So, I came across an article by a Harvard professor, with some interesting analysis. It seems support for PC culture is actually much lower than online interactions and social media would lead you to believe:

https://www.citylab.com/perspective/2018/10/americans-strongly-dislike-pc-culture/572641/

 

The piece is based on a very fresh 2018 study, that is frankly worth reading on its own. Very long, but has some easily digestible graphs:

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5a70a7c3010027736a22740f/t/5bbcea6b7817f7bf7342b718/1539107467397/hidden_tribes_report-2.pdf

 

Highly recommended if you have the time, bit of a long read.

The "PC Culture" is a Progressive created mob of relentless zealots determined to control speech and emotion. They have this problem with their own agenda, because it's hard to sell a platform that's full of oppression, regulation, and redistribution. So they have created this ever growing list of words, established law with no legislation, and declared that no one can ever say anything that offends them. It's intended to blunt the power of words directed at them, and they call out the mob to supress this in any way possible. Through pure pressure, they destroy lives. It's totally un-American, and it cannot be crushed fast enough. It's time we create our own mob that protects the Constitution.

The "PC Culture" is a Progressive created mob of relentless zealots determined to control speech and emotion. They have this problem with their own agenda, because it's hard to sell a platform that's full of oppression, regulation, and redistribution. So they have created this ever growing list of words, established law with no legislation, and declared that no one can ever say anything that offends them. It's intended to blunt the power of words directed at them, and they call out the mob to supress this in any way possible. Through pure pressure, they destroy lives. It's totally un-American, and it cannot be crushed fast enough. It's time we create our own mob that protects the Constitution.

It's one of those rare moments when I agree with everything you said there...except for the last sentence. Mob politics should NEVER be the answer, nothing good can come of it.

I will never understand why people wanna say bad words/things that offend others.

 

Don't call me something I don't want to be called. Respect my feelings and I will respect yours. Nothing to do w/ free speech here just caring for one another that's all.

PC is not just about name calling, the problem isn't with that. It's discussing issues openly and honestly without the discussion being shut down by the screaming mob. For example one should be able to say affirmative action as a policy is discriminative and counterproductive without being called a racist.

I will never understand why people wanna say bad words/things that offend others.

 

Don't call me something I don't want to be called. Respect my feelings and I will respect yours. Nothing to do w/ free speech here just caring for one another that's all.

 

The biggest gripe for me is just that, basic courtesy, empathy and decency have somehow been shipped into this "PC culture" tag were it doesn't belong. For some reason people get shouted down because they express the opinion that the shouters have crossed an accepted social line in terms of interactions between people (aka, decency usually). The hypocrisy of shouting down people who the shouters think are shouting down them is both hilarious and utterly dangerous.

 

 

should be able to say affirmative action as a policy is discriminative and counterproductive without being called a racist.

 

I agree. Unless you're talking negatively about a race then you should be frowned upon but nothing wrong with discussing policy. 

I will never understand why people wanna say bad words/things that offend others. Don't call me something I don't want to be called. Respect my feelings and I will respect yours. Nothing to do w/ free speech here just caring for one another that's all.

It's called "manners", and is normally taught at a young age from caring parents. Those that do not practice good manners have normally paid for it through the normal course of life. Most correct themselves before losing too much, or they are stuck with like minded individuals that no one likes, for the rest of their life. I have lived by the very first advice my mother gave me as a child... "Sticks and Stones can break my bones, but words will never hurt me".

 

The PC Culture took things way off the rails. It granted unlimited power to a mob of unhinged fanatics that never earned it... and it's used as a weapon to advance an entirely unconstitutional agenda. That last line you didn't agree with CC, was veiled sarcasm... we already have a mob that is supposed to protect the Constitution... it's everyone who takes the oath, and the buck stops at the Supreme Court.

PC culture literally doesn't exist. PC culture is a boogeyman invoked by people to dismiss shit that makes them uncomfortable or is inconvenient for them to examine. It's an exonym, people  invoke it without meaning to go "HEY I'M NOT ONE OF THOSE GUYS" 

 

 

"The washington redskins mascot is kinda racist as fuck, maybe that should be changed"  ....and then Del Jackson Miller gets on national TV to whine about PC culture

 

Twitter has a problem with jackasses harassing and stalking women, takes even the slightly step to address it.... and Andrew Sullivan  flips his shit about PC culture causing mass censorship. 

