The secret origins of political correctness

Skyfloating

JohnnyCanuck
Reality is that to get one's knickers in a twist over what others are doing with their naughty bits is unseeming at best...and suspect at worst!

I dont care what someone does sexually (despite your PC-attempt to pretend I do). I care about ideology. I care about the person who says "Gender is a choice, homosexuality is not a choice!". Thats counter-factual, counter-science, counter-reality. Gender is not a choice its a biological reality. And homosexuality sometimes is a choice.

Who says gender is a choice? Direct quote please.

reply to post by Skyfloating

I'm not going to get into straw men or appropriation of voice.

You know, it seems to me that your entire thread is based upon your opinion that Kent Clizbe is not a right-wing nut bar, that all 'blue-sky thinking' scenarios as delivered by defectors had every chance of being put into action (as per innumerable wacky American schemes), and that all of the schemes concocted by the Soviets were effective.

My original comments stand...while there are always extremes that may be trotted out to support any premise, on the whole the entire PC controversy is merely a mechanism to excuse shoddy behaviour towards others. Frankly, I think one would be better purposed to investigate that particular brand of psy-ops. Seems pretty effective.

reply to post by JohnnyCanuck


What happens when your definition of "shoddy behavior towards others" differs from that of someone else? If they can be labeled as less tolerant than yourself, then likely you will expect them to adjust to match your own views. But if someone expects you to be accepting of behavior which you find repugnant or unacceptable, will you self-correct and consider this behavior to be the new norm?

If so, then you have succumbed to politicially-correct thinking. Recommended treatment: Orwell & Huxley.

OpenMindedRealist
reply to post by JohnnyCanuck

 

What happens when your definition of "shoddy behavior towards others" differs from that of someone else? If they can be labeled as less tolerant than yourself, then likely you will expect them to adjust to match your own views. But if someone expects you to be accepting of behavior which you find repugnant or unacceptable, will you self-correct and consider this behavior to be the new norm?

If so, then you have succumbed to politicially-correct thinking. Recommended treatment: Orwell & Huxley.

I donno...you want a rule of thumb? Behave like a (warning...sexist terminology alert!) gentleman. Or if that's too vague, just behave in such a manner as to not bring shame to your Mother.

Really...all these excuses to justify bad behaviour. There's your sign of the times!

Quick edit to state that I've been quite familiar with Orwell, Huxley and other distopian musings for over 45 years. Just sayin...

JuniorDisco

Skyfloating

JohnnyCanuck
Reality is that to get one's knickers in a twist over what others are doing with their naughty bits is unseeming at best...and suspect at worst!

I dont care what someone does sexually (despite your PC-attempt to pretend I do). I care about ideology. I care about the person who says "Gender is a choice, homosexuality is not a choice!". Thats counter-factual, counter-science, counter-reality. Gender is not a choice its a biological reality. And homosexuality sometimes is a choice.

Who says gender is a choice? Direct quote please.

No offers?

JohnnyCanuck


your entire thread is based upon your opinion that Kent Clizbe is not a right-wing nut bar,

Really? The ENTIRE thread? Actually I didnt find enough material for the thread in Clizbes book, so I had to go collect it myself. Only a small part of the third post is based on it. Secondly, the guy is a CIA Intelligence Analyst, regardless of your calling into question his personality.

You can't refute the information, so you attack someones person and then claim that the ENTIRE thread is based upon that person you have discredited.

Here's an idea: Once you start sounding like a Soviet Megaphone, come back and post reasonable counter-argumentation.

Skyfloating
Here's an idea: Once you start sounding like a Soviet Megaphone, come back and post reasonable counter-argumentation.

Quois?

I simply don't buy into your premise. Just because some scheme is hatched, doesn't mean it is at all effective. Just because a defector knocks at the door with a story in hand doesn't make it true. And as I said, there is far too much phoney rationale floating around in certain circles to try and justify boorish behaviour. Now there's a project for you. Meanwhile, your central thesis rests strongly upon opinion. My opinion differs. Do we really have that much more to say to each other? I think not.

