IT'S POLITICAL CORRECTNESS GONE MAD!

Actually, this one is better.

Is it actually true that some US news organ referred to Nelson Mandela as the first African American President of South Africa?

it's not clear-cut though, because anti-abortionists want to be called "pro-life" etc. That's a kind of political correctness, but people don't call it that.

However, the regulator said in future it would look at all such cases individually and that "the level of editorial justification required for the inclusion of smoking in such cartoons is necessarily high".

And to think, I grew up in an era where racist stereotypes were already edited out of Tom and Jerry and Loony Tunes episodes. Look at what I missed. Now kids don't even get smoking (well not all of it--they get to maintain the "value of the animation").

IT'S GONE MAD. MAD I TELL YOU!

Is it 2006, or is it NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR?!?!?!

http://www.google.com/url?sa=U&start=2&q=http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060821/od_nm/india_hitler_dc&e=9797&sig=__zDXDL7G_OaorrS3e_UABJka4sFo=

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/1015/1015507_600_face_court_for_feet.html

probably more 'nanny state' but ech.

i saw some news bit where a school banned the game of tag

On The One Show on BBC1 last night, there was an old woman who wants these signs banned:

http://www.highwaycode.gov.uk/images/signs106.gif

Because, basically, "just because we're old, doesn't mean we walk in single-file".

Jesus christ, some people need more important things to think about

xpost
The Mail is all in a tiz about this.

It has nothing to do with political correctness though, does it?

xpost re: School banning tag.

It was one big bluff:

"No, no, it's banned. You can't. It doesn't count.......... IT!!!" (runs away)

So the mail is for zero tolearance except when you are middle class

As for tag, well I know quite a few schools banned it in the US last year. Again, though, it's not really political correctness. I think it's more to do with vocal parents. If one parent complains about something at my children's school it'll generally lead to a comment on the school newsheet. And often the head teacher will ban something if he gets even just a couple of complaints. Sadly, I am a lone voice demanding that my kids should be allow to smoke on the playing fields (as I did in my day and my father before me...)

and "wearing flip-flops" and have a good set of photos available, now the A Level passing season is over.

Also:

Then, magistrates at Chester were presented with the case of a 19-year-old Cub Scout leader caught lolling in a train carriage with her feet (clad in flipflop sandals) resting on the seat in front of her.

So, watch out, you excelsiors!

So the mail is for zero tolearance except when you are middle class

Or a car driver.

From the comments on the feet article:

"I wonder precisely how young and pretty one has to be before one can break the rules with impunity."

It did cross my mind that the 250 people prosecuted before the pretty young white maths student cub scout leader who works with disabled children didn't warrant a news article about these "draconian" measures that have been in place for 6 months.

I hate getting my pants dirty on train seats.

put them on yr flip-flops then!

"I am a liberal by inclination"

pffft

TS: Zero tolerance must mean exactly that...even if she's a sweet maths student vs Nice people, people like me and Kathleen Jennings ... are simply exercising our civil liberties when we try to make ourselves comfortable in public places.

Maybe this should go in the 'how shit is the Guardian these days' thread.

if i'm reading this right, a whole bunch of you think people should be in court for this trivial shit...?

It sort of breaks into Ben Elton's classic "doubleseat" routine as well.

I haven't seen anybody go one way or the other here. xpost

The article's main point is the targetting of 'non-threatening' people, but seeing as how 250 other people got summonsed too, how could they know? They might all have been asbo hoodied pikey asylum seekers for all they kno.

No, I don't think she should be in court for it, I'm just point out the double standard.

Me also.

What this boils down to is that when someone puts their feet on the seats, SURE they ought to receive a ticking-off, but it SHOULDN'T result in a fine, or worse, a news article.

but the MAIL was pointing out the double-standard. the mail was saying lock middle-class people too, for great justice.

So how should Merseyrail solve the problem of their dirty train seats?

Remove all the seats and replace solid floors with grating.

first Google search result for "Utne Politically Correct" is ... uh...

http://www.utne.com/mind-and-body/the-politically-correct-kama-sutra.aspx#axzz3Q4PyPnw2

xpost

ha; i have a 1994 utne with a cover story about generation x. i will thumb through and look for references.

PC as i understood it was originally a self-identifying term for ppl on the left b4 the right got a hold of it.

if so, yikes that is crazy. terrible, terrible framing there.

maybe not sincerely tho?

According to one version, political correctness actually began as an in-joke on the left: radical students on American campuses acting out an ironic replay of the Bad Old Days BS (Before the Sixties) when every revolutionary groupuscule had a party line about everything. They would address some glaring examples of sexist or racist behaviour by their fellow students in imitation of the tone of voice of the Red Guards or Cultural Revolution Commissar: 'Not very "politically correct", Comrade!'[11]

[11] http://www.ram-wan.net/restrepo/hall/some%20politically%20incorrect%20pathways.pdf

that makes more sense - it certainly sounds like a parody of marxist party line type stuff

A lot of the time I feel like 'politically correct' is a term people throw out to dismiss something they don't want to admit is actually correct

PC as i understood it was originally a self-identifying term for ppl on the left b4 the right got a hold of it.

