Political Correctness Junkies [boardwalk]

Political Correctness? Emmanuel Goldstein - 326th post - 27 Dec 2004 13:41 BBC Today Boards.

A review of 'Who wrote the Bible' described the programme of 'Political Correctness gone mad'.
It is now fashionable for religious fundamentalists to describe any who question the absolute truth of the Bible as 'Politically Correct'.
It is now 'political correctness' to disbelieve that the earth was created over a period of 7 days, just 6000 years ago.
In the minds of the fundamentalists, only the 'politically correct' disbelieve that our earliest ancestors lived to be over 900 years old and spent their talking to snakes, giants, donkeys and 7 headed dragons. [reply] [Complain about this post]

re: Political Correctness? Little Richardjohn - 537th post - 27 Dec 2004 15:38
It's a handy rule of thumb that anyone who uses the term is not thinking, merely playing with a verbal Lego set.
It is an intellectual shortcut, and you can readily discount anything else that person has to say. Because they are in automatic. Their brains are not engaged.
If we can achieve anything this year, please let it be the abolition of this clapped out, meaningless desperation tactic for those with more prejudice than reason, and no capacity to express either.
After all,it is just the bleating of the sheep in Animal Farm -'Four Legs Good - Two Legs Bad'
Which is something the MailBrains are quite sensitive about. [reply] [Complain about this post]

re: Political Correctness? Bob Todd - 37th post - 28 Dec 2004 10:48
It seems to have got to you though !!!
It is the perfect description of the anti-British, pro-euro, regulate everything, trendy-lefty, metropolitan establishment nostrums. [reply] [Complain about this post]

re: Political Correctness? Little Richardjohn - 538th post - 29 Dec 2004 16:34
A perfect parody of Legospeak. The multiple hyphentated epithet is a classic way of avoiding having to think about what you're talking about, and thereby avoid having to deal with the world you live in. Like heroin (very more-ish, they say)
When you sense anything which might threaten your world view, simply bolt together any number of these handy little gizmos in any order you fancy and you have a great continuous rant at your disposal which makes you sound as if you're saying something, because it is continuous speech. But in fact is merely your brain reciting a list of received slogans. Your brain is in automatic. The side-effect is to erect a fence to outside influences of any kind. They act as a barrier to communication itself. And of course it makes you look big down the pub with your mates. Who can come up with the longest list. Got to be worth a bet if you're a real man.
So to take you on a bit:
'anti-British, pro-euro, regulate-everything, trendy-lefty, metropolitan, sandal-wearing, tree-hugging, tofu-eating, tandem-riding, wheelchair-using, Guardian-reading, aura-sensing Black lesbians.'
If you want to get clever, you can always try to organise them into some sort of climax, but it's not easy as each piece is more or less the same as the other, like a musical scale composed entirely of one note. So achieving any sort of dramatic effect above the level of a football chant is very difficult. And most people who use this brass-band effect don't bother anyway. Mainly because to do so would involve thinking about what they actually meant. And that would hurt terribly.
So they don't do it. They just regurgitate the familiar nuggets of sludge they've managed to strain out of the gunge that is the popular media. They parrot the Anne Lesies and Melanie Phillipsses and Gary Bushells of this world. Because they refuse to think about what they are saying.
So 'P.C.' becomes an essential tool for living for them.
They need to know who to blame. How to divide the world up into those tribes which may and may not be trusted.

So: 'P.C.' - Bad. 'Non-P.C.' - Good.
Easy.

PART 2

re: PC? Colin - 267th post - 18 Jan 2005 18:46
How long will it be before even the placid British person becomes so infuriated by mindless political correctness that they finally erupt onto the streets as they did when faced with the poll tax. It seems that every word, every gesture, even items of clothing are subjected to close scrutiny to see if the conform to conventions formed by a band of official control freaks. Given the number of anti discrimination type laws by which we are regimented surely no one still thinks that we live in a free society. Every now and then the lunacy reaches such a pitch that even the compliant media report it. Such was the case today as reported in the Mail regarding the mountain rescue service. It seems that they do not merit funds because they do not rescue any of our surplus new immigrant community. Fellow citizens – regardless of colour or creed – surely we have had enough of living in a society that is in many areas a mindless left wing dictatorship in all but name. [reply] [Complain about this post]”


