Category Archives: Political Correctness

14 May 2017, 10:46

Authorities Have Allowed Grooming Gangs To Prosper, Mohan Singh Tells Katie Hopkins

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Grooming gangs have been allowed to prosper in Britain because the authorities are afraid they'll be labelled racist if they speak out, Mohan Singh told Katie Hopkins.

Mr Singh founded the Sikh Awareness Society to encourage Sikh families to act against sexial abuse.

And he said that political correctness had let the gangs succeed.

He told Katie: "I think it is due to political correctness, but it's also down to nobody wants to be called a racist. Nobody wants to call a spade a spade. Nobody really grabbing the bull by the horns and saying "No, abuse is abuse".

"But they don't want to be labeled that we're after one community, we're targeting one community.

"We can can see all the reports coming out Rotherham, the failings of the police, the failings of the local councillors.

"The whole system failed and that's what's been happening for the last 30 years. And it is PC. People are just too too afraid to, you know, just too too afraid to speak the truth."

Mohan Singh Speaks To Katie Hopkins - In Full

Mohan Singh speaks to Katie Hopkins: In Full

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"Political Correctness Let Grooming Gangs Prosper" - LBC

You have your ups and downs. Years ago a professor (Stanley Hauerwas) at the Duke Divinity School made it to the cover of Time Magazine. More recently DDS students managed to get their school on national TV by holding up a banner behind the commentators booth in the NCAA Basketball finals. Priceless. Now Duke is again in the national news, but not in such a good way.

Duke, according to the New York Times, has become a new battle ground over political correctness. Youll find the story here, or in the Washington Post, or all over Facebook.https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/09/education/a-new-battleground-over-political-correctness-duke-divinity-school.html.

Political Correctness? I dont think so, although the term has come into common usage by conservatives to disparage cultural change. See Rod Drehers account of the controversy here.http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/duke-divinity-crisis-griffiths-documents/

What is happening at Duke isnt merely about internecine conflicts in academia and the rules that govern professional discourse. (Although this is how Dean Elaine Heath approached it) It is even less about political correctness in the sense of forbidding discourse about certain accepted political positions. (Although this is how Valerie Cooper approached it, by insisting that decisions about racial equality and inclusiveness are part of unquestionable values written into policy.)http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/may/8/paul-griffiths-duke-theology-professor-resigns-ove/

It seems to me that it is about changing culture and the failure to adapt to those cultural changes, only some of which relate to rules governing academic discourse and the values of the institution, although both arise out of culture.

One way of characterizing cultural difference related to communication is to distinguish between high context and low context cultures. In high context cultures those who involved in discourse operate within a deep, rich, shared context that provides the framework within which all statements are understood. No communication is comprehensible without a deep knowledge of the context of relationships within which it is made. And without reference to that context all statements may be misconstrued.

Low context cultures assume that all the information necessary for comprehension is included in the communication so that reference to context is unnecessary, and that dragging in context is misleading.

Lets look at the Paul Griffiths case above. In a high context culture it would be assumed that there is a lot going on in the background: his personal life, long term faculty relations, the larger social context, and etc. One might assume that hes even a proxy for someone in higher position of authority. Or one might assume that this is related to a completely different agenda and is intended to distract attention for other things going on in the academic environment.

In a low context culture his communications (and those of others) would be assumed to mean exactly what they say and no more.

Oh yes, the character of the communicator is also judged differently when a high context culture judges a low context culture and visa-versa. For those in a low context culture high context communications seem to come from people who can never really be honest or trustworthy. For those in a high context culture low context communicators are just insensitive jerks who dont know how to be polite.

These differences are vastly exacerbated in the world of digital communications. The most important context for all communication is the carriage, expression, and tone of voice of the communicator. All of these are absent in email.

US academic cultures continue to be shaped by the fact that for centuries they were the domain of Anglo-European men and were rooted in the academic cultures of England and Germany. This made them dominantly low context among peers, and to bring in another measure of culture, high power/distance with regard to assumed subordinates. For this reason they were always somewhat alien to US popular culture, as discourse around ivory towers, pointy headed intellectuals, and those who cant do so they teach attests.

But in the last half century the wider US culture has flooded into academia, bringing with it not only a suspicion of the faculty club culture coming from within but also new values and assumptions about communication (and many other aspects of culture). Add social changes, and the lack thereof, that empower, embolden, and embitter different groups and the odds of miscommunication raise considerably.

Is there a lesson? Yes. First, since email is a low context medium it should be used primarily to convey information in a way that is comprehensible without reference to context. Enthusiasm and disdain alike are better communicated face to face although the expectation that the latter will be well received in any culture is foolish.