 

Tim Allen can't be bothered to update his material for the last 20 years, goes full principal skinner  and spends the last 5 years never shutting up about political correctness instead of not being a hack. 

 

John Schnatter  gets called to task by shareholders for his company underperforming...and bitches about PC culture. investors decide that 4 months of him whining about NFL players kneeling not only isn't fixing the sales slump but making it worse...and he stuffs his foot further in his mouth while whining about "political correctness" . They sit him down with a marketing company to extract said foot, and he proceeds to ram his head up his arse while complain about political correctness. The marketing company quits because they can't fix stupid, and from somewhere in Schnatter's lower intestine we hear muffled whinging about how unfair this "political correctness" thing is. 

 

it literally does not exist. It never existed. 

 

 

For example one should be able to say affirmative action as a policy is discriminative and counterproductive without being called a racist.

 

 

Have a case in point since you've provided CC. People crying "political correctness"  have their thoughts on the matter go no further than that. Or they spit out some bullshit that demonstrates they have no knowledge of the topic...and then cry political correctness. Or they spout off something that might as well be a quote from someone arguing in favor of segregation in the 60s and cry political correctness when that gets pointed out. 

 

Affirmative action in the US aint new. It's a de segregation "policy" (using that term very loosely), and we've had 60 years of pro segregation motherfuckers and similar throwing bullcrap around about it.  If you can't add anything to the discussion in more detail than "affirmative action as a policy is discriminative and counterproductive" then intentionally or not all you've done is blow real hard into a dog whistle and you're probably gonna get called on that.  Cause if someone spouts off with shite that's indistinguishable from 60 years of pro segregationist assholes and similar, what they're saying will be received like they're one of those pro segregationist assholes.

 

 

So if you're getting  called on that on any regular basis, consider that the folks doing it aren't endless waves of  idealogues and that maybe it's time to buy a saddle. 

 

 

It's called "manners", and is normally taught at a young age from caring parents. Those that do not practice good manners have normally paid for it through the normal course of life. Most correct themselves before losing too much, or they are stuck with like minded individuals that no one likes, for the rest of their life. I have lived by the very first advice my mother gave me as a child... "Sticks and Stones can break my bones, but words will never hurt me".

 

Agreed. But you need to understand that words do hurt. Take it from someone who's been an intern in a Psychiatry Ward. 

PC culture literally doesn't exist. PC culture is a boogeyman invoked by people to dismiss shit that makes them uncomfortable or is inconvenient for them to examine. It's an exonym, people  invoke it without meaning to go "HEY I'M NOT ONE OF THOSE GUYS" 

 

"The washington redskins mascot is kinda racist as fuck, maybe that should be changed" ....and then Del Jackson Miller gets on national TV to whine about PC culture

 

Twitter has a problem with jackasses harassing and stalking women, takes even the slightly step to address it.... and Andrew Sullivan flips his shit about PC culture causing mass censorship.

 

Tim Allen can't be bothered to update his material for the last 20 years, goes full principal skinner and spends the last 5 years never shutting up about political correctness instead of not being a hack.

 

John Schnatter gets called to task by shareholders for his company underperforming...and bitches about PC culture. investors decide that 4 months of him whining about NFL players kneeling not only isn't fixing the sales slump but making it worse...and he stuffs his foot further in his mouth while whining about "political correctness" . They sit him down with a marketing company to extract said foot, and he proceeds to ram his head up his arse while complain about political correctness. The marketing company quits because they can't fix stupid, and from somewhere in Schnatter's lower intestine we hear muffled whinging about how unfair this "political correctness" thing is.

 

it literally does not exist. It never existed.

Well done for sidestepping the entire point of the thread to make a ridiculous denial akin to "the sky it not blue". No one's buying it. Just because you're bringing up 3 idiots who blamed their screwups on "PC Culture" doesn't mean the phenomenon that is at the fucking core of contemporary political discussion, doesn't exist. But you know what cracked me up literally? That you are scolding these people for INVOKING a concept for having to avoid dealing with shit that is uncomfortable for them. Yeah, they should instead DENY the obvious existence of something, you seem to have no problem with that.

