Perhaps Loki was onto something

marshaul said:

I agree. There are certain drives which can encourage subservient traits.

For instance, the drive to safety is undoubtedly natural. Women, having greater evolutionary responsibility in childrearing, seem to experience this slightly more. And this seems to result in a slightly greater preference by women for "safety" based laws – the Brady Bunch, Mad Mothers of all sorts, etc, seem to bear this out.

(Of course I mean no offense, and I don't mean to overgeneralize, but that's been my observation.)

Click to expand...

You shouldn't hesitate to tell it like it is. Remember, political correctness is for statist control freaks and their sycophants.

minarchist said:

You shouldn't hesitate to tell it like it is. Remember, political correctness is for statist control freaks and their sycophants.

Click to expand...

I don't even know what "political correctness" is.

I do believe I know what you're reacting to, and, frankly, I don't see much in it.

The subtle (and possibly unintentional) implication that we should resort to gross, unqualified generalizations, and disregard and/or disrespect for our audience, as a reaction against something which is largely a construct of partisan rhetoric (and hardly present here) I reject outright.

The reactionary opposition to "political correctness" is as much an artificial politicization of speech as is political correct itself, and it ignores several fundamental truths of which "political correctness" is perhaps an extreme manifestation of.

First of all, when you tell your audience about themselves, not being yourself in the group about which you speak, you are immediately faced with skepticism on their part, and a tendency to take what you say personally. Therefore, it behooves you to make it clear that you are not lecturing the person about how they "are". I encounter this frequently, and it does the speaker's arguments little good. It needn't always be so explicit, but it's just a form of respect or common courtesy. (Consider how if you went you a foreign country you would naturally qualify yourself with "frequently" or "in my experience" when telling a resident about how you perceive him, not to be politically correct, but simply because it would be odd not to.)

Secondly, my use of qualifiers etc. is not intended to have the effect of weakening my argument. Quite the contrary, I always aim for precision in language, and if I qualify, for instance, a generalization, it's because I don't believe it to be true unqualified, and often because I view the distinction made as crucial to my view. (For instance, you'll notice I only ever generalize black culture; this is not political correctness but rather a reflection of the fact that I don't believe race itself dictates anything of relevance in a political discussion.)

I believe a perusal of my post history would quickly reveal that I am no stranger to direct, unqualified – and occasionally even confrontational – language and argumentation, when I believe my intended audience will be more receptive for it. In fact, I tend to think I actually do so too frequently.