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Week 11 (15-21.12.14) Has political correctness gone mad?

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source: http://rashmanly.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/political_correctness_by_chazlene-d4d45jh.png

The meaning of the term "political correctness" that we know today came to mainstream usage in the 1990s mostly in the US and shortly after it appeared in the UK. However, the origin of this term reaches to the early-to-mid 20th century and it was used mainly by Communists and Socialists in political debates. Obviously, back then it had another meaning from what we are familiar with these days.

Modern political correctness

Nowadays political correctness is  rarely used correctly. Therefore, there are many cases  we can certainly describe as the ones that "crossed the line".
source: http://www.brucesallan.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/PC-at-Elementary-School.jpg 

In my opinion the good example of proper usage is replacing all kinds of physical disabilities with less offensive names. For instance the word blind is replaced with “visually impaired” and deaf with “hearing impaired”. To me this replacement seems very reasonable and it simply makes people affected by such disabilities feel less offended.
Another example, but this time about overdoing with political correctness, is encouraging people to use the word chalkboard instead of blackboard because it might sound racist. Maybe it is just me but personally I find such things very amusing. If you are interested, there are more this kind of funny examples at http://hereisthecity.com/en-gb/2011/10/07/11-cases-of-political-correctness-gone-mad/page/1/

Future?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77M2e3APoXk

Since the political correctness is not a very old phenomenon I guess it is probably going to change constantly. However, I am afraid it will go into even more ridiculous direction where It could become a serious threat to people's freedom. What do you think about this? Am I just overreacting or there is actually a grain of truth in it?

At the end I would to recommend this video, which I think most of you will find very funny :D







Sources:
http://listverse.com/2010/10/26/10-ridiculous-cases-of-political-correctness/
http://hereisthecity.com/en-gb/2011/10/07/11-cases-of-political-correctness-gone-mad/page/1/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/cherylsnappconner/2014/07/22/political-correctness-gone-rampant-use-these-3-communications-tips-to-survive/
http://smackins1974.hubpages.com/hub/Political-Correctness-gone-too-far
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_correctness

Comments

rf. said…
The video is really fun and it shows exactly what it needs - it's really not the problem of political correctness, because the ideas used in the video like patriarchy, racism or freedom of art are serious problems and shouldn't be considered lightly. It's people abusing the ideas or their freedoms, terrorizing the society, waving their banners high and manipulating others into following their private crusade. I'm not trying or demonize people fighting for what's right, but sometimes working for a good cause too hard may end up being no better than people we fight against. Is it all about moderation?
15 December 2014 at 07:51
Phuong Vo Viet aka Funt said…
I am really glad that you liked the video. Obviously, I agree with your opinion that problems like patriarchy, racism or freedom of art are serious. However, I still think that the problem presented in the video is more about overdoing the political correctness and losing the common sense. So as you said, it is indeed all about moderation.
15 December 2014 at 21:37
Unknown said…
I might add from my personal observation that in this video when the racism problem was introduced by an African American woman, in real life, most people "offended" by racist jokes are in fact white people. And i am not talking about some serious jokes that attacks any ethnic group, but harmless joke which doesn't even have to be based on stereotypical remarks.
16 December 2014 at 20:14
Unknown said…
I think that nowadays the political correctness is sometimes ridiculous, exactly like in your video. As RF said people abuse the meaning of freedom. They are obsessed with being free, equal and about not offending anyone. People create problems from nothing instead of solving really important and life-threatening issues like the lack of water, hunger or environment pollution. Maybe it is just me, but really sometimes I do not understand this obsession on political correctness.
16 December 2014 at 20:30
Phuong Vo Viet aka Funt said…
I assure you it is not just you. Sometimes I think that all these people who try to abuse the meaning of freedom simply do not have anything better to do. I guess their life must extremely boring or they have too much free time.
17 December 2014 at 21:31
Phuong Vo Viet aka Funt said…
Thank You Serj for sharing this information with us. I find it quite funny and I think that most of the people commenting here would agree with me.
17 December 2014 at 21:45
Unknown said…
I am happy that I am not the only one :) And also I absolutely agree with you. Sometimes these „freedom maniac” seem to have boring lives.
18 December 2014 at 21:16
MartaSB said…
I totally agree that sometimes political correctness can be ridiculous and looking for 'hidden racist meaning' in words like 'blackboard' is irratonal . What I can think of is that maybe this is the approach of pushing the line to the 'ultra politically correct" side because people will always bend the law and it is better to set the standards too high than to low?
19 December 2014 at 07:55
Unknown said…
Don't even get me started :D I think political correctness is related to violation of freedom of speech and censorship and it went way too far. I believe people should be entitled to their own sense of moral standards, and blocking them from enjoying their forms of entertainments or voicing their opinions, as long as they don't hurt anyone physically, is holding us back as human kind. Hey, it even blocks research!
19 December 2014 at 17:11
Phuong Vo Viet aka Funt said…
I understand the reason but I don't that setting the standards too high is good solution. In the end it could lead to a situation where the other side is oppressed by the first one, the political correct one.
19 December 2014 at 21:40
Unknown said…
I agree with you. As some of politically correct ideas are good (I think it's right to call poeple in a way they find not offensive), some are ridiculous - like this blackboard example.

