![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annwfynIn 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...)
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...)
