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CORRECT
April, 1992
The current Politically
Correct line on the Political
Correctness issue seems to be
that there is no such
phenomena.
But the term was originally
used among the left as a kind
of joke, out of a sense of
exasperation about keeping up (Are all the girls "women" or
with all the shifts in "womyn" this week? Are the
expectations. black guys still black, or
are they "African-Americans"?
"Oh, is that the next thing Or maybe just "people of
we're going to have to be color"? Are lesbians "gay
Politically Correct about?" people" Or maybe "queer"?)
ORIGINALPC
The Politically Correct seem A friend of mine once
to substitute a desire for asked some members of the
social acceptance over rational "People's Platform" TOON
thought. whether Jews were one of
the "historically
They're people who believe what oppressed peoples" they
they think they're supposed to. were always talking about.
The first people he talked
People whose standards of right to said "No." He found
and wrong are determined more someone higher up in the
by sociology than by philosophy. chain though, who said
"Yes." Later, he asked
Characterized by intolerance of someone again, and at
opinions that deviate from the first the answer was "No",
accepted standard. but when he pointed out
that one of their fearless
And an inability to understand leaders had said "Yes",
why anyone would question the then the answer became
Word, as handed down by those "Yes".
faithful to the Cause.
Maybe that's a lead:
Being blind to any approach
but your own. The difficulty
But there are older of understanding something
terms than PC to outside of your old, comfortable
describe this kind paradigm.
of problem...
Orthodoxy. Everyone keeps insisting
Parochialism. "That's *not* what I said!"
It is not only left-
liberal-radical- There are well known
progressives who are problems with the
guilty of this. religious right. Scopes
monkey trial. Rights of
abortion choice.
(Hm. Maybe .... Intolerance of
"leliraprogs"? homosexuality.
Or "lebraprogs"? Opposition to sex-ed, to
What do you making contraceptives
think?) available to teenagers.
Suppression of erotica.
The thing that's really Prohibition of drugs.
galling about this
is the sense that It's actually kind of amazing
children of the to me that the self-proclaimed
enlightenment really "faithful" of various religious
ought to know better. sects aren't constantly engaged
in jihads of some sort.
After all, what can you
expect from conservatives But then, there are
who are always preaching probably some
the value of tradition? strong selection
But the children of the pressures in favor
Enlightenment really of the current
ought to understand situation: the
the importance of believers set up
intellectual freedom. their lives so that
beliefs don't matter,
Instead, you get things developing various
like "feminists" who hypocritical dodges IRRAT
want laws against as necessary.
pornography. And people
in universities who
don't understand why
racist remarks are
protected by the first As currently
amendment. interpreted by the
Supreme Court...
unfortunately they're
not equally vigilant at
slapping down the
pornography police.
("The public evil of nudity"?)
Lots of interesting Another interesting
questions here: Like, how question: why do people
is it determined what feel compelled to divide
will be politically into two camps?
correct? How does the
word go out, and who You ask a series
chooses it? of questions "How do you
feel about abortion?";
I don't believe there's a "Defense Spending?";
Conspiracy Central Office "Prayer in the schools?";
that you have to check and so on, and look at
with periodically in their answers and you
order to be periodically find that people mostly
re-registered as a split up into two
Liberal. And yet there groups who answer
does indeed seem to be an the same way.
orthodoxy, and it does
undergo change. So, is there one hidden
fundamental question, an
I think the occasional attitude, a belief that
public crisis of the determines your answers
faithful is interesting. to all these other
questions?
Such as when the people at "On UNCONSTRAINED
Our Backs" started fighting
against the rigid 70's style Of is it all just
feminists (the "militant sociological factors,
vanilas"), insisting on their accidents of history, a
right to play around with desire to belong to a
domination games, leather, group?
dildos, and so on without being
accused of being Bad Feminists.
They were making the
shocking point that Susie Bright, author of
some S&M pornography "Susie Sexperts Lesbian
is actually written Sex World", was editor of
and enjoyed by women. "On Our Backs" in those days,
(near the end of the 80s).
There was some heavy
controversy arising from
attempts at holding S&M
fashion shows at women's
conferences.
The "militant vanillas"
have essentially lost,
and feminists like
Dworkin and MacKinnon
have been retroactively
marginalized. It's now
claimed that they are not
mainstream feminists.
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