The "War on Morality"

[woody]

Interesting thread. The whole P.C debate has been going on for a while in the UK but recently I have had to stop reading certain publications because it seems that on a daily basis there are several articles about offended people, or most perniciously people who take offence on behalf of other people before they have even had the chance to be offended. Which is even more offensive :?:
But it can have its place with regards to members of society who have been denied rights, or discriminated against in serious ways because of race, sexual orientation, gender etc. But for me it's about giving every one the same opportunities, not special treatment. None of us have the right to not be offended, it's a very slippery slope.

Trump. Just the fact that a surname can be a sentence is a tribute to what I am talking about. I know I am not the only person who realises the massive manipulation and character assassination that the media is attempting against this bloke.

True, but I think he assassinates his own character via his Twitter feed :lol:

If I call a black person a "black bastard", and he really is a bastard it's a statement of fact. It's not racism.

This is always going to be about the intent behind it though isn't it? If a person uses black as an insult because they think its a negative attribute then it's racist. If you say it it's not racist, but it will be perceived that way by the majority of people if they don't know your personal views that well.

 

[hug46]

[YOUTUBE]

 

[Northerner]

trigger and language warning. :lol:

[YOUTUBE]

 

[Simply_Me]

Hug46 and Northerner, Thank you very much for videos, both great.

 

[Orion]

When I first joined this forum I was much more of an idealist and would have identified with being left-wing. Now that term leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. More politicians, media organizations and entertainment companies continue to use sexism to fight sexism, use racism against racism and use cynicism and vitriol to fight faith or spirituality.

I see a false fight against a caricature of anyone who disagrees or has lived through a different experience. Against people who don't automatically assume that black = victim or that woman = good and man = bad. Distortion of historical events in order to make the West seem satanic is very popular too. Even heterosexuality is used for target practice. The very act of breeding and continuing the species... I mean for f***'s sake...

I felt like the only person I knew who wasn't in the least surprised that Trump got elected. And he could easily win another term. Not because he should, but because of backlash against people taking things too far.

 

[obliguhl]

Same happened to me too, Orion.
I would have described myself as radical left wing.
What changed me, was my work in a university left wing action group.
I thought we shared a common goal of bettering culture towards a less violent, more partnership society.

Instead, i found myself in discussions about it being problematic for white people to have dreadlocks.

The people engaged in this group were either complete megalomaniacs or total sheep unable to articulate independent thought. As long as you were on their side, you'd be included and they'd make you feel welcome though....

There was a lot of black and white thinking and the overall sense that people were totally alone and wanted to finally feel accepted by a group....be finally RIGHT about something.

When someone else i knew complained about the leftist groups i felt threatened and even thought that person to be "on the right". Now i know how stupid that assumption was.

What pains me the most, is people who call themselves liberals

use sexism to fight sexism, use racism against racism and use cynicism and vitriol to fight faith or spirituality.

While people who stand for free speech or even neutrally present different opinions are getting called nazis - and everyone just stands there and says nothing. Either silently agreeing or to scared to speak up.

Thats nothing but social darwinism in action.

On the other hand, i've also grown fond of the idea of self reliance and responsibility because i do believe that the capability of exercising your own agency to the fullest is a prerequisite to actually being a partner to someone.

 

[dragonrider]

I know exactly what you mean, obliguhl and orion. But somehow i just can't believe that these people realy represent "the left". I think they're only just a very vocal minority.

When you look at the world around you, it's more than obvious that many liberal ideas that where once considered radical, have become widely accepted now.

The equality of men and woman, gay-marriage, legal (or semi legal) cannabis, the right to end your own life or to have a doctor or loved one ending it if you're not capable to do it yourself, the idea that a black person or an asian could be a president, mayor, prime minister, member of parliament or chairman or woman of parliament....though there are still people fighting those ideas, i would say that they have become completely mainstream in many western countries by now.

That would never have happened without the left. The right has always fanatically resisted each of these things, only to give in when they had already lost the battle.

