Eh, I don't think it's here to stay. The political correctness pendulum swings back and forth every 10-20 years it seems to me, the last time it was on the watch-what-you-say spectrum felt like the mid-90s.
That said, this feels way, way more extreme than it was then. I'm maybe less worried that it's here to stay than I am worried that the swings are getting more and more extreme
I hope it will happen, but the pendulum is going back so fast right now. Some old words are being more accepted now, but people are becoming more sensitive to whole topics and specific trigger words, even and especially young people.
I think it's increasing because things that are recent naturally progress from things that started in the past. The examples you cite are all post 1960s, which is when a lot of these movements began (political correctness, feminism, and so on).
Once the slurs are banned, to use the PC example, the movement doesn't stop, but instead the focus moves onto the next thing so that now the debates are about how to label someone who suffers with mild myopia, or whatever today's campaign is.
Same as it ever was. What is acceptable to make fun of and what is not is constantly shifting with the times. What seems more constant is people being upset that what was once acceptable is now frowned upon, and the friction that causes them.
I know increasing numbers of people who are either walking away from it completely or largely disengaging, many of whom are people who'd be seen in the sort of groups usually marked out as trend setters, those whose behaviour tends to be copied by others down the line.
I don't think it's going to disappear, but it does feel as though it's reaching something of a peak.
It may very well be 'regressive' -- in the sense that it regresses back to before some of the public went essentially limp, to before political correctness comes before natural human rationale in people's pattern of thinking, it regresses back to relative normalcy instead of ridiculousness.
Seems to me like there's a growing backlash against the outrage culture that started halfway this decade. I hope it lasts and we can return to normalcy.
I agree with you - what is politically correct has changed. I think it often changes to be what is most convenient to those in power.
There's a huluva lot more to American history than the bad things, but recent trends I see make me fear that even the bad things will be swept under the rug. You see stories pop up all the time of colleges restricting speech because it hurts somebody's feelings. This is slowly starting to happen to public speech as well. As the article says, history is painful to face, and students today are more unwilling to put up with pain and more likely to demand that they not be subjected to any pain.
Perhaps that just reflects what has been true of history, that it is often rewritten to convenience the ruling class and pacify the peasants.
Hehe, it's gotten better I believe. I'm browsing it somewhat less than I used to so my sample may be off.
Eventually you numb slightly to it, and with a couple interesting pieces sprinkled in, the overall utility is still positive to me.
And more generally: Controversy is never going away, I just have to get better at detecting silent consensus that fits my ethics (i.e. where the gap between world models is not so large to make conversation impossible). These days this mostly entails belief in some form of shared reality and basic human rights; how the standards have fallen!
And on some occasions we simply like to scream into the ether. Personally, I don't hold it against anybody, even though it may be against community hygiene when overdone or inappropriate. But at that point there's moderation.
The IT crowd will manage. It's what's happening "outside" that worries me...
Pick a random decade and you'll hear exactly the same things.
Christopher Hitchens in 1994, for example, defended David Irving when St. Martin’s Press "de-platformed" (to use the modern term, that is, canceled its contract to print) Irving's edition of the Goebbels diaries.
Look at the generations of people who insisted on the "right" to not hear certain racially charged slurs in casual conversation. Just watch 'Archie Bunker' episodes if you want a reminder of what that was like in the 1970s.
I propose that it's only "increasing" because things that are recent, and which affect us and challenge us most directly, appear more important than things in the past. Even more so where we implicitly accept the views of the winning side - eg, woman's suffrage - as being correct, and don't think that those on the losing side also thought themselves as being correct.
It’s funny. All I hear about in my social circles is people complaining how PC everything is now. It seems like it’s rather PC to complain about political correctness.
I agree, and this is kinda new but to be expected.
For a long time some minorities were particularly silenced by our societal systems. If you were a foss advocate, vegan, ecologist, feminist, LGBT aware, what have you, in the 90', you were ridiculed and you didn't have a voice.
Now the table have turned, and the pendulum is balancing to the other extreme: those who were frustrated 20 years ago now created an anger culture out of it that they express loudly. I understand were they come from.
It will go back to balance, but things take time to stabilize. In the meantime, those who had a point of view that were common in the 90' now are considered bad people by default.
I don't think this is the right move, but I understand the process.
It's just a zeitgeist. We'll get through this eventually.
The only thing that bothers me is the possible schism in the culture. We will have communities where openness and meritocracy are valued more than being nice, and the ones with code of conducts. This would be hard to glue back together when the fashion for suppressing expression passes.
Feels like a wash compared to the 2000s, 2010s, or whatever. First off, I'd only be worried about my school or employer finding "bad" things, not the govt. Maybe more things are politically incorrect now, but some things are more acceptable than before, and web security is much tighter than it used to be.
Yes, it has certainly changed. Not sure if people changed, the US tech scene did, or if the site's audience now tilts towards, say, Russia.
It's not exactly alt-right and blatant white power propaganda will get flagged rather quickly. Misogyny seems more prevalent than racism and homophobia, and everything has a certain conspiratorial and populist bend.
Also people now post YouTube videos of angry dudes talking straight into the camera to prove their point. I'm giving it another two years until the tide turns because reading the headlines becomes an insurmountable obstacle to that particular subgroup.
That said, this feels way, way more extreme than it was then. I'm maybe less worried that it's here to stay than I am worried that the swings are getting more and more extreme
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