art" toward the front. The same is true for terms like "political correctness", "liberal", "conservative", and "culture". Defining vague terms before using them is very common. This should not be so hard to understand. For an extreme case, look at Guy Steele's speech, "Growing a Language".[0] He defines every word longer than a certain length.
Along the same lines, the idea that their is some sort of over-arching "liberal elite" belief system that colleges slavishly adhere to is laughable, or it would be, if folks like the author of this piece didn't take it serious. While professors in any given discipline often share a number of "beliefs", colloquially known as "facts", if you get a few of them together in a casual setting, they'll more often than not take to arguing about the finer points of their field. In fact, this sort of behavior is often encouraged, in both casual and professional settings. That's why grad students write and defend a thesis. I also think that accusing professors and students of using political correctness as a tool to further their own aims and to preserve their entrenched power is assuming quite a lot about the actions and motivations of a huge swath of people.
Rather than argue with my summary of someone else's writings and your own second hand perception of him, why don't you read his work and argue against his own points? Did it occur to you that evidence and responses to your very replies might be inside the text or do you just not care to find them?
Actually, don't even bother. I've been telling you to read the article since my first post and you obviously still haven't. There is no worth while discussion happening here. Turn off the computer. Read a book. Practice listening to someone else for a few hundred pages. Then maybe you can handle ten.
[0] https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/steele.pdf