Why I Hate Political Correctness

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Hi all. I want to discuss something.

I agree with the liberals on most issues, with a few exceptions. For example, I don't agree with gun control and I don't agree with political correctness.

Here's a True Story: When I was a teenager, I was bullied so hard that I was suicidal. I told my mom about it and she just told me to man up and solve my own problems. My mom seemed like a jerk at the time, but now I know that she was doing me a big favor. Because she never helped me, I had to find ways to free myself from emotional pain all by myself. Now I'm a man with thick skin who is almost never offended by anything. Mom always told me that being offended is a choice, and she was right. That's why I roll my eyes at political correctness. The phrase "I'm offended." is never a valid argument.

Here's the thing: Political correctness isn't just a progressive thing. Conservatives have their own version of political correctness. Let's compare them.

Left-wing Political Correctness
"Video games with jiggling boobies are offensive to women! BAWWWWWW!"
"Porn is degrading to women! BAWWWWW!"
"White people can't wear dreadlocks! That's cultural appropriation! BAWWWWWW!"
"Don't depict Muhammad! Muslims find that offensive! BAWWWWWW!"

Right-Wing Political Correctness
"Don't insult Jesus! BAWWWWWWW!"
"Don't insult America! BAWWWWWWW!"
"Don't insult Trump! BAWWWWWWW!"
"Don't insult the Confederacy! BAWWWWWWW!"

See? They're like mirror images of one another.

The whole world needs to stop choosing to be offended. Every day, I explore political discussions and I see people in the "Offended Olympics". In other words, people are constantly fighting over who is more offended.

Meanwhile, America currently has a crappy system even though the solution is blatantly obvious. According to the American legal system, lobbying is covered by free speech, even when it involves financial funding.

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._Federal_Election_Commission

Meanwhile, in Canada there are legal restrictions on lobbying. These restrictions aren't perfect and they cannot utterly prevent financial lobbying, but they are better than nothing.

This is why there is such a huge gulf between when the US government does and what the American people believe. This is why the American government keeps creating new wars even though most Americans hate war. This is why corporate subsidies continue in America even though they are extremely unpopular. This is why the Patriot Act persists despite its overwhelming unpopularity. This is why the American government continues to ally itself with the Saudi Royals even though most Americans think that the Saudi Royals are monsters.

In Canada, the gap between popular opinion and state policy is not as large. Anti-lobbying laws work. Canada is proof of that. Restrictions on lobbying have also benefited the EU.

See? I just pointed out a policy change that would solve a lot of real problems and save millions of lives. Unfortunately, most "political" people just want to argue over who is more offended.

As a result, Western culture is being torn apart by two clans of hyper-sensitive, easily-offended cultural critics. Meanwhile, the structure of the political system isn't changing, even though some of the changes that should be made are blatantly obvious.

Today everything seemingly being horrifically offensive has caused a number of problems.

Free expression of thought is under a threat that might be nearing existential levels.

The concepts of a spectrum of offensiveness and the context behind the so called offensive language has been practically lost.

What we have now is a backlash/over correction whereby the idea that some things should be offensive is being lost on some people. Trolling and saying actually offensive things in the name of political incorrectness and just to enjoy seeing people reacting to them by having tantrums is a large part of Trump's appeal and for the most part what the alt right is about.


Lobbies controlled the American government long before uber political incorrectness arrived.

I don't know where I stand on your assertions about how pervasive the impacts of lobbying are but our tribalism and 'muh feels' have definitely been out of hand for a long time. Bowing to 'muh feels' , especially when it's aimed against reason, is bad because it doesn't actually solve the problem - ie. as you found out we're anti-fragile in a lot of ways and the more a person's catered to on offense they don't get healthier. I do think we need to take serious stances against bullying because, like taking out the belt on children for misbehaving, it tends to instill a 'might makes right' ethic at very fundamental levels of a persons wiring which runs counter to what we want in our culture and it makes people bullheaded as well as often stunting potential in those bullied but your mom was right that - in the time when it happened to you - there was no societal solution in place and hence you had to deal with it in your own way.

As far as tribalism goes, OTOH, I consider Jonathan Haidt to be something of the go-to expert these days on the matter. In the video below he outlines a few particular causes that he considers to be the two primary issues - first Newt Gingrich sizing the congressional work week as such that Republican lawmakers fly in and out of DC rather than living with Democrat law makers on a social level in the DC area, and then on the other - which he's been talking about for more time - is the stilting of college departments in many topics toward increasing echo chamber status, by that token, increased toxicity toward difference of opinion.

The moral of that story I suppose - the less people have to actually ever meet people they disagree with the more they're able to draw them up as ghouls and goblins. I mentioned in another thread that on Facebook I see the political art caricatures almost seeming to reflect just how badly people are distorting the 'other' these days.

I agree for the most part, but I wouldn't exactly say they're mirror images of each other. While liberals can make mountains out of mole hills when it comes to what is and isn't racist, conservatives can be super stubborn about it and refuse to acknowledge anything short of a burning cross on a front lawn as racist. It's like the difference between denialists and alarmists for global warming.

The biggest problem is that terms like "racist" and "sexist" become catch-all and conflate mere ignorance with bigotry and malicious intent. I get all sorts of weird questions and comments as a racial minority, but I know there's a difference between being out of touch and being flat out passive-aggressive.

