Political Correctness
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UKMikey
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If 53% is a slim majority, then I'm not sure that 58% is a strong majority.
Do you believe they should've withheld statistics so that one party (or rather their body of supporters) doesn't look so bad? If so, which one?
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- DolphDrago
Say what now? This comment probably belongs in the immigration thread (which I really don't want to get involved with honestly), but color me confused how saying someone that is here illegally (therefore breaking the law) and should be deported is hateful or offensive.
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- Corsham
- lipming
It's because they're brown.
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- TenEightyOne
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In America if you say the words "illegal immigrant" the first thing that comes to mind is Mexico. Over here it would be something like Poland or Romania.
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haha top notch trolling but they really do have a point ... btw. nice summary
I don't follow /pol/ so I don't know, but some things they do are hillarious, like The Triggering of Shia and again it's not like they are vile trolls who have nothing better to do, it's only reaction to hysteria surrounding Trump's election.
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- 20,681
- TenEightyOne
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Grammatical gender is a funny one. It remains to be seen how grammatical gender, a function which is not associated with biological gender but does have some overlaps when talking about humans specifically, will survive the increasing androgynisation of society; it's been predicted for years that androgyny will rule the future and we are slowly seeing it both come to pass and seeing the recalcitrant opposition to it.
Most European languages have highly inflected grammatical gender; English, for any observers of he, she, xe pronouns, is actually not very inflected at all. Words usually remain fixed in English. I can only offer a quick explanation in German, AUP be damned:
The ball is blue. Liquid kicks the ball.
(Der Ball ist blau. Liquid kickt den Ball.)
The woman eats the sandwich.
(Die Frau ißt das Brötchen.)
Liquid drives the car. He drives with the girl.
(Liquid fährt das Auto. Er fährt mit dem Mädchen.)
For those whose first language is English and do not speak any other languages, you can see that the word "the" is different almost every time. It looks complicated I know but the point is that in other languages, words have flexible properties so that they can express a relationship with other whereas in English most nouns are grammatically inflexible.
Basically, you have three columns. The first column has a third of the language's words which follow one set of rules; those are the masculine words. The second column has another third of the language's words but they follow a different set of rules; those are the feminine words. The final column has the final third of the words and these have a slightly different set of rules still; these are the neutral words.
As someone who had to learn this as an outsider rather than growing up with it naturally, I have often questioned grammatical gender. Grammatical gender deals exclusively with the actual word itself and doesn't necessarily reflect the object's 'real world' properties. Cola is a feminine word in German even though it itself is an inanimate, neutral object. Frau is feminine but Fräulein is neutral. The word for girl, Madel or Mädchen, is also neutral despite girls being sexually feminine. In some languages, like Welsh for example, even some numbers have gender; dau is a masculine two but dwy is a feminine two.
There was even a similar discussion to the French issue discussed in the article when Angela Merkel was elected Chancellor of Germany. There was no word for a female Chancellor; there had never needed to be one up until then. But the standard rule for making occupational nouns feminine is to add -in to it and without any fuss Merkel became Kanzlerin instead of Kanzler.
But like I said in the first paragraph, changing societal views of gender are going to run into conflict with grammatical views of it. And we know by now that you're not going to please everyone.
Most European languages have highly inflected grammatical gender; English, for any observers of he, she, xe pronouns, is actually not very inflected at all. Words usually remain fixed in English. I can only offer a quick explanation in German, AUP be damned:
The ball is blue. Liquid kicks the ball.
(Der Ball ist blau. Liquid kickt den Ball.)
The woman eats the sandwich.
(Die Frau ißt das Brötchen.)
Liquid drives the car. He drives with the girl.
(Liquid fährt das Auto. Er fährt mit dem Mädchen.)
For those whose first language is English and do not speak any other languages, you can see that the word "the" is different almost every time. It looks complicated I know but the point is that in other languages, words have flexible properties so that they can express a relationship with other whereas in English most nouns are grammatically inflexible.
Basically, you have three columns. The first column has a third of the language's words which follow one set of rules; those are the masculine words. The second column has another third of the language's words but they follow a different set of rules; those are the feminine words. The final column has the final third of the words and these have a slightly different set of rules still; these are the neutral words.
As someone who had to learn this as an outsider rather than growing up with it naturally, I have often questioned grammatical gender. Grammatical gender deals exclusively with the actual word itself and doesn't necessarily reflect the object's 'real world' properties. Cola is a feminine word in German even though it itself is an inanimate, neutral object. Frau is feminine but Fräulein is neutral. The word for girl, Madel or Mädchen, is also neutral despite girls being sexually feminine. In some languages, like Welsh for example, even some numbers have gender; dau is a masculine two but dwy is a feminine two.
There was even a similar discussion to the French issue discussed in the article when Angela Merkel was elected Chancellor of Germany. There was no word for a female Chancellor; there had never needed to be one up until then. But the standard rule for making occupational nouns feminine is to add -in to it and without any fuss Merkel became Kanzlerin instead of Kanzler.
