What does politcal correctness mean to you? What's your definition?
What does politcal correctness mean to you? What's your definition?
Words or phrases deliberately designed to keep from offending persons, groups, governments, ethnicity, etc.
Very, very similar to Orwellean "New Speak."
Chip
I would like to add, that those words betray a certain flavor of honesty that some of us might find refreshing, as opposed to offensive.
It might be said that the politically correct among us choose sensitivity over truth.
It was 27 BC. Romans were shell-shocked after more than a decade of political violence and civil war, sparked by the most famous murder of antiquity - the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 BC. A new man, just 36 years of age, was about to take center stage - and he did it with a political image so carefully crafted that it would be the envy of even the "Karl Roves" of our present day.
The world's first recognizably modern political icon.
It was this statue of the first Roman Emperor, Octavius Caesar Augustus, who ruled from 27 BC to 14 AD. This is a marble copy, dated to about 15 AD, from Livia's villa at Prima Porta. The bronze original also featured a spear in the emperor's left hand.
Not one to repeat the mistakes of his great uncle Julius Caesar, Octavius played a master stroke of political correctness. Like the Godfather in reverse, he made the Roman Senate "an offer they had to refuse." He assembled the Senate and astounded Rome's elected representatives with a proposal to give up all of his new political authority and return to private life. By this charade of personal modesty and deference to the authority of the Roman Senate, he tactfully secured support, not only from the general population, which he had maintained all along, but also from the Roman elite - the Senators - who were deceived with the notion that Octavius sincerely respected the democratic ideals of the old Roman Republic.
The Senators reacted exactly as Octavius must have calculated: They demanded that he not give up, but instead, retain his singularly personal claim on supreme civil authority, in order to preserve the nascent political stability and prevent what Romans feared most: Yet another slide into political turmoil and civil strife. Thus, Octavius received his unprecedented office and title as Emperor Caesar Augustus.
For the duration of his forty-plus years as emperor, Augustus presented an image that was tailored to appeal to popular Roman sentiments: An image of deference to the political authority of Rome's elected Senators, and a revival of the old Republican virtues of personal modesty, public service and "family values". It was an image that was presented via all of the "media channels" of the day: Through public proclamations and speeches, statues, stampings on Roman coins and in all the artistic detail of elegant, marble-faced buildings and monuments.
But the substance was very different. The Republican era was gone forever, and the new reality was Empire. For the next four hundred years, Rome's Senators could be popularly elected and debate whatever they wished - but political authority would be the prerogative of an unbroken string of emperors, running the gamut from the rational and benevolent despot Augustus, to the privately wicked and publicly indifferent (Tiberius) - a would-be stage actor and musician (Nero), an accomplished man of letters (Marcus Aurelius) - and even the patently insane (Caligula) - a succession that was punctuated only by the political maneuvers of ambitious or reactionary army commanders.
It would also be an age marked by unprecedented acquisitiveness and unbridled personal consumption, of obscenely lavish banquets and stupefying drinking binges, and increasing social and sexual abandon - the ostentacious vices of the nouveau riche, usurping the virtues of the old Roman patricians. The outwardly austere and conservative Augustus would even exile his own daughter Julia for contributing to public immorality.
"The Senate and People of Rome"
Just as they had done in the old Republican days, they kept on stamping their buildings and monuments with "SPQR", all the way until the end of the empire in the West, in 476 AD. But from Caesar Augustus' day and forward, the Senate and the People were really just along for the political ride.
"Political correctness" - the world has been there and done that many times, and long before.
Sources:
http://lexikon.umkreisfinder.de/Augustus/
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/users/.../augimage.html
http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Caesar_Augustus
OptiBoard member rinselberg comes to the Antiquities via two years of high school level Latin ...
Last edited by rinselberg; 08-25-2006 at 06:55 PM.
Wow Rinsey, that was very interesting!
It's a language politicians made up to keep from having to answer a question directly or be more honest than they think they should. :shiner: Hence the word "politically"
I like Chip's definition too.
Sensitivity is all well and good but I prefer the truth if it is a choice over one or the other.
Let the refining and improving of your own life keep you so busy that you have little time to criticize others. -H. Jackson Brown Jr.
If the only tool you have is a hammer you will approach every problem as though it were a nail
Precisely! Ever personally asked a politician a blunt question that could actually be answered with a simple yes or no? They'll dance around the subject using a particular form of jargon I believe meant to encourage you to lose sight of the original question, but let you feel good at the end of their statement because, by gosh, they used so many words that somewhere in there must have been the answer to the question!Originally Posted by karen
And look how politically correct terminology has changed. I don't mean to offend anyone with this, but remember when, as a child, there may have been a 'retarded' or 'slow' person in your class (usually placed there by the 'integration committee' of the school)? That was changed to ' mentally challenged' when it was determined that 'retarded' wasn't a politically correct term. Now, 'mentally challenged' has given way to 'person with special abilities'. (Tie this in to my comment about the politician using more words than the requested on-word answer). Um, I'm sorry, but what precisely is 'special abilities'?