Recently, developers of a popular web framwork called Django applied a patch to its source code (or documentation) so that all ocurences of well known Master/Slave term (which referred to relationship between data) were replaced by leader and follower :P
19 December 2014 at 22:46
Phuong Vo Viet aka Funt said…
Hahaha. Good one. By the way, I wonder why the terms 'blacklist' and 'whitelist' have not been renamed, for instance, in e-mail services, antivirus and firewalls?
19 December 2014 at 22:55
Unknown said…
I think people should have the right to say what they mean. The only way to live in free society is by giving evaryon a freedom of speech. I can understand being kind and respectful, but ,in my opinion, current situation is going too far. The biggest problem with political corretness is that it stops things from getting done. How people can solve problems, if they refuse to recognize them, beign too afraid to offend someone?
20 December 2014 at 20:34
Kamil Fijałkowski said…
Political correctness is often just the rules of good behaviors and manners. Unfortunately often lack these among people. Personally I don't offend at all, but I'm white and healthy (I hope), so maybe I can't feel exactly the problem.
21 December 2014 at 11:08
Robert Kilar s8359 said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
21 December 2014 at 15:28
Robert Kilar s8359 said…
From the link you have provided:

"[...]Why ? Because 'Ho Ho Ho' is too close to the American (not Australian, mind you) slang for prostitute.[...]" is my personal favourite, it might be fun to be a Santa in English spoken country.

Political correctness is one of the worst phenomenona present these days. The funny thing is that it led to the opposite racism by blacks. They can make jokes about white people now, brag with this "black-power", pride etc. and it's all fine. In the same time somebody's career may be broken if they said "Nigger" 30 years ago. Did you see Jeremy Clarkson apology for: "Eeny, meeny, miny, moe" how much scared he was?
21 December 2014 at 15:31
Robert Kilar s8359 said…
Setting standards too high will lead to constant violation of law. Image setting speed limit at 10 kph on public roads. Do you think anybody will obey the law then?
21 December 2014 at 16:11
Unknown said…
Funny video. I guess you are overreacting a little bit. In my opinion political correctness will change in the direction we still don't know much about.

