Has political correctness actually gone mad?

Pogue Mahone said:
I honestly haven’t heard that argument. The argument I have heard a lot is that Universities are way less tolerant of challenging/controversial opinions now than they were in the past. “Generation snowflake” and all that stuff.
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So you have heard the argument then?
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Practically speaking, I don’t think anyone should be denied a platform to speak just because they express an unpopular or controversial opinion (e.g. all religions should be banned). Whether they deserve that platform is another thing entirely.

Practical issues aside, it’s the mindset that survey reveals which would be my major concern. As I said, I always thought/assumed that students were open-minded and curious people. Shutting down opinions they disagree with - without even hearing them out - seems to be the antithesis of what student life is all about. It’s certainly very different to my own experience of debates on campus, when we regularly heard outrageous opinions from total gobshites and took great pleasure in pulling them apart. If anything, denying them a platform just gives those ideas more power.
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Students are just people (not even young people in many cases). I think that's a stereotype what you're suggesting.

In general though (I'm not sure I can articulate it well right now), there's a balance to be struck between letting any old cnut air their views and banning people willy nilly. I'm all for free speech but I'd probably support banning Nazi's from airing their disgusting views. Why? Because we know their ideology is bullshit - there's no actual debate to be had. If it's a polite discussion (which it won't be), it'll be a slaughter - so there's nothing interesting or insightful to be gained. Otherwise (and much more likely) it will be people screaming at each other in a lecture hall.
 
NinjaFletch said:
What do you think 'worse' means in that context?
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That university students are more likely than the general public to refuse to listen to ideas they disagree with?

Which is not an argument I’d ever pay any heed to. It makes no sense at all that students would be more close-minded than older, less educated people.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
That university students are more likely than the general public to refuse to listen to ideas they disagree with?

Which is not an argument I’d ever pay any heed to. It makes no sense at all that students would be more close-minded than older, less educated people.
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It's not really about being 'close-minded' though, or 'less tolerant of challenging/controversial opinions than in the past' (tbh I'm struggling to see the distinction you're making there you might have to treat me like I'm thick) that's a conflation that morons like Sam Gyimah are making, but it mischaracterises the debate on campuses. It's more about the effectiveness of debating extremist rhetoric.

You might think that giving them a platform and ridiculing them is the best way to show up those views for what they are, but there's a fairly convincing argument that that is simply what they're after and the sort of vulnerable down and outers they're targeting will take the extremist message out of it and nothing else. People accept the orthodoxy of that view when it comes to extremist Islamic preaching (indeed, Universities are forced to deny those people platforms through prevent), but get squeamish when it gets applied to extremist right wing views. That's really all it comes down to, most people – as that poll shows – seem to accept that there's some topics where nothing gets gained from 'debate', it simply becomes a question of where you draw the line.
 
NinjaFletch said:
It's not really about being 'close-minded' though, or 'less tolerant of challenging/controversial opinions than in the past' (tbh I'm struggling to see the distinction you're making there you might have to treat me like I'm thick) that's a conflation that morons like Sam Gyimah are making, but it mischaracterises the debate on campuses. It's more about the effectiveness of debating extremist rhetoric.

You might think that giving them a platform and ridiculing them is the best way to show up those views for what they are, but there's a fairly convincing argument that that is simply what they're after and the sort of vulnerable down and outers they're targeting will take the extremist message out of it and nothing else. People accept the orthodoxy of that view when it comes to extremist Islamic preaching (indeed, Universities are forced to deny those people platforms through prevent), but get squeamish when it gets applied to extremist right wing views. That's really all it comes down to, most people – as that poll shows – seem to accept that there's some topics where nothing gets gained from 'debate', it simply becomes a question of where you draw the line.
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I think that’s exactly it. Where do you draw the line? How do you define “extremist right wing views”? Do Germaine Greer’s opinions on transgenderism constitute extremist right wing views? Or Charles Murray’s research on IQ? Far better to have the flaws in their logic exposed in an open forum than giving them the moral high-ground by denying them the right to be heard (or attempting to deny them, anyway)
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Practically speaking, I don’t think anyone should be denied a platform to speak just because they express an unpopular or controversial opinion (e.g. all religions should be banned). Whether they deserve that platform is another thing entirely.
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This is why I was kind of surprised to see you cheering someone being banned for saying (quite politely, as far as I could see) Lukaku has been rubbish at this world cup. And talking nonsense about De Gea, of course. (I didnt actually look at that because, let's be honest, the opinions being expressed were rubbish, and not really worth spending any time on.)
 
