To be proud to be PC?

[Shakirasma]

Newspaper columns and facebook are awash with people who use politically correct as a derogatory term and proudly announce that they make no apologies for being un-pc. Usually before saying something insensitive or even downright offensive.

The Collins English dictionary definition of politically correct is:

adjective

demonstrating progressive ideals, esp by avoiding vocabulary that is considered offensive, discriminatory, or judgmental, esp concerning race and gender PC

AIBU to try to be like that? Or is PC really the world gone mad and responsible for all societies ills?

you're not alone, Op.

I'm giving FB a wide berth today as it's making my blood pressure rise. It seems all those articles in the Daily Mail with the subtext of "the world gone pc mad",etc have had an effect on the ignorant and impressionable.
Thar aside, I'm bemused by the PC thing even coming into it - the man (allegedly) punched someone at work, what the fuck has anything else got to do with it?

Theoretician I think your last sentence endorses what I said earlier quite frankly.

I agree with you op. I feel the same about "do Gooders" too. Those bloody people doing.....erm....good.

It always remind me of a sketch (Alan Partridge I think) where he describes not being allowed to smoke on a petrol forecourt as "health and safety gone mad".

I think the difference in responses here comes down to a question of exposure and environment.

Quite a lot of posters' understanding of "PC" appears to be not calling someone by a nasty racial epithet.

However my experience of "PC" has included an able-bodied individual publicly dressing down a parent because she referred to her daughter as "having a disability" rather than saying she had a "disabled daughter".

The former to me is about not being an arsehole; the latter informs my observation of how awkward "politically correct language" has become.

I think it's like most other things. The majority of people understand what it means but there's a small group who hijack the concept and become ridiculous about it, and then the stereotyping starts.

You see it all the time on forums like this, where some idiot will pick on a perfectly innocuous word and try and turn it into a PC argument. For instance, I was attacked on a forum once for talking about 'training a child to understand.....' I was talking about a child as if s/he was an animal, apparently.
That kind of thing just annoys people and the PC gone mad accusations start to be flung around.

Why have I never been invited along to burn a racist, dammit? I clearly don't belong to the right exclusive PC clubs.

Definitely what behindthepaintedgarden said.

Apparently we should feel sorry for JC because he may have Aspergers...

I've heard it all now

Another term for PC is 'politeness'...!

Being PC is fine being PO isn't

Like the time I pointed out a blackbird to a friend in the uni library (it had a bug in its beak). Didn't notice the black woman who was just about to walk into our line of sight. She heard me and went mental.... Pointed out the blackbird in the window and told her what it was though I think everyone knows what a blackbird looks like?

She probable had me down as a racist for the entire time we were at uni. Same course and she never once tried to talk to me or acknowledge me when I tried to talk to her.

So yeah be as PC as you like but be aware that someone somewhere will take offence at what you've said :-/

PC may have been well intentioned at some point, but today it is disappearing into a rabbit hole of nonsense that stifles freedom of expression and thought. OP if you're genuinely interested in finding out about the problems of PC then do read this extremely good article by a liberal New York writer...

nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/01/not-a-very-pc-thing-to-say.html

Our health and happiness as societies depends on free and open argument. PC attempts to shut this down. As he puts it "Political correctness is a style of politics in which the more radical members of the left attempt to regulate political discourse by defining opposing views as bigoted and illegitimate."

And most strongly "political correctness is not a rigorous commitment to social equality so much as a system of left-wing ideological repression. Not only is it not a form of liberalism; it is antithetical to liberalism. Indeed, its most frequent victims turn out to be liberals themselves."

I'm proud to genuinely believe in the things that under-pin being PC. Things like equality and respect. If these beliefs are things you have sincerely taken on board then being PC will come naturally, and be more than skin deep.

I hope the only thing I'm not tolerant about is intolerance

I believe in equality and try to treat everybody with kindness and respect but I do agree with others that the principles of PC are being pushed too far on occasions. I work in health and social care and have seen some occasions where it has been used as a weapon and find it concerning that it undermines a lot of the good it can do

I'm always trying to impress on my DD how to treat everyone with courtesy and kindness no matter what their race, religion, sexual orientation etc.. Is that being PC?

Equally, I do think that there is a kind of toxic nit-picking "I'm more PC than thou" that is stifling free speech and not allowing issues to be raised that need to be raised. For example, the "Coloured" vs "people of colour" SNAFU from Benedict Cumberbatch recently. He was trying to make a positive, valid point and ended up being tarred as the biggest racist ever, simply from fumbling in his speech. That kind of thing chaps my arse.

I suppose its like some americans using the word liberal as if its a bad thing.

I have seen PC defined as "The peddling of the disingenuous notion that it is possible to pick up a turd by the clean end."

A 2 minute clip of Stewart Lee's thoughts on "PC".

It can go too far sometimes, usually people acting on others' behalf, but the alternative is to line yourself up with the crowd who are proud not to be PC. Farage, Littlejohn, Violent racist Clarkson, etc.