I don't believe this fenomena will ever become a threat for people in general. It may for some, though.
21 December 2014 at 16:51
Unknown said…
I'd like to disagree a bit on a part where we should call other people with "less offending" terms like you said: deaf, mute, retarded, blind. When we try to sugar those definitions we are taking a pity on unfortunate one and to be honest, it feels like we not even consider them humans nor more. But, you'd say what about time when someone is offending other one which such terms, calling retard or deaf. Well, i think it doesn't stop stupid people to offend someone with “hearing impaired” or "mentally disabled". I think the original terms are doesn't mean to offend people, they are just straightforward. Problem is with us, and how with use it. And unfortunately human race is flawed, but we gotta work on it.
Also in case of race issue is i really don't know how to call what now is correct "african - american". Most cultures didn't have any slaves from africa, or not every descendant lives in america. I just have no idea how we can describe a person with other type of skin without bringing the word "Black".
21 December 2014 at 17:00
Unknown said…
I don’t think political correctness is a real threat for people’s freedom but sometimes it is a problem because problems should be identified and named accordingly to their weight. It is hard to tell what will happen in the future and I can’t predict the scale of this but for now I can say you are overreacting a bit :-)
21 December 2014 at 18:18
Sergio Cosentino said…
I believe that political correctness is completely abused in today's word. People are indeed paranoid about preventing everything from being offensive to anybody, and I mean ANYBODY. Fanaticism is never good, no matter what people are fanatic about, and in this case it may mean slowing the development of the world. People should remember that just because you should tolerate something it doesn’t mean you have to accept it and understand that you can't force everybody into liking everything and everyone.
21 December 2014 at 18:43
Phuong Vo Viet aka Funt said…
That is exactly what I wrote. Setting standards too high will make it impossible or at least very inconvenient to follow, therefore they would probably be useless.
21 December 2014 at 19:07
Phuong Vo Viet aka Funt said…
The problem is that sometimes when you really try not to offend anybody or follow the rules you still might offend somebody just because the rules are ridiculous and make no sense.
21 December 2014 at 19:11
Phuong Vo Viet aka Funt said…
Yes, you are absolutely right that so called "reverse racism" is a big problem. I think it is especially visible in the US, where you can get all kinds of benefits easier when you are African American.

Moreover, thank You very much for information about Jeremy Clarkson and his video. I haven't seen it before but I have just watched it. I find it quite funny how hard Jeremy tried to mumble during this counting rhyme :D
21 December 2014 at 19:22
Phuong Vo Viet aka Funt said…
Well written. That's why when political correctness goes too far all the problems you mentioned cannot be solved.
21 December 2014 at 19:25
Phuong Vo Viet aka Funt said…
I agree that right now it is tolerable and still not a great threat to people's freedom. As I wrote before I am worried more about the future.
21 December 2014 at 19:29
Phuong Vo Viet aka Funt said…
I just wanted to add that you simply defined the proper definition of tolerance. I mean, these days many people think that to tolerate somebody means to like/accept somebody no matter what, which is terribly wrong.
21 December 2014 at 19:34
Phuong Vo Viet aka Funt said…
You wrote that these original terms are just straightforward. I think that this might be the problem especially towards people who are handicapped. They probably must sometimes talk with somebody about their deceases, for instance, with doctors. I think that it is better when they do not hear the words "deaf", "blind" etc. too often.
21 December 2014 at 19:45
Unknown said…
I think that political correctness is not used in a right way in most cases and people are overinterpreting many things (like "blackboard" - good one!). It "threatens freedom of expression", as mentioned in this hilarious video (thanks for a good laugh!:D). In my opinion it all depends on the intentions and we are all intelligent enough to get them. However I think that replacing offensive names with more appropriate words is a nice and kind idea. But all these rules are getting somewhere weird (sometimes I wonder if saying race's name outloud is offensive or not) and soon enough we will need some guides on how to behave and how not to offend everybody in a hearing range.

I was talking to a friend recently and we both agreed that soon racism will be directed towards white people, as it is "politically incorrect" to call someone "black", but absolutely acceptable to call another person "white" with a fully disgusted tone of voice.