So there must be quite a few people who don't want to have anything to do with identity politics and political correctness, but who are, deep in their hearts, liberals after all.
Otherwise the right would have won, and none of these things would have happened.

Woman would still be slaves without any rights. People have forgotten how strong the opposition to only just the equality of men and women was. Women have gone to jail for it.

 

[obliguhl]

So there must be quite a few people who don't want to have anything to do with identity politics and political correctness, but who are, deep in their hearts, liberals after all.
Otherwise the right would have won, and none of these things would have happened.

Ok, but what we are talking about is, at this extreme level, a recent development. The right for women to vote - not really. Maybe i have misunderstood you...

 

[dragonrider]

Yes you're right.

 

[the_Architect]

And the reason I know this... is because I cut the end off the broadcast cable that plugs into the television many years ago.

Thank you for your rant, it nurtures my soul...

I would show your kids these video: How America's Largest Local TV Owner Turned Its News Anchors Into Soldiers In Trump's War On The Media

The audio "echo" effect is quite accomplished.

Goodluck with keeping them off grid during their teenage years!

 

[dragonrider]

Maybe the PC/identity politics movement can best be understood as sectarian or cultish by nature.

I mean, one of the big questions is ofcourse, how it ever came to this. The vast majority of the people, is my impression, do not like political correctness. Yet it is incredibly wide spread. If you don't look at succes in terms of achieving anything, but in terms of making a mark, dominating or controlling the political agenda, then it is an incredibly succesfull movement.

If there's one thing that is typical of cults, it is that they tend to withdraw themselves from society. They isolate their followers from the rest of the world. They will tell their followers that people who don't share their beliefs, are inferior or immoral beings. That coming into contact with those people, will drag them down to the same, lower, level.

Most radical movements have this cultish smell to them.
And THIS movenent got started in the more obscure corners of the humanities departments of some american universities.

I think that is where the keys to their succes lie. At the roots of this movement itself. You have these humanities departments, wich have always been a little secluded from the rest of the academic world anyway, and there some concoction was brewed, that was a bit of a mixture of the "radical ideas" that where already fashionable in these circles. Like the ideas of foucault for instance, that knowledge or science literally is an instrument of power. A means of controll.

So these ideas gradually melted into pseudo-sciences like "gender studies". Studies that do have an academic smell, but that are nevertheless more often anti-science than pro-science (you know, "science is only a white, masculine, patriarchical....etc". "There is no truth, and that's the truth". "All knowkedge is nothing but a social construct"...)

These ideas being preached there gave them an academic, scientific aura, and at the same time this academic setting offered a shelter from the rest of the world. The academic, secluded environment was the perfect setting for it to become cultish like this. Both the seclusion as well as the aura of science gave it it's sectarian characteristics. And they are also an explanation for it's succes.

It's the zealous, cultish, self-righteousness of it's followers, paired with an academic, intellectual aura, that makes this movement succesfull. It has hijacked all of the relevant left-leaning political parties, while isolating and alienating them from their traditional supporters. Thus, achieving nothing while dominating the political agenda nevertheless.

 

[Praxis.]

So these ideas gradually melted into pseudo-sciences like "gender studies". Studies that do have an academic smell, but that are nevertheless more often anti-science than pro-science (you know, "science is only a white, masculine, patriarchical....etc". "There is no truth, and that's the truth". "All knowkedge is nothing but a social construct"...)

I literally don't know a single person who thinks knowledge is a social construct or that the scientific method is exclusive to white men. I mean the caricature of a snobby PC leftist is someone who aggressively calls on the historical past to prop up their argument - an intellectual who's taken it way too far. Acknowledging that access to scientific institutions has been limited to all kinds of people for most of modern history, and that many scientific advancements we take for granted today came at the expense of those same people, seems to me a reasonable criticism that's got nothing to do with dismissing science for supposedly not being PC enough.

