Ponderings following a conversation yesterday...

[annwfyn]

In randomly good news, I actually don't feel like a tearful pile of soggy tissue today. I am absolutely shattered after sitting up until 1.10 am to watch the end of 'SWAT' featuring Colin Farrell (I know) but I'm not tearful, and I'm actually feeling mildly positive about the world.

This is a radical improvement on how I've been for the last week, and makes me very happy.

In other news, a conversation I was having yesterday has gotten me thinking, and I'd like to throw a theoretical situation at you all.

Imagine you're a primary school teacher. You have a class of twenty children. In your class you've noticed that three or four of the more popular and confident kids seem to be picked on the least popular kid in class. They have been calling him 'Speccy' and 'Uggo' (look - they may be popular - that doesn't mean they are imaginative!) and occasionally 'Scumbo'. There is no violence - just the name calling. It is obviously upsetting the child in question - you've heard he's been crying in the toilets at break, and his school work is definitely beginning to suffer.

[Poll #1093100]

To my mind, if you ticked either 'c' or 'd' then you do kinda agree with the notion of 'political correctness'. The reason I put this poll up is that I think 'political correctness' has come to mean 'town council bans Christmas' and anyone who is tainted with the PC brush is seen as a tie dye wearing version of the Grinch.

But to my mind it isn't meant to be about that. It's meant to be about trying to be nice to people, and basically just try and reduce the amount of name calling and bullying (because we SO don't believe that words have no power. No one really believes that or that they can't be a form of bullying) in our society. I don't think that saying 'you can't call people 'paki' or 'you should try and involve those from different background in our society without demanding that they conform' is really a bad thing. Considering how many of my friendship group staggered through school feeling bad because they were excluded for liking books, or wearing black, I would kinda hope most people would like the idea of less conformity and more diversity being a good thing. Political correctness certainly shouldn't be a dirty word.

And that's my ramble for today. I promise - I'll stop preaching at you all soon and go back to talking about 'what my pretend vampire alter ego did today'. She mostly does way cooler things than I do, anyway, and apparently doesn't have quite my urge to scramble on to some kind of strangely alien moral highground.

(By the way, it looks weird up here. I'm feeling giddy. I think I'm due a bout of obnoxiousness really soon, just to get me out of here. Be gentle when I land...)

Comments

[madwitch.livejournal.com]

Whatever the original point of political correctness, it has become "town council bans Christmas". Treating people equally, not excluding on the grounds of this or that, that's all fine. Now that it's gone way beyond into the realms of really rather pathetic, it's become a thing to groan about.

[troubleinchina.livejournal.com]

O.o? Where has it become that? I've got Christmas decorations up all over here, full of angel iconography and creche scenes and everything.

Granted, this is Australia, but I didn't notice a lot of anti-Christmas stuff when I was living in the UK for the two Christmases before this one.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding?

[madwitch.livejournal.com]

It's an extreme example. Though there is a growing trend towards marketing things as 'holiday trees' and 'seasonal decorations'.

Which is a bit silly.

[suchid.livejournal.com]

Is it wrong that my initial response would be to stop it by making fun of the kid doing the bullying and then ask them if they liked how it felt? Perhaps that's the Ragabash element of my personality come out...

[adze.livejournal.com]

Well, that's exactly what a teacher friend of mine would do, I'm sure. I'm not sure if it's what he should do, though.

[suchid.livejournal.com]

You get into questions of morality and whether it's acceptable for a grown adult to do it to kids, which it isn't, but then it isn't acceptable for kids to do it either, so how do you get it to stop? "Be nice to people" doesn't work as well as some people might want it to, sometimes it takes a vindictive humiliation of someone for them to realise how much of an arse they are being.

[imagesandwords.livejournal.com]

Have the teacher brutally pick on the child doing the name calling and promise to the instigators that they will keep doing it if it happens again!???!

[adze.livejournal.com]

I can't say I associate any of them with political correctness, really. It's more to do with bullying and the best way of stopping it, from my point of view.