Although I embrace identity politics, I can understand why either side would find it annoying and I don't take it as far as some hardcore liberals. However, like you said about political correctness, identity politics is also something that both sides are guilty of. The alt-right is one of the guiltiest offenders with their white victim mentality. While I acknowledge that racial minorities suffer the most from racism and consider whites to be inherently out of touch with it, I'd much rather stick to the dictionary definition of racism than get into a circlejerk over who's more oppressed.

By the way, I found your view on lobbying in Canada and America to be very insightful and it certainly explains a lot about the rampant corruption in American politics.

@Darth: Delenda est indeed.

I'm American, and I was taught about lobbyists at my daddy's knee. And you are right. And it has almost certainly gone on for over two hundred years.

Darth, that's a good thing. I don't really agree with modern liberalism as you do, I am closer to classical liberal/conservative-ish. But my point is, by what you said, I find it a step more rational than other modern American liberals today. Also, PC can even turn out hurting certain demographics. As a matter of fact, I might be able to make the case that today's modern society and culture sometimes hurts AS people more than it would have some decades ago.

Political correctness is pretty dumb. I'm an anarchist feminist and pretty far left but, honestly, a lot of lefties need to grow thicker skins and learn not to take life so seriously. There are social issues that are super important to address, like the drug war and how it plays into systemic racism, corporations not being held accountable for unethical practices, or the real violence and prejudice transpeople face. Then there's just petty s**t like saying white people can't wear dreads or that cisgendered people can't use words like transgendered (The hypocrisy isn't lost on me.).

Also, I've had with identity politics and am tired of misandrists and TERFs shutting out the voices of vulnerable men and transpeople and making feminism look like a joke. I'm not an MRA or anything but I do believe that gender equality requires us to look at the unique ways ALL genders suffer in our society.

Then there's the almost inexistent wage gap. lol.

I could go on but I'd be rambling forever.

I'll always be a left-leaning person and think the conservative values are a steaming pile of BS but I've just gotten to the point where listening and believing people just because they're marginalized seems naive too. I like to form my own opinions.

I also want to talk about another thing that is closely tied to political correctness - pointless buzzwords.

Some liberals will justify their positions using pointless, flowery buzzwords such as "love", "tolerance", "diversity", "acceptance" ect.

Conservatives love to make fun of this, as they should ... but some people on the political right are also prone to using buzzwords such as "mob rule", "un-American", "unpatriotic" ect. Conservatives are also prone to throwing around the word "anarchy" as a pejorative even though most of them have never read about anarchist philosophy.

Addionally, I've noticed that fundamentalist Christian language is an eerie mirror of typical liberal language. Both liberals and fundamentalist Christians throw around the word "love" in a very creepy way to describe everything good, and will throw around the word "hate" to describe everything that they dislike. Addionally, liberals and fundies will both use the term "closed minded" as an insult excessively, in an utterly cringe-inducing way.

Additionally, fundamentalist Christian use of the word "faith" is just as meaningless as the liberal use of the word "tolerance". Additionally, typical liberal phrases like "Diversity is our strength." are just as hollow as typical fruity fundie phrases like "Hallelujah! Jesus is alive!" I'm saying all of this even though I self-identify as a liberal.

If liberalism is going to rise again after the Trump era, there needs to be some big changes within liberalism. The pointless, hippie-ish, fundie-ish, buzzwords need to be discarded in favor of concrete plans for policy changes. Additionally, the mushy love bullcrap needs to be discarded in favor of biting, ironic humor. We want to make people wake up, not make them queasy.

Overall, I think that modern political discourse over-emphasizes the importance of the culture war.

When I talk about the "culture war", I am talking about the cultural conflict with traditionalists, fundamentalists and reactionaries representing the right-wing side, while the atheists, feminists, LGBT+ activists and black power activists take the left-wing side.

The culture war does have a certain degree of importance, but it is easy to over-emphasize its importance in the grand scheme of things, especially in the United States. After all, America is only barely a democracy, for reasons I already discussed. As a result, the American culture war has a minimal effect on government policy. After all, most of the active participants in the culture war are in the middle class ... and the American middle class only has only a minimal effect on government policy.

That's why the modern SJW movement and the modern anti-SJW movement are equally pointless. We can argue all day long about what is and isn't okay in universities, but what does this ultimately amount to? They'll vote Democrat? Whatever. The Democrat leaders don't do anything except obey their corporate donors ... and these corporate donors are entirely driven by Nietzschean self-interest ... so it's all nothing.



That's why I talk about lobbying so much. Lobbying is an economic force which essentially renders our little middle-class political discussions moot.

Still think that a restriction on lobbying would lead to "mob rule"? Whatever. Enjoy living under plutocracy.

PC exists on both sides of the political spectrum, but I believe it exists in much smaller amount than you think it does. The moment there is a suggestion of it loads of people leap on it and that amplification suggests it exists to a greater degree than it really does.

My issue is that people and the useful idiots who follow them have successfully started a brigade by stereotyping all those who oppose political correctness as racists, bigots, or other terms. In the meantime, most people who "complain" about political correctness are frustrated because they get nearly stopped from discussing issues that are actually serious rather than abstract ideas or identity politics.

The right isn't as "evil" as the mass media wants people to believe. All they ever want to do is pit sides up against each other from a negative perspective.

8:07 - he's explaining all the ways that the purity tests no-platforming of contrary ideas are failing the causes their intended to support.

Boring or better? How to do comedy in an age of outrage