 

 

Have a case in point since you've provided CC. People crying "political correctness"  have their thoughts on the matter go no further than that. Or they spit out some bullshit that demonstrates they have no knowledge of the topic...and then cry political correctness. Or they spout off something that might as well be a quote from someone arguing in favor of segregation in the 60s and cry political correctness when that gets pointed out. 

 

Affirmative action in the US aint new. It's a de segregation "policy" (using that term very loosely), and we've had 60 years of pro segregation motherfuckers and similar throwing bullcrap around about it.  If you can't add anything to the discussion in more detail than "affirmative action as a policy is discriminative and counterproductive" then intentionally or not all you've done is blow real hard into a dog whistle and you're probably gonna get called on that.  Cause if someone spouts off with shite that's indistinguishable from 60 years of pro segregationist assholes and similar, what they're saying will be received like they're one of those pro segregationist assholes.

Oh wait, did you just allude here to me being a racist? It does somewhat seem like that, and if so, thank you very much. You really are saving me a lot of time for confirming the accusations I have made against progressives in this very thread.

 

I guess in your crusade for social justice, it never occured to you that the fundamental problem with affirmative action is that in your great effort to de-segregate YOU ARE STILL PLAYING THE SAME GAME as the pro-segregationists of yore, since you are still using RACE as a yardstick. That is BY DEFINITION RACIST. And it's not a very good yardstick at that, since you are failing to provide an objective metric by which it can be decided whether someone qualifies or not. That leaves you with self-claims and face control. Are you advocating for face control RH? If not, you should provide something more specific, like certain genotypes or a range of hexacodes for supported skin colors. ALTERNATIVELY, we could just scratch the whole toxic thing and go with more sane and reliable metrics like economic background, that actually make sense. But this thread isn't about why affirmative action is a fundamentally flawed concept, we can save that for another time.

 

So if you're getting  called on that on any regular basis, consider that the folks doing it aren't endless waves of  idealogues and that maybe it's time to buy a saddle.

 

I never had the illusion that I'm being faced with endless waves of ideologues, I always thought that progressives are an obnoxious and loud minority that frustratingly manage to take up way too much of the public attention's bandwidth. This study confirms that. What's hilarious to me is that while you obviously think yourself to be miles above him, you and Lys are playing the exact same game with opposite signals. You are dogmatic, indoctrinated, all too willing to disregard obvious facts when they are inconvenient to you, and just as eager to belittle differing opinions without actually addressing them. So maybe it's time to get off your high horse? Literally.

OH MY GOD. The fucking quote tags in this forum will kill me one day. Faster than PC Culture for sure!

Oh just don't.

 

I said that if you're  finding the people are regularly calling you a racist for your approach to discussing affirmative action, you are probably copying the rhetoric of racist asshats. And if it's something that's happened all of once in your life or even just a thing you've heard happened to other people, then why even bring it up like it's relevant or affects you in anyway.  Either it happens all the time and you need to buy a saddle, or it doesn't happen and is in no way relevant. Pick one. 

 

Also you notice that literally nothing in this entire study even defines what political correctness is. Seriously, try to find a single consistent definition anywhere of what political correctness is. You can find studies of people trying to define "political correctness"  if you look...and they can't. Turns out If you ask 10 people to define it you'll get 12 answers. And then if you take those 12 definitions, strip the word "political correctness" from them and ask the exact same people to rate how much they agree with the sentiment of each of those definitions, the answers you get back are entirely inconsistent with the first study.  Americans agree that "political correctness is a problem"  but they sure as hell don't agree on what political correctness is in the first place. 

 

That's because political correctness doesn't exist. It's a boogeyman. All the kids at preschool insist it's under the bed and just waiting to get ya,  and there's this one kid who inists that their freidns brother totally had their toes eaten by it, but no one who's looked has ever seen it. 

 

Working off this study and taking it's stats entirely at face value....the "pc culture" you envision is as relevant to your existence as flat earthers. Less actually since a full 15% of americans aren't entirely sure that the world is a freaking sphere. It's less relevant than people who think that TVs broadcast mind control waves (14% of americans aren't  entirely sure they don't). 13% of americans aren't entirely sure that obama isn't literally the antichrist.  It's about as relevant as the percentage of americans that think lizard people control the world (4% of americans).