Your point, though, is still a good one - the idea of political correctness is a good one, as it should reduce the friction between people, if we're all just trying to be nice to each other.

Glad to hear you're feeling better, though.

[elethiomel.livejournal.com]

To my mind, if you ticked either 'c' or 'd' then you do kinda agree with the notion of 'political correctness'.

I don't agree. To my mind 'c' and 'd' are about simple politeness, about context. Political correctness seems to mean that some things are wrong whether or not they cause offence, and I don't think that's right. If you altered the situation such that Scoggins was a popular kid and the nickname 'Speccy' was used with jocular affection, would it still be offensive? Would you tell the kids to stop it? By my standard, no; under 'political correctness', yes (becuase some other child with spectacles might be offended). A real-life example: we have a homosexual chap on team who rejoices in the nickname Yorkie ('cos he's "not for girls" - we are imaginative). He actively enjoys, embraces and encourages it. It's probably not 'politically correct', but its certainly not impolite.

[wildrogue.livejournal.com]

A very good point, and one I hadn't thought of.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

To my mind tho, that's not you not being 'politically correct', and is sort of an example of what people think political correctness means, but what I don't think it is meant to be.

To my mind, a better example of what would not be politically correct is if another gay guy joined your team. He'd been badly gay bashed before, and had some very bad experiences with homophobic bullying. He feels deeply uncomfortable getting a 'fun' gay nickname, but you guys tell him to stop being so sensitive and just deal with it. After all, Yorkie doesn't mind, so why is he being whiney about being called (I don't know) Fairycakes (bad example, but I'm REALLY unimaginative). Basically, political correctness is sort of, to my mind, a large scale kind of politeness.

I guess a lot of it comes down to definitions, and what bothers me is that just saying 'I think that's a bit off', if you decide to, for example, have an easter parade with Christ on a cross being paraded through the Jewish eruv in Golders Green is put down as 'political correctness' as a way of writing off the central concern which is that others are acting in a way which will cause hurt and is essentially quite rude.

[elethiomel.livejournal.com]

To my mind, a better example of what would not be politically correct...

He feels deeply uncomfortable getting a 'fun' gay nickname, but you guys tell him to stop being so sensitive and just deal with it.

But to me that's just another example of impoliteness. Of course you don't give someone a nickname they don't like, it would be dreadfully rude.

How about this? Gay chap as described above joins the team. He makes his position clear and doesn't wind up with a 'fun' nickname. Fine. So far, so polite. He also objects to us calling the other bloke Yorkie. If we do so, that's the point at which it becomes political correctness, the point at which an interaction between persons A and B is dictated by person C who is not party to the interaction.

I also think that part of the problem is that 'political correctnes' has become a pejorative term. I really do think we'd do a lot more good if we refocussed on being 'polite', instead.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

I would be quite happy if 'polite' was just very important instead! I think part of the problem is that as a society we're not very polite anymore. I've had people argue, quite sincerely, with me that being polite is just another way of being dishonest and sheltering people from the truth, which I also really object to.

I am, however, vaguely pondering the ethics of him objecting to calling another bloke 'Yorkie'. I can sort of see why that could be inappropriate in some situations. For example, an old and close friend of my family was a holocaust survivor. She had lost her entire family to the Nazis. As a result, she found several topics of conversation very painful. Therefore, there were things you just didn't discuss around her. These included 'the history of WW2', 'the expansion of Germany into Europe as a result of the EU', and a couple of similar things. Basically, we felt that our mild interest in topical or historical events did not outrank her pain at being reminded of the loss of her entire family.

I would say that if she were still alive I would feel it impolite to give a Jewish friend a 'hilarious' nickname like 'due for the showers', whether the Jewish friend found it offensive or not.

Would that be political correctness gone mad, or just the same basic premise which is that it's not nice to hurt others?

