Thursday, April 13
Who's really doing the manipulation?
CENSORSHIP, DISCRIMINATION
Do you ever hear about people complaining that "political correctness has gone mad" or bemoaning the presence of this pernicious force, the PC police? This always confuses me. I mean, is there a number you can dial to get them, like 999 (no, it'd probably be the international emergency number, 112, wouldn't it?)? Me, I've never seen a Political Correctness Police Constable on the beat. To be fair, in Rutland, the police station is only open in office hours Monday to Friday. Commit a crime at any other time of the week and you're fine. But I digress.
The ususal response is that the PC Police are everywhere, and I am usually treated to a reference to 1984 in the process. And for all they know, I could be a Plain Clothes Political Correctness Police Constable myself, right? So they're taking a risk by telling this - but they're ready to look oppression in the eye and call it out while the world watches. It's quite fun to watch someone angrily trying to outstare a mirror, by the way.
Why do I say that? Political correctness has no standing army. It's more of an idea, or an understanding of what is and isn't right - some would use this new-fangled word "meme". Everyone has it, to a certain degree, it's something inside us which jars when we hear phrases like "black as the ace of spades, they were, but very nice", usually from old ladies who've spent most of their lives without ever seeing non-caucasians. What's wrong with this? I mean, clearly, it's meant as a compliment. It's the "but" that really does it, I think. The "but" says 'despite them being black, they were nice', it implies that most black people aren't, but these were. I mean, replace it with an "and", it's still a turn of phrase that's just odd, but it's more defensible in the context of someone to whom seeing a black person is very out of the ordinary.
But the point of "political correctness", insofar as it legitimately exists (and, like everything, it is occasionally misinterpreted and misused) is not to denounce old ladies or to catch out the plainspeaking, nor is it some newspeak ideological control mechanism to brand some ideas as crimethink. It's not even a new idea, though it is a new(ish) term. In fact, if you say what you mean, there's nothing "politically incorrect" about it. It's just that we're human and we make many, many mistakes all the time, and the vast majority of the time, we just let things pass. It's just when those in positions of authority say things they don't actually mean (or people speaking in official contexts) that the political correctness flags in our minds go up.
It happens when you say "British education is going down the drain due to reform X". Say that in the pub, and that's fine, no-one cares. Say that in an official report, and it may need underlining in red ink. If reform X is England-specific (remember, Scotland has an entirely separate education system, Wales and NI are also partly managed separately), you should be saying England. Now, it's an easy mistake to make, and it's hardly something you'd get the sack for! But things get more serious under other circumstances. When you do things like mixing up "muslim" and "terrorist", you're not speaking plainly, you're obscuring the matter with imprecision.
You see, once you get into areas like that, you risk not only mixing up your own point, but you also sound like you're equating the two things (wherein lies prejudice). Political Correctness, such as it is, intervenes to separate that: it forces us to ask "didn't you mean this...". Usually, we look a bit annoyed and say "Yeah, well, you know what I mean". And, truth be told, if that were the end of it, political correctness would just be one branch of (the noble art of) pedantry. But that isn't it.
Let's say a politician from one major political party makes a gaffe confusing muslims and terrorists. It's embarrassing, it's not what we should expect of our elected officials, but, given the way the media runs in this world, it's understandable. The problem comes from two wings. Firstly, the main opposition party's reaction is likely to be political pointscoring, and they'll gleefully knock the offender for being a racist or somesuch. This will be echoed by some of the mainstream media. Actually, this is not particularly "P.C.": firsly, it's unlikely that the offender harboured actual prejudice, and secondly, it's religious predjudice we're talking about. The second effect will probably be a fringe organisation - the British National Party, List Pim Fortuyn, or whoever saying "quite right, the Qu'ran is an evil book full of hatred and violence and all muslims are closet terrortists" or something to that effect. The politician in question will, by now, have responded to the effect that the main opposition's arguments reflected "political correctness gone mad" (another error: it's not the extension of political correctness, but overzealous partisanship in the name of political correctness), and that the original statement was just their own, customary, "I'm just a normal person like you" talk. Naturally, the fringe group will applaud this and continue to misconstrue the sentiments of the politician in question, who will probably politely decline their support.
How does political correctness solve the matter? Well, someone will probably just ask "When you sid this, didn't you mean...", and the politician might look a bit embarrassed and say what he really meant. The main opposition probably won't have much to say, except that it was an "ill-judged remark", "a human error", if they're sporting. As for the fringe group, they're now deprived of the ambiguity and probably unable to get their voice heard, which is why they are so frequently caricaturing these political correctness police. After all, you can't argue with doublethink, right?