 

Complaining about the PC culture you envision existing is like complaining that there's this huge problem in american with people screaming at you for not admitting that the lizard are trying to control your brain.  Could you imagine a world where endless op ends go on about the excesses of "Lizard Correct Culture" and politician get up on stage and go "I don't believe lizard correctness". Because it's exactly as real and would be as relevant to the average americans life as "PC culture" is. 

 

Seriously, what kind of logic is this, better than 9 in 10 americans don't  support political correctness but it's also somehow a huge problem? really?

 

 

I guess in your great crusade for social justice, it never occured to you that the fundamental problem with affirmative action is that in your great effort to de-segregate YOU ARE STILL PLAYING THE SAME GAME as the pro-segregationists of yore, since you are still using RACE as a yardstick. That is BY DEFINITION RACIST

 

See what you're doing there is saying nothing. Affirmative action can refer to any of a dozen different models. A company scrubbing any personal indicators from resumes is affirmative action. The harvard map, which prioritize diversity of candidates and is just as likely to give extra consideration to a poor white farm boy from alabama as it in some inner city black kid from new york is affirmative action. If a company looks at it's internal demographics and goes "You know, women make up 20% of the workers in this industry, but only 12% of our employees, that's unlikely to be a statistical anomaly" and then sits down to examine it's hiring and retention to find out why, that's affirmative action. If Microsoft goes "there are half as many black americans in the tech sector as there are in the rest of the private sector" and decide to run an outreach campaign...that's affirmative action. 

 

What you're referring to is a one model of affirmative action that was a thing of the 70s, is explicitly illegal to use in many of the states, and has pretty much been gutted by the supreme court where it isn't outright forbidden. It hasn't been relevant in decades and dates to a period in time in which littrealty enforcing quotas was the only way to desegregate shit. Not to debate the merits, but given that this was an time where some cities closed every school rather than allow in black kids, buildings removed water fountains and the military was littrealy called in on several occasions, I'd contend that the unambiguous and explicit  requirements were appropriate for the era. 

 

You won't find many people who think that it would be appropriate now. It's not a controversial option; if you sit down and go through just about any map of HR policy developed in the last 20 years, it'll be held up as an example as what *not* to do, for exactly the reasons you state. Which means criticizing it is in no way relevant to any modern discussion on the topic. There's no reason to bring it up except as a red herring.

 

"Modern" affirmative action has two common models, one is focused on removing sources of bias and the other encourages diversity with the "action" as a side effect. 

 

Removing sources of bias can mean things like scrubbing names from resumes, and making sure that no one person is always running candidate selection. Or it can mean dealing with systemic issues. Women are less likely to get involved in STEM fields, and it's not because a second X chromosome makes them genetically incapable of doing math but because there are social factors  that encourage women to look elsewhere. 

 

The other can be something like Frances model for universities where the top 10% of students from any given school are given priority provided they otherwise meet admission requirements. It gives no priority based on class or race, and instead simply allows the law of averages to do it's thing.  More commonly there's the harvard map which boils down to "given two good candidates, pick the person with life and professional experiences your team lacks", which more companies are implementing not because of PC culture, but because it literally makes them more money (turns out if you hire lots of people from the same background, they tend to share biases and hello groupthink.)

 

So you know if a discussion starts up and you start all caps screaming that "you are still using RACE as a yardstick. That is BY DEFINITION RACIST."....yea your going to get called on that. That aint PC culture, that's you wading into a discussion with an understanding of the topic that dates to 20-30 years ago and proceeding to stuff your foot in your mouth. 

Agreed. But you need to understand that words do hurt. Take it from someone who's been an intern in a Psychiatry Ward.

Agreed. That's why we have asylums to store the little snowflakes away so they can be understood and coddled by people like you.

 

 

Agreed. That's why we have asylums to store the little snowflakes away so they can be understood and coddled by people like you.

 

Mental illness is real. Psychiatry is neural based not mind based as previously thought.

 

Agreed. That's why we have asylums to store the little snowflakes away so they can be understood and coddled by people like you.

 

Mental illness is real. Psychiatry is neural based not mind based as previously thought.

 

Why do I get that strange feeling I'm gonna get accused of being a "mental illness denier"?

