Friday, January 30, 2015

Politically Correct Rising

Taking care of my little nephews gives me a perspective I would not otherwise have in what exactly means to be an adult.

Letting kids have their way with everything has dire consequences.

I mean, we literally do not have any adults checking the Left these days. There is a consequence to that. Every once in a while, a leftie catches a glimpse of the mess they are making and he works up the courage to say something. Jonathan Chait is the latest... Excerpt
...it would be a mistake to categorize today’s p.c. culture as only an academic phenomenon. Political correctness is a style of politics in which the more radical members of the left attempt to regulate political discourse by defining opposing views as bigoted and illegitimate. Two decades ago, the only communities where the left could exert such hegemonic control lay within academia, which gave it an influence on intellectual life far out of proportion to its numeric size. Today’s political correctness flourishes most consequentially on social media, where it enjoys a frisson of cool and vast new cultural reach. And since social media is also now the milieu that hosts most political debate, the new p.c. has attained an influence over mainstream journalism and commentary beyond that of the old.

It also makes money. Every media company knows that stories about race and gender bias draw huge audiences, making identity politics a reliable profit center in a media industry beset by insecurity. A year ago, for instance, a photographer compiled images of Fordham students displaying signs recounting “an instance of racial microaggression they have faced.” The stories ranged from uncomfortable (“No, where are you really from?”) to relatively innocuous (“ ‘Can you read this?’ He showed me a Japanese character on his phone”). BuzzFeed published part of her project, and it has since received more than 2 million views. This is not an anomaly.

In a short period of time, the p.c. movement has assumed a towering presence in the psychic space of politically active people in general and the left in particular. “All over social media, there dwell armies of unpaid but widely read commentators, ready to launch hashtag campaigns and circulate Change.org petitions in response to the slightest of identity-politics missteps,” (read the whole thing)
Conservatives might rejoice in the schadenfreude, except for the problem the unaddressed PC takeover of the culture brings about. A sort of copycat effect, in that Some conservatives may exhibit PC tendencies themselves. In a way is understandable, because once PC is the norm, you either adjust to it or you are exorcised (driven to the margins) from the public square ie labeled a racist... bigot... homophobe... yadi yada.

So, no, I'm not rooting for 'casualties'.

9 comments:

Shouting Thomas said...

You only get exorcised from the public square if you agree to be exorcised.

As in all things, openly rejecting PC crap comes with a cost. Don't bitch about the cost.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

I wander if it contributed to Andrew Sullivan BEGGING OFF.

rhhardin said...

The reason that they make babies small is to limit the damage they can do.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

There was an old cartoon in the New Yorker of two ordinary businessmen drinking in a bar.

One of them says to the other, "I don't make any decision until I know whether it's good for baseball."

Satire.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

The reason that they make babies small is to limit the damage they can do.

Certainly a good enough reason for Suge Knight to turn himself in.

Wikipedia says Suge is 6'2", but he looks taller in pictures.

bagoh20 said...

I'm thinking that Political Correctness is a natural innate response to communities of people who strive to eliminate the old taboos. We naturally, irresistibly organize ourselves with rules and norms into a common culture that separates us from them and when sufficiently cohesive and confident, we then try to enforce our rules on the them. Apparently this innate compulsion can proceed without logic, intelligence or empathy as a controlling feature.

Trooper York said...

Shouting is right up to a point. You can have politically incorrect opinions and shrug off what people think. But once the government gets involved they can destroy. Witness the bakers and the gay cakes. This is what Obama has brought. The IRS or EPA will destroy you.

Winter is here.

ricpic said...

Do most people really get their news on social media? Does that mean things like Facebook and twitter? If so that's like grazing on someone else's chewed cud. And if that's a mixed metaphor...so be it.

Methadras said...

PC is Orwellian in nature. Leftists love despotism, tyranny, and the co-opting of language wherever they go.