[elethiomel.livejournal.com]

being polite is just another way of being dishonest and sheltering people from the truth

I'm sorry, but that's simply nonsense, and anyone who says otherwise just enjoys hurting people. After all, you can be honest and truthful without being hurtful ("do you like my hair?" "Well I don't think the cut really suits you dear" vs. "no, you look like a frightful slapper").

'due for the showers'

You're really not very good at nicknames, are you? :-)

Would that be political correctness gone mad, or just the same basic premise which is that it's not nice to hurt others?

I think it is that same basic premise - play nice, please. I think ksirifai has it best when she says "do not do unto others as you would they should do unto you; their tastes may differ" - just because one person doesn't take offence doesn't mean someone else won't. Equally, the converse is true - just because one person does take offence, doesn't mean that everyone will. This is where political correctness goes wrong, I think, by saying that some things are always wrong, irrespective of context.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

I am the worst person for coming up with nicknames ever! Garou deed names are also a special kind of hell for me. I loathe them with a passion.

I totally agree that it's crap that politeness is bad. Basically, I see 'political correctness' as a bit of an attempt to enforce politeness on people who are too crap to come up with it themselves, or who just don't notice that they are being rude.

[wildrogue.livejournal.com]

Hmm. You know, I think you're right. Like all things political correctness is good in moderation and bad in excess. Knowing where to draw the line isn't something I'll even pretend to be good at, but at its base level being PC means being in favour of diversity and not wanting to horribly offend people.

[ksirafai.livejournal.com]

This has no relevance to your post; it's just pretty (http://community.livejournal.com/urban_decay/2052299.html).

Relevant to your post... *shrugs* The difference between what things should be and what they are is difficult. Because the meanings have been changed by common usage, we now have different terms; usually 'Equality and Diversity'.

I don't know if the fact that they've changed the name of the concept matters, but it mostly comes down to "Do not do unto others as you would they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same."...

[borusa.livejournal.com]

If the cost of not having people called "niggers", and not having 'comedies' like "Love Thy Neighbour", of gay people not being beaten up and killed in the street, or made to feel like outsiders in the workplace, is that occasionally someone goes a bit too far, and is a bit too sensitive, then I think that's a price worth paying.

Most of these "political correctness gone mad" stories are lies, too. Like "Birmingham replacing Christmas with "Winterval"" was a lie - one year, Birmingham city council produced a schedule of events starting with Eid and Divali and running all through Christmas, and that schedule was called Winterval. For two years! To promote business! (more debunking here : http://www.guardian.co.uk/christmas2006/story/0,,1967367,00.html)

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I totally knew that I'd read an article along those lines and couldn't find it anywhere.

It was something I was wondering - how many actual stories of 'political correctness gone mad' do people have?

I'm going to move on to 'why health and safety isn't that bad either' after discovering that the nice lecturer at college who was bitching about 'health and safety being over the top' had just spent an afternoon getting us using toxic chemicals to clean objects without any kind of masks or filters.

So, we just spent an afternoon inhaling chemical fumes which are highly likely to cause long term respitory problems leading to one's eventual demise. Admittedly, we'll probably be OK after one afternoon, but it's got me thinking about health and safety regulations in a slightly different way. I think I can live with them if it means I don't wind up dying at 40!

[pmp.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry but I do not see "political correctness" as anywhere near the same as bullying.

Bullying is picking on an individual, whatever the targeted reason. You can definately have racially motiviated bullying which blurs the line slightly.

Political Correctness relates to prohibiting behaviours because they might cause offensive to a group of people. A great deal of PC behaviour is to stamp out labels being attached to a group, and in the process attach a new label to that group that they find more acceptable.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

You see, I do see it as exactly the same thing, only on a larger scale.

Effectively, we (we being White Britons) as a group are the wealthier, more socially powerful, 'cool' kids in the school playground that is the UK. Out of our school of 100 kids, there are four Asian kids and two Black kids. Political correctness says that it's not OK for ten of the richer, whiter, more powerful kids to say "I think it's alright for me to call Mohammed 'paki boy'. It upsets him. It makes him feel bad"

Political correctness says that Bob, James, Jimmy, Brad and Michael can all live with the pain of not being allowed to call Mohammed 'Paki Boy' because that is less important than Mohammed not feeling like crap about himself every single day.

