Political Correctness

In a recent post I wrote the name of a Japanese tube manufacturer, Matsushita, as was astonished to find the board software had automatically replaced the letter 'i' with a *. I assume this is done so as not to offend anyone but I am offended by the adding of the star for two reasons. First on behalf of any Japanese who will be offended that the name of one of their well respected manufacturers is a swear word and secondly because it infringes my freedom of speech. And thirdly because it is stupid. Durex in the UK is a type of condom, but in Australia it is a make of Sellotape. Will it be allowed or not? Fag in the UK is a colloquial term for a cigarette but in the US it is and offensive word for a homosexual and I already know the a in fag gets starred. I believe a certain brand name for trainers is a n horrific swear word in Spanish. Who decides, indeed who has the right to decide, what words are and are not offensive on this board?

When I was a kid I learnt a little ditty. I wonder how much of this gets through:

My mother told be not to swear,
shit, bugger arse and I don't care

Should be instructive.

Happy Christmas (assuming that does not offend any non-Christians)

Ian

Well said sir,
Ian it has gotten so bad here in the states, with these pretentious, self rightous pc elitist on their moral higher ground that a fool like me from Long Island NY best not even ever speak.
My partner is a therapist and her friends are a$$es.

Political Correctness is now one of the most destructive forces in the demolition of moden society
Even trying to ban christmas and vandalize christmas trees.
Divide and conquer.

I think there is a bit of post linkage here - specifically with the 'Trump' saga post.

Being one of mature years (F*** I'm being politically correct against myself here  )  )  Backspace. Backspace. Restart.

/Rant On

Being in my 60's I find this form of Political Correctness has some link with the ultra-liberal fraternity of trying not to offend absolutely anyone - which is something that Trump has capitalised on and just blown it out of the water - he had a go against everyone.  But was his campaign one of cutting through all the crap and plugging into what people really thought, but were frightened to say?

It does seem to me that one cannot complete a sentence without it containing some word that may give rise to offence -  and people, particularly the younger liberals, infer that because you say a particular word  you intend insult and malice by it.

To echo Ian's point, I worked for some years in the civil service and it is mentally and emotionally exhausting trying to explain very simple things without appearing to step over some line.

I suppose that society, as a whole, is hypocritical, in that it is fine for someone to say something or make fun about their race, colour, creed etc., its ok, but when someone else does it who is not, they blow up and we get the 'racialist'  or 'religious bigot' card played.    Likewise, the Snowden and Wikileaks affairs, when some people blew up about what the 'spies' get up to, and yet there is no mention of the data mining that Google, Facebook and the like get up to with no policing or safeguarding of rights - so called liberal ideas of free-speech.

/Rant Off

Regards from a windy UK

Mike

The forum software seems like a good thing when some members can't edit themselves...  Panasonic -Matsushita seems like an unusual case and perhaps why they changed their name to Panasonic.

I delete lots of posts on FB because I don't like reading profanity and ugly language... I was recently temped to ask one young lady if she eats with that same mouth, but I know better than to engage those ranters without my flame suit on (my fault for no blocking my liberal friends, but I do block their friends all the time, like that foul mouthed girl).

Yes, I hope we are seeing the decline of the PC movement but it seems the younger generation is very strongly programmed this way. Life is just one continuous micro-aggression to them. Not a learning experience for them, but an opportunity for them to lecture us. 

Interesting times ahead.

JR

madswitcher said:

Regards from a windy UK

Mike

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Windy here in Norfolk too. Remnants of Storm Barbara.

Cheers

Ian

ruffrecords said:

Windy here in Norfolk too.

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Second that.....hope Barbara leaves soon.
Roof still on
Hope our friends up in Scotland are OK,
Hate destructive storms and the deverstation they can bring.

ruffrecords said:

In a recent post I wrote the name of a Japanese tube manufacturer, Matsush*ta, as was astonished to find the board software had automatically replaced the letter 'i' with a *.

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Another forum had a problem with the California city O****nd.

It's all baby with the bathwater....

I'm 100% with you Ian.


Yes, there is liberal PC (and a lot of it is BS), but just for the record, censoring swear words, nudity etc.  is a conservative thing.

Forcing your version of morality down someones throat is always a bad idea.

And a merry f**king Christmas to all of you, too.  8)

living sounds said:

I'm 100% with you Ian.


Yes, there is liberal PC (and a lot of it is BS), but just for the record, censoring swear words, nudity etc.  is a conservative thing.

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?? I suspect the impulse to reject ugliness is neither left or right , but the worst censorship is practiced by totalitarian governments. Mostly to control political opposition, because they can.

Our constitution protects all speech, and we must tolerate some ugly stuff to support that worthwhile  ideal. 

I recall many years ago watching Frank Zappa testify before a congressional hearing trying to censor popular music (This was a pet project of Tipper Gore, very democratis Al's wife). BTW Frank smoked them with his eloquent testimony...

Forcing your version of morality down someones throat is always a bad idea.

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Yes and that cuts both ways. Organized religions often get caught up in the middle of disputes like birth control and the ACA (the government is trying to make them abandon their religious beliefs by forcing them to pay for birth control in health plans).

And a merry f**king Christmas to all of you, too.  8)

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Happy f'n new year to you.  ;D

The modern US universities insistence on safe spaces and suppression of anything other than homogenous ideas seems at odds with the primary function of the university to expose students to new ideas and the real world as it is.   

Is this just a US thing, or are universities around the world behaving the same way?  I don't recall hearing bizarre anecdotes about foreign schools like I hear about the US schools.

JR

JohnRoberts said:

?? I suspect the impulse to reject ugliness is neither left or right , [...]

