(January 7, 2016 at 4:16 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote:(January 7, 2016 at 4:09 pm)Kingpin Wrote: I can see the difference between the two. To me I would prefer to be called "a person with ____" because to me, to say I'm "autistic" is making that a defining quality about me. I wouldn't want my autism to define who I am. I am first a person. A person with autism. Not an autistic person. Make sense? That's just my opinion on it.
The same could be said about handicaps. Is it is a handicapped person, or a person with a handicap? Disabled person or a person with a disability? I don't know, but to me it's more PC to say, "A person with X" since you are putting their person-hood as primary and not demoting them to whatever "ailment" they may have.
That makes sense, and I actually agree here. I wouldn't call this political correctness though. To me, I associate political correctness with denying or not saying something that is true.
That can be the case sometimes, but usually it's just avoiding expressions that are meant to insult, marginalize or exclude others or groups. It's not that they aren't true, but more it can be found offensive. Like no longer using terms like "crippled" or even now "disabled" is becoming offensive. Or terms referencing black people have been changed throughout the decades. Doesn't mean the terms or replacement terms are incorrect, just "less offensive" or "more accepted". Truly, no matter what you say someone may be offended.
From Wikipedia:
"Political correctness can even affect terminology that's viewed by secularists as too "pro-religion" or an alleged "violation of the separation of church and state" in the United States. The best example of this is the active promotion of the use of C.E. and B.C.E. as the abbreviations used after dates (instead of the commonly and traditionally used A.D. and B.C.). Additionally, atheists as school administrators or government union workers at liberal schools use political correctness as a means for renaming terms they view as too pro-religious. For example, a Seattle student at a local elementary school volunteered to do a project as part of a community-service effort that she was doing through her school, supplying plastic eggs filled with jellybeans, called "Easter eggs." The student had an idea to fill little plastic eggs with treats and jelly beans and other candy to give to her classmates, but she was concerned how the teacher might react to the eggs after learning earlier in the week about "their abstract behavior rules." After asking the teacher for permission, the student reportedly explained, "She said that I could do it as long as I called this treat 'spring spheres.' I couldn't call them Easter eggs."
We are not made happy by what we acquire but by what we appreciate.