The other thing are neverending debates on what is politically correct and what is not. I don't even remember if there was or wasn't a cross on my classroom's wall, is it worth months and months' of discussions?
21 December 2014 at 20:43
Sylwia said…
I think that everything is fine in moderation. However recently people tend to forget about it. To me political corrects is going wrong way. We all overuse it. People shouldn't be so sensitive.
21 December 2014 at 21:41
Unknown said…
In nowadays political correctness really gone mad. Of course from one side it is the way to show that everyone is equal in liberal perspective and despite their religion, race, sex or status everyone should be treated and respected in the same way, thats why were made Human Rights and definition of human and personal dignity. While personal dignity is the thing that you have to earn and could loose in a moment, human dignity is the thing that you have since the moment you came in to this world and till the last seconds of your life, despite the fact what things you did and how you behaved. However, in the race for making tolerant society nowadays community became more agressive in censourship making society more soft and at the same time making some social groups more 'equal' then others. We all know that nowadays theirs actually modern phenomenon that could be named as reversed racism. Politicall correctness should exist, but it must not be the tool that will help some one achieve some benefits over the others.
21 December 2014 at 22:06
Phuong Vo Viet aka Funt said…
I am glad that you liked the video.
As for the problem of defining what is political correct and what is not, I think the best solution would be setting up a consortium where many companies, government etc. could debate on that matter. Just like how it is done with technology standards.
21 December 2014 at 22:41
Marcin Lyzwa said…
I have to agree with Krzysiek Kąkol. I think, the most important is to find a reasonable balance. On one hand too much "political correctness" can lead to the loss of freedom of speech but we shouldn't attack or insult other people.
21 December 2014 at 22:43
Michal Kulesza said…
They've changed it again to master/replica (https://code.djangoproject.com/ticket/22667) and there's big discussion on reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/26k5la/django_replaces_masterslave_terminology_with/

And I love one of the comments there:
This seems to imply that people are anthropomorphising code.
Slavery is bad because when refers to people in horrible conditions.
Equally, killing is bad because when refers to people. We don't care about killing processes. Nor should we care about enslaving blocks of code.
We don't get irked about discrimination between classes in switch statements. We don't mind voltage biases. We don't get angry about parents owning child processes. We don't, in general, struggle to distinguish a person from a block of code.
I'm not claiming that political correctness is unfair because I want to be racist. I'm complaining because the need to be nice to people should have no bearing on whether I should have to be nice to computers.
21 December 2014 at 23:11
Julia Osiak said…
I did enjoy the video that you posted and it's interesting how much it applies to today's world even though it's from 20 years ago. Similarly to some of the previous comments, I think that finding a sensible balance should be the key. When you try to be overly politically correct, it's possible to go too far and you will still be offending someone. This whole tendency is getting out of control in my opinion, and we can see some absolutely absurd scenes in real life that resemble the cartoon that you posted. Lets just use our common sense and a bit of intuition.
21 December 2014 at 23:29
Unknown said…

Political correctness is a disease. People are afraid to say what they think, because they could be seen as being rude or racist, etc. But because of it people are afraid to say what they really think, because they could easily get misunderstood.
Another thing is that many politicians try to be politically correct even if it would have bad consequences because then you have lesser chance to offend someone, so it's good for your PR.
So in the end people start to say different things in private that the would say in public.
21 December 2014 at 23:36
Mateusz Frycie said…
Haha... it's a great video. I do agree with most of U - racism, freedom of art and things like that are some serious problems. We need to find balance - not too hardcore not to sensitive.
21 December 2014 at 23:37
Anonymous said…
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KVN_0qvuhhw This is a good song partialy corresponding to the subject, give it a chance.
22 December 2014 at 00:53
Rafał Banach said…
I think this short move says everything about political correctness. For me, this is one of the most over-inflated twenty-first century issues against democracy and freedom of word.On the other hand sometimes it's even funny how some groups defend their rights hiding themselves behind that term.
22 December 2014 at 11:46
Asia said…