That's totally how I see it. I honestly am also really really having this complete brain blank and not understanding why you don't think it's reasonable to stamp out a label that is attached to a group and give them a label they prefer. I would way rather refer to someone as 'gay' instead of 'prancing fairy' and know that I wasn't upsetting them than keep using some old term and not understand why this cool gay friend no longer wanted to hang out with me, because I was making him feel like crap.

It's not a big deal to most folk to try and use the words which large numbers of people do find offensive. I don't think I've ever seen an example of political correctness which involved a word being banned that no one objected to but someone thought it might. Maybe I'm wrong, and I'm totally open to being told this.

What specific kinds of things are you thinking of? Where have you seen 'political correctness gone mad'?

[elethiomel.livejournal.com]

Bob, James, Jimmy, Brad and Michael can all live with the pain of not being allowed to call Mohammed 'Paki Boy'

Little girls are never racist then? Institutional sexism, dear? ;-)

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

No...just my own knowledge that girls are nice and shiney and never do bad stuff.

All the bad stuff in the world is done by men, dontcha know. :p

[pmp.livejournal.com]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/09/28/nmascot128.xml

That's one recent example that makes me think against "political correctness".


I still feel that your examples thus far, fall more into the realms of politeness and avoiding anti-social behaviour, which means that I don't disagree with them. The policy's that I object to, are ones like putting your ethnicity onto various forms so people can check they're hiring/treating enough "minorities", giving special laws to protect the rights of a small group of individuals rather than giving equal rights to everyone and so on. When I stand up against "political correctness" I am standing up against laws that I feel are discrimanatory and detrimental to MY ethnic group where a lot of the time we're made to feel marginalised and "guilty" for wanting to keep things the way we like them.


Horribly bigoted? Bet you if my skin was black, people would be calling me a "hero of the people"....

[alasdair.livejournal.com]

To steal from someone cleverer than me:

"Political Correctness Gone Mad" - the mating cry of the thwarted bigot.

No, it shouldn't be a dirty word. Of course there are times when one can be over-polite, over concerned with not giving offence to anyone - other people have provided examples - but the basic idea is perfectly solid, and the fact that the phrase been tarred with such a bad brush by people fighting for their right to bigotry is a sadly lost battle.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

*sighs*

You're probably right. I'm just feeling pathetic and earnest today.

That and I quite like debates on my LJ. The last debate I had about classism actually really affected my views on the entire subject. Twas a good thing to do.

[lilitufire.livejournal.com]

What Al said. With knobs on.

[windzswept.livejournal.com]

and here was I thinking you had an interesting story about a teacher doing one of the options and completely destroying a random relatives life.

I always do c. Always. :o)

[raggedhalo.livejournal.com]

Political correctness is often actually just correct. And the "PC gawn mad" stories that grace the tabloid press almost always miss the point entirely -- often even inventing or ignoring facts.

[crocodilewings.livejournal.com]

To be honest, I think even the most staunch Daily Mail reader would have trouble condoning groups of kids preying on awkward and isolated loners. The political correctness aspect doesn't even need to enter the equation. Option C (public, blanket zero tolerance) is just the most effective method.

[troubleinchina.livejournal.com]

Political correctness is a term that is used to deride behaviour that actual "political correctness" is not.

So no, random people cannot call my husband a cripple, or get all in my face about wanting wheel chair access to public services, or say to me "I'm just anti-PC" to justify their rude actions.

My ex, bless his little cotton socks, has a rant up on his LJ about how he is going to go home to his CHRISTMAS! tree and sing CHRISTMAS! carols and open CHRISTMAS! presents, and damn that horrible school his nephews go to that insisted on a Holiday/Winter Play instead of a CHRISTMAS STORY DAMN IT.

He's OPPRESSED, don't you see, and this is PC GONE WRONG! Rawr!