Pogue Mahone said:
I think that’s exactly it. Where do you draw the line? How do you define “extremist right wing views”? Do Germaine Greer’s opinions on transgenderism constitute extremist right wing views? Or Charles Murray’s research on IQ? Far better to have the flaws in their logic exposed in an open forum than giving them the moral high-ground by denying them the right to be heard (or attempting to deny them, anyway)
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The key is to keep the decision of what is and what is not an extremist view far away from those who shout the loudest. This whole issue around free speech and students is massively overblown and it's purely because at many universities over the last few years small groups of very loud idiots have been given too much reign and shown too much respect by administrators and faculty.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Practically speaking, I don’t think anyone should be denied a platform to speak just because they express an unpopular or controversial opinion (e.g. all religions should be banned). Whether they deserve that platform is another thing entirely.

Practical issues aside, it’s the mindset that survey reveals which would be my major concern. As I said, I always thought/assumed that students were open-minded and curious people. Shutting down opinions they disagree with - without even hearing them out - seems to be the antithesis of what student life is all about. It’s certainly very different to my own experience of debates on campus, when we regularly heard outrageous opinions from total gobshites and took great pleasure in pulling them apart. If anything, denying them a platform just gives those ideas more power.
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I always thought PC gone mad and generation snowflake and college campus scae stories were about exactly that. If they aren't, how are there multiple national columnists and anchors in the US making a big issue about an under-represented minority within a small minority (college students)? "Chilling effect on freedom of expression"

Anyway, small caveat given the vague wording in the poll: "%age who think it is offensive AND want it banned" probably means they asked the offensive question firs and then polled them alone. TOtal numbers among the student body would probably be <50%.
 
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Adebesi said:
This is why I was kind of surprised to see you cheering someone being banned for saying (quite politely, as far as I could see) Lukaku has been rubbish at this world cup. And talking nonsense about De Gea, of course. (I didnt actually look at that because, let's be honest, the opinions being expressed were rubbish, and not really worth spending any time on.)
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That eejit would have fallen firmly in the "doesn't deserve a platform" category! I'm well used to people talking shit about players who I rate but yer man got under my skin for his style of debate as much as his content.
 
hobbers said:
The key is to keep the decision of what is and what is not an extremist view far away from those who shout the loudest. This whole issue around free speech and students is massively overblown and it's purely because at many universities over the last few years small groups of very loud idiots have been given too much reign and shown too much respect by administrators and faculty.
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Is that right, though? I definitely have an issue with the "very loud idiots" but I do get the impression that their campaigning generally hasn't been as successful as you'd think from all the fuss their actions generate in the press. It does seem as though the administrators/faculty generally use a lot of common sense in the way they deal with them. This might not be true in the US, mind you...
 
berbatrick said:
I always thought PC gone mad and generation snowflake and college campus scae stories were about exactly that. If they aren't, how are there multiple national columnists and anchors in the US making a big issue about an under-represented minority within a small minority (college students)? "Chilling effect on freedom of expression"

Anyway, small caveat given the vague wording in the poll: "%age who think it is offensive AND want it banned" probably means they asked the offensive question firs and then polled them alone. TOtal numbers among the student body would probably be <50%.
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Aha. Well spotted. That makes the data seem a lot less concerning.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
I think that’s exactly it. Where do you draw the line? How do you define “extremist right wing views”? Do Germaine Greer’s opinions on transgenderism constitute extremist right wing views? Or Charles Murray’s research on IQ? Far better to have the flaws in their logic exposed in an open forum than giving them the moral high-ground by denying them the right to be heard (or attempting to deny them, anyway)
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But that's the point though isn't it? As long as you accept there are legitimate grounds to deny platforms – as the government have thanks to Prevent – then where that line gets drawn is just a legitimate debate to have where people are allowed to have different views.

Not everyone will agree, of course, and some people will think that Greer falls one side of the line whilst others think she falls the other (although I'm far from convinced that story was at all fairly reported in the press, is an openly accessible change.org petition of 300 people really strong proof that 30,000 uni students agreed she shouldn't speak?).

Unless you are going to argue their shouldn't be a line at all then it seems to me just as legitimate for student unions to decide to draw that line slightly further to the left than you would have been comfortable with back in your day, just as it was perfectly legitimate for your cohort to draw it to the right, and just as it is legitimate for different universities to have different lines.

