I'm pretty sure "political correctness" has always been largely artificial, a scare tactic of sorts. Someone hit upon the fact that shouting "Those people over there are trying to silence me!" at the top of your lungs is actually a great way to silence others and cobbled together this strawman out of random lefty rhetoric. Unfortunately they were so successful that now everyone acts like there really is a political correctness machine breathing down their necks. And it just won't die because, well, there's nothing to kill off. It's just an empty, rootless idea.

In general people love to gripe about all kinds of stuff like this because it makes them feel better about themselves. Long quote from Slacktivist on a related topic (rumors):

Saying what everybody else is afraid to say is edgy(but not very shocking. Complaining is being a prude. Shocking is Charlie Sheen coming out of the closet.

I think if you can't understand that logic, you most likely have never heard of Charlie Sheen.

They give us someone we can clearly and correctly say we're better than.

So the're in a sense the Alliance(For the horde!).

Eggo:

TheNecroswanson:
Your questions are a little vague.
Are you asking: If someone is being edgy about something everyone is already edgy about, is it still edgy?

I'm asking:

If everyone is espousing a supposedly shocking minority viewpoint and saying that it is constantly being suppressed...Then is it actually being suppressed or shocking?

Additionally:

If everyone complains at great length and detail about how stupid, uninteresting, and banal the vast majority of people are, then isn't that a rather stupid, uninteresting, and banal complaint?

well technically it is not everyone, just a lot of people, and most of them think other people are stupid for different reasons so essentially everyone is complaining about everyone else for different reasons.

The whole notion of "political correctness" is total bullshit if you ask me. The very idea that we should sanitize what we do and say just to avoid offending a few people is offensive to me. While I'm on the subject I have a similar sentiment with sexual harassment as it's used in society today.

Sexual harassment and political correctness go hand in hand, I think. At least with sexual harassment there's a good foundation to start from, though. It's just gotten out of hand, really. I once saw a guy get fired from a job because he told a woman he liked her shirt.

That's it, just "Hey, that's a nice shirt" and he got fired. He got fired because the woman had rather ample breasts and liked to wear low cut shirts to show them off. But, she was passive-aggressive about it, she'd show them off, but if you noticed you were a pig. So, she comes in wearing a V-neck number that really showed the twins off and one of the guys complimented her shirt, she reports it as sexual harassment and he's fired.

That's what political correctness does for the world, it allows bullshit like that to happen. Did the guy make lewd comments to her at work? Did he say something suggestive? Did he proposition her? Nope, he simply liked her shirt and got fired because the climate at an office is so politically correct that just a passing compliment can and will get you fired.

Eggo:
At least there's one less idiot employed at that company :]

No, she still works there. He, however, was a top performer in every category in the weekly metrics. It would take a half dozen workers with the "victim's" output to equal the output of the the guy they fired.

Retoru:
The whole notion of "political correctness" is total bullshit if you ask me. The very idea that we should sanitize what we do and say just to avoid offending a few people is offensive to me. While I'm on the subject I have a similar sentiment with sexual harassment as it's used in society today.

Sexual harassment and political correctness go hand in hand, I think. At least with sexual harassment there's a good foundation to start from, though. It's just gotten out of hand, really. I once saw a guy get fired from a job because he told a woman he liked her shirt.

That's it, just "Hey, that's a nice shirt" and he got fired. He got fired because the woman had rather ample breasts and liked to wear low cut shirts to show them off. But, she was passive-aggressive about it, she'd show them off, but if you noticed you were a pig. So, she comes in wearing a V-neck number that really showed the twins off and one of the guys complimented her shirt, she reports it as sexual harassment and he's fired.

That's what political correctness does for the world, it allows bullshit like that to happen. Did the guy make lewd comments to her at work? Did he say something suggestive? Did he proposition her? Nope, he simply liked her shirt and got fired because the climate at an office is so politically correct that just a passing compliment can and will get you fired.

If he noticed the shirt more than her owls(hooters), he was most likely gay(not all gay men are like the Fab 5, they just don't like to stare at the well um...yeahs) and therefore it wouldn't even be sane to call that harassment.

Sorry. Allow me to end the topic. Jeremy Clarkson, isn't, and has never been, funny.

fluffylandmine:

Retoru:
The whole notion of "political correctness" is total bullshit if you ask me. The very idea that we should sanitize what we do and say just to avoid offending a few people is offensive to me. While I'm on the subject I have a similar sentiment with sexual harassment as it's used in society today.

Sexual harassment and political correctness go hand in hand, I think. At least with sexual harassment there's a good foundation to start from, though. It's just gotten out of hand, really. I once saw a guy get fired from a job because he told a woman he liked her shirt.

That's it, just "Hey, that's a nice shirt" and he got fired. He got fired because the woman had rather ample breasts and liked to wear low cut shirts to show them off. But, she was passive-aggressive about it, she'd show them off, but if you noticed you were a pig. So, she comes in wearing a V-neck number that really showed the twins off and one of the guys complimented her shirt, she reports it as sexual harassment and he's fired.