Because languages are diverse and colorful, with numerous dialects and idioms, who decides what the "correct" words should be?
Then there are the concepts of civility, which seems to be fading into oblivion, and plain old good manners, which is viewed as antiquated.
Whatever happened to just being respectful of each other regardless of how we might disagree?
So if you had a child like that, you'd prefer people called him/her "retarded", or perhaps that's how you'd refer to this child, yourself?
I move that we respectfully call things as we see them. I often tell patients their frames are not straight because they are "asymetric." I am changing to youa are crooked ears!
So if I say " What the he** happened to your head?", you won't be offended? Promise? :shiner:
Depends. Is it p.c to say Afro-American instead of the n word? Then I'm all for that. Is it p.c. to say vertically challenged instead of short. Well that's just goofy. (Of course I'm 5'7"....)
The n-word (I'm assuming you don't mean neighbor or neurosurgeon) is a word that was coined specifically to be offensive. On the other hand, to say that someone is retarded just means that they are slow - referring to IQ not footraces. To call them mentally challenged to me implies that they're just not trying hard enough to overcome the challenge. And when I think of "people with special abilities", I'm thinking Superman.
Light travels faster than sound, which is why some people appear brighter before you hear them speak.
Note: If you can find an old enough dictionary you will find Niggard: Slovenly, lazy. Niggardly: "Like a niggard." You will not find the "N" word but it seems to be based on the above and/or the word negro.
Chip
Niggardly means stingy or miserly - has absolutely nothing to do with any racial stereotypes. And yet I remember a few years back a teacher got in trouble for using it in class because it sounds like something else. Now that's PC to the extreme!
Light travels faster than sound, which is why some people appear brighter before you hear them speak.
its a bunch of BS. say what you mean,,mean what you say. most folks have become sooooooooooooooo hypersensitive.
Paul:cheers:
I'll even throw in a second source:
I bet if you dig deep enough in Chip's history, you'll find someone who will go out of their way to say nasty things about any group he is not a part of.Niggardly is a word synonymous with stingy and miserly, and a niggard (noun) is a miser. The word may incorrectly be associated with "(n-word)", a racial slur against Blacks. Although the words sound similar, there is no etymological connection between the two: "niggard" and "niggle" came from the Old Norse verb nigla, meaning "to fuss about small matters", while "(n-word)" derives from niger, the Latin for "black".
Actually I meant neocon....;) What you say sounds right, but...There was a time when what we consider ethnic slurs today--Polack e.g.--were considered just casual, and acceptable. I wonder is the same is true of the n-word--a variation on negro which took on the implications we associate with that word over time? Don't know, I'm probably off base.
But isn't it "how" we say things? I don't know anything about you, Ziggy, but I know enough about Cincinnati to know that it is heavily German Catholic. Is it ok to call people in that group "Fritz the Papist cracker"?
It seems to me that if someone objects to the use of specific words because they find the words offensive, others should be considerate of those wishes. P.C. seems like an excuse that insensitive people use - until that consideradtion is not given to them.
Any of you old enough to have seen the origional Glen Ford version of "Blackboard Jungle" and the discussion on this subject?
Chip
This reminds me of getting wacked in the head by my dad for "the tone of your voice".:angry: The problem with being pc or trying to be pc is that what is not offensive changes so often. Groups of people who are most concerned with every one being pc to them, have elected set them selves apart.For example and a personal peeve of mine "ethnic group-american"
BTW I have never met a white guy who was offended by being called a "cracker"
Paul:cheers:
As a matter of fact, yes and I also remember "You've Got To Be Carefully Taught" from South Pacific.
My 24 year old, paraplegic daughter is "learning challenged" and got a "certificate of attendance" instead of a high school diploma when she decided at 19 that she was "through with going to school", (her words). She enjoys spending hours on the internet and brings (or emails) me all kinds of information and educational tidbits, but ask her to balance her checkbook or make change?? NO WAY!
She says she is not crippled, she is "wheelchair dependent", which some of her more "politically current" mentors say is not correct, but she says, "Well, I can't get anywhere without it, can I?"
I have been sometimes amused and sometimes frustrated with the way politically correct terms for differently abled people has kept changing since my daughter's birth. When someone objects to a term or label I have used, I just shrug it off, or at most, comment, " Well, what DO we call IT this week?"
"The Good Lord gave us mountains so we could learn how to climb". ~ Lonestar
Depends on who is calling me that.....as long as I am "allowed" to respond with whatever their race's insulting name would be then I can take it. But if I repsond in kind and then get called a racist it is going to be on. In a big way.
Let the refining and improving of your own life keep you so busy that you have little time to criticize others. -H. Jackson Brown Jr.
If the only tool you have is a hammer you will approach every problem as though it were a nail
This whole thing eludes me. If you want to be called "X", what's it to me? If I have to call you something, it may as well be what you prefer. Honestly, life is way too short.
I agree with this statement. The only trouble I have is when the labels change so often. It makes it tough to know what to call someone.
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