Is Political Correctness Anti-Liberal

[Powerboy]

Interesting article here

https://medium.com/s/liberal-illiber...s-acf33f1cdc2d

It's not defending anything like racial slurs but more PC taken to trivialized levels or to a point where even facts are not allowed and things can be shut down without facts.

[The no face guy]

Interesting article here

https://medium.com/s/liberal-illiber...s-acf33f1cdc2d

It's not defending anything like racial slurs but more PC taken to trivialized levels or to a point where even facts are not allowed and things can be shut down without facts.

I suppose it depends on how you define liberal. Political correctness "ie identity politics" is rooted in the philosophies of Western & American Marxism as well French Postmodernism. (At least on the left)
Virtually all the prominent scholars who came out of the counterculture of the 60's had affiliations with Marxist/socialist, or radical feminist groups of the time. Doesn't make them evil, but it does mean that their philosophy is probably epistemologically flawed.

Marxist philosophy does tend to have a lot inadvertent authoritarian bends, one of the most famous of course is Herbert Marcuse's Repressive Tolerance essay. A lot of scholars have theorized this is because Marxism embraces utopian visions of society, and therefore it leads to repression as they try to control natural human impulses (Whether it be abolishing private property or today's brand of trying to ban someone speaking)

Identity politics has a dark right wing version to, which has currently hijacked the Republican Party, historically it has taken the form of xenophobic laws like, "The Chinese Exclusion Act" and racially motivated psuedo scientific theories. This is very authoritarian as well.

The two feed off each other in my mind.

[Crazy Diamond]

I suppose it depends on how you define liberal. Political correctness "ie identity politics" is rooted in the philosophies of Western & American Marxism as well French Postmodernism. (At least on the left)
Virtually all the prominent scholars who came out of the counterculture of the 60's had affiliations with Marxist/socialist, or radical feminist groups of the time. Doesn't make them evil, but it does mean that their philosophy is probably epistemologically flawed.

Marxist philosophy does tend to have a lot inadvertent authoritarian bends, one of the most famous of course is Herbert Marcuse's Repressive Tolerance essay. A lot of scholars have theorized this is because Marxism embraces utopian visions of society, and therefore it leads to repression as they try to control natural human impulses (Whether it be abolishing private property or today's brand of trying to ban someone speaking)

Identity politics has a dark right wing version to, which has currently hijacked the Republican Party, historically it has taken the form of xenophobic laws like, "The Chinese Exclusion Act" and racially motivated psuedo scientific theories. This is very authoritarian as well.

The two feed off each other in my mind.

Who tries to ban people from speaking more than right-wingers? Look at what happens if you burn a flag, come out against the military, or say **** the Police.

As far as utopian visions and Marx goes, this quote says it all:

“Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence.”

[The no face guy]

Who tries to ban people from speaking more than right-wingers? Look at what happens if you burn a flag, come out against the military, or say **** the Police.

As far as utopian visions and Marx goes, this quote says it all:

Well this is true to, particularly during the second Iraq war, and going back to when the FBI wrote a letter to N.W.A.s record label, though I do not believe they ever tried to ban the record? Feel free to correct me if I am wrong, though intimidation tactics by the police were used, particularly in Michigan.

But I was responding to a philosophical inquiry, not providing a partisan pomp pomp cheering I'm on the left or right answer. You Americans treat politics like sports teams, its rather off putting.

[Crazy Diamond]

Well this is true to, particularly during the second Iraq war, and going back to when the FBI wrote a letter to N.W.A.s record label, though I do not believe they ever tried to ban the record? Feel free to correct me if I am wrong, though intimidation tactics by the police were used, particularly in Michigan.

But I was responding to a philosophical inquiry, not providing a partisan pomp pomp cheering I'm on the left or right answer. You Americans treat politics like sports teams, its rather off putting.

I don't care about philosophy. A bunch of people thinking they can impose their ideas on the world has no interest to me.

When I mentioned **** the Police I meant the statement not the song. The very people who claim censorship routinely call for the firing and banning of viewpoints they find offensive. Those were just some I used as examples.

As far as the left-wing and right-wing go they are the two sides of one face and that face is capital. When you have no stake in what's going on its easy to be "oh i'm not being partisan" but when you're having to deal with the **** first hand its not so abstract.

[Adam Allen]

Personally, I think "political correctness" and "identity politics" are both just ways to use coded language to minimize the political concerns of anyone not in the majority.