That's what political correctness does for the world, it allows bullshit like that to happen. Did the guy make lewd comments to her at work? Did he say something suggestive? Did he proposition her? Nope, he simply liked her shirt and got fired because the climate at an office is so politically correct that just a passing compliment can and will get you fired.

If he noticed the shirt more than her owls(hooters), he was most likely gay(not all gay men are like the Fab 5, they just don't like to stare at the well um...yeahs) and therefore it wouldn't even be sane to call that harassment.

Even if he was straight and noticed the twins, he made a compliment on the shirt. I could see it being borderline if he'd said something like "that shirt looks good on you" or "that shirt really accentuates your amazingly plump melons, please let me titty fuck you in the break room", but all he did was compliment the shirt.

And, I gotta say, as someone who was there that day, it was a nice shirt. It was made of some sort of silky material and had an interesting fractal pattern on it. It was a very cool shirt.

Eggo:

Retoru:
No, she still works there. He, however, was a top performer in every category in the weekly metrics. It would take a half dozen workers with the "victim's" output to equal the output of the the guy they fired.

I suppose it doesn't matter if he was at such a low level position that only weekly metrics are indicative of his importance, but I see nothing wrong with socially unaware idiots being culled from a company.

How is he an idiot or socially unaware by giving someone a compliment? If he'd told a man he was wearing a nice shirt nobody would complain one bit. Hell, if a woman told a man he had a nice shirt on nobody would care. But, stop the presses if a man tells a woman she's wearing nice clothing, he's just a pig and needs to be fired.

Seriously, do you even run things by your brain before you type them or do you just blindly slap at your keyboard and hit post?

Well if you(retoru) noticed the shirt, you must be a pervert of the worst flavor.

If you don't sense the Sarcasm you may want to check again.

Eggo:

Retoru:
How is he an idiot or socially unaware by giving someone a compliment? If he'd told a man he was wearing a nice shirt nobody would complain one bit. Hell, if a woman told a man he had a nice shirt on nobody would care. But, stop the presses if a man tells a woman she's wearing nice clothing, he's just a pig and needs to be fired.

You're demonstrating to me that you don't have the capacity to actually understand the answer.

Retoru:
Seriously, do you even run things by your brain before you type them or do you just blindly slap at your keyboard and hit post?

You just did it again.

No, don't just be a pussy. Explain your position. How is someone who is just being a nice guy and giving someone a compliment socially unaware? How is he an idiot? Why can't people be nice to other people without worrying about being fired for it?

Retoru:
The whole notion of "political correctness" is total bullshit if you ask me.

For me, there is no such thing as Political Correctness. There's Sin, not sin, and social taboo. Thus my political left/right would be Pacifist Anarchism, if it wasn't an oxymoron.

Eggo:

Retoru:
No, don't just be a pussy. Explain your position. How is someone who is just being a nice guy and giving someone a compliment socially unaware? How is he an idiot? Why can't people be nice to other people without worrying about being fired for it?

You did it again and again and again. And your poor choice of vocabulary isn't helping your case.

Do some growing up and then I'll consider sitting you down on my knee to explain how the real world works.

So, basically you're saying that you don't have the ability to justify your position so you're going to default into talking down to me instead to save face?

Eggo:
Do some growing up and then I'll consider sitting you down on my knee to explain how the real world works.

Eggo, you're kinda pulling your own little Thornton Melon thing right now. It's rather unbecoming.

-- Alex

TheNecroswanson:
Reported for flammatory content.

You're supposed to just press "report" and move on. Making your own post about how you just reported some other post just adds more fuel to the fire of pointless bickering.

-- Alex

Eggo:

TheNecroswanson:
Reported for flammatory content.

Yeah, I can't believe he called me a pussy!

In his defence your avatar is a cat...

Eggo:

TheNecroswanson:
Reported for flammatory content.

Yeah, I can't believe he called me a pussy!

Retoru:
So, basically you're saying that you don't have the ability to justify your position so you're going to default into talking down to me instead to save face?

I have already demonstrated that ability. All you have to do is stop assuming you've reached the peak of understanding the modern human condition.

So, you say you have the ability to justify your position, yet you still refuse to do it. Seems to me that can only mean that you can't justify your position and you're again attempting to put it back on me rather than make any attempt to explain things as you see them.

It sounds like a cop out to me, even if I felt a person was 100% unlikely to understand my explanation I'd still give the explanation to him as a basic courtesy. So again, explain to me how a guy who was being nice is an idiot who deserved to be fired. Why can he not tell a female coworker he likes her shirt, yet a female can make that same compliment to a male coworker without any problem? Why is he in the wrong for being the victim of a double standard and an overly sensitive atmosphere where everyone has to pussyfoot around and pretend they don't have genitalia for 8 hours a gay?