re: PC? Little Richardjohn - 670th post - 18 Jan 2005 13:03

How long before the brain-dead Right begin thinking for themselves and stop relying on the daily Mail to define its enemies and orchestrate the chant of
'PC - BAD! NON PC - GOOD!'
Which is about the limit of right wing polemic these days. Petty paranoia, a pathetic shadow of political thought. And all held together with the bits of linguistic string and glue of anti-PC speak.
Sad really when you consider the fairly decent heritage of right-wing free thinkers. People like Gibbon or Burke, who would have bust a gut laughing at the adolescent pique of:
"Fellow citizens – regardless of colour or creed – surely we have had enough of living in a society that is in many areas a mindless left wing dictatorship in all but name." It simply doesn't scare anyone.
If you could understand for a minute that PC, if it means anything, means good old fashioned politeness, the right might be on the road to some kind of political recovery. But as the Nazi Prince episode showed, the right simply does not realise when it is behaving badly. When it is being JUST PLAIN RUDE.
That is what 'PC' tries to stop. And boy do some people still need teaching.
Until then, if you carry on wearing this militant facade, like Oliver Lackwind going to a fancy dress party as Che Guevara, you will always be in the mire. Stuck in the ditch while the rest of us race off to the sunny, multi-cultural uplands of electoral success.
People WANT to live in a country with Crispy Fried Duck and Bhangra and CHEAP LABOUR - including your mates in the CBI most of all.
The Right in this country are just dead men walking. It only remains for the memorial service, and we can relegate Reaction to the remnant box of outdated political philosophies. Like Zoroastrianism or animism. [reply] [Complain about this post]

re: PC? Jeremy - HOST - 508th post - 18 Jan 2005 15:42
Interesting thoughts LR - did anyone see yesterday's Guardian comment piece by Jasdev Singh Rai about the "Behzti" play incident? At the end of the piece, he wrote:
"Fifty years after the end of colonialism, most British people are comfortable living with people of different colours. But many are still uncomfortable with different cultures. The legacy of colonialism lingers, now disguised as a defence of "free speech".
Asian communities look forward to a day when cultural pluralism is likewise claimed as the British way of life."
Just wondered what messageboarders make of that?
Regards, J. [reply] [Complain about this post]

re: PC? Little Richardjohn - 673rd post - 18 Jan 2005 15:54
exactly,
A six year old has a perfect 'right' to shout out: "Mummy, what is wrong with that man's face?" in a supermarket. But we discourage it because it's RUDE and insensitive, and it hurts.
Naturally, adults with no sensitivity and no manners cannot be expected to behave nicely, so occasionally they have to be whipped into shape and shamed into silence. And they do not like it. Tough.
'P.C.' was the only way of tempering the outrageous ill manners of the largely white supremacist majority that still infested the British Establishment in the mid 70's.
It has largely worked, and has caused very little significant collateral damage.
Until someone else comes up with a better, more radical solution to racism and sexism and downright BOORISHNESS, PC - or mere Good Manners as it used to be known, will have to do. [reply] [Complain about this post]


re: PC? Colin - 267th post - 18 Jan 2005 18:46
> mere Good Manners as it used to be known, will have to do< color="#cc9933">re: PC? Jason D - 732nd post - 18 Jan 2005 19:04
What on earth has an Islamic suicide bomber got to do having good manners and respect to all citizens of the UK? [reply] [Complain about this post]

re: PC? Little Richardjohn - 675th post - 18 Jan 2005 19:55
Islamic suicide bombers are as brain-dead and definitely 'NON P.C.' as any Daily Mail reader. [no apology for the media stereotype, by the way]
In fact they are two sides of the same coin. Both believe in sacrificing their young men in the name of a faceless, fraudulent identity which only serves the interests of the rich and powerful.
Neither is prepared to tolerate the mockery of their chosen idols, as the recent Jerry Springer convolutions proved.
They need each other.
The use of PC as a catch-all opening prosecution case is a pathetic attempt by the reactionary right to play the role of the wounded liberal.. And it doesn't work.
The constant demands for 'Equal Rights' from the faction that opposed the abolition of slavery, plus the cries of 'You did it for THEM.' sound more and more like teenage whining. But then, reactionary politics is the inability to come to terms with change - the speciality of the adolescent.
The reason the term has blossomed [?] over the past 12 years (since 9/11/89) is because up until then, the right was able to use Soviet Russia as a Bogyman.
Similarly, those trying to make society better from the roots - the radicals - had to put that project on ice in the face of the overwhelming success of the new rights' campaign of global lies.
Getting rid of the symptoms by healing the disease became unrealistic. So they had to concentrate on policing the blatant outbreaks of racism and other injustice as they emerged. It's an unsatisfactory solution to any radical, but the truth is it's saved some suffering.
If and when the reactionary right finally gives up the ghost, the real job can be done.
Then PC, like the chauvinism it tries to battle, will be unnecessary.