More importantly all participants in academic discourse need to be aware of not only what they want to communicate, but the rapidly changing cultural environment in which they are communicating. Assuming we want to create an effect, it is wise for us to consider the culture of our audience or we might create the wrong effect.

When I lived in Austria (a low context culture) it was worthless for me to tell a repair person, It would be good if you can come on Wednesday morning. The word would simply communicated that I didnt know what I wanted or didnt care. What worked was, Come on Wednesday morning at 9:00. When I lived in Malaysia if I told a student, Could you see me Wednesday at 9:00, he or she would worry for days that Iwas signaling that Id either been offended or intended to have someone else (a fearsome thought) come to the meeting.

The mastery of the knowledge, skills, and habits that make cross-cultural communication possible is difficult. It takes both commitment and time. It remains to be seen whether modern academics are willing to make that commitment.Clearer is that in the emerging academic culture communication based on outdated assumptions of fading cultural norms will no longer be excused.

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Political Correctness or Political Culture? - Patheos - Patheos (blog)

Regarding the recent Amarillo Globe-News editorial (Editorial: Bill is about fairness, not discrimination, May 10, amarillo.com), what the Senate Bill 2095 legislation should be about is whether or not parents and school administrators have their frontal lobe intact.

Why should a parent approve gratuitous steroid injections into a developing nervous system? The editorial cites a case in which a transgender adolescent athlete born female was competing against one of our local high school female athletes as being unfair due to testosterone and/or steroid involvement.

Steroids are gratuitous because such injections are not medically necessary.

Lets go down this road. What if we discover that we can level the playing field to parity make the sexes totally equal in a sport such as wrestling with injections?

What does the treatment do to the student athletes future brain development? I have cited before a study confirming that the suicide rate among adult transgender individuals is 41 percent. Why?

One of the critical problems I have with public education is that administrators and legislators do not think long term. This is a clear example of such myopia.

Bruce Johnson

Amarillo

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Letter: Political correctness does not always think ahead - Amarillo.com

Photo Credit: Rabbi Eliyahu Safran

If one weighs with weights that are deficient by the standards agreed upon in his locality, or measures with a measuring vessel deficient by the agreed standards, he violates a negative commandment, for Scripture states (Vayikra 19:35), You shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, in length, in weight, or in measure. Maimonides, Mishneh Torah

Political correctness does not have an exemplary history. In the middle of the past century, it was, according to Wikipedia, associated with the dogmatic application of Stalinist doctrine Hardly a ringing endorsement. Its use now, as part of our toxic political discourse, is as a club with which to hammer the opposition.

Although used mostly against liberals, the truth is that political correctness is difficult to define, as it almost always resides in the eyes of the user.

To more conservative commentators, political correctness covers nearly every perceived weakness of a more liberal worldview. To those same liberals, the use of the term by conservatives is code to paper over fairness and decency. After all, discourse we now consider wrong racist and anti-Semitic terminology, for exanple was once normal and acceptable, until someone identified it as politically incorrect even though it was not called that then.

Our tradition is very clear as to the respect and decency that is to be afforded all people.

Our concern, however, is that the desire to be politically correct has gone overboard; that we no longer simply defend who a person is but find ourselves pressured to defend whatever anyone might think or claim for themselves. As a result, we may also be called upon to implicitly or explicitly defend behaviors the Torah deems wrong.

This is not consistent with our tradition.

Our tradition teaches that every human being, created in the image of God, deserves compassion and sensitivity. But as our code of behavior makes clear, not every form of behavior should be granted that same consideration.

This is certainly true when it comes to matters of sexuality. God makes clear in the very first parshah of Torah that He created man and he created woman and He ordained the institution of marriage.

In matters of Torah, the changing perspectives of society and culture have no bearing on what is right and wrong.

Sensitivity and compassion, yes.

Approval, no.

Hoseas final verse, which Rabban Yochanan ben Zakai used to teach this lesson for all time, begins with the words mi chacham who is wise?

The Malbim teaches, A person is capable of achieving understanding in many areas through his own intelligence. However, when dealing with matters beyond human comprehension, he must first acquire the necessary wisdom and only then can he deepen his understanding through his logical prowess

His insight applies particularly to the knowledge of the ways of Hashem, along with matters of Godliness. So who is wise? He who has acquired the wisdom of Hashems ways, and can thereby build upon that wisdom to achieve understanding. This teaching makes clear that when it comes to matters of Godliness, the very notion of political correctness is irrelevant.

Political correctness has created an environment in which there is fake news and fake facts. There are numerous examples of how this has poisoned the political discourse and caused people to be fearful of speaking out.