 

 

Why do I get that strange feeling I'm gonna get accused of being a "mental illness denier"?

 

No I'm not gonna accuse you of anything. Its a simple misconception you have that is very common throughout the world. People still cosider psychiatric illnesses taboo and relate them to the Spiritual realm. Even I had my doubts but my rotation completely changed my mind. 

 

 

No I'm not gonna accuse you of anything. Its a simple misconception you have that is very common throughout the world. People still cosider psychiatric illnesses taboo and relate them to the Spiritual realm. Even I had my doubts but my rotation completely changed my mind.

I have no misconceptions, nor do I relate them to the spiritual realm. Mental illness is everywhere. The problem is, because of the relentless desire to normalize mental illness as something to be accepted or managed, too many seriously damaged people are walking around among everyone else. It's only a matter of time before something really bad happens, and it's happening more frequently.

RH, I know you got a medical interest but your notion to stick various appendages into every orifice comes over a tad creepy

 

 

 

Agreed. But you need to understand that words do hurt. Take it from someone who's been an intern in a Psychiatry Ward.

Agreed. That's why we have asylums to store the little snowflakes away so they can be understood and coddled by people like you.

 

Can we also "store" these people who keep shouting the same X words over and over? I got an answering machine that has a bigger repertoire

 

 

Can we also "store" these people who keep shouting the same X words over and over? I got an answering machine that has a bigger repertoire

I don't really understand what you are saying here... but as far as speech goes, it's hands off. If the speech crosses a line and treads into criminal behavior, such as threats, intimidation, and inciting violence... then it's not a speech issue any longer. This is the whole reason for this thread about PC Culture. PC Culture... which does exist... seeks to criminalize chosen speech.

inciting violence you say...

inciting violence you say...

Yes, inciting violence... like causing a riot. What are you implying?

Who said anything about implying >_>

Oh just don't.

I said that if you're finding the people are regularly calling you a racist for your approach to discussing affirmative action, you are probably copying the rhetoric of racist asshats. And if it's something that's happened all of once in your life or even just a thing you've heard happened to other people, then why even bring it up like it's relevant or affects you in anyway. Either it happens all the time and you need to buy a saddle, or it doesn't happen and is in no way relevant. Pick one.

See, that’s the thing, racism shouldn’t even come into play when discussing the actul merits or demerits of a policy like Affirmative Action, unless they are made with a clandestine agenda of „keeping down” certain minorities. But it seems that all to often simply disagreeing with certain established policies will get someone labeled as such. That’s because this too has become dogma. What pisses me off is that I look around and see rational discourse melt away in the world on the Right as well as the Left.

Also you notice that literally nothing in this entire study even defines what political correctness is. Seriously, try to find a single consistent definition anywhere of what political correctness is. You can find studies of people trying to define "political correctness" if you look...and they can't. Turns out If you ask 10 people to define it you'll get 12 answers. And then if you take those 12 definitions, strip the word "political correctness" from them and ask the exact same people to rate how much they agree with the sentiment of each of those definitions, the answers you get back are entirely inconsistent with the first study. Americans agree that "political correctness is a problem" but they sure as hell don't agree on what political correctness is in the first place.

That's because political correctness doesn't exist. It's a boogeyman. All the kids at preschool insist it's under the bed and just waiting to get ya, and there's this one kid who inists that their freidns brother totally had their toes eaten by it, but no one who's looked has ever seen it.

Well, that's just the problem with social sciences as opposed to the natural sciences. In the natural sciences you have the luxury of being able to create precise definitions that are pretty much understood by every (non-layman at least). For example, a Meter is "the length of the path traveled by light in a vacuum in 1/299792458 second", and that's that. In social sciences, it's very hard for even experts to agree on definitions, every school likes to add it's small twists and additions. Just try to find a universally agreed definition for concepts like "Nation", "Elites", "Globalism", etc. AND YET no one denies that Nations, Elites and Globalism exists. They exist because these concepts are shared beliefs invented by humans. Take Corporations for example. They don't exist in the real, physical world, and yet they can make or break fortunes and by association, lives. They're real all right, because we all agree that they're real. It's the same with Political Correctness, whether you're for it, or against it, it has an effect on human society because people agree it's real. Maybe if the study had found that "9 out of 10 Americans have no idea what 'Political Correctnes' means" you'd be right.