Because, you know, all those years that Jewish or atheist or Muslim kids at my school had to sit through the whole "This is the True Story of Christmas" plays are okay, because having the holiday he celebrates be a National Holiday, because having Christmas Specials like A Charlie Brown Christmas and How The Grinch Stole Christmas on t.v. isn't enough for him. Because the fact that he can walk into any store in the area and find Christmas decorations, that he can purchase the things he wants for his holiday celebration of choice without having to go to a "specialty" or "ethnic" shop isn't enough for him, he ALSO has to have his version of the holiday celebrated at a public school in Canada that prides itself on being multicultural.

He calls it the PC-police ruining his life.

Gosh, how awful for him.

To me, this thing that critics call PC in order to deride it is "Treating other people like they're people, even though they're not like me." So, I'm all for Christmas being celebrated by people who want to celebrate it, but I'm a little tired of it being stuffed down my throat these days.

Funny thing about my ex - He describes himself as Pagan. Just, apparently, a Christian one, at least at Christmas time.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

You know, Chistmas is one of these things that I'm really conflicted on.

You see, I would describe myself as being Christian - I've been baptised and confirmed, and I do go to church every month or so. For me, Christmas is a very special time. I also just love it as a cultural tradition - I think it's a big part of my heritage and I think it's important for all cultures to maintain a sense of continuity. For me, Christmas is something that has been celebrated in England for hundreds of years, in much the same way that Tihar has been celebrated in Nepal for hundreds of years. When I was living in Nepal I didn't resent the Hindu population for their parades, for their celebrations, for the wonderful rituals that marked the year.

So, I think all that, and I think 'Christmas should be a big and public thing in England'. Then I think about the areas of London or Birmingham where the majority of the population isn't Christian, or even where there are significant numbers of people who don't have that as a part of their culture. In a lot of those places there's just a greater number of celebrations - we've had street lights for Divali, I think, in my area - which is cool, but I do wonder whether it's reasonable to inflict our religious traditions on others.

I also wonder what it must feel like if you are a Muslim living in, say, Newbury (which is where I went to school) where you're always going to be a minority, and massively more so of one when you can't escape from Christian expressions of faith around this time of year.

So I get confused.

I do think there's something peculiarly daft about a pagan getting all het up around Christmas. Have you reminded him that he's celebrating the complete appropriation of his faith at the hands of the evil Christian church yet?*


* Although that's another long ramble about the relationship between Christianity and the religious traditions which proceeded it, which I won't go into now as I become hideously tl,dr.

[troubleinchina.livejournal.com]

The cultural tradition of Christmas is a very good point, and I know when I was living in China it was very "odd" to me how Christmas was such a non-thing there.

I guess for me the issue is the difference between secular Christmas and religious Christmas, does that make sense? I certainly have no issue with Christmas, or with the Christmas holidays or having Christmas and Boxing Day off or any of that stuff, but I don't really like the fact that people will go "OMG! There's a War on Christmas!" because of, say, stores choosing to say "Seasons Greetings" or "Happy Holidays!" instead of "Merry Christmas" to everyone. But this may be more of a thing in North America than in the UK - I certain don't recall a big deal being made of the so-called War on Christmas.

It's more that my Ex was going on and on about how awful it was that his nephews had a holiday play instead of a Christmas one and acted like this Ruined His Christmas, when everything else around his life is pretty much geared at it.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

The UK occasionally mutters about 'war on christmas'. It's normally the Daily Mail that wants to whinge, and it's normally complete crap. A couple of years ago there was a big scandal about 'council bans Xmas'. It turned out that some local council in Birmingham, or Manchester (I'm hazy on the details, I'm afraid) had decided to do a 'winter festival' in which their street lights and decorations referenced Christmas, and Diwali, and I think Channukah in a bit ecclectic show of light.

It was considered a scandal.

Honestly we've got the Virgin Mary on our damn stamps this year! I don't think anyone can claim that the 'Christmas' thing is being pushed behind the curtains.