Political correctness: a force for good? A Munk Debate

Started by Sal1981, May 22, 2018, 09:55:37 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

Baruch

Quote from: SGOS on May 25, 2018, 06:43:10 AM
I was visiting a friend in Portland, OR when I used the term "politically correct."  His response was that he didn't like the term, because it didn't mean anything, and challenged me to define it.  I realized it's one of those words we all know the meaning of.  It's just that the meaning changes from person to person.  We all know the meaning, just not the same meaning.

Setting my definition aside, while observing others using it, I would say it is a non-descriptive pejorative, similar to a phrase like  "asshole idea."  It fails to explain or even understand what an the idea is, but it labels it as something negative thought up by half a brain.

To me, a politically correct idea might be good, bad, true, or false.  It is simply something advanced by a majority.  It could be the total majority, or a majority of a sub group.  20 years ago, it was politically correct to claim that Iraq had an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction.  If you didn't believe this, you were considered an airhead, because the majority knew it was true, even though there was no means by which to actually know this.

Unfortunately, the term does seem rather worthless.  Things are either correct or incorrect.  There is no need for a vague qualifier like "politically" correct.  "Politically" is a notion and vague, and devalues the meaning of "correct."  It is similar to the fashionable way we use the word "fact" today.  Something is either a fact or it is not.  It's fools play to talk about "alternate" facts.  Nothing of value is added to the concept of "fact."  It actually devalues a fact.  But it is politically correct to talk and think in absurd ways.  It's fashionable and politically correct.

The newer term is "truthiness".  Basically narrative control by the Deep State and its two headed Cerberus ... the R-D party.

Actually, do you carry around in your head, the OED definitions of all the words you use in a post?  Didn't think so.  What is actually happening is mindless monkey chattering by a species that doesn't even know what it is saying (how could you or I, unless we have the approved dictionary in our heads?).
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Baruch

Fake news isn't new ...

"[A despotic] government always [keeps] a kind of standing army of newswriters who, without any regard to truth or to what should be like truth, [invent] and put into the papers whatever might serve the ministers. This suffices with the mass of the people who have no means of distinguishing the false from the true paragraphs of a newspaper."

--Thomas Jefferson to G. K. van Hogendorp, Oct. 13, 1785. (*) ME 5:181, Papers 8:632
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Cavebear

Quote from: Baruch on May 25, 2018, 09:10:18 AM
Fake news isn't new ...

"[A despotic] government always [keeps] a kind of standing army of newswriters who, without any regard to truth or to what should be like truth, [invent] and put into the papers whatever might serve the ministers. This suffices with the mass of the people who have no means of distinguishing the false from the true paragraphs of a newspaper."

--Thomas Jefferson to G. K. van Hogendorp, Oct. 13, 1785. (*) ME 5:181, Papers 8:632

If the Deep State is the enemy, (and R-D they swampwhy do you vote Republican (if I may such an assumptiion).  If you vote for a 3rd party please say so.  You need not be specific about it.
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Baruch

Quote from: Cavebear on May 25, 2018, 12:26:40 PM
If the Deep State is the enemy, (and R-D they swampwhy do you vote Republican (if I may such an assumptiion).  If you vote for a 3rd party please say so.  You need not be specific about it.

The big two parties, are by necessity, partners (shadow boxing), and are Establishment.  They maintain a status quo which is both a blessing and a curse.  The Deep State is certainly involved with both, they would be remiss not to.  But Bernie wasn't a Democrat, and Donald wasn't a Republican ... this scared the alphabet soup into over-reaction, which I haven't seen since the Nixon administration.  The ideal Deep State candidate is someone they know from long experience and compromised integrity, the they can control as they like (for the children).

This last election cycle was personally disastrous emotionally, and is till ongoing.  Well yes, this last time, I voted Gary Johnson (and glad I didn't vote Jill Stein).  I will never vote D or R again ... I am done with their insanity ... I shouldn't have put up with it for 40 years now, I should have gone Libertarian when we got to meet the VP Libertarian candidate in person at college in 1976 ... but I couldn't see the wisdom of that back then.  It is better for Hitler or Stalin to be elected, than for me to continue to sacrifice my integrity on worthless politicians.

No, the Deep State isn't the enemy ... Civic 101 is for babies who never drank Machiavelli's brew.  Insanity is the enemy.  But I like to troll that people deny that the Deep State exists ... just like they deny anything they don't like ... say G-d for example.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

GSOgymrat

#19
I would have found the debate even more interesting if once the participants came on stage Peterson and Fry were told they were taking the "pro" position and Dyson and Goldberg were told they were taking the "con." Which of these people can step out of their own narrative and make a persuasive argument? 

Cavebear

Quote from: Baruch on May 25, 2018, 06:29:34 PM
The big two parties, are by necessity, partners (shadow boxing), and are Establishment.  They maintain a status quo which is both a blessing and a curse.  The Deep State is certainly involved with both, they would be remiss not to.  But Bernie wasn't a Democrat, and Donald wasn't a Republican ... this scared the alphabet soup into over-reaction, which I haven't seen since the Nixon administration.  The ideal Deep State candidate is someone they know from long experience and compromised integrity, the they can control as they like (for the children).

This last election cycle was personally disastrous emotionally, and is till ongoing.  Well yes, this last time, I voted Gary Johnson (and glad I didn't vote Jill Stein).  I will never vote D or R again ... I am done with their insanity ... I shouldn't have put up with it for 40 years now, I should have gone Libertarian when we got to meet the VP Libertarian candidate in person at college in 1976 ... but I couldn't see the wisdom of that back then.  It is better for Hitler or Stalin to be elected, than for me to continue to sacrifice my integrity on worthless politicians.