Working off this study and taking it's stats entirely at face value....the "pc culture" you envision is as relevant to your existence as flat earthers. Less actually since a full 15% of americans aren't entirely sure that the world is a freaking sphere. It's less relevant than people who think that TVs broadcast mind control waves (14% of americans aren't entirely sure they don't). 13% of americans aren't entirely sure that obama isn't literally the antichrist. It's about as relevant as the percentage of americans that think lizard people control the world (4% of americans).

Complaining about the PC culture you envision existing is like complaining that there's this huge problem in american with people screaming at you for not admitting that the lizard are trying to control your brain. Could you imagine a world where endless op ends go on about the excesses of "Lizard Correct Culture" and politician get up on stage and go "I don't believe lizard correctness". Because it's exactly as real and would be as relevant to the average americans life as "PC culture" is.

Seriously, what kind of logic is this, better than 9 in 10 americans don't support political correctness but it's also somehow a huge problem? really?

No, because Flat-Earthers are not driving the political discourse. Populist assholes are not coming to power in the US and all over the world by pointing to rabid, out-of-control Flat-Earthers that are all over social media and saying "well, at least we're not as bad as THOSE guys" and they doing pretty much the same demagoguery in the opposite flavor. As I said this particular topic is unfortunately relevant, whether you ascribe to it or don't.

See what you're doing there is saying nothing. Affirmative action can refer to any of a dozen different models. A company scrubbing any personal indicators from resumes is affirmative action. The harvard map, which prioritize diversity of candidates and is just as likely to give extra consideration to a poor white farm boy from alabama as it in some inner city black kid from new york is affirmative action. If a company looks at it's internal demographics and goes "You know, women make up 20% of the workers in this industry, but only 12% of our employees, that's unlikely to be a statistical anomaly" and then sits down to examine it's hiring and retention to find out why, that's affirmative action. If Microsoft goes "there are half as many black americans in the tech sector as there are in the rest of the private sector" and decide to run an outreach campaign...that's affirmative action.

What you're referring to is a one model of affirmative action that was a thing of the 70s, is explicitly illegal to use in many of the states, and has pretty much been gutted by the supreme court where it isn't outright forbidden. It hasn't been relevant in decades and dates to a period in time in which littrealty enforcing quotas was the only way to desegregate shit. Not to debate the merits, but given that this was an time where some cities closed every school rather than allow in black kids, buildings removed water fountains and the military was littrealy called in on several occasions, I'd contend that the unambiguous and explicit requirements were appropriate for the era.

You won't find many people who think that it would be appropriate now. It's not a controversial option; if you sit down and go through just about any map of HR policy developed in the last 20 years, it'll be held up as an example as what *not* to do, for exactly the reasons you state. Which means criticizing it is in no way relevant to any modern discussion on the topic. There's no reason to bring it up except as a red herring.

I guess as long as Affirmative Action policies stay reasonable and not become dogma, they’re fine. Unfortunately it does tend to become just that. Funny you should mention Harvard, with that law suit going on, where it very much seems that they've been discriminating against Asian American applicants. Apparently Harvard thinks that Asians are "over represented", and applies face control to correct that. Or the infamous Google memo where nobody cared about Damore's claims which may or may not have been scientifically solid (the jury is till out on that), because he was busy being kicked out of his workplace amids a hysterical screeching of the offended mob. The scientific debate over his points only came well after he was fired. Now I personally don’t agree with Damore, but what exactly was so unforgivably offensive about that memo? You can quote the exact lines if you can find them. As I see it, his crime was going against the established dogma.

"Modern" affirmative action has two common models, one is focused on removing sources of bias and the other encourages diversity with the "action" as a side effect.

Removing sources of bias can mean things like scrubbing names from resumes, and making sure that no one person is always running candidate selection. Or it can mean dealing with systemic issues. Women are less likely to get involved in STEM fields, and it's not because a second X chromosome makes them genetically incapable of doing math but because there are social factors that encourage women to look elsewhere.

I’m a big supporter of higher female involvement in STEM fields, and and there are likely some systemic improvements that can be made there. BUT you have to make sure the hiring is not done by quotas, or you’re definitely ont he wrong track. Scrubbing may indeed work here.

