Real-world sensitivities and game names

[Agema]

Political correctness is about minimising language, ideas and policies offensive, prejudicial and stigmatising to people by race, gender, sexuality, culture, disability, and so on. And I mean minimise: it's not about bending over backwards to the demands of the unreasonable or censoring free speech.

The examples supplied are not political correctness. They are possibly good examples of what has been popularly and erroneously tied into political correctness.

* * *

Shellshock was coined in WWI by doctors who had no idea what the problem was. As psychology developed, they discovered PTSD, and that shellshock was a type of PTSD. Yes, there are differences in scale from being bombed to being hit by a truck. But a one-inch stab wound is a lot less serious than a 6-inch stab wound, and they're still both stab wounds.

Renaming shellshock is actually all about accurate scientific terminology in the field of psychology. In the same way the evocative term "consumption" has been superseded by the "tuberculosis" in medicine, or "baking soda" by "sodium hydrogen carbonate" in chemistry.

* * *

You've brought up business-speak or other jargon. For instance, a company "downsizes" meaning it's losing money and has to fire staff (bad). Then they make a euphemism to the euphemism and make "right-size".

This is really about obfuscation for propaganda purposes, which is as old as the hills. Such jargon can also be about seeming intelligent by using unusual words or phrases. It's got nothing to do with removing prejudice against people.

[Zeldor]

Agema:

Well, that is what it should be. Unfortunetely it got destroyed and twisted by some politicians and some groups [mostly minority rights fanatics] and became some abomination. Evading all difficult subjects and stagmatizing all people that are not 'politicaly correct' and thus denying them to voice their opinions. And that even goes for many obvious truth about european reality.

[Agema]

I don't understand what you are saying about Europe, can you explain?

PC is thoroughly trashed now, yes. But I think its core, mainstream belief of respect was a beneficial one, and so to attack it generally is to throw out a baby with the fanatic, fringe bathwater, when the two can be separated. After all, we don't call Christianity an abomination just because of Waco and witch-burning.

[Zeldor]

What country are you from?

[Agema]

UK.

[Tifone]

God save the (Vampire) Queen!

(if you don't get the dom3 related joke, don't blame me)

[JimMorrison]

Agema said:
I don't understand what you are saying about Europe, can you explain?

PC is thoroughly trashed now, yes. But I think its core, mainstream belief of respect was a beneficial one, and so to attack it generally is to throw out a baby with the fanatic, fringe bathwater, when the two can be separated. After all, we don't call Christianity an abomination just because of Waco and witch-burning.

I can list you other reasons..... >.>


The stated reason for inquisitions was to save the souls of the people..... it ended up twisted into, well, I don't think anyone here should need elaboration. O.O By the time anything could be done about it, it just had to be stopped.


Am I saying I don't think we should be respectful of eachother? That's ridiculous. But the fact that so many people have extrapolated "respecting others" to simply not being allowed to say [i]anything[/b] that offends another person - means that really we need to stop the process, and probably just scrap it and start again from a different angle.

If people want to use slurs, then limiting their freedom of expression outright is something that will always be expanded into oppressive areas, and you must understand that with ANY limitation of freedom, there will develop oppression - if you can't understand that, then you are helping cause your own problems.

If however people found themselves somewhat disadvantaged if they behaved in ways that hurt other people - maybe they would learn that living life as a racist bigot just isn't "worth it".

[Leif_-]

JimMorrison said:
The stated reason for inquisitions was to save the souls of the people..... it ended up twisted into, well, I don't think anyone here should need elaboration.

Chances are, most would. The Inquisition? Not the horror it's commonly believed to have been. Now, the Spanish Inquisition, on the other hand, that's a different story; but then that was an entirely different institution too, directly controlled by the Spanish crown.

[HoneyBadger]

Well, that right there is the main transgression. It's never been purely Christianity that has caused problems. It's always been state-supported Christianity that has been responsible for, or furthered, such niceties as the second class citizenship of women, support of slavery and condemnation of homosexuality, polygamy, burning of "witches"-all of which have been justified by Bible scripture-as well as pleasant policies such as indifference towards the Holocaust, Cruisades, pogroms, the burning of books, the destruction of culture, and hereditary rulership, even if the "rightful heir" is the product of a few hundred years of incest.

I have no problem whatsoever with Christianity, the worst thing that happens when Christians are alone is they get eaten by lions, or start writing excrutiating rock music, and good Christians do actually walk the Earth, actively doing and supporting many, many good deeds-it's when the Church is combined with the State that bad things (as an example, I give you our current administration) seem to happen all too regularly.

[JimMorrison]

Oops, forgot to close an italics mark there.....

And anyway, my point was that even religion (*gasp* even religion!) which is usually entered into with altruistic motives. While there are people with strong religious beliefs who actually live a kind and honest life, then it's insanity to say that religion itself is such a problem as to be abolished altogether. However, I would relate that to the fact that for a long time, some people have tried to extol the virtues of interpersonal respect, and that the PC movement is merely a diseased and rotten offshoot of that, much the same way that the Spanish Inquisition (no need for us to quibble ) was the problem rather than the religion itself.

So, I say down with Political Correctness, up with understanding and respect. <3