No, the Deep State isn't the enemy ... Civic 101 is for babies who never drank Machiavelli's brew.  Insanity is the enemy.  But I like to troll that people deny that the Deep State exists ... just like they deny anything they don't like ... say G-d for example.

The Electoral College forces a 2 major party system (except when one disintegrates like the Whigs).  And then a new one suddenly becomes "major".  That is far less likely to happen now.  There is too much organization.  Minor movements merely try to take over the major Party organization.
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

SGOS

Quote from: Cavebear on May 29, 2018, 02:23:48 AM
The Electoral College forces a 2 major party system (except when one disintegrates like the Whigs).  And then a new one suddenly becomes "major".  That is far less likely to happen now.  There is too much organization.  Minor movements merely try to take over the major Party organization.
To take over the organization, but also to put pressure on one or both parties to yield on their voting behavior.  And they have been powerful enough so that the response from both parties is to exclude them from major events, but not, God forbid, to yield on their behavior.


Cavebear

Quote from: SGOS on May 29, 2018, 06:57:01 AM
To take over the organization, but also to put pressure on one or both parties to yield on their voting behavior.  And they have been powerful enough so that the response from both parties is to exclude them from major events, but not, God forbid, to yield on their behavior.

Well, I was mostly thinking of how minority ideologies sometimes take over a whole party.  My main political science paper was comparing the McGovern takeover of the Democratic party VS the Goldwater takeover of the Republican party.  Usually, the established powers of each party hold control, but sometimes they get gaslighted like with Trump in 2016.

Third parties are like bees.  Once they sting, they generally die.
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

SGOS

Quote from: Cavebear on May 29, 2018, 08:05:07 AM
Well, I was mostly thinking of how minority ideologies sometimes take over a whole party.  My main political science paper was comparing the McGovern takeover of the Democratic party VS the Goldwater takeover of the Republican party.  Usually, the established powers of each party hold control, but sometimes they get gaslighted like with Trump in 2016.
I thought Trump was quite innovative in seeking the presidency.  A political nobody without any experience, running on the Republican ticket.  He's a better Republican than a Democrat, but he's still more like a third party, because he's not a good Republican either.

Cavebear

Quote from: SGOS on May 29, 2018, 08:11:09 AM
I thought Trump was quite innovative in seeking the presidency.  A political nobody without any experience, running on the Republican ticket.  He's a better Republican than a Democrat, but he's still more like a third party, because he's not a good Republican either.

And that is why I consider Trump the best political takeover artist of the last 100 years.  He didn't even have a following of any serious group when he went down the escalator in 2016 and a lot of people of both parties just laughed him off.  As I did. 

I should have worried more when he subdued all the other Republican candidates, but I thought "Sure those idiots might lose to him, but that made it certain that Clinton would win.  But I thought that about Bush vs Gore too.  I should have remembered that "half the population is dumber than average" and so9metimes a lot of them vote.

And I do keep in mind that Trump lost the popular vote by 3 million, which would have caused a landslide electoral vote in most years.  It is just that a few thousand votes in the right States would have changed things completely.

AND I will not ignore that there were voters who just could not see a woman being President.  That day WILL come, just a lot of old guys have to die off first.
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Baruch

Quote from: Cavebear on May 29, 2018, 02:23:48 AM
The Electoral College forces a 2 major party system (except when one disintegrates like the Whigs).  And then a new one suddenly becomes "major".  That is far less likely to happen now.  There is too much organization.  Minor movements merely try to take over the major Party organization.

Exactly what Hitler did, first to the National Socialist Party, and then to German politics.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Cavebear

Quote from: Baruch on May 29, 2018, 01:51:21 PM
Exactly what Hitler did, first to the National Socialist Party, and then to German politics.

When you have to bring Hitler into an argument, you've lost.
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Baruch

Quote from: Cavebear on May 29, 2018, 08:05:07 AM
Well, I was mostly thinking of how minority ideologies sometimes take over a whole party.  My main political science paper was comparing the McGovern takeover of the Democratic party VS the Goldwater takeover of the Republican party.  Usually, the established powers of each party hold control, but sometimes they get gaslighted like with Trump in 2016.

Third parties are like bees.  Once they sting, they generally die.

That doesn't happen in most other countries.  The US is shit, politically speaking.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Baruch

Quote from: Cavebear on May 29, 2018, 01:55:34 PM
When you have to bring Hitler into an argument, you've lost.

Hitler won WW II. The Soviet Union won the Cold War too.  Depends on what you mean by winning.  If by winning, you mean killing lots of innocent people, or oppressing lots of innocent people.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Baruch

Quote from: Cavebear on May 29, 2018, 08:05:07 AM
Well, I was mostly thinking of how minority ideologies sometimes take over a whole party.  My main political science paper was comparing the McGovern takeover of the Democratic party VS the Goldwater takeover of the Republican party.  Usually, the established powers of each party hold control, but sometimes they get gaslighted like with Trump in 2016.

Third parties are like bees.  Once they sting, they generally die.

Good observations, you weren't born yesterday.  Young people don't even remember Bill Clinton as President (that is how age difference works).

McGovern should have kept going, that would have kept the Blue-dog Democrats like the Clintons, in the Republican party, where they belonged.  And Bernie would have been nominated (long ago, not in 2016) and would have won.  But the Powell Memo and the PNAC ...

There may be a lady President some day.  Hillary is no lady.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.