It is madness when more than 75 percent of births in Detroit are to unwed mothers, yet it is politically incorrect to suggest that there is something wrong with this. It was frightening when a high school in California recently sent five students home from school for wearing shirts displaying the American flag on Cinco de Mayo.

And for Chris Matthews of MSNBC to suggest it was racist when conservatives use the term Chicago borders on journalistic malpractice. In such a damaged environment, it is easy to reduce Godliness to just another talking point.

But as history and tradition has taught us, Godliness is not so easily diminished by the whim and foolishness of man.

* * * * *

Not long after a recent conversation about the perils of this politically correct/incorrect environment we live in, I returned to my study of that particular days Daf Yomi, which had, for the previous few days, devoted several Talmudic dapim to the many halachic details concerning honest weights and measures.

The Torah declares the need for absolute accuracy of scales and all their components so that there can be no doubt about honest dealings in commerce between man and man. The Talmud elaborates on the essential need for such accuracy and honesty. R Levi suggests that the punishment for dishonest weights is even more severe than for illicit relations; that stealing from humans is worse than stealing from God [from Hekdesh].

The Torah is clear: there can be no compromise in these matters. Among the many details taught on the Daf (Bava Batra 89) is the instruction not to use scales made of wood, lead, or other metals (for they corrode or become sticky with grease, which affects their accuracy). We learn that the utensil used to flatten off the top of the materials being weighed should not be too hard or too soft, along with other detailed instructions all to guarantee that no one will ever be cheated.

After elucidating these instructions, we hear uncertainty from the greatest scholar of all, Rabban Yochanan be Zakai. Having these teachings, should he actually teach them? Woe unto me if I teach it to them and woe unto me if I dont teach it to them.

In other words, in teaching these things, he might very well reveal the tricks of the trade which dishonest people could then use to cheat more effectively. But in not teaching these things, dishonest people will believe the talmidei chachamim, the rabbis and religious teachers, are ignorant about thievery and dishonesty that is, that they know nothing about contemporary issues.

So, the Talmud asks, What did R Yochanan ben Zakai actually do? Rav Shmuel bar Yitzchak teaches that R Yochanan ben Zakai did teach all of the passages detailing the various methods of weights and measures. He did not hide Gods word simply because the ramaim might glean untruths by evaluating truthfulness.

R Yochanan was not only the greatest of scholars but also a successful businessman. He knew there were those who would use any opportunity to cheat but he was not concerned about being politically correct (after all, todays ramaim are those who seek to be politically correct at the expense of truth, honesty, and morality).

R Yochanan spoke truth honestly and forcefully. Certainly it was as difficult for him to do so in his time as it is for us in ours. Why did he do it? Where did he find the courage? Rav Shmuel bar Yitzchak suggests the answer. Because the last verse in Hoseas impassioned declaration balances blunt judgment with love and mercy. For the ways of Hashem are straight; the righteous will walk with them and sinners will stumble over them.From this, R Yochanan taught that Gods absolute truth must be revealed without hesitation or fear.

There is no political correctness in Torah. The righteous need to know the truth if they are to do right. The righteous want to know Gods will. As for the siners, they will stumble over them. The sinners will always find new ways of thievery. Their sinfulness should never be an excuse for withholding Gods Torah.

As Jews, our tradition and Gods teaching command that we speak out. Marriage is between man and woman. Other forms of union can be described in many ways but not as marriage. Ish is ish. Isha is isha. Man is man. Woman is woman. No political movement can change that. No governmental law or edict can compromise that.

Terrorism is terrorism. A murderer is a murderer.

Our tradition teaches compassion and sensitivity to the person, not the act. Many factors and variables contribute to the people we become. Children are abused. Families are dysfunctional. There is alcohol and drug abuse. Terrible, terrible things. But they do not excuse behavior that God condemns.

R Yochanans lesson is not just about weights and measures, it is an eternal lesson to be applied to all situations the worlds righteous, even in silence, deserve and need to hear truth while the cheaters and charlatans will inevitably stumble, truth or no truth.

Those who seek only political correctness are uninterested in Gods truth.

R Eliezer of Beaugency says of Hoseas statement, The wayward see the ways of Hashem as being the source of their downfall, for their sole interest in life is fulfilling their whims and desires, and the ways of the Torah stand in their way.

Rdak elaborates, The stumblers say there is no mesader umanhig haolam [Godly law and order] and there is no absolute yosher so they follow their hearts whims and desires. They will fail and will be lost.

R Yochanan be Zakai taught truth to power and, in doing so, saved the Jewish nation in the midst of destruction and hopelessness.