But like I said in the first paragraph, changing societal views of gender are going to run into conflict with grammatical views of it. And we know by now that you're not going to please everyone.
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- TenEightyOne
- TenEightyOne
Interestingly French uses male plurals for some large collectives of feminine singulars, and vice versa. Some Baltic languages eschew pronouns altogether sometimes, that's why you sometimes hear an Eastern European saying something like "I go big fair at weekend", they're translating literally from their native construction. Not sure how that works in Russian, @RageRacer is the man to enlighten us
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I have a tiny smattering of Russian but I'm rusty. As far as I remember, there are no words equivalent to "a" or "the". The endings of words change a lot depending on the case, which is the same kind of thing as tense.Interestingly French uses male plurals for some large collectives of feminine singulars, and vice versa. Some Baltic languages eschew pronouns altogether sometimes, that's why you sometimes hear an Eastern European saying something like "I go big fair at weekend", they're translating literally from their native construction. Not sure how that works in Russian, @RageRacer is the man to enlighten us
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Not sure if this is the right thread for this, but has anyone been following the events regarding Lindsey Shepherd at Ontario's Wilfred Laurier University?
Quick rundown for anyone out of the loop, Dr Jordan Peterson, a prof at the University of Toronto, appeared on TV Ontario's "The Agenda" in the fall of 2016, to discuss Bill C16, a federal bill being past regarding the use of gender pronouns.
Here is the full program
Since that TV appearance, there has been debate in the public sphere about the implications of Bill C16, and others like it. In the discussion on The Agenda, Peterson points out that the way the laws are being written and the context in which they're being written, simply having discussions regarding sex and gender could become illegal, if Bill C16 passed.
Fast forward 1 year, Bill C16 having passed into legislation. Lindsey Shephard, a grad student at the Laurier University, teaching a grammar class and covering the topic of pronouns, decided to show a 3 minute clip from Peterson's appearance on The Agenda.
Upon doing so, one or some of her students complained that the video made them feel unsafe. Shephard was put before a 3 person interrogation panel, which she very intelligently decided to secretly record.
Here is the full audio from Shephard's hearing
The panel accuses Shephard of creating a toxic environment for students, and goes so far as to say that she has commited violent acts of aggression by showing the video clip. The showing of Peterson appearing on Canadian public television was likened to "neutrally showing a clip of Adolf Hitler."
To top it off, I came across this on Twitter today, direct from the Canadian House of Commons. Challenged by the Leader of the Opposition, the Canadian Minister of Science (ffs!!!) refused to even acknowledge that what happened at Laurier was not in the spirit of academia, and was wrong.
Quick rundown for anyone out of the loop, Dr Jordan Peterson, a prof at the University of Toronto, appeared on TV Ontario's "The Agenda" in the fall of 2016, to discuss Bill C16, a federal bill being past regarding the use of gender pronouns.
Here is the full program
Since that TV appearance, there has been debate in the public sphere about the implications of Bill C16, and others like it. In the discussion on The Agenda, Peterson points out that the way the laws are being written and the context in which they're being written, simply having discussions regarding sex and gender could become illegal, if Bill C16 passed.
Fast forward 1 year, Bill C16 having passed into legislation. Lindsey Shephard, a grad student at the Laurier University, teaching a grammar class and covering the topic of pronouns, decided to show a 3 minute clip from Peterson's appearance on The Agenda.
Upon doing so, one or some of her students complained that the video made them feel unsafe. Shephard was put before a 3 person interrogation panel, which she very intelligently decided to secretly record.
Here is the full audio from Shephard's hearing
The panel accuses Shephard of creating a toxic environment for students, and goes so far as to say that she has commited violent acts of aggression by showing the video clip. The showing of Peterson appearing on Canadian public television was likened to "neutrally showing a clip of Adolf Hitler."
To top it off, I came across this on Twitter today, direct from the Canadian House of Commons. Challenged by the Leader of the Opposition, the Canadian Minister of Science (ffs!!!) refused to even acknowledge that what happened at Laurier was not in the spirit of academia, and was wrong.
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- hogger129
What do you define as "political correctness?" I think where you can get in trouble for using the wrong pronouns for transgendered individuals are an example of it going too far. But there is a fine line between that and just being downright offensive because you can. I guess I'm not sure how to balance being respectful with a person's right to disagree or have a different opinion.
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I think what you've outlined here is a point that is open to discussion and debate - the balance between respecting the opinions of others, and disagreeing with them and challenging them (and how to do so in a civil way).
In the Shephard case though, that's not what is happening. In her case, the very fact that the debate took place was "illegal", and "an act of violence".
Keep in mind also that Shephard has said that she actually disagrees with Peterson's position on the issue being debated. She showed a debate that was equally represented on both sides, and was then accused of "committing transphobia" for doing so, even though she personally disagrees with what would be the "transphobic" side.
