Political Correctness

[KevinM1]

I honestly don't know.  Nearly every time someone whines about political correctness run amuck, it tends to be a situation where someone does or says something shitty, gets a justifiably negative response to it, and then complains that the response is unjustified.

Are there some overreactions to things?  Of course, but it's not limited to those who believe political correctness is okay (see: the overreaction to Colin Kaepernick and NFL players kneeling during the national anthem).  Are there some people just looking for an excuse to complain about things, no matter how small or unimportant?  Again, of course, but that's also not limited to political correctness.

But none of that means that political correctness - which, really, is just "Hey, some of the things you say and do are actually prejudiced against marginalized groups of people. Stop it." - is bad.

Then again, I'm one of those weirdos that doesn't have a problem with safe spaces.  I mean, this forum is a safe space for atheists, right?  We can be open and free about our unbelief, free from (most) threats regarding it.  I don't see an appreciable difference between an internet safe space and one IRL.

I don't think that's all political correctness is, see my office example. It's about a type of behavior, a way of speaking. When people say 'oh it's just not saying racial slurs' that's just not true. If it were, than we are living in a politically correct society already.

There is obviously scales to it, from just not dropping N-bombs would be like, a 1 on the politically correct scale to totally censored 1984 style societies where they never said anything other than what was officially permitted to talk about and nobody was ever offended that would be a 10. So you should be able to identify somewhere in the middle where it's too much for you.

Not offending people is impossible anyway let, since people are offended by different things and there are 7 billion of us. Some people are so easy to offend. Should one have to censor their speech to not offend the most sensitive of groups.

For me, it's not about being so scared about offending people that a person simply doesn't express themselves.  Like you say, different people are offended by different things, and it's impossible to be 100% accurate about who's offended by what at any particular time.

But, if someone says, "Hey, I don't like that," then chances are I'll apologize and at least attempt to figure out why the other person is objecting.

Regarding your office analogy, it strikes me as being the same kind of strawman that most anti-PC people bring up.  My response is:

1. You're there to work, not socialize.
2. It's entirely possible to be funny/personable in a professional environment without bringing up race/religion/orientation/etc.  Because when the majority of people whine about "Things are so much restrictive now," they're really whining about how they can't remark that the hot secretary looks nice (it may be true that they look nice, but 9 times out of 10 a guy saying it at work comes across as a creeper), or that the joke about the Mexican/Jew/whatever that they think is hilarious isn't really something that's acceptable in a professional environment.

In our current real life, R-rated comedies and dramas still exist.  TV-MA shows still exist.  M-rated games still exist.  But, the trend is that they're more inclusive, not less (more characters of different races, religions, orientation, etc.), and bad behavior - sexism/misogyny, racism, homophobia, etc. - is treated like the bad thing it is.  At times, to present nuanced, human characters (people who do good can have shitty attitudes/behaviors at times, and on the flip side, bad people can have redeeming qualities).  At times to explore why these things are indeed bad.  At times, yes, in humor, but the best comedies tend to put those thoughts in their place with an even funnier, more pointed retort.

So, this idea that political correctness is somehow stifling expression is just baffling to me.  It's only stifling if you either lack imagination, or truly cannot function without being a dickhead.

I also reject the notion that political correctness is simply censorship by a different label.  Yes, at times, certain words/expressions get vehement negative reactions.  Sometimes it's warranted (slurs), sometimes people overreact (people flipping out because a well-intending person used the wrong pronoun).  But the point isn't to simply silence certain words/expressions and leave it there.  The point is to create a more welcoming space for all people by not - intentionally or not - excluding them through our use of language.

I mean, we feel it as atheists - when someone starts going on about prayer or god or whatever, do you feel comfortable?  Especially if it's a stranger (or group of them)?

You asked me where the line is.  I haven't encountered it yet.  Every dire warning about a slippery slope - 1984, Iran, North Korea, etc. - is flawed, IMO, a rejection of a strawman because they don't actually understand what political correctness actually is.