Americans Strongly Dislike PC Culture

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/large-majorities-dislike-political-correctness/572581/?single_page=true

by johnny313 • 8 years ago

77 49 8 years ago

theatlantic.com

charlesism• 8 years ago

The author is Yascha Mounk. I've listened to his podcast for a while: https://player.fm/series/the-good-fight-1528359 It's really good.

malvosenior• 8 years ago

Compared with the rest of the (nationally representative) polling sample, progressive activists are much more likely to be rich, highly educated—and white. They are nearly twice as likely as the average to make more than $100,000 a year. They are nearly three times as likely to have a postgraduate degree. And while 12 percent of the overall sample in the study is African American, only 3 percent of progressive activists are. With the exception of the small tribe of devoted conservatives, progressive activists are the most racially homogeneous group in the country.

This is one of the problems I have with the modern progressive movement. All of the most privileged people I know are also the only people I know who constantly complain about privilege.

It definitely comes off as upper middle class in-group signaling and more than a little grating. Especially when the unrelenting target of said complaining are practitioners of STEM.

growlist3• 8 years ago

Indeed. I'll start 'checking my privilege' once I see some evidence I've benefited from that, as opposed to risk taking and thousands of hours of hard work.

bfuller• 8 years ago

as opposed to risk taking and thousands of hours of hard work.

one might say it is a privilege to get to do those things.

romwell2• 8 years ago

Oh really?

The whole point is that people who don't have your privileges can't afford to take as many risks, the same hard work has a smaller payoff, and the cost of a mistake is higher.

Privilege doesn't mean getting where you got was easy. It means that for those that don't have it, it's way, way, way harder to get to the same place.

rdtsc• 8 years ago

It definitely comes off as upper middle class in-group signaling and more than a little grating.

I have noticed this as well at work, in the extended family, when I was at school and other places.

At one level I think it is because the overt display of privilege, wealth and power like it was before is not sophisticated enough, so it moved to this inverted display of humility or some deep concern for some marginalized class. I'd like to believe it is real but I suspect quite often it is just to one-up someone else in the social status game. Anyone notice this? Someone at a gathering, or online, mentions they support some marginalized group. Right after someone else chimes in with "Oh but I support an even more persecuted group, my group is more worthy than yours because...<reasons follow>". After a few rounds a winner emerges.

erikpukinskis6• 8 years ago

“Americans strongly dislike [term which is demonized constantly]”

... you don’t say.

Ask them if they like people using words like fa---- and ni---- and b---- in the workplace.

If the majority of people say they wish they could use those words then by all means write an article to tell us about it.

All this “study” tells us is that people react as trained to a highly manipulated term.

It’s like all the people who say they’re not a feminist but they think women should be paid the same for the same work and rapists should be prosecuted.

“I’m for those things, but I’m against the banner under which they would be naturally advocated for, because I associate that banner with shitty people for some reason.”

All you have to do to hobble a movement is associate its name with some garbage.

aestetix• 8 years ago

The question is not whether you use the word in the workplace. The question is whether, if you have used one of those words anywhere, ever, should your life be destroyed?

erikpukinskis6• 8 years ago

Do you have an example of someone who used words like that outside the workplace and had their life destroyed?

legostormtroopr• 8 years ago

"Excuse me Erik, but "hobble" is an ableist term, its problematic and offensive and you should apologise now. If you don't apologise we will harass your employer for employing an obvious bigot."

That's the kind of Political Correctness people are reacting to is the Richelieu-esque "give me six lines and I'll find something to be offended by" behaviour that is all to common now days.

tonyedgecombe• 8 years ago

That's also the kind of political correctness that isn't very common at all. There is always a small slither of truth in the claims but they are amplified many times to achieve the ends.

erikpukinskis6• 8 years ago

Straw man

paulddraper6• 8 years ago

It’s like all the people who say they’re not a feminist but they think women should be paid the same for the same work and rapists should be prosecuted.
“I’m for those things, but I’m against the banner under which they would be naturally advocated for, because I associate that banner with shitty people for some reason.”