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Actually it is. Morality is very different among the two extremes, what you call "reject ugliness" falls under the "purity" value in  Jonathan Haidt's theory:




The questionaire can be taken by anyone online:

http://www.yourmorals.org

Also:

"There is evidence that conservatives are more sensitive to disgust and the insula is involved in the feeling of disgust"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biology_and_political_orientation

I recall many years ago watching Frank Zappa testify before a congressional hearing trying to censor popular music (This was a pet project of Tipper Gore, very democratis Al's wife).

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Yes, and Ms. Gore got a lot of heat for it from liberals, including Frank Zappa. At this point in the crime epidemic of the 80s certain  people on the left might have been misguidedly motivated by their "harm reduction" values...

Also, many Democrats aren't and weren't liberals...

Happy f'n new year to you.  ;D

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;D

The modern US universities insistence on safe spaces and suppression of anything other than homogenous ideas seems at odds with the primary function of the university to expose students to new ideas and the real world as it is.   

Is this just a US thing, or are universities around the world behaving the same way?  I don't recall hearing bizarre anecdotes about foreign schools like I hear about the US schools.

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It's nuts, and there are plenty of liberals critisizing it (Bill Maher has ranted long and often about it). To a much lesser degree this happens here in Germany, too. But we have a different traditions and laws, denying the Holocaust is a criminal offence, so since WW2 no University would allow speech like this.

Before you go ranting---

> Who decides, indeed who has the right to decide, what words are and are not offensive on this board?

The forum operator. Here, Ethan. However the forum software comes-with a suggested set of naughty-words. He can edit that. We have rarely demanded he do so. If you want to form a consensus among the members, he would probably listen, but don't get up on your high horse. It has been essentially the same naughty-word list since the beginning.

The last true fuss I recall (may have been elsewhere) was that Mr Richard Smith's trade-name, "Dick Smith", was bollixed in forum posts. Yes, the former parent of Panasonic, Matsushita, also gets bleeped. And there is the famous case of a major forum's Breast Cancer support group suddenly gone unintelligible due to such ****.

I'm not inclined to fret -too- much about Japanese objecting to Matsushita. Most of them know that when barbarians are allowed in polite society, some censorship is warranted. Most electronic geeks will recognize the unfortunate letter sequence as an English word they should not use carelessly. And as John says the corporation has moved away from their old name.

So what do WE want to do??

I could accept "no censor list", at least short-term. You almost never see anybody going on about real naughty-bits here. It does seem to catch as many innocent sub-words as actual dirty-talk. If we end up drowning in fucking shitty messages, we could then revise it. It is probably one line in the forum configuration, and maybe a reboot.

JohnRoberts said:

The modern US universities insistence on safe spaces and suppression of anything other than homogenous ideas seems at odds with the primary function of the university to expose students to new ideas and the real world as it is.   

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Yes, it offends my sense of reality.  Baby with bathwater, like I said. 

PRR said:

Before you go ranting---

> Who decides, indeed who has the right to decide, what words are and are not offensive on this board?

The forum operator. Here, Ethan.

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As my boss was fond of saying, this is not a democracy.

I am not complaining about censorship per se, but it seems to me that in a multinational forum it is bound to fail.


Cheers

ian

I'm not sure I'd call the bleeping of swear words on this site political correctness.  Swear words and cursing are pretty low level as far as I'm concerned.  Even if you don't like them, they don't hurt.  No one here needs to be shielded from cursing do they?  That said, the bleeping out certainly doesn't bother me much here though.  Probably cos there's so little swearing ;-)

Certain statements might require a little bit more careful moderation - after all this is a forum about audio electronics and not politics, despite how it sometimes feels in the Brewery.  There are lines which shouldn't be crossed in most circumstances.  Obvious examples are racist or homophobic posts which are purposefully offensive.

Doug Stanhope sums up my thoughts pretty well.  A warning for the easily offended : It's pretty full on

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHywzQon6tc

s2udio said:

Political Correctness is now one of the most destructive forces in the demolition of moden society
Even trying to ban christmas and vandalize christmas trees.
Divide and conquer.

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Well,  I don't think any group is actively trying to actually ban Christmas, that just sounds like more meaningless hyperbolic whining by Christians to me.

On the topic of offense and political correctness I actually agree that many people need a thicker skin, and that we should for the most part be allowed to say what we want (in general), but I'll also point out that sometimes a person that says he wants to be "free" to say what he wants is just really wanting to be free to be an asshole.

JohnRoberts said:

Organized religions often get caught up in the middle of disputes like birth control and the ACA (the government is trying to make them abandon their religious beliefs by forcing them to pay for birth control in health plans).

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Well, the religious in the US has gotten used to special treatment and coddling by the government, the masses and atheists. The government is obviously not trying to make them abandon their religious beliefs, that's just nonsense. What's at the heart of the matter is if their discrimination of people is constitutional or not.

In other words, if it is not constitutional, they can have their actual beliefs, they just wouldn't be allowed to discriminate illegally. I really don't see how one can disagree with that line of reasoning, with the exception of people of faith who think they deserve special treatment because they believe in a magical sky fairy....

...sorry if that was offensive.

Rocinante said:

Well said sir,
Ian it has gotten so bad here in the states, with these pretentious, self rightous pc elitist on their moral higher ground that a fool like me from Long Island NY best not even ever speak.
My partner is a therapist and her friends are a$$es.

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It's already stealthy in our language for decades, even in your own post. Not an accusation but an ironic reflection of an overly politicized and sexualized society.

mattiasNYC said:

Well, the religious in the US has gotten used to special treatment and coddling by the government, the masses and atheists.

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Yes. And it's ironic how people ranting about the left's political correctness are often easily offended by anything slightly different then their narrow world view. 

They've certainly crowned their king in Trump, who doesn't appear to even have a skin (metaphorically).