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Are you tired of clickbait and the current state of journalism? This community is meant to remind you that excellent journalism still happens. While not sticking to a specific topic, the focus will be on high-quality articles and discussion around their topics.

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AwesomeLowlander

A Critique of Politically Correct Language (www.independent.org)

submitted 6 days ago by AwesomeLowlander to c/longreads

4 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Defenders of politically correct language claim that it is a civilizing influence on society, that it discourages the use of words that have negative or offensive connotations and thereby grants respect to people who are the victims of unfair stereotypes. In this view, the purpose and effect of politically correct language are to prevent bullying and offensive behavior and to replace terms loaded with offensive undertones with allegedly impartial words. So, for example, people are discouraged from referring to someone with a mental disability as “men- tally retarded” and instead encouraged to refer to him as being “differently abled” or as “having special needs.” Similarly, one can no longer refer to “garbagemen” or even the gender-neutral “garbage collectors”—no, they are “environmental service workers,” thank you very much!

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I think this is a bit of a misrepresentation of political correctness. I think the term political correctness is a bit outdated but I'll use it here.

Reclaiming derogatory language by minorities is obviously very empowering and has been done successfully. It's also the case that words that are offensive in one context can be neutrally used, demented and retarded are often used in medical contexts without anyone becoming offended.

Now one can come up with hypothetical situations where it can be difficult to negotiate whilst being politically correct, especially if the person speaking may not have the vocabulary. But in almost every real life instance of someone complaining about political correctness all that is being asked of them is to be considerate, kind, and inclusive. It can be taken too far but that is the exception, overwhelmingly people are understanding of slip ups or of people not knowing the correct terminology.

Empathy and kindness are important for their own sake, whether it's labelled as political correctness or not.

[–] ZombiFrancis 3 points 5 days ago

The conflation of insults hurled by schoolyard bullies and terminology used in law and government is a routine theme with this topic.