If so, that usage was already long-gone 25 years ago.

lol yeah, no-one, before the right got hold of the term, ever used 'politically correct' in a sincere, approving sense. This is why all in-group humour should be forbidden.

It's entirely possible that as a pre-teen Utne Reader, I failed to grasp the sense of humor and context in whatever article it is that I'm remembering.

Looking through Nexis right now at differing contexts and connotations of early mentions.

The Washington Post

April 11, 1979, Wednesday, Final Edition

According to diplomats here, the real threat comes not from the Kurds or Shiites as such, but from the fact that tens of thousands of both groups have migrated to the cities where they form a kind of urban proletariat, vulnerable to communist agitation for social and economic, not religious or ethnic, reasons.

That is why the Baathists stress party orthodoxy as the overriding concern.

"In this country," a government official said, "your own personal religion is up to you but the religion of the party is obligatory."

Ticking off the names of Kurds, Christians and Shiites who have risen to prominence, he noted, "Arab or Kurd, Sunni or [Shiite] it doesn't matter, as long as you are politically correct."

The Washington Post

October 8, 1982, Friday, Final Edition

It won't put Horchow or L.L. Bean out of business, but a new mail-order catalogue might be just the thing for recession-proof Republicans looking for politically correct Christmas gifts.

It's "The Official Republican Collection," a 16-page potpourri of GOP kitsch, from the White House wooden Easter Eggs ($7) to the Oval Office cuff links ($25), from the Boehm porcelain Nancy Reagan Camellia ($650) to the ultimate stocking stuffer: a set of 10 portfolios containing the signatures of every president from George Washington to Ronald Reagan for a mere $20,000.

Just the thing for that NCPAC knickknack shelf.

The Globe and Mail (Canada)

February 5, 1985 Tuesday

Girls just want to have fun, and how. That was the overriding theme of
a collection that seems to have been designed with the town flirt in mind.
After the cheerlessness of politically correct female attire (you know,
like a man), Ungaro appeared to be arguing that real freedom rests in
options, including the option to parade in polka-dot pumps that match
short, body-conscious polka-dot frocks.

Los Angeles Times

November 20, 1985, Wednesday, Home Edition

BIG BROTHER ON CAMPUS

The trouble with both Accuracy in Media and Accuracy in Academia is that they are based on the assumption that there is one, and only one, politically correct way to think. Accuracy in Academia says that there are 10,000 Marxists teaching on American college campuses and that students should be protected from their mistaken views. How the organization arrived at that number is unclear, but it is clear that college students are capable of critical thought. Education is not indoctrination.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/oireachtas/reaction-to-note-political-correctness-gone-mad-lowry-1.2080477

Per Nexis, this is the earliest use of the thread title

http://www.nytimes.com/1992/05/05/us/suit-depicts-fight-on-mit-faculty.html

Christina Hoff Sommers, a professor of philosophy at Clark University in Worcester and a friend of Professor Wolff, said the battle within M.I.T.'s literature department "is a case of political correctness gone mad." Professor Sommers said Professor Wolff considered herself a "progressive feminist" but one who still believed in applying traditional scholarly standards in her academic work.

A number of the 10 professors in the department are "radical feminists, gay theorists or Marxists, very dogmatic and intolerant," Professor Sommers said. "Anyone who dares to oppose them gets labeled as part of the white, hetero, patriarchal hegemony." Broadening One's Education

excellent work, hows life, I was politically active during this time frame but did not have a clear memory of all the history. My hazy recollection that it began as an in-joke, then the right got ahold of it.

Girls just want to have fun, and how. That was the overriding theme of
a collection that seems to have been designed with the town flirt in mind.
After the cheerlessness of politically correct female attire (you know,
like a man), Ungaro appeared to be arguing that real freedom rests in
options, including the option to parade in polka-dot pumps that match
short, body-conscious polka-dot frocks.

Stuff like this being the default register for newspaper writing, of course, is why we have "political correctness" in the first place. But of course lots of people are nostalgic for the days when everyone understood that a woman must be "cheerless" and in fact barely a woman at all if her dress didn't cling to her body and show her knees.

Christina Hoff Sommers, a professor of philosophy at Clark University in Worcester and a friend of Professor Wolff, said the battle within M.I.T.'s literature department "is a case of political correctness gone mad."

I thought this name rang a bell and OH MY GOD this is Based Mom. This is the crazy anti-feminist lady providing cover for all the gamergate fuckheads online.

http://wehuntedthemammoth.com/2014/11/29/the-five-creepiest-gamergate-fan-art-tributes-to-christina-hoff-sommers-aka-based-mom-with-bonus-annoying-gif/

http://www.aei.org/author/christina-hoff-sommers/

And what a slate she has published.

haha! good catch!

oh my god.

