Clarkson in Trouble Again - Has The World Gone Mad?

[Declan]

 

But the right are as guilty as the left of playing the offence card - "it's political correctness gone mad!" is often said in a shocked offended tone, it's an emotional reaction rather than intellectual.

 

What does the left-right political paradigm have to do with anything? Thank you for confirming political correctness is a marxist / Neo-Trotskyite agenda. Why you characterise opposition to this agenda as emotional rather than intellectual is beyond me. Political correctness is mad.

 

I'm not sure I speak for the entire marxist/neo-trotskyite community, in fact you've obviously not met any of them if you think they can agree on anything like an agenda.

 

I don't talk about the opposition to political correctness as solely emotional simply that many of the reactions to it are emotional rather than intellectual. Take the banning of Huck Finn in some American schools for its use of the N-Word, for example, I don't agree with that and I have two reactions to it -

 

1. But I love that book! How can I have read it and not realised it was racist! YOU are calling ME an idiot or worse a racist! I must defend myself from this PC madness.
2. The book isn't racist, in fact it is an anti-racist book. At its simplest level it is a book about a multi-racial friendship. It challenges the racist nature of the South at the time the book is set and uses the language of the time. It should be possible for a teacher to use this to explain that language changes over time as attitudes change. We should also trust readers to "get" that the book is set in a society where racism was taken endemic and resulted in inhumane treatment of certain races.

Which arguement has more intellectual weight? Example 2 is a reasoned argument for my position, which you can either accept or challenge. Example 1, is all about me, and how offended I am that my judgement is called into question. I am playing the politics of offence just as much as anyone calling for the book to be banned is and if I took that approach I too would be trying to shut down debate on the subject simply because of how it has made me feel.

 

And that's the political correctness of the right - denounce your opponents as being part of a sinister agenda to stiffle your God given or constitutional right to free speech, or free trade or British values or the family or your gut feeling about climate change and you don't really need to produce any evidence for the conspiracy or any facts to support your opinions.

[La_Dolce_Vita]

I agree with Declan. In addition, what seems clear from so many of the people who decry political correctness is that they don't understand the argument from those who agree with it or from those who introduced it. The farthest they get to understanding is that the State wants them to change the words they use.

The lack of comprehension is the problem.

[Declan]

Part of that problem though is that many people who try to enforce political correctness don't really have a very sophisticated idea of what it is either. High ideals become blunt weapons in the hands of a council jobsworth.

[woolley]

But the problem with the US humanity is that it is a very racist society. Lots of issues come up.

FIXED. It's the nature of the beast and there is nothing we or all the political correctness in the world can do about that. Wishing for the moon to suppose otherwise. Just look at conflicts taking place right now all around the globe.

[Lonan3]

Returning, briefly, to the subject of Clarkson: it looks as though the brains are about to be removed from his career.

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/10808471/Jeremy-Clarksons-wife-went-on-holiday-to-toast-divorce.html

[Tugger]

Clarkson did this thinking that his usual fanboys would be tittering away about how non-PC he was by even using the rhyme in the first place. They'd all know what he was up to with his mutter and think how brilliant he was for going on the BBC and nearly saying "nigger".

[Lonan3]

Clarkson did this thinking that his usual fanboys would be tittering away about how non-PC he was by even using the rhyme in the first place. They'd all know what he was up to with his mutter and think how brilliant he was for going on the BBC and nearly saying "nigger".

Sadly, I think that's perfectly correct.

[Truth Seeker]

In the video posted below it shows black teenagers using the N word, this does not bother me, but what does worry me is these women "won" the debating contest. If they were the winners what on earth were the losers like?

 

Debate" American Common Core Style! Fixed old link which was taken down.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCx2uGBhvEc

[Donald Trumps]

Wonder if all this has been generated to downplay news of his divorce?

[hillshepherd]

 

My point was that it was originally a neutral term...

It never has been. If you don't understand that then your understanding of the whole issue of racism is ignorant at best.

 

The use of the term nigger (and similar terms) to define people principally (and solely) by a reference (which isn't often accurate) to a skin colour has been used much earlier than the twentieth century to set the 'white' man apart from the 'black' based on firmly entrenched ideas of superiority of the former coupled with all sorts of misrepresentations and lies surrouding this reified being - the nigger.

 

It may very well have been used initially as simply a designator based on natural discrimination to distinguish people with a darker skin. But thinking that the use of the word (and other words) had no more meaning than black is to not take into account the oppressive understandings underlying how white people see (and still do see) black people and non-white people.

>...and it is only because of media propaganda during the 20th century that the term began to be regarded as offensive.

Aside from probably chopping in some Chomsky into your argument, I think you seem unable to differentiate between the oppressive and the offensive.

Hypothetically, say it was media propaganda that led to people take offence (i.e. be offended or be vicariously offended) by the word.