That's an excellent example, actually.

"For some reason"....there are many waves of feminism over the course of over a century, and many variations within those.

There's everything from "Women should be able to own property." to "The proportion of men must be reduced to and maintained at approximately 10% of the human race." [1]

Don't think that "feminism" or "political correctness" or "liberal" or "conservative" have some universal, timeless meaning.

---

The article discusses whether people think the US, right now, is too far to the politically correct side of the spectrum of social communication.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally_Miller_Gearhart

PinkMilkshake2• 8 years ago

It’s like all the people who say they’re not a feminist but they think women should be paid the same for the same work and rapists should be prosecuted.

Feminism is an odd example. Do you mean gender feminism, postmodern feminism, Marxist feminism, equity feminism, radical feminism, individualist feminism, black feminism, liberal feminism, etc?

You can't even say that the commonality among them is they "think women should be paid the same for the same work" because they don't even agree on what qualifies as a woman.

rapists should be prosecuted

Few (if any) are debating over whether or not rapists should be prosecuted. The current argument is over whether or not that should be done with or without due process.

izacus• 8 years ago

This is why feminism is an excellent example - the "PC culture" in the article has similar very wide meaning for each individual.

yourbandsucks2• 8 years ago

Alternatively, it's really easy to hobble a movement by having its most visible and enthusiastic proponents actually be total garbage.

I'm a lifelong liberal and I cannot STAND the social justice people. They're the #2 objection I hear when I canvas voters (which the social justice people never seem to find time to do, I guess they're busy on twitter).

I used to claim these people didn't really exist in large numbers and were mostly a conservative media invention, but I've kinda lost the ability to do that in good faith. I try to hem and haw around it now.

pzone• 8 years ago

What's the #1 objection?

rasteau• 8 years ago

Ask them if they like people using words like fa---- and ni---- and b---- in the workplace.

Low hanging fruit. What about using "guys" when referring to a mixed gender collection of individuals, as in "thanks, guys"?

I have seen coworkers publicly shamed by using "guys" in that way. Too often, the negative responses were as if the speaker had said "thanks to the men here only, and not to the women". This, despite knowing that "guys" is colloquially gender neutral [0], and despite knowing that's precisely how the speaker was using it.

I find it troubling that when etymologically gendered words become gender neutral, some people choose to fight to keep those words gendered.

[0] To the point that it is used even when there are no men present.

paulddraper6• 8 years ago

Using masculine nouns/pronouns in the generic sense is a long-standing tradition in English: "man", "men", "he".

In fact, German (the primary origin of English grammar) uses "Mann" for "male person" and "man" for "you/one/a person".

Sadly, it seems English is unacceptable to a vocal part of the population.

I wonder if it is related English's general _lack_ of gender. In languages where everything has a "gender", people learn that grammar does not have to have a perfect match. German "Mädchen" ("girl") is neuter, and "Bikini" (loan word) is masculine, but those are simply odd parts of the language and everyone gets over it.

xkcd-sucks• 8 years ago

Passive voice is problematic. Who's doing the demonization and manipulation?

belorn2• 8 years ago

Would you say that diversity is a core value aspect of the PC culture that the article highlight.

Equality feminism focuses on the basic similarities between men and women, and promote the legal status as equal and undifferentiated for men and women. Activism here focused on reducing gender as a factor in how people treated each other and feminism often merged with humanism.

But then the 1980s and 1990s brought about a new focus in popular feminism on difference feminism, with focus on what they call the essential differences between men and women. In opposition to equality feminism, this view advocates for the celebration of differences, and diversity became a key value of the movement. Polarization also increased on this political area, and here I would insert a claim that there is a direct link of causation here.

