Political Correctness v.s. Intellectual Honesty

Posted: Sun Dec 31, 2006 12:36 am

Political Correctness v.s. Intellectual Honesty

I'd like to hear a show with that as the basis.

Resident Joined: Jan 31, 2005 Posts: 372 Location: Canada

I voted Yes. Even though it isn't always the case. I think that being intellectually honest sometimes means coming out and saying it without sugar coating.

Take for example religion. The PC thing to do is respect other beliefs irregardless if they are respectable or not. Intellectually, there is no room for respecting a nonrespectable position. What are we to do? Make the topic Taboo? That isn't intellectual either.

The problem here is that it isn't always the case. Sometimes the PC idea and the intellectual idea agree. However, over all, I voted yes because if you have too much PC you by definition are suppressing intellectualism and vice versa.

Posted: Sun Dec 31, 2006 3:44 am

I voted yes. I hate political correctness. I understand not trying to offend people but when you get to the point that you are spelling "woman" as "womyn" to save them of the oppression of having "men" in the word, I am sorry but you are an idiot, whoops, i mean "mentally challenged!" oh wait that ones bad too now, I meant "mentally different" or is it "differently abled" Laughing

Posted: Sun Dec 31, 2006 1:15 pm

I think political correctness is vastly overblown. I see very few examples of political correctness. There are a few examples, but these few examples seem to multiply by means of the media effect just like shark attacks did a few years ago or teen violence does today.

In my opinion political correctness is mainly a rhetorical trick used to denigrate decent people, denigrate them just for being decent people!

Posted: Mon Jan 08, 2007 11:30 pm

Just to toss a grenade into the Bunker….

Is this a good example of what you're talking about?

Politically Correct Statements

Intellectually Honest statements

Just Arrived Joined: Mar 26, 2008 Posts: 7

In my experience, people who whinge about political correctness vs. intellectual honesty are looking for justification for their outdated prejudices.
For example. Larry Summers can say that women do not have a natural aptitude for science and claim that this is a truth that is hard to swallow but that he is being intellectually honest.
As a female with a degree in Biology and a degree in Computer Science who works as a software engineer, I can tell Larry Summers from experience that there are a half a dozen reasons for the lack of women in the hard science that are far more likely, and far more verifiable than lack of aptitude.
What I think is that Larry Summers and other people who would complain about political correctness is that they are trying to rationalize their own willingness to view others as inferior with the facade of intellectual honesty.
Oh yeah. And Larry, you can f**** yourself.

Just Arrived Joined: Mar 26, 2008 Posts: 7

Also, how come it's always the white males who are "intellectually honest?" You don't see women coming out and being "intellectually honest" about not having as a gender an aptitude for X where X is any behaviour that doesn't involve hammering out babies and making you a sammich.
You don't see any asians standing up and saying "This is a hard truth, but Chinese people suck at driving! Don't deny it in the name of political correctness!"

Graduate Thinker Joined: Mar 26, 2008 Posts: 525

I was browsing Atheist Nexus the other day, and I came across this story. This took place in the state of Washington (which is, for those of you who don't know, very liberal). There was a group of Star Wars fans who called themselves Jedi and went around saying that they are all in balance with the Force and stuff like that. One day, they had a Jedi Counsel. Two guys decided to crash their Jedi Counsel for fun, so they dressed up like Darth Vader and Darth Maul and disrupted the meeting. When the Jedi pressed charges, they were charged not with breaking and entering, but with "disruption of a religious ceremony" which is considered a "hate crime". Sometimes, political correctness can suck.

Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2008 5:50 am

I voted 'No', and I like the idea of political correctness, however, let me explain before I am stoned (with stones). PC means many things to different people, and it has been overblown at times, but to me political correctness means to be courteous to people, in particular non-mainstream people.

As for respecting opinions, PC, imo, means to respect people's right to have an opinion, not to avoid debate and discussion. I feel that many people criticise PC not for what it is, but for what they believe it to be, and based upon noisy newspaper articles.

I sympathise with the idea of hate crime legislation, but as one one who is not a fan of big, intrusive governments, I see no reason to have extra legislation to prosecute people who commit crimes. What I mean to say is, if someone is murdered or injured their assailant should be prosecuted for murder or assault. If someone makes racist or other bigoted remarks then rather than rely on legislation to 'protect' the intended victim the correct response would be to call the bigots 'idiots', which is what they are. The best way to combat bigotry is not to suppress, which merely drives it undergound, which then gives it a certain cachet, but to challenge it publically and combat the basis prejudice.


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