Quick edit to observe that you seem to have missed some of my original quote: "You know, it seems to me that your entire thread is based upon your opinion that Kent Clizbe is not a right-wing nut bar, that all 'blue-sky thinking' scenarios as delivered by defectors had every chance of being put into action (as per innumerable wacky American schemes), and that all of the schemes concocted by the Soviets were effective. "

Changes the contest of your response a mite, I'd say

Skyfloating

An incident 10 years ago where I held open a door for a woman and she said "I dont require the door to be held open for me. Thats a remnant of chauvinist male-dominant thinking". She was quite upset and making a scene of a completely harmless gesture.

happened to me once, I just said "Sorry, I thought you were a man" and let the door close.

Haribo stops selling "racist" sweets

In this PC world of ours, selling sweets that look like indigenous masks is "racist". We live in a Tyranny of the Hypersensitive.

JuniorDisco


Who says gender is a choice? Direct quote please.

Google "Gender is a social construct" and you will find all of your "progressive" friends saying so. If gender is a social construct rather than a biological reality, then isn't homosexuality also a social construct? If, on the other hand homosexuality is no choice but a biological reality, then gender is likely also not a choice. In other words: "Progressives" can't get their story straight.

I personally don't care whether either of these are choices or biological realities. I care that progressives are not interest in truth or science but rather in politicizing things and playing the victim-card.

reply to post by Skyfloating


Actually I think you'll find that most progressives think that gender is not a choice - that female-identifying individuals unlucky to have been born with male physical characteristics will gravitate inexorably towards their defined 'real' gender. Without any choice in the matter.

I can't find anyone who represents a wide section of creditable opinion who says gender is a choice. And neither, it seems, can you.

JuniorDisco
that female-identifying individuals unlucky to have been born with male physical characteristics will gravitate inexorably towards their defined 'real' gender. Without any choice in the matter.

I can't find anyone who represents a wide section of creditable opinion who says gender is a choice. And neither, it seems, can you.

Saying its a "social construct" and that there are "female identifiying" and "male identifying" people is the same thing as saying that gender is not a biological fact but a choice. You can "identify" as female because male/female are merely a "social construct".

PC-Bots are into book censorship, book burning and shaming any viewpoint different than their particular brand of communism-atheism-scientific-materialism. They have been trying to get classic works of literature banned for a long time now. A recent example: Dantes Divine Comedy is Offensive and should be Banned

JuniorDisco
reply to post by Skyfloating

 

Actually I think you'll find that most progressives think that gender is not a choice - that female-identifying individuals unlucky to have been born with male physical characteristics will gravitate inexorably towards their defined 'real' gender. Without any choice in the matter.

I can't find anyone who represents a wide section of creditable opinion who says gender is a choice. And neither, it seems, can you.

Well maybe not so much about the hardware. But the thing wants to expand out of whack. For example, let us say that certain are born with physical characteristics that are not consistent, in fact have nothing to do with their actual gender. Well to show this they have to demonstrate that there are gender norms consistent with the biology. But they don't want to do this because the exceptions look like aberrations. To shorten, thus the old phrase "get in touch with your feminine side" sort of directives couched as folk comedy. Or "shes got balls bigger than most men I know".

reply to post by JuniorDisco


Try Judith Butler. She argues that gender is a matter of performance of gender. That means that you are the gender you act not the gender you are.

Butler argues for a performative understanding of gender, as opposed to the idea that gender performance is an expression of some sort of innate or natural gender. Butler argues that the performance of gender, itself creates gender. Additionally, she compares the performativity of gender to the performance of the theater. She brings many similarities, including the idea of each individual functioning as an actor of their gender. However she also brings into light a critical difference between gender performance in reality and theater performances. She explains how the theater is much less threatening and does not produce the same fear that gender performances often encounter because of the fact that there is a clear distinction from reality within the theater.