CENSORSHIP, DISCRIMINATION
Do you ever hear about people complaining that "political correctness has gone mad" or bemoaning the presence of this pernicious force, the PC police? This always confuses me. I mean, is there a number you can dial to get them, like 999 (no, it'd probably be the international emergency number, 112, wouldn't it?)? Me, I've never seen a Political Correctness Police Constable on the beat. To be fair, in Rutland, the police station is only open in office hours Monday to Friday. Commit a crime at any other time of the week and you're fine. But I digress.
The ususal response is that the PC Police are everywhere, and I am usually treated to a reference to 1984 in the process. And for all they know, I could be a Plain Clothes Political Correctness Police Constable myself, right? So they're taking a risk by telling this - but they're ready to look oppression in the eye and call it out while the world watches. It's quite fun to watch someone angrily trying to outstare a mirror, by the way.
Why do I say that? Political correctness has no standing army. It's more of an idea, or an understanding of what is and isn't right - some would use this new-fangled word "meme". Everyone has it, to a certain degree, it's something inside us which jars when we hear phrases like "black as the ace of spades, they were, but very nice", usually from old ladies who've spent most of their lives without ever seeing non-caucasians. What's wrong with this? I mean, clearly, it's meant as a compliment. It's the "but" that really does it, I think. The "but" says 'despite them being black, they were nice', it implies that most black people aren't, but these were. I mean, replace it with an "and", it's still a turn of phrase that's just odd, but it's more defensible in the context of someone to whom seeing a black person is very out of the ordinary.
But the point of "political correctness", insofar as it legitimately exists (and, like everything, it is occasionally misinterpreted and misused) is not to denounce old ladies or to catch out the plainspeaking, nor is it some newspeak ideological control mechanism to brand some ideas as crimethink. It's not even a new idea, though it is a new(ish) term. In fact, if you say what you mean, there's nothing "politically incorrect" about it. It's just that we're human and we make many, many mistakes all the time, and the vast majority of the time, we just let things pass. It's just when those in positions of authority say things they don't actually mean (or people speaking in official contexts) that the political correctness flags in our minds go up.
It happens when you say "British education is going down the drain due to reform X". Say that in the pub, and that's fine, no-one cares. Say that in an official report, and it may need underlining in red ink. If reform X is England-specific (remember, Scotland has an entirely separate education system, Wales and NI are also partly managed separately), you should be saying England. Now, it's an easy mistake to make, and it's hardly something you'd get the sack for! But things get more serious under other circumstances. When you do things like mixing up "muslim" and "terrorist", you're not speaking plainly, you're obscuring the matter with imprecision.
You see, once you get into areas like that, you risk not only mixing up your own point, but you also sound like you're equating the two things (wherein lies prejudice). Political Correctness, such as it is, intervenes to separate that: it forces us to ask "didn't you mean this...". Usually, we look a bit annoyed and say "Yeah, well, you know what I mean". And, truth be told, if that were the end of it, political correctness would just be one branch of (the noble art of) pedantry. But that isn't it.
Let's say a politician from one major political party makes a gaffe confusing muslims and terrorists. It's embarrassing, it's not what we should expect of our elected officials, but, given the way the media runs in this world, it's understandable. The problem comes from two wings. Firstly, the main opposition party's reaction is likely to be political pointscoring, and they'll gleefully knock the offender for being a racist or somesuch. This will be echoed by some of the mainstream media. Actually, this is not particularly "P.C.": firsly, it's unlikely that the offender harboured actual prejudice, and secondly, it's religious predjudice we're talking about. The second effect will probably be a fringe organisation - the British National Party, List Pim Fortuyn, or whoever saying "quite right, the Qu'ran is an evil book full of hatred and violence and all muslims are closet terrortists" or something to that effect. The politician in question will, by now, have responded to the effect that the main opposition's arguments reflected "political correctness gone mad" (another error: it's not the extension of political correctness, but overzealous partisanship in the name of political correctness), and that the original statement was just their own, customary, "I'm just a normal person like you" talk. Naturally, the fringe group will applaud this and continue to misconstrue the sentiments of the politician in question, who will probably politely decline their support.
How does political correctness solve the matter? Well, someone will probably just ask "When you sid this, didn't you mean...", and the politician might look a bit embarrassed and say what he really meant. The main opposition probably won't have much to say, except that it was an "ill-judged remark", "a human error", if they're sporting. As for the fringe group, they're now deprived of the ambiguity and probably unable to get their voice heard, which is why they are so frequently caricaturing these political correctness police. After all, you can't argue with doublethink, right?
# posted by Phugebrins @ 18:03 
