AHC: No "anti-polictical correctness" backlash in the early 90s

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Why shouldn't there be a backlash? Political "correctness" is a ridiculously authoritarian and intrusive thing. It is an obvious attempt at censorship and I can never support censorship.
 
Why shouldn't there be a backlash? Political "correctness" is a ridiculously authoritarian and intrusive thing. It is an obvious attempt at censorship and I can never support censorship.

Yes, but in many cases that I can recall, the label "political correctness" was applied to things that weren't really censorship at all. For example, if an English department somewhere was thought to be overly focussed on modern female or minority writers, at the expense of white male writers from the past, conservatives would call that political correctness. Even though no one was being prevented from publishing or reading the writers that conservatives preferred.

And let's be honest. How many of Rush Limbaugh's dittoheads REALLY cared about Plato, Shakespeare and Milton being taught in the colleges, before the right-wing made them into a foil against Malcolm X and bell hooks?
 
Yes, but in many cases that I can recall, the label "political correctness" was applied to things that weren't really censorship at all. For example, if an English department somewhere was thought to be overly focussed on modern female or minority writers, at the expense of white male writers from the past, conservatives would call that political correctness. Even though no one was being prevented from publishing or reading the writers that conservatives preferred

I get your point but that doesn't diminish the cases where the goal actually was censorship. Don't forget that colleges have banned speakers for "damaging" views even when these speakers are just conservative. Then there is the UK trying to ban Trump from the country because of his (horrible) views. I think as a society we have forgotten that the best way to defeat a stupid argument is to let it be heard. Most people will be able to spot the stupid.
 
And perhaps the best remedy to bad speech is more speech. Let an entire range of arguments and facts and examples be heard.

I think some of these cases might be where you have things like the "president's lecture series" where it's being perceived as the university putting their stamp of approval on a speaker. Perhaps the most elegant solution to this is don't have the goofy "president's lecture series"! Spend resources in a more open way where a broad range of views are being invited.

I participated in the peace movement Fall '90 in the run-up to the Persian Gulf War. At a large public state university, you can't distribute flyers just as a student. You have to be a student organization. And to become a student organization, you have to have at least two people who attend an orientation held only a couple of times a semester ! ! Fortunately, we had a couple of people good at completing these kinds of administrative tasks. As far as the university, primarily a kludge-ware bureaucracy. Afraid of trouble, problems, that kind of thing, and yes, occasionally, probably someone's personal agenda.
 
I don't think that's correct. The truth is not inherently more convincing than a lie and logic does not trump lunacy. If that were the case there would be no such things as anti-vaxxers, holocaust deniers or public support for the Iraq War.
 
I don't think that's correct. The truth is not inherently more convincing than a lie and logic does not trump lunacy. If that were the case there would be no such things as anti-vaxxers, holocaust deniers or public support for the Iraq War.

It doesn't matter, people still have a right to their opinions and a right to voice those opinions. Their rights matter much more than whether or not other people are offended.
 

Lateknight

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If polical correctness didn't immediately turn to extremism they're wouldn't have been a backlash but that goes against the nature of polical correctness core supporters.
 

CalBear

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Well since everyone seems to have forgotten that this is not Chat...

Locked.
 
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