Does political correctness exist only to push an agenda? (Please read the OP)

[Deletedaccount1]

A blog post by economist Scott Sumner got me thinking about if political correctness is doomed to be a failed idea because it ultimately favors philosophical egalitarianism over what is scientifically true and provable.

Sumner criticizes a Vox.com article written by Kevin Gannon criticizing the UChicago anti-safe space letter sent out by the dean of students a few weeks ago.

Sumner quotes a particular section where Gannon defends a group of Virginia Tech students who protested a planned lecture by Charles Murray, libertarian political scientist who is noted for co-writing The Bell Curve. The book is controversial for pointing at IQ differences between races as a potential cause between racial differences in income and socioeconomic status.

Gannon's criticism:

Murray is a racist charlatan who’s made a career out of pseudoscientific social Darwinist assertions that certain "races" are inherently inferior to others. To bring him to campus is to tell segments of your student community that, according to the ideas the university is endorsing by inviting Murray, they don’t belong there. This isn’t a violation of academic freedom. It’s an upholding of scientific standards and the norms of educated discourse — you know, the type of stuff that colleges and universities are supposed to stand for, right?

What interests me is that Sumner made a right-wing version of Gannon's critcism going after Noam Chomsky instead of Charles Murray.

Sumner's parody:

Chomsky is a commie charlatan who's made a career out of apologizing for regimes that have murdered tens of millions of Cambodians, Vietnamese and Chinese. To bring him to campus is to tell (East Asian) segments of your student community that, according to the ideas the university is endorsing by inviting Chomsky, they don't belong there. This isn't a violation of academic freedom. It's an upholding of scientific standards and the norms of educated discourse -- you know, the type of stuff that colleges and universities are supposed to stand for, right?

While Sumner states he does not believe that to be true, he points out that what he wrote is something that will likely never be written in a news article or as a criticism because political correctness attacks are almost exclusively left-wing in nature. Even when they don't deserve to be.

Sumner's final point:

But unfortunately the PC proponents have not even reached the stage where their views can be taken seriously. I'm sure they don't care about my advice, but if there are any principled people in the PC community, I implore them to take the politics out of their ideology, and start objecting to offensive left wing speakers just as vigorously as they object to offensive right wing speakers. Only then can we start looking at the merits of their arguments.

Come back to me when you've cleaned up your act, and I might listen.

What are your thoughts?

[Kapadons]

People have been over looking their chosen candidates/side indiscretions for as long as I can remember. Asking for honest criticism of ones own party or ideology may be asking for too much.

Especially in the US where politics amounts to little more than hatred and disgust for someone simply because they have a D or R next to their name. Cross party animosity is at its worst at the moment.

[Daedius]

Yes, censorship and control [propaganda]... what Governments wouldn't want that?

[Deleted]

These days it seems to exist mainly to give the most morally corrupt people of the political spectrum excuses to muffle criticism towards their own shit ideology and personality. The shitter the person and his/her ideology, the more likely he/she's is a huge PC supporter attempting to hide behind made-up formalities.

[Deletedaccount1]

These days it seems to exist mainly to give the most morally corrupt people of the political spectrum excuses to muffle criticism towards their own shit ideology and personality. The shitter the person and his/her ideology, the more likely he/she's is a huge PC supporter attempting to hide behind made-up formalities.

I'm guessing you are referring to those on the left?

[Nadiru]

These people exist everywhere, the only thing which reveals them - or rather, makes them reveal themselves - is a shift in the cultural mood of the country. You don't hear much out of the Moral Majority these days, but those people didn't just vanish from the face of the Earth; instead, they were made to feel silenced in their own country, much as they made left-wingers feel silenced in their own country some 40 years ago. The rise of the "alt-right" is really just (aside from the 2010s version of Hackers on Steroids) the outcry of right-wing cultural ideologues after 30 years of social ostracism.

In my opinion, this outcry is not a death knell, but a rallying cry and the opening volleys of a new cultural war, one which won't be resolved until the 2030s.

[nextormento]

Sumner is very clear in his motives: Come back to me when you've cleaned up your act, and I might listen.
I'm not sure why anyone would care about him listening, but he appears to think highly of himself.
This is a power strategy like any other: place a barrier of entry (clean up the act) to access his fabulous ear, pretending that it matters in one swift go.

And he's broadbrushing quite a bit: People on the left don't see the political aspect of PCism
A great number of them do see it. And they unscrupulously use it. That is why it's a thing to begin with.