To teach or not to teach? The answer is clear.

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Political Correctness Or Torah Truth? - The Jewish Press - JewishPress.com

Molly Riley / POOL/EPA/NewscomWas Donald Trump elected to the presidency in part because of a backlash against political-correctness-run-amok? Survey says yes.

I have previously suggested that anger about P.C.-sensitivity and perceived liberal overreach was a strong motivating factor among Trump votersmany of them have told me so, in fact. And survey data from ClearThinking.org clearly supports this conclusion.

According to the websitethe project of mathematician Spencer Greenbergbelieving "there is too much political correctness in this country" was the second most reliable predictor of whether a given person intended to vote for Trump. The only better predictor was party affiliation: despite an abnormal campaign featuring an abnormal candidate, it remained the case that the overwhelming majority of Republicans voted for the Republican candidate, and the overwhelming majority of Democrats voted for the Democratic candidate.

But being anti-P.C. correlated more strongly with being pro-Trump than just about anything else: it beat out social conservatism, protectionism, and anti-immigration as predictive tendencies.

"Nowadays, as the right sees it, the left has won the culture war and controls the media, the universities, Hollywood and the education of everyone's children," Jonathan Haidt, a psychologist at New York University, told Politico in the recent article that made me aware of Greenberg's survey data. "Many of them think that they are the victims, they are fighting back against powerful and oppressive forces, and their animosities are related to that worldview."

It's always tempting to make too much of this information, and the truth remains that the election was so closejust 100,000 votes across three states made the differencea number of factors could all share some responsibility for the outcome. Whenever anyone says this is why Trump won, they are often telling only part of the story. That's as true for P.C.-backlash as it is for the James Comey letter.

Nor does this data validate the claim that political correctness is a huge problem, or a problem unique to the left. Just because Trump voters feel like they are being suffocated by liberal political correctness does not make it true.

But it does suggest that playing directly into white, working class America's persecution complex is a terrible strategy for the #Resistance. When progressives shout down conservative speakers and attack their defenders, when they launch social media witch hunts against dissenters, and when their advocacy organizations compromise basic liberal principles in order to punish members of the out-group, they give ammunition to people who believequite wronglythat Trump is a brave truth-teller whose tell-it-like-it-is attitude maintains a sort of safe space for the un-woke.

For more on this subject, read my response to Jacob T. Levy, who is critical of the notion that anti-P.C. sentiments mattered a great deal in the 2016 election. Taking issue with my writings, Levy wrote in December, "A lot of butterflies flapped their wings to bring about the November 8 result, but we have particularly little reason to think [opposition to political correctness] was one of them." I leave it to the readers to decide whether that holds up.

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Frustration with Political Correctness Was a Huge Predictor of Whether You Voted for Trump - Reason (blog)

New York Times

A New Battleground Over Political Correctness: Duke Divinity School New York Times If you are convinced that the church needs to defend itself against an invasion by secular humanist political correctness, then the best witness you can offer for your views is for your charity to be entirely above reproach, Mr. Guyton wrote on his ... Duke Divinity Crisis: The Documents Are OutThe American Conservative all 11 news articles »

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A New Battleground Over Political Correctness: Duke Divinity School - New York Times

Drag legend Lady Bunnys hit show Trans-Jester is still going strong at the historicStonewall Innin New York City almost a yearafter it debuted to critical acclaim.

But in an era plagued by what Bunny sees as a bold new damaging culture of politics correctness and extreme political turmoil, the drag performer believes that the no-holds-barred comedy experience is now more relevant than ever.

Many folks are walking on eggshells to the extent that I think its stifling dialogues, she recently told HuffPost. And if this presidential election was any indication, we need more brutally honest dialogues, not fewer.

In the eyes of Bunny, we need to be engaging in these conversations more than ever. The queen, whose legacy largely stems from co-founding the seminal drag festival Wigstock in the 80s, has developed quite a reputation for using her platform to not only speak out about celebrities, the media and social issues, but also to highlight the many fallacies and absurdities plaguing our political system.

As a seditious, third party-voting socialist leaner, I disagree with almost everyone on the right and our left, which isnt as far left as I am, she said. I will say that I was pleased to see the Log Cabin Republicans refused to endorse Trump. Ive had my issues with them and still do. And you probably wont ever hear me praise that group again! However, Trans-Jester focuses mainly on political correctness as opposed to actual politics. Were glued to Trump the train wreck on TV all the time and my show is a much-needed escape into a world of demented laughter.

Jeff Eason

And thats exactly what you can expect from Bunnys show jokes that skewer the nature of our current reality as Americans, which she thinks largely parallels the rise our cultures obsession with reality television.