That's from just her Wiki page.

So, basically, if you go out and act like the opposite gender long enough, you will be that gender I guess.

reply to post by Skyfloating


Who can forget what they wanted to do to Huc kleberry Finn?

Twain himself defined a "classic" as "a book which people praise and don't read." Rather than see Twain's most important work succumb to that fate, Twain scholar Alan Gribben and NewSouth Books plan to release a version of Huckleberry Finn, in a single volume with The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, that does away with the "n" word (as well as the "in" word, "Injun") by replacing it with the word "slave."

This is not an effort to render Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn colorblind," said Gribben, speaking from his office at Auburn University at Montgomery, where he's spent most of the past 20 years heading the English department. "Race matters in these books. It's a matter of how you express that in the 21st century."

The idea of a more politically correct Finn came to the 69-year-old English professor over years of teaching and outreach, during which he habitually replaced the word with "slave" when reading aloud. Gribben grew up without ever hearing the "n" word ("My mother said it's only useful to identify [those who use it as] the wrong kind of people") and became increasingly aware of its jarring effect as he moved South and started a family. "My daughter went to a magnet school and one of her best friends was an African-American girl. She loathed the book, could barely read it."

I was outraged when I heard this one. Twain is a master of colloquialism. It's one of the reasons to read him. He writes the way people actually spoke, and this was how they spoke. They did not speak like we do today, and there is a valuable discussion and lessons to be learned there. Not to mention, the "n" word means what it means, and "slave" means what it means. They are not perfectly synonymous. Not all "n" words of Twain's day were "slaves" and vice versa; this, too, is worth discussion.

We can get into a similar examination of the word "Injun."

But no, it's more important to make the book conform to our modern sensibilities.

Skyfloating

Saying its a "social construct" and that there are "female identifiying" and "male identifying" people is the same thing as saying that gender is not a biological fact but a choice. You can "identify" as female because male/female are merely a "social construct".

Nope. It's simple scientific fact that people are often born with the 'wrong' physical characteristics. They are male or female biologically, in the absolute sense of the word, but are unlucky enough to have unmatching reproductive organs. And they will generally gravitate towards their 'actual' gender.

If you think that gender simply comes down to whether you have a dick or not, you're the one who is wilfully ant-scientific, not me or your fictional PC Bots.

reply to post by ketsuko


What they wanted to do? Who? A vast, all powerful conspiracy that cannot be stopped? Or just some no-mark academic from a university nobody has ever heard of.

Look, nobody is saying that there aren't people who hold stupid ideas. What I'm taking issue with is your notion that some woman with odd ideas about gender and some guy from Boondock College represent a powerful consensus that is able to censor and oppress at will. I mean, last time I checked they hadn't actually changed Huckleberry Finn.

Logarock


Well maybe not so much about the hardware. But the thing wants to expand out of whack. For example, let us say that certain are born with physical characteristics that are not consistent, in fact have nothing to do with their actual gender. Well to show this they have to demonstrate that there are gender norms consistent with the biology. But they don't want to do this because the exceptions look like aberrations. To shorten, thus the old phrase "get in touch with your feminine side" sort of directives couched as folk comedy. Or "shes got balls bigger than most men I know".

Or you could just say that the whole thing is a bit of a grey area, fluid and inconsistent, and the best way to deal with it is with understanding and humanity.

But I have a feeling that would blow Skyfloating's mind.

11 shocking quoutes from the Soviet Unions highest ranking defector

9. The Soviet Union devoted more resources to ideological warfare than standard intel-gathering “During the Cold War, disinformation and glasnost were a lot more important for the KGB community than stealing secrets…Classical espionage, like picking pockets, was an accumulation of one-time thefts. Our disinformation and glasnost techniques, on the other hand, were a continuous process, conceived to invade people’s minds and consciences and there to put down roots. That was the future. That was going to open up a whole new era in the history of communist foreign intelligence.”