Gannon, on the other hand, is just an idiot:
the letter [...] relies on caricature
The document comes from a place, I imagine, where the true defenders of Academic Rigor™ man the parapets against the encroaching legions of namby-pamby liberals who want to coddle students instead of teach them.
He complains about caricature, and proposes a caricature instead.

according to the ideas the university is endorsing by inviting Murray, they don’t belong there.
He thinks that
-having speakers endorses the speakers, which is stupid. Or that
-having speakers endorses the idea of freepeach, which is trivially correct, and imbeciles that feel wronged about having that speaker don't belong there. Which is also stupid.

context and nuance matter greatly
He's writing a scathing piece, filled to the brim with caricatures, and purports himself as a beacon of nuanced virtue.
This is worthy of mockery, but it perfectly captures the essence of self-righteousness that perpetually accompanies power rhetoric.

The screed is a manifesto looking for an audience
This is a simple description of his own article.



PC is, indeed, about power and kingmakers. We all engage in these strategies. Some people are too embroiled in their own (un)importance; some are aware of it, some are not.
I personally grew up in a world in which PC was typically right-winged. The tables have turned. And they'll turn again.
In the meanwhile, PC keeps being excessive by definition. Debating its merits is a shifting tactic; a power tactic.

[zenkai]

A blog post by economist Scott Sumner got me thinking about if political correctness is doomed to be a failed idea because it ultimately favors philosophical egalitarianism over what is scientifically true and provable.

Sumner criticizes a Vox.com article written by Kevin Gannon criticizing the UChicago anti-safe space letter sent out by the dean of students a few weeks ago.

Sumner quotes a particular section where Gannon defends a group of Virginia Tech students who protested a planned lecture by Charles Murray, libertarian political scientist who is noted for co-writing The Bell Curve. The book is controversial for pointing at IQ differences between races as a potential cause between racial differences in income and socioeconomic status.

Gannon's criticism:



What interests me is that Sumner made a right-wing version of Gannon's critcism going after Noam Chomsky instead of Charles Murray.

Sumner's parody:


While Sumner states he does not believe that to be true, he points out that what he wrote is something that will likely never be written in a news article or as a criticism because political correctness attacks are almost exclusively left-wing in nature. Even when they don't deserve to be.

Sumner's final point:



What are your thoughts?

PC is about control, it's cry bullying. If you can't make someone agree with you, you try to shame them into submission.

[Blade Wolf]

I'm guessing you are referring to those on the left?

Before the left did it with PC crap the right did it with religious crap. Same shit different cover.

[Daelak]

A blog post by economist Scott Sumner got me thinking about if political correctness is doomed to be a failed idea because it ultimately favors philosophical egalitarianism over what is scientifically true and provable.

Sumner criticizes a Vox.com article written by Kevin Gannon criticizing the UChicago anti-safe space letter sent out by the dean of students a few weeks ago.

Sumner quotes a particular section where Gannon defends a group of Virginia Tech students who protested a planned lecture by Charles Murray, libertarian political scientist who is noted for co-writing The Bell Curve. The book is controversial for pointing at IQ differences between races as a potential cause between racial differences in income and socioeconomic status.

Gannon's criticism:



What interests me is that Sumner made a right-wing version of Gannon's critcism going after Noam Chomsky instead of Charles Murray.

Sumner's parody:


While Sumner states he does not believe that to be true, he points out that what he wrote is something that will likely never be written in a news article or as a criticism because political correctness attacks are almost exclusively left-wing in nature. Even when they don't deserve to be.

Sumner's final point:



What are your thoughts?

Sumner makes a false equivalence when he attempts at being clever when ad libbing Noam Chomsky and big conservative scarewords like communism. IQ results over the entirety of the one human species show no inferiority, which Charles Murray either knows but doesn't say because he would rather push white anglo saxon supremacy shtick by using a biased sample. Noam Chomsky doesn't do that, and Noam Chomsky deals with historical account made by the losers/victims around the world.

- - - Updated - - -

PC is about control, it's cry bullying. If you can't make someone agree with you, you try to shame them into submission.

Anti-PC people can't even tell you a non-pc time. It doesn't exist, human societal progress is a spectrum, and always moves forward and bends towards human rights.