Reality TV rewards train wreck behavior, and weve foolishly accepted reality stars and their world as real, Bunny told HuffPost. Real housewives dont sit at martini lunches and snatch each others wigs off in catfights. Real drag queens dont cry all the time or face challenges like make a dress out of newspaperin 10 minutes. Now weve got a reality TV star president with no experience. Is this a result of our society constantly rewarding train wrecks?

As for her show itself, Bunny wants to make you think critically about these nuances of American politics and our current day to day reality under Trump, all through the lens of off-the-rails jokes and decidedly un-PC humor.

And ultimately, she wants audiences to leave thinking that crazy bitch made me laugh! while challenging, as she puts it, a few commonly held perceptions in a way which is not as demented as her make-up and costumes might suggest.

Want to see Trans-Jester for yourself? Head here for more info.

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Lady Bunny Sounds Off On Donald Trump And Political Correctness - Huffington post (press release) (blog)

To contribute to the ongoing debate: I have no regard for that currency of the gullible, political correctness (PC) and consider it to be little more than an intellectual straitjacket that attempts to, as JC Wilcox correctly states, [suppress] freedom of expression and original thought. Many of us know that its not easy at all to express totally original thought, and that the overwhelming majority of the human race follow prescribed thought patterns that are repeated over and over, ad infinitum. A bit like wilfully proliferating rubbish about religious plots to take over the world, in fact. That said, I agree in principle with what Mr Wilcox says about PC. However, the salient question is, to what purpose is the debate directed?

Consequently, I disagree with Wilcoxs obtusely related thesis that liberalism is flawed (in part due to PC in this instance), a nonsensical mantra he repeats over and over, doubtless in the earnest hope that people will eventually believe it.

Eric Bahrt also has his issues, like all of us, but he is correct in identifying context as a key component in the perennial PC discourse, and that Mr Wilcoxs obsession with Liberal conspiracies and of course the usual balderdash about creeping Islamofascism is pertinent here. PC is, of course, his latest Trojan horse to that end. Making such formulaic sweeping assertions without evidence is a common enough tactic, littered with non sequiturs that logically end up in a cerebral cul-de-sac.

Finally, and to return briefly to the exclusively PC discussion, as a former academic I had a number

of arguments (in the scholarly sense) with former colleagues about this, and took them to task for buying into this Orwellian ordure. In that, Mr Wilcox and I are in agreement.

Dr Frank

Bangkok

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Political correctness is not a 'liberal conspiracy' - The Nation

Political correctness means different things to different people. To liberals such as myself it means we respect the fact that we live in a world of many different cultures, religions, races and nationalities. It doesn't mean we can't condemn the demented Islamic State. But it does mean we don't use the Islamic State as an excuse to insult every Muslim on this planet. There is also political correctness on the right. For example, its politically correct for conservatives to call abortion murder. Then they support Donald Trump, who cuts off funding to family planning programmes throughout the world, which means there will be millions of more abortions!

You also have politically correct Zionists who slander all critics of Israel as being anti-Semitic.

When you take the term political correctness out of context, the way Wilcox does, and use it to discredit everyone who disagrees with you, the term itself become completely meaningless.

Eric Bahrt

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Term 'political correctness' used in meaningless fashion - The Nation

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Jim Gearhart always used to be sort of amused by political correctness. But things are getting out of hand, he says.

For instance, hes come across a story about opposition to breastfeeding not because of any health concern, not because of any new information about child development but because it could make men feel inadequate.

Im not kidding. Im not kidding, Jim says in the latest edition of the Jim Gearhart podacast, available every Thursday on iTunes, Google Play and the New Jersey 101.5 app. I am a male. Certainly, I think my bona fides are in tact. Know a lot of males. Ive never run across one who had the least bit of nursing envy.

How about the college students who think clapping and whopping should be punished because it excludes deaf people?

What is it were trying to do? WEre trying to stop everything I think. It makes no sense, Jim says.

Thats just part of the latest installment of the Jim Gearhart Podcast, available every week on New Jersey 101.5 and in the New Jersey 101.5 app. You can alsosubscribe with your favorite podcasting app for iPhones, Android devices or your computer:

Get The Jim Gearhart Show on Google Play

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Love podcasts? Also check out Forever 39, Annette and Megans new podcast about turning 40 and loving life along the way. This week, they explore dating while divorced.

And the New Jersey Guys, Chris and Dan, ask Are Mets fans about to abandon ship??

Townsquare Media staff

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Proof political correctness has gotten out of hand Jim Gearhart ... - New Jersey 101.5 FM Radio