I think you're reacting emotionally to opinions you disagree with and running with it. It's fine to disagree. Seriously, what kind of SJW do you know who doesn't love to argue? But generalizations like this are lazy and, in my opinion, reflect a lack of genuine effort to engage with specific arguments or educate oneself enough to at least have a basic understanding of how those arguments are presented, even if you may not agree.

The left gets a lot of flack for supposedly being intolerant of free thought and intellectualism, but when the mainstream response rests on cartoonish generalizations like this can you really blame them for rolling their eyes and calling BS when they see it? Honestly man we've got actual nazis marching down the street and trying to get elected in politics - are you really that upset about having to remember a few more pronouns?

 

[Psilosopher?]

What i noticed about this whole PC/SJW nonsense is that it's never really about the issue at hand. It's implicitly about how the SJW is perceived by their peers, as a valiant hero vanquishing the evil corporate/capitalist/right-wing/insert-generic-label-here. Don't get me wrong, there are probably a bunch of people who are actually trying to do some good, but they are usually drowned out by the masses who just want another culture group to fit in with.

The idea of offensiveness is rather stupid. What offends one may not offend another. As the great Steve Hughes said "I'm offended by boy bands, for god's sake".

What annoys me is when a person takes offense on someone else's behalf. Like a stand up comedian making a joke about a particular ethnicity, an ethnicity which the comedian identifies with. And someone, usually white, person will scream "THAT'S RACIST!". It's almost like they don't want to be seen laughing, otherwise they might be seen as participating in a "racist" remark.

And here i come to the meat and potatoes. Racism and white people. I'm not white, and i can say that many people in Asia are far bigger racists than the biggest white racists. Many of them would discriminate against anyone from the next village over. Racism is not a white people thing. It's a human thing. It's natural to see divisions in people, classes, objects, ideas, etc. However, to say that one race is superior to another purely because of skin colour is something a fool would say. Either a fool, or someone who is extremely insecure about themselves. But it just so happens that a lot of the most recent human damage has been by white people, i.e. slavery, colonialism and culture genocide. What about the Greeks, or Romans, or Persians, or Mongols, or Chinese, or Egyptians, or the Carthaginians etc.? Humans have been doing crappy things to other humans since time immemorial.

 

[dragonrider]

So these ideas gradually melted into pseudo-sciences like "gender studies". Studies that do have an academic smell, but that are nevertheless more often anti-science than pro-science (you know, "science is only a white, masculine, patriarchical....etc". "There is no truth, and that's the truth". "All knowkedge is nothing but a social construct"...)

I literally don't know a single person who thinks knowledge is a social construct or that the scientific method is exclusive to white men. I mean the caricature of a snobby PC leftist is someone who aggressively calls on the historical past to prop up their argument - an intellectual who's taken it way too far. Acknowledging that access to scientific institutions has been limited to all kinds of people for most of modern history, and that many scientific advancements we take for granted today came at the expense of those same people, seems to me a reasonable criticism that's got nothing to do with dismissing science for supposedly not being PC enough.

I think you're reacting emotionally to opinions you disagree with and running with it. It's fine to disagree. Seriously, what kind of SJW do you know who doesn't love to argue? But generalizations like this are lazy and, in my opinion, reflect a lack of genuine effort to engage with specific arguments or educate oneself enough to at least have a basic understanding of how those arguments are presented, even if you may not agree.

The left gets a lot of flack for supposedly being intolerant of free thought and intellectualism, but when the mainstream response rests on cartoonish generalizations like this can you really blame them for rolling their eyes and calling BS when they see it? Honestly man we've got actual nazis marching down the street and trying to get elected in politics - are you really that upset about having to remember a few more pronouns?

I think the whole point is that out in the real world, hardly anybody realy shares these views. I've said it before in this thread...i do not believe for one second that the PC philosophy does in any way represent the left, liberalism or people who care about civil rights.

So i truly am intrigued about how it became such a big thing, if hardly anybody identifies with it.

So this is my own answer to that question.