If it's something of concern primarily to just men, to just white people, to just straight people, for that matter just Christian people -- we don't call those concerns "identity politics". For that matter, even Nationalism -- when politicians talk about "protecting American jobs" or bringing jobs back to America or whatever -- we don't consider that identity politics or political correctness, but if we're talking about immigration or even international concerns or foreign diplomacy, then yeah, concern for those things might be reduced to "political correctness".

[The no face guy]

I don't care about philosophy. A bunch of people thinking they can impose their ideas on the world has no interest to me.

When I mentioned **** the Police I meant the statement not the song. The very people who claim censorship routinely call for the firing and banning of viewpoints they find offensive. Those were just some I used as examples.

As far as the left-wing and right-wing go they are the two sides of one face and that face is capital. When you have no stake in what's going on its easy to be "oh i'm not being partisan" but when you're having to deal with the **** first hand its not so abstract.

I like reading political philosophy and discussing it's history in a non partisan manner. I do however think that Marxism is epistemologically flawed, but I have no desire to engage in a long debate as to why, so if that's your gig, well...to each their own, take care.

[Jack Dracula]

Personally, I think "political correctness" and "identity politics" are both just ways to use coded language to minimize the political concerns of anyone not in the majority.

If it's something of concern primarily to just men, to just white people, to just straight people, for that matter just Christian people -- we don't call those concerns "identity politics". For that matter, even Nationalism -- when politicians talk about "protecting American jobs" or bringing jobs back to America or whatever -- we don't consider that identity politics or political correctness, but if we're talking about immigration or even international concerns or foreign diplomacy, then yeah, concern for those things might be reduced to "political correctness".

Don't some political concerns deserve to be minimized? Before social media, certain bigoted or racist ideas couldn't gain much traction due to the factors of geographic distance, and the costs entailed in printing and physically disseminating information. Now, a hundred thousand minds can be poisoned with hate or maliciously disinformed in a matter of hours with no more than a tweet or youtube video. An electorate can only be relied on to vote responsibly if it's given correct, truthful, unbiased information. Social media has rendered effectively impossible.

[BeastieRunner]

Who tries to ban people from speaking more than right-wingers? Look at what happens if you burn a flag, come out against the military, or say **** the Police.

As far as utopian visions and Marx goes, this quote says it all:

The old axiom was "Conservatives want to control what you do, liberals want to control what you say."

Did that suddenly change? I have only seen conservatives really push on control what people do (abortion, rescricting voting, etc.) Versus liberals who want to control what people say (parental advisory, safe spaces, etc).

[Jackalope89]

I hate the "being PC is limiting freedom!" kind of talk.

Personally, I just try not to be a total a-hole about other people (barring when it comes to the likes of Trump and what not).

[Powerboy]

The old axiom was "Conservatives want to control what you do, liberals want to control what you say."

Did that suddenly change? I have only seen conservatives really push on control what people do (abortion, rescricting voting, etc.) Versus liberals who want to control what people say (parental advisory, safe spaces, etc).

Hmm, I guess we'll never know why the no face guy got banned.

But, in going over the article I posted and several others, most of which were by liberals, the impression I get is that it's also the age old story of trivializing things. In other words, attaching things to PC that most would perceive as a trivial or even non-factual application of PC.

An example in the article was hundreds of college students protesting that a pro-choice group referred to "women" as the victims of so-called pro-life. People who can get pregnant and denied an abortion would be women. The PC argument was that there are women who self-identify as men even though they are capable of getting pregnant and that saying "women" excludes them because they self-identify as men although they are still biologically capable of getting pregnant.

Mixed feelings. On the one hand, I want to do everything I can to support trans people. On the other hand, another part of me is thinking, "Oh, Jiminy H. Christmas. Give me a fragging break. How far can you go in actively looking for something to be offended by in every little thing?"

Another example in the article was someone quoting a famous Feminist of the Suffrage era who said, "I'd rather be a rebel than a slave". Of course, someone managed to translate that as "It's better to be a white woman than a black man or woman". Next thing, there were hundreds of students protesting and people getting fired.

I do note that most of these examples are from college campuses and extreme examples. But I think that when the average liberal speaks of PC in a negative way, this is the sort of thing they are thinking of.

[Adam Allen]

Don't some political concerns deserve to be minimized? Before social media, certain bigoted or racist ideas couldn't gain much traction due to the factors of geographic distance, and the costs entailed in printing and physically disseminating information. Now, a hundred thousand minds can be poisoned with hate or maliciously disinformed in a matter of hours with no more than a tweet or youtube video. An electorate can only be relied on to vote responsibly if it's given correct, truthful, unbiased information. Social media has rendered effectively impossible.