Like you said, I don't know where one draws the line (if that's even possible), but wouldn't you agreed that saying civil discussion, in a university of all places, is akin to violence, is definitely on the wrong side of the line?
If we say civil debate is the same thing as physical violence...what do we have left?
UKMikey
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The above story appears to have moved on since and the grad student has won an apology from the university which accused her. Good thing she had a recording. According to this commenter though some academics are still sore at her for daring to mention Peterson in the first place, even in a neutral way. I guess they wanted her to condemn him more rather than let students make up their own mind about what a nasty person he appears to be.
http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/opinion/laurier-free-speech-1.4414696
http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/opinion/laurier-free-speech-1.4414696
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- 20,681
- TenEightyOne
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It seems that an apology was absolutely in order. Universities should foster all kinds of difficult thought - if the students aren't challenged by critical analysis then they're not being worked hard enough. If students don't like the challenge of particular course materials then they can always change courses.
BobK
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That is so twentieth century. Nowadays independent thought on campus, especially that which disagrees with the intellectual fashion du jour, is verboten.
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Ignoring most of the rest of this since I can't be bothered with it, I don't see what's wrong with this. Hitler is so often used as an example of absolute evil and as the worst ____ ever, but if you watch his speeches you'll see that he was an incredible public speaker and a truly great natural leader. He used those talents to do terrible, evil things, but it's hard to deny that he was extremely effective at making the German people feel hopeful and empowered at a time when the world was kicking them while they were down. He turned a country which was in crisis into one of the most powerful in the world (from 1932 to 1938 Germany's GDP went up 70%) with tremendous effectiveness. I think it's important that everyone understand this, and that to the people of Germany Hitler was not clearly evil; to many he was the answer to all of their problems and was a hero to the country. There's always nuance to things if you bother to think about it, it's just that most people don't seem to.
Dotini
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This is quite true.
The highly unpleasant experience with Hitler, Nazis and WW2 soured people around the world with the notion of master races. Academics universally adopted this view and the institution of political correctness is the enduring legacy. I am of the opinion that this regime has adversely affected our understanding of ancient history, cultural diffusion, and anomalous artifacts including pyramids, artwork and symbols.
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A bit of an aside from the Lindsay Shephard recording that I found interesting, one of her profs points out that the students "are too young for this material," to which Shephard replies, "they're 18..."
The prof then goes on to explain how 18 is still too young for these fragile minds to handle difference of opinion (even if it is on a sensitive subject).
My reply to the prof would be...are you making a case that legal voting age needs to be raised? We let 16 year old drive cars and fly aeroplanes. We let 18 year olds vote, join the military (hell we let 16 and 17 year olds join with a guardians permission), and consent to having sex and having children....own firearms....
But 18 is too young to handle a debate about pronouns.
The prof then goes on to explain how 18 is still too young for these fragile minds to handle difference of opinion (even if it is on a sensitive subject).
My reply to the prof would be...are you making a case that legal voting age needs to be raised? We let 16 year old drive cars and fly aeroplanes. We let 18 year olds vote, join the military (hell we let 16 and 17 year olds join with a guardians permission), and consent to having sex and having children....own firearms....
But 18 is too young to handle a debate about pronouns.
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- TenEightyOne
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Truly great? He lied to his people about the plan, murdered potential opponents and utterly subverted democracy. Great salesman, sure. Great leader... nein.
Please tell me you're not suggesting that the idea of any "Master Race" is okay?
No, they didn't.
A nonsense conflation.
It hasn't adversely affected it at all - it adds to it. Hitler's obsession with symbology (particularly that of the Roman Empire) is one of the more fascinating parts of the time.
I'm not sure how you think the pyramids figure in that, unless you're confusing them with Ziggurats?
In that case 18 would be too young to undertake a first degree. Arguably it might be - but that's the common age and those who aren't capable are free to leave and return later.
Dotini
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Sure, today the idea of a "master race" is politically incorrect, and hence not okay to utter.
But may we speak of ancient culture bearers, diffusionism, pre-Columbian (non-Norse) ocean crossings, similarities between ancient architecture, technology and symbols separated by vast oceans, mountain ranges, deserts and time? Even that until very recently has been politically incorrect in academic if not popular culture. However, I'm currently reading some new books published by accredited academics which make the case for reopening the discussion regarding ancient diffusionism. I'm thinking about starting a new thread on such a topic - perhaps titling it "ancient histories and mysteries". There we might discuss the connections between ziggurats and pyramids. Perhaps beginning with Gobekli Tepe and continuing through Mesopotamia, Egypt and many elsewheres, we could finds traces of an elite tribe of culture bearers, explorers, colonizers and traders which may vaguely qualify as a sort of "master race"? But we will studiously endeavor to avoid that horrid term.