But that’s for a corporate setting. SMEs are very different, since the success of the business often depends more on the chemistry between the members of your small team, than on qualifications. I say let the owner decide how he wants to run his business and the market punish him for his bad decisions.

 

Oh just don't.

I said that if you're finding the people are regularly calling you a racist for your approach to discussing affirmative action, you are probably copying the rhetoric of racist asshats. And if it's something that's happened all of once in your life or even just a thing you've heard happened to other people, then why even bring it up like it's relevant or affects you in anyway. Either it happens all the time and you need to buy a saddle, or it doesn't happen and is in no way relevant. Pick one.

See, that’s the thing, racism shouldn’t even come into play when discussing the actul merits or demerits of a policy like Affirmative Action, unless they are made with a clandestine agenda of „keeping down” certain minorities. But it seems that all to often simply disagreeing with certain established policies will get someone labeled as such. That’s because this too has become dogma. What pisses me off is that I look around and see rational discourse melt away in the world on the Right as well as the Left.

 

 

In an ideal world I'd agree with you. However the world we live in is one there are people who were born during jim crow who can't retire yet. You fundamentally can't remove the topic of racism from policy. It's a world where the KKK was still active and lynching people less than 40 years ago. The last several decades have taught those bastards that spouting  off their racist crap will get them ejected from the table, but they haven't gone anywhere, just changed their phrasing, at least when outside their  echo chambers. 

 

 

Affirmative action is a rather charged topic and there's not a shortage of bad actors that show up when it comes up. Start a discussion of it on any public forum etc and wait and see how long it takes for someone to start spouting off eugenics nonsense. So if your going to discuss it, it's something that warrants discussing with care, otherwise there's zero way to distinguish you from all the people JAQing off  and otherwise arguing in bad faith. If your approach to the topic mirrors there's or references racist true-ism...your probably gonna get lumped in with them.  And if someone points out how your rhetoric references or mirrors there's and you flip off PC culture.you're defiantly going to get lumped in with them. It might not be fair, but ultimately no one lives in your head but you. Rhetoric and praxis are all you've got and all other people can judge you on.

 

That's *especially* true online. Some of those shits have google alerts and such set up, so you even mention something like affirmative action online and they'll come flooding in to concern troll or just preach the word of white genocide. I sure as hell don't have the time or mental energy to sort someone putting their foot in their mouth vs the actual neo nazis. If your on reddit and want to lose some hope for humanity, go invest in mass tagger and hit up just about any politically charged thread. Like anything  slightly feminist comes up and you find lotsa people Just Asking Questions and being all "reasonable" who wandered in from braincels and similar.

 

 

 

 

Well, that's just the problem with social sciences as opposed to the natural sciences. In the natural sciences you have the luxury of being able to create precise definitions that are pretty much understood by every (non-layman at least). For example, a Meter is "the length of the path traveled by light in a vacuum in 1/299792458 second", and that's that. In social sciences, it's very hard for even experts to agree on definitions, every school likes to add it's small twists and additions. Just try to find a universally agreed definition for concepts like "Nation", "Elites", "Globalism", etc. AND YET no one denies that Nations, Elites and Globalism exists. They exist because these concepts are shared beliefs invented by humans. Take Corporations for example. They don't exist in the real, physical world, and yet they can make or break fortunes and by association, lives. They're real all right, because we all agree that they're real. It's the same with Political Correctness, whether you're for it, or against it, it has an effect on human society because people agree it's real. Maybe if the study had found that "9 out of 10 Americans have no idea what 'Political Correctnes' means" you'd be right.

 

Sure but the lack of a definition in this study makes it worthless. Political correctness can mean anything from "people say mean things about me when I say gay people deserve to die" to "We should make sure not to alienate minorities in how we discuss and approach topics" to "that thing we said in the 70s to mock pre sixtys revolutionary groups" . And I could go on listing definitions, The first group thinks potential correctness is a problem. They can also fuck every off they possibly can. The second group can take the question to mean "do i see an issue with that general goal of being respectful" and decide it isn't a problem. Or hell depending on how the question is worded it (If it's a bland "do you see potential correctness as an issue" or example) could be interpreted as "Do I  have a problem with a lack of such basic manners". And the last group you might get some mid 60s socialist who goes "oh ffs yes and if i need to listen to Karen spout off about how tea is a bourgeois affliction one more time....", or who goes "oh god yes, fucking tankies...." If you think eugenics and "Racial Biology "  is bunk science, I can find someone who'll spend 2 hours bitching you out for being brainwashed into political correctness.