I totally agree that the political correctness today is being used wrong
because people use it nowadays to hide things that would harm their
own honor instead of deffending other people from offensive acts.
It became a weapon to change meanings of things, for example many times
people are being called a racists because they don't agree with other minorities
and you can go to jail because of it! And the worst thing - politics use
this brutal weapon to hide the truth and that's tragedy...
17 January 2015 at 17:41
Catherine said…
Political correctness.. It has gone a lot more mad than it was before. We can even see the results in recent events in France. I will never agree that in this circumstances we have freedom in the world. In my opinion everybody can say whatever they want, unless they wouldn't hurt anyone. And people should learn what is offensive and what is just expressing opinion. Nowadays I often get the impression that the main ability gained by people in the latest years is the ability of taking offense. I know that everyone is different, and each person feels differently but seriosly, it shouldn't be so crazy. I'm just curious how far those absurds will go.
19 January 2015 at 15:00
Unknown said…
Political correctness obviously applies only to certain groups of people, defined by race, religion or something else. In the USA for example, you can say a lot more and don't be punished for your statement if you're black, just google ''ferguson commentary'' and try to sit trough few brilliant comments of afro-american citizens. I couldn't. In Poland, if you're a catholic, you're going to have a bad time; in most cases your opinion will be prejuded as irrelevant and based on beliefs rather than facts.