It started at some university's in the US. I think that's just a fact. And it didn't start at the beta departments there but at places where they teach sociology, cultural antropology or other such sciences, wich are or can be proper sciences, but with a risk of bias being an issue.
And well...that philosophers like foucault, kuhn or bourdieu have always been popular in those places is not realy a secret either. Philosophers with pretty radical views on the role of bias in science.

So in short, i think the charicature is real, in the sense that there is a realy small amount of people who actually have such views. And i mean, these people are pretty open about it. They write articles and pamflets.

And though they may not represent you and me, they do have some influence. We are talking about them here.

And i think they also have a strong influence within major political parties. Many left leaning parties, all over the world, are in a crisis right now. Often even a pretty deep crisis, like the british labour party for instance. And in the case of british labour it is pretty clear that the crisis is because many people within the party-establishment have views that are too radical to the traditional labour voter. There is even a lot of turmoil about anti-semitism within labour going on right now.

The pronouns aren't realy the issue. It's the paranoid and rigid worldview behind it. The determination to see racism and sexism everywhere. The claims of authority..."you are either a racist, or you'll do exactly as we say". The wichhunts and the scapegoating.

I personally welcome all this turmoil, because i believe it is innevitable that the left eventually will reinvent itself.

 

[xss27]

Here we go, this is going to be a long one...

"Political correctness" and "social justice" are misnomers that are put in place by the weak and foolish to try and control people. The real meaning of these phrases is "I will control what you say and do from a fabricated moral standpoint". They are all about control of people and creating subservience..

Political correctness has all the hallmarks of a well connected conspiracy between individuals or groups within the academic community, urban core intelligentsia, think-tanks and other 'institutes'. Look at the fruits it has produced, the way it is reinforced by the media and figures in authority. People don't like that idea but it seems pretty clear to me that is what is occurring. In the UK it has been used to stifle debate and placed a stranglehold on language, and thus discourse. Two topics in particular it has been applied to; multiculturism and immigration.

It is a disgrace quite frankly. Controlling language comes right before controlling thought.

Social justice, which seems to be largely composed of emotional, hysterical and hormone driven young people, particularly females, is equally as pernicious on our social fabric. It will burn itself out though, faster than political correctness, because of the fact it is largely emotionally driven and its fruits will crumble at the first inspection.

I don't care for the left vs right nonsense that has become so intense in recent years. The left is guilty of picking up this social justice momentum and running with it when they should have examined it more closely to begin with, instead of looking for a cheap booster for their own political momentum. You need only look at Labour in the UK at the moment to see the fruits of that, it has absolutely destroyed that political party. But the right will probably suffer too if it's not careful, with angry disillusioned people swinging to the other extreme and inevitably making a mockery of it, hopefully without destroying too much in the process.

Frankly, I love it. We've created this drama and now it's beginning to unravel. Sit back and watch the show I say :thumb_up:

So what can I do you ask? Unplug and examine is my answer.

I disagree. It is always good to expose yourself to the madness in limited doses, keeps your critical thinking abilities honed.. just turn off when you start to get emotionally caught up in it. It may also be useful to gauge where we are socially, and whether it is time to jump ship.

 

[Northerner]

And the reason I know this... is because I cut the end off the broadcast cable that plugs into the television many years ago.

Thank you for your rant, it nurtures my soul...

I would show your kids these video: How America's Largest Local TV Owner Turned Its News Anchors Into Soldiers In Trump's War On The Media

The audio "echo" effect is quite accomplished.

Goodluck with keeping them off grid during their teenage years!

Thanks for that. I instead have referred them to the many articles and videos that explain how watching and listening to news and social media is bad for your brain and emotional wellbeing. We've discussed the usefulness of it as well in terms of finding out about social events and other important things, but everything must be put in context that you as the viewer of this media are actually the product, not the consumer.

So what can I do you ask? Unplug and examine is my answer.