[Deletedaccount1]

Sumner makes a false equivalence when he attempts at being clever when ad libbing Noam Chomsky and big conservative scarewords like communism. IQ results over the entirety of the one human species show no inferiority, which Charles Murray either knows but doesn't say because he would rather push white anglo saxon supremacy shtick by using a biased sample. Noam Chomsky doesn't do that, and Noam Chomsky deals with historical account made by the losers/victims around the world.

Sumner clearly states he doesn't agree with his parody of Chomsky, he just used it as an example of slandering an intellectual for not being politically correct like the Vox article author did with Murray.

Murray does not promote anglo saxon supremacy. He is very critical of white America and like Sumner states, he is taken seriously on both sides of the political spectrum just like Chomsky is.

Sumner's basic argument is that it is hard to take political correctness seriously when it is only used to attack politically incorrect right wingers like Murray but not politically incorrect leftists (examples he gives are Chomsky and Zizek).

[Daelak]

Sumner clearly states he doesn't agree with his parody of Chomsky, he just used it as an example of slandering an intellectual for not being politically correct like the Vox article author did with Murray.

Murray does not promote anglo saxon supremacy. He is very critical of white America and like Sumner states, he is taken seriously on both sides of the political spectrum just like Chomsky is.

Sumner's basic argument is that it is hard to take political correctness seriously when it is only used to attack politically incorrect right wingers like Murray but not politically incorrect leftists (examples he gives are Chomsky and Zizek).

But he doesn't show how Chomsky is politically incorrect.

[zenkai]

Sumner makes a false equivalence when he attempts at being clever when ad libbing Noam Chomsky and big conservative scarewords like communism. IQ results over the entirety of the one human species show no inferiority, which Charles Murray either knows but doesn't say because he would rather push white anglo saxon supremacy shtick by using a biased sample. Noam Chomsky doesn't do that, and Noam Chomsky deals with historical account made by the losers/victims around the world.

- - - Updated - - -



Anti-PC people can't even tell you a non-pc time. It doesn't exist, human societal progress is a spectrum, and always moves forward and bends towards human rights.

There is always a group of people who try to force some sort of PC, but the media, and social media loves controversy so they put the few on a pedestal to create issues out of non issues.

[Tzalix]

Of course it is doomed to fail. It is an attempt to force language. Language is a living, evolving thing that cannot be forced, one way or another.

[Deletedaccount1]

But he doesn't show how Chomsky is politically incorrect.

Sympathizing with socialist regimes for one and defending them. I just checked the blog post again and the word he uses is "offensive" not politically incorrect.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Anti-Chomsky_Reader

[bloodmoth13]

People have been over looking their chosen candidates/side indiscretions for as long as I can remember. Asking for honest criticism of ones own party or ideology may be asking for too much.

Especially in the US where politics amounts to little more than hatred and disgust for someone simply because they have a D or R next to their name. Cross party animosity is at its worst at the moment.

Thats a result of the 2 party system, you dont vote for who you like the most, you vote for whoever has the best chance of ensuring the worst candidate doesnt get in.

2 party democracy is hardly any democracy at all, especially when the mainstream media plays both sides, its pretty easy to get people to beg for an awful candidate when there are only 2 options -_-

[Azadina]

Before the left did it with PC crap the right does it with religious crap. Same shit different cover.

Fixed They've never actually stopped.

[Strangebrew]

Yes, feminism and any PC movement is no different from religious cults or far right-wing nutjob forcing their ideology and politics onto you.
You disagree with something? Better shame you into hiding, if that doesn't work? Harassment and doxing, potentially get you fired from your job which have happened to countless people by now, it just goes on.

These people love censorship, they are actively pushing for it, they hate freedom of speech and expression because it means dissenting opinions and they don't get to force industries(game industry for example) to oblige to their pathetic shit ideology.

Don't have to look further than the CON leaks to see that the very same feminists who has been working with Google, twitter and been up to UN to speak out against "cyber bullying" and harassment, have been in charge of harassing, doxing and working to destroy people's lives themself.
I'm sure the SJW's on this site will rush into this thread and claim we should stop caring about people on internet like usual, despite people getting harassed, bullied and getting their lifed ruined, outside of the internet, but that's expected from people who can't notice the tree log stuck into their eyeball.
Sommers have a few nice pieces on exactly some of these things.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/ch...ZJbPZE.twitter


As for a fun side note.

[primalmatter]

It clearly is...

[Blade Wolf]

Fixed They've never actually stopped.

except their power has dwindled so now it's the left turn.