? yeah she's v much a known quantity in the intra- and anti-feminist battles of the 90s. it was not a surprise at all to see her weasel her way into the antifeminist shitshow dujour, that's p much her job

not to pull old-time rank you or anything

trashing "Free to Be You and Me"! this aggression shall not stand

What literature department ought not have gay theorists and Marxists? If you want to be a conservative warrior, go major in business. Please, these people make their living from having an enemy! Without Marxists and feminists, they wouldn't get published.

I read that "gay theorists and Marxists" and thought, "gee, sounds like fun"...too many liberal arts classes have profs who begin classes by saying, "...and I'm not a Marxist!"

Oh I figured she'd been around forever, it's just that her appearance is some sorta antimatter intersectionality of online retrograde fuckheaded horribleness.

lol yeah, no-one, before the right got hold of the term, ever used 'politically correct' in a sincere, approving sense. This is why all in-group humour should be forbidden.

― sanctimonious uncontextualized linkdumps as an enlightmenment (Bananaman Begins), Wednesday, January 28, 2015 6:06 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

spoken like a true stalinist!

FWIW i think the term "left-correct" was around within the left at least as long as "politically correct." again, it has an ironic charge, as in, "well, this idea may not be 'left-correct' (hewing the party line) but it's a good idea."

ok I did a search in the NYT from 1851.

1st mention of the term "politically correct" is from 1956, specifically from "Text of Speech on Stalin by Khrushchev as Released by the State Department." basically it's a key document of de-Stalinization from the USSR, with Kruschchev critiquing the "cult of personality" that had developed around Stalin. a fascinating read, actually.

but this lends credence to the idea that the term, in its American sense, was a reference to, and likely a parodying of, habits of the Old Left.

btw until 1990 the other uses of the term are all from the Cold War/Eastern Bloc context.

if the university social justice club ever gets stalin-like power i reserve the right to get worried

correction

that was the 1st mention of the phrase "political correctness"

the phrase 'politically correct" appears in a few stray places starting in the 1860s, but it's fairly random. it starts appearing more frequently in the mid-1950s, again, in the context of discussions of Russia and the Eastern Bloc countries.

what's the 1860 context?

stalin.gif

use of both terms EXPLODES in the 1990s btw, where it is suddenly being applied much more frequently to the American context..

"i need stalinism bc it triggers me when the kulaks get to keep their grain seed."

what's the 1860 context?

― Mordy, Friday, February 6, 2015 3:31 PM (36 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

actually, it's 1875.

headline: "FROM THE PACIFIC COAST.: SAN FRANCISCO INTERESTS, A SPECIALLY FAVORABLE SEASON--THE FEELING AGAINST CAPT. WADDELL AND THE PACIFIC MAIL DIRECTORY--STEINBERGER'S POPULARITY AMONG HIS HEATHEN SUBJECTS."

don't have time ATM to read entire article sorry, but here's the terrific opening lines:

After five weeks' rain, with scarcely one clear day, we have once more our glorious Winter weather, bright, sunny, clear, and an atmosphere just bracing enough to require a thin Fall overcoat, and that not needed if you are walking. Already the hill-sides are clothed in emerald hues, and the grateful bovine nippeth the tender grass and the festive dairyman sees signs of a fall in butter.

you make a lot of trigger jokes mordy what's up with that

the grateful bovine nippeth the tender grass and the festive dairyman sees signs of a fall in butter

journalism standards really have declined, I gotta say

xxp amateurist what's the line w/ the "pc" quote?

don't worry about it shakes

mordy, i'd have to read through the whole thing to find out! it's not text-searchable.

the grateful bovine nippeth the tender grass and the festive dairyman sees signs of a fall in butter

journalism standards really have declined, I gotta say

― Οὖτις, Friday, February 6, 2015 4:35 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm. I can't imagine any current reporting being mistaken for Jethro Tull lyrics.

apparently i have access; i found it:

http://i57.tinypic.com/15pmvpe.png

also this gem:

http://i60.tinypic.com/2eg8kls.png

emoluments, he don't got any any

"He continued to destroy ships long after he was aware that the war was over. 'Like a boss,' our correspondent added."

lol

"Once again, it's the tail wagging the dog."

Waddell was obv a bad loser.

So the idea is that if someone is derisively called "politically correct" presumably because they are unnecessarily touchy about things. This displays a lack of self-awareness because if you are upset about someone being PC then you are being unnecessarily touchy imo.

like ta shoot someone out of a Western canon, right into a busy intersectionality

lol Morbs ^

revive because… oh no

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2021/aug/24/cancel-me-john-cleese-to-present-channel-4-show-on-woke-thought