It doesn't matter. The issue is about the use of the word and the meaning behind the word. It's about whether it has oppressive content or not.

Nobody on the planet may be offended by something but it could still be oppressive.

Why are you interested in the subject of offence?

It used to be a perfectly legitimate and non-offensive term.

No, not legitimate. Referring to people principally based on the colour of their skin, which naturally carries with it understandings of people erroneously centred on skin colour or aids in the creation of new understandings, is not a legitimate way of referring to people - not if you don't want to be racist and want to live in a society that seeks to remove racism.

So did negro. Now we're told "black" is the right word to use, even though it means exactly the same thing.

Yeah, you've been told that many people who are non-white would prefer to not be called certain words and would ask to be called something different. What's the problem?

 

And no, it doesn't mean the same thing at all. For starters, how do you use the word black? I hope it is not to refer to black people as 'a black', or 'the black', etc.

You use the term as an adjective to describe a person. But nigger is a noun, to refer to another human beings based on their race. Big difference there in the use of language and the meaning conveyed.

 

And the word Black is free from the historic, negative beliefs and understandings that span centuries of its use. Black does carry plenty of additional understanding though they are more modern.

 

 

Already, in America, "black" is starting to be treated the same way as negro and nigger, and now "African American" is being propagated as the politically correct term there.

Ultimately, it doesn't matter that there is change. In almost all cases, the issue is about referring to people as they prefer to be referred to.

How do we know that the next generation, if they're sad enough to read this thread 20 yrs from now, won't be thinking we're a bunch of racist rednecks for using the word "black" because some new politically correct word has replaced it? I suspect this constant messing around with the language is a deliberate attempt on the part of the ruling elite to perpetuate racism.

This is sheer idiocy. If the ruling elite wanting to perpetuate racism then there wouldn't be any PC and there wouldn't be a whole panoply of laws surrounding race which would otherwise ensure widespread institutional and social discrimination.

If you ever watch the US media, particularly CNN and MSNBC, they're constantly race-baiting, turning every story into some racial thing. They want poor blacks and poor whites to hate and blame each other, to stop them banding together to fight for liberty. That being said, I do take your point and basically agree with the general gist of it.

But the problem with the US is that it is a very racist society. Lots of issues come up. But I agree, the media there would use any chance to sensationalise and exploit news items. But this is more of a broader issue of sensationalising everything rather than a particular desire to foment racism itself.

I agree that nigger has become an oppressive term; however, I think the way they've made us all pussy foot around such terms and got us all paranoid of being called racist for saying anything is far more oppressive. Freedom of speech is more important than big brother protecting people being offended.

What you're saying doesn't make sense.

 

For the word or similar terms to be oppressive then it involves the use of a term by those with power using it against those who are weaker. That's how language comes to have oppressive power. It oppressive to stop people with the power from using that power to oppress others.

 

And in your last sentence you are again getting offence and oppression mixed up. Freedom of speech would be more people than considerations of offence.

But this is an issue of oppression and freedom of speech.

 

Though you are making the mistake of thinking that without PC there is freedom of speech. But that's incorrect. Language is a system of communication which involves maintaining power and re-ordering systems of power in society. People on the receiving end of oppressive speech don't have the freedom you seem to think they would otherwise have.

Well, no, I was talking about when it originally started to be called racist. Of course it's become racist now, thanks to media propaganda. But originally, the replacement of the term nigger and negro with black was completely stupid since, as I showed, the etymology of negro and nigger does basically just mean black. I'm differentiating between now and when the manufactured offensiveness of the term (for political reasons) was in its infancy.

I think I covered this mistaken idea of nigger just meaning black. Etymologies do not tell us anymore more than how and maybe why the word was created. It says nothing of additional meanings, understandings, and uses of the word throughout history, which is the relevant issue when considering oppressive content.

 

what a f#cking justificational rant, a niggers a nigger.

[Lonan3]

what a f#cking justificational rant, a niggers a nigger.

No - it's just a derogatory term for a person, one that is used by the mentally challenged.

There is, however, such a thing as a 'twat' - and if you happen to have a mirror handy...?

[Vulgarian]

Shit is out of hand. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-27360884

 

Do these people think they are doing some good? Or just aching to be seen as politically sensitive? Or are they just retarded?

[La_Dolce_Vita]

With Clarkson, I think there should be criticism and consequences from the employer. But that story with the DJ is utterly ridiculous.

[wrighty]

I suspect the BBC will never be broadcasting the all time classic Fawlty Towers episode about the Germans then, as it contains this bit:

 

[Thomas Jefferson]

Shit is out of hand. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-27360884

 

Do these people think they are doing some good? Or just aching to be seen as politically sensitive? Or are they just retarded?

 

And yet if you badmouth Jews on BBC, you get a round of applause. Utter tossers. Glad I don't pay a licence.