I disagree. It is always good to expose yourself to the madness in limited doses, keeps your critical thinking abilities honed.. just turn off when you start to get emotionally caught up in it. It may also be useful to gauge where we are socially, and whether it is time to jump ship.

It's good to watch trivial, negative, manipulative, contrived and self image destroying media so you can stay in touch with reality? I disagree wholeheartedly. There is a huge resource right in front of us called the internet that has unimaginable amounts of information that can be appraised critically without exposing our minds to broadcast or social media. Not to say that I don't read the occasional news article if it happens to be topical to whatever else I am reading, and I also have a fake facebook account for finding festivals too. But these things still have the caveats I just listed.

 

[Praxis.]

I know I'm in the minority here but if I'm being honest I think this whole thread is kind of Orwellian. From my perspective there's a lot of doublethink passing as free thought.

I think your arguments are honing in on a single aspect of the radical left that's been deliberately made hypervisible by the same social media platforms and major news outlets that many of you say you're skeptical of. There's no doubt that there's a sub-culture among leftists that's toxic. SJWs themselves even have their own names for it. But the fact is that we still live in a time where an alarming number of people are being denied basic things like a liveable wage, adequate housing, voting rights, and the right to simply walk down the street without being attacked or called names - simply because of where they were born, the color of their skin, their gender identity, sexuality, or religion. We have real world examples of this that go beyond polical theory or ideology.

What I don't get is why so many seemingly rational and empathetic people can recognize these power imbalances and yet simultaneously forget they exist when presented with a position they disagree with. It's like logic goes out the window and the problem is no longer mass incarceration or the murder rate of migrants or trans people, it's that someone had the nerve to implicate you, to call you of all people a bigot - and of course that's far more offensive than whatever thoughtless comment you let slip out of your mouth. The focus of the whole conversation is shifted from analyzing a complex problem to your feelings.

I gotta say it's hard to claim neutrality in a situation when your only input from the sidelines is to play devils advocate. If you can see these things happening in our society that concern you why would you spend so much of your energy trying to discredit the only people doing something about it? Because you think they're being too emotional? If you've got a better strategy why not set an example by using that energy to prevent nazis burning churches and running people over with cars?

I don't mean to single you out dragonrider, but you're literally, by your own admission, making up answers to your own questions. I mean nevermind what marginalized people around the world are telling you they experience, you're disregarding a mountain of publicly available data and historical precedent leading to the moment we currently find ourselves in. As long as there's been social movements there's been tension between the disruptive left or so-called "SJW's" and establishment liberals or so-called "moderates". I get that if you're not living somewhere you're exposed to people dealing with these issues you'd reasonably assume they must be exagerrated by political fervor. But that's not the reality for most people, who have to live with the consequences of the conclusions you reach through debating the legitimacy of their experiences.

I'm sorry, but I think there's an incredible irony in responding to the social movements that will define this moment in history with a whole lot of "it seems like..." or "I would guess..." or "it must be hormones or angst or a conspiracy" while crying about the prevalence of emotionally driven arguments in public discourse.

You deplore the demonstrations taking place in Birmingham. But your statement, I am sorry to say, fails to express a similar concern for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations. I am sure that none of you would want to rest content with the superficial kind of social analysis that deals merely with effects and does not grapple with underlying causes.

-Martin Luther King Jr., a well known SJW, in his Letter From a Birmingham Jail

 

[Northerner]

I know I'm in the minority here but if I'm being honest I think this whole thread is kind of Orwellian.

It is indeed, scary hey.

The thing about the whole situation with opposing viewpoints on morality and social constructs is that one side (or both) eventually gets completely out of hand. We've seen this again and again in history and it's not a new thing. What is a new thing though is the communication devices being employed. Like that poor dude who made the Guardians of the Galaxy movies. Did well in life, worked hard, contributed to modern culture... said something bad years ago on instagram or somewhere as a joke. Now he's unemployed. This has much to do with my original post. That words have now become facts of opinion no matter the context, that can and will be used against you and cannot be erased. Words are now forever if captured by the machine. Then there is the person who is digging years back into people's history to find weapons to use against them, for no other reason than to bring them low. Ugly stuff. It's a curse of 1st world wealth as people have nothing better to do. They ignore the real issues because they are "too hard", and fight fake wars to justify their fabricated morality.