 

 

All of those definitions exist. None of them have anything to do with one another.

 

Seriously, find me examples of "political correctness" being raised as an issue, and not being used as a way to deflect criticism. 

 

I guess as long as Affirmative Action policies stay reasonable and not become dogma, they’re fine. Unfortunately it does tend to become just that. Funny you should mention Harvard, with that law suit going on, where it very much seems that they've been discriminating against Asian American applicants. Apparently Harvard thinks that Asians are "over represented", and applies face control to correct that. Or the infamous Google memo where nobody cared about Damore's claims which may or may not have been scientifically solid (the jury is till out on that), because he was busy being kicked out of his workplace amids a hysterical screeching of the offended mob. The scientific debate over his points only came well after he was fired. Now I personally don’t agree with Damore, but what exactly was so unforgivably offensive about that memo? You can quote the exact lines if you can find them. As I see it, his crime was going against the established dogma.

 

Yea ok and? "I guess as long as X stay reasonable and not become dogma, they’re fine." is true for pretty much any X. "I guess as long as people who like chocolate stay reasonable and don't become dogmatic, they're fine"

 

 

Darmore got sacked because he turned himself into a walking hostile workplace lawsuit. The paper he released to the public was bad enough, but it was also heavily edited from the one he published internally. He didn't argue against affirmative action, he  argued that literally every person at the company who wasn't white and male could be genetically unsuited for their position and should not be there. It wasn't a "hysterical offended mob" it was his coworkers and peers going "holy fuck this guy is a massive a hole". I sure as shit wouldn't want to work with him, I really couldn't blame any woman or minority at Google who wouldn't want to be on a team with him, and if you think a company is going to keep an ambulatory tort employed...yea no.

 

Also no the jury is not out on the science. In most cases his claims are entirely unsourced. in the remainder he usually entirely misrepresented those sources. If you want a take down of the science, Erin Giglio published one more than a year ago that is exceptionally through, and there's no shortage of neuroscientists and similar who've ripped into it. It's bunk.

 

Granted right now i'm given even fewer fucks about darmore than usual seeing as we recently had some dumbfuck at work complain about how the "eyecandy" (ie, women) at work are sexually harassing him by walking past his desk, and happened to reference darmore so yea.

 

 

I’m a big supporter of higher female involvement in STEM fields, and and there are likely some systemic improvements that can be made there. BUT you have to make sure the hiring is not done by quotas, or you’re definitely ont he wrong track. Scrubbing may indeed work here.

Quotas are pretty much not used anywhere, and as said are forbidden in the USA. Like *outright illegal. You can probably find *some* dumbass doing it, but I can also find you some dumbass pocketing pocketing their employees tax withholds and telling the IRS they're "contractors". In either case as soon as evidence comes to light, they're pretty much gigafucked. You show me someone using quotas and I'll show you a lawyer drooling like a Labrador looking at a hamburger.

 

 

Also the Harvard lawsuit pretty much isn't going anywhere. The claims are questionable and the Harvard model has been tested in the courts enough times that they'd need to complete ignore precedent for it being an issue. We're talking "The supreme court has dealt with this twice and held it up as a testing model in other cases" level of precedent. The most the court could conclude is that Harvard has allowed unconscious bias into the process, should unfuck that and order something like greater transparency. Even that's iffy.

 

Without getting into it the statistical analysis used based purely off consideration compared to "academic achivement" alone. However Harvard literally receives more applicants with perfect SAT scores than most universities admit in a given year period and SAT scores are a pretty mediocre indicator of future academic achievement. To a large extent, they've managed to prove is that perfect SAT scores aren't enough to get you into Harvard. Which isn't surprising, if you're not entirely useless academically, you can turn money into SAT scores and high grades in AP classes. Harvard actually gives fewer fucks about academics than many universities and someone who came from a disadvantage background and did really well is going to be more interesting to them than someone who's parents paid for years of prep classes and tutoring.