I don't know. I mean, I don't really spend a lot of time on social media, but I'm hesitant to really buy that it's created something in people that wasn't already there. To be clear, it's not that I would dismiss how the technology has changed the way we communicate, because it definitely has ... I guess I just mean, I think Donald Trump was no less a horrible person in the 1990s, before social media, than he is now... and, while he is using Twitter to get his harmful messaging out there, Rush Limbaugh was unfortunately reaching people all over the country through radio, back then.

And I hear you on wishing voters were all rational people acting on objectively factual information ... but, I also doubt that's ever been the case, not just before social media, but before tv, radio ... I don't know, I imagine many of the people making decisions were probably biased and none too bright, even before print media was really widespread.

But yeah, I guess if it were up to me, I'd rather spend time trying to understand why we shouldn't necessarily assume everyone with a uterus wants to be called a woman, than trying to address why a wall across the entire southern border is a dumb idea. Like, all those examples of college students over-reacting about stuff, or whatever ... I kind of imagine it's easy to take some things out of context and make them seem an over-reaction, compared to how it might seem to you, if you were there. Of course, sometimes people really do over-react. It's still probably easier to resolve the issue if you don't immediately dismiss their concern ... the thing I've found, about the more racist, sexist, bigoted and xenophobic kinds of concerns? Well, ignoring them doesn't make them go away. If anything they fester. But then, addressing them directly doesn't work either, mainly because they are more emotional than rational to begin with. Guess I'm saying, I've yet to become aware of any way to reliably deal with that kind of stuff.

[Crazy Diamond]

The old axiom was "Conservatives want to control what you do, liberals want to control what you say."

Did that suddenly change? I have only seen conservatives really push on control what people do (abortion, rescricting voting, etc.) Versus liberals who want to control what people say (parental advisory, safe spaces, etc).

Thinking about ideology in terms of conservative (according to what?) and liberal (according to who?) ignores the content of what is being said and what is being done.

[Lightning Rider]

I suppose it depends on how you define liberal. Political correctness "ie identity politics" is rooted in the philosophies of Western & American Marxism as well French Postmodernism. (At least on the left)
Virtually all the prominent scholars who came out of the counterculture of the 60's had affiliations with Marxist/socialist, or radical feminist groups of the time. Doesn't make them evil, but it does mean that their philosophy is probably epistemologically flawed.

Marxist philosophy does tend to have a lot inadvertent authoritarian bends, one of the most famous of course is Herbert Marcuse's Repressive Tolerance essay. A lot of scholars have theorized this is because Marxism embraces utopian visions of society, and therefore it leads to repression as they try to control natural human impulses (Whether it be abolishing private property or today's brand of trying to ban someone speaking)

Identity politics has a dark right wing version to, which has currently hijacked the Republican Party, historically it has taken the form of xenophobic laws like, "The Chinese Exclusion Act" and racially motivated psuedo scientific theories. This is very authoritarian as well.

The two feed off each other in my mind.

Identity politics is almost entirely antithetical to Marxism. Post-modernism ushered in a cultural and academic break with longstanding Marxist traditions and replaced class politics with isolated cultural studies and representation/diversity discourse.

The idea that one's identity is more important than their class position would refute dialectical materialism and the entire conception of society that Marx lays out.

Identity politics is a tool weilded by neoliberals centrists and the Democratic Party establishment; it is in fact often used as a bludgeon against class-oriented progressives and socialists.

It's also seems to be your own conjecture, and not any tradition found within Marxism, to characterize private property as a "natural human impulse" akin to speaking one's mind. Captitalism as an intrinsic feature of humanity is ahistorical and not supported by Marxian thought.

Any link between the authoritarian nature of Marxist-Leninist states and neoliberal political correctness is fantasy.

[Scott Taylor]

Yah I'm not sure that the root of political correctness can be found in the Marxist experimentation of the radical left in the 1960s. I feel like a combination of the "come to Jesus" everyone seemed to have about John Lennon's "Marxism" which wasn't, combined with all the hippies growing up and embracing Capitalism pretty much killed that relationship.

To me the PC stuff is a progressive-leaning way to prevent word abuse. Words matter, no matter how you slice it. And they hurt. The old adage "sticks and stones can break my bones but words will never hurt me" is dead wrong. Words are used for control, used for brow-beating people, used for intimidation and almost always they cut deep.

That said, control of people's words through PC is still BS. We have hate speech laws specifically so that we can legally root out which words cause more harm than others and a legal framework for determining that. A bunch of Karens running around getting mad is a poor substitute for the peer review process inherent in democracy.