At any rate, as your own link shows, the idea that there is systematic actual no-platforming of simply 'controversial' speakers is a bit of an invention, certainly in the UK, and I'm not sure I've seen any evidence to suggest that anything other than a vanishingly small minority think that Greer – despite what they think of her views – would fall foul of a no-platform for extremism line.
 
How many layers of idpol are you on, amateur? Behold:

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Pogue Mahone said:
It’s actually illegal to pay men and women differently to do the same work. The gender pay gap is calculated as the difference in median salary between the sexes (or is it genders now? feck knows) for all jobs in a company or country.
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Professions dominated by women tend to pay less than those dominated by men, all else being equal (length and amount of education, requiring similar skill-sets, all that jazz). If I'm not mistaken, when more women enter a male-dominated field, the pay tends to drop. Now, that might just be supply-and-demand. The pool of candidates grow faster than the need for personnel.
Sweet Square said:
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Wasn't there a study recently that showed that conservative students push as hard, if not harder, than progressive students to prevent speakers they don't like from speaking at Unis?
 
Pogue Mahone said:
That university students are more likely than the general public to refuse to listen to ideas they disagree with?

Which is not an argument I’d ever pay any heed to. It makes no sense at all that students would be more close-minded than older, less educated people.
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In my experience it is the opposite.
 
Mockney said:
Blazing Saddles could most definitely be made now. But it’d likely be made by, or with black filmmakers, not old school vaudeville Jews.

Old man shouts at cloud. Etc etc.
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Could be wrong but i'm pretty sure it was written or co-written by Richard Pryor wasn't it?
 
Had a random look through some of the pages in this thread. Feck me....
 
Jake Rivers sounds even 'arder than Jack Reacher. Seems like a must read really.
 

It's like he's got the phrases "trigger warning" (sounds a bit edgy, guns and warnings) and "safe space" (but there is no safe space, ahahahaha!) and just ran with it.

Be interesting (not really) to see how shit it is when it's published.
 
This pretty much sums up all the people angry over political correctness.

 
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TIL companies have a policy on literary and philosophical movements.
 
It gets bumped for all sorts of different reasons. The most recent was that terrible book at the bottom of the previous page. Seems bizarre to bump a thread complaining about it not being bumped for a specific reason without, you know, bumping it for that specific reason?
 
An absolute belter of a long read (and it is very long, you have been warned) covering pretty much everything discussed in this thread in today’s Guardian.

One important factor it mentions which had never previously occurred to me (or been mentioned in the thread) is simple demographics.


The plea that conservatives have become an oppressed minority, especially on campuses, is reshaping politics across the west, with some frightening consequences in the form of the “alt-right” and resurgent nationalism. It draws energy from the sense that the left is uniquely intolerant of dissent, and is allowing its cultural and moral worldview to interfere with the pursuit of knowledge. The humanities are viewed as the worst culprits, having turned “truth” into a political issue that is ultimately a matter of perspective. For many free speech advocates, this sinister moral agenda is seeking to colonise other disciplines, including even the natural sciences.

But these emotive claims are often concealing something more prosaic though no less troubling for conservatives: demography is against them. In Britain, the way voting behaviour now correlates with age is quite startling: in the 2017 general election, Labour beat Conservatives by 66% to 19% among 18-19 year-olds, while these numbers were roughly reversed among the over-70s. The age at which someone becomes more likely to vote Conservative than Labour is 47 and rising. If this is a “cohort effect”, as appears likely, this means that younger people will retain these political views as they grow older, rather than shift to the right.

Given that graduates also tend to lean more to the left than non-graduates, and the number of graduates is increasing, it is scarcely any surprise that universities now provoke anxiety among conservative commentators and politicians. As Sachs has shown in the US context, the fact that no-platforming protests are more often led from the left is due to the far larger number of leftwing students, and not a reflection on leftwing values. Of course, this doesn’t make it acceptable for conservative students to feel unwelcome or uncomfortable, any more than it is acceptable for other minorities to feel that way. But nor does it imply that a typical leftwing individual is any more censorious than a typical rightwing one.
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Data shows a surprising campus free speech problem: left-wingers being fired for their opinions

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-poli...t=chorus&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter

The raw numbers here should already raise questions about the so-called political correctness epidemic. According to the Department of Education, there are 4,583 colleges and universities in the United States (including two- and four-year institutions). The fact that there were roughly only 60 incidents in the past two years suggests that free speech crises are extremely rare events and don’t define university life in the way that critics suggest.
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