I think political correctness is one of the biggest lies of 21st century. Why? Because we're correct only about certain groups when it's popular and demanded by society, as it was for Jews, then for black people, now it's time for muslims. We forget about equality in the process, and instead of actually helping anyone, we're only harming them even more with enforcing new and new laws for minorities, forgetting about majority and making it mad.
21 January 2015 at 22:34
Wdowiak Natalia said…
Ah, please, don't make me start talking about politicians, that topics raise my blood preassure. There may be some good people who really cares about people, but most of them is just not even worth words. Especially lately when political correctness gets really out of hand, some of their decisions are just simply wrong. Do they care about it? Well, as long as they have enough money for themselves I guess not.
19 January 2016 at 21:26
Unknown said…
Unfortunately, the abuse of 'political correctness' is very often seen in popular media sites, such as tumblr. You honestly cannot move two steps without being attacked for insulting somebody. Recently, a girl forbid a blogger from learning the spanish language, saying that it would be a 'culture theft' and therefor, insulting. Any film that dares not include a woman or a homosexual is seen as oppressing and the sheer ignorance is stupefying. Ironically, those who toss around terms like 'racist' or 'homophobe' are usually people to which these terms don't apply to. I see 'political correctness' as a extremely harming phenomenon, because people slowly starting to oppress each other with it. It's ridiculous and it should stop, preferably with the realisation that people will always be different and banning any type of vocabulary or reactions is tyranny.
19 January 2016 at 21:31
Unknown said…
Oh, politics is a very hot, irritable and controversial topic now. Our country has a new government and we have quite nice hodgepodge. Honestly I do not interest in politics much because I don't have health and nerves for it. This video is bull's-eye. Maybe it looks funny but it is terrible.
19 January 2016 at 23:45
Anonymous said…
It's essencial that I've read this article just now - in January 2016. In previous 2 years our world turned upside down - war in Ukraine, 1,2 milion imigrants in Europe and hateness rising up again. I have a dream that one day there will be no need for "political correctness". That we will be just nice to everyone. It's only a dream, I know...
19 January 2016 at 23:53
Unknown said…
I think that political correctness can offend people with disabilieties or other people when we use it in talks. They are not other and exectly this political correctness makes them different, but they are not. Why can't we say what we see?
17 January 2017 at 21:31
Unknown said…
Political corectness is good when you're trying not to hurt person with who you're talking. Of course also journalist should know how to use it but their try to bypass it. And it's good! Because if we have got freedom of speach and it's our work then we can write an article and highlight different sights.
Nowadays, lots of people are scared to say what they are thinking because another people can say that it's manifestation of racism or intolerance. That's the result of the blurring of boundaries - people love to arrguing and they are looking for the best time to start it.
21 January 2017 at 20:43
Unknown said…
Political correctness is kind of funny. I understand why it exists but sometimes it’s to strict and makes conversations unnatural, like when you say “watch your step” to person with lower part of body paralyzed and you start to apologize, you didn’t want to offend them etc. For some people it would be hard but of most them will just reply “I will” and smile. Political correctness can produce difficulties in everyday life. Often people who have same problem can laugh at it when other people are afraid it would be offensive.
21 January 2017 at 23:07
Unknown said…
I agree with the author of the post that nowadays political correctness is changing too radically. We are required to make statements that are inconsistent with our beliefs. I am not for offending other people and discriminating them on the grounds of religion, nationality, religion, views or appearance, but excessive concern for proper naming leads to even greater attention to such people. This causes that there are more racist or sexist behaviors. In my opinion, Poland is a very tolerant country and everyone can behave well in the presence of people who are different from the general public.
13 January 2018 at 00:54
Unknown said…
We need to keep balance - as in every area of our life. That’s true that some of these ideas are so ridiculous and even funny, but I believe a large part of them it’s really needed. I’ve e never been interested in this before, but this topic seems to be really interesting. Especially that people’ve different opinions in the comments, and the discussion shows different points of view. Thank you for raising this topic. This prompted me to thinking.
13 January 2018 at 01:12
Unknown said…
I think that political correctness in these times practically takes extreme forms. People cling to one word, make big scandals out of accidental wording that would not offend anyone. They proclaim freedom while forbidding it. I think that sometimes you have to name something by name, so that it will reach others in a clear and specific way.
17 January 2018 at 12:28
Unknown said…
I don't think that there is something wrong with the political correctness. It has only been created for the mutual respect between people and defends people from insulting. The fighting with political correctness is caused by a desire to restore xenophobia, sexism and homophobia to the political debate. I don't see any problems caused by the political correctness. All "scandals" force us to think about our language and the way we treat other people. We should think whether our words are offensive or insulting.
18 January 2018 at 23:15
Kasia Kasia said…
Well, I don't find anything wrong in political correctness. Of course, everything we say or do we should do advisedly but we can't be so petty-minded. If somebody uses word "blackboard" instead of "chalkboard", does anybody really think that they say that to demonstarte their beliefs about other race? I don't think so. And another person will say "hearing impaired" instead of "deaf" not because they want to be political correct but just because they feel more comfortable or neutral with it. So if you ask me, I have nothing against this phenomenon.
19 January 2018 at 23:44
Alicja Kościesza said…
I consider that political correctness in close future can eventuate in irrationalistic behaves in daily situations (we have foretaste of it already today). I don't think that it way of comment life is normal. It is beginning of modern "newspeak" (one of the biggest problems in communism). I think that people about whom the others say using political correctness prefering normal, regular lexis without euphemisms.
20 January 2018 at 00:30
Wioletta Warchoł said…
Human diversity along with cultural differences leads to the fact that each person has its own beliefs and opinions. As the diveristy exists in society there will always be a dispute over what is appropriate to say and what is not. As people differ from each other they need to be careful with what they say. While the original intention of political, correctnesss might have been good, to encourage people to see that other people has its feelings and what they say might hurt them, after some time the deficition, in my opinion, has reshaped to the point that it made people permanently avoid subjects that might end up violating the political correctness, for example they don't what to talk about black people anymore so as not to be considered as a racist or to sound racist. In my opinion it is important to act with moderation and do not overreacting like some people do nowadays.
20 January 2018 at 14:55
Ewa Chojnacka said…
Nowadays politcal corectness had gone too far especially in western countries. I think that this way of avoiding problematic issues in public discussion could have bad consequences in further future. In some cases, using softer langugage is desirable to not to offend other communities. But current media representants use this term to hide the truth of concrete fact and escape from the argument instead of finding the solution of that issue.
18 January 2019 at 22:09
Lena Sobalak said…
I do not like politics nowadays. It is funny, but not in a good way. Maybe a little bit sad... I believe one of the reasons for that situation is that there are a lot of old politicians, not YOUNG, not my generation. That is why I do not understand their beliefs, sometimes their useless speeches. I agree with other comments and I have nothing to add...
18 January 2019 at 22:14
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