Maybe this has all arisen because of a loss of faith and community, globalism even, I could easily rant about that one all by itself.

 

[dragonrider]

I don't have much time now, but i think you're definately right about some things praxis.
The most convenient and the easiest reply from my side would be to say that the far right today, loves the extreme left. Their most favorite tactic right now, is to trigger the left into calling them racist, and then to play the victim.
But then again....sometimes the accusations of racism or sexism are completely justified, and they still play the victim.

I think my best reply right now, would be to say that fighting the good fight can be a moral hazard as well. Being on the good side of a conflict is something wich can be abused to also do some bad things and get away with it. A freedomfighter is always at risk of becoming just an ordinary terrorist. Even if the cause is beyond any doubt a good one.

A good test would be, to see whether a person is willing to reflect on this. Being open to critissism.
Absence of that is generally a bad sign.

 

[dragonrider]

I've thought about your arguments praxis. It's not easy to answer them, also because they cover many different issues. It is true that there is still a lot of injustice going on, even within our own societies we tend to call "the free world".
What is the best answer to this injustice? Debate, arguments, reason...an appeal to our counscience, or revolutions and acts of defiance?

The less effective the civilized manner is, the more necessary and innevitable the uncivilized one becomes.
But that is also true, the other way round: if there are civilized ways to end injustice, the less civilized ways lose their credibility.

So why do so many of us make such a big deal about something like political correctness while the phenomenon is pretty marginal in most places?

I think this is because in any society, but even more in an open and diverse society, peacefull coexistance does not rely on guns but on a silent sort of mutual agreement between people: "i will respect your rights if you respect mine". Ideally, the extent of this would even go beyond a mere "live and let live", and go as far as " i will protect your rights if you will protect mine".

We currently are probably somewhere in between the two. Some people are more idealistic than others, and some people are in a better position to stand up for others. But there is a basic sort of understanding nevertheless, at least between MOST people. Most places are not getto's. Most places are safe for everybody to go to, regardless of whether you are male or female, black or white, rich or poor. So that means that, no matter how polarized society has become, we still have at least some of this mutual respect for eachother.

The problem i think, is that both the far right, as well as the far left, are each in their own way, ripping this very crucial "silent agreement" apart. But the difference is, that the far right is more easily contained. Because most people reject violence and ideas of white supremacism anyway. But the far left, because it is eventually based on ideas that most of us actually share, is not.

Most of us could simply shrug off the problem of political correctness with ease, and just live our lives in relative comfort without bothering about other people. "so what if they call me a racist". But the problem is that it becomes more difficult for us, to care about other people. It becomes more difficult to interpret our social contract as "i will protect the rights of others" instead of simply "i will respect the rights of others".

It is like back in school, when you saw some kids bully someone. Nobody likes bullies, so it is not that difficult to stand up against them. Just saying "hey, come play with us" to the victim is usually enough because you know the majority of the other kids will back you. But if your approach is too confrontational, you can very easily lose that backing. If you are going to demand a headcount on who's for or against the bullies, or start accusing other kids of not doing anything then you'll very easily have ripped the whole base of support you had apart. And then, all of a sudden, those kids brave enough to help the victim, are standing there alone....outnumbered.

I think most of us hate political correctness, because it embarrasses us. It is not the fact that they accuse US of racism. Most of us probably couldn't care less about that. It is the fact that they make it harder for us to openly condemn actual racism.

You risk being labeled SJW. If you want to adres racism nowadays, at your work or any other place, and you want to be taken even a tiny bit seriously, you'll have to make it very clear to everyone that you're not on of those types. Or you'll risk being branded left wing looney, and colleagues will avoid you like the plague.