I have seen plenty of people who say they are not feminist because they follow the views of equality feminism. They think women should be paid the same for the same work, that humans committing sexual violence should be prosecuted, but at the same time object when people are differentiated based on gender. Women shelter instead of shelters for abuse victims, "mens violence against women" laws instead of domestic crime laws, male/white privilege instead of social economical privilege, female hiring instead of unbiased hiring, and so on.

All you have to do to hobble a movement is associate its name with some garbage.

Or it could be that the movement changed and not everyone is happy about that.

erikpukinskis6• 8 years ago

I don’t think PC culture puts diversity at its core.

It is about demanding a work-focused language at work. And it values not triggering people’s traumas so that they can get their work done.

You’re maybe thinking of affirmative action?

scoom• 8 years ago

That's because Americans are a massive bunch of snowflakes offended at the mere thought of people having different views from them.

toomuchtodo• 8 years ago

My understanding is that the PC culture backlash is the intolerance of “snowflakes”, which I’d define as individuals who place the value of opinions over fact, are unable to entertain both sides of an argument at the same time, believe safe spaces and trigger words are more important than freedom of speech, or are unable to tolerate criticism or the expression of ideas drastically different than their own.

This is just scratching the surface without talking about the possible use of diversity and inclusion efforts as sanctioned discrimination.

happytoexplain2• 8 years ago

Your definition consists of one description that distinguishes "snowflakes" (safe spaces, etc), and three general, similar flaws that apply equally well to their counterparts within the "anti-PC" crowd. I think that's probably the (sarcastic) point the parent comment was making.

masterphilo• 8 years ago

Excellent!

Chazprime2• 8 years ago

I suspect the reason that most Americans don’t like political correctness is because even someone who isn’t highly educated or is politically disengaged knows a bad faith argument when they hear one. And If the people making these arguments don’t learn that using scorched-earth tactics in every situation isn’t the right way to engage with issues of injustice or inequality, I don’t see that changing anytime soon.

randyrand• 8 years ago

...and the main reason why Trump won.

Too bad it doesn’t seem like we’ve made much progress on PC culture ridiculousness since then.

happytoexplain2• 8 years ago

I'd argue (with no malice) that there's just as big a problem, if not a bigger problem, on the opposite end of the spectrum, where having any reaction at all to one's self or others being insulted, attacked, or mocked will draw hateful calls of "snowflake", "safe space", etc. Even the president mocks and insults individuals who haven't done anything to deserve it, which is a pretty dramatic problem. People might disagree on which side has the "bigger" problem, but they both do have big problems, and communication will always be absolutely impossible as long as those problem attitudes remain so common.

Latteland3• 8 years ago

I don't understand pc the way this article kinds of defines it, but what I experience is people making clear racist comments and then defending it by claiming I'm worried about being politically correct.

My (family member that I want to avoid exposing) is an Archie Bunker cliched conservative. When he gets mad he might throw out the N word. He tries to defend it some times by saying rappers use it in songs. I told him it's always offensive (we are white for what it matters). He might claim that this is just being politically correct. When he was a kid this person must have heard their parents use it.

Maybe I'm on the other side of the pc maginot line, but I think using that word is pretty much always wrong, I don't like it when it's music. I don't like similar words for Jewish people, or immigrants from certain countries or words to denigrate muslims. This feels very different than the "new word to judiciously refer to a group of people that I don't know about" that feels like a different kind of thing that is also attacked as PC (e.g., Latinx).

paulddraper6• 8 years ago

When he gets mad he might throw out the N word.
I told him it's always offensive

It is always offensive. Just like f--ker, s--thead, a--hole, etc. are always offensive.

Yet somehow, you rarely see a ruckus made over those.

Latteland3• 8 years ago

Okay, it's always been obvious to me that those words are unacceptable, but I am trying to be open minded for other people's ideas in the discussion of pc culture. Maybe there's another view?

Americans Strongly Dislike PC Culture

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